Same old, same old.
That just isn’t right.
What is going on?
Prayers for them as well as for you.
SIGH.
Doing unto others would be pretty tricky with such characters.
It doesn’t sound like the Vatican is that interested in even minimal wisdom about such characters.
Where's the sympathy for the lifetime of suffering of the victims and their families. If I was a member of a church that responded this way I'd be meeting with the board and seeing to it that all the pastors were fired.
Ah, the inerrant NYT. Everyone knows that laicizing a priest means he can no longer have any contact with children. It is the only means possible for making sure he does not have access to a child. Because of course being laicized means he is still under orders from his bishop.
If a priest is laicized he becomes a member of the general public and if not currently in jail that means he has the same freedoms as any other person. Which means absent of conditions put upon his freedom if he is registered sex offender (or however it is termed in GB) he can go get a job where he pleases. Even with those restrictions do you really think he will have less access to children than if he is a still a priest forbidden from any public ministry?
Or don’t you understand that being a priest and being in a public ministy are not necessarily one and the same thing?
If the goal is the protection of children knowing where the guilty party is and making sure he can not have access to them seems to me to offer more protection than setting him loose upon the world.
Some hard hitting piece on honor killings coming tomorrow /s
Anyone who uses the term “defrocking” immediately indicates that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Whether a priest has been laicized or not is relatively insignificant. Whether he has been removed from all ministry (suspended a divinis) and rendered incapable of acting as a priest even while remaining a priest and whether he has been forbidden all contact with adolescents/children) is what matters.
But you already knew this and yet you posted this anyway.
This story is a half-truth, that is, it’s a lie. It is true that priests suspended a divinis remain priests. The article says they “remain priests.” True. But only half-true and thus giving a false impression.
Tell me, dr e, just how many of these 22 have not been suspended a divinis? You don’t know? You mean your beloved darling New York Times didn’t tell you how many are not suspended a divinis? Quelle surprise! The one priest actually mentioned in the article is suspended a divinis. What about the other 21???????
Seems to me you might have done some research before posting so that you could tell us what the NYT deliberately refused to mention. Then you’d actually have a point. Except that you’ll probably discover that every single one of them has been suspended from acting as a priest.
But since when has the truth about Catholicism mattered to Dr. E????
He said: "I think that's particularly galling for victims [that the priests remain priests] because it could appear that that person has not been dealt with. But the judgement is taken, and it has to be exceptional circumstances, that because of the particular situation of that individual, it would be safer to monitor and control him in the community.
"In some cases it was judged that we have more control if they are retained in the clergy. The decision is taken not by the church on its own but in communication with police and probation...The important thing is to make sure that these people will not offend again.
"The church can't just wash its hands of these people and say we've taken them to court and we've sacked them as priests." [emphasis mine]
Among other things I'd love to know what was omitted by the ellipses. Regardless, that sounds plausible to me, or at least I can understand where it might be preferable in select cases to keep someone on the payroll (so to speak) to exert some sort of control.
Imagine the outcry, the legitimate outcry, if it turned out these... persons were living on public assistance or had disappeared completely. The public perception would certainly be that the Church was saying "hey, he's your problem now".
All that in mind, the hierarchy screwed up and in many cases the lay faithful screwed up; some maliciously, some out of complete stupidity, some out of mind-boggling naivete. We deserve to have every decision second guessed for a very long time to come.
One thing about my children that drives me nuts is they think "I'm sorry" solves everything and they get all indignant if there's actual punishment or (ahem) penance required after they force themselves to mutter "sorry!" It would be helpful if adults provided a good example and actually expressed sorrow and remorse by being SORROWFUL AND REMORSEFUL.
So, to those people throwing metaphorical stones, fire away and don't stop until every honest person can say "ok, that's enough, they're sorry now". The only warning I make is don't overplay your hand, don't exaggerate, be meticulously accurate. Otherwise you'll defeat your own case and the bad guys will get away with it.
2001?
That’s nine years. “Defrocking” can take years and years. There’s just no story here.
Here's some relevant info for those genuinely interested in what's going on here, as opposed to grandstanding.
When presented with the findings, the church said that of those 14 priests, six applications for dismissal were currently underway, one further decision to pursue dismissal had been made and three dismissals were either rejected by Rome or not pursued due to acute ill health.
In four of the cases, no application had been made but the priests were subject to risk management in the community. It said this policy was "entirely consistent with the spirit of the Nolan recommendations", adding that a bishop had to apply to Rome for a priest to be laicised and "neither the duration nor the outcome of the application is in the bishop's control".