45 replies to this topic

[LFC]

A copy of a report on abuse in Germany that was commissioned by Germany's Catholic Church was leaked. It's so bad that it should be staggering but, unfortunately, it is not due to the international numbness of the extent and depravity we've all already heard about.

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A new report from Germany's Catholic Church admits to "at least" 3,766 cases of child sex abuse by the clergy between 1946 and 2014, according to local publications Die Zeit and Spiegel Online who have seen a leaked copy.

The report -- commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and conducted by the Universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim -- has taken four years to assemble and will be released in full on September 25.

According to both media outlets, the study says the victims were mostly boys, more than half of whom were aged 13 or younger. Every sixth case involved a rape and at least 1,670 clergy were involved, the report also reveals.

"We know the extent of the sexual abuse that has been demonstrated by the study. We are dismayed and ashamed by it," Bishop Stephan Ackermann said in a written statement to CNN responding to reports of the leak.

Ackermann said in the statement that the aim of the study was to "gain more clarity and transparency about this dark side of our church, for the sake of those affected, but also to see for ourselves the wrongdoings and to ensure this cannot be repeated."

The Catholic Church's response to sexual abuse allegations 02:45

The statement continued: ''It is about a responsible and professional investigation. I am convinced that the study is a comprehensive and thorough survey that provides figures and analysis from which we will continue to learn. This also applies to the findings, which provide a deeper insight into the perpetrators' actions and the behavior of church leaders in recent decades. Again, I emphasize: The study is a measure that we owe not only to the Church, but above all, and first and foremost, to those affected.''

The Bishop also said it was regrettable that the report was made public "as not even the members of the German Bishops' Conference know the full study."

While I give them at least a little credit for finally doing a real investigation it does make you wonder if this report would have ever truly seen the light of day if left to the church decision makers. Their past record is clearly not the greatest to put it mildly.

[Rue Bella]

from the PA report:

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where over 300 “predator priests” abused more than 1,000 victims

Over 300 - how many others were not caught?
More than 1,000 victims. How many others did not come forward? 1000 victims is about 3.3 per priest, yet estimates I've seen suggest numbers much greater for each predator.

Anyone who still gives money to that church is extremely gullible. If a person feels honor-bound to donate to a religious cause, find a reputable charity and donate there.

[LFC]

Another day, another Rod Dreher meltdown. A priest found a rainbow flag at the church from years ago and burned it. Of course there was backlash but Dreher has to tie it to the priest's own victimization. For years Dreher has tried to equate homosexuality and pedophilia. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say he believes homosexuality is the cause of most pedophilia. Read what Rod quoted from the Chicago Tribune and then read the whole article from the Tribune. The cherry-picking is strong with this one. He could have just quoted the church but instead credited the paper in an effort to create more credibility. That's dishonest, Rod, and dishonesty is a sin.

Dreher also gets lots and lots of bonus points for once again casually quoting text about an exorcism like it's a part of normalcy in our modern world. It certainly seems to be in his. As I said before Dreher is in free fall from the real world. There's nothing odd about this to him.

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The Rev. Paul Kalchik of Resurrection Catholic Church recently burned a rainbow banner that hung in the Avondale church because God didn’t want the symbol there, he said Friday, responding to a controversy that’s engulfed the parish since the banner-burning became public.

Kalchik spoke with the Tribune after another response to the controversy in the parish’s Sunday bulletin for Sept. 23, titled “Responses from around the country, some bad, mostly good,” was posted on the parish’s website.

The unsigned letter also said the Archdiocese of Chicago has offered no “words of comfort” to Kalchik, who has faced withering criticism from some in the LGBT community for burning the banner after prayers of exorcism.

Double clueless points as he tries to excuse the priest's actions (against the orders of his superiors) and justifies it by going on about those who covered up sexual abuse. OK, that seems to be just fine whenhe doesn't like them and yet just recently praised Cardinal Ratzinger, a man who covered up sexual abuse for years. Rod is clearly a bright man but he's also clearly careening off his rocker. I'm just waiting for him to completely snap.

[HockeyDon]

LFC, on 25 September 2018 - 04:47 PM, said:

Rod is clearly a bright man

Opinions vary.

...

Ok, it's my opinion. My opinion varies from this statement.

He's a writer. He's able to spew out a lot of content and attract more eyeballs to a site that gets very limited traffic. That's the extent of positive statements I believe he deserves. He's not smart, he's not clever, he's not cunning. He refuses to engage in critical thinking at any level. He refuses to even attempt to see something from another's perspective. He constantly traps and contradicts himself. He constantly fights for and defends evil acts and rails against good acts based not on the act itself but on who is performing that act and who it is being perpetrated upon. He is a poster-child for all that is wrong with religion and religious institutions.

I guess another good thing I could say about him is that assholes like Rod Dreher are driving more and more people away from organized religion. That's really a back-handed compliment, so I'm not sure if that counts.

[LFC]

The Bishop who was in charge during a part of Pennsylvania's Child Rape Rodeo has resigned. Of course he's still an Archbishop and retains his positions within the Vatican.

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Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Donald Wuerl after his handling of abusive priests in the 1990s caused a widespread outcry. The Vatican press office announced the move without explaining the reasons behind the decision, but the cleric said in a statement he hoped it would allow the Washington church to “move forward.” The handling of clergy-abuse cases has come under renewed scrutiny after a Vatican ambassador released a document in August alleging a systemic coverup of allegations against Theodore McCarrick, Wuerl’s predecessor in Washington. Wuerl, who is 77 and was appointed to his role in Washington by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, was named in a recent Pennsylvania grand-jury report that accused church leaders of covering up abuse. He said he expected to keep his position in Vatican offices.

[LFC]

Update on other states investigating the Catholic Church's sex scandals. This is way, way, WAY overdue. It will result in few prosecutions due to the statutes of limitations but at least it drags it all out into the light where it needs to be. State level laws are also likely to draw this out for a long, long time. I'm sure the Vatican would like to try to get it over with but that ain't gonna' happen. It's going to be a steady drip of horror. I have no problem with that. It seems reasonable that since they made their victims suffer for decades that it's only fair they face the same.

The next question what will the Vatican do in response? So far Pope Frank seems overwhelmed. And there have been precious few at the higher levels of the church that have been thrown out for their own sins and even more frequent coverups. The last several Popes have all seen fit to use the safety of the Vatican to reposition too many of these dirtbags. Of course if they were acting on higher orders you can understand why they'd want to cover that up too.

[LFC]

Australia takes down a child rapist who is a seriously big cheese at the Vatican. Bye, bye you sick, twisted piece of shit.

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The Vatican’s third most powerful official has been convicted in Australia on all charges he sexually abused two choir boys there in the late '90s, according to two sources with knowledge of the case.

A unanimous jury returned its verdict for Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday (Australian time) after more than three days of deliberations, the sources said, in a trial conducted under a gag order by the judge that prevented any details of the trial being made public.

Pell, the Vatican’s finance chief and the highest Vatican official to ever go on trial for sex abuse, left Rome in June 2017 to stand trial in Melbourne.

As that trial was about to get underway in June, a judge placed a suppression order on all press coverage in Australia, according to the order reviewed by The Daily Beast. Prosecutors applied for the order and it was granted to “prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice.” That order remains in place in Australia.

That trial, known as “the cathedral trial,” was declared a mistrial earlier this year after a hung jury, the sources say. A retrial began immediately and ended this week with the unanimous verdict.

[LFC]

Is Pope Francis finally starting to truly treat this issue for what it is, a crime? We'll see.

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Pope Francis on Friday urged predator priests who have sexually abused minors to turn themselves in, making one of his strongest comments ever on the crisis sweeping the Roman Catholic Church.

While it was not immediately clear if Francis was referring to the Church judicial system, civil justice, or both, Vatican sources believed it was the first time the pope had made such a direct appeal.

“To those who abuse minors I would say this: convert and hand yourself over to human justice, and prepare for divine justice,” Francis said in his traditional Christmas address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration.

He spoke two months before an extraordinary summit on the sexual abuse crisis that will be attended by the heads of some 110 national Catholic bishops’ conferences and dozens of experts and leaders of religious orders in the Vatican.

Francis has previously used the Christmas address to denounce cases of corruption and mismanagement in the Curia. This time, he concentrated on the global sexual abuse crisis.

“Let it be clear that, faced with these abominations, the Church will spare no effort to do all that is necessary to bring to justice whoever has committed such crimes. The Church will never seek to hush up or not take seriously any case,” he said.

When the pope has made similar promises of zero tolerance in the past, victim groups have scoffed, saying the Church has to come up with a clear policy to make bishops themselves accountable for the mishandling of abuse cases.

The groups say the February meeting must do precisely this.

[LFC]

Catholic dioceses in New Jersey are finally doing the right thing.

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Five Roman Catholic dioceses in New Jersey on Wednesday released the names of 188 clergy members who have been accused of sexually abusing children dating back decades, including a former cardinal facing defrocking by the Vatican.

The disclosure was the result of an internal investigation of archdiocese records and all of the priests and deacons listed have previously been reported to law enforcement and none remain in the ministry, Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin said in a statement.

“It is our sincerest hope that this disclosure will help bring healing to those whose lives have been so deeply violated,” he said, noting some of the abuse dates back to 1940.

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal formed a task force in September to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy in his state, along with any efforts to cover up such abuse.

“I am pleased to see that our task force’s grand jury investigation has prompted the dioceses to finally take some measures to hold predator priests accountable,” Grewal said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Our investigation remains ongoing,” he said, adding, “We anticipate taking criminal action wherever appropriate.” Grewal could not be reached for further comment.

[andydp]

LFC, on 14 February 2019 - 05:07 PM, said:

Catholic dioceses in New Jersey are finally doing the right thing.

My wife personally knew several of those priests some were at her high school some were assigned to her parish. Sad part is some were good friends of the family.

It’s traumatic for her, the HS Alumni, and her family.

[LFC]

The big question is whether this leads to something real or if it's just another display in hopes things will go away. Popes Benedict and John Paul were definitely in the "make it go away" camp. There's one part that makes me think it's kind of doomed (bold mine).

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The Vatican’s long-awaited crisis summit opened with Pope Francis likening clerical sex abuse to a “plague” and promising action. “The Holy People of God are watching us and wait for more than simple condemnations, they expect concrete and effective measures. We need concreteness,” Francis said. Some 190 leaders of the world’s congregations of bishops, along with a dozen nuns, several monks and other religious men, heard heart-breaking testimony from abuse survivors in multiple languages, including one victim who spoke of flashbacks after being abused more than 100 times. Francis wrote 21 talking points he wanted church leaders to concentrate on during the four-day summit. One dealt with recognizing the legal age of marriage, or age of consent, as 16 under Canon Law for both boys and girls—which implies the church wants to distinguish between what is considered abuse and what might be considered consensual.

In a press conference, summit organizers were asked if celibacy and homosexuality were on the agenda. Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, who is a former Vatican prosecutor on sex-abuse crimes, said that because the church did not subscribe to the notion that celibacy was a factor in clerical sex abuse, it was not on the agenda. On whether homosexuality is a factor in clerical sex abuse, he said he did not think so. He added that it was not appropriate to consider a whole category like homosexuals or heterosexuals.

—Barbie Latza Nadeau

READ IT AT CRUX

[Rue Bella]

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In a press conference, summit organizers were asked if celibacy and homosexuality were on the agenda. Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, who is a former Vatican prosecutor on sex-abuse crimes, said that because the church did not subscribe to the notion that celibacy was a factor in clerical sex abuse, it was not on the agenda. On whether homosexuality is a factor in clerical sex abuse, he said he did not think so. He added that it was not appropriate to consider a whole category like homosexuals or heterosexuals.

All sexuality in potential/current priests should be on the table. How can they correct a sexual problem when they fail to acknowledge various sexual expressions even exist. 'Just say no' has been so effective.

[LFC]

Once again some of the higher-ups at the Catholic Church just can't help themselves. Covering up their own organization's sins is practically muscle memory at this point.

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The founder and all-female editorial board of the Vatican women’s magazine have quit after accusing the church of trying to delegitimize their work and put them “under the direct control of men” following a report on the clergy’s sexual abuse of nuns. Women Church World is published alongside the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano every month. In an open letter to Pope Francis, founder Lucetta Scaraffia wrote Tuesday: “We are throwing in the towel because we feel surrounded by a climate of distrust and progressive de-legitimization.” Earlier this year, there was an attempt to bring the magazine under L’Osservatore’s editorial control. “After the attempts to put us under control, came the indirect attempts to delegitimize us,” said Scaraffia, who claimed women were brought in to write for L’Osservatore “with an editorial line opposed to ours.” She alleges the writers attempted to “obscure our words, delegitimizing us as a part of the Holy See’s communications.” Scaraffia caused uproar in February when she denounced the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy—a report that forced Francis to acknowledge for the first time that it was a problem.

[LFC]

Former Pope Joseph RATzinger proves himself to be as disgusting and immoral a human being (and I'm being generous) as he ever was when he was busy covering up child rapes. This vile, soulless piece of garbage can't leave this Earth soon enough and hopefully receive his eternal rewards punishment.

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Retired Pope Benedict XVI has published an essay blaming the Catholic Church’s ongoing abuse scandal on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and lax church laws, directly contradicting the current pope in a manner that one church historian called “catastrophically irresponsible.” NBC News reports Thursday that the former pope’s essay, published in the German monthly Klerusblatt, blames the sexual revolution (he specifically names the inclusion of sex in films in his native Bavaria) and church laws that gave priests too much protection. The current pope, Pope Francis, instead blames a culture that elevated priests over their alleged victims. Theological scholars have spoken out against Benedict’s analysis, NBC News notes, arguing that there were examples of sexual abuse that took place prior to the sexual revolution.

[LFC]

Dreher, being Dreher, just spooged all over what Ratzinger wrote because much of it was about being ultra-orthodox. There was little reflection on the single biggest issue within the Catholic Church which Ratzinger was up to his neck in as a Cardinal and refused to deal with as Pope. A truly disgusting thing that Ratzinger said, and Dreher quoted without comment, was this (bold mine).

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But that’s only a single paragraph from the long new reflection by the Pope Emeritus, a reflection that is dark and at times unsparing. Here the former pope begins by talking about the culture that formed a generation of priests:

[snip]

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Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms.

The mental collapse was also linked to a propensity for violence. That is why sex films were no longer allowed on airplanes because violence would break out among the small community of passengers. And since the clothing of that time equally provoked aggression, school principals also made attempts at introducing school uniforms with a view to facilitating a climate of learning.

Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of ’68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate.

First, blaming "the culture" is the biggest cop-out and refusal to accept responsibility I can imagine. Holding onto the belief that this was going on for centuries but just wasn't talked about is pure self-delusion. Now on to Ratzinger writing (and Dreher not calling out) that pedophilia was "allowed and appropriate." One commenter said it best:

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Tom Riordan says:
April 11, 2019 at 12:24 pm

The American Psychiatric Association added pedophilia to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1968. Somehow in this poor ex-pope’s mind, that prompted: “Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of ’68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate.” Wow.

This is what orthodox religion does. It destroys both mind and morality. What Dreher and the rest of the zealots can't grasp is that this deflection of their's is designed to lay blame on something, ANYTHING, else rather than the shortcomings of their own religion and institution. They also don't grasp that this technique is exactly how their beloved church because such a festering cesspool of depravity that victimized the people it was supposed to serve in the first place. Nope, before 1968 the church was great and wonderful. The cruelty, rape, torture, and murder that's come out from earlier years were just a few blips on the radar. Surely it wasn't widespread because ... well surely it wasn't.

[baw1064]

If Dreher is truly provoked to violence by clothing and movie content, he's got much bigger problems than what he's discussing here.

[Rue Bella]

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If Dreher is truly provoked to violence by clothing and movie content, he's got much bigger problems than what he's discussing here.

He wouldnt be the only christian who claims his religious beliefs are what keeps him from sinning in a big way. Scary people.

[LFC]

Rue Bella, on 11 April 2019 - 11:47 PM, said:

He wouldnt be the only christian who claims his religious beliefs are what keeps him from sinning in a big way. Scary people.

And the thing is that for him personally (and those like him) he could be right. He's definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Scary indeed.

[LFC]

A lawsuit in New Jersey has exposed the name and church placements of 300 people in the church who have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors.

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Edward Hanratty doesn't think it's a coincidence that four abusive priests wound up at his parish in Ridgefield Park.

In his Irish Catholic community, nobody ever questioned the church, which was at the epicenter of the community, recalled Hanratty, a victim of clergy abuse who has become an advocate for victims.

"The church sent these people knowingly," he said. "I feel like our entire town was groped. Why was our church a target and there are other churches that never had a single abuser?"

Now he wants answers. He has filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Bishops of New Jersey and the New Jersey Catholic Conference demanding that New Jersey's bishops release the identities, backgrounds and histories of all clergy accused of sexual misconduct with minors. He says most of the information has been concealed.

The lawsuit contends that New Jersey's bishops maintained a "public hazard by keeping secret the names of all clergy accused of sexual misconduct in New Jersey," his attorneys, from the Minnesota-based law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, announced Monday at a press conference in Elizabeth.

His attorneys released a report that includes the names of more than 300 diocesan priests, religious order priests, deacons, nuns, and religious brothers and sisters accused of sexual misconduct and associated with the Catholic dioceses in New Jersey.

“We release this report, the Anderson Report, and what it is is an identification of all the clerics who have been publicly accused across the state of New Jersey," said Jeff Anderson, the law firm's founder. "We have also included the history, the assignment history of each of those clerics that have been publicly accused, because we believe it's something that needs to be done.”

See the full list in the report from the law firm of Catholic priests and others accused of abuse in NJ

[andydp]

LFC, on 08 May 2019 - 12:51 PM, said:

A lawsuit in New Jersey has exposed the name and church placements of 300 people in the church who have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors.

My wife is looking over the list now, specifically for the Camden Diocese. She knew and her family knew a few of these people.