Posted on 02/11/2012 10:13:46 AM PST by RnMomof7
Some 200 Catholic priests suspected of sexual abuse are living undetected in communities across California, according to an attorney who represents hundreds of plaintiffs who sued the LA Archdiocese for molestation they say was inflicted on them by priests and clergy of the church.
Ray Boucher has mapped sixty locations where suspect priests live, in cities and towns from northern to southern California, and provided those locations to NBC4 exclusively.
“Many if not all these priests have admitted to sexual abuse,” Boucher said. “They live within a mile of 1,500 playgrounds, schools and daycare centers.”
Since none of the priests has actually been convicted of sex abuse, none can be identified under Megan’s Law, or their whereabouts revealed in related public databases.
“What the issue is here, is how you weigh the right of the people,” said Boucher, who is also one of the attorneys representing students in the Miramonte Elementary School sex abuse scandal. “In particular the right of children to be protected from molestation versus the right of privacy."
Among Boucher’s many clients in the church action are Manuel Vega and Dan Smith.
Vega is a former police officer from Oxnard who took special interest in sex crimes investigations because, he says, he was sexually abused as a teenager by his parish priest.
“He forced me to masturbate while he took pictures of me,” said Vega, who believes that the public is often too squeamish to recognize what child molestation actually entails – and thus not properly outraged by it.
“When we talk about sexual abuse we’re talking about sodomy,” he said. “There’s pubic hair, there’s sweat, there’re smells, there’re grunts.”
Dan Smith, another alleged abuse victim, is reeling from the recent collapse of his marriage which he blames in part on the psychological effects of the molestation he says he suffered as a child – at the hands of his local parish priest.
“He would rape me and then say this is what God’s love feels like,” Smith said, struggling to hold back tears more than twenty years after the alleged incidents.
Both men helped make legal history by joining 500 other plaintiffs in suing the LA Archdiocese for sexual molestation, with Boucher as their lead attorney.
In 2007 the LA Archdiocese reached an unprecedented $660 million settlement with many of the plaintiffs without admitting any wrong-doing.
It also agreed to let the courts decide which of the case-related church files should be made public, including those identifying alleged and admitted predators.
But according to Boucher and court documents, the Catholic Church has since engaged in a cover-up. By Boucher’s account, Church officials allowed priests suspected of sexually abusing children to retire, flee the country or hide in rehab clinics until the statute of limitations on prosecution ran out.
“What the church did is take these guys and send them off to facilities where they treat pedophile priests without ever alerting police,” Boucher said. “By enabling these priests to be hidden for so many years the church protected them from being prosecuted.”
Meanwhile legal disputes delayed the release of the promised personnel files, and Donald Steir, an attorney for several priests, went to court to argue that those who’ve been accused but no convicted should have their names and privacy protected.
“They are being punished as if they have been convicted, or at least that’s the desire – to punish them,” Steir said. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s difficult if you represent an alleged terrorist or a pedophile, because people don’t really care about the rights [including privacy rights] for these type of people,” Steir said. “But once we erode the rights of a group of people we don’t like, we effectively have started down a path where other people’s rights can be similarly denied.”
The courts, expressing concern for children, overruled most of these arguments and similar ones by the Archdiocese, which declined to comment for this story.
And a judge has ordered release of some personnel files, set for some time in the coming weeks. But he also credited the church for its increased sensitivity in dealing with molestation cases and decided to withhold the names of church officials who handled the earlier cases.
It is a ruling that reminds Boucher of the breakdown in accountability in the Penn state pedophile scandal. “Look at Penn State and see how important and significant it is when people in authority enable sexual abusers to continue,” Boucher said. “That underscores how significant it is to get these names out.”
Under the judge’s ruling the church can also keep secret, subject to further court review, the names of priests who have not been convicted and who have only one or two allegations against them or have allegations disputed by the church.
To Smith that seems like a formula for further cover-up by church officials.
“If their interests were to protect the kids, they would have released the documents,” Smith said. “As a parent not knowing who your neighbor is -- that is really scary.”
Many of these unidentified priests are included in Boucher’s location map.
“The danger” said Vega, “is that you have a person who has this sickness in them who is amongst the children.”
The plaintiffs in the church scandal are planning to appeal the latest rulings to assure broader disclosure of suspects’ names and locations. But Boucher warned this could take time, allowing suspects to keep their privacy protected, as well as their undetected presence in neighborhoods across California.
Do the other “institutions” parade themselves as representatives of Christ? If others don’t see what you are doing as pathetic be advised that I certainly do.
When you find an example of Presbyterians or Methodists or Lutherans sending the offenders away, hiding them til the statues of limitations runs out ..then we will discuss this .
What is a "statue of limitations," ignoramus?
And have Protestant churches not simply get preachers go off to other climes in order to avoid scandal? Growing up in a small Southern town, I personally know of at least four instances of this. I also remember the small “Bible” Baptist church that my grandmother attended, whose young pastor skipped out with the money for the building funds, in which my grandmother had put donating she could not afford. All institutions have such thieves.
This article shocked me..the sheer number in one diocese that are still in ministry ..says it all .. In my dioceses I knew 3 offenders personally ..and actually liked them.. when two of them were caught they “retired “ and moved to Fla ..The other was sent for alcohol tx ..even thought the young man tried to commit suicide
Well, the Catholic Church claims to be Christ’s Church. But here you now claim that the Church is a criminal ,organization. Open your own books to the law and see if they find you innocent of all crime. IRS probably could send you to jail for many innocent evasions. I say that because the Church has been subjected to such close scrutiny that it amounts to persecutions in some cases. The prosector has even demanded an autopsy of a very aged Cardinal so as to rule out suicide/murder. This sort of fever is dangerous, because it is a dangerous to the liberty of all churches when prosectors so undercut the rights of mine.
Catholics seem to love their preditor ‘priests,’ judging by the posts to this thread.
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"One must indeed take care to avid confessing to a priest of known bad character, but I do not believe that his sin strips away his power to absolve, for though he may have THE RIGHT TO WITHHOLD ABSOLUTION, it is not he who actually absolves, BUT THE CHURCH."
"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with HIM, HAVING FORGIVEN YOU ALL TRESPASSES." (Col. 2:13).
Did Christ pay the full penalty for our sins?
Remitting or retaining sins. The eucharist. The mass. Praying to dead saints. Sacraments. Rosaries. Pomp. Circumstance. And yet with all that "power" and "glory" they simply cannot understand why power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All they can do is clear their throats, and warn people they should be "aware" of bad priests..What does that even mean?
The absolute proof that God did NOT ordain the Catholic Church as His Church is their actions for the last 2000 years. God does not subsidize deceit, false doctrine, hypocrisy, false piousness, or forms of godliness that have nothing to do with the finished work of Christ.
Disclaimer: Story written by an actual ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST.
Not exactly an unbiased source.
For example, the artilce states:
three major insurance companies for Protestant Churches in America say they typically receive 260 reports each year of minors being sexually abused by Protestant clergy
and then goes on to say
the Catholic Church has reported that since 1950, 13,000 “credible accusations” have been brought against Catholic clerics (about 228 per year.)
Note the difference. Insurance companies reporting claims, which may or may not be "credible." The other is the Roman Catholic Church self reporting and determining what is and is not credible. The issue is that the Roman Catholic Church has been covering this scandal up for decades, so why do we trust Rome's sudden self disclosure?
AND the issue put forth by the Prods on FR has NEVER been the rape of children by Papist clergy, but the cover-up. Had the Catholic Church conducted itself in a responsible manner and turned the priests over to the authorities as opposed to shuffling them from one unsuspecting congregation to another we wouldn't be having this ongoing discussion.
The interesting thing about these discussion is who FRoman Catholics tend to downplay this tragedy. The claim it's the homosexuals (who were ordained by Rome). It was a teenager who was molested (as if that makes it better). It's Catholic bashing (as if Prods forced the rapes).
The difference here is that the vast majority of Protestant clergy rapes on children results in the wolf in sheep's clothing receiving jail time. We rejoice that justice has been carried out. When one falls through the cracks and is allowed to remain in the pulpit we howl in protest that the entire church leadership should be held accountable.
On FR it is, and has always been, an issue of the coverup. Very few FRoman Catholics will own up to the fact.
"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with HIM, HAVING FORGIVEN YOU ALL TRESPASSES." (Col. 2:13).
Makes sense to me...They do not confess to God, they confess to a mere man, a priest...The priest is their Church...In their reality, the Church forgives and absolves their sin...
Sadly, if they have not ask God for forgiveness, they have not been forgiven...
How anyone can put their faith in an organization that claims what the RCC does and then covers up the evil is beyond me. Why can’t they see the hypocrisy?
BINGO.
Which is by far and away THE BEST argument going against the blasphemous teaching that man can forgive sins in God's place. To put that kind of power in fallible and easily corruptible man is a recipe for disaster, as we've seen from Catholic church history.
It leaves way to much potential for blackmail and extortion, hanging over people's heads their salvation as the price to pay for non-compliance to Church doctrine and teachings.
. Confession is an act of humbling oneself, a good thing in itself, and we rest assured in believing that whatever the character of the man behind the screen, that God knows our hearts, and that the priest has been given the power to absolve.
Wait a minute, you just said in the previous sentence that it's the church which absolves. Which is it?
1 Peter 5:6-7 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
In the meantime, Christ's finished work just sits there, unclaimed. They've "changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible men..."Rom. 1:23.
Wow. Speechless, but not typeless, I see. If you can’t read, there’s no argument to be had.
“Many if not all these priests have admitted to sexual abuse,” Boucher said. “They live within a mile of 1,500 playgrounds, schools and daycare centers.”
Self-admitted pedophile priests ≠ "a witchhunt".
whose sins you absolve, they will be absolves; whose sins you retain will be retained. We believe that the Church continued the mission of our Lord, which was to heal and to forgive sins. You are reviving the charge the Pharisees made against out Lord? The Church’s authority to act comes from Christ, who is the head of the Church. How is it that you can claim that same authority for yourself?
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