The beginnings of a Catholic Clergy abuse crisis

[MiMo1]

Following on from this topic ...The Failings of the Catholic Bureaucracy
http://australianopinion.com.au/forum/index.php/topic,1064.0.html

Beginning with the latest expose in Germany where the Pope is from.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,676497,00.html

Shame and Fear
Inside Germany's Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal

The Catholic Church in Germany has been shaken in recent days by revelations of a series of sexual abuse cases. Close to 100 priests and members of the laity have been suspected of abuse in recent years. After years of suppression, the wall of silence appears to be crumbling. By SPIEGEL Staff.

This is what it looks like, the document of a conspiracy: 24 pages, with appendix, in Latin, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. A "norma interna," or confidential set of guidelines for all bishops, who were required to keep it a secret for all eternity, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases

The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of lawsuits, criminal prosecutions and scandals related to sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests and members of Catholic religious orders that first rose to widespread public attention in the last two decades of the 20th century.[1]  Although awareness of the widespread scope of these abuses first received significant media attention in Canada, Ireland and the United States, other cases were also reported in a number of other countries.

Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_scandal_in_Canada

Sexual abuse cases by province
[edit] British Columbia

Joseph Lang, a Terrace, B.C., priest placed on "administrative leave" in April. Father Lang faces allegations of sexual activity with a minor dating back to his time as a parish priest in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1980s.[1]

Hubert Patrick O'Connor was a Canadian Roman Catholic bishop of Prince George in British Columbia who was forced to resign following sex abuse charges filed against him.[2]
[edit] Newfoundland
Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in St. John's archdiocese

In 1988, a scandal erupted over allegations of widespread abuse of children at Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Roman Catholic Church is responsible (vicariously liable) for sexual abuse by its Priests in the diocese of Saint George's. In February 2009, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador ruled that the Roman Catholic Church in St. John’s was responsible ("vicariously liable") for the sexual abuse of eight former altar boys by disgraced priest, Reverend James Hickey.
[edit] Ontario

Douglas Stamp, a Hamilton priest forced to step down from his job as a hospital chaplain this spring when a parishioner brought to light his 1997 conviction for indecently assaulting two 12-year-old boys in Peterborough, Ontario. [3]

Hugh Vincent MacDonald, a retired Ontario priest, now faces multiple allegations of sexual abuse dating back to the early 1970s, when he was in the Cape Breton community of New Waterford. The accusations surfaced after David Martin, a Vancouver Island contractor, committed suicide in April, leaving behind a note detailing his experiences with MacDonald. The 80-year-old faced similar charges 15 years ago, but those were dismissed. A second priest from Cape Breton is also under investigation.[4]

Matthew Berko, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, stepped down from his parish in Florida after revelations that he had been convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female parishioner in Mississauga, Ontario, in 1985.[5]
[edit] Manitoba

Martin Houston, a Carman, Man., priest, resigned from his parish in June after media reports about his abusive past as a teacher at an Oblate-run residential school in the 1960s. Houston had served a decade in prison for sexual abuse and indecent assault involving young boys before he was ordained.[6]
[edit] Nova Scotia

On August 7, 2009, bishop Raymond Lahey announced that the diocese of Antigonish had reached a $15 million settlement in a class action lawsuit filed by victims of sexual abuse by diocese priests dating to 1950. On September 15, 2009, he was arrested at the Ottawa airport after the border services agency uncovered unlawful images on his laptop computer (cf sexual abuse scandal in Antigonish diocese).
[edit] Quebec

Paul Desilets, a retired Quebec priest, has been indicted on 27 counts of indecent assault and battery dating back to his time as a parish priest in Bellingham, Mass., between 1978 and 1984. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is seeking extradition.[7]

Also from Canada re indigenous population
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

Preamble: Who are We and What Can We Become?

   

The time has come to end our complicity in mass murder.

 

Our exposure of the Canadian genocide has simultaneously indicted the social order that gave rise to it. Euro-Canadian Christian society as a whole stands condemned in the dock alongside those persons who ran the Indian residential schools, sterilized and murdered children, spread smallpox, and dug mass graves.

 Despite their best efforts to ignore this fact and contain the whole matter with pseudo “apologies”, the Canadian government and its partner Catholic, Anglican and United churches now face the same kind of historical reckoning that Nazi Germany did after its defeat in 1945: an awakening to their own criminal nature.

 On April 20, 2007, Canada and those churches suffered a fundamental moral defeat in Parliament, when the first cabinet minister in Canadian history publicly acknowledged that untold thousands of children had died in Christian Indian residential schools.

UK and Ireland
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184828/Revealed-decades-ritual-child-abuse-Catholic-schools-orphanages-damned-report.html

Revealed, six decades of 'ritual' child abuse: Catholic schools and orphanages damned in report


    * Abuse was 'endemic' in childrens' institutions
    * Safety of children in general was not a consideration
    * No abusers will be prosecuted
    * Victims banned from launch of shocking report

Now the Irish catholic church has flexed its muscles by getting the Irish Parliament to pass a blasphemy law that fines anyone speaking out against any church up to 25,000 Euros.

Latin America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_scandal_in_Latin_America

The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Latin America is a significant part of the series of Catholic sex abuse cases.
Contents

I am merely placing these story links here so that others can become aware of the global conspiracy of the catholic church under the direction of the vatican and pope towards silencing victims worldwide.

Thank you

MiMo

[jen]

Oh where is Max now...

[Minx]

Max is still a Member

Mimo...you and I know that this Abuse is rife - but you need to be clear that it is not soley limited to the Catholic Church

[MiMo1]

Agreed Minx....

However it is good to see that after decades of denial that it is catching up with them.

Whilst they as you say are not solely responsible for the abuse...they are the ONLY church that have not been held to account to date...it is only beginning now.

[kim from usa]

I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would send their child off to a Catholic school after all this. There were loads of horror stories here about that kind of thing. I was raised a baptist so I don't know how all that works but that whole celibacy just don't sound natural to me. I think it gets pent up and turns to something wrong. 

[kim from usa]

I been working night shifts and I am tired but i saw this. I feel like bamu doing this but.
A priest teaching a boy simple anatomy lessons

A FORMER Roman Catholic priest who claimed he had given an 11-year-old boy “anatomy lessons” has been jailed by an Australian judge for indecent assault.

Desmond Laurence Gannon’s prosecution was his fifth for abusing youngsters. He was previously convicted in 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2003 for other indecent assaults committed between 1958 and 1976, but had only served one term of imprisonment.

http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/06/12/%E2%80%98i-was-only-giving-the-boy-anatomy-lessons%E2%80%99-said-paedophile-priest/ I don't know how you handle such things down there but some folks here would love to teach him an anatomy lesson by breaking a few bones. He is beyond redemtion.

[Patricia]

I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would send their child off to a Catholic school after all this. There were loads of horror stories here about that kind of thing. I was raised a baptist so I don't know how all that works but that whole celibacy just don't sound natural to me. I think it gets pent up and turns to something wrong. 

Kim I too am appalled at these sexual abuse cases that seem to be coming to the fore every other day, though with regards your comment "I cannot for the life of me see why anyone would send their child off to a Catholic school after all this".... most of the teachers now teaching in Catholic Schools are not members of a religious order.... probably due to the fact that fewer people decided on that sort of religious life.....when I was at school (over 40 yrs ago) it was totally different ie all of the catholic schools in our parish were run by the nuns.

[Minx]

Patricia - I still bear the metal scars of the Sisters Of Charity. Nuns had thier own special brand of cruelty

I had the joys of them through late 60's in Sydney and still remember being hauled up in front of the Class as the girl who's parents had died , "she must have been bad" - said the nun.
This ocurring whilst I was being sexually abused at home every couple of nights.

Did wonders for my lack of self esteem...not.

College and The Sisters of Mercy re-established my faith in women who wanted to teach life skills.

[Redneck]

I think it is a good thing for the RC church that this is being exposed and dealt with.

I have always believed priests should be able to marry. To me it is an unnatural lifestyle that attracts that type of person. Its about time the pope and his like thinkers allowed normal married men and women for that matter to become priests.

I gather in the past priests could marry until some ratbag pope came along and changed it.

[Kady]

have always believed priests should be able to marry. To me it is an unnatural lifestyle that attracts that type of person. Its about time the pope and his like thinkers allowed normal married men and women for that matter to become priests.

Just my own opinion, but I think that's a separate issue.

The people who have committed these atrocious acts were going to be inclined that way anyway, and probably joined religious organizations deliberately for easy access to their victims....even if subconsciously.
They would have to be among the sickest and most evil human beings.   Marriage is no cure.     Who would want to be married to someone like that.
However, I agree that priests should be allowed to marry.

[Sandpaper]

The people who have committed these atrocious acts were going to be inclined that way anyway, and probably joined religious organizations deliberately for easy access to their victims....even if subconsciously.
They would have to be among the sickest and most evil human beings.   Marriage is no cure.     Who would want to be married to someone like that.

Agree...such deviants seek opportunities for access to the kids...be it a hobby, a religion or whatever... they look for the vulnerable kids and proceed to 'groom' their subjects.

There are married men who marry to dispel any suspicion... deviants do not wear a warning sign on their forehead.
I think it is high time all religions addressed the subject of child abuse.. no protection...rather...turn the abusers over to the authorities.

[Patricia]

I think it is a good thing for the RC church that this is being exposed and dealt with.

I have always believed priests should be able to marry. To me it is an unnatural lifestyle that attracts that type of person. Its about time the pope and his like thinkers allowed normal married men and women for that matter to become priests.

I gather in the past priests could marry until some ratbag pope came along and changed it.

Yes changed it because they realised that the married priests were leaving their estate to their families & the Church was missing out on the $$$$$$.

Whilst on this subject ....had a discussion today with Mr P.....everwhere you turn you see empty Catholic buildings ie Convents/Presbertries etc......& yet we have millions throughout our world homeless etc etc......looking after fellow humans...I think not.

[Chris]

have always believed priests should be able to marry. To me it is an unnatural lifestyle that attracts that type of person. Its about time the pope and his like thinkers allowed normal married men and women for that matter to become priests.

Just my own opinion, but I think that's a separate issue.

Actually I disagree - I think it's at the very heart of the problem. Had priests historically continued to be allowed to marry there might well have been a far higher preponderance of 'normal' males in the ranks and the prevalence of the perverts be that much lower.

Yes the deviants might well have tried to join up regardless, but they might have been weeded out a little easier if the people *above* them doing the recruiting weren't also somewhat inclined to be lenient towards their moral lapses!!

After all, hard as it is to accept, it's unlikely that *all* the deviants remain in the lower echelons of the church. Some must have been promoted and been in positions of power making it all the more essential in their eyes that those 'lapses' be covered up in case their own indiscretions became public knowledge?

Enforced celibacy *is* an unnatural state so by refusing to allow the clergy to fulfill their god-given human desires the church itself created the environment in which temptation became unbearable not only for those already oriented towards deviancy, but for those weak individuals who would otherwise not have considered assaulting children.

[Minx]

Chris...the Churches which allow married priests are just as 'infected'
Prime case was another Kapunda idenity
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/pedophile-faces-justice-47-years-later/story-e6freol3-1111118289981

Though not bought to Trial as Evidence , was the fact that his crimes against kids had started whilst he was an Anglican Minister

He had also Abused his own children
He started a run to be Mayor in 2003
http://www.barossaherald.com.au/news/local/news/general/late-scratching-from-light-mayoral-race/436068.aspx
and withdrew after his ex-wife and boy children came forward to Today/Tonight

At least the Church of England had stood up and taken it's punches on the chin
The Micks are still playing Chess in all too many cases.

On another note, but relevant
One of my workers spent most of today closeted with NTPOL
His son has been a victim and Evidence is being gathered.

Yes, Bu, they walk amongst us
But, at least these days Reporting is happening

[Kady]

[quoteChris...the Churches which allow married priests are just as 'infected'
Prime case was another Kapunda idenity[/quote]

Absolutely correct.
Another point to this is the sorrow and hurt felt by genuine priests, nuns and clergy .
I deliberately use the word 'genuine',  as those who have committed these vile acts are not priests at heart.