Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Ignore The Children, Protect The Bank Account


You'd think the officials in the Catholic Church would simply shut up, but still they keep talking and talking, and making no sense whatsoever.

And now this.

There is a new bill in Connecticut's legislature that would remove the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases, meaning that lawsuits and criminal cases could be filed no matter how many years it has been since the abuse first occurred. Under current Connecticut law, sexual abuse victims have 30 years past their 18th birthday to file suit, but the proposed change would rescind that statute of limitations. However, and this is no surprise, the state's Roman Catholic bishops oppose the measure.

The Catholic bishops argue that the change to the law would put "all Church institutions, including your parish, at risk," though they failed to mention the children at risk in the hands of pedophile priests. They seem, and gain this is no surprise, more intent on protecting the image and bank accounts of the Catholic Church than they do in protecting the interests of children.

The bishops, who posted their opposition to the proposed law on the Web site of the Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference, say the "legislation would undermine the mission of the Catholic Church in Connecticut, threatening our parishes, our schools, and our Catholic Charities."

Undermine their mission? And what is their mission? Protecting pedophiles?

God is watching and she is getting pissed.

11 comments:

  1. Bob, the CC's acts of denial and protectionism, seem to have no boundaries. As I said at my place, the members of the church need to call for and act on an intervention. The church's hierarchy has just gone too far. The only interest they seem to hold close at heart is their own preservation.

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  2. Bob. I was talking to my RC friend on Sunday evening over several pints and he, like many lay members of the church, is growing increasingly irate about the abuse issue in particular. His Parish Priest is absolutely furious that these things have happened and been concealed. I think that the grounswell may just be starting, let's hope so.

    Love
    Mac

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  3. I am soooo over the Catholic church. They are so steeped in tradition and can't get their head out of their asses. UNDER RUG SWEPT, right?

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  4. It's so much fun denouncing the church, isn't it. It would be so inconvenient if you had to trouble yourself with facts such as that the US bishops have put stringent measures in place to make sure that the abuse and coverup don't happen again. It's so much more fun to pretend that this is still the 1980's.

    You may be a fighter of H8, but you're no fighter of hate.

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  5. naturgesetz,
    Thanks so much for stopping by and giving us the Vatican spin on the ongoing, decades old, child molestation scandal.
    If you would read my posts clearly, you'll see that i do not hate Catholics, nor the Catholic church. I am disgusted by the people in charge, including the Pope as Cardinal, who let pedophiles off the hook, moved them from parish to parish, put them in "therapy" and then reassigned them, or simply ignored the warnings and let the molestations continue.
    It isn't the church I loathe, it's the men who perpetuate pedophilia and sek to place blame everywhere except at their own feet.

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  6. I think the faulty handling of cases usually stemmed from lack of knowledge. At one time bishops actually believed that if they got a priest away from the people he had been molesting, he would be able to stop. Later they actually believed that pedophilia/ephebophilia was a psychological condition which could be brought under control (and the psychologists thought so too), so if the psychologists told them that a former abuser was safe, they took the psychologists' word for it in good faith.

    There were cases that were atrociously handled, even by the understanding of the times, but I think that as a rule, bishops didn't want to enable the abuse to continue. So if there is a sense in which the bishops "perpetuated" pedophilia, it is that they failed to stop it, not out of unwillingness but out of ignorance of how to stop it. Therefore, I'd say the blame lies at the feet of the pedophiles, not the bishops.

    Living in eastern Massachusetts, I saw the scandal unfold in Boston. The attorney general of Massachusetts empanelled a grand jury to try to indict Cardinal Law. The grand jury found no crime that he could be charged with and returned a no bill. In the news stories about the no bill there was a small statistical table which I found very striking. It said that in the early 1980's, before Cardinal Law arrived in Boston, incidents of sexual abuse by clergy were averaging approximately 27 per year. From his arrival in 1985 through 1992, there were about 10 per year. 1993 through 2000 had about 4 per year on average. And at the time of the report (2003 or -4) there had been zero new incidents complained of. The changes correspond to policies instituted by Cardinal Law. In 1985, he established a policy of sending the offenders for psychological treatment, and keeping them out of parish ministry unless the psychologists said it was safe to return them. Then from 1993 onward, he had a largely lay review board which reviewed the case of each abuser and made recommendations to the Cardinal. I am told by a deacon who was involved in reviewing records that the Cardinal followed the board's recommendations in every case but one, and in that one he was more severe than the recommendation.

    Ten cases per year is ten too many, and four per year is four too many, but there are 23 potential victims per year from 1993 to 2000 who were not actual victims.

    So there you have it. Cardinal Law, everybody's archvillain actually cleaned up the mess he inherited. And I have no reason to doubt that most bishops were as desirous as he was to put a stop to it.

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  7. You also need to read this.

    http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601

    And this where he makes a correction.

    http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=620

    He's not one to leave a false impression.

    Particularly salient, I think are two points. The first is that the Times and other papers never bothered to check with him on the facts. That is the sort of poor journalism which makes it seem plausible that they are on a crusade against the Church rather than dispassionate reporters seeking the truth. As a result of the Times's poor (and agenda driven?) journalism millions of people have an inaccurate view of the case, particularly as it relates to Card. Ratzinger's role (or lack thereof).

    And the second point is that this insider saw no involvement by Cardinal Ratzinger.

    Beyond that, if you read carefully, you get some insight into who was responsible for what at the time, and corroboration of my assertion that Ratzinger/Benedict is a vigorous opponent of clerical abuse of minors and is working to keep the clean up going.

    Thanks in advance for taking the trouble to inform yourself.

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  8. naturgesetz,
    Once again, thanks for stopping by, and using the propaganda machine that is the Vatican and it's contributing news outlets, to steer us way from the subject.

    There have been thousands of children molested at the hands of priests.

    The church moved them around--even if hoping they would change--to molest again.

    They have since spent countless hours denying responsibility, blaming everyone from the LGBT community, pro-choice advocates, and the Jews.

    Thank YOU for keeping their lies alive.

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  9. I'm disappointed in you. Since you were not present at the Vatican, you can have no basis for your libel characterizing the statements I have called to your attention as "lies."

    And please cite the specific statements in which "they" blamed the LGBT community (which is a very different thing from saying that the priests who abused teenaged boys were homosexuat), pro-choice advocates, and the Jews for the sexual abuse.

    But at least you acknowledged that the bishops who moved the priests can have had the hope that they would change their behavior with the change in location. That is important, so it's not all bad from you..

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  10. naturgesetz,
    Again, thanks for coming by.
    You love the snide comments, because, and I'm guessing here, you weren't present at the Vatican either, but you believe everything they say. You call them "lies" because the Vatican says they're "lies"?
    Not wise. perhaps it's just blind faith? I wonder.
    Saying there is a link between pedophilia and homosexuality, which is an outright lie, is blaming the scandal on the gay community.
    The Vatican, rahter than simply saying, we messed up, instead has blamed--through statements I have read from The Associated Press and the New York Times--gay men, Satan, the Jews, The New York Times, and people who do not follow the Catholic agenda.
    They have taken NO responsibilty.
    They have passed the buck.
    They have spent decades hiding the scandal, paying off victims for silence, and protecting pedophiles from prosecution.
    That is not right.
    If this were happening on such a scale in a public institution or school I doubt you'd be so eager to protect those people as you are the church, and the Pope.
    Sad that children have suffered, are suffering, and will continue to suffer, before the Catholic church and its hierarchy admit any responsibility.
    They are supposed to protect children, not fuck them.
    Keep buying into the propaganda. There is no scandal; the church has protected children; they had pedophiles arrested; Cardinal Law did nothing wrong.
    It's a nice dream, but it isn't reality.

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  11. Taking one thing at a time — when you say "they" blamed the Jews are you referring to Fr. Cantalamessa's homily on Good Friday?

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