Posted on 04/08/2010 11:36:45 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
A West Texas teen filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Archdiocese of San Antonio and Archbishop Jose Gomez alleging repeated sexual assaults by a parish priest, who he says the church's leadership should have known was abusive.
The allegations came just days after Gomez was named to a high-profile post leading the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be formally introduced to parishioners in May.
The lawsuit accuses the Rev. John M. Fiala of repeatedly sexually assaulting the teen, including twice forcing him to have sex at gunpoint when Fiala was the pastor at Sacred Heart of Mary Parish in the remote community of Rocksprings. The lawsuit alleges the incidents occurred in 2007 and 2008, during Gomez's tenure overseeing a swath of south and west Texas.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Mahoney Part Deux.
Fifteen years ago I lived in a community where a young man in his teens was the "boy" for the Priest in their church. I asked the individual who shared this with me why if it was general knowlege didn't the people speak up on the boys behalf. She said though it was understood nobody dared to cause an issue for the church since the Priest was well know and liked. So they simply turn their heads, as she said. Thus making them as quilty as the Priest for doing that.
It's amazing what people will actually believe and put up with. The disconnect is staggering.
I do realize the catholic teachings and leadership believes the Priests to be “another Christ”...but I am not so sure catholics in general believe this to be true. Comman sense alone knows there is but one Christ. Perhaps they just see the Priest as representing Christ not necessarily “another” Christ. We are called to follow Him and strive to be as He is with the help of the Holy Spirit.
However one looks at it sin is sin be it Priest or the lowest of the low....it remains sin against God...therefore if they see themselves as actually “another Christ” by their action with children they become “anti-Christ”...opposing Christ.
For all religions and cults the disconnect from reality is mandatory.
8 hours ago.
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A former Catholic bishop who is already facing child pornography charges is now accused in a civil lawsuit of sexual abuse.
In a statement of claim filed in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, Todd Boland alleged former Bishop Raymond Lahey fondled him over his clothes, and that the abuse happened on numerous occasions over several years. The abuse is alleged to have happened in the mid 1980s when Boland was a resident at the infamous Mount Cashel orphanage.
The statement of claim is brought against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's.
Boland's lawyer, Greg Stack, said the child pornography charges laid earlier this year may have helped spur Boland to come forward
Read more:
Why do do you say this when the Church has done more to address the issue than other institutions? In any case, a charge is not necessary guilt. Or have you thrown the presumption of innocence out the window? If we are just sharing prejudices, let me give you mine: this is lawyers trolling for dollars. Unable to shake down the medical industry in Texas, they go after the Church.
The salient term here is “former.”
Yes “former,” after the child pornography charges. It is difficult even for the Catholic church to cover up after criminal charges like that.
There are Bishops in Germany that are encouraging anyone with a complaint go to the civil authorities. Implying that they should not trust the church authorities.
The church had set up a hotline for sexual complaints and received 2,900 calls within two and half days. Now that does not mean 2,900 complaints of individual priests, as some were call backs and others were about the same priest, and no doubt quite a few were venting.
EVEN the Catholic Church? The great majority of the charges made are very hold and brought against the local butcher would be thrown out of court. Statutes of limitations are there for a reason, which is the respect for the principle that in order to protect the innocent, the guilty must sometimes go free. BTW, your presumption that the civil authorities are so eager to prosecute child molesters flies in face of the evidence. It is as prevalent as prostitution in our society, as sodomy among sheepherders, as adultery among the married but the dockets are not bursting with cases like this. On the contrary, the police would be overwhelmed if they had actually to enforce the public morals. Thy cannot even get habitual drunks off the roads.
There but for the Grace OF GOD, go any mortal bags of flesh.
Christ and Paul both demonstrated Servant-Hearted Leadership. God and Man leaders and the demonstrable bulk of the New Testament demonstrations in Scripture were servant leaders.
Not a single one of them were "into" hierarchical structures and pontifications. Christ and Paul both DEMONSTRATED THE POWER OF GOD as their authority.
THE POWER OF GOD.
Not a form of RELIGION DENYING THE POWER THEREOF--BUT THE DEMONSTRATED POWER OF GOD.
Paul mentioned his authority coming from direct dialogue and comissioning with Christ on the Damascas road and perhaps by allusion to the years in the wilderness. Yet he persistently appealed more to THE POWER OF GOD backing up his words--not to some comissioning document with umpteen wax seals and lots of gold leaf on it. It was NOT a structure nor a hierarchy nor an affiliation with the Jerusalem Disciples nor even his comissioning by Christ directly that Paul asserted and appealed to most frequently as evidence of his legitimacy of his Apostleship.
It was persistently:
1. THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTED JESUS THE CHRIST.
2. THE POWER OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS.
3. THE POWER OF THE NAME OF JESUS.
4. THE POWER OF HOLY SPIRIT DEMONSTRATED IN HIS LIFE AND MINISTRY.
5. THEIR ANOINTING BREAKS THE YOKE.
Such brought healing, deliverance, wholeness, divided the bone from the marrow; error from truth; brought back to life sleepy-heads fallen out of windows and turned the rebellious over to satan for discipline.
NOT some bureaucratic political power-mongering clique of self-serving ecclesiastical elites deciding theology and truth on the basis of what was best for them as individuals and for their exclusive clique in Rome.
Henry Wright is correct. All sexual acting out is a desperate longing and search for a father's love that wasn't sufficiently available in sufficiently convincing quantities and qualities to fill the young child's empty love-buckets the first years of life--essentially an ATTACHMENT DISORDER set of problems--whether it be heterosexual promiscuity, homosexual acting out, whatever.
Only the Active Anointing of the Blood of Jesus, The Cross, Holy Spirit can bring deliverance, cleanse and begin to fill such holes of spirit, mind, body, soul.
1. Hierarchy will NOT do it.
2. Structure will NOT do it.
3. Fossilized and lichen encrusted edifices will NOT do it.
4. Prissy, hypocritical, phoney, jury-rigged pseudo-'authority' will NOT do it.
5. Ritual will NOT do it.
6. Formulas--even Biblical formulas persistently, (at some point) will NOT reliably do it.
7. Organizational fancy footwork will NOT do it.
8. Systemic cover-ups & rationalizations will certainly NOT do it.
A relatively small percentage of Roman Catholic et al's 'famous' 'leaders' have demonstrated similar authentic servant leadership, imho.
INSTEAD, it's been SAVE, PROTECT, WHITE-WASH THE INSTITUTION AT ALL COSTS, FIRST, LAST AND ALWAYS. NOT GOD. NOT CONFESSION AND REPENTANCE AND WHAT COULD BE DONE TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT--NO--THE INSTITUTION ABOVE ALL.
Such is the nature of man, the tendencies of the flesh alone or in groups. No individual or group is entirely free of such in this mortal sphere.
And the more prissy, lofty and self-aggrandizing the individuals and groups, the worse the rot that sets in. And soon, the rot becomes wrapped in velvet and gold lame and gold leaf and very pontifical in tone and ceremony. And no one dares to tarnish the images, the pomp and circumstance; the prancing princes of RELIGIOUS power . . .
1. regardless of the hearts.
2. regardless of the attitudes.
3. regardless of the actions, activities.
4. regardless of the hypocrisies.
5. regardless of the smell.
6. regardless of the idolatries and blasphemies.
7. regardless of the horrors in the name of Gilded Gawd Stand-ins.
Yes, the Roman Catholic et al's edifice is blackened yet again by serious sins and levels of cover-up. And given the purported pontifications of how pristine, righteous, authoritative and exclusively 'Godly' said RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION holds itself out to be--the horrors are manifestly multiplied in their realities and implications.
However, Protties will be well advised to be cautious about judgmental haughty self-righteous attitudes.
The purifying fires of Holy Spirit are just getting warmed up. They have hardly begun to burn fiercely brightly.
AND NO Christian institution, organization or congregation will be left unscathed, will be left with anything but faces to the floor before God.
The Roman Catholic et al edifice currently is having yet another opportunity to COME CLEAN BEFORE GOD AND MAN and to purge and ask God to purge and help purge it of all sexual and other idolatries. It will rise to the occasion or it won't. So far, it looks like a very mixed bag.
So far, it looks like it's only interested in wrapping itself in its usual robes of claimed exclusivist self-righteousness, rationalizing at least as much as confessing and repenting and pretending that it can pretty much mostly go on with business as usual.
I think God has a different opinion.
And a different set of expectations of the leadership.
I don't believe the edifice will get the message very thoroughly nor change very thoroughly.
Oh, sure, candidates will be screened much better. That's been in place for a while and PRAISE GOD for that. And other self-policing structures and policies are better and better in place and functioning.
However the root attitudes do not seem to have greatly changed nor do they seem about to.
The exclusivist self-righteousness remains a hallmark of the edifice. The rampant idolatries so !!!!TRADITIONAL!!!! about THE INSITUTION ABOVE ALL AND AT ALL COSTS mentality continues to reign supreme.
God is NOT fooled.
God is NOT amused.
There may be pockets, congregations, retreat centers, personal ministries within the edifice who/which will put God and God's priorities and ways sufficiently FIRST AND FOREMOST to regain some hint of God's blessing and anointing. If so, it will be along the lines of servant leadership operating in the ACTIVE ANOINTED DEMONSTRATED POWER OF GOD that has nothing to do with the !!!!TRADITIONS!!!! or 'exclusivist pretentions' of the INSTITUTION and everything to do with servant hearts face-to-the-floor-humble right before A FIERCELY HOLY ALMIGHTY GOD.
God has hardly begun to clean the House of God on earth. He will get blazingly going in all His fierceness and HE WILL FINISH THE JOB. NO INDIVIDUAL, NO GROUP will be unscathed. That is, no group or individual that really seeks God and wants to live eternally WITH HIM and be authenticall called by His Name.
God must do that. He PROMISED to begin the END TIMES cleaning house with the household of faith.
Well stated.
Thanks for your kind reply.
At least in the case of the butcher he would have gone to court, whereas, most of these cases were know long before the statue of limitations had expired and were hidden by the church to accomplish just that convenient resolution.
BTW, your presumption that the civil authorities are so eager to prosecute child molesters flies in face of the evidence
Obviously the German Catholic Bishops, who are more au fait with the stratagems of the church than any devout member of the flock, would disagree they seem to trust them more.
What evidence? I suggest you call the police and tell them that you have knowledge of handicapped children being sodomised and see what the reaction would be.
You are a perfect example of what I wrote in post #6.
Ironically since 2001 the police have been more attentive to reported child molestation. But you insist on saying that the Church was protecting molesters in a way that, the public schools or protestant churches were not. Fifty years ago, such incidents were indeed buried under a blanket in large part because they were embarrassing to all concerned. Like the legal abortion procured for his daughter by the local school superintendent, or the resignation of the coach who knocked her up, or the mayor caught in adultery with his secretary, or the doctor’s son who in a drunken stupor drives into a house. As in most cases, the victims of the priests are like victims in all these other cases. They can never again have the same trust in people. Their faith has been shattered. And all these things are crimes, but no one does time in jail, in fact 99% of the time there is no prosecution. Is the Church systematically covering up? Over all less than almost any other institution one can name. The public schools constantly “pass the trash,” because there is almost no interconnectivness among the more than 10,000 ISDs. in the USA. Unless a teacher has been convicted of a sex offense, he/she probably can get a job somewhere else in the USA. Out of sight, out of mind applies here. But the schools have a certain immunity. Not only sovereign immunity but because they are more likely to be sued for allowing teachers to display a Bible in a classroom than for “passing on”a teachers accused of a sex offense. There is nothing like SNAPs chasing down misbehaving teachers. We do have the ACLU siccing the dogs on the Boy Scouts, and for one of the same reason: the Scouts are wrong side in the cultural wars and if they can be discredited in the eyes of their suppoters than a major battle has been won.
wait for the facts and the trial
Save your breath, brother.
This is not about truth. Look at the persistent presentation of the idea of alter Christus (which is also said in the Church’s teaching documents to refer to any baptized Christian). Then ask yourself is people who insist on getting something wrong can reasonably be thought of as caring about getting it right.
Actually that has been the defence of all the apologists for the sins of their hierarchy. Remember it is catholic children that have been violated -- the children of your coreligionists.
Remember the conclusion of the priest that wrote the diary of how to succeed as a pedophile. "God will always forgive but society never will."
He may well has said "God and our flock will always forgive..." he would be very close to the reality of the situation.
For your god will always forgive you as he is refection of yourself. If you are mean spirited, vengeful, filled with hate and a paedophile then your God has those characteristics.
If you are kind, compassionate, understanding and loving then your God has the same attributes. Both type will always forgive the believer as you would forgive yourself.
This man is NOT an archdiocesan priest and does not answer to the archbishop. He answers to his own superiors. Yes, the archbishop can ask the order to remove him and it looks like he did, but they are under no obligation to do so. Every one of the accusations that's come out of San Antonio has been for a member of an order, not an archdiocesan priest. Gomez isn't their superior. Archbishop is not a CEO position.
If these allegations are recent, they should be investigated both in civil and ecclesial courts. The problem comes in, and we've seen this over and over, once the accusation is out, there's no putting the genie back in the bottle if the accused is innocent. That's a good part of the reason that things have always been kept very quiet.
Gee, what a coincidence that the lawsuit came out when Gomez was named the new archbishop of LA. Yeah, what a conincidence.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.