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Socrtease
03-25-2010, 01:59 PM
Once more, the Catholic Church defends, protects and hides the abuser, and by doing so tells the victims they don't care at all about them.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer – 17 mins ago
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now the pope — to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishops admitted the trial was coming years after the alleged abuse, but argued that the deaf community in Milwaukee was demanding justice from the church.

An American protester in Rome on Thursday called the Murphy case an "incontrovertible case of pedophilia."

Despite the extensive and grave allegations against Murphy, Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and that Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — now the Vatican's secretary of state — ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he was ill, infirm, and "simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to a swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

On Thursday, a group of Americans who say they were sexually abused by clerics staged a press conference outside St. Peter's Square in Rome to denounce Benedict's handling of the case and gave reporters church and Vatican documents on the case.

Afterward, Italian police detained four Americans for 2 1/2 hours because they didn't have a permit for the news conference and suggested they get a lawyer in case a judge decided to press charges, the Americans said.

"We've spent more time in the police station than Father Murphy did in his life," Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said after his release.

Speaking at the earlier press conference, Isely called the Murphy case the most "incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get."

"The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret," he said, flanked by photos of others who say they were abused and a poster of Ratzinger. "We need to know why he (the pope) did not let us know about him (Murphy) and why he didn't let the police know about him and why he did not condemn him and why he did not take his collar away from him."

The Vatican issued a strong defense in its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 — some 20 years after the diocese first learned of the allegations. He also said Murphy died two years later — in 1998 — and that there was nothing in the church's handling of the matter that precluded any civil action from being taken against him.

In fact, police did investigate the allegations at the time and never proceeded with a case, Lombardi noted. He said in the statement that a lack of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy and noted that "the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."

Murphy worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975. His alleged victims were not limited to the deaf boys' school. Donald Marshall, 45, of West Allis, Wisconsin, said he was abused by Murphy when he was a teenager at the Lincoln Hills School, a juvenile detention center in Irma in northern Wisconsin.

"I haven't stepped in a church for some 20 years. I lost all faith in the church," he told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "These predators are preying on God's children. How can they even stand up at the pulpit and preach the word of God?"

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.

While the documents — letters between diocese and Rome, notes taken during meetings, and summaries of meetings — are remarkable in the church officials' repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops, albeit 20 years later, to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger's deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the case's statute of limitations had run out.

"I have just recently suffered another stroke which has left me in a weakened state," he wrote Ratzinger. "I have repented of any of my past transgressions, and have been living peaceably in northern Wisconsin for 24 years. I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

"I ask your kind assistance in this matter," he wrote the man who would be pope within a decade.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope.

Weakland explained that he was writing because he had only recently learned that the reason Murphy stopped working in 1975 was because he had been accused of soliciting sex in the confessional, one of the gravest sins in canon law.

Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy's alleged crimes might have expired.

Just a few weeks later, Bertone told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional, according to the documents.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to "pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice."

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss, objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that "I have come to the conclusion that scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy."

Fliss and Weakland then met with Bertone in Rome in May 1988. Weakland informed Bertone that Murphy had no sense of remorse and didn't seem to realize the gravity of what he had done, according to a Vatican summary of the meeting.

But Bertone insisted that there weren't "sufficient elements to institute a canonical process" against Murphy because so much time had already passed, according to the summary.

Weakland, likening Murphy to a "difficult" child, then reminded Bertone that three psychologists had determined he was a "typical" pedophile, in that he felt himself a victim.

But Bertone suggested Murphy take a spiritual retreat to determine if he is truly sorry, or otherwise face possible defrocking.

"Before the meeting ended, Monsignor Weakland reaffirmed the difficulty he will have to make the deaf community understand the lightness of these provisions," the summary noted.

The documents contain no response from Ratzinger.

The documents emerged even as the Vatican deals with an ever-widening church abuse scandal sweeping several European countries. Benedict last week issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals there. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of a case in Germany known to have developed when, as cardinal, he oversaw the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

After Murphy was removed from the school in 1974, he went to northern Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his life working in parishes, schools and, according to one lawsuit, a juvenile detention center.

Previously released court documents show Weakland oversaw a 1993 evaluation of Murphy that concluded the priest likely assaulted up to 200 students at the school.

Weakland resigned as archbishop in 2002 after admitting the archdiocese secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

WinterBorn
03-25-2010, 02:09 PM
These worthless bastards have no concern for the damage done, they just want to protect and enable the child molesters.

Canceled1
03-25-2010, 03:16 PM
Once more, the Catholic Church defends, protects and hides the abuser, and by doing so tells the victims they don't care at all about them.

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer – 17 mins ago
VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Thursday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides.

Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now the pope — to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishops admitted the trial was coming years after the alleged abuse, but argued that the deaf community in Milwaukee was demanding justice from the church.

An American protester in Rome on Thursday called the Murphy case an "incontrovertible case of pedophilia."

Despite the extensive and grave allegations against Murphy, Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and that Murphy — then ailing and elderly — should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — now the Vatican's secretary of state — ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he was ill, infirm, and "simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

The New York Times broke the story Thursday, adding fuel to a swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

On Thursday, a group of Americans who say they were sexually abused by clerics staged a press conference outside St. Peter's Square in Rome to denounce Benedict's handling of the case and gave reporters church and Vatican documents on the case.

Afterward, Italian police detained four Americans for 2 1/2 hours because they didn't have a permit for the news conference and suggested they get a lawyer in case a judge decided to press charges, the Americans said.

"We've spent more time in the police station than Father Murphy did in his life," Peter Isely, the Milwaukee-based director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said after his release.

Speaking at the earlier press conference, Isely called the Murphy case the most "incontrovertible case of pedophilia you could get."

"The goal of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, was to keep this secret," he said, flanked by photos of others who say they were abused and a poster of Ratzinger. "We need to know why he (the pope) did not let us know about him (Murphy) and why he didn't let the police know about him and why he did not condemn him and why he did not take his collar away from him."

The Vatican issued a strong defense in its handling of the Murphy case. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 — some 20 years after the diocese first learned of the allegations. He also said Murphy died two years later — in 1998 — and that there was nothing in the church's handling of the matter that precluded any civil action from being taken against him.

In fact, police did investigate the allegations at the time and never proceeded with a case, Lombardi noted. He said in the statement that a lack of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy and noted that "the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."

Murphy worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975. His alleged victims were not limited to the deaf boys' school. Donald Marshall, 45, of West Allis, Wisconsin, said he was abused by Murphy when he was a teenager at the Lincoln Hills School, a juvenile detention center in Irma in northern Wisconsin.

"I haven't stepped in a church for some 20 years. I lost all faith in the church," he told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "These predators are preying on God's children. How can they even stand up at the pulpit and preach the word of God?"

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn't take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school.

While the documents — letters between diocese and Rome, notes taken during meetings, and summaries of meetings — are remarkable in the church officials' repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops, albeit 20 years later, to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger's deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the case's statute of limitations had run out.

"I have just recently suffered another stroke which has left me in a weakened state," he wrote Ratzinger. "I have repented of any of my past transgressions, and have been living peaceably in northern Wisconsin for 24 years. I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."

"I ask your kind assistance in this matter," he wrote the man who would be pope within a decade.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope.

Weakland explained that he was writing because he had only recently learned that the reason Murphy stopped working in 1975 was because he had been accused of soliciting sex in the confessional, one of the gravest sins in canon law.

Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy's alleged crimes might have expired.

Just a few weeks later, Bertone told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional, according to the documents.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to "pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal and the restoration of justice."

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss, objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that "I have come to the conclusion that scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired, nor justice sufficiently restored, without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy."

Fliss and Weakland then met with Bertone in Rome in May 1988. Weakland informed Bertone that Murphy had no sense of remorse and didn't seem to realize the gravity of what he had done, according to a Vatican summary of the meeting.

But Bertone insisted that there weren't "sufficient elements to institute a canonical process" against Murphy because so much time had already passed, according to the summary.

Weakland, likening Murphy to a "difficult" child, then reminded Bertone that three psychologists had determined he was a "typical" pedophile, in that he felt himself a victim.

But Bertone suggested Murphy take a spiritual retreat to determine if he is truly sorry, or otherwise face possible defrocking.

"Before the meeting ended, Monsignor Weakland reaffirmed the difficulty he will have to make the deaf community understand the lightness of these provisions," the summary noted.

The documents contain no response from Ratzinger.

The documents emerged even as the Vatican deals with an ever-widening church abuse scandal sweeping several European countries. Benedict last week issued an unprecedented letter to Ireland addressing the 16 years of church cover-up scandals there. But he has yet to say anything about his handling of a case in Germany known to have developed when, as cardinal, he oversaw the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

After Murphy was removed from the school in 1974, he went to northern Wisconsin, where he spent the rest of his life working in parishes, schools and, according to one lawsuit, a juvenile detention center.

Previously released court documents show Weakland oversaw a 1993 evaluation of Murphy that concluded the priest likely assaulted up to 200 students at the school.

Weakland resigned as archbishop in 2002 after admitting the archdiocese secretly paid $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

Wrong, wrong, and more wrong. Chief reason so many have left the flock.

Damocles
03-26-2010, 11:25 AM
I heard that the Vatican was officially lobbying the Pope to have Mark 10:13-14 officially change to read: "Let the little children come unto Me and Suffer, and forbid them not: for such is the kingdom of God."


"And they brought young children to Him, that He should touch them: and His disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God"
(Mark 10:13-14).

Socrtease
03-26-2010, 01:46 PM
Still waiting for SM to come along and tell us all how the church is still innocent and didn't know and didn't do anything to protect these pedophiles of the cloth

cancel2 2022
03-26-2010, 04:57 PM
Still waiting for SM to come along and tell us all how the church is still innocent and didn't know and didn't do anything to protect these pedophiles of the cloth

Surely the church authorities in Wisconsin need to take most of the blame? It's called the Badger State so maybe they ought to have badgered the Vatican more, sorry I couldn't resist.

WinterBorn
03-27-2010, 03:42 PM
Still waiting for SM to come along and tell us all how the church is still innocent and didn't know and didn't do anything to protect these pedophiles of the cloth

No, SM won't address it at all. The best you can hope for is for him to tell us that more kids are molested in public schools.

WinterBorn
03-30-2010, 06:38 AM
WTF? Now the pope is trying to make it sound as though the church is the victim???

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7079173.ece

Cancel 2016.2
03-30-2010, 08:29 AM
Surely the church authorities in Wisconsin need to take most of the blame? It's called the Badger State so maybe they ought to have badgered the Vatican more, sorry I couldn't resist.

FAIL....

Cancel 2016.2
03-30-2010, 08:31 AM
WTF? Now the pope is trying to make it sound as though the church is the victim???

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7079173.ece

The catholic church needs to clean house. They need to take action with extreme prejudice against the priests that abuse kids. Until they do so, they are nothing more than a running joke.

Damocles
03-30-2010, 08:38 AM
The catholic church needs to clean house. They need to take action with extreme prejudice against the priests that abuse kids. Until they do so, they are nothing more than a running joke.
Not just a joke. It represents a whole different mythological creature to support and protect those who victimize children sexually. People who supposedly speak in the name of God are now complicit in the sexual victimization of children, if that is a representation of God then I want no part of this God's "love"...

Socrtease
03-30-2010, 09:08 AM
Not just a joke. It represents a whole different mythological creature to support and protect those who victimize children sexually. People who supposedly speak in the name of God are now complicit in the sexual victimization of children, if that is a representation of God then I want no part of this God's "love"...They are, at their organizational level, a criminal organization. There is no Cardinal, and probably damn few Arch-Bishops that knew nothing about the sexual abuse of children. The current pope and his predecessor were complicit in the cover up of decades of child sexual abuse. In this country, any Cardinal or Arch-Bishop that knew or should have known of the sexual abuse of children should be arrested as an accomplice after the fact. Failing to turn in someone that is KNOWN to sexually abuse children is a crime for the rest of us and should be for the clergy as well.

Thorn
03-30-2010, 11:07 AM
They are, at their organizational level, a criminal organization. There is no Cardinal, and probably damn few Arch-Bishops that knew nothing about the sexual abuse of children. The current pope and his predecessor were complicit in the cover up of decades of child sexual abuse. In this country, any Cardinal or Arch-Bishop that knew or should have known of the sexual abuse of children should be arrested as an accomplice after the fact. Failing to turn in someone that is KNOWN to sexually abuse children is a crime for the rest of us and should be for the clergy as well.

You'd know about the law better than anybody else here. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike with diplomats, there is no exemption under the law for clergy or other church officials from criminal apprehension and prosecution? Of course, obtaining the necessary evidence that would stand up in a court of law may be difficult given the closed, secretive nature of the organization.

Damocles
03-30-2010, 12:39 PM
You'd know about the law better than anybody else here. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike with diplomats, there is no exemption under the law for clergy or other church officials from criminal apprehension and prosecution? Of course, obtaining the necessary evidence that would stand up in a court of law may be difficult given the closed, secretive nature of the organization.
Wouldn't it be "Person in Power" kind of stuff, like a teacher? They should get it worse than even a normal perv should...

Thorn
03-30-2010, 01:57 PM
Wouldn't it be "Person in Power" kind of stuff, like a teacher? They should get it worse than even a normal perv should...

Absolutely. It's even worse because it's not only power but the priest or teacher is in a position of trust.

Socrtease
03-30-2010, 06:16 PM
You'd know about the law better than anybody else here. Am I correct in assuming that, unlike with diplomats, there is no exemption under the law for clergy or other church officials from criminal apprehension and prosecution? Of course, obtaining the necessary evidence that would stand up in a court of law may be difficult given the closed, secretive nature of the organization.The law is no different for clergy than for the rest of us, except as it applies to confession. The clergy is still exempted from having to report pedophiles to the authorities if the molestation was learned of during confession or religious consultation. This is different from Teachers, social workers, physicians, foster parents, police officers, firefighters and other professionals. That is where the catholic church has made claims of innocense, even when more than one priest knew of the molestation. The Catholic church has knowingly kept pedophiles as parish priests by transferring them to new parishes. For years, priests were sent to the Jemez Springs New Mexico to The Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete. After spending several hard months in the beautiful forest retreat they were sent to other parishes to molest again, even though in the 50's the church knew that pedophile priests were not curable. The retreat in Jemez Springs was known as Camp Ped even by priests that worked there.

Here is an article about it.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2002_08_15_Russell_CampPed.htm

FUCK THE POLICE
03-30-2010, 08:29 PM
pedophile priests were not curable

By current knowledge.

Socrtease
03-30-2010, 09:49 PM
By current knowledge.It's a brain disorder. Medication does not help. They are a danger to our children and should be locked up

FUCK THE POLICE
04-01-2010, 11:54 AM
What the fuck is a brain disorder? Alzheimers?

It's not organic in nature, and I am sure one day we will know how to treat it. The problem was psychologists would say "I can treat that!" with just about everything, when in actuality they could treat practically nothing. Even the things they can treat today, they usually don't have any clue why their methods work. I think Psychology is eventually going to be replaced by neurology.

FUCK THE POLICE
04-01-2010, 11:57 AM
Anyway, the pope should resign. If he wants his church to have any integrity left at all, he needs to get his ass out of the chair, after firing all the priests and bishops and cardinals and everyone who was involved.

Thorn
04-01-2010, 12:33 PM
What the fuck is a brain disorder? Alzheimers?

It's not organic in nature, and I am sure one day we will know how to treat it. The problem was psychologists would say "I can treat that!" with just about everything, when in actuality they could treat practically nothing. Even the things they can treat today, they usually don't have any clue why their methods work. I think Psychology is eventually going to be replaced by neurology.

It may well be organic, we don't know yet. These people are predators, pure and simple, and sociopathic as well. There is evidence for different brain functioning among sociopaths, and not all express that condition in the same way. Medications may help many organic brain disorders, but nothing works if you haven't specifically identified what you're targeting.

Damocles
04-01-2010, 01:11 PM
Absolutely. It's even worse because it's not only power but the priest or teacher is in a position of trust.
Yeah, that's the word I was looking for "Person of Trust"...

Priests hold the ultimate position of trust in a religious person's life, these people should get three times the punishment of even a normal pedophile and those people should be branded and set into gen-pop... The church absolutely has a responsibility to report and turn over every Priest who committed these crimes against children.

Hermes Thoth
04-02-2010, 06:37 AM
Yeah, that's the word I was looking for "Person of Trust"...

Priests hold the ultimate position of trust in a religious person's life, these people should get three times the punishment of even a normal pedophile and those people should be branded and set into gen-pop... The church absolutely has a responsibility to report and turn over every Priest who committed these crimes against children.

Right. And in lieu of those actions, society has a responsibility to destroy the catholic church.

Damocles
04-02-2010, 08:37 AM
Right. And in lieu of those actions, society has a responsibility to destroy the catholic church.
Works for me. All they appear to be doing is giving NAMBLA a face of trust. I'm sorry 3D, but it is simply disgusting to have the leadership of your church doing what these people did.

Socrtease
04-02-2010, 10:19 AM
Works for me. All they appear to be doing is giving NAMBLA a face of trust. I'm sorry 3D, but it is simply disgusting to have the leadership of your church doing what these people did.It is not just disgusting, it is reprehensible.

I don't understand why it is that even the Catholics can't get behind a demand of accountability. Let's just for a second, pretend that a hypothetical Secretary of Education was at an elementary school doing a photo op, sometime during his visit, he molests a child at the school. Now, lets imagine that other members of the president's cabinet find out about it and the Secretary of State writes an internal memo urging everyone keep it quiet and the POTUS approves of this. Then the story breaks sometime into the President's second term. I cannot imagine anyone but the most hackish of political hacks defending the president in the way so many Catholics are now defending the Pope and other members of their church leadership. It should be the same reaction.

Thorn
04-02-2010, 11:03 AM
You're going to love this one! Now the Pope's personal "preacher" is comparing the criticism of the Catholic church over the abuse to antisemitism and the violence suffered by Jews during WWII.

Pope's preacher: Abuse critique like anti-Semitism
By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer Victor L. Simpson, Associated Press Writer
11 mins ago

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher on Friday likened accusations against the pope and the Catholic church in the sex abuse scandal to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews.

The Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa said in a Good Friday homily with the pope listening in St. Peter's Basilica that a Jewish friend wrote to him to say the accusations remind him of the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism."

The 82-year-old pontiff looked weary as he sat near the central altar during the early evening prayer service a few before he was scheduled to take part in a candlelit Way of the Cross procession near the Colosseum which commemorates Christ's suffering before his crucifixion.

Thousands of Holy Week pilgrims were in St. Peter's Square as the church defends itself against accusations that Benedict had a role in covering up sex abuses cases.

The "coincidence" that Passover falls in the same week as Easter celebrations, said Cantalamessa, a Franciscan who offers reflections at Vatican Easter and Advent services, prompted him to think about Jews.

"They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms," the preacher said.

Quoting from the letter from the friend, who wasn't identified by Cantalamessa, the preacher said that he was following '`'with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful of the whole world.'"

"The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism,'" Cantalamessa said his friend wrote him.

In the sermon, he referred to the sexual abuse of children by clergy, saying "unfortunately, not a few elements of the clergy are stained" by the violence." But Cantalamessa said he didn't want to dwell on the abuse of children, saying "there is sufficient talk outside of here."

Benedict didn't speak after the homily, but, in a tired-sounding voice, chanted prayers. He leaned up to remove a red cloth covering a tall crucifix, which was passed to him by an aide. He took off his shoes, knelt and prayed before the cross. "

Talk about denial! I'm just shaking my head in disbelief.

Hermes Thoth
04-02-2010, 12:12 PM
It is not just disgusting, it is reprehensible.

I don't understand why it is that even the Catholics can't get behind a demand of accountability. Let's just for a second, pretend that a hypothetical Secretary of Education was at an elementary school doing a photo op, sometime during his visit, he molests a child at the school. Now, lets imagine that other members of the president's cabinet find out about it and the Secretary of State writes an internal memo urging everyone keep it quiet and the POTUS approves of this. Then the story breaks sometime into the President's second term. I cannot imagine anyone but the most hackish of political hacks defending the president in the way so many Catholics are now defending the Pope and other members of their church leadership. It should be the same reaction.

They're all literally brainwashed.

Hermes Thoth
04-02-2010, 12:30 PM
It is like anti-semitism. Legitimate criticism about elitism, bad behavior, and feelings of entitlement are dismissed as criminal thoughts.

Socrtease
04-02-2010, 05:41 PM
Pathetic, where are the Catholics here to decry this as the complete bullshit it is.

Socrtease
04-02-2010, 05:56 PM
The Pope Is Not Above the Law.
The crimes within the Catholic Church demand justice.
By Christopher HitchensPosted Monday, March 29, 2010, at 1:53 PM ET

One by one, as I predicted, the pathetic excuses of Joseph Ratzinger's apologists evaporate before our eyes. It was said until recently that when the Rev. Peter Hullermann was found to be a vicious pederast in 1980, the man who is now pope had no personal involvement in his subsequent transfer to his own diocese or in his later unimpeded career as a rapist and a molester. But now we find that the psychiatrist to whom the church turned for "therapy" was adamant that Hullermann never be allowed to go near children ever again. We also find that Ratzinger was one of those to whom the memo about Hullermann's transfer was actually addressed. All attempts to place the blame on a loyal subordinate, Ratzinger's vicar general, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber, have predictably failed. According to a recent report, "the transfer of Father Hullermann from Essen would not have been a routine matter, experts said." Either that—damning enough in itself—or it perhaps would have been a routine matter, which is even worse. Certainly the pattern—of finding another parish with fresh children for the priest to assault—is the one that has become horribly "routine" ever since and became standard practice when Ratzinger became a cardinal and was placed in charge of the church's global response to clerical pederasty.

So now a new defense has had to be hastily improvised. It is argued that, during his time as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany, Ratzinger was more preoccupied with doctrinal questions than with mere disciplinary ones. Of course, of course: The future pope had his eyes fixed on ethereal and divine matters and could not be expected to concern himself with parish-level atrocities. This cobbled-up apologia actually repays a little bit of study. What exactly were these doctrinal issues? Well, apart from punishing a priest who celebrated a Mass at an anti-war demonstration—which incidentally does seem to argue for a "hands-on" approach to individual clergymen—Ratzinger's chief concern appears to have been that of first communion and first confession. Over the previous decade, it had become customary in Bavaria to subject small children to their first communion at a tender age but to wait a year until they made their first confession. It was a matter of whether they were old enough to understand. Enough of this liberalism, said Ratzinger, the first confession should come in the same year as the first communion. One priest, the Rev. Wilfried Sussbauer, reports that he wrote to Ratzinger expressing misgivings about this and received "an extremely biting letter" in response.

So it seems that 1) Ratzinger was quite ready to take on individual priests who gave him any trouble, and 2) he was very firm on one crucial point of doctrine: Get them young. Tell them in their infancy that it is they who are the sinners. Instill in them the necessary sense of guilt. This is not at all without relevance to the disgusting scandal into which the pope has now irretrievably plunged the church he leads. Almost every episode in this horror show has involved small children being seduced and molested in the confessional itself. To take the most heart-rending cases to have emerged recently, namely the torment of deaf children in the church-run schools in Wisconsin and Verona, Italy, it is impossible to miss the calculated manner in which the predators used the authority of the confessional in order to get their way. And again the identical pattern repeats itself: Compassion is to be shown only to the criminals. Ratzinger's own fellow clergy in Wisconsin wrote to him urgently—by this time he was a cardinal in Rome, supervising the global Catholic cover-up of rape and torture—beseeching him to remove the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who had comprehensively wrecked the lives of as many as 200 children who could not communicate their misery except in sign language. And no response was forthcoming until Father Murphy himself appealed to Ratzinger for mercy—and was granted it.

For Ratzinger, the sole test of a good priest is this: Is he obedient and discreet and loyal to the traditionalist wing of the church? We have seen this in his other actions as pope, notably in the lifting of the excommunication of four bishops who were members of the so-called Society of St. Pius X, that group of extreme-right-wing schismatics founded by Father Marcel Lefebvre and including the Holocaust-denying Richard Williamson. We saw it when he was a cardinal, defending the cultish and creepy Legion of Christ, whose fanatical leader managed to father some children as well as to shield the molestation of many more. And we see it today, when countless rapists and pederasts are being unmasked. One of those accused in the Verona deaf-school case is the late archbishop of the city, Giuseppe Carraro. Next up, if our courts can find time, will be the Rev. Donald McGuire, a serial offender against boys who was also the confessor and "spiritual director" for Mother Teresa. (He, too, found the confessional to be a fine and private place and made extensive use of it.)

This is what makes the scandal an institutional one and not a matter of delinquency here and there. The church needs and wants control of the very young and asks their parents to entrust their children to certain "confessors," who until recently enjoyed enormous prestige and immunity. It cannot afford to admit that many of these confessors, and their superiors, are calcified sadists who cannot believe their luck. Nor can it afford to admit that the church regularly abandoned the children and did its best to protect and sometimes even promote their tormentors. So instead it is whiningly and falsely asserting that all charges against the pope—none of them surfacing except from within the Catholic community—are part of a plan to embarrass him.

This hasn't been true so far, but it ought to be true from now on. This grisly little man is not above or outside the law. He is the titular head of a small state. We know more and more of the names of the children who were victims and of the pederasts who were his pets. This is a crime under any law (as well as a sin), and crime demands not sickly private ceremonies of "repentance," or faux compensation by means of church-financed payoffs, but justice and punishment. The secular authorities have been feeble for too long but now some lawyers and prosecutors are starting to bestir themselves. I know some serious men of law who are discussing what to do if Benedict tries to make his proposed visit to Britain in the fall. It's enough. There has to be a reckoning, and it should start now.

Canceled2
04-02-2010, 07:47 PM
They are, at their organizational level, a criminal organization. There is no Cardinal, and probably damn few Arch-Bishops that knew nothing about the sexual abuse of children. The current pope and his predecessor were complicit in the cover up of decades of child sexual abuse. In this country, any Cardinal or Arch-Bishop that knew or should have known of the sexual abuse of children should be arrested as an accomplice after the fact. Failing to turn in someone that is KNOWN to sexually abuse children is a crime for the rest of us and should be for the clergy as well.

There are 3 models of church government that churches use:

Episcopal government

Presbyterian government

Congregational government

The Catholic Church uses Episcopal government as their model. It fails and is unbiblical, imo, because all the power for discipline remains at the top with little or no recompense for grievances from the laity.

Presbyterian government to the contrary has in place bodies for which the laity can bring charges and or defend itself in accordance to the Book of Church Order which is a book that contains clear and referenced biblical precedents for which to make or defend your case.

Congregational government has the unique trouble of constant anarchy from within and is in fact the cause of so much splintering. Because of this there is also a loss to doctrinal principles.

cancel2 2022
04-02-2010, 08:02 PM
There are 3 models of church government that churches use:

Episcopal government

Presbyterian government

Congregational government

The Catholic Church uses Episcopal government as their model. It fails and is unbiblical, imo, because all the power for discipline remains at the top with little or no recompense for grievances from the laity.

Presbyterian government to the contrary has in place bodies for which the laity can bring charges and or defend itself in accordance to the Book of Church Order which is a book that contains clear and referenced biblical precedents for which to make or defend your case.

Congregational government has the unique trouble of constant anarchy from within and is in fact the cause of so much splintering. Because of this there is also a loss to doctrinal principles.

Who cares? Wrong is wrong, no matter how you try to justify it.

FUCK THE POLICE
04-02-2010, 11:41 PM
Church shouldn't have a government.

The Catholic church was trying to act like a government here, instituting there own "justice" system, and unleashing "treated" priests back on the populace, like it was just some kind of experiment. One that, if it failed, merely results in the destruction of lives. There was no justification for what they did. They were just protecting their own.

Canceled2
04-03-2010, 12:42 AM
Who cares? Wrong is wrong, no matter how you try to justify it.

I was merely stating the facts on church government. The point being made about Episcopal church governance is that it creates the ability for the kind of corruption that happened in the Catholic Church. The only way that can be interpreted as a justification is that you decided that was the case.

Canceled2
04-03-2010, 12:48 AM
Church shouldn't have a government.

The Catholic church was trying to act like a government here, instituting there own "justice" system, and unleashing "treated" priests back on the populace, like it was just some kind of experiment. One that, if it failed, merely results in the destruction of lives. There was no justification for what they did. They were just protecting their own.

A healthy church MUST have some form of governance. The corruption committed by the Catholic heiarchy is not indicative of anything other than a deliberate choice of a few in power to act apart from their own system of accountability...

My point was that other forms of governance have a better check and balance to maintain moral accountability.

Most churches have some form of authority with regards to their members. This should never negate or replace the authority the state has when crimes are commited.

FUCK THE POLICE
04-03-2010, 01:33 AM
The key problem with the Catholic church here is that they still seem to think they are a government. They are not. It's not the middle ages.

WinterBorn
04-03-2010, 10:29 PM
The key problem with the Catholic church here is that they still seem to think they are a government. They are not. It's not the middle ages.

WM, they were not saying that the church is a government. What was being discussed was a method of governing a large organization.

WinterBorn
04-06-2010, 07:17 AM
The law is no different for clergy than for the rest of us, except as it applies to confession. The clergy is still exempted from having to report pedophiles to the authorities if the molestation was learned of during confession or religious consultation. This is different from Teachers, social workers, physicians, foster parents, police officers, firefighters and other professionals. That is where the catholic church has made claims of innocense, even when more than one priest knew of the molestation. The Catholic church has knowingly kept pedophiles as parish priests by transferring them to new parishes. For years, priests were sent to the Jemez Springs New Mexico to The Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete. After spending several hard months in the beautiful forest retreat they were sent to other parishes to molest again, even though in the 50's the church knew that pedophile priests were not curable. The retreat in Jemez Springs was known as Camp Ped even by priests that worked there.

Here is an article about it.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2002_08_15_Russell_CampPed.htm

Now I wonder if this thread will have any new replies.

Socrtease
04-12-2010, 08:33 PM
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/04/07/hoye.church.abuse.cnn)

tinfoil
04-13-2010, 06:30 PM
http://i.imgur.com/LXKSI.jpg

WinterBorn
04-15-2010, 06:20 AM
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/04/07/hoye.church.abuse.cnn)

No shortage of victims in this disgusting set of events.

But there is certainly a shortage of responsibility from the church leadership.

Also a shortage of comments from our resident catholic defender. :pke: