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The end of the church

Jack The GOOD guy

New member
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Sep 24, 2017
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I'm thinking about making this a thread chronicling the RTR effects of the freefall collapse of the church. If anyone finds related news put them in this thread.

‘There Are No Tints On The Window’: Miami Beach Police After Two Priests Caught Performing Sex Act In Car
MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) — Two Chicago-area priests were charged Monday with Lewd and Lascivious behavior and Indecent Exposure after being caught performing a sexual act inside a car parked on a Miami Beach street.

According to Miami Beach Police, 39-year-old Diego Berrio and 30-year-old Edwin GiraldoCortez were in the front seat of a car performing oral sex.

Police got a 911 call about a lewd and lascivious incident taking place in the 1300 block of Ocean Drive.

When officers arrived, the police report states, the two were performing sex acts on each other “in full view of the public passing by on Ocean Drive and the sidewalk.”

It was 3:20 in the afternoon.

“Yesterday, we received a call indicating that two men were performing a sex act inside of a car. This is in broad daylight, 13th Street and Ocean Drive. There are no tints on the window,” explained Miami Beach Police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez.

When police arrived, it was still going on.

Police said Berrio and GiraldoCortez were so engaged, they didn’t even notice that police were there.

“We observed the two males performing the sex act, the officer had to tap on the window to get their attention,” said Rodriguez.

Both men were placed under arrest without incident.

Candice Parker was with her son at the playground.

“The fact that they are priests is above and beyond shocking,” she said. “I don’t understand this kind of behavior. They’re supposed to be leading good example and they’re doing exactly the opposite.”

The arrest reports state both men are priests from Arlington Heights, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago.

The address they gave comes back to the Mission San Juan Diego Parish in Arlington Heights.

“Their profession is irrelevant, in fact our trouble with this is that this is broad daylight, for anyone to see including children. There’s a time and a place for everything and this certainly was not the time and place,” said Rodriguez.

Police point out there is a children’s playground near the intersection of 13th and Ocean Drive.

Berrio was charged with a misdemeanor charge of Lewd and Lascivious Behavior and GiraldoCortez was also charged with a misdemeanor charge of Lewd and Lascivious Behavior plus Indecent Exposure.

Source-
https://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/09/04/priests-arrested-miami-beach-sex-acts-in-car/
 
New York, New Jersey launch investigations into Catholic Church's handling of sex abuse allegations
ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York and New Jersey launched new investigations into the Roman Catholic Church's handling of clergy sex abuse allegations Thursday as the number of similar inquiries around the country continues to grow. In New York, the state's attorney general issued subpoenas to all eight of the state's Catholic diocese seeking any and all documents pertaining to allegations, findings from internal church investigations and payments to victims, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly.

Church leaders confirmed receipt of the subpoenas and vowed to work with Attorney General Barbara Underwood's civil investigation -- as well as any potential criminal investigations to come. The subpoenas were issued to the Archdiocese of New York in New York City as well as the dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, Ogdensburg and Rockville Centre.

"It is not a surprise to us that the attorney general would look to begin a civil investigation, and she will find the archdiocese of New York, and the other seven dioceses in the state, ready and eager to work together with her in the investigation," New York archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.

Underwood's office is pursuing a civil investigation into the church's response to abuse reports and has also reached out to local prosecutors, who are authorized to convene grand juries or pursue criminal investigations. In New York the attorney general doesn't have that power, so the involvement of local district attorneys would be critical to any criminal prosecutions.

In New Jersey, state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced a new task force that will look at how abuse allegations were handled in the seven dioceses in that state.

Underwood and Grewal also announced hotlines for individuals to report allegations of clergy abuse. The numbers are 855-363-6548 in New Jersey and 800-771-7755 in New York. New York has also set up a confidential online complaint form that can be found at ag.ny.gov/ClergyAbuse.

"The Pennsylvania grand jury report shined a light on incredibly disturbing and depraved acts by Catholic clergy, assisted by a culture of secrecy and cover ups in the dioceses," Underwood, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Victims in New York deserve to be heard as well -- and we are going to do everything in our power to bring them the justice they deserve."

The subpoenas come three weeks after a grand jury investigation found rampant sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by about 300 priests in Pennsylvania.

Source
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-new-jersey-launch-investigations-into-catholic-churchs-handling-of-sex-abuse-allegations/
 
Pope touts virtue of silence after sex abuse cover-up claims

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis recommends silence and prayer to react to those seeking scandal and division. Francis offered the advice Monday in his homily at Mass in the Vatican hotel where he lives.

Italian Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former papal envoy in Washington, stunned the faithful last month by claiming Francis allegedly lifted unconfirmed Vatican sanctions against disgraced U.S. prelate Theodore McCarrick.

Francis has said he "won't say a word" about Vigano's allegations that Benedict XVI as pope had sanctioned McCarrick, including avoiding public life, but that Francis later allegedly lifted the sanctions.

Francis said Monday Jesus' grace helps people discern when to speak and "when we should stay silent."

Protester shouts "shame on you" as Cardinal Wuerl addresses abuse scandal
In an unprecedented move, Francis in July yanked McCarrick's cardinal rank after U.S. investigations found sex abuse claims credible.

Source
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-sexual-abuse-cover-up-claims-virtue-of-silence-vatican-mass/
 
Pope ignores claims he shielded sex abuser

ROME -- Pope Francis spoke publicly on Wednesday about his weekend trip to Ireland and the "pain" of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal -- but again he declined to specifically address an explosive letter by an Italian archbishop who claims the pontiff was involved in covering up the abuses.

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane says Francis addressed crowds of the faithful in Saint Peter's Square -- as he does most Wednesdays. Same time, same place, but this Wednesday morning, CBS News found some Catholics who were struggling with their faith.

Nick, who came to hear the pope, told Doane the scandal has left him and others less willing to "be open about your faith."

"Not ashamed," added a woman in the crowd, "but when other people of other faiths, when they're looking at you, when they're talking to you, that's all they know is what they're seeing on the news."

In his 11-page letter, Monsignor Carlo Viganò called for Pope Francis to resign. The former top Vatican diplomat, who served as its envoy to the U.S., included sweeping conservative ideological commentary in his letter -- including railing against homosexuals in the church.
Viganò alleged that Francis knowingly allowed a sex-abuser, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to continue operating at the highest ranks of the church, even allegedly relaxing church restrictions put on him. Viganò did not provide any documents to support his accusations that at least 35 church leaders were involved in covering up the abuse.

The majority of bishops have condemned Viganò, with some accusing him of being part of a conservative attack on the more liberal pope. Others have called for an investigation.

Monsignor Karel Kasteel has worked for seven popes and has known Viganò since he was a young seminarian. He insists the Italian archbishop "certainly is an honest man, and he's done his job well and I think he felt he had to talk."

Viganò's letter came in the wake of a grand jury report that exposed 300 pedophile priests and more than 1,000 victims in Pennsylvania.

The state's attorney general, appearing Tuesday on "CBS This Morning," said there were "facts, there is evidence that takes this cover-up and what occurred in Pennsylvania directly to the Vatican."

Source
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-no-comment-catholic-church-sexual-abuse-cover-up-vigano-letter/
 
Catholic Church Found to Have Spent Over $2 Million Lobbying To Block Child Sex Laws

In light of the growing pedophilia and sexual assault scandal rocking the Catholic Church, it is important to remember that not very long ago the organization was found paying off a lobbying firm to block bills related to sex crimes against children.


In 2015, the New York State Catholic Conference, contracted the lobbying groups, Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, Patricia Lynch & Associates, Hank Sheinkopf, and Mark Behan Communications to block a bill called the Child Victims Act, which was aimed at making it easier for victims of child sex crimes to come out against their accusers. The bill also sought to extend the statute of limitations for sex crimes, since many victims are too afraid to speak out until too much time has passed to prosecute.

Between 2007 and 2015, the Catholic church in New York only spent more than 2.1 million dollars lobbying on various bills, mostly related to sex offenses.

This week, the Catholic Church got more bad news, as it was announced that the states of New York and New Jersey were launching investigations into how the church has handled sex crimes within its ranks.

Following the announcement, the New York state’s attorney general sent subpoenas to every Catholic representative in the state, requesting any records that were kept in regards to internal investigations of sexual abuse within the church.

The AG is seeking any and all documents pertaining to allegations, findings from internal church investigations and payments to victims, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly.

New York archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said that the network of churches in the state will be fully cooperating with authorities.

“It is not a surprise to us that the attorney general would look to begin a civil investigation, and she will find the Archdiocese of New York, and the other seven dioceses in the state, ready and eager to work together with her in the investigation,” Zwilling said.

Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who is leading the investigation, said that the growing scandals across the country have motivated her efforts.

“The Pennsylvania grand jury report shined a light on incredibly disturbing and depraved acts by Catholic clergy, assisted by a culture of secrecy and cover-ups in the dioceses. Victims in New York deserve to be heard as well – and we are going to do everything in our power to bring them the justice they deserve,” Underwood said.

As TFTP reported last month, a scathing grand jury report revealed that hundreds of Catholic priests in the state of Pennsylvania sexually abused young children, a portion focuses specifically on Pittsburgh where nearly 100 priests are accused of running a pedophile ring where they helped each other prey on helpless children with no oversight.

The report claims that at least 99 priests in the Pittsburgh Diocese were involved in the pedophile ring—nine of whom were not named—and they received help from local officials who refused to explore investigations into the abuse because it was considered “bad publicity” for the Catholic Church.

The priests are accused of working together in a predatory ring that was ongoing for years in which they “manufactured child pornography, shared intelligence on victims and gave large gold crosses to certain boys to mark them as already being ‘groomed,’ for abuse,” according to a report from Penn Live.

Source
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/c...r-2-million-lobbying-to-block-child-sex-laws/
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/po...id-rape-laws-article-1.2655010?outputType=amp
 
Dutch Catholic church accused of widespread sexual abuse cover-up

More than half of the Netherlands’ senior clerics were involved in covering up sexual assault of children between 1945 and 2010, a press report claimed on Saturday, further engulfing the Catholic church in a global abuse scandal.

Over the course of 65 years, 20 of 39 Dutch cardinals, bishops and their auxiliaries “covered up sexual abuse, allowing the perpetrators to cause many more victims”, the daily NRC reported.

“Four abused children and 16 others allowed the transfer of paedophile priests who could have caused new victims in other parishes,” the Dutch newspaper added.

Church spokeswoman Daphne van Roosendaal said the church could “confirm a part” of the report.

Other elements were based on anonymous information provided by a victims’ assistance unit set up by the church.

“The names of several bishops correspond to those named in a report commissioned by the church in 2010,” van Roosendaal said.

Most of the accused clerics have since died, and the statute of limitations has expired in all cases, she added. Those still alive declined to comment, NRC said.

Meanwhile in France, a priest has been charged with sexually abusing four brothers, now aged from three to 17, his lawyer said.

The family brought the complaint against the 64-year-old priest, whose parish is in the central Cantal region. All four boys were said to be in the church choir.

The lawyer, Komine Bocoum, did not say when the alleged offences were said to have taken place.

Local bishop Bruno Grua said his diocese was “shocked by these unspeakable acts”.

They are the latest in a slew of assault allegations against the Catholic church spanning several continents.

People in Australia, Europe, and North and South America have charged they were sexually abused by clergymen and lay people, in what German Archbishop Georg Gaenswein has called the church’s “own 9/11”.

Source
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/16/dutch-catholic-church-accused-of-widespread-cover--up
 
8 more states have launched investigations into clerical abuse since the Pennsylvania report

Justice is coming slowly for the victims of the Catholic clerical sex abuse crisis. Since a Pennsylvania grand jury report last month identified hundreds of priests accused of molesting at least 1,000 minors over the past seven decades in that state, several other states have announced their own investigations into historical Catholic clerical child sex abuse.

The scope and scale of the Pennsylvania report was made possible by the state’s legal structures, which give the attorney general’s office a significant degree of power to conduct investigations through the grand jury system. However, each of the states below has taken steps toward centralizing the likely hundreds, if not thousands, of potential cases of clerical sex abuse that may have taken place over the past few decades.

Each state will take a different approach, due to the range of laws concerning the convening of grand juries and who has the authority to subpoena documents from Catholic dioceses. For the most part, attorneys general are trying to gather historical records from parishes and diocese to conduct these investigations. The vast stores of private documents relating to sex abuse, compensation of victims, and transfers of offending priests were instrumental in the formation and impact of the Pennsylvania report.

Ultimately, these investigations are unlikely to result in a great many arrests or convictions. Due to changes over the past 15 years or so concerning how Catholic churches deal with abuse, most of the allegations that new investigations would yield would likely have occurred decades ago, long beyond the statute of limitations. But many victims have said that the symbolic value of bringing a phenomenon defined by silence, shame, and secrecy into the public record is necessary.

As David Gibson, the head of the Fordham University Center for Religion and Culture, told Vox last month, “this whole scandal demonstrates the power of storytelling and the importance of storytelling and giving shape and weight to all these accusations.” But procedural obstacles, and differences in policy from state to state, may make that act of storytelling a protracted one.

Different states have announced different initiatives
State law in Pennsylvania allows the attorney general to call a grand jury to investigate incidents in which crimes are suspected but no formal charges have been brought. Often, the grand jury comes into place when investigating large-scale corruption or organized crime, although it has also previously been used in large-scale instances of sexual abuse.

In 2011, for example, the Pennsylvania grand jury produced a report accusing former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky of sexually molesting eight young boys over a decade and a half. Sandusky was arrested that year, and was ultimately found guilty of sexual abuse and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

Matt Haverstick, an attorney who represents two of the dioceses named in the Pennsylvania report, notes that not all states are like Pennsylvania, which has the ability to launch massive investigations like this one focusing on clerical sex abuse of minors and adults, which took two years to complete. “If there was no easy mechanism set up to allow for a statewide investigation, you’d either have to set one up legislatively or get agreement at the local level — usually district attorneys — to engage in individual investigations that would collectively be amalgamated in one finding,” he says.

Haverstick argued that the obstacles to a cohesive investigation in that case would be both political — individual district attorneys might have a vested interest in making a name for themselves by leading prosecutorial charges — and ministerial. “It’s easy to organize a statewide report if you have one body,” he said.

Here are the states that have announced investigative initiatives thus far:

Missouri: The first state to announce an investigation back in August. Attorney General Josh Hawley is working with the cooperation of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which requested the probe, to investigate clerical records spanning decades. Missouri’s four other archdioceses are not yet under investigation, although Hawley has already asked them to hand over all available records.

The cooperation of various dioceses is vital to the investigation because in Missouri, the attorney general does not have the power to subpoena documents beyond those voluntarily provided by the church, or to convene a grand jury. (Individual district attorneys, however, still have the power of subpoena.)

New York: Attorney General Barbara Underwood has subpoenaed each of the state’s eight dioceses for records pertaining to child sex abuse. Her office has also set up a hotline for victims or witnesses of clerical child sex abuse to report incidents directly. Because of state laws, Underwood’s office does not have the authority to unanimously call a grand jury, but must rather liaise with district attorneys at the local level.

New Jersey: Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced the creation of a task force, as well as a hotline for abuse survivors to report their experiences directly with the state. The task force will be led by Essex County Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino, and will be empowered to subpoena records from the state’s six dioceses.

The state is likely to be under a particular media microscope because the majority of the allegations against ex-Washington, DC, Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who is accused of decades of sex abuse against both young seminarians and minors, took place there during McCarrick’s tenure as bishop of Metuchen and, later, archbishop of Newark.

Kentucky: Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Brown announced in September that he will seek permission from the state legislature to open a statewide grand jury investigation.

New Mexico: Attorney General Hector Balderas demanded that archdioceses turn over all documentation concerning child sex abuse to his office. While Balderas has subpoena power, he has not yet formally invoked it in this instance. Instead, he wrote in a public letter that he hopes the church will take the initiative to make “a full, massive disclosure.” So far, officials from the state’s two dioceses (Las Cruces and Gallup) and its single archdiocese (Santa Fe) say they plan to cooperate.

Illinois: At least seven priests with connections to Illinois were named in the Pennsylvania report, which prompted Attorney General Lisa Madigan to ask to meet with state church officials regarding the report and sex abuse more widely. In a statement, she said, “The Catholic Church has a moral obligation to provide its parishioners and the public a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior.” The Archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to meet Madigan. It is currently unclear how much, if any, information the archdiocese intends to turn over.

Nebraska: Attorney General Doug Peterson has asked (but not subpoenaed) the state’s three dioceses for their records. Likely to be particularly significant is the historically conservative Diocese of Lincoln, the only diocese in the United States not to subscribe to the 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. More commonly known as the “Dallas Charter,” it’s a zero-tolerance policy of reporting clerical sex abuse to legal authorities codified in the aftermath of the Boston Globe’s reporting on widespread abuse in Boston. (Lincoln finally started complying with church-wide audits in 2016, after the retirement of its notoriously conservative presiding bishop Fabian Bruskewitz.)

The diocese is currently investigating six priests for alleged abuse. Its representatives have publicly stated that it intends to comply with all legal requests.

Wyoming: Unlike in the states listed above, the investigative push in Wyoming is happening through the police system. Cheyenne police have announced that they are investigating sexual abuse allegations against retired Wyoming bishop Joseph Hart, who has been accused of sexually abusing minors in Wyoming as well as in Kansas City, where he previously served as a priest.

The Kansas City allegations first surfaced in the late 1980s and early ’90s. At that time, the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese did not find the allegations credible, but it did pay for counseling for one of the victims. More broadly, state police officials have asked clerical sex abuse victims to come forward.

Statewide accounting of historic sex abuse will take time
Eight states in all have announced initiatives of varying degrees to centralize and address abuse, including many incidents that may be beyond the states’ statutes of limitations. However, differences in legal procedures between states makes it difficult to know whether, and to what extent, a study on the scale of the Pennsylvania report might be replicated in other states.

The capacity of other states to launch similar grand jury investigations is, in fact, limited based on local jurisdiction. In states like Kentucky, the attorney general requires the state legislature’s approval to open an investigation. In other states, like Missouri, the ongoing investigation is only possible with the full participation of the archdiocese.

In Virginia, investigations are legally prohibited from being made public until and unless somebody is formally charged with a crime, which is particularly difficult given that many clerical sex abuse cases are beyond the statute of limitations. (In Virginia, in most cases, victims of child sex abuse can file claims until their 38th birthday.)

Elsewhere, attorneys general have made the case that their power to begin investigations is limited. Already, in Louisiana, Attorney General Jeff Landry has released a public statement saying he has no authority to launch an investigation there.

The disparity in policies across states, therefore, is likely to frustrate victims and advocates alike. The task of cataloging the likely thousands of child sex abuse cases — many of which are beyond the statute of limitations — is unlikely to happen anytime soon, or without the cooperation of the United States’ 198 Catholic dioceses.

Still, Haverstick notes that he does not think a statewide, centralized investigation is necessarily the best way forward when it comes to tracking sex abuse cases. “I think a fairer approach is one that is done at the more local level,” he said. “[Dioceses and archdioceses] are all individual organizations, and to treat them as one organism can work unfairness [sic] to any kind of investigation, and to the church.” Even within one state, he says, individual dioceses can have drastically different cultures.

Haverstick argued that the church — or at least some of its dioceses — is also taking the initiative when it comes to publicly contending with the scope of abuse. One of the Pennsylvania dioceses he represents, Harrisburg, has publicly named all accused priests. “I’m not sure you need a criminal and civil investigation to make the church do that. It seems like it’s doing that on its own,” he says. Certainly, in some states, such as Connecticut and Oklahoma, individual dioceses have already announced internal reviews of abuse allegations.

However, it’s apparent that not all dioceses have a history of complying fully with investigative bodies. Back in March, for example, the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, preemptively released a list of 42 priests who had been removed from their posts over sexual abuse allegations. At that time, Bishop Richard B. Malone stated that no accused priests remained in active ministry. But a leaked internal document last week put the number of accused at 106, and included priests who were still serving.

Victims of these often decades-old crimes thus have good reason to be wary of the church’s ability to police itself. In the aftermath of the Pennsylvania report, state hotlines have been flooded with new allegations. And given the rate of revelations, it’s likely that the cases we know about are just the tip of the iceberg.

Source
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/9/17/17847466/state-investigations-clerical-abuse-missouri-new-york-jersey-wyoming-illinois-catholic-sex
 
Pope defrocks Chilean priest amid sex abuse scandal

(CNN) Pope Francis has expelled the Reverend Cristian Precht Bañados of Chile, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Santiago.

This is the first formal resignation the Pope has decreed since every bishop in Chile offered to step down in May over the country's sex abuse scandal. The Chilean bishops' offer was thought to be unprecedented in the modern history of the Catholic Church.
Precht had been suspended in 2012 from practicing within the ministry for five years after the Archbishop of Santiago ordered a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against him.

The Archbishop issued a statement at the time saying that "during the process were established verifiable reports of abusive behavior with adults and minors."

Precht has not been charged with any crimes by Chilean authorities, but was not allowed to leave the country's capital, Santiago, pending completion of the church investigation.

In a February 2013 statement, Precht denied "ever forcing anyone's will, be it an adult or a minor, woman or man."

He also denied the allegations earlier this year in a letter to the director of the Chilean newspaper La Tercera.

"I absolutely deny participating, in any way, in the acts which I'm slanderously being accused of," the newspaper quoted him as saying. "I will defend my personal and clerical honor in every way I can and any time it's violated."

Precht was extremely popular in Chile and known for being a fierce defender of human rights during the Chilean dictatorship.

His defrocking comes as the Catholic Church continues to face criticism over its response to myriad allegations of sexual abuse against Catholic clergy over the years.

Pope Francis said last month that "no effort to beg pardon and seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient." He has called for a meeting of the church's top officials in February to address the scandal.

Mass resignation

All of Chile's 34 active and retired bishops offered their resignations to Pope Francis in May after an emergency summit at the Vatican. The Pope called the bishops to Rome after receiving a 2,300-page report detailing sexual abuses by priests in Chile.

The report alleged that for decades church officials in Chile knew about and covered up cases of sexual abuse, even destroying records.
Pope Francis had previously defended a Chilean bishop accused of concealing the abuse, saying he had been "slandered."

The Pope apologized after Vatican investigators said church officials in Chile had helped cover up multiple cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. In June, the Vatican said Pope Francis was sending investigators back to Chile to look into historical child abuse and accusations that a bishop covered up crimes against minors.

Last month, police arrested a former Chilean priest over the alleged abuse of seven minors. Prosecutors say 158 people, including bishops, priests and lay people are under investigation.

Source
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/09/17/americas/pope-francis-chile-priest/index.html
 
New Report Details Over 3,600 Sex Abuse Cases Spanning Decades in the German Catholic Church

(BERLIN) — A report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany says 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014, two leading German media outlets said Wednesday.

Spiegel Online and Die Zeit said the report they obtained — commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and researched by three universities — concludes that more than half of the victims were 13 or younger and most were boys. Every sixth case involved rape and at least 1,670 clergy were involved, both weeklies reported. Die Zeit wrote that 969 abuse victims were altar boys.

The report also says that the actual number of victims was likely much higher, according to the research by experts from the Universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim.

The German Bishops Conference said in a written response a few hours later that it regretted the leaking of the report, but that the study confirms “the extent of the sexual abuse” that took place.

“It is depressing and shameful for us,” Bishop Stephan Ackermann said. He didn’t further elaborate on the findings of the report, but said the Catholic group would present the study as initially planned on Sept. 25 together with the authors.

Die Zeit wrote that researchers weren’t allowed to look at the original church files but had to provide questionnaires to the dioceses, which then provided the information.

In their conclusions, the researchers write that there was evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, many cases were not brought to justice, and that sometimes abuse suspects — primarily priests — were simply moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past.

The Catholic Church has been struggling with sex abuse by its clergy for a long time.
In 2010, the German church was roiled by a sex abuse scandal triggered by the head of a Jesuit school in Berlin who went public about decades-long sexual abuse of high school students by clergy. Following that, a whole wave of victims who were sexually abused by clergy spoke out across the country.

An investigation in the United States last month found rampant sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by about 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this week, the Vatican said it is preparing the “necessary clarifications” about accusations that top Vatican officials including Pope Francis covered up the sexual misconduct of a now-disgraced American ex-cardinal.

Also on Wednesday, the Vatican said it’s summoning the presidents of every bishops conference around the world for a February summit to discuss preventing clergy sex abuse and protecting children.

Note
The RTRs are hitting hard. Its impossible to contain Now that this report is out.

Source
https://www.google.co.in/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/5394761/germany-catholic-church-sex-abuse-cases
 
The Sex-Abuse Scandal Is Growing Faster Than the Church Can Contain It

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This has been a dramatic week for Catholics around the world. As Pope Francis faces mounting pressure to address the spiraling clergy sex-abuse crisis, almost every day has brought some new revelation or declaration.

Since Tuesday alone, a group of American Catholic leaders went to Rome to ask Francis some tough questions, while a women’s open letter demanding answers from him crossed the 45,000-signature mark. The pontiff summoned bishops from around the world to a future meeting, while making one bishop the subject of a new investigation. One cardinal who had come under fire for allegedly enabling accused priests to keep working for the Church announced his plans to resign, while another, who has been pressing for meaningful action against abusers, came under scrutiny himself. Amidst all this, a bombshell report about sex abuse in Germany was leaked to the press.

“Many strands are coming together,” said Kathleen Sprows Cummings, a historian of Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame. “It does seem like we are reaching a watershed moment.” By Thursday, there had been so many new developments that she said she was having a hard time keeping up—and that the leaders at the Vatican probably were, too. “I think they’re scrambling. The news is coming on so many fronts. I think they don’t know quite what to do.” Here is some of what they nevertheless did this week.

An American audience with the pope

Church leaders from the U.S. met with the pope in Rome on Thursday. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had called for a meeting to discuss allegations against Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal who served as archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006. This summer, McCarrick resigned as cardinal after he was accused of sexual abuse. An explosive letter by the Vatican’s former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, claimed last month that Francis had known for years about McCarrick’s alleged abuse yet allowed him to keep rising through the ranks of the Church. Francis has so far declined to comment publicly on Viganò’s accusations, and DiNardo and others were seeking an investigation into the matter.

“We shared with Pope Francis our situation in the United States—how the Body of Christ is lacerated by the evil of sexual abuse. He listened very deeply from the heart,” DiNardo said in a statement after leaving the meeting. “It was a lengthy, fruitful, and good exchange.” But if any concrete decisions came out of the papal meeting, DiNardo did not reveal them.

“I worry that the cardinals are coming home empty-handed. They were listened to, but it’s not clear they’re going to have support from the Vatican in terms of handling the investigation into the McCarrick situation,” Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Catholic Women’s Forum, a network that aims to amplify the voices of Catholic women, told me Thursday. “The concern doesn’t go away because our cardinals had a nice listening session with Pope Francis. People want action.”

Complicating matters further, on the eve of his meeting with the pope, DiNardo himself was accused of covering up abuse in his Galveston-Houston archdiocese, casting doubt on whether he could effectively lead the U.S. Church’s effort at reform, the Washington Post reported.

Even as DiNardo and other U.S. leaders gathered in Rome on Thursday, the pope accepted the immediate resignation of a West Virginia bishop, Michael J. Bransfield, over allegations that he had sexually harassed adults. Francis also authorized another bishop to investigate the allegations against Bransfield.

A plan for an unprecedented meeting of world bishops

Pope Francis on Wednesday summoned bishops from around the world to a first-of-its-kind meeting in Rome in February. The focus will be on protecting minors, and bishops will reportedly receive training in identifying abuse, intervening, and listening to victims.

The choice to summon the presidents of bishops’ conferences worldwide signals that the Vatican finally recognizes clergy sex abuse is a global problem, according to Cummings, the historian. “That’s a departure, an admission, that this is much bigger than any one culture or nation,” she said. In the past, she explained, Church leaders had suggested that the problem was limited to the U.S., but as scandals began to surface elsewhere—from Ireland to Australia to Chile to Germany—that story became impossible to believe.

A worldwide summons to bishops, Cummings continued, is “a big move, but I’m not sure how bold it is. This crisis has been created by the bishops. The people who create crises are not the ones who are going to lead you out of them.”

Stephen Schneck, a former Catholic University professor, likewise told me, “I’ve come to the conclusion that the bishops can’t be trusted to police themselves. I think the ultimate solution, especially here in the U.S., is going to require an active, permanent role for the laity, because of the problem of oversight.”

A new bombshell report

A study has alleged that more than 3,600 children were sexually abused at the hands of some 1,670 clergy members over the past seven decades in Germany. Commissioned by Church officials and conducted by university researchers, the report was supposed to be released on September 25, but it was leaked to German outlets Spiegel Online and Die Zeit and reported this Wednesday instead. The findings implicate no less than 4.4 percent of the country’s clergy in abuse. A German bishop called the revelation “depressing and shameful.”

To the American Catholics I spoke to, it was something else, too: unsurprising. “A year ago, I would have been surprised,” Schneck said. “But now I think we have to recognize that this is a systemic problem within the clergy ranks around the world.” Cummings put it more bluntly: “I thought, ‘Of course. Here we go.’”

This study comes on the heels of another bombshell report. Just last month, a 900-page Pennsylvania grand-jury report detailed accusations against about 300 priests and alleged that their actions—which the report said involved more than 1,000 children—were covered up by diocese officials.

A cardinal on the verge of resignation

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, said Tuesday that he plans to travel to Rome soon, where he will ask the pope to accept his resignation. Wuerl has been heavily criticized after the Pennsylvania grand-jury report alleged that, as archbishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, he had permitted priests accused of abusing minors to be reassigned or reinstated. He said Thursday that new leadership is needed to help the Washington archdiocese get past the “current confusion, disappointment, and disunity.”

Wuerl initially presented his resignation to Francis three years ago upon reaching the Church-mandated retirement age for bishops, 75, but the pontiff did not accept at the time. (This is fairly common; if the pope does not accept the pro forma resignation, the bishop continues to serve.) It’s unclear whether Francis will accept the resignation when Wuerl tenders it again.

“The fact that an archbishop has been chased into early retirement is very significant,” noted Schneck, who said he knows Wuerl personally. “He probably would’ve retired soon anyway, but nevertheless this was precipitated by the Pennsylvania grand-jury report. He has come to realize that he’s no longer effective as archbishop of Washington.”

A very vulnerable pope

In an ambiguous homily on Tuesday, Francis seemed to suggest that Satan was playing a role in the uncovering of the Church’s sex-abuse scandal. “In these times, it seems like the ‘Great Accuser’ [a biblical name for the devil] has been unchained and has it in for bishops. … He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people,” he said.

Some Catholics I spoke to speculated Francis may have been alluding to Viganò’s letter, which demanded the pope’s resignation. Either way, it struck some as a discordant remark at a moment when many are seeking contrition and humility from the Vatican.

“I thought it was the wrong note,” Schneck said. “This isn’t the time for that kind of language. … We need to recognize that the scandal itself was caused by the actions of the clergy, and the uncovering of this scandal is occurring as a result of the work of law enforcement around the world.”

The pope’s favorability has been plummeting in the U.S., among both Catholics and the general public. A year and a half ago, he enjoyed a 83 percent favorability rating among U.S. Catholics, but that’s dropped to 63 percent, according to CNN.

Cummings said she believes the pope is struggling personally. “How could he not be under strain? This is a crisis of a magnitude that we have not seen in a long time.”

Hasson, who drafted a public letter—now signed by 45,000 women—demanding answers from the pope about what he knew and when, said that although she and the other signatories love the Church, they are angry that the pope has not been more forthcoming and transparent. “The Church itself needs to get serious about spiritual integrity,” she said. “People are now praying for the Church.”

Source
https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/570208/
 
California's Catholic bishops targeted in sex abuse lawsuit
181002-thomas-emens-ac-842p_d6f98b558f96918e8e997c64a9d64e37.fit-1000w.jpg

Tom Emens, from left, who says he was sexually abused by a priest, speaks on his experience next to attorney Jeff Anderson, in Los Angeles on Oct. 2, 2018. Anderson is holding a photograph of Emens as a boy next to the priest who allegedly abused him, Monsignor Thomas Joseph Mohan.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man who says he was sexually abused decades ago by his parish priest said Tuesday he is suing all Catholic bishops in California and the Archdiocese of Chicago, seeking to compel church officials to release records on clergy abuse.

The filing Tuesday in Los Angeles by Thomas Emens claims a civil conspiracy among church officials to cover up clergy sexual assault and move offending priests to other parishes.

Emens said at a news conference that he was abused for two years starting in 1978 when he was 10 years old by Monsignor Thomas Joseph Mohan. The priest, who is deceased, arrived at St. Anthony Claret Catholic Church in Anaheim in the early 1970s from Chicago, according to the lawsuit.

"This lawsuit is to find justice — to get the clerics at the top to come clean and tell the truth," Emens said.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said the goal of the so-called nuisance lawsuit is to force the church to reveal the names of all priests accused of child molestation. He said church documents would reveal a playbook among bishops and other officials to protect offending clergy by keeping files under wraps and moving the priests across the country and, in some cases, out of the U.S.

The lawsuit asks a judge "to abate the continuing nuisance" of abuse by ordering each diocese to name all accused priests, detail their history of alleged assault and identify their last known addresses.

The California Catholic Conference of Bishops, which oversees the state's 12 dioceses, didn't directly address the lawsuit in a statement Tuesday afternoon. Instead the group pointed out the "positive steps taken by California dioceses over the past 15 years to protect children and young people from abuse."

Reforms implemented in 2003's Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People include "fingerprinting and background checks for priests, staff and any volunteers working around children and young people," the statement said.

Every diocese has also instituted programs to train students and staff in identifying and preventing abuse, the group said.

A call seeking comment from the Archdiocese of Chicago was not immediately returned.

The court filing invokes both public and private statutes of nuisance law in California. Such laws generally involve behavior that negatively affects a community or interferes with the use and enjoyment of private property, said John Nockleby, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Alleging nuisance violations in relation to past sexual abuse by a single priest is a "creative approach" by Emens' lawyers, said Nockleby, adding that it will be very difficult to prove in court.

Criminal charges are not feasible in this case because they would fall outside California's statute of limitations.

Source
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna916056
 
CHILE'S CATHOLIC CHURCH CRITICISED OVER GUIDELINES REGARDING SEXUAL ABUSE

SANTIAGO – Chile’s Roman Catholic Church was criticised by victims’ groups on Monday as having “poor judgment” and being arrogant after it apologised for a manual published on the website of Santiago’s archbishop instructing priests and other Church workers not to “touch the genitals of” or “sleep with” children.


2'
CHILE'S CATHOLIC CHURCH CRITICISED OVER GUIDELINES REGARDING SEXUAL ABUSE
The document provided guidelines for the interaction of church staff with the lay community and was signed by Santiago Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati, who is under investigation for allegedly covering-up abuse.

CATHOLIC CHURCH THE VATICAN CHILE CATHOLIC CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL ALLEGED SEXUAL ASSAULT CHILE SEX ABUSE SCANDAL SEXUAL SCANDAL
Reuters | 18 hours ago
SANTIAGO – Chile’s Roman Catholic Church was criticised by victims’ groups on Monday as having “poor judgment” and being arrogant after it apologised for a manual published on the website of Santiago’s archbishop instructing priests and other Church workers not to “touch the genitals of” or “sleep with” children.

The document, posted last Thursday, provided guidelines for the interaction of church staff with the lay community and was signed by Santiago Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati, who is under investigation for allegedly covering-up abuse.

It was to be discussed with Chilean congregations before being approved as official guidelines, but the document was removed from the website on Friday after media reports and social media criticism of the necessity for such basic guidelines.

Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused by a priest as a boy and travelled to the Vatican this year to meet with Pope Francis, said it was “outrageous” that it should be necessary to explain to anyone that touching children’s genitals was wrong.

“To publish this without anyone raising alarm shows their arrogance and lack of attention to what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s a reflection of their attitude.”

Marcial Sanchez, a Chilean Church historian who has campaigned for the Church to pay closer attention to accusations of abuse, said the Church’s apologies over such accusations and how it handles them were beginning to ring hollow.

“This shows there are still people in the senior leadership of the church who lack judgment and don’t understand the depth of this crisis,” Sanchez said.

The Church in Chile and elsewhere is facing widespread accusations of sexual misconduct by priests and non-clergy employees and cover-ups by Church leaders, and investigations of such claims in multiple jurisdictions.

The document labeled as “inappropriate” actions that a child “might not accept, or might reject” such as “too tight hugs, or touching bottoms or the genital area.”


2'
CHILE'S CATHOLIC CHURCH CRITICISED OVER GUIDELINES REGARDING SEXUAL ABUSE
The document provided guidelines for the interaction of church staff with the lay community and was signed by Santiago Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati, who is under investigation for allegedly covering-up abuse.

CATHOLIC CHURCH THE VATICAN CHILE CATHOLIC CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL ALLEGED SEXUAL ASSAULT CHILE SEX ABUSE SCANDAL SEXUAL SCANDAL
Reuters | 18 hours ago
SANTIAGO – Chile’s Roman Catholic Church was criticised by victims’ groups on Monday as having “poor judgment” and being arrogant after it apologised for a manual published on the website of Santiago’s archbishop instructing priests and other Church workers not to “touch the genitals of” or “sleep with” children.

The document, posted last Thursday, provided guidelines for the interaction of church staff with the lay community and was signed by Santiago Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati, who is under investigation for allegedly covering-up abuse.

It was to be discussed with Chilean congregations before being approved as official guidelines, but the document was removed from the website on Friday after media reports and social media criticism of the necessity for such basic guidelines.

Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused by a priest as a boy and travelled to the Vatican this year to meet with Pope Francis, said it was “outrageous” that it should be necessary to explain to anyone that touching children’s genitals was wrong.

“To publish this without anyone raising alarm shows their arrogance and lack of attention to what they’re doing,” he said. “It’s a reflection of their attitude.”

Marcial Sanchez, a Chilean Church historian who has campaigned for the Church to pay closer attention to accusations of abuse, said the Church’s apologies over such accusations and how it handles them were beginning to ring hollow.

“This shows there are still people in the senior leadership of the church who lack judgment and don’t understand the depth of this crisis,” Sanchez said.

The Church in Chile and elsewhere is facing widespread accusations of sexual misconduct by priests and non-clergy employees and cover-ups by Church leaders, and investigations of such claims in multiple jurisdictions.

The document labeled as “inappropriate” actions that a child “might not accept, or might reject” such as “too tight hugs, or touching bottoms or the genital area.”

It cautioned against “lying or sleeping with, giving massages to or kissing children, adolescents or vulnerable people on the mouth.”

Santiago’s auxiliary archbishop Cristián Roncagliolo said in a statement posted on the Church’s website on Sunday, “We have asked for forgiveness,” and suggested that some aspects taken from Church documents in other countries had been translated “too literally.”

“There are mistakes in the text, perhaps caused by our adopting guidelines from other cultures,” he said, adding that the document would be revised “to reflect in our own words that a crime is a crime.”

Source
http://amp.ewn.co.za/2018/10/02/chile-s-catholic-church-criticised-over-guidelines-regarding-sexual-abuse
 

Al Jilwah: Chapter IV

"It is my desire that all my followers unite in a bond of unity, lest those who are without prevail against them." - Satan

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