I'd recommend seeing a doctor.
Posted on 02/01/2013 6:35:24 AM PST by TSgt
A retired Los Angeles cardinal accused of mismanaging a child sex abuse crisis has been stripped of all administrative and public duties by his successor.
Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, 76, has apologised for his "failure", Archbishop Jose Gomez said on Thursday.
The Los Angeles archdiocese, the largest in the US, has released thousands of pages of files on priests accused of child molestation.
Cardinal Mahony retired in 2011, having run the archdiocese for 25 years.
In 2007 Los Angeles paid $660m (£415m) to alleged victims of abuse, the largest sex abuse payout on record.
Cardinal Mahony has publicly apologised for mistakes he made handling the clerical sex abuse issue. 'They failed'
"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading," Archbishop Gomez said in a statement. "The behaviour described in these files is terribly sad and evil.
"There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed."
He added that Bishop Thomas Curry, former vicar of the clergy who handled the cases of accused priests, had stepped down from his post as bishop of Santa Barbara.
The 12,000 pages of documents were released after Church records on 14 priests were unsealed as part of a civil case. They showed both Bishop Curry and Cardinal Mahony had helped to shield accused priests from investigation in the 1980s.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
I'd recommend seeing a doctor.
You are doing well to be reading and citing Thomas Doyle, because he really is a trained and knowledgeable authority on Canon Law and sexual abuse. Reading Thomas Doyle, you'll learn this (quotes):
"The Catholic governmental system is such that the archbishop has full power and everyone under him functions on delegated authority or power."
and
"In judicial matters, although lay people and priests are subject to the jurisdiction of local tribunals on the diocesan level, bishops cannot be summoned by a level of authority below the pope."
Here's what you have to grasp: the real power in the Catholic Church is the Holy Spirit working with the willing hearts of those who cooperate with Him; but then again,in a sociological sense, the Church is a voluntary organization 100% dependent on voluntary cooperation. In other words, though it has a monarchial form, it has not any of the practical means of enforcement available to a secular legal system: i.e., investigation with power to compel testimony and subpoena evidence; prosecution; and penalties such as fines, imprisonment, and so forth.
This may seem basic to you, but consider the implications: a given Vatican office -- say, the CDF --- has almost zero power to even find out what is going on in a diocese, unless the bishop tells them --- or unless the SHTF in the secular media or in the form of lawsuits of criminal prosecution by secular authorities.
In effect, if the bishop doesn't forward all this information to the CDF, there's no way the CDF would have any idea what's going on.
That's why the effective authority in every case, is always the bishop. Even if Canon Law makes the CDF "responsible" for cases of clerical sexual abuse, the CDF cannot even summon a bishop; and it is powerless to act unless the bishop himself tells them freely and fully what is going on.
That's where even people of good will --- understandably---have a serious misconception. Then envision the Church to be something like an international corporation, where the locals (the bishops) are lowly francisees and all the strings are ultimately pulled in Rome. This is not the case. Rather than an international corporation, the Church is better compared (sociologically) to a family business; most of the relationships are customary, not juridical; and the real power is local (the bishop) and not centralized in some monolithic ultramontane corporate entity called the Roman Curia.
I want that to soak in.
The power is local. It's the bishop. It always comes back to him. And even a good bishop, of course, can be ruined by a subordinate who handles things badly (especially if the subordinate keeps him in the dark.) But it shouldn't happen twice.
What Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had to deal with during his first years in the CDF (in the 1980's and '90's) was enough to keep a dozen men busy: Link (do yourself the favor of checking this out) --- he was struggling to expose and depose the so-called "liberation theologians" who were trying to drag the Church into Marxist struggles, especally in Latin America but also in the left-wing university bastions in the U.S. and Europe. It was a crucially important struggle, and Ratzinger can be credited with saving the Church from a global disaster.
While all this was going on, the bishops were dealing with the huge fallout from the so-called Sexual Revolution. Priests were laicized by their own request by the thousands because they no longer believed in the Church's Biblical teachings on sexual morality; but what was even worse, unbelieving clerics were staying and bending or breaking the rules from within.
This was the context when the sexual abuse was peaking ('70's and 80's). And bishops chose to deal with this (or fail to deal with it) on their own. Very rarely was "Rome" in the loop at all, except when a case was specifically appealed to Rome. Which might or might not happen.
So it went for years: the bishops were saying, "We'll handle it," and Rome in effect said, "Fine, you handle it."
At length, it became apparent that a lot of bishops (I think it was 60% of them in the US) were taking the route of "send the sexually wayward priest off for psychological evaluation/treatment, get him certified as recovered by a therapist, and then reassign him". They certanly weren't taking things to the police or the County Prosecutor, much less to Rome.
It wasn't until Ratzinger pushed, pressured, and insisted, that in 2001 that CDF took over direct intervention the clerical sex abuse situation, because Ratzinger saw the urgent need to hang up on Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeeckx, forget Ernesto Cardinal and Leonardo Boff, set aside Emmanuel Milingo and his incredible can o' worms, put aside whatever crisis was brewing in Sri Lanka or Lesotho, and do an end-run around local bishops to root out the sex predator priests.
Concerning Marcial Maciel: the extent to which Maciel deceived Pope John Paul II is truly sickening: but he was a convincing, lying sociopath surrounded by a self-appointed army of protectors, including Angelo Sodano. Benedict's the one --- for the love of God! --- who pushed the case against Marcial Maciel and the Legionnaires of Christ when he was head of the CDF, and, upon his election to the papacy, denounced and deposed him in 2006.
Check this out as well (Link). You need a whole lot more background here before you venture to make judgments on Ratzinger/Benedict based on Canon Law.
All I can say is, Thank God for Pope Benedict. May he live long enough to appoint hundreds more good and faithful Bishops, and kick Satan's teeth down his throat.
Selling close up to the church parking spaces is one of the big fund raisers at our annual church auction.
Consider it!
You’ve obviously forgot Matthew 18:6
But whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Your inability to grasp the evil of child rape is disturbing.
What reforms?
Slapping an admitted pedophile protector on the wrist is not a reform. It’s an insult to the victims.
Please don’t judge me personally.
Can you forgive the sinners yourself? Hate the sin, love the sinner — isn’t that what Christ taught?
He forgave the woman who was going to be stoned for her adultery. Could you do that?
I think the verse from Matthew continues “better that a millstone were put around his neck....”
That's a serious charge. I assume you have evidence?
And if not...?
Using scripture to bash a fellow Christian. What a shame indeed.
Child sex abuse crimes are simply HORRIBLE no matter what the faith is, PERIOD. End of debate. You are on my mental IGNORE from now on.
This thread is about sex abuse relating to the Catholic church.
Your only comment to post No. 82 is to divert to a different subject?
A lot of facts to just ignore as if none of it ever happened.
Perhaps you should deal with the facts of child sexual abuse in your own denomination on a thread about such.
Yes it is a shame.
But as Tsgt was literally hit over the head with scripture, it got a proper scriptural response.
Lets not ignore that Tsgt was bashed with scripture.
Let's spread the "shame" around.
Absolutely correct, thanks for saying that.
Other posters are given a list of HORRIBLE sex abuse crimes and their only comment is usually something like Well what about your denomination?
Not even a yea those are bad, yea it's bad the leadership shuffled pedophiles around to other areas, etc.
I saw one Catholic condemn the actions of Catholic pedophiles/enablers. One.
It looks like your comments all blame other denominations because they are worse, giving the impression that the Catholic abuse of children is lessened.
"your denomination"
Your reply is ho hum SOP, changing the subject.
The title of this thread is " LA Cardinal Mahony 'stripped of duties' over sex abuse"
He, a pedophile, can still vote on who will be Pope.
Suppose he would vote for one who enabled him and others? Which denomination are you putting me in?
Your link, "allegedly", "turned themselves in", "accused" etc.
A link to a Catholic website listing the sins of OTHER denominations.
Do you have a link to a Catholic site where they admit child sexual abuse and turned themselves in instead of waiting until being caught after the leadership enabled them to do more by moving them to other areas and not warn the parents of the kids so they could keep their kids away? So more were molested and until getting caught pedophile priests were given free rein with kids.
Do you have a link where leadership of other-than-Catholic were enabling pedophiles by hiding their actions and letting them be around different kids to molest?
Did you condemn the actions posted to you in the link provided in my last reply?
It appears again you are avoiding condemning Catholic criminals, just "my" denomination suspects. (How about a clue to what you have decided my denomination is?)
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