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16 Priests Have Committed Suicide
AP ^

Posted on 05/25/2002 1:00:44 PM PDT by EggsAckley

16 Priests Have Committed Suicide CLEVELAND (AP) - At least 16 Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children, including 12 priests in the United States, have killed themselves since 1986, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The numbers were found in an investigation by the Plain Dealer after the suicide April 4 of the Rev. Don Rooney, a priest in the Cleveland Roman Catholic Diocese who faced allegations that he sexually abused a child.

Suicide is rare among priests and is considered a sin by the church, though in modern times, the church has expressed more understanding for mental distress.

The Rev. Stephen J. Rossetti, director of the St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., a treatment center for abusive priests, recently sent an e-mail to every U.S. bishop urging care in investigations involving priests and saying he feared more priests would kill themselves as additional accusations were made.

After the e-mail was sent, a priest accused of molesting two boys in Connecticut hanged himself at the center, where he was being treated. It was the first suicide at the institution in its 25-year-history.

``Imagine you're a priest,'' said Kalman Kaplan, a psychology professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies suicide. ``People see you as a teacher, an educator, someone carrying on the moral tradition from one generation to the next. Now it's being publicly exposed that you have abused children.

``Where do you go from here? Your whole identity is shattered. The shame can be overwhelming, the options few.''

After Rooney killed himself, Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla preached a message of forgiveness at Rooney's funeral Mass.

``The meaning of Father Rooney's death is hidden from our eyes,'' Pilla said. ``Yet, we cannot conclude that his life and death had no meaning or were rejected by God.''


TOPICS: Announcements; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Unclassified
KEYWORDS: catholicpriests; childmolestations
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To: abwehr
Have you given a single thought to the people the Church served who will no longer benefit from those services because the Church must now pay huge legal, civil and criminal penalties for the actions of these disgusting perverts?

Certainly. Those who caused the suffering will be judged and punished by the Eternal Judge.

The Eternal Judge who said "My ways are not your ways."

High-fiving over the suicide of anybody is unseemly.

21 posted on 05/25/2002 2:29:48 PM PDT by sinkspur
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To: sinkspur
I know of one suicide (of a priest) several years ago in which the cause was profound, chronic depression, having nothing to do with abuse or accusations.

When it came out that Timothy McVeigh died with the Sacraments, there were many on FR who were outraged, because McVeigh might have "cheated" the State out of the opportunity to "send him to hell."

22 posted on 05/25/2002 2:34:33 PM PDT by Arthur McGowan
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To: sinkspur
1) Why not?

2) Did anybody notice how only 2/16 were in the United States? It appears this problem isn't confined here; just that here it has become public knowledge.

Ari

23 posted on 05/25/2002 2:35:51 PM PDT by Krafty123
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To: abwehr
"Suicide is rare among priests and is considered a sin by the church, though in modern times, the church has expressed more understanding for mental distress."

Not to mention their "understanding of pedophilia", and their attempts to protect the pedophiles.
24 posted on 05/25/2002 2:36:09 PM PDT by demkicker
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To: browardchad
suicide is the ultimate sin

For most people that is probably true. However there are special punishments in the Hereafter reserved for church officials who abuse their office. That's even worse.

25 posted on 05/25/2002 2:37:54 PM PDT by RightWhale
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To: saradippity
My daughter told me today that it is "cool" for kids in her school to be bi-sexual. A few of her aquaintances (kids she has been in school with since 1st grade, they are now in 7th) make out with one another and proudly declare they are "bi" - and these are the "popular" girls, cheerleaders, have all the dates, etc. We live in an upper class, small, white bread town. I am still stunned. Who says there is no homosexual agenda?

I sat and talked with her about it and although she espouses the same things I do (Catholic teaching,) she said "Mom, it is very cool to be gay." She thought there was something wrong with her, not that there might be something wrong with them!

26 posted on 05/25/2002 2:44:05 PM PDT by american colleen
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Comment #27 Removed by Moderator

To: Thundergod
.... (the beginning of your post) Then we Catholics can say, "Adios, AIDSspur!" to all of your apostate ilk.

No Christian talks like you talk.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell; lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy. Amen.

28 posted on 05/25/2002 3:12:16 PM PDT by american colleen
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To: american colleen
I know and use that prayer. Sinkspur attacks the traditional Catholic in favor of the wacky liberal frings every chance he gets. I don't know where you are coming from, but I don't want to go there.

Ever.

Enjoy yourself.
29 posted on 05/25/2002 3:15:15 PM PDT by Thundergod
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To: Thundergod
I am an orthodox Catholic who agrees with the Magisterium in all teaching.

When I saw your post to sinkspur, I did a search on your posts (to figure out where YOU were coming from) and I noticed that in almost every single post of yours, you are a name caller. I don't think that is necessary and/or Christian. That is all.

Peace.

30 posted on 05/25/2002 3:22:30 PM PDT by american colleen
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To: american colleen
in almost every single post of yours, you are a name caller.

This statement of yours is more of a lie than an exageration. But think of such name calling as "brood of vipers, whitewashed tombs, liars, hypocrites and thieves!" Then tell me how name calling is un-Christian, when Christ Himself engaged in it so frequently and forcefully. We probably are in agreement on a great many things, but you are dead wrong about me and on this account.

Dominus vobiscum
31 posted on 05/25/2002 3:27:35 PM PDT by Thundergod
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To: sinkspur
"``Imagine you're a priest,'' said Kalman Kaplan, a psychology professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies suicide. ``People see you as a teacher, an educator, someone carrying on the moral tradition from one generation to the next. Now it's being publicly exposed that you have abused children."

So long as their degenerate behavior was known only within the 'brotherhood' there was no embarrassment, no shame, no need to contemplate the 'unintended consequences'. But, "....Now it's being publicly exposed you have abused children." the phony pretend is washed away to expose the evil for what it is. Ain't reality a bitch. What a bunch of no-good hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil advisors on morality we have in His Church. Makes you want to run down to Chruch and give all you've got to assure funding of those Homo activities within each of the dioceses throughout America.

32 posted on 05/25/2002 3:38:03 PM PDT by Robert Drobot
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To: american colleen
The thing that toasts my cookies is the $450,000 "settlement" in the (Michigan?) case. Church officials were saying today that "none of it came from donations" since it came from their general fund, which is made up of both donations and interests and rents on other church property. That is like saying that if you pour a half-gallon of white milk and a half-gallon of chocolate milk in a gallon container, I can pour you a glass and guarantee logically that you are not drinking chocolate milk.

This is becoming more and more like the Muslims that won't condemn the 911 attack. "Oh, sure, what they did was wrong....BUT (insert lame excuse here)."

It was evil to do. It was ten times as evil to hide. It is a hundred times as evil for the church to stand there and act like this isn't a problem, or blame the victims. More and more, I worry that the Bible's "whore of Babylon" may end up being the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, protecting it's corrupt homosexual priests.

I don't pretend to have the data to say that the problem would go away if priests were allowed to marry. But I tell you brother, if the church wasn't worried about losing half their priests if they actively rooted out the homosexuals, they would have a huge pool of heterosexual men who would be willing to become priests.

Can anyone provide data on the ratio of boys/girls abused in the ongoing investigation? I bet that's a little factoid that the press is avoiding like the plague!

33 posted on 05/25/2002 3:39:19 PM PDT by 50sDad
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To: 50sDad
...and lo and behold, the priest in the $450,000 settlement was a Liberal pro-gay, anti-tradditional commie-pinko priest! I'm shocked! Shocked, do you hear!
34 posted on 05/25/2002 3:41:38 PM PDT by 50sDad
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To: american colleen
just another reason for home schooling...
35 posted on 05/25/2002 3:47:51 PM PDT by kellynla
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To: EggsAckley
Here's a question, not exactly related to the article: Do priests statistically sexually abuse children more than men in other professions, or is it just much more widely reported because priests are held to a higher standard?

I guess what I'm really asking is, is there really a significant statistical correlation between priesthood and pederasty? Or does the media merely pay more attention to it than they do to child sex abuse in general?

36 posted on 05/25/2002 4:21:00 PM PDT by TrappedInLiberalHell
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To: saradippity
Did the house of cards tumble under its
own weight,or is there another agenda?

Another agenda, like, 'what does God have in mind'?

37 posted on 05/25/2002 4:26:08 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: abwehr
Your post assumes each one of these priests who committed suicide were actually guilty of what they were accused of. I would like the facts that back that up. Thanks ever so much in advance.
38 posted on 05/25/2002 4:27:07 PM PDT by riley1992
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To: kellynla
just another reason for home schooling...

...more like home churching.

39 posted on 05/25/2002 4:28:49 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: EggsAckley
How about: How many victims of abuse by priests have committed suicide? Here is a recent Rod Dreher column which, in part, addresses that question. The relevant stuff concerning suicides begins around the 6th paragraph.

Tragedy Upon Tragedy

40 posted on 05/25/2002 4:34:23 PM PDT by LibertarianLiz
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