Posted on 02/11/2011 7:11:53 PM PST by Dr. Eckleburg
A grand jury on Thursday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after a grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests.
The new report said a senior church official charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests had in fact allowed some of those accused to remain in posts that gave them continued access to children. It charged him with endangering the welfare of minors and accused three priests and a teacher of raping two boys between 1996 and 1999.
“By no means do we believe that these were the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” the report said.
At least 37 priests who are subject to “substantial evidence of abuse” are still in roles that bring them into contact with children, the new report said, and 10 of those have been in place since before 2005, when the last grand jury made its allegations...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The denials are almost as reprehensible as the acts themselves.
“Rome has made it an excommunicable offense to go to anyone other than someone within the church hierarchy with accusations against a priest.”
Dr, either prove your words, or eat them. Respectfully. You may provide links to official Roman Catholic Church documents for me, and the rest of the readers. OR, retract those words. Your choice.
Matthew 18:6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Mark 9:42 "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.
Luke 17:1-2 And he said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
A human jury is the least of their problems.
This has been posted dozens of times.
Read Crimen Sollicitationis.
And it’s still in force, as evidenced by Ratzinger’s letter to his bishops.
“Dr, either prove your words, or eat them. Respectfully. You may provide links to official Roman Catholic Church documents for me, and the rest of the readers. OR, retract those words. Your choice.”
http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/bn080703.htm
Look under the header of *Trial Confidentiality* at this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimen_sollicitationis
Well, you make the third Catholic on FR who I’ve ever seen in no uncertain terms condemn what has happened
13. The oath of keeping the secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers or these denouncing [the priest] and the witnesses.
Ratzinger's 2001 letter to all the bishops clearly spelling out that the church's supposed jurisdiction and oath of secrecy run for 10 years beyond the victim's 18th birthday, regardless of the age of the victim when he was sexually molested by a priest...
...It must be noted that the criminal action on delicts reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is extinguished by a prescription of 10 years.(11) The prescription runs according to the universal and common law;(12) however, in the delict perpetrated with a minor by a cleric, the prescription begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age...
The "prescription" is silence by all involved.
And finally, the dastardly Guardian article that dared to say it like it is...and was...
It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'. 'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication... ...The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years.
Thanks for the additional links. Ping to 27.
The grand jury report is available online for any wishing to read it. It is NOT just accusations by any means.
One comment from the report stands out from all others:
“Most devastating of all, we saw firsthand what Father Thomas Doyle calls “soul
murder.” As Father Doyle, a conscientious Dominican priest who has assisted clergyabuse victims around the world, points out, these children suffer from the abuse not just
physically and psychologically, but spiritually. The faith they need to cope with the
tragedies of life is for them forever defiled. In order for a priest to satisfy his sexual
impulses, these children lose their innocence, their virginity, their security, and their
faith. It is hard to think of a crime more heinous”
Covering it up comes close.
It goes without saying, but they always say it.
How anyone can excuse this is beyond me.
And yet there’s no end to the number of Catholics who are willing to condemn non-Catholics for criticizing priests who molest children.
This whole secrecy thing is so vile.
1 Corinthians 5 1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
3For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 4When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."
Th Catholic church has been very disobedient to the dictates of the Scripture that it claims it wrote in this regard.
It creates at least a twofold problem.
One is that their lack of action only encourages more of said behavior.
The other its that presents the Church to the world as a hypocritical, self-serving, old boy network which is more intent on protecting its own from civil penalties, that it is in protecting the laity from IT.
Yeah, but I agree.
False accusations in an area like this are hideous and devastating.
However, it should be able to go without saying that that is understood. Nobody makes that kind of statement about someone who they believe is innocent.
Are you really that naive?
There is absolutely no reason to doubt that there exists a large number of Catholic priests who have sexually abused children.
The same can be said, with equal authority, of Protestant ministers and public school teachers. We can add policemen,doctors, politicians, and virtually every occupation and every familial relationship title.
All it takes is a sexually perverted adult with access to a child to create a victim.
I personally know a few mothers and fathers who even blamed their own child for “their involvement in sexual perversion”.
It's an extremely ugly crime, and the victims of it carry a lifetime legacy of subtle societal punishments.
First from the act itself.
Then from the guilt of the very people who were supposed to protect them from harm, but failed, and generally end up blaming the victim for their guilt in failing to protect the child.
The Catholic Church doesn't have the patent on that.
People in all walks of life, in all societies, tend to try to cover up, or otherwise pretend away the brutal sexual abuse of children and women, mostly by blaming the victims and/or refusing to even acknowledge someone they associate with is capable of such perversion.
Like you just did.
It is not built into the tenets of any Protestant church I know of, or any public school or summer camp or Boy Scout troop to keep accusations of sexual abuse quiet, away from police and even parents, and to simply “handle them in house.”
In fact, those organizations have regulations in place that demand that any suspicion or accusation of sexual assault on children be brought to police authorities.
Not Rome. Rome says to only tell someone in the RC hierarchy. In fact, Rome swears to secrecy ALL people involved, such that parents are restrained from going to the police under thread of excommunication.
Read the links in 27. Rome stands condemned by its own hand.
Thanks. We now see where Rome not only fails the child in the public arena, but also stands condemned by the word of God.
What are you saying I did?
The "prescription" is silence by all involved.
This falsehood I will chalk up to your ignorance of canon law and its technical terms. "Prescription" is the criminal action "prescribed" by law. The question of its time period is what in U.S. law is call the "statute of limitations".
It seems to escape your understanding that the whole purpose of Crimen sollicitationis and canon law is due process and punishment in internal criminal investigations which run parallel to the normal criminal investigations by the state.
When I was in high school, in the sixties, the Catholic priest at St. Phillips (Phila. suburbs) molested the acolyte class after getting them drunk on communion wine. I guess the boy who told me about it thought he would shock me. My father was the desk sergeant at the police station and the parents had made a deal with the church to not press charges and the church would put the priest in rehab somewhere out west.
Years later, I confirmed the incident with my mother. It happened.
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