Posted on 06/24/2014 11:08:32 AM PDT by Dr. Thorne
FORT WAYNE – Two representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests on Thursday urged the bishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Diocese to account for the whereabouts of two priests removed from ministry after credible sexual abuse allegations.
Judy Jones, SNAP’s Midwest region associate director, said the group wants Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades to post the information on the diocese’s website, as 30 other U.S. bishops have done.
“If they are too dangerous to work in a parish somewhere,” she said, “they are too dangerous to be out amongst other places where they have access to kids.”
(Excerpt) Read more at journalgazette.net ...
I think it’s more like queers in the Catholic Church are protecting one another.
What is your logic there, how does hiding the names of two priests serve to protect the catholic church?
And the bishops are in something of a bind. If they laicize these bad actors, they have no further control over them. If they exercise their authority to seclude them from contact with the laity, then you get articles like this one.
If our diocese is any guide, these men have been put 'under obedience' in a religious house to spend the remainder of their lives in penance and prayer. The diocese has no obligation to inform this lawyer of their whereabouts - so that he can demand their depositions or otherwise harass them and their custodians. The diocese may have an obligation to do so to the local authorities if the men were charged, indicted, or convicted. But this very noisy and indiscriminate organization is not lawfully constituted authority of any kind.
Wish the public schools were so careful with the whereabouts of those accused . . . !
Back when I was a litigator, our local transit company had a bus that broke down on Peachtree Street right in front of Macy's - it was an out-of-service bus, but with the police and tow truck it looked as though there had been a collision.
Within two weeks, the transit company had over 50 personal injury claims from people who said they were involved in the accident that didn't happen.
At least they’ll never work as priests again. The Southern Baptists and many other denomination simply fire them and without removing their credentials, without identifying them to any databases.
Currently, the standard for removing priests from office is far, far easier than the standard for initiating criminal procedures, let alone getting a conviction. It *is* SOP for diocese to post information about where such priests are WHEN THEY HAVE THE INFORMATION, but without such a conviction, the diocese has no authority to track the priests.
The article’s implication that the diocese did not report the crimes to the police is absurd; the diocese publicly announced the removal from ministry and why it was done. SNAP’s agenda is not stopping clerical abuse, but destroying the Catholic Church, and the media is blindly parroting them without even using common sense.
Their names WERE released, and very publicly. But you’re right that doing so brought out more people making claims.
I think it varies on the denomination or synod.
In the LCMS, I know of a few pastors who were defrocked because of affairs. Not assault, affairs.
But that is easier to do the way we are set up than say the SBC where there is no central body that says “This guy can no longer be a pastor”.
Isn’t this a matter that is normally handled through the law? It seems to me that as long as these “priests” were removed from ministry, the Church has done its job with respect to them. I would think that state law would cover whether the general public has a right to know their whereabouts once they have been convicted, etc.
Posted voluntarily, or posted by order of the court?
On that score, I think that removing the bar of the statute of limitation and having an extremely low standard for "allegations" has created a "lawsuit industry" and is probably a due process problem.
FReepers are ordinarily against plaintiffs' lawyers ginning up doubtful litigation and suing for big bux . . . until they're not.
What if a priest is innocent, and his accuser is a nut or a fraud looking for a big payday? Where does he go to get his reputation back?
You are wrong about SB. I know for a fact that someone I knew did something wrong years ago. He was kicked out and told he could never be in a position of authority in a SBC again. As far as I know he is still involved in a different church with no ties whatsoever to the SB. He made a mistake way back then and paid the price for it.
I know for a fact that local SBCs can and do kick out wrong doers.
Are they actually pedophiles, or homosexuals hitting on teenagers? Or does it matter, as long as it furthers the meme?
Perhaps the NSA should get involved.
They were never arrested or charged?
And this is why? No evidence? No witnesses? No victims who have come forward to press charges?
And this is for incidents which allegedly happened decades ago, or even in a foreign country, Uganda? ?
And in a superabundance of caution, the Diocese nevertheless thought that the allegations were credible enough, that they were removed from ministry?
Which is to say, they have been sacked as priests and the Bishop is neither their employer nor their religious superior?
But now a group demands the bishop put their pictures on the Diocese website--- to what end?
If they haven't been charged with a crime, what do you say? "Without actionable evidence, we nevertheless urge the public at large to shun these men, not to allow them in your homes, schools, places of businesses, or churches?"
How do you justify publicly naming, shaming, defaming and posting pictures on the Internet individuals whose guilt has not been proven, and may never be proven??"
Did I miss something here?
That's what I want to know.
Like I said, removing legal safeguards in order to facilitate a dollar hunt by greedy lawyers is almost never a good idea . . .
There’s a huge difference between not being involved in the SBC hierarchy, and not being involved in any SBC church. And that’s where the SBC avoids paying out billions of dollars: “Gosh, we can’t help what our member churches do!” But this is a cynical, purposeful, planned incompetence: simply revoking credentials, or publishing a database would allow congregations to avoid those who have created a scandal. But they don’t do that, because as long as the infrastructure doesn’t exist, they can’t be legally be responsible for its failure.
And by the way, of all the Protestant denominations, I like the SBC the BEST, so I don’t mean to pick on them. But being the largest congregationalist church, their failures are the best documented.
2000 years ago, the Catholic Church made its bishops responsible for each and every congregation. This doesn’t make them virtuous; so many bishops followed the advice of therapists and lawyers instead of exorcists* and confessors who would have helped. But it means that when they are evil, they are subject to both God and Caesar powers for that evil.
* John Paul II and Benedict XVI became Pope and “Grand Inquisitor,” (head of the Confraternity of the Defense of the Faith) respectively, during the height of the sexual abuse crisis. Both were exorcists. By 1992, the incidence of sexual abuse in the U.S. had decreased 97%. Both of these incidents are decades old. Given that much of the abuse involved Satanic abuse, I’ve wondered how much of their intervention was relying on divine assistance.
Well, at lest you didn’t miss that they weren’t even charged/convicted yet. I totally missed that.
So basically, SNAP’s barking up the wrong tree.
The person I mentioned can never have anything to do with any SBC. His wife and kids forgave him for the affair. If they can, I do to. I really liked this person and his family. Anyone, under the right/wrong circumstances can make mistakes. It is what they do afterwards that matters. No one is perfect.
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