Posted on 08/16/2019 5:56:15 PM PDT by marshmallow
Claim included among first lawsuits filed as Child Victims Act goes into effect
ALBANY — Former Bishop Howard Hubbard is accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy during the 1990s, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The suit was among 427 claims filed across the state Wednesday on the first day of the newly enacted Child Victims Act. They name as defendants individuals and organizations, including the Boy Scouts of America, Catholic dioceses and other religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, which has its world headquarters in Orange County.
The suit accusing Hubbard claims he and the Rev. Paul Bondi of St. Mary's Parish in Ballston Spa abused a boy identified only by the initials P.R.
Hubbard, who led the diocese for 37 years until his retirement in 2014, is accused of abusing the boy when he was 16; Bondi is alleged to have abused the boy when he was between the ages of 12 and 15. The boy's family belonged to the parish when the alleged abuse took place, the suit states.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesunion.com ...
This should surprise nobody familiar with the subject:https://www.rcf.org/pdfs/AMDG%20Agony%20in%20Albany%20RevisitedMay%2004.pdf
Ping
In before the catholic contingent attempts to relabel this sexual abuse of a minor as a simple case of pederasty. It’s not pederasty. It’s flat-out sexual assault aka rape. And it’s a crime. And the catholic church will continue to ignore it and to obstruct criminal prosecution.
The Wanderer ran a 12 part (or more) series called “The Agony in Albany” back in the early ‘90s. Hubbard ruined a formerly solid diocese.
The Church and BSA should have publicly outed all predators when each of these crimes were first made known. I don’t blame them for the cases that are just being reported, but I am disgusted by those crimes that were kept quiet. You don’t defend either organization by hiding its flaws; you defend by fixing those problems (permanently, if I had a choice).
Whatever is left of BSA today is mostly a lost cause, but we should have been more vigilant back when it was ours. As for the Church, real Christians need to take it back.
Pederasty *IS* the crime of flat-out sexual assault aka rape.
Pederasty is the preferred term of the catholic church, which it uses in an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the crime committed. I'm retired LE and I've never seen that term used in police reports, charging documents or court transcripts. In Alaska, a priest sexually assaulting anyone under the age of 18 will be charged with Sexual Abuse of a Minor 1 or Sexual Abuse of a Minor 2. The term "pederasty" will never appear in the charging documents and will never be uttered during the trial. So delude yourself by referring to the rape of a minor (defined in statute as anyone under the age of 18) as pederasty, but in a court of law it will be sexual abuse of a minor or rape, depending on the state.
I can tell you one thing we can definitely convict Hubbard of: being one of the worst bishops in the history of the American Catholic Church. The presumption of innocence is long-gone as far as that is concerned.
I have always understood pederasty to be sexual abuse of a minor, the mortal sin of sodomy, as well as a rape, i.e. a crime. I have never heard of anyone using that term to mean anything by sodomistic rape. That’s what the word means.
Is The Wanderer still being published? I subscribed many moons ago in order to read Joe Sobran’s regular column, then let the subscription lapse when Sobran retired. It was a fabulous, fearless paper.
Yes, it is still published, and a lot if it is online. I believe at thewandererpress.com.
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