Ongoing religious scandals

Cabaal

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/23/us/ap-us-pope-sex-abuse.html?_r=0

Pope Praises US Bishops' Response to Abuse, Angering Victims

NEW YORK — Pope Francis praised American bishops on Wednesday for their "generous commitment" to helping victims of clergy sex abuse, drawing an angry rebuke from advocates who said the bishops acted only under the threat of hundreds of lawsuits.

They only did something when the government and courts started to get involve, they were not generous and they certainly didn't have courage.

Hoagy

They're still at it then.


Global Post

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-34528241

His mother put him into the care of the nuns in 1937, when he was just two weeks old, and he was sent to Australia at the age of ten.

He was told his mother, father and all of his relatives were dead.

But Paddy never believed what he was told and began searching for his family in 1965, when he was 28 years-old.

He had visited Ireland, but the Sisters of Nazareth repeatedly told him he had been an orphan and that they could find no records of his mother.

...

Paddy had finally found his family in 2009.

The breakthrough was a letter his mother gave the Sisters of Nazareth declaring that she was putting him into their care.

The letter included a cover note from a priest recommending him for adoption. After 46 years of searching, he was able to trace his relatives within two weeks.

But it was too late for a reunion with his mother. She died in 1999, two years after he first visited Ireland trying to find her.

"I was just so shocked when I was told that," he recalls.

"I was here in 1997 and the nuns told me they had no record of my mother. They kept that letter for 72 years. If they had given it to me earlier it could have helped me find my mother when she was still alive."

kylith

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-34528241

His mother put him into the care of the nuns in 1937, when he was just two weeks old, and he was sent to Australia at the age of ten.

He was told his mother, father and all of his relatives were dead.

But Paddy never believed what he was told and began searching for his family in 1965, when he was 28 years-old.

He had visited Ireland, but the Sisters of Nazareth repeatedly told him he had been an orphan and that they could find no records of his mother.

...

Paddy had finally found his family in 2009.

The breakthrough was a letter his mother gave the Sisters of Nazareth declaring that she was putting him into their care.

The letter included a cover note from a priest recommending him for adoption. After 46 years of searching, he was able to trace his relatives within two weeks.

But it was too late for a reunion with his mother. She died in 1999, two years after he first visited Ireland trying to find her.

"I was just so shocked when I was told that," he recalls.

"I was here in 1997 and the nuns told me they had no record of my mother. They kept that letter for 72 years. If they had given it to me earlier it could have helped me find my mother when she was still alive."

Philomena had a very similar story. She told the nuns that if the son she'd had to give up contacted them to put him in touch. She told them this several times, and then discovered that he had been looking for her but the nuns had told him they had no record. He'd died only a short time before she found that out.

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2015/10/15/carmelite-vicar-general-agrees-need-to-apologise-for-scandal_f4a7a7ca-3cb7-4a16-8a7c-4fa6d25d8909.html

(ANSA) - Rome, October 15 - The Vicar-General of the Carmelite Order in Rome, which is embroiled in a gay prostitution scandal, on Thursday said he agreed with Pope Francis for the need to apologise for scandals in the church.
"We are always in tune with the pope," Vicar General Agusti Borrell told TV2000.
"Yesterday he made an appeal in which he asked for forgiveness in the name of everyone. He didn't speak of concrete cases, we don't know exactly who he was referring to, but certainly from our side we are always ready, as Christians, to ask for forgiveness for our mistakes, our weaknesses, the sins in our life that occur in everyone's lives," Borrell said.
He added that his order would continue to search for the truth amid recent suspicions and public accusations. In recent days, Italian media reported that at least one senior Carmelite was being investigated for links to gay prostitution in Rome's Villa Borghese park.

Hotblack Desiato

Singapore pastor spent church funds on wife’s music career

The pastor of a Singapore megachurch was convicted of fraud on Wednesday, with a judge finding that he had used millions in church funds to promote his wife’s pop music career.

The pastor, Kong Hee, of City Harvest Church, and five other church officials were convicted of charges related to the misuse of $36 million (about €32 million)to support the career of Kong’s wife, Ho Yeow Sun, a singer who is also known as Sun Ho.

Kong and the other leaders, who were convicted of varying counts of criminal breach of trust, face up to 20 years in prison.

Ho released several Mandarin-language albums in Taiwan and an English-language album aimed at the US market,which included China Wine, a 2007 song on which she collaborated with Wyclef Jean.

Cabaal

Not Ireland....but pretty f*cked up none the less. Once again the nuns are involved

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34656346

In the winter of 1949, 13-year-old Pamela Smedley boarded a ship to Australia with 27 other girls. She had been told by the nuns from the Catholic home she lived in that she was going on a day-trip. In reality, she was being shipped out to an orphanage in Adelaide and wouldn't see England again for more than three decades.

"We thought it would be like going to Scarborough for the day because we were so innocent and naive," says Pamela, who is now in her 70s and still lives in Adelaide.

Once again we hear the same disgusting story with the nuns involved,

Pamela's unmarried Catholic mother had been pressured to give her up as a baby and so she was sent to live under the care of nuns at Nazareth House in Middlesbrough, Teesside.

Upon arrival at Goodwood, all the children's personal mementos - photographs, letters, toys - were taken from them and they were left with just a Bible. Everyone was terrified of the Reverend Mother, even the other nuns, says Pamela. She recalls the big strap the nun had around her waist which her rosaries would hang from.

A few hours a day would be spent making the strings butchers use to hang their meat. "It was very coarse string and it made our fingers bleed," says Pamela. "If you did anything wrong the penalty was an extra 100 strings and the nun in charge would hit us with her walking stick."

Desperate to break free of the scheme's clutches, she got married three days after her 18th birthday. In 1989 she was connected with the Child Migrants Trust, who helped her to be reunited with her mother Betty. For 40 years Betty had believed Pamela was adopted by a loving family in England.

Same formula in country after country, after country, we'll be hearing about this exact same stuff happening in Africa, South America and parts of Asia for many many decades to come Parents being told that kids were adopted to people in Africa when in reality they were sold off to some well off westerner

robindch

The Vatican gets serious about criminals operating within its walls and arrests one priest and a PR hack. For allegedly leaking documents.

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/11/02/2-arrested-vatican-leaked-documents-probe/

Hotblack Desiato

A deliciously spiky article celebrates 40 years of the 'wonderful' Catholic Communications Office.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/catholic-communications-office-marks-40th-anniversary-1.2417513

Hotblack Desiato

The catholic church hierarchy, of all people, are saying they are worried about people being mean to each other :

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/catholic-primate-concerned-at-trends-in-social-media-1.2418879

Speaking at the same conference Fr Thomas Casey, lecturer in philosophy at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, said that “we all know that technology has given bullies a much wider platform through online name-calling and we know this can emotionally destroy children and teenagers”. Words could “ cause irreparable damage.”

Time was the bullies had to make do with pulpits.

robindch

The National Catholic Reporter investigates the costs of the ongoing abuse scandal and finds that in the last 65 years, almost $4 billion has been paid out. As the figure is derived from public records from multiple sources, since the church doesn't maintain any central record itself, and doesn't contain anything from confidential settlements, the amount is likely to be a significant underestimate.

http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/ncr-research-costs-sex-abuse-crisis-us-church-underestimated

NCR wrote:

The U.S. Catholic church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases and church documents.
In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 billion annually for the past 30 years.

Between 1950 and August of this year, the church has paid out $3,994,797,060.10, NCR found.

That figure is based on a three-month investigation of data, including a review of more than 7,800 articles gleaned from LexisNexis Academic and NCR databases, as well as information from BishopAccountability.org and from reports from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

The Vatican gets serious about criminals operating within its walls and arrests one priest and a PR hack. For allegedly leaking documents.

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/11/02/2-arrested-vatican-leaked-documents-probe/

The New Yorker suspects that this leak-scandal is more serious than the last one:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-the-new-vatican-leaks-scandal-is-different

robindch

Pope Frank comes out with a few great lines on the Vatican finances. But reforms are still a long way off.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34785469

Pope Frank wrote:

A believer cannot speak of poverty and the homeless but have the lifestyle of a pharaoh.

Pope Francis once said that it hurt his heart to see a priest with the latest model of car. "If you like the fancy one, just think about how many children are dying of hunger," he said.

Pope Frank wrote:

If we don't know how to look after money, which you can see, how can we look after the souls of the faithful, which you can't see?

Seth Brundle

robindch wrote: »

But reforms are still a long way off.

The RC church will not reform until the money stops coming in. Then saying that they are carrying out reform doesn't mean that it will be anything meaningful!

PopePalpatine

kbannon wrote: »

The RC church will not reform until the money stops coming in. Then saying that they are carrying out reform doesn't mean that it will be anything meaningful!

Why does this post remind me of FIFA? :pac:

Panrich

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabian-court-sentences-palestinian-poet-ashraf-fayadh-to-death-for-apostasy-a6742161.html?

These thugs are losing all sense of reason at this stage.

Bannasidhe

Panrich wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabian-court-sentences-palestinian-poet-ashraf-fayadh-to-death-for-apostasy-a6742161.html?

These thugs are losing all sense of reason at this stage.

Quick - let's sell them more weaponry!

recedite

Panrich wrote: »

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabian-court-sentences-palestinian-poet-ashraf-fayadh-to-death-for-apostasy-a6742161.html?

These thugs are losing all sense of reason at this stage.

Crazy stuff, like the Salem witch trials. One person accuses another of something. Any suggestion that the accuser might have some ulterior motive for destroying the accused is not entertained by the "court".

Fayadh's conviction was based on evidence from a prosecution witness who claimed to have heard him cursing God, Islam's Prophet Mohammad and Saudi Arabia, and the contents of a poetry book he had written years earlier.
The case went to the Saudi appeals court and was then returned to the lower court, where a different judge on November 17 increased the sentence to death. The second judge ruled defence witnesses who had challenged the prosecution witness' testimony ineligible

As this guy is not a Saudi national, he will be treated a lot worse than that other guy (Badawi) mentioned in the same article. Unfortunately.

robindch

More on Bessborough.

Nuns told don’t co-operate as Bishop tried to thwart probes into Bessborough scandal

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/special-report-nuns-told-dont-co-operate-as-bishop-tried-to-thwart-probes-into-bessborough-scandal-366416.html

Alice Lister, Health Inspector wrote:

The greater number were miserable scraps of humanity, wisened, some emaciated and almost all had rash and sores all over their bodies, faces, hands and heads [...] The condition of the infants and younger children in the institution gives cause for uneasiness. During the year ended 31.3.43, 70 children died. There were 114 admissions (ie, births plus infants admitted after birth during the year and all but one of the 70 deaths were of children under one year)

Without apparent irony, Bessborough's resident medic, a Dr O'Connor, explained that the high death rate was because illegitimate children are less resistant to disease because of stress on the mothers.

Bessborough medic, Dr O'Connor wrote:

In spite of this selection [of food] some of the children lost weight and died. An explanation for this is that some infants saw a remarkable difficulty in digesting food and this is due to a primary failure of the process of assimilation, whether for particular food, or for foods in general, even in some cases where the child is breast fed, they do not assimilate the nourishment in the milk. This is more remarkable in illegitimate children. It must be remembered that the period of Gestation of these children is far different to that of the married woman. The girl worries a great deal and is mentally upset over her condition. She is constantly trying to conceal the fact that she is pregnant, and in some cases every effort is made to get rid of the foetus. All this has undoubtly (sic) a most injurious effect on the developing foetus resulting in weak and defective children who have a poor resistance to disease and defective powers for assimilating food [...]

recedite

The amount of sin accumulated by the mothers must have had an adverse effect on the digestive system of their infants.

Hotblack Desiato

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/circuit-court/ex-priest-who-asked-to-be-laicised-guilty-of-indecent-assault-1.2451401

A former priest who wrote to the Pope asking to be laicised because of his history of “abusing young boys” has been found guilty of indecently assaulting a secondary school student in the 1980s while the priest worked as a choirmaster and music teacher.

Henry Moloney (77) with an address at Kimmage Manor in Dublin was found guilty on Tuesday evening, on the unanimous verdicts of a jury, of seven counts of indecent assault, all of which took place within one school year in the 1980s.
...
The former priest had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
...
“It also took Henry Moloney a long time to talk about these matters,” Mr Humphreys said. “It wasn’t until 45 years later, after he started his abuse of young boys, that he wrote to the Pope and told the Pope about it.”

He quoted from Moloney’s letter of 2014, which stated “I have greatly sinned over 10 years, from 1969 to 1979 in my abusing young boys,” and went on to say “from 1980 to 1991 there were sporadic betrayals”.

No remose. No shame. No decency. Handy retirement (until now) in Kimmage Manor wanting for nothing.

robindch

The Murphy Report on the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin between 1975 and 2004 criticized the actions of Dermot O’Mahony as being "particularly bad" and involved the predatory activities of thirteen priests.

O'Mahony died recently and on Tuesday, the priest leading his funeral mass compared O'Mahony's suffering to that of the saints. O'Mahony seems to have written a letter of apology which the church wouldn't allow to be published (not sure if it has been published).

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/bishop-scapegoated-by-clerical-abuse-report-funeral-told-1.2467773

Hotblack Desiato

That was bad. But the quotes in this article were among the most sickening things I've ever had the misfortune to read.

Oh, wait a minute, they're out the back of the pub car park tearing each other's eyeballs out.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/archbishop-criticised-for-vilifying-clergy-in-abuse-inquiry-1.2470356

As I've said before, Flannery and the ACP are decidedly not our friends, not that Martin is either.

robindch

Spotlight, a film about the Boston's Globe's investigation of pedophile priests in Boston, is due out on January 29th:

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/spotlight-exclusive-exposing-a-cover-up-by-the-catholic-church-1.2487079

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56jw6tasomc

eire4

robindch wrote: »

Spotlight, a film about the Boston's Globe's investigation of pedophile priests in Boston, is due out on January 29th:

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/spotlight-exclusive-exposing-a-cover-up-by-the-catholic-church-1.2487079

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56jw6tasomc

I have seen it actually and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Very well done and very emotional to put it mildly.

PopePalpatine

At least 231 members of a boys' choir ran by Joseph Ratzinger's brother George from 1964-94 were abused: http://www.thejournal.ie/regensburg-domspatzen-ratzinger-benedict-choir-child-abuse-scandal-2538826-Jan2016/?utm_source=shortlink

The Randy Riverbeast

But dont worry, they are taking care of the people who really matter.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/catholic-church-spent-millions-providing-for-paedophile-priests-20160109-gm2f4z.html

robindch

PopePalpatine wrote: »

At least 231 members of a boys' choir ran by Joseph Ratzinger's brother George from 1964-94 were abused [...]

Interesting to see that in February 2014, the diocese said there was only 75 victims, and that a payment of €2,500 each should be enough.

Seth Brundle

robindch wrote: »

Interesting to see that in February 2014, the diocese said there was only 75 victims, and that a payment of €2,500 each should be enough.

"Mental reservation"?

pauldla

The New Yorker with a (somewhat misleadingly titled) article What Pope Benedict Knew About Abuse in the Catholic Church, dealing with the Bavarian Boys Choir scandal mentioned above.