This page presents a preliminary list of accused priests who have worked as military chaplains and chaplains at Veteran’s Administration hospitals.
It has been common practice for bishops and superiors of religious orders in the United States to use chaplaincies in the armed forces as a convenient place to send priests who have molested children.
As a result, servicemen have been sexually assaulted, the children of soldiers have been abused, and children visiting a parent or relative at a VA hospital have been endangered.
A priest’s time in the military often ends with a transfer back into a parish, where parishioners know nothing of their new priest’s sexual history, and the priest can use his military career in grooming new victims.
The preliminary list on this page provides the names of 95 priests accused of sexual abuse who have worked as military chaplains and/or VA chaplains, with information on their military service and links to articles.
Our 95 is a small fraction of the true total.
Yet when Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of Baltimore, who ran the Archdiocese for the Military Services in 1997-2007, was asked in 2004 to give an account of sexual abuse in his chaplain ranks, he could count only 2 offending priests.”
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/Military_Chaplains/
So he remembers only two of 95 cases. Convenient forgetfulness.
You’re welcome. Have to leave...
As a result, servicemen have been sexually assaulted, the children of soldiers have been abused, and children visiting a parent or relative at a VA hospital have been endangered.
And recent days we have seen the disdain that many FRoman Catholics have for our military.
Coincidence?
First it lists priests accused of abuse. Not convicted. Most of the allegations I believe were probably true. But some are not. Convictions and settlements are spelled out in the profiles. Secondly very few of them were actually cases of priests abusing somebody while they were active chaplains. Usually what happened is that earlier accusations came to light while the priests were serving in the military. Not all transfers to military service were to hide the abusive priests. But that is not what the introductory paragraph on Bishop Accountability leads one to believe. It wants you to believe that these priests were abusing serviceman and/or their families. Yes some were guilty of that. However most were guilty of or accused of earlier crimes. Those crimes mostly did not come to light till years later. As is typical in these cases.
There is enough real guilt that I don’t understand the need to imply that U.S. serviceman are unsafe because of Catholic Chaplains.