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.
Yeah, but on FR speaking out against Protestant pedophiles will get you banned.
I do my best. :)
Don't be modest! You really CAN call your congressman and lurk on the religion forum at the same time! Not everyone can do that, ya know...
The HUGE difference is I speak out against anyone who harms children.
FRoman Catholics circle the wagons if anyone dares say anything that is less than complementary about Rome. Want proof? Just visit this thread.
I live in Massachusetts. Our congress critters have us on “ignore”.
I think the abuse of children by Roman Catholic clerics, and the defense of the Rome on this issue, shows that Satan has taken over the Roman Catholic church.
You have a personal agenda and don’t pretend that it is something else.
You are a Catholic basher and we all know it.
Don’t be so high and mighty thinking that you are doing the Lord’s work. The people on this forum are not stupid.
“One thing that really surprised and depressed me when I started to read FR was to learn how much Protestants hate Catholics.”
I have had the exact same experience and reaction.
Much of it is beyond “debate” and “discussion” and has become an agenda.
Ouch.
It’s frustrating.
You beat me to it by seconds :-)
When have you spoken out about Protestants who DAILY harm children? I’ve never seen one article that you’ve posted.
There is an adage...Pot calling the kettle black.
I actually think some people just post anti-Catholic stuff because they crave attention for themselves and to get people to talk to them any way they can...but that is just my opinion.
Let us hope that it is just a vocal few, although I confess that at times the sheer volume seems to indicate otherwise.
Why is it FERCs would be thrilled to never hear about the scandal in their church. Any posting of the abuse of Children by Roman Catholics priests and the cover up is Roman Catholic bashing.
It seems to me if you spent your time demanding this problem be fixed, once and for all, we “Catholic bashers” wouldn’t have anything negative to say.
Blaming your institutional problems on Protestants doesn’t fix a thing.
***Much of it is beyond “debate” and “discussion” and has become an agenda.***
Defending children from abuse is a good agenda.
Your church should try it some time.
A Google search of freerepublic. com of "by Gamecock" comes up with 676 entries.
A Google search of freerepublic.com of "by Gamecock" AND "NAMBLA" comes up with ZERO entries.
You are a hypocrite
What about the Rabbi in Brooklyn who is accused of abusing children a few weeks ago. I didn’t see your speaking out on that occasion. Few if any take you thoughts seriously but they are good for some laughs.
To be fair, it's a relatively small number of posters, but the ones who are really anti-Catholic hold little or nothing back. In doing so, they offer nothing useful or productive - only vitriol and hatred for the Church.
The anti-Catholics (both the Christian and the Secular ones) are all too happy to throw any and all of the bishops, right up to the Pope, under the bus before actually finding out whether or not there is any guilt to be had.
It is Alinsky's tactic at its finest - and those who choose to use it make themselves the devil's willing assistants.
Same here.
I suppose the main element of surprise comes from the fact that we don't harbor these feelings toward Protestants. Certainly, growing up, the attitude was "They're decent people, certainly fellow Christians, though they have a few things wrong with their theology." There was definitely a sense that we're all in together, viz., the effort of living out the Gospel in our own lives, and bringing it to others.
Generally speaking, when the masses get into hysterics about something, it's a good sign they're wrong. Global warming Climate change, for example. Turning off that noise and assessing the situation calmly and rationally is the cure for this. The same is true for these trumped-up scandals. Having to go back 20, 30, 40 years to dig up cases ought to raise a red flag. In most of those cases, the accused is long dead and so cannot defend himself. But all that business about the right of the accused to face his accuser is just for whiny civil libertarians, I suppose. Suspending statutes of limitations, which are in place because memories fade and evidence disappears over time, is fair game, but only if Catholics are targeted. In New Hampshire, they tried to introduce legislation to force priests to break the seal of the confessional, first amendment rights be damned.
If the bishops had insisted that each and every one of these accusations be subject to the standards of a court of law, almost none of the claimants would have a case. In fact, the John Jay study shows a significant drop-off in accusations (not all of which are likely to be true) after the mid 1980's. But the mission of the Church extends beyond civil justice to moral justice, and if an internal investigation suggested a case had merit, the bishops settled them instead of spending the money on court fees and attorney fees. It's the honorable thing to do, but the Church will not be given credit for that. The pay-outs do not come from the tax payers, nor from the personal wealth of the clergy, which is minimal, but from parish funds, which means, ultimately, from the parishioners and their ancestors who donated the money to establish their parishes. Their reward is bankrupt dioceses and closed churches.
Now, you might think that on a conservative site, dedicated to Constitutional restoration, our separated brethren would have enough presence of mind to see that Catholics' rights are jeopardized by these actions. You'd think that they'd realize that if our rights are in danger, so might theirs be in the days to come. You'd think they'd notice the timing of these media events, and realize that they are staged to discredit the Catholic Church, which has been most vocal in its defense of the unborn, of traditional marriage, of the integrity of the family, and of subsidiarity (essentially states' rights in the US). You'd think they'd realize that destroying all these things is the agenda of the Leftists here in the US and in the EU, and that if the Church is weakened the Left is strengthened. You'd think they'd understand that jumping on this politicized bandwagon is injurious to their own cause.
You'd think that, but if you did, apparently you would be wrong. The irrational hatred for the Church on the part of certain people on FR trumps everything else. It's sick, and it's sad, and it's not going to stop.
As our republic continues to degenerate into socialism and fascism, we can either stop slinging mud at each other and join forces against the decline, or we can sit back and watch it fail.
For starters, I am not here everyday.
When I post a thread I don’t go digging into archives. It is on the front page. Hence this thread.
When I see a thread on FR on Protestant abuse on FR I chime in, and I certainly don’t blame Catholics for the problem.
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