Diocese of Bridgeport Seeks Secrecy in Priest Sex-Abuse Cases

While the Roman Catholic Church claims to be remoreseful over the world wide sex abuse scandal, the hierarchy's actions speak volumnes more than the crocodile tears shed by the less than saintly John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and other bishops and cardinals. Ultimately, the true agenda of the old queens in dresses is to continue to cover up the Church's dirty linen. The litigation involving the Diocese of Bridgeport , Connecticut, is a case in point. Three news papers have sued to obtain access to records from sexual abuse trials and the Church is doing all it can to keep the records sealed - including now asking the full U.S. Supreme Court to review the lower court decisions ordering the release of documents, including depositions of retired Cardinal Edward Egan of New York (pictured at left) who was the former bishop of the Bridgeport Diocese and a former henchman for Cardinal Law in Boston. Obviously, the Church seems afraid that these sealed documents will show the level to which the Church sacrificed the safety and welfare of children and youths in exchange for keeping up appearances for the Church and/or predator priests. Here are some highlights from the News Times:

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport on Friday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep secret more than 12,600 court documents from priest sex-abuse cases. The 50-page writ, prepared by a New York law firm recently hired to handle the appeal, asks the court to overturn the state Supreme Court ruling that the files are public documents. The appeal hinges on two legal issues: the state Supreme Court's definition of what constitutes a legal document, and the church's contention that its First Amendment rights would be violated by unsealing documents that church officials produced with the understanding that they would be secret forever.

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Among the court documents the diocese is striving to keep sealed are three depositions by then-Bishop Edward Egan, who was in charge of the Bridgeport Diocese when most of the lawsuits against priests under his control were filed and adjudicated. Egan recently retired as the archbishop of New York.

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Four newspapers, including the Hartford Courant, filed a lawsuit to have the documents unsealed in 2002 when it was discovered that they had not been destroyed. The court ruled that all but 15 documents in the 23 separate files are public records. Those 15 documents, at least two of which are depositions, were not submitted as legal documents and will remain sealed, the court ruled.

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If the Church leadership was truly contrite and wanted to insure that the errors of the past are never repeated, it would not be fighting tooth and claw to keep information sealed and secret. But, in my opinion, there is no true contrition on the part of the Church and its hierarchy. Their sole regret is that they got caught and that the news of the cover ups for sexual predators on a massive scale was exposed to the public. The ruined lives of thousands of victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy really means nothing to these nasty and out of touch frauds. And yes, that includes Benedict XVI who is as guilty as many others.

Sex Abuse Victim Told to 'Go to Hell' by Catholic Archbishop

In what I suspect is a glimpse of the Roman Catholic Church's true attitude towards the victims of sexual abuse by priests, Australian Archbishop Denis Hart told a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest to "go to hell, bitch" when the woman was demanding redress for abuse she suffered at the hands of a priest after his suspension as a priest in the 1990s for abusing another woman had been overturned. Although the woman could have formatted her demands in a better fashion, what truly peeved the good Archbishop was that "his privacy had been significantly breached as a result of the early morning visit" by the abuse victim. In my opinion, the good archbishop has his priorities seriously f*cked up, but then with most of the members of the Catholic Church hierarchy I have met in the past, their egos were huge, it was all about them, and they demanded that the laity kiss their asses. Here are a few highlights from The Age:

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MELBOURNE Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart told a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest to "go to hell, bitch" in conduct labelled appalling by a Victorian magistrate. Archbishop Hart later apologised to the woman in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for what magistrate Anne Goldsborough described as ''appalling words of abuse''.

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Court documents confirm the archbishop's outburst after he was granted an intervention order against the woman, who had pursued him over her abuse by priest Barry Whelan in 2001. The magistrate said that a ''very, very angry'' Archbishop Hart had told the woman to ''go to hell bitch'' after she knocked on his door at 1.20am. . .

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The magistrate found that the archbishop was angry that his privacy had been significantly breached as a result of the early morning visit. But Ms Goldsborough rejected the archbishop's lawyer's claim that the victim's abuse was not a relevant factor in the intervention order court case.

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The Age reported yesterday that a St Patrick's Cathedral newsletter last month named Barry Whelan as a ''living treasure'', despite the church's own investigator finding that he had abused several woman. The archdiocese has said this was a mistake and has apologised.

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The Age investigation into the Melbourne Catholic Church's handling of sexual abuse claims has also reported: . . . . Comments from Melbourne Vicar General Les Tomlinson that there is a church sex abuse ''victims' industry'' that seeks to exploit victims to make money - which the Archbishop yesterday said ''weren't helpful''.

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As I have said before, there is no real contrition on the part of the Church hierarchy and that absent a total house cleaning of bishops and cardinals who covered up for and/or enabled predatory priests, the stage continues to be set for further instances of abuse no matter what blather the hierarchy puts out. The hierarchy is rotten to the core.