Posted on 08/14/2018 4:01:30 PM PDT by marshmallow
Pittsburgh, Pa., Aug 14, 2018 / 02:27 pm (CNA).- A redacted grand jury report on clerical sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Catholic dioceses was released Tuesday, following an 18-month investigation into thousands of alleged instances of abuse spanning several decades.
The report, detailing allegations made in the dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Scranton, was released Aug.14. It reported on evidence of systematic abuse and cover-ups going back seven decades within these dioceses.
About half of Pennsylvania’s nearly 3 million Catholics live within these six dioceses.
The 884-page report was written by 23 grand jurors, who spent some 18 months investigating the six dioceses, examining half a million pages of documents in the process. The FBI assisted with the investigative process.
The report claims to have identified more than 1,000 victims of 300 credibly accused priests and presents a devastating portrait of efforts by Church authorities to, ignore, obscure, or cover up allegations - either to protect accused priests or to spare the Church scandal.
The report also identified a series of practices present in different ways across the dioceses which together amounted to a “playbook for concealing the truth.”
These include use of phrases like “boundary issues” or ”inappropriate contact” instead of explicitly referring to rape and sexual abuse, assigning priests to investigate their peers, instead of using qualified and objective personnel, and a reliance on psychological assessments and diagnoses based upon the self-reporting of clerics.
Due to laws regarding the statute of limitations, nearly every abuse allegation cannot be criminally prosecuted, although two indictments have been filed. So far, one priest, Fr. John Sweeney, has been convicted of sexually assaulting a student in the early 1990s.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewsagency.com ...
Decades? Try CENTURIES!
I’m just tired of the Catholic bashers on FR reveling when a report comes out on Catholic clergy sex abuse while ignoring any and all stories about sex abuse in other religions.
***
I can get that. It’s not fun when you get tarred with a broad brush for the sins of someone else. Sorry if I acted poorly; it felt like I was being tarred with a broad brush as well.
Though the question remains: how are you/we supposed to deal with this? Catholic leadership seems to be doing worse than nothing about this mess; that leaves the laity.
What’s the proper response?
Well, if the Catholic church did not make itself such a target rich environment, there would be nothing TO bash.
But it's very telling that many CATHOLICS THEMSELVES refuse to condemn the behavior in their priests or the cover up of it by those above them.
Oh, and show us *all (the) stories* about sex abuse in other religions and then prove we ignore them.
If you're going to make claims/accusations, then back them up.
Who is "reveling" or "ignoring"??? I think you have missed the point of many posts here where reveling is the LAST thing a non-Catholic is doing. Rather, it is the ongoing, finger pointing of some Freeper Catholics towards other churches as if to say, "They do it too!". How is it bashing to bemoan the thousands of incidents of Catholic clergy sex ABUSE as well as the cover-ups that have been going on so very many years? At least when "Protestants" are caught committing the same crimes, the vast majority are reported to law enforcement, the guilty person(s) are expelled from the church they lead or attend and the victims helped rather than discouraged to press charges.
Last but certainly not least, the Roman Catholic church claims it alone is THE ONE TRUE CHURCH of Jesus Christ and no one can be saved outside of her if they know this to be true and either leave or refuse to join. Do any other Christian churches make that same claim? When such sinful behavior is found, tolerated and protected from the very leaders of a church, that church loses its moral standing. If left up to you, would you even post these kinds of stories? Don't you think it SHOULD BE discussed and aired out? Should we all just pretend there's no problem? That hasn't worked too well, has it? It's too late now, anyway!
I think most Catholics are disgusted and disheartened by these things so it's good to hear what they have to say. I don't see it as Protestant-bashing when Catholics post threads about non-Catholic clerical misbehavior - though I don't doubt some ARE doing that. I'm glad to be able to talk about it. Instead of feeling persecuted, Catholics should use it as an opportunity to voice their anger and to determine what must happen to resolve the negative situations and defend the corrective actions being taken to address them. We should all strive to bring glory and honor to the cause of Christ.
Certainly none that I know of.
And if I attended a church that made that claim, I'd be outta there so fast they wouldn't know what happened to them.
On these threads, we constantly see Catholic pushing Catholicism, a denomination, rather than Christ.
We preach Christ and Him crucified. Everything else is secondary, including the name on the church you attend.
I have not seen ONE Christian FReeper tell anyone else that they must belong to their church or they are going to hell.
WE consider that the mark of a cult. Just saying.......
I get the impression from some of what gets said on topics like this thread that if it has ANYTHING to do with the Catholic church, it is off base for anyone to either post a thread or comment on one if they aren't Catholics in "good" standing. That, to me, if way off kilter especially when the thread is on the OPEN Religion Forum. Yet, it doesn't stop some from posting negative threads about Protestants! I appreciate the moderator's efforts to establish rules and support the idea that those who see anything negative about their religion as "bashing" and personal, shouldn't be on the forum anyway. I'm not thin-skinned, I happily defend what I believe and why I do. All glory to the Lord!
God Bless - looking forward to your next installment on studying God's Word.
The RCC was recruiting homosexuals into the seminaries back then to become priests. Their thought? That they could save gays by making having them enter into a celibate lifestyle. Yeah. It was that stupid.
We are all called to ongoing repentance and conversion.
By whom?
By God and the Holy Bible.
Done posting on this thread.
You have chapter and verse reference to support that claim?
Pedophiles have gotten married, had kids and abused them. So: you want to foist pedophiles on women who are seeking good husbands?
No good. No thanks. No way.
You could even PM me.
I will go after that person, hammer and tongs.
If such a one exists.
How convenient......
Plus one
That’s a fact
It’s a skeleton of that now
Those who are saying such things are showing their self-denial... The laity themselves are playing a role in supporting this behavior by not loudly and firmly demanding their ‘House’ get cleared out completely of these Predators, from the local end to it's leadership at the Vatican.
Unfortunately these perverted Priests know exactly who to go to for protection....the protectors are well known among these perverts.
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