Monday, July 05, 2010

More Holy Crimes - Catholic Church in Australia

Joe Jervis has a column, "This Week in Holy Crimes," on his blog, Joe By God, that is always a disturbing yet enlightening read since it exposes the hypocrisy and sexual crimes of self-laudatory "men of God." The crimes are not limited to Catholic priests - although they are always well represented - and includes Baptist pastors, evangelical pastors and even rabbis. To me, it proves that those who obsess about sex in their preaching need more help than their listeners in the pews. The stories are also frequently shocking because they make it clear that denomination authorities often knew that crimes against children and youth were occurring yet they did absolutely nothing to stop it. I guess they were too busy condemning gays, preaching against abortion, or counting their weekly haul of money from the sheeple. A case in point where turning a blind eye to crimes against children comes from Australia and involves all too typically a Catholic predator priest. All of the students knew the monster was a predator yet he was allowed to continue molesting children for decades. Here are highlights from the Sydney Morning Herald:
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When Catholic priest John Sidney Denham walked through the playground of the NSW school he taught at 35 years ago, boys would call out "bums to the wall, Denham's on the crawl". The 67-year-old was jailed for almost 20 years on Friday for his "sadistic", indecent and sexual assault of boys as young as five.
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Judge Helen Syme said the offences often involved "significant planning". They took place between 1968 and 1986 when Denham worked as a teacher at St Pius X High School at Adamstown near Newcastle, and also at Charlestown and Taree, where he worked as parish assistant priest. It wasn't until August 2008 that Denham was charged.
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Thirty-nine men claim they were molested by Denham when they were boys, with the offences including multiple counts of indecent assault and also buggery. In one case, in 1979 at St Pius, a 13-year-old boy was called out of his classroom and taken to Denham's office where he was raped. He was eventually allowed back to class, with the priest handing him a $10 note as he left.
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The mother of another victim, who cannot be identified, said the Catholic Church should be held accountable for the abuse. "He was a horrendous man, really horrendous," she said, blaming other staff at the school for allowing the abuse to continue, including the then principal. "He knew about it... I can't believe I sent my children to a school like that."
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Pope BenedictXVI says that gays are inherently disordered. I'm sorry, but I'd say he's got it backwards. It's he and those like him in the Church who are the ones who are disordered. And many of them ought to be behind bars.

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