Posted on 01/18/2014 11:23:29 AM PST by Salvation
January 2, 2011 By TheMediaReport.com
In a stunning ten-page declaration recently submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, veteran attorney Donald H. Steier stated that his investigations into claims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have uncovered vast fraud and that his probes have revealed that many accusations are completely false.
Counselor Steier has played a role in over one hundred investigations involving Catholic clergy in Los Angeles. In his missive Mr. Steier relayed:
"One retired F.B.I. agent who worked with me to investigate many claims in the Clergy Cases told me, in his opinion, about ONE-HALF of the claims made in the Clergy Cases were either entirely false or so greatly exaggerated that the truth would not have supported a prosecutable claim for childhood sexual abuse."
(Capital letters are Steier's)
Mr. Steier also added, "In several cases my investigation has provided objective information that could not be reconciled with the truthfulness of the subjective allegations. In other words, in many cases objective facts showed that accusations were false."
Mr. Steier's declaration is a stunner. He is as experienced as anyone in studying the claims of abuse against Catholic clergy in the Los Angeles area. Also among Steier's eye-opening statements:
Steier signed and submitted the declaration "under penalty of perjury" November 30, 2010. Los Angeles County Superior Court officially filed it at 11 a.m. on December 15, 2010.
Steier also took aim at the outspoken advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests):
They maintain an interactive Internet website with a user 'Forum' and 'Message Board,' among other features, where people can share detailed information between alleged victims pertaining to identity of specific alleged perpetrators, their alleged 'modus operandi,' and other details of alleged molestation. In effect, a person who wanted to make a false claim of sexual abuse by a priest could go to that website and find a 'blueprint' of factual allegations to make that would coincide with allegations made by other people. Law enforcement also uses the S.N.A.P. website to attempt to locate new victims and allegations against Catholic priests.
Needless to say, SNAP had a fit at the sight of Steier's declaration. In a frantic press statement dated December 13, 2010, SNAP derided Steier's declaration as a "legal maneuver" that was "among the most outrageous and hurtful ever made by a church defense lawyer." In addition to claiming it will file a complaint with the California Bar Association, it demanded that Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony "denounce Steier's claims and to disclose how much archdiocesan money has been paid to Steier." (Gee, the last time I checked, SNAP steadfastly refused to divulge how much of its income is derived from the number of lawyers with whom it closely collaborates!)
Yet there is a glaring absence from SNAP's statement. The organization does not refute nor deny any of the specific claims made by Steier. It simply labels them as "outrageous" and "hurtful." That is hardly a blow to the explosive declaration aired by the veteran attorney.
Yes, Catholic priests terribly abused minors, and bishops failed to stop the harm. That's an undeniable truth. There are few crimes that revolt more than sexual abuse. The abuse of minors is a dark episode that the Church will forever have to live with.
Yet major media outlets have largely ignored a major element to the entire Catholic abuse scandal narrative.
Here is Wall Street Journal writer Dorothy Rabinowitz:
"People have to come to understand that there is a large scam going on with personal injury attorneys, and what began as a serious effort has now expanded to become a huge money-making proposition."
Surprise: Ms. Rabinowitz made her remark in 2005. Since then, the Church has doled out an additional $1 billion in settlements.
Will 2011 be the year that the media finally begins to take a closer look at many of the claims being made? What about the suspicious relationships between SNAP, lawyers, and many in the media? (Vincent Carroll at the Denver Post is a rare voice of acknowledgement: "[F]raudulent or highly dubious accusations are more common than is acknowledged in coverage of the church scandals — although they should not be surprising, given the monumental settlements various dioceses have paid out over the years" (Oct. 10, 2010).)
Stay tuned.
How about a law that bearing false witness is punishable by the prison term that would have been given to the falsely accused if they had been convicted. Perhaps that would weed out many of the false accusations in many crimes.
Salvation. Thank you for the post. I’m not entirely surprised by this, especially remembering the ‘recovered memories’ scandal wherein local prosecutors went after children to get at day care center people they didn’t like.
I believe that some feel that anti Catholic bigotry is their calling.
Pedophile priests.
Not pedophile priests.
Homosexuals.
My mother will certainly be interested in hearing this.
Disagree.
The Church and the Civil Authorities are not in each other's way here, IMNVHO. The abusive priests, whether few or many, should be handled by the law, after identification and complaint by their victims and Church Authority, which should cooperate fully with the civil authorities, including filing charges.
The abusive priests are quite simply criminals and must be treated as such. I believe that would be ultimately good for the Church(es).
Sure a lot of these charges are false. What is true is that the Church(es) cover for abusive clergy.
Whenever the fascist democrat party is on the ropes in the South and the heartland, it pumps out anti-Catholic lies and there are always plenty of people who will lap up the media lies even though the will tell you they don't believe anything else the media has to say.
Fascists know that the worst thing that could happen to them is for Christians to join together and vote for good, Independent, Christian candidates and tell both parties to stuff it. Divide and conquer works for the fascists every single time and they have plenty of little helpers who claim to be conservative Christians but who would rather see the country collapse than to see Christians all working together to save the country.
Taking nothing away from the genuine victims, people are opportunistic in other areas of the law. And Dorothy Rabinowitz’ work has specifically covered that dynamic as it’s related to sexual abuse cases. Why would anybody think it’d be any different here?
That could be helpful. But there are already penalties for false accusations and perjury. I think we need a systemic change whereby such falsifications are screened out quicker. The French have had sort of a preliminary screening thing. I wonder how well that’s worked. Or ? Letting false charges drag on fir several years is terrible.
Good points on the divide and conquer. In full review on FR.
Which is exactly why the Catholic church needs to reevaluate its *Once a priest, always a priest* mentality and defrock those who are convicted of abuse or who admit it.
The church's handling of known cases of abuse is inexcusable at the most basic level and their failure to act on it only allowed it to continue.
By defrocking those who are known abusers, especially those who went into the priesthood under false pretenses in order to have access to children, it will eliminate that element from the priesthood.
If a marriage can be annulled because one of the parties went into it with false intent, thereby making it not a legitimate marriage as defined by the church, then how can the ordination of a pedophile who went into the priesthood under false pretenses be valid and how can the sacraments said deceiver administered be valid?
The mental gymnastics Catholics go through to justify this situation is unbelievable.
I know of a false claim against the wonderful priest who married us. Thankfully he was exonerated but it was a terribly painful time for him. Pray for our priests!
O....K....
In my book one is too many.
The Truth About Lie Detectors (aka Polygraph Tests)
http://www.apa.org/research/action/polygraph.aspx
A pathological liar could pass a polygraph test.
Why not? He said that “all” of the other candidates were “fairies”.
My sister has a friend who told her the EXACT same thing.
And he IS gay.
{{{sigh}}}} It has absolutely NOTHING to do with percentage wise. It has EVERYTHING to do with the POWER the RCC claims it has over its members. The power to retain or remit sins, for instance. If you were an abuse victim of a priest, and you have been taught that that priest has the power to retain or remit your sins, and you cannot get to heaven in a sinful state, then you are at the mercy of the RCC to save yourself from the sin of that priest against you. Can you not see the difference?? There is not protestant organization that claims she has the power to retain someone’s sins. That is the hideous nature of sexual abuse in the RCC. The POWER that abusing priest holds against his victim. Or shall I say the POWER that victim THINKS that priest has over him.
Or how about this alternative???
Only half of us are guilty as accused which is good since that's more for us to chose from...And as long as the good bishops are willing to shuffle us aroung to avoid the heat, we'll always have an abundant supply of fresh, young meat to prey upon...
Wow. You must make a lot of friends like that.
You are so correct. The priest who molested you is the one who hears your confession and has the power to retain your sins and hang you eternal salvation over your head and you are going to speak up? And yet if there were a teacher who held a kid’s grades over their head to shut them up about sexual abuse, they’d be skinned alive. No punishment would be too great for them. But a priest? It’s a different story to a Catholic.
It’s blackmail at the highest level. Grades don’t even begin to compare to eternity in hell.
Totally missed by the RC’s who are busy defending that kind of abomination.
The Catholic church has engaged in cover-ups and it’s been exposed and they STILL won’t admit that the church did anything wrong.
Reminds me of Fonzie on Happy Days one time when he was trying to admit he was wrong about something and the word *wrong* would just not come out of his mouth.
Estimations are meaningless...What is fact tho is that your religion is at the top of the list for aiding and abetting these criminals to keep them from prosecution and giving then new opportunities to find new prey...
The reason that this costs your religion so much is that it's never just a priest who is guilty, it's the entire diocese because the diocese is complicit...
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