Posted on 02/11/2012 10:13:46 AM PST by RnMomof7
Some 200 Catholic priests suspected of sexual abuse are living undetected in communities across California, according to an attorney who represents hundreds of plaintiffs who sued the LA Archdiocese for molestation they say was inflicted on them by priests and clergy of the church.
Ray Boucher has mapped sixty locations where suspect priests live, in cities and towns from northern to southern California, and provided those locations to NBC4 exclusively.
“Many if not all these priests have admitted to sexual abuse,” Boucher said. “They live within a mile of 1,500 playgrounds, schools and daycare centers.”
Since none of the priests has actually been convicted of sex abuse, none can be identified under Megan’s Law, or their whereabouts revealed in related public databases.
“What the issue is here, is how you weigh the right of the people,” said Boucher, who is also one of the attorneys representing students in the Miramonte Elementary School sex abuse scandal. “In particular the right of children to be protected from molestation versus the right of privacy."
Among Boucher’s many clients in the church action are Manuel Vega and Dan Smith.
Vega is a former police officer from Oxnard who took special interest in sex crimes investigations because, he says, he was sexually abused as a teenager by his parish priest.
“He forced me to masturbate while he took pictures of me,” said Vega, who believes that the public is often too squeamish to recognize what child molestation actually entails – and thus not properly outraged by it.
“When we talk about sexual abuse we’re talking about sodomy,” he said. “There’s pubic hair, there’s sweat, there’re smells, there’re grunts.”
Dan Smith, another alleged abuse victim, is reeling from the recent collapse of his marriage which he blames in part on the psychological effects of the molestation he says he suffered as a child – at the hands of his local parish priest.
“He would rape me and then say this is what God’s love feels like,” Smith said, struggling to hold back tears more than twenty years after the alleged incidents.
Both men helped make legal history by joining 500 other plaintiffs in suing the LA Archdiocese for sexual molestation, with Boucher as their lead attorney.
In 2007 the LA Archdiocese reached an unprecedented $660 million settlement with many of the plaintiffs without admitting any wrong-doing.
It also agreed to let the courts decide which of the case-related church files should be made public, including those identifying alleged and admitted predators.
But according to Boucher and court documents, the Catholic Church has since engaged in a cover-up. By Boucher’s account, Church officials allowed priests suspected of sexually abusing children to retire, flee the country or hide in rehab clinics until the statute of limitations on prosecution ran out.
“What the church did is take these guys and send them off to facilities where they treat pedophile priests without ever alerting police,” Boucher said. “By enabling these priests to be hidden for so many years the church protected them from being prosecuted.”
Meanwhile legal disputes delayed the release of the promised personnel files, and Donald Steir, an attorney for several priests, went to court to argue that those who’ve been accused but no convicted should have their names and privacy protected.
“They are being punished as if they have been convicted, or at least that’s the desire – to punish them,” Steir said. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s difficult if you represent an alleged terrorist or a pedophile, because people don’t really care about the rights [including privacy rights] for these type of people,” Steir said. “But once we erode the rights of a group of people we don’t like, we effectively have started down a path where other people’s rights can be similarly denied.”
The courts, expressing concern for children, overruled most of these arguments and similar ones by the Archdiocese, which declined to comment for this story.
And a judge has ordered release of some personnel files, set for some time in the coming weeks. But he also credited the church for its increased sensitivity in dealing with molestation cases and decided to withhold the names of church officials who handled the earlier cases.
It is a ruling that reminds Boucher of the breakdown in accountability in the Penn state pedophile scandal. “Look at Penn State and see how important and significant it is when people in authority enable sexual abusers to continue,” Boucher said. “That underscores how significant it is to get these names out.”
Under the judge’s ruling the church can also keep secret, subject to further court review, the names of priests who have not been convicted and who have only one or two allegations against them or have allegations disputed by the church.
To Smith that seems like a formula for further cover-up by church officials.
“If their interests were to protect the kids, they would have released the documents,” Smith said. “As a parent not knowing who your neighbor is -- that is really scary.”
Many of these unidentified priests are included in Boucher’s location map.
“The danger” said Vega, “is that you have a person who has this sickness in them who is amongst the children.”
The plaintiffs in the church scandal are planning to appeal the latest rulings to assure broader disclosure of suspects’ names and locations. But Boucher warned this could take time, allowing suspects to keep their privacy protected, as well as their undetected presence in neighborhoods across California.
It's obvious to anyone who reads this (and similar) threads with an open mind.
If the folks who are all bent out of shape over molesters who happen to be Catholic are ALSO bent out of shape over molesters who happen to be Protestant they can demonstrate it on this forum.
So far, they have failed to do so.
My statements are not outrageous.
The Protestant blindness to molestation within protestantism is outrageous.
Yet another diversion from the "real issue" of Priestly criminal perverts being protected and enabled to continue with their perversion by their leadership. It just goes on and on...and evidences that STILL the membership is in denial and in the darkness.
The publics eyes are very much opened and if you recall had the media not brought this out into the open nothing would have changed...and that's just a fact.
Church defenders who typically scream about 'anti-Catholic bias' and 'Catholic bashing' have no ground on which to stand....there is unequivocal evidence of massive cover-ups and a failure within the Roman Catholic Church...and today it's members continue to defend and divert attention to something or anything other than the indefensible.
Such apparent obliviousness does not seem to me to be indicative of honest discussion.
FWIW.
Shouldn’t you be out protesting soldiers’ funerals or something?
Another baloney statement! There isn't a denomination out there that doesn't address the issue and move toward convicting the offenders when they are discovered....and every Protestant would be up in arms if it weren't addressed.
The fact is the catholic church was a magnet for these perverts because they knew they would be protected and would not face expulsion or criminal charges....and that's been proved in all these investigations. As well that the membership would turn their heads even when they suspected or knew about these criminal acts.
I lived in a community where the membership refused to address their Priest....in fact it was well known the kid he kept company with was his "Boy" toy. When asked why the membership didn't speak up it was said it's just how things have always been...it's not liked but people are afraid to make an issue about it for fear of the repercussions on the church and the Priest they love.
Once again evidencing that the reputation of the church outweighs the memberships concern for the welfare of their children
I am unimpressed by self-righteous whining.
Those protestants who claim to be outraged at child-molesting in protestant circles can prove by directing their outrage there. They can clean up their own house.
Or ... they can continue to prove my point.
BTW, I have not yet made any "baloney statement" ... so I cannot be accused of making "another" one.
Just so's ya know.
So ... it seems that some protestants think that child molesting is perfectly fine ... if the molester happens to be a protestant.
Well, if the same Protestants who protest against mostleting Cathoic priests also protest against molesting Protestant ministers, how can you then conclude that Protestants think that molesting children is fine if the molester is Protestant?
ProtestantISM is so predictable ...
The Pinging of the Swarm ...
The utter failure to comprehend simple English ...
The colossal missing of the point ...
Try again ...
One is inclined to wonder if any of The Swarm are any better at comprehending the English language than (s)he who pinged them.
To make it plain: if a child-rapist tells a child, "You're not allowed to disobey me because the Church says you can't disobey a priest," he is telling the child a falsehood--- and in this case, a damnable one.
To which I asked (#118)for you to give your proof of that outrageous statement.
And your ambiguous answer to that is: Why, it's on this very thread.
Really? Where??? Which posts? which posters? Please give specific references to such an outrageous claim and why you think they are claing that. And yes, it is an outrageous claim that you make that Protestants think that molesting is fine is the molester is a protestant.
You totally miss the point.
The Swarm?
Oh come now.....
Please keep your terminology straight here. The Swarm, better known as The Calvinist Swarm, is not engaged here. Besides, Metmom is not even a Calvinist.
What I’m seeing here is the utter failure to understand groups here on FR.
Try again.
Or not.
I don't GAS which you do, and I don't jump through hoops for you.
I merely point out the obvious.
And yes, it is an outrageous claim that you make that Protestants think that molesting is fine is the molester is a protestant.
ROFL!!!
What's outrageous is the protestants who protest the mere mention of protestant molesters.
Frankly I won't play the Catholic vs. Protestant game in regards to the catholic churches pedophile/homsexual scandal.....it's not relevant to the fact it's on the catholic churches doorstep to deal with and that IS just the facts.
Attempting to push it off at schools, protestants, the world, attorneys, authors, and the host of other diversions to somehow defend themselves isn't working nor should it. Neither will the comments made on this thread to divert and confuse the issue away from where it belongs.
The catholic church, over decades, supported and enabled the pedophile priests, as an entire institution from the pope on down. Both boys and girls by the thousands were abused over decades, even after being aware of the issue.
Facts are facts and these have been proved in the court of law...that Adult Priests in a positions of power took advantage of children and the entire catholic organization enabled it for decades. .....Even more shameful is that some people still try to deflect the blame..... This is as ugly as it gets.
I didn’t think that you could. It isn’t a matter of jumping through hoops and you know it. And to think that YOU were the one whining about an “honest” discussion. :)
What’s with the *pronoun removed* phrases?
You are directly demeaning me, but using cute phrases to avoid “technically” doing so. That is not permissible on religion threads. I’ll let the religion moderator decide what to do with you.
Find one comment by one Protestant who has ever said or intimated that child molestation by anyone is “perfectly fine”. Surely you aren’t making salacious accusations are you?
Now, as to the condemnation of the Catholic Church as per child molestation. Is there any other organization that professes to be headed by Christ’s “vicar” on earth? Is there any other organization on earth that professes to be able to “forgive sins”? Is there any other organization on earth purporting to be Christ’s only church on earth? Given that the Catholic Church makes all of those claims should they be held to higher standards than any other organization?
Claiming superior status then wanting held to the same standards as other organizations is hypocritical.
Now it’s time to blame posters for pinging others....lol....does it ever occur to them that we aren’t dpendant on being pinged, but also choose the articles of interest from the sidebars? LOL...
They are really trying hard to divert the topic of this thread.....denial, diversion, and deception might very well be the greater sin in this whole scandal the catholic church brought on itself....God is watching.
I have no interest in discussing this thread with anyone who is unwilling or unable to read it.
Bye.
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