The Vatican - Still Protecting Its Own

Yesterday, the Washington Post editorial board published an editorial that looks at a situation in Maryland that is a microcosm of the worldwide problem with the Roman Catholic Church: it gives lip service to contrition for the sexual abuse of children and youths yet does all in its power to block the extension of statute of limitations restriction applicable to victims and then it fights tooth and claw in courtroom after court room to deny compensation to victims.   As a child, I was raised to believe that actions speak louder than words.  In the sex abuse context, the Church's actions speak volumes, none of which are flattering of the institutional Church and its corrupt, out of touch, and fossilized hierarchy.  Here are editorial excerpts:

These accounts, and several dozen others like them, now appear on the website of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, which recently published a list — or rather, republished one from 2002 with 14 additional names — of clergy alleged to have abused children. Similar lists have been published by other dioceses, which in recent years have taken steps to atone for years of sweeping such cases under the rug by adopting more forthcoming policies and providing counseling to victims of abusive priests.

The church says the publication of these names will provide acknowledgment to victims that they are not alone. . . . victims may be “empowered to find out that other people have alleged against the same person,” according to Sean Caine, spokesman for the archdiocese.

That’s a fair point but an inadequate one. For while the archdiocese is extending one sort of validation to victims, it’s simultaneously pressing to deny most of them another sort: the opportunity to seek redress in the courts.

For years, even as it acknowledged having systematically enabled and covered up the abuse of children by priests, the church has also fought aggressively to maintain tight deadlines that limit the time in which survivors may file lawsuits against abusers and superiors who looked the other way.

In Maryland, the church, fearing the financial fallout of such suits, has lobbied so effectively that bills to extend the deadline, known as the statute of limitations, have not even been accorded a vote in the legislature. The result for the great majority of victims is that by the time they speak up about the abuse they suffered — typically, many years after the fact, as the examples at the top of this editorial illustrate — they no longer have the option of filing a lawsuit, which now ends at age 25.

The church argues that abusers are ill-equipped to defend themselves when alleged victims level their accusations many years after the fact; it cites fading memories, unreliable witnesses and fragile evidence. Yet Maryland, like most states, has no such deadline limiting when abusers can be criminally prosecuted. Just as in criminal cases, civil juries are qualified to judge the strength of a victim’s allegations and a defendant’s response.

If victims come forward more quickly, owing to the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight” and intensified public discussion of abuse, that would be a good thing. In the meantime, justice for victims must include the option of litigation — even if that proves costly for the Catholic Church and other institutions.

As difficult as it may be for many Catholics to accept the truth (one of my family members has finally walked away from Catholicism), the institutional Church and its hierarchy are evil and corrupt organization lead by criminal conspirators notwithstanding Pope Francis' lip service to hold members of the hierarchy accountable.  Only a mass exodus of members, sharply dropping revenues and growing irrelevance will force the Church to change and ultimately act responsibly for the horrors it has done to children, youths and society.

   

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?