Sexual Abuse in Catholic Church was Widespread, Journalist Asserts

While the Roman Catholic Church continues it anti-gay jihad, it is important that details of the utterly foul cover up conspiracy of the Church hierarchy continues to be broad cast far and wide.  In truth, given the scope and duration of the sex abuse scandal - which in reality likely extends back for centuries - no Pope or prelate deserves even a shred of credibility much less respect or deference.  Many of these men belong behind bars.  A new book,  Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal, by Michael D’Antonio, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will help expose the disgusting moral rot at the Vatican and bishoprics around the world.   A review in Trinity College Review looks at the book and some of the horrid details revealed.  Here are excerpts:

Michael D’Antonio’s book, Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal, has only recently been published, but it’s already won rave reviews from the likes of Publisher’s Weekly, which called it “the definitive history of the Catholic Church’s ‘most severe crisis since the Reformation’: the revelations of endemic sexual abuse of minors by priests in the United States and Europe.”

In Mortal Sins, D’Antonio is harshly critical of the church hierarchy’s handling of the sexual abuse crisis, dating to 1983-84, when the initial claims of abuse began surfacing. Although many people believe that the crisis began in Boston in 2002, D’Antonio called that “a myth” that has been widely accepted as fact. To the contrary, the sexual abuse cases have been much more widespread and damaging to the Catholic Church than is commonly believed.

Over the course of the scandal, D’Antonio said, more than 6,100 priests were “deemed by the Church itself to be ‘not implausibly’ or ‘credibly’ accused of sexual crimes against more than 16,000 underage victims in the United States alone.”

In his book, D’Antonio points out that more than 500 American priests have been arrested and prosecuted. And of those, more than 400 were convicted and imprisoned. As of 2012, the worldwide Church had paid about $3 billion to settle civil lawsuits, but there are still claims that are waiting to be settled.

Alluding to the Church’s leaders, D’Antonio said many of them ignored the allegations and others simply hoped the claims would go away. For example, in Los Angeles in 2005, the Church’s hierarchy paid $650 million to the victims in the hopes that the issue would face from public view. Other Church elders refused to believe the victims’ stories.

D’Antonio said it wasn’t until the crisis struck that people realized how “profoundly flawed” many priests were. And he criticized Church leaders for failing to discipline any of the bishops who conspired “to cover this stuff up. People are very aggrieved that no bishop has been held accountable,” he said, adding that many bishops evaded responsibility and averted punishment by fleeing to other countries.

D’Antonio ends his book on a relatively pessimistic note, writing, “the Church in America will inevitably face new civil claims based on fraud, which will drain it of resources and credibility.”

Again I ask, why does anyone listen to anything the Catholic bishop have to say on anything?  Many of these men are monsters.