Suspended priest convicted of charges in sex tourism case

kxan ^ | Sept. 22, 2015 | AP

[bgill]

A Roman Catholic priest accused of traveling to Honduras to molest poor street children during missionary trips was convicted on Tuesday of several charges.

Federal jurors convicted the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr. of charges including three of four counts related to sex abuse of boys during trips to a Honduran orphanage.

Maurizio was accused of traveling abroad from 2004 to 2009 to have sex with three young boys, a charge known as sexual tourism. He also was convicted of possession of child pornography and illegally transferring money to a charity to help fund the trips. Jurors acquitted him of another count of traveling outside the United States for sex with a minor and two other counts involving the transfer of funds.

[dp0622]

A monastery is where my uncle got raped at 16 and went on to become paranoid schizophrenic. Dont even THINK of saying that was an isolated event,

[Claud]

Those with religious vocations often come from big families. They are not "resisting" anything.

They voluntary give up the joys of marriage for a life devoted solely to God. Does the person fasting deny the good of food? Does the person who closes his door and says prayers deny the good of companionship?

Takes all kinds of Christians to make a Church FRiend.

[servantboy777]

This is terrible. The incidents he was charged with are probably a small portion of what he’z been doing for years.

Likely many more children wounded by this guy.

[Claud]

No...YOU don’t even THINK of generalizing monastery life from that experience.

I can admit there are bad ones. Absolutely atrocious ones. You can’t seem to admit there are good ones...you seem to imply that this is *bound* to happen everywhere because man must Fulfill The Great Sexual Need (tm).

Bull hockey. I dare you to go to a *good* monastery and hold that asinine belief.

[Neoliberalnot]

Same old story. Put a queer in close contact with a young boy and he will be raped near 100% of the time.

[Neoliberalnot]

It isn’t just the priesthood. Male homosexuals have invaded every organization on the planet filled with young boys. It occurs in all churches, the Boy Scouts, and schools. It is a ubiquitous behavior in male homosexuals because it is part of their derangement.

[sparklite2]

Sacrificing one of life's raisons d'etre to no good purpose reminds me of the group of Upstate New York nuns who were trying to figure out something to sacrifice in honor of a papal visit to the US in the 1990s. After much soul searching, they decided to ... wait for it ... deny themselves a trip to NYC to go see the pope.

[Mrs. Don-o]

What does that mean?

Some have implied or stated on related threads that child abuse is particularly linked to Catholic clergy, but this turns out not to be the case:

Here's something for you to look at:

• List of Non-Catholic clergy sex abuse incidents by denomination, at http://www.reformation.com/

• Insurers have been professionally assessing the risks since they began offering riders on liability policies in the 1980s. Two of the largest insurers report no higher risks in covering Catholic churches or abuse liability claims, than Protestant denominations.

• Wisconsin-based Church Mutual Insurance Co. has 100,000 client churches and has seen a steady filing of about five sexual molestation cases a week for more than a decade, even though its client base has grown.

  “It would be incorrect to call it a Catholic problem,” said Church Mutual’s risk control manager, Rick Schaber. “We do not see one denomination above another. It’s equal. It’s also equal among large metropolitan churches and small rural churches.”

• Iowa-based Guide One Center for Risk Management, which insures more than 40,000 congregations, also said Catholic churches are not considered a greater risk or charged higher premiums. “Our claims experience shows this happens evenly across denominations,” said spokeswoman Melanie Stonewall.

• Philip Jenkins, the Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University (not a Catholic). and author of Pedophiles and Priests, in a comprehensive study of more than 20 years of data on clerical abuse, found no evidence that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination."

  IN fact, clergy in general had lower abuse rates than many other professions (teachers, hotel-motel-restaurant workers, athletes, social workers!)

  National Center for Missing and Exploited Children President Ernie Allen said his organization has received more than 825,000 reports of child abuse and does not see any statistical indication the Catholic Church has a greater prevalence of cases than any other setting — after accounting for the size of the church, the largest Christian denomination in the U.S. and the world.

  “There is a common denominator among those who abuse children,” Allen said. “They seek out situations where they have easy access and cover. It should surprise nobody that an abuser is a teacher, coach, youth leader, pediatrician, minister, priest or rabbi.”

This should get you started on a large volume of evidence. Google will be useful.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

[Mrs. Don-o]

From what I've been able to learn, pedophiles and pederasts are usually repeat offenders, and very often to an extent that beggars the imagination. Jimmy Saville and Jerry Sandusky would be examples. It seems to have an obsessive/compulsive component to it which makes it very unlikely that the offender could be successfully rehabilitated.

This is in contrast to the supposed psychiatric "consensus" of 40 -50 years ago, when the professionals assumed that with some therapeutic management strategies, such a perversion-driven man could be re-integrated into a normal life. Evidence has not shows that to be the case.

It's skin-crawlingly horrible to think about.

[Mrs. Don-o]

First, can you demonstrate to me that Pharisees were required to be married? I don't find that in the Bible.

Second, if it were true that there were a correlation between celibacy and pederasty, you wouldn't be finding it in all the other churches as well, which do not have celibate clergy--- as well as other professions (youth counselor, coach/athletic director, Scout leader, show business/entertainer, public school teachers) which have harbored notable levels of pedophilic and pederastic abuse.

This may be of interest to you: #28

[Mrs. Don-o]

"I think there’s something wrong with an ideology that glamorizes resisting the continuation of the human race, but that’s just me."

There's nothing in consecrated celibacy that "glamorizes" celibacy (unless you think nuns are glamorous?); nor is it motivated by "resisting the continuation of the human race."

On the contrary, consecrated spousal sexuality is a constitutive part of a Sacrament in the Catholic Church, whereas celibacy is not. Marital sex is --- not exactly "glamorized" --- but sacralized as explicitly sacramental.

Not only that, but the Catholic Church alone, as far as I know, has held to the doctrine that all sexual expression, in order to be within moral norms, must be in the married and procreative form.

If the Catholic doctrine were predicated upon "resisting the continuation of the human race," there's no reason it would so stubbornly propose a moral doctrine against pornography/masturbation, non-marital sex, contraception, sterilization, abortion, and sodomy.

If there's another church that teaches the same, I'd be glad to hear of it.

[Fractal Trader]

If I smoked pot in Honduras, I would/should be arrested under Honduras laws. If I diddle a little boy in Honduras, I should be arrested under Honduras laws, unless in can be proved that some wort of conspiracy to commit exists in the US.

[bikerman]

Don’t see the reason to travel to another country when he could stay here in the USA and become a Gay boy scout leader.

[CA Conservative]

Second, if it were true that there were a correlation between celibacy and pederasty,

I was not claiming a correlation between celibacy and pederasty - I was merely commenting on the idea that Paul was never married, and also the idea that to remain celibate your entire life is not the "normal state".

As far as Scripture that states Pharisees were required to be married, no, you cannot find one. The criteria to be a Pharisee was based on Jewish tradition and the Torah. The Pharisees were a Jewish sect, as were the Sadducees.

[Mrs. Don-o]

There's no doubt, I think, that lifelong celibacy for adults is not exactly natural. It is, in the case of vowed or religiously consecrated celibates, supernatural. It is a special grace, one that does not derive from either one's drives and appetites nor from societal norms.

It's certainly not for everyone.

It did and does mean a lot to the Church, though, that celibacy was honored by both the precept and the example of Christ and St. Paul, without, of course, being made normative for all believers. The Shakers and, I think, the Albigensians tried to go in that direction, but it doesn't work out well.

[Claud]

But what is the most important raison d’etre? To have children, or to know, love, and serve God?

You say “to no good purpose” ...do you have any idea how intense the life of prayer is in a monastery?

Why should they turn away from such an intense communion with God to commune with a member of the opposite sex?