Posted on 03/22/2010 6:21:30 AM PDT by Gamecock
Pope Benedict's weekend apology to Ireland went further than any other papal statement on child-sex abuse by priests, but still fell too short for many victims of the scandals shaking the Catholic Church across Europe.
Following are details of some of the major abuse scandals in various countries:
SWITZERLAND: The Swiss Catholic Church is investigating allegations of abuse by clergy. The Diocese of Chur, in eastern Switzerland, said Saturday it was investigating about 10 complaints. The abbot of a monastery in the diocese said at least three of the 77 monks at Einsiedeln had committed acts of abuse since he took up office in December 2001, but no legal action had been taken.
NETHERLANDS: More than 200 Catholics have reported abuse after Radio Netherlands Worldwide and newspaper NRC Handelsblad revealed that three priests from the Salesian order abused pupils decades ago at a boarding school. The church there has set up an independent inquiry headed by a Protestant politician.
GERMANY: A Jesuit high school in Berlin reported cases of sexual abuse there in January, starting a series of revelations at other Catholic boarding schools and non-religious schools.
- The Regensburg diocese admitted physical and sexual abuse cases at a boarding school for its famous Domspatzen (cathedral sparrows) boys choir. Its director, Pope Benedict's brother, Rev. Georg Ratzinger, admitted to slapping boys to discipline them but denied knowledge of sexual abuse. The ensuing wave of abuse charges from previously silent victims has since reached about 250.
IRELAND: In April 2002, Bishop Brendan Comiskey of Ferns resigned over his handling of charges against a priest who committed suicide in 1999 while facing 66 charges of abuse.
- May 2009 - The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a five-volume report that took nine years to compile. It said priests beat and raped children during decades of abuse in Catholic-run institutions.
- Nov. 2009 - The Murphy report, a government-commissioned inquiry into abuse in Dublin from 1975 to 2004 said church authorities covered up widespread cases of child sexual abuse until the mid-1990s.
- Dec. 2009 - After meeting two Irish church leaders, Pope Benedict said he shared the "outrage, betrayal and shame" over the scandal in Ireland.
- Feb. 2010 - Benedict held crisis talks with 24 Irish bishops at the Vatican. The bishops promised him they were committed to cooperating with authorities. Four bishops have offered their resignations and the pope has so far accepted one.
UNITED STATES: June 2002 - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops agreed on a new policy that would forbid pedophile priests from ever again acting as clerics - but not necessarily expel them from the priesthood.
BRITAIN: July 2000 - London Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor acknowledged making a mistake in a previous post in the 1980s by allowing a pedophile priest to continue working. The priest was jailed in 1997 for abusing nine boys over a 20-year period.
AUSTRIA: July 2004 - Austrian News magazine Profil ran pictures of priests kissing and groping seminarians at a Catholic seminary in the St. Poelten diocese.
AUSTRALIA: July 2008 - On a visit to Australia, Pope Benedict apologized for sexual abuse by clergy. At that time there had been 107 convictions for sexual abuse in the church there.
MEXICO: March 2009 - Pope Benedict ordered an inquiry into the Legionaries of Christ priestly order whose founder was discovered to be a sexual molester. In 2006, the pope told the founder, Father Marcial Maciel, to retire to a life of "prayer and penitence". Maciel died in 2008. His order acknowledged in 2009 that he had fathered at least one child with a mistress.
CANADA: Oct. 2009 - Bishop Raymond Lahey of Antigonish, N.S., was charged with possession and importation of child pornography. Earlier that year, he had overseen a $13-million settlement with clerical abuse victims in the Antigonish diocese in a case dating back to 1950.
It will be beautiful.Congrats dmz :)
I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public. The Catholics are models of discretion compared to you fundys. You fundys seem to attack everyone, cognitive dissonance must really be painful.
Oh, hahaha.
Oh, sure.
I just get tired of their whining victimhood, LOL.
Thank you for reiterating my words. LOL
Yes, it IS real and coming mostly from Catholics...
http://www.romancatholicidentity.com/2010/02/priest-is-alter-christus-bridging-human.html
And btw, there is no indication anywhere that priests are Jesus Christ like you represent time and time again. Thousands of Church documents and whole Catechism for you to pore over, and you have nothing which teaches priests are Jesus Christ . This must burn you up because you use this bogus "priests are Jesus Christ" argument to concoct the ole "no wonder priests are able to abuse children, the kids are taught that he's Jesus!" charade. I've seen you defame priests like this in the past, and I'm sure I'll see you do it again. But if you are really looking for Jesus (body, blood, soul and divinity) I'll give you a hint: don't look at who is standing at the alter, but look in the tabernacle instead.
What you don't understand, Eckeburg, is that the people you debate about Catholicism know what the Catholic Church teaches and represents. We attend mass regularly, sometimes daily. Many of us have been in Catholic schools our entire lives, been taught Catechism by nuns and priests, and some even have attended the seminary. We have family members and close personal friends who are priests and nuns. The Catholic Church is part of our routine, part of our every day lives, part of our culture. You telling us what we believe and what we have been taught is beyond bizarre.
And we know your agenda.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
I just get tired of their whining victimhood, LOL.
Yes, it IS real and coming mostly from Catholics...
No problem.
I figure if I string together all those charitably Christian comments which so enrich the conversation while adding layers of penetrating insight, they can be an inspiration to us all.
You continue to post gibberish. And now it's nasty gibberish. Roman Catholic apologists seem incapable of discussing these issues without resorting to name-calling and personal invectives.
The papacy proudly refers to its priestcraft as an "alter Christus" - "Another Christ."
No matter what the intent, shading or nuance, that title for any man but Jesus Christ is truly "sickening."
Repent of it.
I don't tell you what you believe. You tell us what you believe and we Bible-believing Christians are dismayed by what you tell us.
What I do tell you is what Scripture says and why what you believe is incorrect, according to the word of God.
All very telling.
Be sure to tell us when and if you ever find where Crimen Sollicitationis has been rescinded or nullified. And along those lines you might tell us what you think was changed because the rest of us see no change whatsoever. The Roman Catholic church still protects pedophile priests and Roman Catholic apologists still turn a blind eye toward the truth.
The amazing thing is how anyone who shines just the tiniest bit of light on the Roman Catholic church is immediately attacked, belittled and made out to be a Catholic basher.
Started with the “Orthodox schism” on through Luther and the Reformers and continues today.
They don’t want to talk about the issues. Instead they resort to covering their tracks and claining victim status.
Jsut amazing.
When we speak of consecration without any special qualification, we ordinarily understand it as the act by which, in the celebration of Holy Mass, the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ. It is called transubstantiation, for in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of bread and wine do not remain, but the entire substance of bread is changed into the body of Christ, and the entire substance of wine is changed into His blood, the species or outward semblance of bread and wine alone remaining. This change is produced in virtue of the words: This is my body and This is my blood, or This is the chalice of my blood, pronounced by the priest assuming the person of Christ and using the same ceremonies that Christ used at the Last Supper. That this is the essential form has been the constant belief and teaching of both the Eastern and Western Churches (Renaudot, "Liturgiarum Orientalium Collection", I, i).
Now we know that the pope is the REAL stand in for Christ..but each time he says mass the priest is christ..
Kind of reminds me of that seal posted on FR . . . of the DNC.
Thank you, RnMomof7.
Roman Catholic apologists say whatever the discussion seems to warrant, whether it's true or not. It's a very schizophrenic, imprecise religion that actually teaches priests become an "alter Christus" - "another Christ."
Be prepared to be called names. Some don't take kindly to being proven wrong again and again.
Some people spend more time whining about name-calling than they do fact-checking their information.
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