Catholics in the News

[Sky Dancer]

ROME — The Vatican expressed “shock” on Friday at the raid on Thursday by the Belgian police of church offices in their search for hidden evidence of child sex abuse by priests.

In a bold and provocative assertion of state over church as anger rises in Europe over abuse by priests, the police not only detained the members of the Belgian Bishops’ Conference for nine hours on Thursday while searching for documents related to sex abuse cases, they also drilled into the tombs of two cardinals in the Brussels Cathedral.

Vatican Criticizes Raid on Belgian Church Offices - NYTimes.com

Was the drilling into the tombs of two cardinals necessary?

 

[Oddball]

Looking for the stained blue frock?

 

[Sky Dancer]

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has released this statement:

This raid is precisely what's needed, not just in Belgium but in other church offices across the globe. Law enforcement officials must stop giving the Catholic hierarchy a 'free pass' when it comes to clergy sex crimes and cover ups. Police and prosecutors need to step up, and promptly and thoroughly investigate allegations against predator priests and corrupt bishops, and use their full powers to gain access to and control over church records that likely document the crimes and cover ups.

Kids will be safer only when secular authorities stop giving excessive deference to church officials and start doing all that they can to catch, expose, prosecute and jail both child molesting clerics and their complicit colleagues and supervisors.

We call on all citizens of Belgium - Catholic and non-Catholic - to contact law enforcement with any information or suspicions they may have - however old, small, or seemingly insignificant - so that this can be an effective investigation that results in the imprisonment of those who hurt children and those who enable others to hurt children
http://blog.beliefnet.com/beliefbea...gian-cardinals-home.html#ixzz0rvGmymRO]Clergy Abuse Investigators Raid Church Headquarters, Cardinal's Home in Belgium - Belief Beat[/url]

 

[Madeline]

Sky Dancer, the RCC has been running the world's oldest and most prolific child sex abuse ring for decades. If the premises had not been RCC owned, and the cops had opened a closet or safe, would your reaction be different?

We are never going to get justice for victims or eradicate this evil unless we treat the people involved as suspects and not as idols, authority figures, diplomats or any other form of "better than us" type people.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Sky Dancer, the RCC has been running the world's oldest and most prolific child sex abuse ring for decades. If the premises had not been RCC owned, and the cops had opened a closet or safe, would your reaction be different?

We are never going to get justice for victims or eradicate this evil unless we treat the people involved as suspects and not as idols, authority figures, diplomats or any other form of "better than us" type people.

I agree with the sentiment expressed in the survivors letter. I don't know that it was necessary to drill into the tombs of two cardinals however. Unless they bury papers with their corpses.

 

[Gadawg73]

The Catholic Church is not running sex rings. Get in the real world.
Many churches of all denominations have swept under the rug abuse all the way to the top and those were not running sex rings either.
Covering up is different than actively running a sex ring. I know many good Catholics in offices of power and they do not cover this stuff up. I have worked these cases and have seen both sides of the spectrum. Many Catholic dioceses cooperate fully and get help from the Vatican in doing so.
The Vatican is a large power base with dozens of factions. A generic catchy gimmick phrase is easy to let out but it is totally inacurate as to the total picture.

 

[Madeline]

Sky Dancer, the RCC has been running the world's oldest and most prolific child sex abuse ring for decades. If the premises had not been RCC owned, and the cops had opened a closet or safe, would your reaction be different?

We are never going to get justice for victims or eradicate this evil unless we treat the people involved as suspects and not as idols, authority figures, diplomats or any other form of "better than us" type people.

I agree with the sentiment expressed in the survivors letter. I don't know that it was necessary to drill into the tombs of two cardinals however. Unless they bury papers with their corpses.

Take away the factoid that the premises belonged to the RCC. In a police search of suspects' premises, which containers do you think should be off limits?

 

[Madeline]

The Catholic Church is not running sex rings. Get in the real world.
Many churches of all denominations have swept under the rug abuse all the way to the top and those were not running sex rings either.
Covering up is different than actively running a sex ring. I know many good Catholics in offices of power and they do not cover this stuff up. I have worked these cases and have seen both sides of the spectrum. Many Catholic dioceses cooperate fully and get help from the Vatican in doing so.
The Vatican is a large power base with dozens of factions. A generic catchy gimmick phrase is easy to let out but it is totally inacurate as to the total picture.

We disagree, Gadawg. In any event, if the cops had grounds to carry out the search, they had an obligation to be thorough.

 

[JBeukema]

So, they're shocked that someone would tell on them?

 

[Madeline]

More sorrow:

Abuse Loosens Church?s Culture of Silence in Italy - NYTimes.com

Tell me again how this is not an instutional problem?

 

[editec]

That Church needs a thorough sweeping.

Its cabal of pederastes needs to be rootede out from the OUTSIDE.

The Church obviously cannot do it since so many of the cabal are LEADERS of the CHURCH.

To those of you who are good Catholics, I am sorry.

I know that most of you are thoroughly decent people, but your church is infected with an evil cabal, and since you laymen are powerless to stop them, it falls to the governments to try to root it out.

I do not think the governments will succeed, by the way.

That infection of conspiring pederastes is NOT LIMITED to the Mother Church.

Plenty of that happening in our governments, too.

 

[Luissa]

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has released this statement:

This raid is precisely what's needed, not just in Belgium but in other church offices across the globe. Law enforcement officials must stop giving the Catholic hierarchy a 'free pass' when it comes to clergy sex crimes and cover ups. Police and prosecutors need to step up, and promptly and thoroughly investigate allegations against predator priests and corrupt bishops, and use their full powers to gain access to and control over church records that likely document the crimes and cover ups.

Kids will be safer only when secular authorities stop giving excessive deference to church officials and start doing all that they can to catch, expose, prosecute and jail both child molesting clerics and their complicit colleagues and supervisors.

We call on all citizens of Belgium - Catholic and non-Catholic - to contact law enforcement with any information or suspicions they may have - however old, small, or seemingly insignificant - so that this can be an effective investigation that results in the imprisonment of those who hurt children and those who enable others to hurt children
Clergy]Clergy Abuse Investigators Raid Church Headquarters, Cardinal's Home in Belgium - Belief Beat Abuse Investigators Raid Church Headquarters, Cardinal's Home in Belgium - Belief Beat[/url]

This is great, go after them.. But we need to start hearing about other churches doing this in the national news. I know of at least three cases in my area of molestation happening in church and it wasn't by a catholic priest. If we are going to go on a witch hunt, we need to include everyone.

 

[editec]

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has released this statement:

This raid is precisely what's needed, not just in Belgium but in other church offices across the globe. Law enforcement officials must stop giving the Catholic hierarchy a 'free pass' when it comes to clergy sex crimes and cover ups. Police and prosecutors need to step up, and promptly and thoroughly investigate allegations against predator priests and corrupt bishops, and use their full powers to gain access to and control over church records that likely document the crimes and cover ups.

Kids will be safer only when secular authorities stop giving excessive deference to church officials and start doing all that they can to catch, expose, prosecute and jail both child molesting clerics and their complicit colleagues and supervisors.

We call on all citizens of Belgium - Catholic and non-Catholic - to contact law enforcement with any information or suspicions they may have - however old, small, or seemingly insignificant - so that this can be an effective investigation that results in the imprisonment of those who hurt children and those who enable others to hurt children
Clergy]Clergy Abuse Investigators Raid Church Headquarters, Cardinal's Home in Belgium - Belief Beat Abuse Investigators Raid Church Headquarters, Cardinal's Home in Belgium - Belief Beat[/url]

This is great, go after them.. But we need to start hearing about other churches doing this in the national news. I know of at least three cases in my area of molestation happening in church and it wasn't by a catholic priest. If we are going to go on a witch hunt, we need to include everyone.

I don't doubt that.

The primary difference is, however, that the RC church is an international organization with a clear hierachy that served the needs of this conspiracy of pederasts.

To my knowledge, the same cannot be said of other religions.

With the exception of the Mormon church (and even they have schisms, I am informed) most churches don't have a central authority to have faciliated a decades (centuries?) long conspiracy on the scale of what we are now seeing has happened in the RC church.

 

[Madeline]

The RCC has not even begun to face up to its culture of pedophilia.

* The sex abuse of kids by women (nuns) has never been examined, but was just as rampant.

* The commonly held belief that it has ended is bullshit.

* The actions taken to silence witnesses and avoid claims, even for the cost of therapy, has not been fully brought to light.

* The sitting pope was involved up to his ears and must resign to face criminal charges.

If Catholics won't demand justice for victims and safety for kids from the RCC, the public must. And pardon me, but three instances of pedophilia in anyone's church does not begin to compare to the decades of abuse and hundreds of thousands of victims of the RCC's sex abuse scandals.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Here's another story:

The Vatican is asking a federal judge to reject an attempt to question Pope Benedict XVI under oath in a Kentucky sex abuse lawsuit on the grounds that there has been no evidence of a link to church officials in Rome.

The arguments filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Louisville also say that forcing Benedict, a head of state, to give a deposition would violate international law. The U.S. considers the Vatican to be a sovereign nation.

The lawsuit accuses the Vatican, referred to in papers as the Holy See, of orchestrating a cover-up of priests sexually abusing children throughout the U.S.

The Associated Press: Vatican: Ky. abuse lawsuit lacks link to Rome

 

[Madeline]

Progress, at last. How in the hell can the Vatican claim that US Bishops were not employees of the Vatican?

 

[Sky Dancer]

"Foreign nations are typically immune from civil actions in U.S. courts, but there are exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act which courts have said could be applied in the Kentucky case.

Bringing a head of state like the pope to a deposition in the U.S. is nearly an impossible legal hurdle to overcome, said Jonathan Levy, a Washington attorney who has sued the Vatican on behalf of Holocaust victims.

"I doubt very much a U.S. court would want to make an order that it knows it's not going to be able to enforce," Levy said. "How can a federal judge force a head of state to attend a deposition?"
The Associated Press: Vatican: Ky. abuse lawsuit lacks link to Rome

 

[Madeline]

Mebbe so, Sky Dancer. Or mebbe a miracle will occur, and Ratzinger will attend the deposition. Or mebbe the Vatican will produce documents.

In any event, at least this lawyer and judge are not treating Ratzinger as if he were sacrosanct....and that IMO, is progress.

 

[Sky Dancer]

Mebbe so, Sky Dancer. Or mebbe a miracle will occur, and Ratzinger will attend the deposition. Or mebbe the Vatican will produce documents.

In any event, at least this lawyer and judge are not treating Ratzinger as if he were sacrosanct....and that IMO, is progress.

I agree. The buck needs to stop at the top. The Pope as 'infallible leader' is ultimately responsible for the bishops and cardinals and policies that allowed priests to repeatedly abuse children for decades, if not longer. The sex abuse cases have only been around for about thirty years.

 

[Madeline]

A policy adhered to by bishops on at least four continents didn't arise by coincidence. Nor was church property set aside in a misguided effort to rehabilitate such offenders without Vatican approval. If the RCC had committed these crimes without the veil of religion, most Americans would be calling for the Pope's execution.