Almost 60 Percent of Chicago Parishes Had An Accused Predator Priest

As a former Catholic who left the Church in disgust over the sex abuse scandal, I continue to be dismayed by the number of well intentioned people who continue to mindlessly remain in the Catholic Church and by their donations underwrite the utterly corrupt and morally bankrupt Church hierarchy. Perhaps many like to think the sex abuse scandal "happened somewhere else" or some other fabricated justification that allows them to avoid what they ought to be doing: demanding a top to bottom reform of the Catholic Church and voting with their feet if their demands are not met. Membership numbers, and most importantly, money are the only things that truly matter to the bitter old men at the Vatican. A new report that looks at parishes in the Chicago area found that almost SIXTY PERCENT of parishes had house a predatory priest at some point. The problem is NOT conveniently some where else in all too many instances. Meanwhile, NO ONE in the Church hierarchy - including Benedict XVI - has been held truly accountable for their criminal cover ups. I can't help but ask myself WTF is wrong with the Catholic laity? Here are highlights from the Chicago Tribune:
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More than half of Chicago's Roman Catholic parishes have had a priest accused of sexually abusing a child working there at some point, according to a study released today that was quickly questioned by the Chicago Archdiocese.
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In some cases, multiple priests accused of misconduct worked at the same church, according to the study, conducted by reform groups Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "In almost 60 percent of the parishes, an accused predator worked there," said Barbara Blaine, president of SNAP.
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For example, from 1980 to 1990, 57.7% of Chicago parishes had an accused priest working there, said Bob Kopp, one of the study's researchers and vice president of Chicagoland Voice of the Faithful. Other decades examined in the study had similar percentages of affected parishes, he said.
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She is calling for victims to speak up. "Silence protects predators." "We need to start talking about this and ... not bury it under the carpet," Kopp said.
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Numerous churches, including Saint Leonard Parish in Berwyn, Saint Aloysius Church in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood and Saint Christina Parish in Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood, had multiple accused priests come through in various years, according to the study.
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A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese said she had not seen the report and could not comment.

Bishop's Deposition Details Attempts to Keep Sexual Abuse Secret

The stories about the heinous conduct of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy to protect predatory priests and cover up the rampant sexual abuse of children and minors just keep unfolding. As the Chicago Tribune is reporting, the deposition of a former Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Chicago reveals over two dozen predator priest who were knowingly protected by the archdiocese with apparently little or no regard for the minors being molested by these priests. Rather, it was all about protecting the Church's reputation and to Hell with the laws against molesting minors and aiding and abetting crimes. I suspect the deposition is a microcosm of what happened in diocese all around the world - and may still be happening despite the Church's disingenuous promises that it has put its house in order. Meanwhile, those who covered up abuse and enabled predatory priests have never been held to account under either Church law or the civil laws. Here are some story highlights:
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The archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay $3.9 million to settle six sexual abuse cases and on Tuesday released a bishop's deposition that detailed the church's failure to report the crimes and attempts to keep them secret.
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The 180-page deposition provides a rare glimpse of "how clerical culture operated in the past," said Jeffrey R. Anderson, an attorney for the victims. Retired Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert, the second-highest-ranking bishop in the Chicago archdiocese, testified that most of the priests he confronted with sexual abuse charges admitted them.
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"I knew the civil law considered it a crime," Goedert said in his deposition, adding that he felt church law required him to treat matters confidentially. "I simply would not talk about [the cases] to anyone except those who had a right to know because of their position in the diocese."
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"What emerges here is that the interests of the institution come first, then the man, the perpetrator of crime," Pearlman said. "And somewhere in the distance [are] the victims of the crime. Their priorities are in the wrong order."

The deposition shows how "deeply ingrained secrecy" is in this archdiocese, Barbara Dorris, the outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement. . . . "That confidentiality allowed the archdiocese to move serial predators from parish to parish without congregations' knowledge about child-abuse allegations," she said.
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago paid more than $15.8 million in legal settlements related to sexual abuse last year, amounting to $80.2 million in claims from June 2001 to June 2008.
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I continue to believe that a married clergy would not have so coldly and uncaringly ignored the interests of the minors being abused. Few parents would not feel compelled to stop such abuse but for a group of celibate men without families, the institution mattered more than the children. Benedict XVI and others in the hierarchy still do not get it - and never will.

Chicago Catholic Church Settles Some Abuse Claims

The financial hemorrhaging of the Roman Catholic Church continues, this time its the Archdiocese of Chicago making settlement payments in sexual abuse cases field by victims of pedophile priests. Meanwhile, of course, the corrupt hierarchy acts as if the abusive priests were the only ones responsible for the scandal as bishops and cardinals who covered up the abuse and/or knowingly transferred predator priests to unsuspecting parishes continue to live like the privileged and wealthy with members of the laity fawning over them and kissing their hypocritical asses. The Church's only sorrow is over having been caught - they could careless about the victims of abuse. Here are some highlights from Reuters:

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago's Roman Catholic archdiocese announced on Tuesday it will pay $12.7 million to settle 16 claims of sexual abuse involving 10 former priests and a school principal. U.S. Catholic archdioceses have paid nearly $2 billion to satisfy hundreds of abuse claims since the scandal broke in Boston in 1992. Some abusive priests were found to have been shielded by church leaders.

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"My hope is that these settlements will help the survivors and their families begin to heal and move forward," Chicago Cardinal Francis George, head of the second-largest U.S. archdiocese, said in a statement. Victims' lawyer Jeffrey Anderson said "the release of his (George's) deposition today is a significant step toward openness and transparency and helps the survivors and the church community in healing and recovery."

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Some of the cases in Tuesday's settlement date to the 1960s, he said. Two of the 10 Chicago-area priests named in Tuesday's settlement have died and two others are in prison, including Daniel McCormack who abused children as recently as 2006.