Criminal Charges Against Cardinal George Pell Still a Possibility

Taking a brief break from political coverage, a piece in the Australian newspaper The Age brings back the reality that the Catholic Church hierarchy remains very much in favor of protecting sexual predator priests and throwing the victims of clergy sex abuse under the bus.  Personally, I would love to see Pell, the highest ranking member of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Australia, hit with criminal charges.  Here are story highlights:

Mr Ashton appeared on radio on Thursday morning responding to explosive allegations aired on ABC 7.30, as well as subsequent claims by Cardinal Pell of a "conspiracy" to pervert the course of justice.

Mr Ashton confirmed Cardinal Pell was the subject of an investigation by the Sano Taskforce that involved multiple allegations over a long period of time.

On Wednesday night, 7.30 aired detailed allegations made by former students of St Alipius primary school in Ballarat, who alleged Cardinal Pell would play with them in the swimming pool and molest them by touching their genitals under water. 

Mr Ashton said charges against the Cardinal were still a possibility and that detectives were waiting on an opinion from the Office of Public Prosecution on whether the inquiry should continue.

"It's been a long investigation ... there are a lot of leads that have to be followed up," he said.

Cardinal Pell has rejected the allegations, claiming that Victoria Police leaked the information to the ABC and compromised the judicial process.

The ABC obtained eight police statements from complainants, witnesses and family members who are reportedly helping the taskforce with its investigation. 

One complainant, Darren Mooney, spoke publicly: "He'd throw us off his shoulders ... he would grab you from – have his hands on your backside and then he'd push you off," Mr Mooney said.

Another alleged victim, Lyndon Monument, described the abuse as: "his hand touching your genitals and stuff on the outside of your bathers or shorts. And then that slowly became hand down the front of the pants or your bathers or whatever you call them."

[He would] grab you ... around the testes, around the anus ... very forceful around the anus," a third complainant,  Damian Dignan, told the program.

Other allegations aired on the program included:
·                      that Cardinal Pell would touch the genitals of children while swimming in a public pool in Ballarat in the late '70s.
·                      that he was naked in the change rooms on a regular basis in front of children.
·                      that he exposed himself to three young children in another change room, at the Torquay Surf Club in 1986 or 1987.
Cardinal Pell's office issued a furious statement and said he rejected all the allegations aired by the program.

Charges could still be laid against Cardinal George Pell over a string of allegations of child sex abuse going back decades, says Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton. 

Conservatives Praise Severely Flawed Study About Same-Sex Parents

Dishonest "researcher" Donald Sullins

This blog has noted a number of times the hugely flawed gay parenting "study" issued by Mark Regnerus.  Indeed, the study was so flawed that Regnerus' own department trashed both Regnerus and his anti-gay report that was funded by right wing anti-gay groups,  Now, Donald Paul Sullins, a Catholic priest and sociology professor at Catholic University of America who is also a fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of Family Research Council, a certified hate group, has authored a similar study that seeming decided the anti-gay findings it wanted to derive and then manipulated data and facts to purportedly support the preordained conclusions. As I have said many, many times, no one lies more often or more deliberately than the "godly folk."   Both Regnerus and now Sullins need to be expelled from the faculties of their respective universities.   Think Progress looks at this latest religious extremist propaganda smear piece.  Here are highlights:

Conservatives are excitedly promoting a new study that supposedly reveals negative outcomes for the children of same-sex parents. Like the infamously flawed Mark Regnerus study rushed out two years ago, the new study seems timed to impact the Supreme Court’s upcoming consideration of marriage equality for same-sex couples. It suffers, however, from some of the same flaws and biases as Regnerus’ study, and doesn’t actually support the argument against marriage equality that it tries to make.

The new study comes from Donald Paul Sullins, a Catholic priest and sociology professor at Catholic University of America. Sullins is a fellow of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, a project of the anti-LGBT Family Research Council, and a Fourth Degree member of the Knights of Columbus, which has funneled millions of dollars into fighting marriage equality over the past decade. In 2010, he co-wrote a study suggesting that female homosexuality was somehow connected to growing up in a broken home, and when he has written about same-sex marriage, he uses scare quotes around the word “marriage.”

Sullins conducted an analysis of data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) that had been collected from 1997-2013. He concluded that information about the 512 same-sex parents identified in the study demonstrates that their children have more emotional problems compared to couples raised by their biological different-sex couples.

One of the first major flaws, however, is the fact that Sullins has no information about whether the same-sex couples were actually married. As he notes, “Almost all opposite-sex parents who are raising joint biological offspring are in intact marriages, but very few, if any, same-sex parents were married during the period under observation.”

No conclusions can actually be drawn about the impacts of legalizing same-sex marriage because the study, by its own admission, collected no data about same-sex marriage or its effect on children. 

Regnerus himself provides an overview of the research. In his attempt to defend it, however, he in turn reveals that it also has the very same flaws as his own study.

As a vehicle for opposing same-sex marriage, the study severely lacks integrity, as its political positions don’t jibe with its data.  

Conservatives praise these studies for their large samples, eagerly highlighting their negative results while ignore the distortions required to arrive at them. A recent large study from Australia with a similarly-sized pool of same-sex parents who had actually raised children together as couples found that the children have quite positive outcomes. Indeed, there are ample studies that consistently justify the medical community’s support for same-sex couples to have equal access to marriage and joint adoption for their families. As Regnerus himself pointed out, when researchers don’t conflate same-sex families with unstable homes, the results are positive.

It is also noteworthy that Sullins is a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus, an organization that has consistently supported bishops and cardinals who covered up for and abetted predator priests and threatened and intimidated abuse victims and their families.   The K of C was founded to protect widows and children but over the years its main focus has been to support the corrupt Church hierarchy and throw children under the bus. 

Catholic Cardinal: Parents Should Shield Children from Gay Family Members

Cardinal Burke - Self-Loathing Closet Case?

The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has participated in a worldwide criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice and protect predatory priests from prosecution.  Various calculations put the number of victims across the globe in the hundreds of thousands.  Yet Cardinal Burke has the gall and audacity to make statements that parents should keep their children away from gay family members.   Excuse me, but if one is truly worried about the well-being of their children, keeping them away from Catholic priests would seem to be the far smarter approach.  And that's without factoring in how much the Catholic Church f*cks one up emotionally and psychologically.  Blogger friend Jeremy Hooper looks at Burke's heinous lies and anti-gay animus.   Here are excerpts from Good As You:

Cardinal Raymond Burke, former Archbishop of St. Louis, is now the Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. This essentially means that he is second only to the Pope in terms of judicial authority within the Catholic Church.

And now here he is putting to lie the idea that the Catholic Church is becoming more accepting:

“If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are — reason teaches us that and also our faith — then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person?”..."We wouldn’t, if it were another kind of relationship — something that was profoundly disordered and harmful — we wouldn't expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it. And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil.”

Covering up the sexual abuse of children and youths is always and everywhere wrong, yet I don't see or hear of Burke demanding the defrocking of bishops and cardinals who aided and abetted sexual predator priests. I can only assume that Burke is a big time self-loathing closet case.  Seriously, what straight man would wear the freaking outfit he's wearing in the photo above? 

Most Milwaukee Sex Abuse Victims Will Receive No Money

Remember how it was claimed when the Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed bankruptcy that the move would allow the Archdiocese to honestly address the claims of sex abuse victims?  At the time those familiar with the details of the filing said that the real motive behind the filing was to (i) protect Church assets and (ii) screw the victims of sex abuse by priests.  These predictions have turned out to be right on the mark and as the National Catholic Reporter has indicted, the victims of priestly sex abuse will be screwed over and receive nothing for the harm they suffered.  Frankly, it is par for the course with the Catholic Church and shows the lie of Pope Francis' claims that the Church is going to get serious about sex abuse.   Absent dramatic action by Francis, we once again see that the true god of the Church hierarchy is - as it always has been - money.  Here are story details:

The Milwaukee archdiocese will walk away from bankruptcy relatively unscathed if its proposed reorganization plan is accepted by Judge Susan V. Kelley.

Although it was lawsuits brought by 570 alleged childhood victims of clergy sex abuse that forced the archdiocese into bankruptcy court, a close reading of the 337-page document shows that the vast majority of those claims will get no financial compensation from a $4 million fund for survivors.

Most other creditors in the case will be paid, although some will get less than they say they are due.

The archdiocese has no plans to reduce its annual $24 million operating budget or sell any property. It will have to put some property up as collateral to "borrow" $2 million from the controversial cemetery perpetual care trust fund -- the same $57 million fund church officials fought to keep out of the bankruptcy case that is now being appealed.

If the plan is not adopted, litigation could continue for another five years, cost another $14 million and mean that each individual survivor who filed a claim would have a separate trial, according to the archdiocese.

The judge has scheduled a hearing with lawyers for the claimants at 10:30 a.m. Central time Tuesday.
Monica Barrett is among the 80 percent of abuse claims that the archdiocese says is not eligible for compensation. Barrett said she was sexually abused in 1968 at the age of 8 by William Effinger, one of the archdiocese's most prolific abusers.

She likened the conduct of the archdiocese in the bankruptcy case to that of predators.  "They lure the victim in by saying, 'Come forward, and we will treat you fairly and put an end to all this,' and then they do this," she said. "They are revictimizing the victims."

Lawyers representing the majority of the survivors for nearly a decade said it is unlikely they will accept the plan. Kelley has the authority to "cram down" -- force the plan to be accepted by unwilling claimants -- but an appeal is likely.

The archdiocese says only 128 of the claims are eligible for compensation and could receive approximately $27,000 per person. The other survivors will get no financial settlement, but the archdiocese may provide therapy to some or work with others to get responsible parties to pay for therapy.

For those who do not understand why I left the Catholic Church, all I can say is open your fucking eyes and look at situations like this one in Milwaukee.  If you do not walk away form this morally bankrupt institution, you become complicit in these vile deeds and become guilty.  Moral and decent people will walk away.  Those who do not show themselves for the morally bankrupt people that they are.

 

Australia: Catholic Church Paid $43 Million to Keep Abuse Secret

Pope Francis may be Time Magazine's 2013 Person of the Year, but that accolade is not keeping the new explosions of the world wide sex abuse scandals under wraps.  Just as the Roman Catholic Church went into a free fall in Ireland after government investigations into sexual abuse blew the lid off of the perversion and abuse that had been deliberately hidden by high Church clerics, now the Royal Commission in Australia is turning up more and more lurid details of sins committed by bishops and cardinals who sought to silence victims of clerical sex abuse.  It now appears that at least $43 million in hush money was paid since 1996 to keep abuse victims silent and away form the police or the media.  The question thus becomes once again one of what Francis will do to hold bishops and cardinal accountable and to punish those involved in this criminal conspiracy.  The Daily Telegraph has details.  Here are highlights:

THE Catholic Church has admitted paying at least $43 million in hush money to victims of its paedophile priests, as the church's barrister outraged victims yesterday by quoting from the Bible. 

 

In some cases, victims were not even allowed to tell their husbands, wives or children about the secret settlements negotiated through the church's controversial Towards Healing process.

The royal commission into child sex abuse was yesterday also told how a Brisbane Catholic priest, Father Frank Derriman, ran a cult-like group sexually abusing young girls and giving them all the surname Brown, borrowed from the Peanuts comic strip's Charlie Brown.

As the church apologised for its behaviour through the commission, survivors who were abused as children in orphanages and homes, walked out of the Sydney hearing in tears when the church's counsel, Peter Gray SC quoted from the Gospel of Mark.

It is the first time the church has been forced to reveal the extent of compensation paid to victims, although it does not include out-of-court settlements or other payments made outside the Towards Healing process.

Counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, said that between January 1996 and September 2013, $43 million had been paid by all church authorities with the Christian Brothers the most notorious.

The second largest number of complaints were made against the Marist Brothers and then the De La Salle Brothers.

In that time, 2215 victims had approached the Towards Healing process and 1700 people went ahead with it, although not all were pursued or substantiated.

The most complaints, 43 per cent, were made against religious brothers, 21 per cent against diocesan priests and 14 per cent against religious priests. Most of the abuse happened between 1950 to 1980 in orphanages and schools.

There are many more lurid details, so read the whole piece.  It is shocking - or at least to anyone who hasn't followed the sex abuse scandal closely - and underscores the cesspool nature of the Church hierarchy.   If Francis wants to live up to the tile given to him by Time, he needs to begin cleaning house big time.  And forcing bishops and cardinals into retirements where they continue to live like princes is not enough.  They need to be thrown out and left on the street with no retirements, no plush living quarters, and no titles and deference.

In Response to Catholic Church Scandal Autralia Launches Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse

As I have noted in a number of previous posts, Australia is the latest country in which the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has been exploding.  Now, in a move that more countries need to emulate, Australia is launching a royal commission to investigate child sex abuse.  While not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, the Church will obviously receive much scrutiny, particularly since the sex abuse scandals and cover ups by the Church hierarchy did much to fuel demands for a national inquiry.   Perhaps most critical is the fact that the commission will not only investigate those who sexually abused children, but also those who engaged in cover ups for predators.  The Sydney Morning Herald has coverage.  Here are highlights:

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has announced a sweeping royal commission into child sex abuse that will probe organisations ranging from the Catholic Church and state authorities to the boy scouts and sports groups.

The inquiry into institutional responses to abuse will not just look at perpetrators. It will also cover those who were ''complicit'' - for example, in alleged offenders being moved around - or who by ''averting their eyes'' committed acts of omission.

Ms Gillard said the allegations that had come to light recently were heartbreaking. ''These are insidious, evil acts to which no child should be subject,'' she said.

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The victims deserved the ''most thorough of investigations'', she said. The royal commission was not to impede police investigations or compensation claims.   Ms Gillard said the inquiry would provide victims with the opportunity to speak out if they chose. ''I understand that for some people it can be healing to get the opportunity to tell their story.''

The Prime Minister spoke to Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu and NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell, who have state inquiries under way - both offered co-operation.

After a swathe of allegations of abuse in Catholic institutions in particular, Ms Gillard was under cross-party pressure to act. Chief government whip Joel Fitzgibbon urged a royal commission, as did Labor backbenchers Doug Cameron, Melissa Parke and Stephen Jones. Crossbenchers Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Nick Xenophon and the Greens also called for action.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox of the NSW police, who has been involved in investigating abuse and has alleged cover-ups, said he was stunned that the commission had been called so quickly and was delighted for the victims.

Similar inquiries in Ireland have resulted in a public repudiation of the Catholic Church and the Church is currently in a free fall in Ireland.  One can only hope the Australian inquiry is as detailed and rigorous.  I suspect that it will expose a veritable cesspool of cover ups by Church clerics.

Catholic Priest: It’s The Kids’ Fault They Were Molested

If one wants a glimpse into the utterly f8cked up world  and alternate universe of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, one need only the statements of Fr. Benedict Groeschel (pictured above), who in comments during an interview with the National Catholic Register basically blamed children and youths for their own molestation at the hands of Catholic priests.  In Groeschel's bizarre world, the victims seduced their molesters.  It's beyond sick, but in my view is representative of the Church hierarchy's mentally disturbed mindset.  How anyone moral and honorable can still give any deference or respect to these foul individuals is mind boggling.  Box Turtle Bulletin has a good analysis of Groeschel's batshitery.  Here are excerpts:

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, the 79-year-old founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, is not just a curmudgeonly New Jersey-born and -accented Capuchin monk. He is also a long-time television personality on the Catholic television network EWTN and popular speaker among American Catholicism’s conservative set. But he’s not just a Franciscan priest, he’s also Dr. Benedict Groeschel, having earned a Ph.D in Psychology from Columbia University back in 1971, when homosexuality was still considered a mental illness by the APA.

As one of the Church’s acknowledged “experts” on sexuality, Groeschel was called upon by east coast dioceses, including the Boston Archdiocese, to perform psychological screenings to candidates for the priesthood. He has also been called upon to counsel Catholic priests who were accused of sexual improprieties — including those who had sex with minors – with disasterous results. Nevertheless, he was honored in 2011 by the Catholic Psychotherapy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

I think it’s important to understand all of that before reading what Groeschel told the National Catholic Register this week:

People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.

Moments ago, the Register’s editor placed the following note at the URL where the interview was originally posted:

Child sexual abuse is never excusable. The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel’s comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our publication of that comment was an editorial mistake, for which we sincerely apologize. Given Father Benedict’s stellar history over many years, we released his interview without our usual screening and oversight. We have removed the story.

The story may have now been removed, but while it was online, it gave a glimpse of the real mindset and unbelievably sick psyche that, in my opinion, predominates the Church hierarchy.

Priest Chased Boy He'd Molested Down the Street in His Underwear

No, the headline of this post is not a joke.  It's based on a real news story about an Oregon priest who molested a 12 year old boy and then chased the boy down the street wearing only his underwear when the boy managed to escape.  So what id the Catholic Diocese doing with Fr. Angel Armando Perez?  Paying for his criminal defense, of course.  The episode provides a concise testimony to the utter moral bankruptcy of the Catholic Church hierarchy which is obsessed with all things sexual, carrying out a full blow jihad against and yet continues to protect predator priests.  I suspect that from the diocese's perspective, Perez's biggest sin was getting caught.  Here are story highlights:   

An Oregon priest has apologized and said he was drunk when he was caught on the street in his underwear trying to chase down a 12-year-old boy he had just molested.  The Archdiocese of Portland has said it will pay for the priest’s criminal defense, even though it was the first in the nation to declare bankruptcy in 2004, just hours before two civil trials on sex abuse allegations were to begin.

Woodburn resident James Curths told Oregon Live that shortly after midnight on Aug. 13, an out-of-breath boy ran toward him, begging for help eluding a man who was chasing him. Moments later, the Rev. Angel Armando Perez appeared, wearing only his underwear.

Curths and his sister-in-law drove the boy to his relatives’ home.  The boy gave police a detailed account of the alleged abuse and Perez was arrested later the same day.  Perez faces charges of first-degree sexual abuse, abuse of a child in the display of sexually explicit conduct, furnishing alcohol to a minor and driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Normal, well adjusted gays marrying under the CIVIL laws is a threat to western civilization according to Pope Benedict XVI, but this kind of behavior is OK as long as the public and media don't learn about it?

Catholic Diocese Illegally Refuses to Sell to Gay Couple

Increasingly, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy doesn't even try to disguise its hatred and contempt towards openly gay individuals.  Similarly, these foul individuals believe themselves to be above the law be it in the realm of protecting sexual predators and engaging in obstruction of justice or abiding by non-discrimination laws.  Now, a Catholic diocese in Massachusetts has been caught blatantly discriminating against a gay couple seeking to by church property listed on the open real estate market (one can't help but wonder if the property was being sold to pay off sex abuse victims).  One can only hope that the church officials and their realtor are sued by the gay couple and prosecuted/disciplined by the relevant authorities.  Both the Advocate and the Worcester Telegram and Gazette have details.  First these highlights from The Advocate:

Email can be tricky, as one Catholic Diocese in Massachusetts is learning.

The diocese was apparently trying to come up with some legal reason it refuses to sell a 44-bedroom mansion in Worcester to a gay couple who wanted to renovate it. But the back-and-forth over email was still appended to the bottom of the bogus explanation that eventually made its way to the couple, according to Worcester Telegram columnist Dianne Williamson.

A real estate broker for the diocese said in an email she sent to the couple, James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, that it had suddenly found "other plans" for the property.

But at the bottom of the email was this note from Monsignor Thomas Sullivan:

“I just went down the hall and discussed it with the bishop,” Sullivan wrote to the broker, according to the Telegram. “Because of the potentiality of gay marriages there, something you shared with us yesterday, we are not interested in going forward with these buyers. I think they're shaky anyway. So, just tell them that we will not accept their revised plan and the Diocese is making new plans for the property. You find the language.”

Obviously, for participating in the action, the realtor ought to lose her license.  Here's more from the Worcester Telegram and Gazette:

Fairbanks and Beret had searched for two years for the perfect renovation project, and hoped to turn the run-down estate into a banquet facility. Previously, the pair had transformed mansions in Vermont and Barre into similar businesses.  “When we saw Oakhurst, we fell in love with it,” Beret said.

The asking price of $1.4 million was negotiated to $1 million. On May 18, the pair signed an offer to purchase with a $75,000 deposit. They paid $3,000 for a home inspection. They also met with various town boards, all of which expressed enthusiasm for the project because it would save the historic building from developers seeking to raze it.

“These men had a good plan,” said Barbara Gaudette, Northbridge Planning Board chairwoman . “They have the background and experience. We would welcome that.”

“Their message was, 'These guys are gay. Get rid of them,' ” Beret said. “I don't argue with their right to stand on the pulpit and condemn. But they don't have the right to chase me down with their poison.”

Their lawyer, Sergio Carvajal, said state law prohibits discriminating against buyers based on sexual orientation, and said the potential for gay marriages would exist regardless of the sexual orientation of the buyer.

“It's outrageous in this day and age that the church would refuse to sell to someone because of their sexual orientation,” Carvajal said. “It's reprehensible.”

Speaking of reprehensible, Oakhurst is perhaps best known as the former House of Affirmation, a treatment home for pedophile priests, which closed amid scandal in the late 1980s. Ironically, Beret was willing to overlook that history; he's a devout Christian who at one time studied for the priesthood.

“I have plenty of sins,” Beret said. “But being gay isn't one of them. This is not a fight I wanted to pick. But for the sake of my dignity, I'm not walking away.”

As they saying goes, I hope they sue the bastards.

Pope Says Cause of Sex Abuse Scandal a "Mystery"

The utter lies and batshitery that emanate from the Vatican and the Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI never cease to amaze me.  In addressing the sex abuse to Irish Catholics - the Church in Ireland is in a veritable free fall - Benedict said that the cause of the sex abuse was a mystery.    Actually, it's no mystery at all and the abuse of children and youths that occurred with an almost "droit de seigneur" attitude are the result of the deliberate policies of secrecy and denial implemented by and then perpetuated by Benedict XVI's and his predecessors.   And then there's the Vatican's obsession with sex and sexuality as things that are sinful and filthy.  The resulst of these policies and distorted views on sexuality left many tens of thousands of children and youths as hapless prey for predator priests.  Irish Central has highlights from the drivel put forth by Benedict XVI as to the "Mystery" that caused the sex abuse of children and youths: 

Pope Benedict has described clerical sex abuse as a mystery in an address to Irish Catholics.  The Vatican leader expressed his views via a broadcast at the Mass to close the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin.  Almost 80,000 mass goers at Croke Park on Sunday heard the Papal address.

Irish President Michael D Higgins and Prime Minister Enda Kenny were among the crowd at the final event of the 50th International Eucharistic Congress.  They heard the Pope say: “It is a mystery the fact that people who regularly received the Lord’s body and confessed their sins in the sacrament of Penance could abuse children.”

He added: “Evidently, their Christianity was no longer nourished by joyful encounter with Jesus Christ: it had become merely a matter of habit.”

Both Lez Get Real and Civil Commotion elaborate on the true cause of the scandal and the heinous abuse of minors.  First from Lez Get Real:

Perhaps it comes down to something that Terry Pratchett once wrote- “And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” So many of the problems that face the Catholic Church is that they treat themselves and others as things rather than people. 

His description of decades of child abuse as a ‘mystery’ is likely to anger many Catholics even further. The comments came at the end of the of the Eucharistic Congress.
In a nation where the Church and the State were almost inseparable, attendance at Mass has declined badly and many Catholics are unwilling to attend any more. Benedict also stated that “Your forbears in the church in Ireland knew how to strive for holiness and constancy in their personal lives.”

Ironically, the Church has expunged many of the core saints and religious leaders that brought Christianity to Ireland including St. Brigid and St. Columncille. Part of the problem with those saints is that they did not bend knee to the Catholic Church, but, instead, practiced a form of Celtic Christianity that heavily blended Druidicism and Christianity.  The early Church was diverse, and allowed priests to marry and women to be priests.

Bob Felton is even more to the point at Civil Commotion:

It is not a mystery. Those poor priests grow-up hearing, from infancy, that sexual desire is a manifestation of Original Sin; that sex is dirty; that only whores enjoy sex … on and on. Why should anybody be surprised when desire is suppressed as a sign of individual evil and then expressed in unwholesome and destructive ways  .   .   .   .   The church created its freaks, and it will continue to create them until it revises its teachings.

Irish Priests Vow Not to Break Seal of Confession to Report Sex Abuse

Even as the horrors of sexual abuse continue to unfold in Philadelphia, priests in Ireland are vowing to defy a new law that requires the reporting of knowledge of sex abuse.  They say they will not break the secrecy of the confessional box and that sexual abuse disclosed in confession will not be reported.  Frankly, it sounds like a convenient set up for the priests: they confess to one another and no one gets reported.  Indeed, things can continue as they have for many decades or longer in Ireland with children and youths deemed as sexual play things for the foul clergy.  And the Vatican wonders why the Catholic Church in Ireland is in free fall?  The Irish Independent looks at the confrontation between the civil government and the would be protectors of predators.  Here are highlights:

CATHOLIC priests will defy a new law that requires them to report sexual abuse disclosed to them in the confession box -- despite the threat of 10-year jail sentences.  It came after Justice Minister Alan Shatter confirmed the mandatory reporting requirement would apply to priests hearing confession.

Fr Sean McDonagh of the Association of Catholic Priests, which represents 800 clergymen, warned last night: "I certainly wouldn't be willing to break the seal of confession for anyone -- Alan Shatter particularly."  And Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Raymond Field said: "The seal of the confessional is inviolable as far as I am concerned, and that's the end of the matter."  It puts the clergy on a direct collision course with Mr Shatter because new laws oblige every person to report suspected sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults to gardai.

Mr Shatter said last night: "I would expect that if there was someone going to confession who was a serial sex abuser, I don't know how anyone could live with their conscience if they didn't refer that to the gardai."

 

It is the latest flashpoint between the Government and the Catholic Church, following the highly publicised row over Taoiseach Enda Kenny's criticism of the Vatican for failing to co-operate with clerical sexual abuse inquiries last year.  He declared that canon law would not be allowed to supersede state law. The Irish Embassy to the Vatican was subsequently closed "for budgetary reasons".

Catholicism's Internal Culture War

As a former Roman Catholic I know the dark side of Catholicism which is predominated by guilt, self-loathing and almost a form of hatred towards women and, of course gays - even though the ranks of the priesthood and Vatican are likely filled with closeted gay men. Looking back more than a decade after leaving the Catholic Church, I feel with the benefit of hindsight that I had recover from almost a form of psychologically abused inflicted on me as a closeted gay teen and then later for many years as a closeted gay man. Fortunately, many within the Catholic laity have come to recognize the severe harm done to many by the intransigent Catholic Church leadership and the huge disconnect between the Christian message of love and compassion and the almost hateful and intolerant rigidity preached by conservatives appointed by the less than saintly John Paul II and the Emperor Palpatine like Benedict XVI. An article in the Washington Post looks at this internal culture war within the Church. A war which hopefully will ultimately won by the laity which increasingly ignores the dictates from Roman and Benedict XVI's henchmen in bishoprics around the world. Here are some highlights:

Barbara Johnson reached out to receive Holy Communion at her mother’s funeral Mass last month at St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg. The Rev. Marcel Guarnizo, standing before her, placed his hand over the offering bowl, denying her the sacrament.

Those mere seconds between Johnson, no ordinary Catholic, and Guarnizo, no ordinary priest, have touched off a heated controversy among Catholics across the country — another battle in the seemingly endless cultural wars that have invadednearly every corner of daily life, even funerals.

What’s clear, amid all the dissension, is that distinctly different beliefs about Catholicism turned a random meeting of a grieving woman and priest into a theological collision.

What’s next for Guarnizo is unclear. In his statement, he questioned the Washington archdiocese’s handling of the case and its allegations of his intimidation. Some Catholic commentators noted how unusual it is for a priest to publicly contradict and criticize his superiors. Doctrine dictates that priests are to be submissive to their bishops.

“If I was Cardinal [Donald W.] Wuerl, I’d buy him a one-way ticket to Moscow,” the Rev. Thomas Reese, a Washington Jesuit and former editor of liberal Catholic magazine America, said in reference to the archbishop of Washington. “These days, arch-conservative priests feel much more comfortable attacking their bishops than do liberals because they feel they’ll get support from conservative Catholic blogs and maybe some in the Vatican.”

While the priest has been fiercely attacked by liberal Catholics and non-Catholics, conservative Catholics have rushed to defend Guarnizo‘s decision to deny Johnson Communion. That Johnson ultimately received the sacrament from a lay minister that day hardly seems to matter at this point.

The vitriol the incident has unleashed online has unnerved Johnson and her family.

Personally, I cannot understand how anyone LGBT remains involved in any manner with the Roman Catholic Church. To me, it's like someone who is Jewish joining a Nazi party or someone black belonging to the KKK. With viable alternatives like the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that offer nearly identical services available to LGBT Catholics, there truly is no reason to remain affiliated with an institution that denigrates one's very existence. Especially when the worldwide sex abuse scandal has clearly revealed the moral bankruptcy of the Church hierarchy. And what I find equally telling is the number of members of the younger generations who have walked away from the Church both because of the sex abuse scandal and the Church's anti-gay jihad. All three of my own children have abandoned the Catholic Church and, to the extent they give any credence to institutional religion, only consider fealty to gay friendly denominations.

These conclusions are not just my own. The Seattle Times has a piece on the disconnect between everyday Catholics and Rick Santorum who markets himself as uber-Catholic and a darling of the Church hierarchy:

Across all states where Republican primary voters were asked their religion in exit polls, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, trounced Santorum among Catholics, with an average margin of victory above 20 percentage points. Even in Southern states, where Romney has struggled, Catholics broke his way.

On Sunday, overwhelmingly Catholic Puerto Rico was holding its primary. Catholics haven't voted as a bloc in decades, leading analysts to declare "the Catholic vote" as such doesn't exist. Still, the results are surprising given that the former Pennsylvania senator puts Catholicism at the center of his public service and personal life.

Santorum underscored his distance from other Catholics by saying recently that he "almost threw up" when he read Kennedy's famous 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association addressing anti-Catholic bias.

Catholic primary voters were less likely than Protestants to see Santorum as their best ideological match. The polls found that 52 percent of Protestant voters described Santorum's positions as just right, compared with 42 percent of Catholics, while 28 percent of Catholics called Santorum too conservative.

The other thing that is noteworthy is that the current far right form of Catholicism is unable to attract seminarians in America. A New York Times article that looks at the retirement of the Archbishop of Canterbury notes that both the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church the inability to attract seminarians in educated, developed countries is striking compared to what is happening in ignorant, uneducated nations in the third world:

Roman Catholicism’s decline in the West has likewise been accompanied by striking growth in the developing world. (As the number of Catholic seminarians has dropped in the United States and Europe, for instance, it has risen by 86 percent globally since 1978.) In both churches, this geographic and demographic shift is putting a strain on institutional structures that evolved in a more Eurocentric age.

This is probably the last era in which the public face of the world’s major Christian bodies will look the way it did in 1780, or even 1950. The next pope could well be Latin American or African; if not in the next election, then it’s only a matter of time.

A hundred years ago, the idea that one of Western Europe’s most ancient religious offices could be occupied by a black man born in Africa would have seemed like something out of science fiction. By the end of this century, in a globalized Anglicanism and Catholicism alike, it will probably seem like the most normal and necessary thing in the world.

With its refusal to accept modernity and modern medical and mental health knowledge on sexual orientation, the Catholic Church is slowly but steadily condemning itself to a future where it will flourish - at least until education levels increase - only as a third world religion where ignorance and a lack of education predominate. Benedict XVI may want to save Catholicism in the developed world and Europe, but instead his efforts to restore a 13th century mindset in the Church is accelerating the death of Catholicism.

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua Competent To Stand Sex Abuse Trial

Speaking of sexual abuse by priest, in a positive development a Philadelphia court has ruled that retired Roman Catholic cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua (pictured at right) is competent and his recent deposition testimony can be used at an upcoming priest abuse trial. The Church had endeavored to argue that Bevilacqua suffered from dementia and that, therefore, he could not be deposed or called as a witness. As noted previously, legal counsel for Monsignor William Lynn who has been formally indicted have suggested that Lynn did not intend to take the fall for the Archdiocese when his actions had been directed by his superiors, one of whom was Bevilacqua. Obviously, catching Bevilacqua would be delicious. Here are highlights from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Retired Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, however, remains legally competent to testify at the forthcoming trial of three priests accused of sexually abusing young boys, a Philadelphia judge ruled Monday.

"I'll adhere to my original ruling," Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina told Thomas A. Bergstrom, attorney for Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former church official accused of enabling a pedophile priest to continue preying on children by transferring him to another parish.

Sarmina first ruled Bevilacqua legally competent in late November after a two-day private hearing at which the cardinal, who retired in 2003, was questioned by the judge, Bergstrom, and a prosecutor. Bergstrom subsequently renewed his motion to disqualify Bevilacqua from testifying.

Lynn, 61, was secretary for clergy for 12 years under Bevilacqua, beginning in 1992. As such, he was responsible for pastoral assignments and disciplinary actions against priests. Prosecutors have argued that Lynn's decisions involving pedophile priests were part of a long-standing practice in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of transferring deviant priests to new, unsuspecting parishes.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington argued Monday that Bevilacqua's memory problems would be no more problematic for a jury than a hostile witness who refuses to submit to defense questioning.

In other developments, Sarmina promised to rule by Monday on whether prosecutors may introduce evidence at trial about other incidents of priests in the archdiocese sexually abusing altar boys and other children.

Prosecutors insist such evidence is necessary to help the jury understand how pedophile priests were able to prey on their young parishioners and, after being exposed, get transferred to new parishes to repeat the conduct.

Boston Globe Column Slams Bill Donohue - Meanwhile 57 Dioceses Fail to Comply With Anti-Sex Abuse Guidelines

Just as the Republican Party has become become a foul cesspool, so to has the Roman Catholic Church as an institution (assuming for the sake of argument that it has been so for centuries). Meanwhile, far right extremists in the Catholic fringe continue to play the role of apologists who want to blame anyone and everyone for the moral bankruptcy of the Church hierarchy other than the "princes of the church" themselves. A case in point is the always disingenuous Bill Donohue of the so-called Catholic League (a mom and pop organization which principally operates to enrich Donohue - just like NOM serves to enrich and Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown) who ran a full page in the New York Times that blamed the Church's sex abuse column on teh gays. A column in the Boston Globe slammed Donohue and his bogus organization. Here are some highlights:

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It would serve Bill Donohue and the Catholic League well if they went through some basic public relations training. Their latest attempt at bomb-throwing is a full page ad in the New York Times that blames the sexual abuse crisis on an overzealous media, scam artists, and, of course, "the gays."
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Abuse took place in the Church and it handled it very poorly. It doesn't matter whether it was pedophilia or homosexual or heterosexual in nature. People were abused and the Church did nothing for decades. The Church failed not only the victims, it failed its flock. The motivations for the abuse just don't matter.
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The fact that Donohue so desperately wants to dismiss the abuse as if it were just another part of the Culture Wars is deplorable. . . . . Donhoue likes to alienate people - not welcome and accept. He's looking to make enemies and fight battles over things that don't always make sense. Much of the apologetic work that Donhoue and his organization does hurts the greater Catholic cause. . . . . He represents the extreme conservative wing of the Church that thinks Church teachings revolve around sex and nothing else. He comes across as a hack that uses his well-funded bully pulpit for self-promotion. He should be dismissed by Catholics who want the Church to grow and not shrivel into some fundamentalist sect limited to pre-Vatican II adherents.
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And while Donohue rants against gays, a post at Huffington Post looks at the real source of the world wide sex abuse: the Church's bishops, cardinals and, yes, Popes, who clearly don't give a rat's ass about the welfare of children and youths. As proof of this allegation, the post reports that 57 dioceses are basically ignoring policies that allegedly protect children and youths. Here are some highlights:
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U.S. Catholic bishops announced Monday (April 11) that sexual abuse accusations against Catholic clergy increased in 2010, and auditors found 57 dioceses do not follow church guidelines on child protection.
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Costs related to sexual abuse also increased in 2010 by more than $19 million to $70.4 million, most of which (57 percent) was spent on settlements with sex abuse victims.
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Meanwhile, audits of local dioceses conducted by the Boston-based Gavin Group found "weaknesses in audit compliance," the bishops conference said, including 55 dioceses that could be considered noncompliant if changes are not made.
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In those dioceses, auditors found problems with church-recommended "safe environment" programs and inadequate training for children, pastors or directors of religious education. Two dioceses -- Lincoln, Neb. and Baker, Ore. -- refused to cooperate with the auditors at all.
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Yep, that's right. In 57 dioceses, things really have not changed. It's all about protecting and enabling child rapists and to Hell with children and vulnerable youths.

John Paul II, Protector of Sexual Predators, to Be Beatified

In yet another shocking example of just how morally bankrupt the Roman Catholic Church has become, the Vatican has announced that Pope John Paul II is to be beatified on May 1, 2011. It's more than a little troubling to me that a man who knowingly and consciously - and the same holds for the current Pope - protected and enabled those who sexually abused children and youths should be venerated much less beatified. What's next, a serial rapist or violent murderer being beatified? It's disgusting and yet another reason why I left the Catholic Church so as to not feel dirty and morally defective by association. The move may seem reasonable within the bubble of the Vatican where objective reality seems to hold no sway. But among intelligent, rational individuals how does one justify remaining a part of such a tainted institution? Like it or not, a portion of every dollar given to the general collections in every parish ends up in Rome and supporting such morally reprehensible actions. Here are highlights from the New York Times:
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VATICAN CITY (AP) — The pope on Friday approved a miracle attributed to Pope John Paul II's intercession and set May 1 as the date for his beatification, an event that will be a major morale boost for a church reeling from a wave of violence against Christians and fallout from the clerical sexual abuse scandal.
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Pope Benedict XVI declared in a decree that a French nun's recovery from Parkinson's disease was miraculous, the last step needed for the beloved pontiff's beatification.
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The May 1 ceremony, to be celebrated by Benedict himself, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome to honor one of the most popular popes of all time. A second miracle is needed for John Paul to be made a saint.
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Last year, there were some questions about whether Marie-Simon-Pierre's original diagnosis was correct. But in a statement Friday, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said Vatican-appointed doctors had "scrupulously" studied the case and determined that her cure had no scientific explanation.
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John Paul was adored by Catholics, but he did not escape scrutiny, since many of the thousands of sexual abuse cases that emerged last year concerned crimes or cover-ups that occurred under his watch. Vatican officials have said there was nothing in John Paul's record that called into question his path to beatification.
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The true miracle would be for the Church hierarchy to purge itself of those responsible for aiding and abetting Child molesters and child rapists. But since that would mean Benedict XVI's abdication, it's a safe bet that it will never happen, thus proving the seemingly irreversible moral decline of the Church where power, money and control are the true gods.

Catholic Priest Solicited Murder of Sexual Abuse Victim

If one listens to the disingenuous bullshit emanating from the Vatican and the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, one would thing that the Catholic Church has cleaned its own house of sexual predators and taken appropriate measures to protect children and youths. Sadly, if you believe the lies and dissembling, then I have an ocean front lot I want to sell you in Arizona. To say that the Church hierarchy has used smoke and mirrors to cover its corrupt ass is an understatement as brought out by a new story out of Texas. It is noteworthy that the events underlying the story occurred a good five years AFTER the sex abuse explosion in Boston and AFTER the U.S. Bishops supposedly fixed the problem of predatory priests. The lawsuit brought by the now 18 year old abuse victim names Fr. Fiala (pictured above right), as well as the archdioceses of San Antonio, Texas, and Omaha, Nebraska and Fiala's religious order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, all of which are alleged to have covered up Fiala's past abuse and moved him to unsuspecting parishes. Here are highlights from the CNN story that addresses Fiala's effort to have his victim murdered:
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A Catholic priest, facing criminal charges and a lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused a teenage boy, is now charged with attempting to hire someone to kill the youth, authorities said Tuesday.

The Rev. John M. Fiala was in the Dallas County, Texas, jail on Tuesday, charged with one count of criminal solicitation to commit capital murder, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety and the jail's website. He also is charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. His bail totals $700,000.
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He was arrested last week after he offered an undercover agent with the Texas Department of Public Safety $5,000 to kill the teen, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Block.
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The attorney said the priest started "grooming him," buying him gifts including a computer and a car. In early 2008, when the boy was 16, under the guise of providing private catechism lessons, Fiala "gained access to him and began to sexually abuse him once or twice a month, including on church grounds," Rhodes said.
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The Department of Public Safety and its Texas Ranger Division got involved, sending the undercover agent to speak with Fiala, Rhodes said. The conversation was caught on video and audiotape. Rhodes said his client was relieved to hear of Fiala's arrest. He was attending college but had to withdraw and be spirited away somewhere safe because of the threats, he said. "He's still very afraid, but he is hoping that this time Fiala will stay behind bars," Rhodes said.
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"I think he's cooked his goose now," Letsinger said of Fiala. "We know that pedophiles sometimes threaten their victims to keep them quiet. But this is kind of an older victim, and you wonder sometimes why they wouldn't come forward. ... I can see now the evil in this guy is pretty bad."

San Diego Priest-Abuse Files Shows How Diocese Worked to Protect Predators

Over the last two years the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and its ass kissing sycophants in the Knights of Columbus have spent millions of dollars to deprive same sex couples civil marriage rights and denigrating LGBT Americans in general. All the while, the Church pretends it is taking the high ground and "protecting marriage" - even as the Church works tooth and claw to hide its true moral depravity from public view. That effort has taken a major blow in San Diego where 10,000 pages of sex abuse trial court documents have been released against the Church's protestations. Attorneys for sex abuse victims claim that there are another 200 pages that the Church is working overtime to keep sealed in the court records. Among other things, the release documents confirm that the diocese had quietly moved priests who had molested children from parish to parish and sometimes even slipped them out of the country. As I have asked before, why does anyone continue to remain a member of and fund this foul institution. Here are highlights from the San Diego Union Tribune:
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The release of thousands of pages of previously confidential files on San Diego Roman Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse is a landmark development in the abuse scandal, lawyers and advocates for victims said Monday.
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The approximately 10,000 pages of documents made available over the weekend extend back more than a half century and constitute what one expert called the most significant cache of clergy abuse files that has been released since 2003.
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The diocese is claiming some 2,000 more pages of documents relating to the priests should remain private, but the final decision will be made by a retired San Diego Superior Court judge who has been charged with deciding what documents should be made public.
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In 2007, the diocese agreed to a nearly $200 million settlement of all the claims.
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A portion of the released documents offers a glimpse into the inner workings of the diocese over the decades as it dealt with some priests accused of abuse. They confirm what plaintiffs and their lawyers have long said — that in some instances the diocese quietly moved priests who had molested children from parish to parish and sometimes ushered them out of the country.
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Among other things, he said, he was struck that many priests who were accused of abuse were from foreign countries, perhaps more than any other diocese in the nation.
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That raises the question of whether San Diego bishops actively recruited, or agreed to accept, problem priests being moved from other dioceses, he said.
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Irwin Zalkin, a San Diego lawyer who represented many of the plaintiffs, said the San Diego diocese is arguing that certain legal privileges — such as those between a therapist and patient, or attorney and client — bar the release of the remaining 2,000 pages of records. He said because most of the 48 priests whose files have been released are deceased, the protection does not apply.
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The lawyers suspect those documents contain the most embarrassing and damaging records of how the diocese handled problem priests. “These documents that have been released are just the tip of the iceberg in San Diego,” Boucher said.

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.

Pope's Damage Control Efforts Unraveling?

It seems that people never learn that it's the lying and cover up attempts that often prove more damning than the original actions. Ask the ghost of Richard Nixon. Now the same phenomenon may be pulling Benedict XVI down in to the quagmire as stories continue to unfold that show his initial denials were bald faced lies. Papa Ratzi has tried consistently to claim he was ignorant of the transfer of predator priests and/or policies of deliberate cover up and the intimidation of victims. Not so it seems. First, the New York Times has disclosed that Benedict XVI DID know about the return of the infamous "Fr. H" to ministry in Germany. Then there is the new attention being given to a 2006 BBC1 show that went into Benedict's role of re- enforcing the Church's policy of cover up and keeping molestation reports from the police. As I have asked before, when is Benedict going to do the right thing and resign? The media smell blood in the water and it will probably only get worse as more lies are exposed. First, highlights from the New York Times:
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MUNICH — The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.
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An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber. But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.
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The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children.
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In terms of the BBC1 broadcast, the London Evening Standard had some of the details on the program's content - none of it good for Benedict - which seems to have new relevance to events that are now unfolding. Here are highlights:
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The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.
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In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety.
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The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, witnesses and perpetrator not to talk about it. And, to keep victims quiet, it threatened that if they repeat the allegations they would be excommunicated.
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And Father Tom Doyle, a Vatican lawyer until he was sacked for criticising the church's handling of child abuse claims, says: "What you have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy and to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by the churchmen.
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The Panorama programme is presented by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a priest when he was 14. He said: "What gets me is that it's the same story every time and every place. Bishops appoint priests who they know have abused children in the past to new parishes and new communities and more abuse happens."
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Benedict XVI has called gays "inherently disordered." It would seem that he was looking in the mirror when he made that conclusion. The man is abhorrent.