Catholic Diocese Legal Defense: A priest Is Not a priest When He's Molesting Children

As more and more victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy are increasing demanding that Pope Francis take action against high clerics who covered up abuse and/or protected predator priests, the Diocese of Trenton has put forth an utterly absurd defense in a lawsuit which claims that the diocese has no liability for abuse because when a priest is molesting children, he is not "on duty."  This outrage gives even more merit to demands that Francis cease the mealy mouthed apologies and fire some individuals, and by fire, I mean defrock them and kick them to the curb pension less.  Nj.com looks at the batshitery coming out of the diocese of Trenton.  Here are highlights:

Chris Naples says something snapped inside him that January day.

The Burlington County man sat in the gallery of the Delaware Supreme Court, watching as a lawyer for the Diocese of Trenton told the justices that the Rev. Terence McAlinden was not "on duty" — or serving in his capacity as a priest — when he allegedly molested Naples on trips to Delaware in the 1980s.

McAlinden, who once headed the diocese’s youth group, had introduced himself to Naples at a church-sponsored leadership retreat in Keyport. He’d heard his confession, included him in private Masses and discussed matters of spirituality with him.

Yet McAlinden wasn’t officially a priest when he took a teenage Naples to Delaware, the lawyer argued.

[R]eplied the diocese lawyer, “you can determine a priest is not on duty when he is molesting a child, for example. ... A priest abusing a child is absolutely contrary to the pursuit of his master’s business, to the work of a diocese.”

"Any hope I had that the church was concerned about me as a victim or about the conduct of its priests was totally gone," Naples, now 42, said in a recent interview. "They were washing their hands of it. I was shattered. I just couldn’t believe that was one of their arguments."

He [McAlinden]  also admitted sleeping nude with "a number of" teen boys who were active in the diocese’s youth group. The overnights took place at Jeremiah House, the youth group’s headquarters in Keyport, and at the rectory of St. Theresa’s, he said. Other times, McAlinden said, teen boys bathed nude with him in a hot tub at his parents’ home in Toms River.

Meanwhile, a piece in The Independent looks at the growing demands that Pope Francis do more than give lip service to supposed remorse over the rape of children and youths by Catholic clergy.  Here are highlights:

As Pope Francis prepares to meet victims of sexual abuse by clergy, will he concede that the notion of abstinence has failed, and even more importantly, demand that priests facing accusations of sexual abuse be handed over to the law? 

During a flight from Jerusalem last week, Francis announced he would be meeting with sexual abuse victims at the Vatican and declared the act of priests’ molestation of children equivalent to “a satanic mass”.

Enough already! 

By now victims and whistle-blowers of the Roman Catholic’s sexual scandals – details of which have exploded in the last 15 years or so – could do with more action and less of the emotive descriptions of what are plain unlawful acts which ought to be handed to law enforcement for prosecution. 

Benedict and Francis conveniently forget that the church holds itself to a higher standard than that found in the broader society. 

It is the church which ordains its priests to act in the person of Christ the Head. But that aside, what has transpired in this regard since the declarations “to deal appropriately and transparently” with these sordid deeds? 

The Ryan Commission set up by the Irish Government to investigate the extent and effects of abuse on children in Irish institutions operated by Catholic Church orders found wide-ranging abuse including physical, emotional, sexual abuse and neglect. 

The Belfast Telegraph described the details of the commission’s report as “Ireland’s nightmare from hell” and “Ireland’s shameful holocaust”. 

The paper said the findings were “our Nuremberg trial, Irish style, with no names, prosecution and no court appearances”.

And what of the many bishops and leaders of the Roman Catholic Church who have stymied investigations into the accusations, and where priests who have been identified as wrong-doers have been shifted from parish to parish to obstruct and deny victims justice? 

Where are the offending priests? 

What of the men and women who have come forth on the side of the victims and spoken up but have now been chastised as a result of their actions?

 Will he [Pope Francis] now step up to the plate and decisively deal with the issue of the clergy’s sexual abuse and, while at it, put up for review the celibacy of Roman Catholic priests?