The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has suspended 21 priests for involvement in the sexual abuse of minors. The suspensions come after a grand jury found that 37 priests in the diocese were implicated in such abuse.
Cardinal Justin Rigali, previously insisted that there were no priests “who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.”
Critics are saying that the Church fought to retain the priests and denied allegations of current priests with abuse histories. While on suspension, the priests cannot celebrate Mass publicly, wear collars or hear confessions.
This could open the door for significant civil liability for the Church in Philadelphia. Moreover, the delay in suspending the priests could become a major issue in court. These priests may also now have more of an incentive to implicate the Church in such civil actions.
Source: NY Times
Dr McHugh –
As one who investigates ongoing atrocities of another color, I very much appreciate your referencing Geoffrey Robertson’s book. I found that it is indeed an impressive and damning indictment of the Church’s criminal corruption – a cancer which has metastasized all the way to the top.
It’s interesting that for so many year no one thought you could sue a church; sort of like suing a bar association.
For those of you who are lawyers, I wonder if you know what can be done to end the diplomatic immunity of the Vatican, the Curia, Pope Benedict XVI, and the hierarchy?
I am a Catholic physician. I have met many who have been sexually abused by priests. It is an outrage how these victims/survivors have been treated by the RCC.
All roads lead to Pope Benedict XVI as being responsible for continuing the policies of protecting predator priests, moving them to places where they ended up abusing others, and ignoring the victims or threatening them to remain silent.
In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger, later known as Pope Benedict, added excommunication as a threat to any Cardinal, Bishop, priest, or lay person who dared to speak of priest sex abuse in the RCC.
Ratzinger was head of the office in charge of Catholic faith and morals for a total of about 24 years and dealt with cases of priest sex abuse before becoming Pope.
Please read the new book, THE CASE OF THE POPE, written by Geoffrey Robertson, Queens Counsel, human rights lawyer, and judge at the United Nations. Mr. Robertson addresses the nebulous case of diplomatic immunity, which is claimed by the Vatican, a small piece of land in the city of Rome.
I think we Americans have been financing the Vatican for years. It is time that we make the Pope and hierarchy accountable for their actions and inactions that have seriously harmed innocent children all around the world.
Sincerely, Dr Rosemary Eileen McHugh, Chicago, IL.
Tony C., There are some good priests. Believe it or not.
@Deborah: Thanks for the article. This is the problem with baseless faith in a two thousand year old patriarchal system; the whole point of the patriarchies is to subjugate the women and ensure the men in power have women as servants; both sexual and domestic.
I love the line in the article, “In the context of Africa, celibacy means not getting married, it does not mean the priest does not have children.”
Ha!
There are very few nuns in the US presently. Most are older feminists.
Deborah,
They the Priest belief in Free until they are forced to pay for take out…
Tony C-
Apparently prostitutes are too much work:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vatican-confirms-report-of-sexual-abuse-and-rape-of-nuns-by-priests-in-23-countries-688261.html
It’s all about the power, isn’t it.
Anyone who is seriously interested in a peak behind the scenes into the workings of the Catholic heirarchy to protect these pedophile priests should read the deposition of Rembert Weakland, OSB (former Archbishop of Milwaukee who had to resign when it was disclosed he used $250K of church funds to pay off a man who was threatening to expose him as gay):
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/depo/2008_06_05_Weakland_Rembert/
It’s a slog to get through. A lot of canon law. Implication that Ratzinger was in on the cover up.
@ishobo: I think the pedophile conclusion is fair given the history of these abuses that have come to light in the past; the victims are overwhelmingly young boys.
Unlike prison, the priest is not restrained from trying to manipulate young women, and the priest is not restrained from ditching the cassock and driving to the next town to pick up a one-night stand bargirl, or to frequent a prostitute. But these three alternative sins aren’t executed (to my knowledge) and that makes me think the problem is gay pedophiles are attracted to the role of priest.
It may even be an intentional choice of profession for this purpose; the priesthood being one of the few professions I can think of that offers this level of access to young boys. I don’t think the boys are chosen due to restricted access (like prison), I think the profession is chosen by evil men because it offers that access.
I think a similar thing about the televangelists and mega-church leaders btw. Evil men attracted to the money and power and attention, that either do not care how much harm they do, or have some twisted egomaniacal rationalization to convince themselves that black is white, up is down, harm is help and pain is love.
And why does the United States recognize a genocidal, sex-abusing, thieving cult as a sovereign nation? And allow this “nation” to claim immunities and protections to cover up widespread crimes against children? Perhaps the problem is as much with our complicit government as with the RCC.
The RCC has been discussed here for some time. From 2008, I wrote:
Ishobo,
Sex with a minor is illegal no matter what label you put on it. And the Catholic Church is still hiding the crimes and the criminals!
@Tony C.
“What is it that attracts pedophiles to the profession of Priest?”
—
There is no information in the original news article to make a claim they are pedophiles. People often confuse the term “sex with a minor” and pedophilia, which is a distinct mental disorder dealing with the attraction to prepubescent children. Also, one can have sex with a prepubescent child and not be a pedophile because the sex may be about access (and/or control) not attraction. It is the same with sex in prison, where the homosexual population is low.
Many people have asked why no Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals, Popes, etc. have been charged with boffing little boys.
The answer is found in the Bad Testament, Book of Second Gambino: “Thou shalt not wear a wire, neither shalt thou rat out an Underboss, or thou shalt partake of the sacrament of being found in a swampy place with a canary in thy mouth.”
I’d think if it was just the celibacy issue, priests would be taking a lot less risk by frequenting prostitutes (and practicing safe sex). I don’t know how a church works, but pilfering from the collection plate seems pretty feasible to me, and typical prostitutes (male or female) aren’t usually eager to divulge their clientele, because if they go public with one then the rest of their clientele disappears, and they are out of business. Plus the priest could claim that any such revelation was a smear job from some poor soul he was unable to help.
I think these priests really are just pedophiles by choice. There are 194 dioceses in the USA, if there is an average of 21 pedophiles in each, that is 4074 pedophiles in this country. Only 4053 left to go, folks.
AY,
I love JC Superstar! The stage performance was much better than the movie, but the songs are fantastic. I don’t recall the Book of Marley mentioned during the show. Maybe it didn’t translate to music very well.
Holy fong fong….
Talk about getting collared…
The article says the priests can not hear confessions and can’t wear their collars…
That raises two interesting questions.
Confessions on Saturdays…
What are they going to do??? Subcontract to the protestants??
Hey it’s a thought.
Do they get to keep their dresses?
Just curious.
Did someone say smoking…..
Oh no….I missed that one too…However…we had a few after school sessions….. Its is amazing what people can come up with…especially in the early 70’s….. On occasion rafflaw…we did experience the Acts of Paul and company while in FUBAR….it was definitely an enlightening book….. Then we soon turned to leaf to SNAFU…. Looking for a higher understanding of the divine purpose…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvVr2uks0C8
Does this bring back haunting memory’s….
BIL,
“The Book of Marley”
Why, I just reread that last night and it was ssssmmmmmmokin’
😀