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The Clerical Child Abuse Thread (merged)

Tigger

serious question as i was arguing this with a mate and he says there is no way people support his position but i honestly believe that many people can see his side.

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philiporeilly

ISAW wrote: »

that may well be the question but many posters are not catholic and are anti Catholic. some posters referred to a current case based on newspaper reports. But if there is a current case what they post may affect that case.

As I said previously, some here may be anti-catholic / organised religion but this does not mean that everyone who thinks Cardinal Brady was wrong and should go is anti-catholic. Some may desire closure to this scandal and the only way forward is to have faith in our religious hierarchy that they will put protecting the innocent over their own reputations or ambitions.

Above all those who preach to us about issues of morality should at least be truthful in their dealings. Before this latest drip drip revelation I said he should go and now after his "apology" we find out he is still fighting abuse victims in court.

The information discussed in this thread is based on information in the public domain and this forum could hardly prejudice a non criminal civil action.

Seth Brundle

I note from RTE that:

The Cardinal's defence, which is dated February of last year and which is not sworn, denies that the acts alleged are grounds for suing him and asks for proof that they happened.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0326/abuse.html

On the presumption that this is indeed the case, this is an absolutely outrageous tactic to be taken. Were the children meant to take photos of Smyth in action?
I'm absolutely disgusted with Brady now.

wolfsbane

Michael G wrote: »

The term for that is grandstanding.

Are you saying his years of campaigning are an ego-trip?

I saw several victims being arrested by the police at the Vatican yesterday, for holding placards. More grandstanding?

StudentDad

The saddening thing is that the Roman Catholic Church is behaving like a company suffering from negative media coverage due to illegal activities of it's employees and has resulted in a siege mentality within the organisation as a whole.

Essentially, the managers running the company have seen a sharp decline in it's share price/moral worth and are desperate to restore the image of the organisation. I'm surprised they haven't hired a marketing firm to try and polish the whole image of the church.

Frankly it's disgusting! The hierarchy needs to resign! The church needs to wake up and realise that their shareholders/parishoners are not willing to tolerate being treated like serfs anymore.

The days are long gone where the church can make statements from Rome and expect the faithful to bow and comply with their dictat.

As a Christian who left the RC church and is now a member of another church I've never been happier with my decision. My children are being raised as Christians but we won't be returning to the RC church.

SD

--amadeus--

I do hope ISAW hasn't gone too far because it seems Rome agrees with us rather than with him, accusing Brady of putting himself ahead of the interests of teh church (could that be the pride I was talking about), insisting he resigns and hinting that a clean sweep of teh senior staff may be needed.

I hope he and teh other apolgists will not resort to ad hominim attacks, spin and accusations of media bias in reponse to this development

Link

alex73

A Catholic Congregation Legon Of Christ released a press release acknowleging that its founder abused the boys in its Minor seminary.

http://www.legionariesofchrist.org/eng/articulos/articulo2.phtml?se=243&ca=703&te=475&id=29158&csearch=703

However the congregation still claims that God used the Peodophile founder Fr. Marcial Maciel as a instrument to found the congregation.

Does anyone really think that God would choose a peodophile to found a congregation? If the priest used false representation to get approval for his congregation does this not mean its null and void now (that the whole truth is known).

I suppose my question for discussion is:-

Can a congregation approval and built on lies, deceit and abuse continue to exist once the truth is uncovered?

dr.bollocko

alex73 wrote: »

Can a congregation approval and built on lies, deceit and abuse continue to exist once the truth is uncovered?

Well based on the fact that the pope hasn't resigned after having a hand in covering up abuse and the RCC is still going strong I would have to say yes, unfortunately.

Fanny Cradock

Oh dear, not a good start. I'm tempted to move this to the mega thread we have going on or lock it given the quality of response so far.

Irlandese

The Great Catholic Cover-UpThe pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it.
By Christopher HitchensPosted Monday, March 15, 2010, at 10:20 AM ET

Pope Benedict XVI. Click image to expand.Pope Benedict XVI On March 10, the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the Rev. Gabriele Amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican," and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true—including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia." This can perhaps be taken as confirmation that something horrible has indeed been going on in the holy precincts, though most inquiries show it to have a perfectly good material explanation.
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Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing—indeed endless—scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse." He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed."

He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.)

There are two separate but related matters here: First, the individual responsibility of the pope in one instance of this moral nightmare and, second, his more general and institutional responsibility for the wider lawbreaking and for the shame and disgrace that goes with it. The first story is easily told, and it is not denied by anybody. In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing "abuse"?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for "therapy" by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger's deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to "pastoral" work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.

It is, of course, claimed, and it will no doubt later be partially un-claimed, that Ratzinger himself knew nothing of this second outrage. I quote, here, from the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a former employee of the Vatican Embassy in Washington and an early critic of the Catholic Church's sloth in responding to child-rape allegations. "Nonsense," he says. "Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He's the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he's trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope."

This is common or garden stuff, very familiar to American and Australian and Irish Catholics whose children's rape and torture, and the cover-up of same by the tactic of moving rapists and torturers from parish to parish, has been painstakingly and comprehensively exposed. It's on a level with the recent belated admission by the pope's brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, that while he knew nothing about sexual assault at the choir school he ran between 1964 and 1994, now that he remembers it, he is sorry for his practice of slapping the boys around.

Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)

Not content with shielding its own priests from the law, Ratzinger's office even wrote its own private statute of limitations. The church's jurisdiction, claimed Ratzinger, "begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age" and then lasts for 10 more years. Daniel Shea, the attorney for two victims who sued Ratzinger and a church in Texas, correctly describes that latter stipulation as an obstruction of justice. "You can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10, the priest will get away with it."

The next item on this grisly docket will be the revival of the long-standing allegations against the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the ultra-reactionary Legion of Christ, in which sexual assault seems to have been almost part of the liturgy. Senior ex-members of this secretive order found their complaints ignored and overridden by Ratzinger during the 1990s, if only because Father Maciel had been praised by the then-Pope John Paul II as an "efficacious guide to youth." And now behold the harvest of this long campaign of obfuscation. The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a mediocre Bavarian bureaucrat once tasked with the concealment of the foulest iniquity, whose ineptitude in that job now shows him to us as a man personally and professionally responsible for enabling a filthy wave of crime. Ratzinger himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil—a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel. What is needed is not medieval incantation but the application of justice—and speedily at that.

philiporeilly

There hasn't been any conclusive evidence yet to link the Pope directly to that scandal. I'm not saying that he wasn't but it is extremely unlikely that proof will ever be found.

Given that that we have seen that church authorities do everything possible to protect the name of pedophile priests what do you think they will do to stop the disclose of anything embarrassing to the pope?

The pope's reaction to these scandals is to apologise for the wrongs that were done by those in the "Irish church" or "German Church" or "American Church". i.e. completely disassociate Rome from any responsibilities for the acts that were committed or covered up. We are led to believe that local hierarchies alone made the decisions to conceal the truth and coverup what actually happened.

I don't believe that Rome had no responsibility or didn't give orders to those at the time but it is highly unlikely this proof will ever be found. Its ironic that honesty is one value that cannot be bestowed to the church hierarchy!

The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a global plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by teachers to rape by uncles to kidnapping-and-sex-trafficking. In the United States alone, there are reportedly some 39 million victims of childhood sexual abuse. Forty to sixty percent were abused by family members, including stepfathers and live-in boyfriends of a child’s mother—thus suggesting that abused children are the principal victims of the sexual revolution, the breakdown of marriage, and the hook-up culture. Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft reports that 6-10 percent of public school students have been molested in recent years—some 290,000 between 1991 and 2000. According to other recent studies, 2 percent of sex abuse offenders were Catholic priests—a phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops’ annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members).

Yet in a pattern exemplifying the dog’s behavior in Proverbs 26:11, the sexual abuse story in the global media is almost entirely a Catholic story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young, with hints of an ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today. That the vast majority of the abuse cases in the United States took place decades ago is of no consequence to this story line. For the narrative that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today) than it is about taking the Church down—and, eventually, out, both financially and as a credible voice in the public debate over public policy. For if the Church is a global criminal conspiracy of sexual abusers and their protectors, then the Catholic Church has no claim to a place at the table of public moral argument.

Read the rest here:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/03/scoundrel-times

PDN

M6 wrote: »

Yet in a pattern exemplifying the dog’s behavior in Proverbs 26:11, the sexual abuse story in the global media is almost entirely a Catholic story, in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as the epicenter of the sexual abuse of the young, with hints of an ecclesiastical criminal conspiracy involving sexual predators whose predations continue today.

To be honest, I think this is wilfully distorting the reasons for the media attention and the public outrage.

Nobody, except the most rabid enemies of the Church, would create a load of hype over the fact that a small percentage of priests turned out to be child abusers. What is causing all the outrage is the cover up that was perpetuated. Abusers were allowed to keep on abusing, and children were bullied into silence. It appears that the Church displayed less moral fibre in dealing with this problem than did most secular institutions such as schools. People's moral expectations of the Church were higher, but the Church actually behaved morally worse than other bodies in society that faced similar problems.

philiporeilly wrote: »

There hasn't been any conclusive evidence yet to link the Pope directly to that scandal. I'm not saying that he wasn't but it is extremely unlikely that proof will ever be found.

Given that that we have seen that church authorities do everything possible to protect the name of pedophile priests what do you think they will do to stop the disclose of anything embarrassing to the pope?

The pope's reaction to these scandals is to apologise for the wrongs that were done by those in the "Irish church" or "German Church" or "American Church". i.e. completely disassociate Rome from any responsibilities for the acts that were committed or covered up. We are led to believe that local hierarchies alone made the decisions to conceal the truth and coverup what actually happened.

I don't believe that Rome had no responsibility or didn't give orders to those at the time but it is highly unlikely this proof will ever be found. Its ironic that honesty is one value that cannot be bestowed to the church hierarchy!

You'd need to read the whole thing not just the bit I posted.

Meanwhile, the irony is staggering, as leading deviant sex-rights activist Peter Tatchel calls for Pope to resign. Horrific as abuse is, Mr Tatchel thinks a lot of it would have been ok if only the kid had given consent. Yes, that's from his sick website. Check it if you don't believe me.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDkxYmUzMTQ1YWUyMzRkMzg4Y2RiN2UyOWIzNDVkNDM=

The New York Times on March 25 accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, of intervening to prevent a priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, from facing penalties for cases of sexual abuse of minors.

The story is false. It is unsupported by its own documentation. Indeed, it gives every indication of being part of a coordinated campaign against Pope Benedict, rather than responsible journalism.

Before addressing the false substance of the story, the following circumstances are worthy of note:

• The New York Times story had two sources. First, lawyers who currently have a civil suit pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. One of the lawyers, Jeffrey Anderson, also has cases in the United States Supreme Court pending against the Holy See. He has a direct financial interest in the matter being reported.

• The second source was Archbishop Rembert Weakland, retired archbishop of Milwaukee. He is the most discredited and disgraced bishop in the United States, widely known for mishandling sexual-abuse cases during his tenure, and guilty of using $450,000 of archdiocesan funds to pay hush money to a former homosexual lover who was blackmailing him. Archbishop Weakland had responsibility for the Father Murphy case between 1977 and 1998, when Father Murphy died. He has long been embittered that his maladministration of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee earned him the disfavor of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, long before it was revealed that he had used parishioners’ money to pay off his clandestine lover. He is prima facie not a reliable source.

• Laurie Goodstein, the author of the New York Times story, has a recent history with Archbishop Weakland. Last year, upon the release of the disgraced archbishop’s autobiography, she wrote an unusually sympathetic story that buried all the most serious allegations against him (New York Times, May 14, 2009).

• A demonstration took place in Rome on Friday, coinciding with the publication of the New York Times story. One might ask how American activists would happen to be in Rome distributing the very documents referred to that day in the New York Times. The appearance here is one of a coordinated campaign, rather than disinterested reporting.

It’s possible that bad sources could still provide the truth. But compromised sources scream out for greater scrutiny. Instead of greater scrutiny of the original story, however, news editors the world over simply parroted the New York Times piece. Which leads us the more fundamental problem: The story is not true, according to its own documentation.

The New York Times made available on its own website the supporting documentation for the story. In those documents, Cardinal Ratzinger himself does not take any of the decisions that allegedly frustrated the trial. Letters are addressed to him; responses come from his deputy. Even leaving that aside, though, the gravamen of the charge — that Cardinal Ratzinger’s office impeded some investigation — is proven utterly false.

The documents show that the canonical trial or penal process against Father Murphy was never stopped by anyone. In fact, it was only abandoned days before Father Murphy died.

Full piece: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDkxYmUzMTQ1YWUyMzRkMzg4Y2RiN2UyOWIzNDVkNDM=

The truth is less interesting than the story in this case.

Irlandese

M6 wrote: »

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDkxYmUzMTQ1YWUyMzRkMzg4Y2RiN2UyOWIzNDVkNDM=

The New York Times on March 25 accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, of intervening to prevent a priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, from facing penalties for cases of sexual abuse of minors.

The story is false. It is unsupported by its own documentation. Indeed, it gives every indication of being part of a coordinated campaign against Pope Benedict, rather than responsible journalism.

Before addressing the false substance of the story, the following circumstances are worthy of note:

• The New York Times story had two sources. First, lawyers who currently have a civil suit pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. One of the lawyers, Jeffrey Anderson, also has cases in the United States Supreme Court pending against the Holy See. He has a direct financial interest in the matter being reported.

• The second source was Archbishop Rembert Weakland, retired archbishop of Milwaukee. He is the most discredited and disgraced bishop in the United States, widely known for mishandling sexual-abuse cases during his tenure, and guilty of using $450,000 of archdiocesan funds to pay hush money to a former homosexual lover who was blackmailing him. Archbishop Weakland had responsibility for the Father Murphy case between 1977 and 1998, when Father Murphy died. He has long been embittered that his maladministration of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee earned him the disfavor of Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, long before it was revealed that he had used parishioners’ money to pay off his clandestine lover. He is prima facie not a reliable source.

• Laurie Goodstein, the author of the New York Times story, has a recent history with Archbishop Weakland. Last year, upon the release of the disgraced archbishop’s autobiography, she wrote an unusually sympathetic story that buried all the most serious allegations against him (New York Times, May 14, 2009).

• A demonstration took place in Rome on Friday, coinciding with the publication of the New York Times story. One might ask how American activists would happen to be in Rome distributing the very documents referred to that day in the New York Times. The appearance here is one of a coordinated campaign, rather than disinterested reporting.

It’s possible that bad sources could still provide the truth. But compromised sources scream out for greater scrutiny. Instead of greater scrutiny of the original story, however, news editors the world over simply parroted the New York Times piece. Which leads us the more fundamental problem: The story is not true, according to its own documentation.

The New York Times made available on its own website the supporting documentation for the story. In those documents, Cardinal Ratzinger himself does not take any of the decisions that allegedly frustrated the trial. Letters are addressed to him; responses come from his deputy. Even leaving that aside, though, the gravamen of the charge — that Cardinal Ratzinger’s office impeded some investigation — is proven utterly false.

The documents show that the canonical trial or penal process against Father Murphy was never stopped by anyone. In fact, it was only abandoned days before Father Murphy died.

Full piece: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDkxYmUzMTQ1YWUyMzRkMzg4Y2RiN2UyOWIzNDVkNDM=

The truth is less interesting than the story in this case.

Sorry friend, but the evidence is against your effort to defend the indefensible:
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/
This one is a bit strong, but representative of the growing data available

PDN

M6 wrote: »

You'd need to read the whole thing not just the bit I posted.

Meanwhile, the irony is staggering, as leading deviant sex-rights activist Peter Tatchel calls for Pope to resign. Horrific as abuse is, Mr Tatchel thinks a lot of it would have been ok if only the kid had given consent. Yes, that's from his sick website. Check it if you don't believe me.

Ths thread is not the place for you to indulge in rants afainst homosexuality. I strongly suspect that you a re-reg of an individual (Outrage, underclass etc) that has been sitebanned under various other names. You are a whisker away from being permabanned - so please behave yourself.

kelly1

FR. LOMBARDI: CHURCH COMMITMENT AGAINST CHILD ABUSE

VATICAN CITY, 27 MAR 2010 (VIS) - Given below is the text of a note released by Holy See Press Office Director Fr. Federico Lombardi S.J., entitled "Vigil of Holy Week".

"The question of the sexual abuse of minors by members of the Catholic clergy has continued to receive wide coverage in the communications media of many countries, especially in Europe and North America, coverage which has continued over recent days following the publication of the Pope's Letter to the Catholics of Ireland.

"This is no surprise. The nature of the question is such as to attract the attention of the media, and the way in which the Church deals with it is crucial for her moral credibility.

"The truth is that the cases that have come to public attention generally took place some time ago, even decades ago, although recognising them and making amends with the victims is the best way to restore justice and to achieve that 'purification of memory' which enables us to look to the future with renewed commitment, with humility and trust.

"A contribution to this trust comes from the many positive signals emerging from various episcopal conferences, bishops and Catholic institutions in different countries on the various continents: directives for the correct handling and prevention of abuses, which have been reiterated, updated and renewed in Germany, Austria, Australia, Canada etc.

"In particular, one piece of good news is the seventh annual report on the application of 'Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People' of the Church in the United States. Without indulging in misplaced congratulations, we cannot but recognise the extraordinary preventative efforts being undertaken, with numerous formational and training courses both for the young people and for pastoral and educational staff. And it must acknowledged that the number of accusations of abuse has dropped by more than 30 percent over the last year, and most of them concerned cases more than thirty years old. Without entering into further details, it must be recognised that the decisive measures currently being implemented are proving effective: the Church in the United States is on the right road to renewal.

"This, we feel, is an important piece of news in the context of recent media attacks, which have undoubtedly proved harmful. But an impartial observer will not fail to notice that the authority of the Pope and the intense and coherent commitment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith have not been weakened, rather they have been confirmed in their support and guidance to bishops to combat and root out the blight of abuse wherever it appears. The Pope's recent Letter to the Church in Ireland is powerful testimony of this, and contributes to preparing the future along the path of 'healing, renewal, reparation'.

"With humility and trust, in a spirit of penance and hope, the Church now enters Holy Week asking the mercy and grace of the Lord, Who suffered and died for all".

OP/NOTE CLERGY ABUSE/LOMBARDI VIS 100329 (510)

Blueboyd

"'purification of memory'

now that is an interesting term

lets now all "purify our memory" of 9/11 so we can conitnue our lives

kelly1

Blueboyd wrote: »

"'purification of memory'

now that is an interesting term

lets now all "purife our memory" of 9/11 so we can conitnue our lives

I agree, it's an odd phrase. How can you purify memory without denial? Healing would be a better word surely?

Blueboyd

kelly1 wrote: »

I agree, it's an odd phrase. How can you purify memory without denial? Healing would be a better word surely?

Isn't that the whole isue. The Vatican is still in denial saying it is an Irish problem, or it was an American problem. Nor has they admitted any guilt of cover up. If I can remember correctly the FBI said during the American crisis that the Vatican did move eveidence behind the wall of dipolmatic immunity and I don't think FBI has an agenda to destroy the RCC. As long as there is denial - there won't be any healing. The church is playing the victim here and comparing itself even to Jesus on the cross which is pretty disgusting parallel itself.

Irlandese

PDN wrote: »

Ths thread is not the place for you to indulge in rants afainst homosexuality. I strongly suspect that you a re-reg of an individual (Outrage, underclass etc) that has been sitebanned under various other names. You are a whisker away from being permabanned - so please behave yourself.

well spotted, Mod !

Irlandese wrote: »

Sorry friend, but the evidence is against your effort to defend the indefensible:
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/
This one is a bit strong, but representative of the growing data available

Sorry, you are wrong.

Meanwhile, this just in:

Setting the record straight in the case of abusive Milwaukee priest Father Lawrence Murphy

Then-presiding judge for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee gives first-person account of church trial

By Fr. THOMAS BRUNDAGE, JLC

For CatholicAnchor.org

To provide context to this article, I was the Judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from 1995-2003. During those years, I presided over four canonical criminal cases, one of which involved Father Lawrence Murphy. Two of the four men died during the process. God alone will judge these men.

To put some parameters on the following remarks, I am writing this article with the express knowledge and consent of Archbishop Roger Schwietz, OMI, the Archbishop of Anchorage, where I currently serve. Archbishop Schwietz is also the publisher of the Catholic Anchor newspaper.

I will limit my comments, because of judicial oaths I have taken as a canon lawyer and as an ecclesiastical judge. However, [READ CAREFULLY] since my name and comments in the matter of the Father Murphy case have been liberally and often inaccurately quoted in the New York Times and in more than 100 other newspapers and on-line periodicals, I feel a freedom to tell part of the story of Father Murphy’s trial from ground zero.

As I have found that the reporting on this issue has been inaccurate and poor in terms of the facts, I am also writing out of a sense of duty to the truth.

[NOTA BENE] The fact that I presided over this trial and have never once been contacted by any news organization for comment speaks for itself.

My intent in the following paragraphs is to accomplish the following:

To tell the back-story of what actually happened in the Father Murphy case on the local level;

To outline the sloppy and inaccurate reporting on the Father Murphy case by the New York Times and other media outlets;

To assert that Pope Benedict XVI has done more than any other pope or bishop in history to rid the Catholic Church of the scourge of child sexual abuse and provide for those who have been injured;

To set the record straight with regards to the efforts made by the church to heal the wounds caused by clergy sexual misconduct. The Catholic Church is probably the safest place for children at this point in history.

[...]

... As a college freshman at the Marquette University School of Journalism, we were told to check, recheck, and triple check our quotes if necessary. I was never contacted by anyone on this document, written by an unknown source to me. Discerning truth takes time and it is apparent that the New York Times, the Associated Press and others did not take the time to get the facts correct.

[...]

Father Thomas T. Brundage, JCL

Yeah so you can read the full article here: http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601
Father Z has comment here: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/03/judicial-vicar-of-milwaukee-gives-his-account-corrects-nyt/

Irlandese

In addition to being way wrong re this post, yet again, tactically, friend, you have a lot to learn.
We all saw your earlier awful slandering of tatchell and your homophobia and tendency to write scurilous nonsense to push false points, so we know you are totallt unreliable as a commentator.
You trying to defend the indefensible regarding the Pope is a bit like using a fire-hose from a petrol tank to try to put out a fire.
Maybe it's time to re-invent yourself under another nom-de-plume?
But, it is too easy to spot you from the awful stuff you post.
Sorry to be right, again !

Irlandese wrote: »

In addition to being way wrong re this post, yet again, tactically, friend, you have a lot to learn.
We all saw your earlier awful slandering of tatchell and your homophobia and tendency to write scurilous nonsense to push false points, so we know you are totallt unreliable as a commentator.
You trying to defend the indefensible regarding the Pope is a bit like using a fire-hose from a petrol tank to try to put out a fire.
Maybe it's time to re-invent yourself under another nom-de-plume?
But, it is too easy to spot you from the awful stuff you post.
Sorry to be right, again !

I'm just a messenger. I am not the same person as outrage/whatever. I am no fan of Tatchel, that is true. The articles prove, however, that the Times article was wrong and more interested in sensationalism than facts. I bet you didn't even read them anyway. I don't know why I bother.

Irlandese

M6 wrote: »

I'm just a messenger. I am not the same person as outrage/whatever. I am no fan of Tatchel, that is true. The articles prove, however, that the Times article was wrong and more interested in sensationalism than facts. I bet you didn't even read them anyway. I don't know why I bother.

I don't know why you do either.
I am probably not alone.

Irlandese

M6 wrote: »

I'm just a messenger. I am not the same person as outrage/whatever. I am no fan of Tatchel, that is true. The articles prove, however, that the Times article was wrong and more interested in sensationalism than facts. I bet you didn't even read them anyway. I don't know why I bother.

Oh, I looked, even though we are talking about a very old and slightly dotty poor old priest who has been dragged out to try to emulate the poor 300 odd sheep who almost cried for poor old cardinal brady in armagh the other day.
I copied this bit for anyone wishing to know whether they should avoid wasting their time having a look too: "Finally, over the last 25 years, vigorous action has taken place within the church to avoid harm to children. "
Yes, that was written by the dotty old priest just yesterday.
I think writing something like that might just qualify him for some kind of psychiatric support services, unless he is just another clerical liar trying to defend their chief wizard from the awful truth about his past?

philiporeilly

M6 wrote: »

I'm just a messenger. I am not the same person as outrage/whatever. I am no fan of Tatchel, that is true. The articles prove, however, that the Times article was wrong and more interested in sensationalism than facts. I bet you didn't even read them anyway. I don't know why I bother.

A blog from a roman catholic newspaper hardly proves the New York Times wrong. I've read the article in full and it hardly discredits the entirety of the NY Times report

Some of the arguements used to discredit the NY Times:

Second, with regard to the role of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in this matter, I have no reason to believe that he was involved at all. Placing this matter at his doorstep is a huge leap of logic and information.

They have no reason to believe he was involved. Not a concrete statement or denial. Is it really a hugh leap of logic and information to believe that the cardinal that was in charge and that was sent correspondences actually saw them?

Third, the competency to hear cases of sexual abuse of minors shifted from the Roman Rota to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger in 2001. Until that time, most appeal cases went to the Rota and it was our experience that cases could languish for years in this court. When the competency was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in my observation as well as many of my canonical colleagues, sexual abuse cases were handled expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved. I have no doubt that this was the work of then Cardinal Ratzinger.

Given that so many are suing the church I could hardly say that the victims in the states believe that they were dealt with expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved. The church there, like here, have done everything possible to fight victims in court and continue to do so.

Fourth, Pope Benedict has repeatedly apologized for the shame of the sexual abuse of children in various venues and to a worldwide audience. This has never happened before. He has met with victims. He has reigned in entire conferences of bishops on this matter, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland being the most recent. He has been most reactive and proactive of any international church official in history with regard to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse of minors. Instead of blaming him for inaction on these matters, he has truly been a strong and effective leader on these issues.

Most of the victim support groups have stated otherwise. He was forced into making those apologies after decades of trying to cover up what actually happened.

Finally, over the last 25 years, vigorous action has taken place within the church to avoid harm to children. Potential seminarians receive extensive sexual-psychological evaluation prior to admission. Virtually all seminaries concentrate their efforts on the safe environment for children. There have been very few cases of recent sexual abuse of children by clergy during the last decade or more.

Those actions are welcome and necessary. Also, I don't know any parents that would leave their children unsupervised with clergy (or anyone unvetted) if they didn't personally know them and had a close friendship.

Irlandese

I have just sent the following personal e-mail to the dotty old priest concerned.

"
Your attempt to defend ratzinger in the catholic anchor is being quoted on a blog I contribute to. Happily most of us are immune to the lies and low standards that typify the response of your church boot-boys to the revealing of your systemic depraved abuse of children and defenceless persons, for hundreds of years.
Your own morally appalling attempted defence of Ratzinger through the Catholic Anchor is yet another evil strike by you and your fellow travellers at defenceless children, victims and the millions hurt beyond repair by priest rapists and their network of protective and facilitating rings around the catholic world.
How dare you?
Let us be plain here.
You are not an honest broker and your motives are the preservation of a hegemony based on the sadistic, savage depravity that the church visits, even today, on the innocents under your power.
You, personally, figuratively and morally, are raping them again in joining the sick sad band of apologists and defenders of the indefensible. But then, that is what you were doing for years as a "judge" in those perniscious, incestuous covens called canon trials, was it not?
You and your fellow coven members were covering the tracks of the rapists and denying the FBI, police and others the information that state and federal law required to effectively take these rapists and possibly murderers out of circulation.
Do your soul a favour. Read this link and let the evil in your heart loosen a little, just a little:
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/

Yes, friend, I do not hate you, even as I hate the evil your actions do and the evil you seek to perpetuate.
No, the church is the very least safe place for any children and will always be, while Ratzinger, Cardinal Brady and their ilk are the chief protectors of the paedofile rings that run the church in too many places around the world.
I repeat, How dare you?
Are you one of them too? I only ask and it is a very legitimate question. "

kelly1

M6 wrote: »

Yeah so you can read the full article here: http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601

I just read that article, interesting read. I hope it's true!

I know the Church has been involved in covering up scandal but I also know that the media are only too happy to paint the Church in a bad light and seem to care little for the truth behind the stories they publish.

kelly1

Irlandese wrote: »

I have just sent the following personal e-mail to the dotty old priest concerned.

"
Your attempt to defend ratzinger in the catholic anchor is being quoted on a blog I contribute to. Happily most of us are immune to the lies and low standards that typify the response of your church boot-boys to the revealing of your systemic depraved abuse of children and defenceless persons, for hundreds of years.
Your own morally appalling attempted defence of Ratzinger through the Catholic Anchor is yet another evil strike by you and your fellow travellers at defenceless children, victims and the millions hurt beyond repair by priest rapists and their network of protective and facilitating rings around the catholic world.
How dare you?
Let us be plain here.
You are not an honest broker and your motives are the preservation of a hegemony based on the sadistic, savage depravity that the church visits, even today, on the innocents under your power.
You, personally, figuratively and morally, are raping them again in joining the sick sad band of apologists and defenders of the indefensible. But then, that is what you were doing for years as a "judge" in those perniscious, incestuous covens called canon trials, was it not?
You and your fellow coven members were covering the tracks of the rapists and denying the FBI, police and others the information that state and federal law required to effectively take these rapists and possibly murderers out of circulation.
Do your soul a favour. Read this link and let the evil in your heart loosen a little, just a little:
http://www.slate.com/id/2247861/

Yes, friend, I do not hate you, even as I hate the evil your actions do and the evil you seek to perpetuate.
No, the church is the very least safe place for any children and will always be, while Ratzinger, Cardinal Brady and their ilk are the chief protectors of the paedofile rings that run the church in too many places around the world.
I repeat, How dare you?
Are you one of them too? I only ask and it is a very legitimate question. "

That is seriously OTT!