More Than 300 Predator Priests In Pennsylvania Protected By Catholic Church

[CatherineM]

During the same time this was happening in the Church, it was the norm for all types of these crimes to be neglected. Teachers weren’t prosecuted. They were moved around. Family members weren’t arrested. It was covered up to keep the breadwinners on the job. Military superiors were promoted. Bosses were idolized. 

My great-grandfather was a prominent businessman whose secretaries were always young and pretty and occasionally had to leave town because they were in the “family way.”  I’m not saying it was ever right. I’m saying what happened in the Church went on everywhere in every level of society. Children and the vulnerable were taken advantage of. 

I thank God we have finally realized as a society that children aren’t possessions to be used. We had to come to that knowledge about women and slaves over the centuries. Someday I hope we realize it about the unborn. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, CatherineM said:

I hope we realize it about the unborn. 

I agree

[Guest]

Went to Confession again tonight with a great Priest (as far as I know) People sometimes mention they have a tough time confessing becuase their sins are really bad. Nothing good in my opinion will come out of scandals like this. Although being aware how bad it all is you can use that to give you confidence to go to Confession. Knowing that the Priest is fully aware how corrupted things are within the Church itself. You can name your sins and the number of times and not worry about if he's going to yell at you or shame you to death. Not that this ever happens but especially now you can be confident not to worry about that. I've dealt with anxiety in the past over this issue and it almost never happens or anything remotely close to it. But tonight going to Confession I was especially to the point in naming my sins (always am) and the number of times. And I've been to this Priest before so I knew how he would probably respond. But at the same time I used what's going on to push me to go to Confession tonight and not put it off. And to know the Priest isn't there to judge me or yell at me like an upset drunk parent. And if he did I would have the boldness to respond back as he's in no place to respond that way. Especially now with what continues to come to light. The Church is filled with the very worst of sinners which I know I am. And God wants to forgive us as often as we need it. Over and over again. 

Edited August 25, 2018 by Guest

[BG45]

This hurts to read, from National Catholic Register, the ex-Nuncio to the U.S. has issued an 11 page testimony making some extraordinary (and horrifying claims against the Holy Father.    Going to quote some of NCR's coverage here:

In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.

Archbishop Viganò said in his written statement, simultaneously released to the Register and other media, (see full text below) that Pope Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.”  Viganò said that the former archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to appoint a number of bishops in the United States, including Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of Newark. 

Archbishop Viganò, who said his “conscience dictates” that the truth be known as “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy,” ended his testimony by calling on Pope Francis and all of those implicated in the cover up of Archbishop McCarrick’s abuse to resign.   

 

Link:

http://m.ncregister.com/daily-news/ex-nuncio-accuses-pope-francis-of-failing-to-act-on-mccarricks-abuse#.W4IViehKiUl

I have no words.   

[Peace]

On 8/21/2018 at 9:09 AM, Kateri89 said:

What do the motivations matter?

Motivation is a relevant factor when attempting to discern veracity.

On 8/21/2018 at 9:09 AM, Kateri89 said:

I don’t care if this was entirely political or some personal vendetta.  

Well, you should care.

On 8/21/2018 at 9:09 AM, Kateri89 said:

The archives exist, they weren’t fabricated.  I’ve written a personal letter to Bishop Zubik detailing why I feel he should resign and one of the reasons is that these archives were sitting there for decades and would have remained there if not for the subpoena by the Grand Jury.

Maybe, but that is pure speculation on your part.

On 8/21/2018 at 10:28 AM, BG45 said:

public schools don't claim a divine mandate from God to be able to change people's lives and help them strive towards Heaven.

What exactly are you suggesting? That there should be a prosecutorial bias in favor of targeting religious institutions?

On 8/21/2018 at 10:28 AM, BG45 said:

 The John Jay Report, commissioned by the USCCB did already look at public schools and a handful of other organizations, however, it did not take into account the cases we've discovered here, and might be lurking in archives around the nation.  Because, the Church was still covering up the crimes committed by some of its members, while commissioning a report at the time, that would try to assuage people's fears about the Church covering up crimes. 

I don’t know about you, but if I was interested in covering up crimes that I committed decades ago, I would destroy any paper records that evidenced the facts. That is what they make fireplaces for. I certainly wouldn’t hold on to them, which was apparently the case here.

[Kateri89]

2 hours ago, Peace said:

Motivation is a relevant factor when attempting to discern veracity.

Well, you should care.

Maybe, but that is pure speculation on your part.

You can’t possibly be serious.  Did you read any of the report?  There were photographs and photocopies of documents.  They were there in plain sight in the report.  No matter the motivation, the empirical evidence is damning.  And it may be speculation on my part that the archives would still be sitting there now, but based on the fact that they were there for decades and all of this was kept quiet doesn’t give me much reason to believe otherwise.  Besides, Zubik has been the Pittsburgh bishop for 12 years and knew about at least some of the archives because he was personally involved in certain cases.  Why not disclose the documents without prompting at some point in those 12 years?  For the life of me, I can’t fathom why anyone would be more worried about politics and the Church’s image than about the damage inflicted upon countless souls of abuse victims and those that have been lied to.

[Peace]

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

You can’t possibly be serious.  

I am serious.

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

Did you read any of the report?  

Yes, I have read major portions of it. The fact that it is intended to portray the Catholic Church in as negative a light as possible, rather than conduct an objective investigation into the problem, and to report facts objectively, is apparent from the very first page of the document.

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

There were photographs and photocopies of documents.  They were there in plain sight in the report.

Yes. There were. But just because you have documents does not mean that they are being characterized in a manner that is accurate, or that all of the matters alleged in the documents are credible. This may be one such example:

https://adw.org/news/correcting-what-the-pa-attorney-general-would-not/

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

No matter the motivation, the empirical evidence is damning.  

The report does not contain much empirical evidence at all. The report states that the grand jury reviewed one half of one million documents. The report itself is 1356 pages, and only a small subset of these are actual documents obtained from the Church. Most of the report consists of the grand jury's (in actuality, the Pennsylvania attorney general's) summary of those documents. But documents can be summarized accurately or inaccurately, and they can be summarized in a way that is objective or in a manner that is biased. You can take the same exact set of documents and characterize them in multiple different ways, to support one's personal opinion. This is what lawyers do for a living.

If you just want to accept everything in the report on face value that is up to you, but there is no good reason why anyone else should do so. A grand jury report is not objective fact. It is opinion, and in this case it is quite obviously biased opinion.

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

And it may be speculation on my part that the archives would still be sitting there now, but based on the fact that they were there for decades and all of this was kept quiet doesn’t give me much reason to believe otherwise.  

Certainly, there was not a wholesale disclosure of millions of documents in the past, but I do not know about "kept quiet". The grand jury report itself indicates that may of the incidents in the grand jury report were previously reported to the team that commissioned the John Jay Report in 2004.

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

Besides, Zubik has been the Pittsburgh bishop for 12 years and knew about at least some of the archives because he was personally involved in certain cases.  Why not disclose the documents without prompting at some point in those 12 years?  

Because almost no private institution on earth, religious or otherwise, willingly releases all of its private documents to the public. Do you see Heinz company making an annual disclosure of its internal sexual harassment, racial discrimination, etc. allegations? Why not fire the current CEO of Heinz for not letting the world look at all of its seedy internal documents?

I have written personal letters on a variety of matters to my parish priest. I certainly do not want every tom, dick, and harry on Earth having access to it.

And you don't honestly think that there are a mountain of greedy lawyers around who will try to twist truth any way that they can so as to get money out of the Church? You do not think that there are plenty of people who hate the Catholic church who will try to twist truth so as to try to get people to leave the church?

5 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

For the life of me, I can’t fathom why anyone would be more worried about politics and the Church’s image than about the damage inflicted upon countless souls of abuse victims and those that have been lied to.

I can fathom why - we are all sinful human beings. Yes, there are many priests who did horrendous things. Yes, there are bishops and others who covered up for them. Nevertheless, I do not see any good reason to buy into all of the rhetoric that you see in the report, and to accept all of the opinions in the report at face value, when it reaks of  bias. I can go to the very first page of the report and point out things that are nonsensical, unfounded, or flat-out contradictory.

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

For the life of me, I can’t fathom why anyone would be more worried about politics and the Church’s image than about the damage inflicted upon countless souls of abuse victims and those that have been lied to.

I agree - although I am coming to the conclusion that the celibate state of hierarchy might be a factor.  They have not raised children from womb to tomb and have no experience night and day over years of bringing up children.  That is why I think we need lay people and the married with children people advising The Church at the highest levels............and not because it looks good which could be a temptation,- focused as hierarchy can be on the Church's public image, rather because we (laity) have much important and vital to say that hierarchy needs to listen to and value, act upon.  We are the witnesses (as psychology calls i) in that we are not theorising or coming from books, we have hands on experience and come from there.

In reality, most all the hierarchy live on a different planet to us out here labouring in the world and in the affairs of daily life and all that involves.  Same can go for clergy and religious in that they lead a completely different manner of life to laity generally speaking - and called to do so.  Just as laity are called to live the lifestyle that probably most of us do i.e. committed by God to labour out here in the temporal sphere in secular life .................

..............sometimes known as the rat race............

[Peace]

 

52 minutes ago, Kateri89 said:

 For the life of me, I can’t fathom why anyone would be more worried about politics and the Church’s image than about the damage inflicted upon countless souls of abuse victims and those that have been lied to. 

And as far as this statement, it seems rather apparent to me that the Pennsylvania AG is more worried about politics and the Church's image than damage inflicted on abuse victims. Again - if the primary concern here were to prevent or remedy sexual abuse, you would see the Pennsylvania AG doing a wholesale investigation into sexual abuse in the PA public schools, which are some of the worst in the nation in this respect, from what I understand. If you were really concerned about this, you would be spending most of your time trying to eradicate sexual abuse in the areas where it is rampant today, rather than recounting sexual abuse allegations that by in large occurred decades ago, and where many of the people accused are not even alive anymore. That is just my 2 cents on it.

7 minutes ago, BarbaraTherese said:

I agree - although I am coming to the conclusion that the celibate state of hierarchy might be a factor.  They have not raised children from womb to tomb and have no experience night and day over years of bringing up children.  That is why I think we need lay people and the married with children people advising The Church at the highest levels............and not because it looks good which could be a temptation,- focused as hierarchy can be on the Church's public image, rather because we (laity) have much important and vital to say that hierarchy needs to listen to and value, act upon.  We are the witnesses (as psychology calls i) in that we are not theorising or coming from books, we have hands on experience and come from there.

In reality, most all the hierarchy live on a different planet to us out here labouring in the world and in the affairs of daily life and all that involves.  Same can go for clergy and religious in that they lead a completely different manner of life to laity generally speaking - and called to do so.  Just as laity are called to live the lifestyle that probably most of us do i.e. committed by God to labour out here in the temporal sphere in secular life .................

..............sometimes known as the rat race............

Maybe that depends on the particular person. I have never really had the impression that my parish priests live on a different planet. I know for a fact that my some of my parish priests are familiar with and have personally dealt with some issues similar to my own.But I have had a chance to interact with them quite a bit outside of Mass, so I am sure that helps.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Peace said:

Pennsylvania AG is more worried about politics and the Church's image than damage inflicted on abuse victims

Please excuse my ignorance, but what does AG stand for?  Thank you for your posts too.  

 

[Peace]

5 minutes ago, BarbaraTherese said:

Please excuse my ignorance, but what does AG stand for?  Thank you for your posts too.  

 

Sorry - it stands for Attorney General.

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Peace said:

 

Maybe that depends on the particular person. I have never really had the impression that my parish priests live on a different planet. I know for a fact that my some of my parish priests are familiar with and have personally dealt with some issues similar to my own.But I have had a chance to interact with them quite a bit outside of Mass, so I am sure that helps.

 Perhaps "different planet" was not a good choice.   Hierarchy, clergy and religious each have their own way of life and related duties situated within The Church for the world and The Gospel.  We laity are called to have a way of life and related duties situated within the world for The Church and Gospel.

I too have related to the different vocations within The Church outside of Mass.

With some married priests now existing for one reason or another as well as married Deacons, I think more hands on experience is available.  But generally speaking, our hierarchy/priests are not called  to have hands on experience of married life with children and the various stresses and strains, challenges of life lived in the world or the temporal in the secular sphere.  That does not mean that they are not conversant with problems for example, but simply that they do not have hands on experience and speaking from hands on experience generally.   I think that the laity are blessed to carry out their particular way of life as the other vocations are blessed to carry out their own.  Our own (laity) holy and blest vocation and situation is very important as has been underscored in documents post V2.  We now have a Pontifical Council for the Laity http://www.laici.va/content/laici/en.html

We as laity are even called to report back to The Church at the various levels re our hands on experiences in the world.

I did not mean what I stated as a put down for our priests or religious, or even hierarchy.   I know very well some great people and holy too and from each grouping and hold those roles and vocations in very high esteem.  I certainly also know them as down to earth people outside of Mass one can chat with.   Although their particular rightful concern is the image of The Church which ideally is not manipulated, rather must flow from within.  I did mean to stress difference by vocation and call.  I wanted to highlight the importance of laity and married laity with children (or not) having input at the highest levels due to the fact that we are indeed called by God vocationally and blest by Him to live in the temporal secular sphere.  This input, I feel, is of vital importance re the abuse scandals.  And so on and so forth, whatever, in previous posts.  Including the fact that our children, including abused children, are situated in the laity in the temporal secular sphere.  It is only common sense to me and rightful therefore that laity have input which is valued and respected higher up.  Not laity input as props for a manipulated public image of The Church, which I suspect only could be a temptation.

I hope I have conveyed what I meant!

Edited August 29, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

[Kateri89]

40 minutes ago, Peace said:

I am serious.

Yes, I have read major portions of it. The fact that it is intended to portray the Catholic Church in as negative a light as possible, rather than conduct an objective investigation into the problem, and to report facts objectively, is apparent from the very first page of the document.

Yes. There were. But just because you have documents does not mean that they are being characterized in a manner that is accurate, or that all of the matters alleged in the documents are credible. This may be one such example:

https://adw.org/news/correcting-what-the-pa-attorney-general-would-not/

The report does not contain much empirical evidence at all. The report states that the grand jury reviewed one half of one million documents. The report itself is 1356 pages, and only a small subset of these are actual documents obtained from the Church. Most of the report consists of the grand jury's (in actuality, the Pennsylvania attorney general's) summary of those documents. But documents can be summarized accurately or inaccurately, and they can be summarized in a way that is objective or in a manner that is biased. You can take the same exact set of documents and characterize them in multiple different ways, to support one's personal opinion. This is what lawyers do for a living.

If you just want to accept everything in the report on face value that is up to you, but there is no good reason why anyone else should do so. A grand jury report is not objective fact. It is opinion, and in this case it is quite obviously biased opinion.

Certainly, there was not a wholesale disclosure of millions of documents in the past, but I do not know about "kept quiet". The grand jury report itself indicates that may of the incidents in the grand jury report were previously reported to the team that commissioned the John Jay Report in 2004.

Because almost no private institution on earth, religious or otherwise, willingly releases all of its private documents to the public. Do you see Heinz company making an annual disclosure of its internal sexual harassment, racial discrimination, etc. allegations? Why not fire the current CEO of Heinz for not letting the world look at all of its seedy internal documents?

I have written personal letters on a variety of matters to my parish priest. I certainly do not want every tom, dick, and harry on Earth having access to it.

And you don't honestly think that there are a mountain of greedy lawyers around who will try to twist truth any way that they can so as to get money out of the Church? You do not think that there are plenty of people who hate the Catholic church who will try to twist truth so as to try to get people to leave the church?

I can fathom why - we are all sinful human beings. Yes, there are many priests who did horrendous things. Yes, there are bishops and others who covered up for them. Nevertheless, I do not see any good reason to buy into all of the rhetoric that you see in the report, and to accept all of the opinions in the report at face value, when it reaks of  bias. I can go to the very first page of the report and point out things that are nonsensical, unfounded, or flat-out contradictory.

I think that we have an entirely different outlook on this because we seem to be coming from two different mindsets.  I see the Church not as any old institution but rather as the body of Christ which should be held to the highest ideals and certainly higher than that of Heinz.  Heinz makes ketchup; it’s purpose is to produce condiments, not to shepherd souls along their spiritual journey.  If Heinz was covering up the fact that they stole their recipe from another company, that would be somewhat more equivalent of a comparison.  The Church is supposed to live according to supernatural virtue and this runs totally contrary to that.  This isn’t simply a criminal failure but a moral failure coming from a Church which is supposed to be a bastion of moral goodness.  That’s the point as I see it.  On a related digression with regards to McCarrick, if BXVI actually did impose sanctions on him, those sanctions should’ve been shouted from the rooftops so that McCarrick wouldn’t have been able to get away with defying orders.  Everyone would’ve known his nasty history and perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to get away with as much as he has.  So I do believe it was incumbent upon Church leaders, once they had credible allegations against a priest to report it to the civil authorities, place appropriate sanctions on him until the investigation was complete, and notify the parish in order that they would be protected.  I don’t believe in ruining reputations but I also don’t believe in covering for possible predators simply to save face.

[Guest]

Done in my props for today.  Thank you for your post, @Kateri89

I think that if clergy at any level is accused as a crime, that person should willingly stand aside from duties until innocence proven by a court of law.  If found guilty, he should resign and resignation accepted.  We are not above the law of the land.

 

Edited August 29, 2018 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]