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Post Info TOPIC: Pope Benedict Ratzinger must Resign


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Bishop Stephan Ackermann in 2009. Photo: DPA

20 Trier diocese priests accused of sex abuse

Published: 29 Mar 10 18:25 CET

Trier's Roman Catholic diocese said Monday that 20 of its current and former priests had been accused "in recent weeks" of sexual abuse as part of an ever widening scandal embroiling the Church in Germany.

The Trier bishopric in the western part of the country said the "shocking" allegations involved crimes committed from the 1950s to 1990.

"For my part, I would like to encourage those victims who have not yet found the courage to come forward to do so," Bishop Stephan Ackermann told reporters, saying he was "stunned" by the cases that had come to light.

Ackermann said two people had already reported their cases to authorities while the Church had passed on information on an additional three to prosecutors. Ten of the accused priests have since died, another two have retired.

Ackermann said the diocese was still conferring on how to handle three cases that fell under the criminal statute of limitations. He said that beyond the new cases that had surfaced, three priests had been convicted of abuse in the 1990s.

Meanwhile the prosecutor's office in the Hessian city of Fulda confirmed sexual abuse charges had been filed against a former priest who had worked in nearby Erfurt. It said the man had been previously charged with paedophilia but declined to provide further details.

Germany's Catholic Church has been thrown into crisis in recent weeks as dozens of people have come forward alleging they were abused as minors by priests. Most cases date back several years.

Similar scandals have also erupted in the NetherlandsAustria and Switzerland, while Ireland has been rocked by revelations about cover-up efforts by the head of the Church there in the 1970s.

The Vatican has said it received 3,000 reports between 2001 and 2010 of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy committed over the past 50 years.

 

AFP (news@thelocal.de)



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Vatican denies pope failed to stop paedophile

Published: 26 Mar 10 19:05 CET

The Vatican on Friday dismissed a fresh allegation by The New YorkTimes that Pope Benedict XVI failed to bar the transfer of a known paedophile priest while he was the archbishop of Munich.

"The then archbishop had no knowledge of the decision to reassign (Reverend Peter Hullerman) to pastoral activities in a parish," the Vatican said in a statement, adding that it "rejects any other version of events as mere speculation."

Hullerman was suspended from his duties in the northern German town of Essenin late 1979 over allegations that he abused an 11-year-old boy. ArchbishopJoseph Ratzinger, who is now the pope, led a meeting approving Hullerman's transfer to Munich the following January despite a memo warning that the priest was a potential "danger," the Times reported on Friday.

Six years later, in 1986, Hullerman was found guilty of molesting boys in another Bavarian parish.

"The article in The New York Times contains no new information beyond that which the archdiocese has already communicated concerning the then archbishop's knowledge of the situation of Father H.," the Vatican said.

The Munich archdiocese issued a statement on March 12 confirming that Benedict "took part" in the decision to transfer Hullerman, while former vicar-general Gerhard Gruber took "all responsibility" for the move.

"The repeated employment of H. in priestly spiritual duties was a bad mistake. I assume all responsibility," Gruber said in the statement.

New allegations of child sex abuse against Hullerman emerged this week dating both from his time in Essen and from 1998 in a different southern town.

In 1980, Ratzinger "was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children," the Times wrote. Despite the warning signs "Father Hullerman went from disgrace and suspension from his duties in Essen to working without restrictions as a priest in Munich," it added.

The case comes on the heels of another New York Times accusation on Thursday according to which Ratzinger failed to act over an American priest accused of molesting up to 200 deaf children between 1950 and 1974.

 

AFP/The Local (news@thelocal.de)

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Jesuit coverup of sex abuse on two continents


Rev. Dartmann disclosed that the same teacher had been guilty of similar abuses Jesuit schools in Spain and Chile. Rev. Dartmann criticized his predecessors for not making the cases public. In Germany, the abuses happened in five different towns. "We realize with horror that these matters were evidently perceived differently in the 1970s, 80s and 90s," Dartmann said. 

"I apologize for the failure back then of the order's superiors to properly and closely scrutinize what happened and respond appropriately," said Rev. Dartman, in reference to former pupils, their parents and the rest of the teaching staff at the schools. The Jesuits have long been known for their close relationship to the papacy, its defense of the Catholic Church, and its worldwide network of schools and universities. 

Rev. Dartmann averred that sex abuse occured in the 1970s and 1980s in Berlin, Hamburg, St. Blasien, Goettingen and Hildesheim. The self-confessed abuser taught at three of the colleges. 

Now aged 65, the offender left the Jesuits and now lives in Chile and has written a letter of apology to several victims. Prosecutors said the crimes appeared to have happened too long ago to bring charges. 

Around 22 boys are believed to have been victims of the predatory sports teacher and a second Jesuit teaching priest at the Berlin college.


"As provincial superior I don't want anything to be concealed," Dartmann said. "But I don't think it's my role to publicly sit in judgement on these brothers." Dartmann thanked the victims for speaking out.


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AP

Pope's brother says he would testify in abuse case

2010-03-08 00:20:00

 

Georg Ratzinger
File - In this April 20, 2005 file photo, Georg Ratzinger, brother of Pope ...
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The brother of Pope Benedict XVI has told a newspaper he is willing to testify in the sex scandal rocking Germany's Catholic Church, even though he says he knows nothing about the alleged abuse of boys in a choir he later led.

The Rev. Georg Ratzinger, in an interview published Sunday, also was quoted as saying by the Rome daily La Repubblica that there was "discipline and rigor" but no terror during his 30 years as head of the Regensburger Domspatzen choir in Germany.

The Regensburg Diocese said last week that a former singer came forward with allegations of sexual abuse in the early 1960s. The German newsweekly Der Spiegel has reported that therapists in the region are treating several alleged victims from the choir.

Ratzinger led the choir from 1964 till 1994.

The diocese has said it is hiring a lawyer to help it carry out a "systematic" clarification of abuse allegations.

A man who lived in the choir-linked boarding school until 1967 has contended that "a sophisticated system of sadistic punishments in connection with sexual lust" had been installed there. Der Spiegel quoted the man, Franz Wittenbrink, as saying it would be inexplicable that the pope's brother didn't know anything about it.

But Ratzinger says he knew nothing about any alleged abuse.

If German justice officials "ask me to give testimony, obviously I'd be very ready to do so, but I am not able to provide any information on any deed that could be punished, because I don't have any, I never knew anything about it," the former choir leader told La Repubblica.

"We're talking about another generation, of another generation than that of my years, and respect to the generation that leads the foundation and chorus now," the pope's brother told the paper.

Asked why cases of alleged abuse were "covered by silence" for so long, Ratzinger replied: "'I insist, I wasn't around in that situation, I wasn't at the choir when the cases they're talking about happened."

"I hope my chorus isn't damaged by this situation, but it's in my interest that light is shed on it," he added.

Asked by La Repubblica about victims' claims of a "climate of terror at the choir," Ratzinger was quoted as saying: "In my years, thus after those deeds, there was a climate of discipline and rigor, that was obvious, too — we were aiming for a high musical, artistic level."

He said there was a "a climate of human comprehension, almost like a family."

The pope's brother also wondered what was behind the recent allegations.

"I want to note that I sense a certain animosity toward the church" behind the scandal, Ratzinger was quoted as saying.

Also Sunday, a prominent German Catholic activist group called on the pope to explain what he knew about abuses. Christian Weisner, the spokesman for We Are the Church, told the Associated Press on Sunday that Benedict must address whether there was abuse during his time as bishop of Munich and Freising between 1977 and 1981.

The Vatican said Saturday it backed the diocese's efforts to look into the "painful question in a decisive and open way."

Benedict has made no public comment on the choir scandal in his homeland, where the church has been jolted by abuse allegations from more than 170 former students who studied at some of the country's most prominent Catholic schools.

Ratzinger was asked by another Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, which interviewed him in his Regensburg home, if he had spoken to his brother about the abuse allegations.

"Not about this. It's the press that wants to know about these things," Ratzinger was quoted as replying.

_______

Associated Press writer Juergen Baetz contributed to this story from Berlin.



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German archbishop admits sex abuse was covered up for years

The head of the German Bishops Conference has admitted that the Roman Catholic church consciously covered up cases of sexual abuse by priests.

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Archbishop Robert Zollitsch: German archbishop admits sex abuse was covered up for years
Archbishop Robert Zollitsch apologised personally for a sexual abuse cover-up that happened twenty years ago in a Black Forest community Photo: AP

Focus magazine reported that Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, who also heads the Bishops Conference, said that "sexual abuse was covered up for decades by society."

He said while most cases happened outside the church "assaults that took place in such numbers within our institutions shame and frighten me."

He said "every single case darkens the face of the entire church."

Archbishop Zollitsch apologised personally for a sexual abuse cover-up that took place twenty years ago in a Black Forest community while he was in charge of human resources at the Freiburg diocese.

His admission came as Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholics to refrain from judging sinners one day after he rebuked Irish bishops for their handling of a half-century of sexual abuse of minors by clergy.

The pontiff didn't mention his letter chastising Ireland's church hierarchy as he made his weekly appearance from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square. He cited the Gospel passage about Jesus' inviting those without sin to cast the first stone toward an adulterer.

"While acknowledging her sin, he does not condemn her, but urges her to sin no more," he told English-speaking pilgrims in the square. "Trusting in his great mercy toward us, we humbly beg his forgiveness for our own failings, and we ask for the strength to grow in his holiness."



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Pope's brother plans 100,000 euro Vatican birthday bash, German magazine says

The brother of Pope Benedict XVI in embroiled in a controversy over an alleged 100,000-euro birthday bash that is to be paid for by the Catholic Church.

Georg Ratzinger, a Catholic prelate from Regensburg and the elder brother of the pontiff, is to celebrate his 85th birthday by listening to Mozart's Mass in C-Minor performed for him in the Sistine Chapel, according to reports.

A German church choir of 90 singers and 37 musicians from the Linz baroque orchestra L'Orfeo in Austria will be flown to Rome for the January 15 event, according to the German magazine Focus.

The magazine also claimed that the costs of the festivities will be covered by the Regensburg diocese, mainly from money taken off the so-called Church Tax, a levy unique to Germany and Austria that was introduced by Adolf Hitler. The dictator wanted to make the Church less popular by taxing all practising Catholics in the Third Reich, but the regulation has survived his rule and maintains to this day.

The news about the Pope's brother's exclusive birthday party was met with criticism by Catholic associations from his own Regensburg diocese, who objected to the decision to finance the bash with the Church Tax.

"Georg Ratzinger should be able to have the party, but it must not be financed by Church Tax money," said Sigrid Grabmeier, spokesman of the Regensburg diocese laity association We Are The Church, adding that such monies were intended to sponsor pastoral care in hospitals and similar charity projects.

Prelate Ratzinger and the Regensburg diocese were not available for a comment.



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Vatican 'damaged' by row over rape victim aged 9

A senior archbishop has said the Vatican was wrong to condemn two doctors who carried out an abortion on a nine-year-old girl who fell pregnant after being raped.

He admitted the Church's "credibility" had been hurt by the bitter row over the termination in Brazil, a month after the rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying British Catholic bishop raised questions about the Pope's judgment.

In the second public relations controversy to hit the Catholic Church in weeks, the Pope's advisers appeared to be at loggerheads over the excommunication of medics who performed an abortion on Brazilian girl made pregnant with twins by her stepfather.

The girl's mother was also excommunicated for authorising the termination of the pregnancy, which was discovered when the girl complained of stomach pains and told officials she had been abused since the age of six.

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who heads the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, criticised the move and said the Church should have showed a greater sense of mercy to the child.

While upholding the Church's implacable opposition to abortion, he said the decision to excommunicate the doctors, taken by a Brazilian archbishop, "hurts the credibility of our teaching, which appears in the eyes of many as insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy".

The doctors did not deserve to be excommunicated for the "arduous decision" they had made to perform the abortion, because the girl's life would have been in danger if the pregnancy had continued, he said.

Archbishop Fisichella's opinion, carried prominently in the Vatican's semi-official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, put him at odds with another highly ranked Vatican official.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the Congregation for Bishops, has insisted that the twins should have been allowed to live and that the attacks on the Brazilian archbishop who announced the excommunications were "unjustified".

"It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," he said. "Life must always be protected."

The row over the girl's abortion, which was carried out last week, has stretched from the corridors of the Vatican to the streets of Brazil, where it prompted a huge public debate over the Church's lack of compassion.

In response to public anger, Brazilian bishops last week said that the excommunications were wrong and would not be applied.

The split within the Vatican comes a few days after the Pope released an unusually candid letter in which he admitted that mistakes were made over the decision to rehabilitate Richard Williamson, a maverick British bishop who questioned the Holocaust.



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Pope silent on abuse crisis as Holy Week begins

Pontiff celebrates Palm Sunday Mass; no mention of sex scandal in homily

Image: Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.
Vincenzo Pinto / AFP - Getty Images
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Theologist's take
March 28: Father Thomas Reese of Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center talks about what the Catholic church can learn from the past mishandling of scandals.

Nightly News



msnbc.com news services
updated 8:29 a.m. ET March 28, 2010

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week on Sunday amid one of the most serious crises facing the church in decades, with questions about his handling of cases of pedophile priests and the Vatican acknowledging its "moral credibility" was on the line.

Benedict made no mention of the scandal in his Palm Sunday homily. But one of the prayers, recited in Portuguese during Mass, was "for the young and for those charged with educating them and protecting them."

Other parts of his sermon could be applicable to the crisis he and his church are facing. The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one "toward the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion."

He also spoke of how man can sometimes "fall to the lowest, vulgar levels" and "sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty."

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and is the start of the church's Holy Week, which includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion and death and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

This year, the most solemn week on the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar has been stained by a clerical abuse scandal that has spread across Europe to the pope's native Germany. The Vatican has been on the defensive amid mounting questions about the pope's handling of sex abuse cases both when he was archbishop of Munich and when he headed the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was Munich archbishop when a priest was allowed to resume pastoral work with children even while receiving therapy for pedophilia. He was subsequently convicted of abusing minors. In addition, a case has come to light in whichRatzinger's deputy at the Congregation told Wisconsin bishops to squash a church trial for a priest alleged to have abused up to 200 deaf boys.

The Vatican insists Ratzinger was unaware of the Munich priest's move to the pastoral job and has defended its handling of the Wisconsin case.

Benedict has only publicly spoken out about the scandal in Ireland,writing a letter to the Irish faithful last week in which he chastised Irish bishops for leadership shortcomings and errors in judgment for failing to apply church law to stop abusive priests.

'Making amends'
During his homily Sunday, the pope directed himself to young people, as Palm Sunday is traditionally dedicated to the young. He reminded them that Christian life is a path, or pilgrimage, with Christ — "A walk in the direction that he has chosen and shows us."

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Pope on Palm Sunday
March 28: Some observers interpret a comment in the pope's Sunday sermon as a response to the sex abuse crisis. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports from Rome.

Nightly News

Christ, he said, guides the faithful "toward the courage that doesn't let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others."

On Saturday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, acknowledged that the way the church responds to the abuse scandal is "crucial for its moral credibility."

He noted that most of the cases that have come to light recently occurred decades ago.

"But recognizing them, and making amends to the victims, is the price of re-establishing justice and 'purifying memories' that will let us look with renewed commitment together with humility and trust in the future," he said in a statement on Vatican Radio.

His comments indicated that the Vatican is now looking at the scandal as a way to purify itself so that it can emerge renewed and strengthened. He pointed to the action taken by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after the clerical abuse scandal erupted there in 2002.

 

The head of the German bishops' conference has said the Vatican was compiling information from various bishops' conferences around the world with the possible aim of setting out new guidelines for dealing with the problem.

Separately Sunday, a retired Italian cardinal and one-time candidate for the papacy said in comments published in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that celibacy for priests should be reconsidered.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, former archbishop of Milan and considered one of the more liberal-leaning princes of the church, was quoted as saying that mandatory chastity for churchmen should be thought over to prevent further abuse cases by clergy and help the church regain lost trust.

The Vatican has rejected suggestions that celibacy caused the abuse and Benedict has reaffirmed it as a gift to God as recently as this month.



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வெட்கப்பட்டால் போன கற்பு திரும்ப வந்துவிடுமா?

By vedaprakash
வெட்கப்பட்டால் போன கற்பு திரும்ப வந்துவிடுமா?
பாதிரியார்களின் செயலுக்காக வெட்கம் அடைகிறேன்: பாதிக்கப்பட்டவர்களிடம் போப் பெனிடிக்ட் மன்னிப்பு
மார்ச் 22,2010,00:00  IST

http://www.dinamalar.com/world_detail.asp?news_id=5120

Top global news update

வாடிகன்:ஜெர்மனி, அயர்லாந்து உள்ளிட்ட நாடுகளில், கத்தோலிக்க பாதிரியார்கள், சிறுவர்களுடன் தகாத உறவு வைத்து கொண்டதற்காக, போப் பெனிடிக்ட் மன்னிப்பு கேட்டுள்ளார்.ஜெர்மனி, அயர்லாந்து, ஆஸ்திரியா, நெதர்லாந்து, சுவிட்சர்லாந்து, அமெரிக்கா என பல்வேறு நாடுகளில் கத்தோலிக்க பாதிரியார்கள், பல ஆண்டுகளாக சிறுவர்களுடன் தகாத உறவு வைத்துள்ளனர். இது தொடர்பாக வாடிகன் நகரில் உள்ள போப் பெனிடிக்ட்டுக்கு ஏராளமான புகார்கள் வந்தன.

குறிப்பாக, அயர்லாந்தில் இந்த புகார்கள் அதிகம் காணப்பட்டது. அயர்லாந்து நாட்டின் சார்பில், இது குறித்து ஒரு கமிஷன் விசாரித்து அறிக்கை தாக்கல் செய்துள்ளது.ஒரு பாதிரியார் நூற்றுக்கும் அதிகமான சிறுவர்களுடன் உறவு கொண்டதை ஒப்புக் கொண்டுள்ளார். மற்றொரு பாதிரியார், இரண்டு வாரத்துக்கு ஒரு முறை சிறுவர்களுடன் உறவு கொள்வதை, 25 ஆண்டுகளாக செய்து வந்துள்ளதை ஒப்புக் கொண்டுள்ளார்.
போப் பெனிடிக்ட், ஜெர்மனியில் உள்ள முனிச் நகர பிஷப்பாக, 1977ம் ஆண்டு முதல் 1981ம் ஆண்டு வரை பணியாற்றியுள்ளார். அவர், பிஷப்பாக இருந்த கால கட்டத்திலும் இது போன்ற சம்பவங்கள் நடந்துள்ளன.எனவே, ‘போப் பெனிடிக்ட் இச்சம்பவங்களுக்கு மன்னிப்பு கேட்க வேண்டும், தவறு செய்தவர்கள் மீது உரிய நடவடிக்கை எடுக்க வேண்டும்’ என, ஜெர்மனி பார்லிமென்ட் கீழ் சபையின் துணை தலைவர் உல்ப்கேங் தியர்ஸ், பெனிடிக்ட்டை சந்தித்து கோரினார்.நாளுக்கு நாள் பாதிரியார்கள் மீதான புகார்கள் அதிகரித்து வந்ததால் இதற்கு தீர்வு காண்பதற்காக கடந்த வாரம் போப் பெனிடிக்ட் வாடிகன் தேவாலயத்தின் உயர்மட்ட நிர்வாகிகளுடன் ஆலோசனை நடத்தினார்.பாதிரியார்களின் தகாத உறவால் பாதிக்கப்பட்டவர்களுக்கும், தேவாலய நிர்வாகிகளுக்கும் அவர் சமீபத்தில் மன்னிப்பு கடிதம் எழுதியுள்ளார்.போப் தனது கடிதத்தில் குறிப்பிடுகையில், ‘பாதிரியார்கள் தாங்கள் செய்த செயலை ஒப்புக்கொள்ள வேண்டும். இந்த செயல்கள் உங்கள் மதிப்பின் தரத்தை தாழ்த்தக்கூடியது. இந்த தகாத செயலால் பாதிக்கப்பட்டவர்களிடம் மன்னிப்பு கேட்கிறேன்.

‘உங்களுக்கு நேர்ந்த இந்த துயரம் குறித்து வெட்கமும் வேதனையும் அடைகிறோம். அயர்லாந்து நாட்டு பாதிரியார்கள் செய்த துரோக செயல் குறித்து விசாரிக்கப்படும். அயர்லாந்து மக்கள், தேவாலயங்கள் மீது மீண்டும் நம்பிக்கை கொள்ளும் வகையில் நடவடிக்கை எடுக்கப்படும்’ என்றார்.போப்பின் இந்த எட்டு பக்க கடிதத்தால் மற்ற நாட்டு கத்தோலிக்கர்கள் அதிருப்தியடைந்துள்ளனர். அயர்லாந்து நாட்டு சம்பவங்களை தான் போப் கண்டித்திருக்கிறார். அனைத்து நாடுகளுக்கும் இவரது மன்னிப்பு கடிதம் பொருந்தவில்லை என, அமெரிக்க கத்தோலிக்கர்கள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.தவறு செய்த பாதிரியார்களை பதவி விலக வற்புறுத்தும் படி போப் இந்த கடிதத்தில் தெரிவிக்காததற்கு சிலர் அதிருப்தி தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.

நேற்று முன்தினம் அயர்லாந்தில் நடந்த கூட்டத்தில் கார்டினல் சீன் பிராடி, போப்பின் கடிதத்தை படித்து காண்பித்தார். அப்போது அவர் குறிப்பிடுகையில், ‘போப்பின் கடிதம் வரவேற்கத்தக்கது. அவர் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளது போல், நடந்த சம்பவங்கள் குறித்து விசாரணை நடத்தப்படும்.தேவைப்பட்டால் ஒழுங்கு நடவடிக்கை எடுக்கப்படும்’ என்றார்.




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The Fallibility of the Infallible Pope

The Fallibility of the Infallible Pope
By Peter Wensierski
Der Spiegel

How much authority does Pope Benedict XVI still enjoy?
Allegations that Pope Benedict XVI may have had detailed knowledge about instances of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church continue to mount. In 1996, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he then led, decided not to punish the pedophile priest Father Lawrence Murphy. With his authority eroded, why does he even remain in office?

When is it time for a pope to resign? Margaret Kässmann, the former head of the Protestant Church in Germany, stepped down in February upon deciding that she no longer had the necessary moral authority for her office after being caught driving drunk. But how much authority does Pope Benedict XVI still enjoy?


These days, what is left is disappearing almost daily. Each new detail about the role he played in his church's handling of instances of sexual abuse erodes it further. But a pope doesn't just resign. He is not the CEO of a company, not the head of a political party -- he is the direct spiritual descendent of the Apostle Peter.

It is, in theory, possible according to church law. Canon 332, Paragraph Two, provides for a papal resignation, allowing the pope to step down whenever he wishes and without asking anyone for permission. But in the long history of the Catholic Church, it is extremely uncommon. Pope Celestine V was the most recent church leader to resign -- 700 years ago.

And even if numerous abuse victims have long been calling for Benedict to stand down, it is simply not papal to turn one's back on the papacy. Instead, the Vatican prefers to reject any accusations that have been made as being fully unfounded. 

On Thursday, one could observe the reflex once again. In the case of the pedophile priest from the US, Father Lawrence Murphy, Vatican spokesman Federico Lomobardi insisted that before he became pope, Benedict, then known as Joseph Ratzinger, was in no way involved in a cover up. Given that "Father Murphy was elderly and in very poor health," the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then led by Ratzinger, elected in 1996 to forego punishing him. Murphy, who had abused some 100 children, was allowed to remain a priest until his death.

'The Perpetrators First' 

It seems doubtful that this explanation will reduce the pressure on the pope. The Church's motto has long seemed to be "the perpetrators first." They were taken good care of -- the victims, however, were left to their own devices. 

Since 1982, Ratzinger had been responsible for that part of the Vatican which deals with cases of sexual abuse. Who, other than he, was responsible for the Church's path?

You can rename Ratzinger "Benedict," SPIEGEL wrote in the face of the euphoria over the German pope that spread here after his election to the papacy in 2004, but you can't take Ratzinger out of the pope. Since then, as pope, he has done more damage to his church than good. He has strained relations with Jews several times, he played with fire in relations between Christians and Muslims with his Regensburg address, he angered the indigenous people during his Latin America trip, he has alienated Protestants and he has shown himself to be conciliatory to Holocaust deniers.

Even loyal Catholics have been stunned by the course of action he has taken. And now, on top of all that -- one area where he has been consistent over the decades has been in his negligence in dealing with pedophiles within his own institution.

In Ireland or America, bishops have had trouble stepping down -- even in cases in which their cover-up had been uncloaked. And in Germany, not a single bishop has taken the fall for the serious mistakes made by the Catholic Church there.

Small Business Crisis Management 

The reaction up until now has hardly gone further than the kind of crisis management one might see at a medium-sized company: issuing an apology, setting up a round table discussion to deal with the problem, establishing a hotline -- and not much more. So how are the perpetrators behind the perpetrators to be found? How are we supposed to eradicate the system of cover-ups, silence and reassigning pedophiles to other diocese in the Church? And who will force the Church to open its files to the public?


The experience of the victims in America and Ireland over the years has been bad. Will that experience now be repeated in Germany? What happened behind the facades of the Church is still far from being an open book. The fact that several bishops here in Germany helped to ensure the cartel of silence persisted is alone reason enough for them to resign. The alternative would be for them go public with their knowledge and actions, as painful and difficult as that might be.

Evil has been perpetrated inside one of the highest moral authorities, one whose men have preached from the pulpit in the finest detail about what is right and what is wrong.

But the question begs asking: What moral authority remains upon which priests and bishops in Germany can draw to continue executing their offices and provide people with answers to life's difficult questions?


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Pope aide claims under-fire Vatican is victim of ‘conspiracy’

Pope aide claims under-fire Vatican is victim of ‘conspiracy’
March 26, 2010 by Andrew McLeod · 

The Vatican has rejected fresh allegations linking Pope Benedict XVI to a cover-up of paedophile priests, even as international media reports accused the Church of moral bankruptcy and questioned the pontiff’s authority to continue to lead it.

The New York Times has alleged that the Pope, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, failed to defrock an American priest, the Rev Lawrence Murphy, for the abuse of 200 pupils in a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. The allegations were the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Church this year.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said in an editorial that Pope Benedict had always handled such cases with “transparency, purpose and severity.” It accused the international media of acting “with the clear and ignoble intent of trying to strike Benedict and his closest collaborators at any cost”. One of the Pope’s top aides, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, said there was “a conspiracy” against the Church.

But piling on the media pressure, Der Spiegel magazine, which has investigated abuse cases involving priests in Germany, asks in an article titled “The Fallibility of the Infallible Pope”: “When is it time for a pope to resign? Margaret Kässmann, the former head of the Protestant Church in Germany, stepped down in February upon deciding that she no longer had the necessary moral authority for her office after being caught driving drunk. But how much authority does Pope Benedict XVI still enjoy?”

The article by Peter Wensierski in Der Spiegel’s English-language website, sharply criticises the Vatican’s response for not going further than “than the kind of crisis management one might see at a medium-sized company: issuing an apology, setting up a round table discussion to deal with the problem, establishing a hotline – and not much more…

“So how are the perpetrators behind the perpetrators to be found? How are we supposed to eradicate the system of cover-ups, silence and reassigning paedophiles to other diocese in the Church?,” he wrote. “And who will force the Church to open its files to the public?”

The media in two countries with deep Catholic roots also questioned the Vatican’s methods in handling the scandal.

In Spain, where the New York Times article made splash headlines, El País newspaper was scathing in its condemnation of the Vatican response. In an article by Juan Bedoya, it said: “In any organisation this wave of scandals would be seen as moral bankruptcy. The Catholic Church is different. It always finds other reasons that have little to do with the central issue.

“We have read in recent days about the abuse cases in Germany. One priest has even resorted to mathematics: of the 210,000 cases of abuse reported in that country since 1995, only 94 concern Catholic Church personnel. As the resulting percentage is 0.044, the hierarchy comes up with a disgusting excuse: [it is the fault of] the ‘anticlerical communications media’.

“Behind this kind of justification is the idea that the Christian [sic] Church continues to be a Perfect Society — that is how it was defined by the Spanish Official State Bulletin in 1953 — which is above the law and punishments of this Earth. Its hierarchy is thus subject to a higher law, or at least Ecclesiastical Law. In that context, sexual abuse is only a sin, not a crime. It suffices to confess and repent, and leave it all behind.”

In Argentina, the mass circulation El Clarín’s Julio Algañaraz wrote that the Pope’s “annus horribilis continues and is worsening. It began in 2009 when [the Pope] had the bad judgment to lift the excommunication of four Lefebvre bishops – among them the Englishman Richard Williamson, who has denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers and the Holocaust – which provoked an explosion of rebellions in European episcopates. Instead of subsiding, the crisis has acquired a new dimension. Just like Pandora’s Box, the succession of sexual abuse cases involving priests continues to blossom with devastating effect, and comprises thousands of cases in the United States, Ireland, Germany, Austria and now Italy as well, where the weekly L’Espresso has reported the existence of over 40 cases that are currently under investigation. The impression we have is that there will be more cases in these and other countries…”

Algañaraz added that before becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger had promised to clean up the Church. “Many of us didn’t know what he was referring to. Now it has become clear: the soon to be Benedict XVI knew that his destiny was to be pontiff and the issue of sexual abuse was a tragedy which threatened to engulf the Church and himself.

“It was necessary to open Pandora’s Box, but the Pope has avoided admitting his own guilt and that of the Vatican. Beginning in the 1980s, when Cardenal Ratzinger took up the strategic post of guardian of orthodoxy and discipline, he continued the practice of covering-up, evading, hiding, transferring, and thus giving priority to the avoidance of scandal rather than the suffering of the victims and the punishment of pervert priests.”


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Ex-Powys vicar Richard Hart faces child sex offences

Ex-Powys vicar Richard Hart faces child sex offences 

Richard Hart appears in court again on Thursday 
A former vicar has appeared in court accused of a series of sexual offences against children.

Richard Hart, 60, of Beguildy, near Knighton, Powys, has been charged with gross indecency and indecent assault offences. 

Dyfed-Powys Police said he appeared before magistrates in Llandrindod Wells last Thursday. No plea was entered. 

Mr Hart, who was priest-in-charge of four parishes in south Powys, will appear in court again on Thursday. 

Dyfed-Powys Police said: "A 60-year-old man has been charged with gross indecency and indecent assault. 

"He appeared in Llandrindod Wells Magistrates' Court on 24 March 2010."


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The storm buffeting God's Rottweiler

The storm buffeting God's Rottweiler
Gavin Hewitt | 13:07 UK time, Monday, 29 March 2010 
BBC
I was in Ghent at the weekend and dropped in on Saint Bavo's monumental cathedral. It was Palm Sunday. The place bursts with Gothic extravagance; its soaring brick roof testifying to another era and the muscular confidence of the Catholic Church. By the time I was there the service was over and people, clutching fronds or sprigs of green, were embracing each other. 

It was a peaceful ritual that belies the storm battering the Church. Across Europe, there is now a torrent of allegations against predatory priests and the abuse of children. In Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands people are emerging, with their often buried stories, and pointing their fingers at priests and bishops. One Catholic paper opined that this scandal was the "largest in centuries" to trouble the Church.

The questions facing the Vatican are these: Was its priority protecting vulnerable children or guarding the reputation of the Church? Were children systematically abused at Catholic schools and were paedophile priests shipped out to other parishes rather than being prosecuted?

There is the story from Ireland of a cardinal being present when two teenage boys were persuaded to sign oaths of silence. The priest who was accused of abusing them was never reported to the police and was free to abuse again.

It is impossible to know the scale of this, but across the world thousands of children may have been abused; their lives damaged, tormented by guilt and struggling to form stable, loving relationships.

The scandal is now knocking at the Pope's door in Vatican City. Before he was pontiff, he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and was known as God's Rottweiler, the enforcer who instilled orthodoxy in the Church. He was also in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was the chief investigator, in charge of the office monitoring priestly misconduct.

Two cases have drawn the Pope directly into this crisis.

One involves the Rev Lawrence Murphy, a priest who worked at a school for deaf children in Milwaukee. Around 150 men with impaired hearing claim they were abused by the priest. Complaints against the Rev Murphy were made at a very senior level but why, it is asked, did the Pope, when he was cardinal, not take steps to ensure the man could not abuse again?

A second case concerns Peter Hullermann, a Bavarian priest who undertook therapy for paedophilia in Ratzinger's diocese; he was transferred to a new parish where, it is alleged, he continued to molest boys. The Pope says he had no knowledge of the decision to reassign him.

Vatican officials insist that as cardinal, Pope Benedict had "zero tolerance" towards priests who committed abuse and that he proposed a fast-track to de-frock them. They insist that the number of recent allegations are falling and that reflects some of the reforms that the Pope himself introduced. 

The Church, however, seems totally unprepared for a global media bent on discovering what happened. They show no deference towards the institution. Lawyers in the United States talk of wanting to know "who knew what and when", echoing the pursuit of former President Richard Nixon. There is a search for documents covering the time when the Pope was a top Vatican official. 

So, as more is revealed, more questions follow. That is the nature of these stories. One paper suggests the Pope knew that Hullermann would be able to return to pastoral work. It seems his name was found on a memo. So reporters demand answers as if the Vatican was the White House and there was a duty to explain. 

In the face of this the Vatican has been defensive. Its paper L'Osservatore Romano said the allegations were part of an "ignoble attempt to strike at Pope Benedict". A spokesman is quoted as saying the Pope has not been weakened by this.

The Primate of Poland, Henryk Muszynski, says criticism of Pope Benedict amounts to a personal attack on the pontiff and an attempt to discredit the Church.

Yesterday, on Palm Sunday, the Pope was cryptic in his sermon. He spoke of Jesus Christ helping Christians "towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip and dominant opinion".

There may be "petty gossip" out there but a Vatican spokesman has accepted that the "moral credibility" of the Church is at stake. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken of the need for "truth and clarity about everything that took place." 

The biggest challenge is to provide an honest accounting as to what happened. Some are suggesting that outside independent lawyers should have access to Vatican files. Beyond that lies a question that eats away at Church doctrine. Abuse was not isolated. It was not confined to Ireland. It may well have been endemic and that demands an answer to the question "why?" 

In the United States hundreds of priests were dismissed over a three year period. Ultimately the Church will have to explain "why" and then justify continuing with celibacy.

Meanwhile, the president of Switzerland has called for a sex-offender's list for clergy. In Vienna an archbishop is considering setting up a commission to examine abuse claims. Legal action is being planned in Italy against a priest suspected of molesting 30 children in 2001. 

It is a story that has the potential to shake the Church; an institution whose buildings still define so much of Europe's public space as I observed in Ghent yesterday.


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One man’s crusade against global clerical abuse

belfasttelegraph.co.uk
One man’s crusade against global clerical abuse
By Jim Dee
Monday, 29 March 2010 


As news of the horrendous sexual abuse suffered by deaf boys at the hands of a Wisconsin priest a half-century ago was exploding across the world last week, Terry McKiernan was navigating Boston’s notorious traffic en route to an interview when his mobile phone rang. 


“It was a reporter from France,” McKiernan later told the Belfast Telegraph. “It’s great that the site is recognised. But it really is sad, because it is about the kids.” 

The “kids” McKiernan cited aren’t the victims of Fr Lawrence C Murphy alone, but also the tens of thousands of others whose horrific treatment by Catholic clergy spurred him to establish BishopAccountability.org in 2003. 

The website contains a staggering amount of material on clerical abuse across America, including a database of accused priests, church documents, grand jury reports, a breakdown of financial compensation paid to victims, and much more. 

McKiernan, who modestly describes himself as a ‘librarian’, said that, as the abuse scandal has grown, so too has traffic to his site. 

In 2004, the site had about 72,000 unique visitors. Last year that number was about 703,000. This month, propelled by events in Ireland and Germany, more than 80,000 have visited the site, making 2010 likely to be the busiest year yet. 

The Bronx native’s journey to become a key chronicler of the Catholic Church’s darkest chapters began the year that America’s first clerical abuse scandal broke in his adopted city of Boston in 2002. 

Although he’d already been troubled about the Church after reading The Changing Face of the Priesthood by Fr Donald Cozzens, the daily revelations regarding the breadth of abuse in Boston pushed him into action. 

His first action was to help found Voices of the Faithful (VoF) — which now has chapters in Ireland — a group that seeks to support victims, honest priests, and Church reform from within. 

“It went from 50 people at a meeting, to 200 people at a meeting, to 500, to a thousand. It was an extraordinary experience,” said McKiernan. 

McKiernan said that, while VoF was “satisfying up to a point”, ultimately he left because the group was “focused on kind of talking it through with the [Church] authorities. And I’m sceptical about the effectiveness of that.” 

During one large VoF public meeting, he was scanning the crowd when he realised that, like himself, almost everyone present had folders full of press clippings and documents concerning clerical abuse. He then set about creating a way to centralise all that information. BishopAccountablity.org was born. 

McKiernan, who now oversees a staff of half a dozen part-timers, is passionate about the importance of collating abuse-related information. 

“Of course, it’s a sex crisis and it’s a crisis that involves power. But, arguably, it is quintessentially a crisis that is an information crisis,” he insisted. 

“These things happen because information is denied. And these things begin to be resolved when information is shared. And, of course, the internet enables this in a way that was never possible before.” 

In spite of regularly having to read and collate stories of often horrendous abuse — stories that he rarely shares with his family — McKiernan remains a practising Catholic. 

“I still go to Mass. I don’t take my kids, but I do go myself,” said McKiernan (56). “I still have some fondness for the ritual and that way of approaching things, so I try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” 

“I’m a kind of independent person and I’ve approached my Catholicism that way,” he added. “I think if I was slavishly devoted, it would perhaps be even harder. I think it’s for those people that it all comes tumbling down when something like this happens.” 

McKiernan said that he has never met any open hostility from the Catholic Church over his work. 

“I think it’s obvious to anyone who’s decent in all of this that |information is not a bad thing,” |he said. 

“We’re not in this out of any animus. We’re in this because we care.”


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Cardinal Seán Brady urged to withdraw evidence in abuse court case

Cardinal Seán Brady urged to withdraw evidence in abuse court case
(Peter Muhly/AFP)
Cardinal Brady says the acts alleged are not grounds for suing him
David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent Recommend? The leader of Ireland’s Catholics, Cardinal Seán Brady, has been urged to withdraw his defence in a legal battle with one of the alleged victims of a paedophile priest. 

The solicitor for the alleged victim of Father Brendan Smyth, a man who was 14 in 1975, said that he was “incredulous” at Cardinal Brady’s recent expressions of remorse given the primate’s defence in the legal proceedings. 

The man is suing Cardinal Brady in the cardinal’s capacity as Archbishop of Armagh. He says that he was an altar boy in Dundalk in the early 1970s when Smyth sexually assaulted him in church, on a children’s holiday in County Cork and during a trip to Dublin for a Wombles concert. 

In documents lodged in the High Court in Dublin, revealed this morning by RTÉ, the state broadcaster, the cardinal denies that the acts alleged are grounds for suing him and asks for proof that they happened. 

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The documents also contest the man’s claims that Dr Brady is the Catholic Church’s representative in Ireland, that Smyth was his servant or agent and that the cardinal owed the man any duty of care. 

The alleged victim says that he suffered appalling abuse and was traumatised by the experiences. 

When he confided in another priest in Dundalk a church ecclesiastical court was convened to deal with the allegations. The church authorities assured the alleged victim and his father that Smyth would never be allowed near children again. 

The alleged victim says that 19 years later, while out of the country, he received a telephone call from his sister to tell him that Smyth was on television after finally being brought to justice. 

He says that as a consequence he began to drink heavily and suffer guilt for not protecting other children as well as experience nightmares about sexual abuse. 

In the court papers the cardinal denies calling an ecclesiastical court and giving assurances to the man and his father that Smyth would be removed from the orbit of children. 

While no names have been revealed, the alleged victim suing the cardinal was the same age as the boy whom the cardinal has already admitted he interviewed in 1975 about Smyth. 

Cardinal Brady admitted that the boy was sworn to secrecy about his allegations. 

In a St Patrick’s Day homily at Armagh Cathedral he described his response to the sexual abuse scandals as “hopelessly inadequate” and appealed for forgiveness and prayers. 

He said that he would spend the rest of Lent considering his future. Campaigners for victims of sexual abuse are demanding that he resign, having lost his moral authority. 

Last month, the alleged victim’s solicitor wrote to the cardinal’s lawyers, saying that the defence was compounding the grievous wrongs perpetrated against his client. 

He said that it should be withdrawn to give practical expression to the cardinal’s recent statements of remorse about clerical sexual abuse. 

In a statement today Cardinal Brady said that he wanted to "work towards a just resolution of the case... conscious of the rights of all concerned". 

He said that he had asked his legal representatives to engage the legal representatives of the complainant with a view to progressing the case. 

"As these matters are the subject of ongoing legal proceedings, and in light of the instructions I have given to my legal representatives today, it would be inappropriate for me to offer any further comment at this time," the Primate of All Ireland added.


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NY archbishop says sex abuse occurs in "every family"
Last updated March 28, 2010 12:19 p.m. PT

NY archbishop defends pope against sex abuse furor
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

NEW YORK -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan was greeted with applause after finishing Palm Sunday Mass by defending Pope Benedict XVI against suggestions he aided cover-ups of reports of child abuse.

The standing-room-only crowd at St. Patrick's Cathedral applauded for 20 seconds after Dolan read a statement calling the pope the "leader in purification, reform and renewal that the church so very much needs."

Still, Dolan said reports of abuse of minors by some priests in Ireland and Germany and the retelling of the abuse of children by a priest in Wisconsin had "knocked us to our knees once again" and intensified the somberness of Holy Week, the most sacred time on the Christian calendar.

He urged the Manhattan congregation to pray for the pope, saying he was suffering some of the same unjust accusations once faced by Jesus.

"Anytime this horror, this vicious sin, this nauseating crime is reported, as it needs to be, victims and their families are wounded again, the vast majority of faithful priests bow their heads in shame anew and sincere Catholics like you experience another dose of shock, sorrow and even anger," Dolan said.

He added: "What deepens the sadness now is the unrelenting insinuations against the Holy Father himself, as certain sources seem almost frenzied to implicate the man."

In Vatican City, the pope in his Palm Sunday homily made no direct mention of the abuse scandal, which has drawn fresh attention to the church's handling of cases of pedophile priests.

Dolan in his homily also didn't mention the scandal, but a church spokesman alerted reporters in the crowd that he would make a statement at the end of the Mass, which lasted more than an hour.

Dolan credited the pope for making possible the progress the Catholic Church has made in the United States against "this sickening sin and crime," saying changes "could never have happened without the insistence and support of the very man now being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo."

He asked whether the church and the pope "need intense scrutiny and just criticism for tragic horrors long past?"

"Yes! Yes!" he said, answering his question. "He himself has asked for it, encouraging complete honesty, at the same time eloquently expressing contrition and urging a thorough cleansing.

"All we ask is that it be fair and that the Catholic Church not be singled out for a horror that has cursed every culture, religion, organization, institution, school, agency and family in the world," he said.

Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, marks Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and the laying of palm fronds before him. Outside the cathedral Sunday, worshippers emerging from the service with palm fronds were largely supportive of Dolan's remarks.

"I thought it was very well put," said Inga Yungwirth, of Hagerstown, Md. "It doesn't shake my faith."

Earlier, several protesters had gathered outside the Gothic-style cathedral, which sits on Fifth Avenue opposite Rockefeller Center.

"Honk if Pope should resign," said one sign, which attracted only an occasional toot from drivers.
POSTED BY MAGDAGRAHAM

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Catholic sex abuse scandals: Three key cases facing Pope Benedict

The latest Catholic sex abuse scandals are confronting Pope Benedict with what one Catholic newspaper calls the "largest institutional crisis in centuries." In Germany, the church announced a hotline for victims of abuse. A summary of key cases that happened on Benedict's watc

By Jason Walsh, Correspondent / March 30, 2010

Dublin, Ireland

Pope Benedict XVI is confronting the greatest crisis the Roman Catholic Church has faced since at least 2002, when a wave of scandals and lawsuits in the US hit the church. At that time, the Boston Globe uncovered the abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston and provided evidence that church superiors had covered up their crimes.

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Now, evidence of sexual abuse is once more rocking the church. But this time, it's global in scope, with fresh claims of abuse of boys and girls by priests in the US,Ireland, Holland, Italy, and in Pope Benedict's home country of Germany.

This week, the church in Germany announced it would set up a hotline for victims of sexual abuse under Bishop Stephan Ackermann. At a mass at St. Peter's on Sunday, Pope Benedict referred to faith helping Catholics not being "intimidated" by "petty gossip."

IN PICTURES: Pope Benedict XVI

Some commentators see the current crisis as more than a global repeat of 2002, however. In a Friday editorial, the National Catholic Reporter called the new abuse scandals before Pope Benedict the "largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history." The Catholic Reporter wrote "the Holy Father needs to directly answer questions, in a credible forum, about his role – as archbishop of Munich (1977-82), as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1982-2005), and as pope (2005-present) – in the mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis."

This time around, there are allegations that Pope Benedict, who was known as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger until being named pontiff, either covered up for or was indifferent to allegations of abuse by priests under his authority. Church spokesmen have said the current pope never knowingly reassigned priests accused of sexual abuse to work with children again or otherwise covered up allegations of crimes.

The following cases are under scrutiny for their potential direct connection to the pope.

St. John's school for the deaf, USA

At least 19 boys abused at St John’s School for the Deaf in Wisconsin were molested by the Rev. Lawrence Murphy from the 1950s until as late as 1974. Father Murphy, who died in 1998, avoided being defrocked by appealing to Cardinal Ratzinger. Ratzinger's deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, accepted the petition on the basis of Murphy’s age and ill health. The two American bishops handling the case objected to this and had sought a criminal trial against Murphy. The diocese began mediation with victims in 2004, paying unspecified compensation.

This story, which originated in The New York Times last week, has been at the center of some confusion, with many news outlets saying 200 boys complained of abuse. Vincent Twomey, a Catholic theologian and friend of Pope Benedict, claims this figure is incorrect. 

“It was a school of 200 students,” said Dr. Twomey in a Monitor interview. “Twenty-nine accusations were made and 19 he admitted. That’s 19 too many boys abused, but the story was misreported.”

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The Rev. Peter Hullermann, Germany

Three families in the German city of Essen alleged that the Rev. Peter Hullermann sexually abused their children. In 1980, Father Hullermann was transferred to the Munich Archdiocese for psychotherapy and then returned to work with youths.

Hullermann was convicted of sexual abuse in 1986, but returned to work in congregations until he was suspended on March 16 this year, after allegations against him and questions about what Pope Benedict had known about him were raised in the press.

A spokesman for the diocese said no one was informed by then-Archbishop Ratzinger, in charge of the Munich Archdiocese, that Hullermann was an alleged sex offender. 

The church has responded that Ratzinger did not know Hullerman had returned to parish work. “The then-archbishop had no knowledge of the decision to reassign [Hullerman] to pastoral activities in a parish," the Vatican said in a statement on Friday, March 26.

The Rev. Marciel Maciel, Spain and Italy

Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, a prelate (an office roughly equivalent to bishop) who founded the conservative Legionaries of Christ order in 1941, was accused of molesting seminarians on numerous occasions.

The church hierarchy began investigating allegations against Father Maciel in the 1950s, and again in 1998, after nine former seminarians said he abused them when they were youths in Spain and Italy.

Ratzinger began a third investigation in 2004, a year before he was elected pope. In 2006, after becoming pope, the Vatican ordered Maciel to lead a "reserved life of prayer and penance."

Maciel died in 2008 at age 87. His order issued an apology to victims on March 26 this year. The conclusions of the church’s final investigation are expected to be published this year.



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Pope Benedict XVI Should Resign: Pope Has Fallen!

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By Paul I. Adujie, New York

Pope Benedict XVI should resign now, or he must endure squirms of contempt from the whole world over this unfolding pandemic of sex abuse by Catholic Church priests.

Abuses which occurred with knowledge of this pope, even when he was the doctrinaire chief enforcer on matters of faith and sins, in the words of Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, in a must read article by her, which was published on Sunday March 28, 2010. The New York Times has provided excellent service to the world public, on these sex crimes, the newspaper has done so through features, opinion pieces and a robust editorial as well.

If Pope Benedict XVI was the chief executive officer of a secular organization, he would be under arrest by now. This is so, given the fact that there are clear indications that he was aware of the crimes and played prominent roles as the church’s enforcer, in condoning and concealing these sex abuses.

These disgustingly scandalous crimes against children by the Catholic Church will bankrupt the church. It will be the last straw which breaks the camel’s back. The Catholic Church by engaging in rackets, have abused public trust and the public has accordingly lost faith in the Catholic Church’s ability to police and regulate it and its marauding pedophile priests worldwide.

The Catholic Church condoned and concealed these repugnant and reprehensible crimes against innocent children. Parents worldwide must now be fearful in entrusting their children to Catholic Church priests for catechism, Sunday School etc, the fear of pedophile priests and those who cover-up the sex abuse rackets, is the beginning of parental wisdom. Imagine that parents now have to worry about their children’s safety inside the Catholic Church and the danger of Catholic Church pedophile priests and those who protect and shield their sex abuses. What happened to the idea of churches as sanctuaries?

Sex abuse pandemic perpetrated by pedophile priests of the Catholic Church and the subsequent cover-up by top echelons of the Catholic Church exposes the church’s extreme hypocrisy. The Catholic Church cover-up of these sexual abuses surely identical with the actions of a crime gang engaged in a criminal rackets as a cartel. The Catholic Church has thus, robbed itself of any moral authority. The Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church have always engaged in moral absolutism and puritanical hypocrisy, all these must now come to an end. The holier than thou and moral grandstanding and sanctimonious lies must now stop.

It is quite a surprise to millions of Catholics in New York City, that Archbishop Dolan mounted a spirited defense of Pope Benedict XVI a couple of days ago. It is a surprise that Pope Benedict himself has been quoted as referring to these egregious sexual assaults as merely rumors and gossips, spread by others, rumors and gossips, intended to intimidate him and the Catholic Church. Nothing can be further from the truth and the reality of these sex crimes by pedophile Catholic Church priests in America, in Austria, in Germany, in Ireland, and in Italy, Netherlands, and apparently, across other nations worldwide.

But where is the outrage against those who were supposed to be men of God? And yet, they made careers out of sexually assaulting, sexually abusing and criminally molesting innocent, defenseless and vulnerable members of our society? Why is it that not many more people are demanding accountability, punishments and penalties for priests who have been in breach of the most sacred of sacred trusts? Is it not indefensible and most depraved to sexually assault and molest children? These are heinous criminal acts worldwide that have no exceptions.

It does take a great deal of arrogant audacity, and tone-deaf heedlessness, for the pope and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to refer to this sex abuse pandemic as mere rumors and gossips. This, even though the pope and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church ignored and disregarded the now very clear evidences of repeated warnings of the wide ranging complaints against pedophile Catholic Church priests and nothing was done. It must be clear to all by now that the pope and the Catholic Church, in all of this, are still in denial and more interested in employing spin doctors, hoping that this goes away and the public is deceived yet again.

The pope and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church should be awarded the highest prize as hypocrites, full of sanctimonious preachment of moral certainty, while actively engaged in prurient criminal sexual abuses and making victims of innocent children who were entrusted to them worldwide. And as if these crimes were not unpardonable in themselves, there were the additional depravity of covering up these crimes and papering over them. Children who were victims, children who were incapable of giving consent or valid permission or authority, were compelled by the Catholic Church helmsmen to sign oath of secrecy and oath of nondisclosure, all these, in order to shield and protect pedophile priests engaged in criminal sexual behaviors.

The Catholic Church shielded and protected pedophile priests who were repeat offenders. It is the case that criminals and those who harbor them protect and hinder prosecutorial efforts, are just as bad as the criminals themselves. The Catholic Church has for decades been engaged in aiding, abetting, connivance and collusion with pedophile priests who should have been tried and jailed for their crimes.

Billions of people across the world are sickened by the unfolding and revelatory details of the widening sex abuse of children worldwide. There are a multiple levels of disgust and dismay in all of these depravities of some priests in the Catholic Church. First is the heinous crime of sex abuse by predatory pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. Then the second phase, which is the elaborate cover-up by the “leadership” of the Catholic Church. Justice has been denied victims of these sex abuses worldwide, and this was made possible by the cover up afforded offending priests by the hierarchy.

Pope Benedict insists on blaming others in the Catholic Church as he does not accept responsibility and he does not seem capable of saying that the buck stops with him even though the bulk of the child sex assaults, sex abuse and child molestation occurred on his watch as Catholic Church chief of ethic and disciplinarian or so-called enforcer of Catholic orthodoxy

Puritanical Catholics are notorious worldwide for forbidding and prohibiting women rights to abortion. The Catholic Church is also known for its retrograde and retrogressive “rule” against the ordination of women as priests and women preaching morality.

In recent times, the multinational conglomerate which is also known as the Catholic Church, stridently opposed Health Care Reform Law in America, as the Catholic Church is insisted on a more stringent and more extreme anti abortion language in the law in order to forbid and prohibit women abortion rights and access.

The Catholic Church did this, despite the fact that 200,000 deaths, needless deaths, occur in America annually, due to lack of health insurance and until the Health Care Reform Law brings full health care coverage to all, 40 million Americans have remained without health care insurance coverage. And many Americans have been compelled to bankruptcy or filed bankruptcy as a consequence of health care bills incurred and endured by mere fact of ill health misfortunes

The Catholic hierarchy opposition to abortion rights has never made any sense to logical persons. Why be against right to abortion? Abortion is essentially a personal matter and it is frequently determined by personal circumstances. Circumstances such as whether there was incest, rape, or some other emotional trauma. Then there are other situations such as whether there are adequate material wherewithal or financial means and resources as well as physical and emotional well being or stability for nurturing a child that is borne. After all, childbearing and rearing is an awesome responsibility. And as it is, the Catholic Church has not done good business of looking after children entrusted to it , in loco parentis, and yet, the Catholic Church’s sense of doctrinal orthodoxy impels it to shrill-shout against anyone who may, for personal reasons, seek abortion.

It is clear now that the Catholic Church has been engaged in worldwide child abuses and sex exploitation, and yet, it wanted more children borne, just so perhaps, women can continue to give birth to boys to maintain steady supply of boys to predator priests and their twisted and warped pedophilia sex crazed gangs worldwide. The thought of sex by these priests with little
Boys and innocent children makes anyone squeamish and disgusted. Imagine if any of these victims were your innocent children or relatives

Pope Benedict XVI and the entire leadership of the Catholic Church must be judged and measured by their treatments of the weakest persons in our society. In this respect therefore, treatments meted upon children, for instance, the hearing impaired children who were sexually abused in Milwaukee stands out like a sore thumb added to this, is the fact that the Catholic Church has historically relegated women and demeaned and devalued women. Women remain outside of the Catholic Church hierarchy. There is no Cardinal Elizabeth or Bishop Janet and at the rate at which the Catholic Church is speeding backwards into the medieval periods in doctrinal attitudes of the current pope, there will never be a female pope, at least most probably not in my life time.

The Catholic Church hierarchy permitted the metaphorical and literal “screwing” of children, the most vulnerable and defenseless in all populations. However, Pope Benedict sees criticisms flowing from these heinous criminal acts and the massively elaborate cover up by the Catholic Church as mere gossips or rumors by those who are putting the Catholic Church’s feet to the fire.

Those who are inclined to defend the pope and the Catholic Church should remember that priests, supposed “men -of-God” entangled into sexual abuse romps, have actually turned out to be consummate pedophile, and they are adept at pedophilia. These are celibate priests who engaged in sex with minors and are campaigners against homosexuality who in actuality preyed on boys as preferred sexual victims of sexual assaults and molestations. They don’t deserve to be “men of God”

Catholic Church arcane and archaic orthodoxy have pilloried divorcees and have forbidden those who have gone through divorce from remarriage irrespective of the circumstances for requesting divorce. Divorce, it must be borne in mind, is a form of bereavement or personal grief in itself, here again, the Catholic Church engages in multiplying and prolonging human agonies by forbidding divorcees from remarrying, thereby, imposing further hardships

The Catholic Church is loudly against homosexuals, gay men and lesbian, transgender sexual intercourse between adults and yet, the same loudly celibate merchant of asexual life, were in the meantime, actively pursuing and wallowing in vile defilement of little boys worldwide, even though this is universally a criminal act, quite unlike any form of sex by two consenting adults, same sex or not. The Catholic Church have for hundreds of years, preached against sex as taboo. And yet, these pedophiles in the Catholic Church have been busy for hundred years having illegal sex… with helpless, hapless and defenseless children

Sex with children is not only immoral, irreligious and depraved, it is actually criminal worldwide. And yet, the puritans amongst us, the Catholic Church priests, were busily sexually assaulting children which is the most heinous of all crimes by any measure and in every culture

There is really nothing to say in defense of the Catholic Church hierarchy. The Catholic Church is supposed to be a worldwide religious organization and yet, it has managed to have protected rapists of the worst type… rapist of children, and as Christopher Hitchens recently wondered publicly, why should the pope and the Catholic Church demand that we give or allow some sorts of wiggle room for rapists? And he is right, and quite frankly, these are rapists of the worst types, rapist of innocent, trusting children

The entire world (since the Catholic Church members will not want to do so) should demand the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The world must not shy away from announcing to Pope Benedict that the papacy days of papal infallibility is over and that he, Pope Benedict has fallen. Pope Benedict should resign or be shunned as a symbol of rapes, sexual assaults, child molestations and elaborate and massive cover up of heinous crimes of sex abuse directed against children worldwide.

The world ought to be demanding accountability, penalties and punishments. This is so, especially considering that these crimes were perpetuated by the very sanctimonious hierarchy of the very religious asexual and pretentious religious organization, the Catholic Church.

These are heinous crimes and cardinal sins committed by those who should know, those who ought to know. Where then is our collective outrage? Where is the Catholic Church’s hypocritical claim to moral certainty? Where is our claim to fairness or justice for these multitudes of victims of the crimes committed by the Catholic Church and covered up? Where indeed is our collective outrage against Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church for these crimes against humanity?



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Why Pope Benedict Must Resign


It’s now clear that this is not a localized problem. It is a global Catholic Church pandemic. Yet, the Vatican is still engaged in cover-ups of these crimes by attacking the press, trying to kill the messenger who brings the bad but true news, notes Daniel C. Maguire.


Milwaukee has now replaced Boston and other competing centers as the epicenter of priest sexual crimes against children.

Nothing matches what happened in my city of Milwaukee, with over 200 deaf boys repeatedly molested and raped by Rev. Lawrence Murphy, a priest who was never punished and who was buried, after a lifetime of child rape, with full priestly honours.

Pope Benedict XVI now faces a major hypocrisy test. He has been accepting resignations from bishops around the world who failed to take action against priest rapists. It is now no longer in dispute that he himself is guilty of the same criminal negligence in the Milwaukee case and in Germany when he was archbishop.

The pope can only serve the church by resigning. If he were in charge of some secular institution, he would be forced to resign and be subject to criminal prosecution. He has no moral right to hide behind Vatican walls.

What makes this a perfect storm is the list of rogue actors in this crime spree. It involves the current pope, a Vatican cardinal, two members of the Papal Apostolic Delegature, three Milwaukee archbishops, and – something that is usually overlooked in press accounts of these abuse cases – the collusion of the local police and the District Attorney.

However, this time at least, the press did its job. The Milwaukee Journal examined the case, even as the church hierarchy did not, nor did the local D.A. These failures – and the apparent church/state cover-up – should be investigated by the current District Attorney in Milwaukee.

It’s also now clear that this is not a localized problem. It is a global Catholic Church pandemic.

Yet, the Vatican is still engaged in cover-ups of these crimes by attacking the press, trying to kill the messenger who brings the bad but true news.

The reason offered by bishops for not reporting these horrors publicly was that it would have caused “scandal.” However, scandal in that case is a fraudulent misnomer. It is code for “public relations disaster.” Hierarchical efforts to claim the priest criminals were only a few bad apples – and the failure to report the crimes to law enforcement – is the scandal.

The concern was for the church’s image, not for the victims, nor for the violations of law.

The pope and the bishops involved worldwide in these criminal cases are, ironically, the same people who say that no woman can be ordained or hold a position of ecclesiastical power. Have these men not left us with the conclusion that it’s time for the women to take over?

Ironically also, these same men say that two gay adults who love one another and seek to commit themselves to one another in a permanent exclusive marriage may not do so. In the view of the Catholic hierarchy, that would be a “scandal.”

The pope and the bishops are also the ones who insist that all who serve as priests must be celibate. All these stories of sexual abuse prove that enforced celibacy is a failed discipline.

A priesthood based on a requirement never to fall in love or have the enriching experience of parenthood is unrealistic and an invitation to pathology. There is a reason why rabbis, ministers and imams -- who are allowed to marry -- are not filling the press with a comparable parade of horrors.

Celibacy is not a bona fide occupational qualification for priesthood or ministry. Of course, enforced celibacy is not the only factor behind these terrible crimes but that it is a factor is beyond any doubt.

An Italian editor with whom I worked was on a train in Italy and was joined in the dining room by a Monsignor from the Vatican. The editor found the Monsignor very urbane, knowledgeable and sophisticated. He felt prompted to broach some delicate issues of church reform.

He asked: “The Church would be greatly helped if there were reform on issues such as birth control and priestly celibacy.”

The mood changed. The Monsignor stiffened and blurted out: “We may die but we will not change!” The Monsignor might have uttered an all too accurate prophecy.

Daniel C. Maguire is a Professor of Moral Theology at Marquette University, a Catholic, Jesuit institution in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He can be reached atdaniel.maguire@marquette.edu.



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Why Pope Benedict Must Resign

pope+benedict.jpg
Why Pope Benedict Must Resign
Editor’s Note: Before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was best known for resisting liberalization of Catholic Church orthodoxy. He was a staunch enemy of reforms that would have given women greater power within the Church, softened the hostility toward adult homosexuality, and abandoned the insistence on clerical celibacy.

Yet, while guarding the Vatican gates against forces of modernity, Cardinal Ratzinger also was covering up the global scandal of priests sexually abusing boys, a failure that – in the eyes of Marquette Professor of Moral Theology Daniel C. Maguire – now requires the pope to submit his resignation:

See Also On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:


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Why Pope Benedict’s got to go!

By Margery Eagan
Sunday, March 28, 2010 - 
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The Pope should resign. He should offer himself up to authorities for prosecution, like the sacrificial lamb he’s supposed to represent here on earth.

Long ago he should have opened the secret church books on priestly abuse. He hasn’t. Courts finally forced that in Boston almost a decade ago and, oh, what horrors we found. Remember? The Vatican hierarchy then blamed our scandal on a decadent American culture. Now the same priestly disease has swept Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, on and on across Europe and beyond. So was all the world, from the 1950s on, just one huge, decadent Gomorrah? Or was the Catholic hierarchy, from the ’50s on, run like an international crime organization aiding and abetting child abuse, then covering up its cover-up?

A few years back, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating caused an uproar by comparing secret-keeping American bishops to La Cosa Nostra.

He was but ahead of his time.

Were truth and light really foremost on the Vatican’s list, the Pope would’ve forced resignations of bishops who, even post-Boston, knew about abusing priests yet demanded secrecy. A small number of priests have been prosecuted. Any bishops? I can’t find any. Neither can I find a single bishop who actually called police when a serial child molester was reported to him. And now we learn that one serial molester is believed to have tormented more than 200 deaf boys.

“You’re dreaming.” That’s what Carmen Durso, who’s represented dozens of priest abuse victims, told me Friday when I offered him my list of “shoulds” and “woulds.”

“It’s just not in their DNA. They don’t appoint popes who they think will start apologizing. Just like corporate executives do dishonest things to rise in the ranks, higher-ups in the church do dishonest things to protect the organization. And that will go on until there is a total restructuring of the Catholic Church.”

Now I think Carmen Durso is dreaming. But even if such a restructuring does happen, neither he nor me - nor most of you - will see it.

Yet all this is not necessarily horrible for the shrinking ranks of still-practicing Catholics beginning this most holy week of the Christian season. This hierarchy’s continual half-baked repentance - apology followed by inaction - bodes worse for bishops: They appear increasingly ridiculous and irrelevant, issuing moral directives when so morally compromised themselves.

Recall last week when the bishops opposed the health-care bill to cover 30-plus million uninsured Americans. Even typically obedient Catholic nuns raced in to point out the hypocrisy: the bishops’ ever more shrill crusade for unborn children vs. their campaigning against the health needs of children already born. And then, of course, came the inevitable juxtaposition of their failure to protect those children tormented by priests bishops knew to be monsters.

The hierarchy’s loss of moral authority has been wonderfully liberating for some Catholics now free to ignore, with good conscience, bishops’ various directives on gays, birth control, divorce and remarriage, etc. I know many who’ve been able to separate their bedrock faith from Catholic leadership. Such Catholics support what’s good in the church (their parish, parochial schools, Catholic charities, etc.) and not what’s compromised (their archdiocese and the Vatican itself).

In the envelope provided yearly for Cardinal O’Malley’s appeal, one woman I know inserts a note explaining why she won’t contribute a dime.

“I refuse to let a bunch of corrupt old men drive me from the church I love,” she says, adding that she sometimes feels almost sorry for bishops. “It’s like that childhood fairy tale. The emperor who was so big and powerful is the last one to know he has no clothes.”



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European bishops urge victims to go to the police

By Associated Press
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 
VATICAN CITY — European bishops are urging clerical sex abuse victims to go to police and are promising more transparency and cooperation with civil authorities in abuse cases.

The Swiss Bishops Conference said Wednesday that its members underestimated the problem of clerical abuse and are now telling victims to consider criminal complaints. Denmark’s Catholic Church said it would launch an investigation next week into claims of clerical abuse dating back several decades. And Italy’s bishop’s conference has promised to cooperate with civil authorities.

The statements come a week after Pope Benedict XVI excoriated Irish bishops for serious errors in judgment in their handling of abuse and demanded they cooperate with civil authorities.

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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British protesters demand Pope quits over abuse

By Associated Press
Sunday, March 28, 2010 - 

LONDON — British protesters called on Pope Benedict XVI to resign Sunday as they staged a demonstration over the Catholic Church’s handling of clerical sex abuse cases.

Demonstrators gathered outside Westminster Cathedral to call for action over the scandal, carrying placards displaying messages including "Pope? Nope!" and "Don’t Turn a Blind Eye," though fewer than 50 people joined the rally.

Revelations of the sexual abuse of children by priests at Catholic institutions have swept across Europe, including in the pope’s native Germany.

Benedict has been criticized over a case dating to his tenure as archbishop of Munich, and his actions when head of the Vatican office responsible for disciplining priests.

"The buck stops with him and he should resign," human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said at the London rally. "The pope has played a direct personal role in covering up sex abuse."

However, Benedict won support from Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols who insisted the pope wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — quit.

"The pope will not resign, frankly there is no strong reason for him to do so," he told BBC television. "In fact, it is the other way around. He is the one above all else in Rome that has tackled this thing head on."

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Has the Pope no choice but to resign?

Mired in scandal, Pope Benedict XVI says he won't be "intimidated." But as calls for his resignation mount, some say he'll have to step down

Should Benedict XVI step down?

Should Benedict XVI step down? Photo: Getty

Best Opinion: Boston Herald, London Free Press, New York Times

With a growing sex abuse scandal engulfing the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI struck a note of defiance on Sunday by sayingthe church will not be "intimidated" by its critics. Protesters in Europe and elsewhere have continued to call for the Pope to resign, saying he helped cover up abuse years ago as Archbishop of Munich and later as head of doctrine at the Vatican (read The Week's timeline of the scandal here). Are protesters just exploiting the new revelations to bash Catholicism or making a valid point about the Pope's inability to lead? (Watch the Pope respond to "intimidation")

The Pope must go: Benedict should have "opened the secret church books on priestly abuse" years ago, says Margery Eagan in the Boston Herald. But instead he participated in a shameful cover-up. "The Pope should resign," offering himself up for prosecution "like the sacrificial lamb he’s supposed to represent here on earth."
"Why Pope Benedict’s got to go!"

Stop the Catholic-bashing: Pope Benedict XVI was slow to respond to the crisis, says Rory Leishman in the London Free Press, but he's committed to fighting the "evils of clerical sexual abuse" now, as his recent apology to victims in Ireland demonstrated. The Pope's "shrillest critics" are just "exploiting the occasion to serve up the vilest anti-Catholic prejudice and abuse."
"Pope Benedict deserves more for his apology"

Maybe it's time for a female Pope: The Vatican's "completely paternalistic and autocratic culture" made the church "a corrosive shelter for secrets and shame," says Maureen Dowd in The New York Times. Perhaps the Catholic Church should "throw open its stained glass windows and let in some air," by clearing the way to name a woman as the next pope. "The nuns have historically cleaned up the messes of priests. And this is a historic mess."
"A Nope for Pope"

.............................



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Pope's apology: Too little, too late?

Some wonder if Pope Benedict's apology for the child-sex-abuse scandal, even if heartfelt, fell shamefully short of offering concrete solutions

Should Pope Benedict XVI have done more than issue an apology?

Should Pope Benedict XVI have done more than issue an apology? Photo: Creative Commons

Best Opinion: Belfast Telegraph, Beliefnet, Boston Globe

Pope Benedict XVI issued aneight-page pastoral letter of apology Saturday to the 15,000 victims of child sex abuse at the hands of Ireland's Roman Catholic Church. Using"impassioned" and "personal"language, the Pope expressed "shame and remorse" for the "criminal acts" — but stopped short of calling for disciplinary measures, a move that hasdisappointed and angered many victims' families. Was the detailed response ultimately an empty gesture? (Watch a CBS report on the Pope's apology)

Pope Benedict didn't do nearly enough: The Pope's response to this "crisis...can only be seen as inadequate," says the Belfast Telegraph in an editorial. Perhaps he thinks stating "the blindingly obvious" helps, but where are the "concrete proposals to help those who were so grievously abused," or a comprehensive preventative strategy? If this is what passes as an apology, how can the Vatican "regain any...respect"? 
"Editor's Viewpoint: Full Inquiry into abuse still needed"

He did far more than his predecessor: "I wish Benedict would have held certain bishops more directly to account," says Rod Dreher inBeliefnet, but the Pope addressed the issue with "a level of detail and directness that is incomparably better than the vague euphemisms Benedict's predecessor used," when he talked about it at all. Remember, "on more than a few occasions, Benedict has met with victims of pederast priests; John Paul II, for all his personal sanctity, never did."
"The Pope writes to the Irish church"

It wasn't just the Pope who dropped the ball: Though the Catholic Church has long shown a shameful lack of accountability, says Joan Vennochi in the Boston Globe, the "biggest sin of all" may come from the legal system which has consistently failed to prosecute guilty priests for their abuse of children. After all, "the church can allow history to repeat itself as long as the secular world lets it."
"Abuse cover-up must have consequences"



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Commission to investigate church abuse in Austria

By Associated Press
Sunday, March 28, 2010 -

VIENNA — Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn has announced the creation of a commission to investigate recent abuse claims against the country’s Catholic Church.

Schoenborn says the body will be church-funded but independent and free of clergy. He says it is not meant to replace a possible state-run investigative commission.

Waltraud Klasnic, a former governor of the Alpine republic’s southern province of Styria, will head the commission. Schoenborn is slated to meet with her Thursday to discuss details.

Schoenborn made the announcement during an interview Sunday on public broadcaster ORF.

Austria is among several European countries that have been hit by a string of church abuse allegations in recent weeks.

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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Cardinal: Church needs housecleaning

By Herald Wire Services
Sunday, March 28, 2010 -

VATICAN CITY - A top cardinal has called for “housecleaning” as pedophile and child-abuse scandals from Italy to Ireland pile pressure on Pope Benedict.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the church’s Ecumenical council, told an Italian newspaper that the needs of victims should come first.

While defending the Pope, he said the church needs a “culture of alertness and bravery.”

Suggestions that Ireland’s Catholic leader will be forced to quit have been rejected by his spokesman. Cardinal Sean Brady has apologized for his handling of abuse cases, saying he wants a just resolution of a case against him by a man who alleges abuse by a priest.

There have been calls for his resignation since it emerged he was present at two meetings in the 1970s when victims of the Rev. Brendan Smyth were sworn to silence about their ordeal.

“There is no turning back on the path we are now on and that is good,” Kasper told the daily Corriere della Sera. He said Pope Benedict is the “first to feel the need for new and stricter rules.”

The Italian interview with the cardinal appeared yesterday morning, hours after three deaf men, who say they were repeatedly sexually abused by priests as children in Italy, confronted a church spokesman on prime-time TV.

The three former pupils of a Verona school for the deaf asked why their abusers had not been punished.



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Benedict XVI: Papal Infallibility to Moral Frailty – Sandhya Jain

March 31, 2010

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It’s ironic but apt that the Abrahamic Civilisation – where the God of the Creation made everything in creation a consumable for Man’s enjoyment, and forgot to forbid Man from eating his own kind like some of the lower animals – is falling prey to its own cannibalistic tendency! Priests and Bishops with ‘power’ over their flock literally feasted on the lambs, using their minds and bodies as consumable delicacies and raping, abusing, sodomising with impunity any and all who took their fancy. The institution of Confession – far from aiding the spiritual evolution of the faithful, proved a potent instrument of blackmail of the isolated and atomized individual, and perpetuated the most horrendous traumas a religion can impose upon its own folk – and for no real or imagined crime(s).

For years now, reams have been written about how the Vatican moved sexual predators from parish to parish, refusing to call the police and give justice to the victims, refusing the defrock the guilty and spare the innocent, and using its doctrinal superiority to perpetuate what must be the worst mass crime in history. It’s a fit case for the Criminal Tribunal at The Hague – if it can be persuaded to prosecute white Christians, that is.

Young+Pope+Benedict+XVI.jpgThe Promised Land is a far horizon; what beckons is a treacherous infamy. The imperious Pope Benedict XIV, once the awesome Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and head of Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (read Inquisition, 1981-2005), is at the receiving end of an Inquisitorial Flock demanding his Shepherd’s baton.

Perhaps the alleged Nostradamus Prophecy is coming true, and the end of the Catholic Church is nigh.

And not a day too soon, in my opinion, as the wrack and ruin accompanying the rise and spread of the Roman Catholic Church over two millennia in Europe, the Americas, Canada, Australia, Africa, is now creeping dangerously into the Asian landmass, home to the world’s great ancient and living civilisations.

File?id=dcnjmj8m_216dwg4z8c2_bGiven the intimate relationship between church, empire/kingdom and trade/monopoly, the historical timing of the demand for the Pope’s resignation (read virtual defrock by outraged public opinion) is apt.

It accompanies the decline of American post-Second World War global hegemony, the irreversible economic decline of the West despite all manoeuvres to stave off the coming collapse, and America’s military inability to control a Stone Age people like the Afghans despite its shock and awe armoury. [The Fall seems likely to adversely affect all of Abraham’s offspring, their being too inextricably intertwined with each other to disengage safely, but that need not detain us here].

Cannibals of the Creation

SpacePope.pngIn just the last two decades, the Catholic Church’s (and other church denominations) history of sexual abuse of men, women, minor boys, minor girls, married women, youth, even the physically challenged, have been spilling out of the cupboard, shattering its carefully constructed visage as an army of Christ dedicated to the mission of taking the Word and the Light to the dark corners of the world (read Asia).

As every continent and country, virtually every parish, shudders with anguished screams of victims of priestly lust, what has unravelled is an edifice of Apostolic continuity in perpetuating crime and cover-up. At the epicenter of the conspiracy of silence is the Vatican itself, and its crimes are millennia-old. The Soviet Gulags may look like a teddy bear’s picnic once Vatican Archives are opened for public scrutiny; that may happen in this very century. Bliss will it be in that dawn to be alive…

It’s ironic but apt that the Abrahamic Civilisation – where the God of the Creation made everything in creation a consumable for Man’s enjoyment, and forgot to forbid Man from eating his own kind like some of the lower animals – is falling prey to its own cannibalistic tendency! Priests and Bishops with ‘power’ over their flock literally feasted on the lambs, using their minds and bodies as consumable delicacies and raping, abusing, sodomising with impunity any and all who took their fancy. The institution of Confession – far from aiding the spiritual evolution of the faithful, proved a potent instrument of blackmail of the isolated and atomized individual, and perpetuated the most horrendous traumas a religion can impose upon its own folk – and for no real or imagined crime(s).

freud_woman.gifWith hindsight, it is easy to see why Sigmund Freud, father of modern psychology, viewed every psychological problem of his patients as evidence of a repressed sexual fantasy. What he meant but could not openly say in that era, was that they were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of those they dared not accuse in public. He must have helped them come to terms with the abuse and have closure or at least some solace in their personal lives.

That Western psychology has more or less stuck to this path with minor modifications vindicates my view that Freud invented psychology as a method of helping Church victims of sexual abuse to speak to non-priests about their traumas. It is not surprising that when victims of the church began to go public about their anguish in recent decades, the method by which they established their claims in court was via the psychiatric clinic – through childhood regression, hypnosis, counselling, and so on.

What a denouement – the church is the Original Revolution that has devoured its own children! Her other victims she cares little about, but now, with Biblical precision, her own children shall rise and call her wretched, the flesh-devouring witch of a childhood tale…

The Pope must go

Year_of_the_Priest_text_send+small.jpgPope Benedict is up to his holy ears in the sex scam hush-up policy; hence the rising chorus for his resignation. The scandal gets murkier by the day. Even the rape of the patriarch Noah by his own son, or the rape of Lot by his own daughters, indigestible as those Biblical truths were, cannot match the dimensions of the current problem.

Only last week, three separate stories suggested Benedict’s direct role in the conspiracy of silence. Father Lawrence Murphy of Wisconsin abused nearly 200 boys at a Milwaukee school for the deaf. Arthur Budzinski, a victim, went public with accusations against the pontiff. His daughter Gigi, said: “The pope knew about this. He was the one who handled the sex abuse cases. So, I think he should be accountable, because he did nothing” [Mike Whitney,  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25101.htm, March 29, 2010]

For years now, reams have been written about how the Vatican moved sexual predators from parish to parish, refusing to call the police and give justice to the victims, refusing the defrock the guilty and spare the innocent, and using its doctrinal superiority to perpetuate what must be the worst mass crime in history. It’s a fit case for the Criminal Tribunal at The Hague – if it can be persuaded to prosecute white Christians, that is.

Throughout its long history of sexual abuse, the prime concern of church authorities has been to avoid litigation, specifically, to avoid paying for its crimes by handing over the guilty to the law and giving compensation and therapy to its victims.

In 2009, 67 former students of the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf in Verona signed a statement describing the sexual abuse, pedophilia and corporal punishment they suffered from the 1950s to the 1980s – yes, 30 years, a lifetime! They named 24 priests, brothers and lay religious men. (“Sex abuse scandal in US, Italy taints papacy,” Nicole Winfield, AP)

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger was in charge of the escalating crisis, and his response was to silence priests who might talk. He wrote to the Bishops in 2001 to keep sexual abuse allegations secret under threat of excommunication of both the accused priests and the victims of sex crimes; he demanded “a perpetual silence.” (Washington Post)

SSN392%20CROSS%20DAGGER%20PR.jpg[Is this is the Cross – or dagger – that he wants to plant in Asia?!]

Benedict has been implicated in the case of Munich priest Father Peter Hullermann, who was suspended in 1979 and rehabilitated in 1980 ‘without restrictions’ even after a psychiatrist described him as a potential danger [the Pope was then the Archbishop of Munich!]. In 1986, Hullermann was convicted of molesting boys in Bavaria.

Recently the Pope apologised to Catholics in Ireland for decades of cruelty and abuse. But the fact is that Benedict knew about the abuse, and let it happen. Worse, even as Vatican faces the gravest crises of its modern history, he declared he would not be intimidated by critics, petty gossip, or dominant opinion, and shrugged off calls for his resignation.

An anguished Barbara Blaine, president, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), asserted: we are men, women and children who are in deep pain, having been raped, sodomized and assaulted by Catholic clergy and often betrayed by Catholic officials. Our trauma – past and present – should never be trivialized by anyone, much less by those who profess to be caring shepherds.

Talk of ‘petty gossip’ really hurt because it came from the Pope himself. She said the thousands of victims were doing a public service by courageously speaking out and thus making the church, and society, safer for children by exposing predators and long-hidden secrets and corruption. The Catholic hierarchy can’t pretend to care about victims and also attack them.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2010_statements/032810_pope_talks_today_of_petty_gossip_clergy_sex_victims_are_hurt_insulted.htm

Undaunted Church

Many demand the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Irish Church. The stories of child abuse by priests are particularly ghastly, with accounts about victims bashed up for pleasure who later simply ‘disappeared.’ The religion itself protects these sadistic priestly perverts, charges Eamonn McCann [Belfast Telegraph, 25 March 2010

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/its-religion-itself-that-protects-these-sadistic-priestly-perverts-14739959.html]

090823Cardinal.jpgThe complete dimensions of the scandal are unknown. Cardinal Sean Brady personally knew of the abuse of at least two children and instead of calling the police, forced the victims to keep quiet about the crime [standard church protocol]. His predecessor, Cahal Daly, was informed in writing about the horrific abuse of an 8-year-old girl, who lost her mind because of the trauma; his response was to promise to pray for the family, and that’s it.

The religion of love!!!

Truly unforgivable is the fact that the night before the rapist arrived in the parish, a senior official of the diocese visited the parochial house where he was to stay and warned the priests there to ‘keep an eye on him’ and try to ensure he never visited homes with children alone. In other words, his history was known (to at least two Bishops), and yet children were wantonly endangered.

In Ontario, Canada, pedophile priest Monsignor Bernard Prince was appointed secretary general of Vatican’s Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1991, despite knowledge of the allegations against him. He retired in 2004. In 2008, he was convicted of molesting 13 young boys between 1964 and 1984; he was defrocked in 2009.

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/786550–vatican-knew-of-allegations-against-ontario-priest-victim

jesme.jpgSuch stories are now coming out of every parish across the globe. Within India, Dr. Sister Jesme Raphael shattered the conspiracy of silence by speaking out against the sexual abuse and moral depravity in the Kerala Catholic church. In an autobiographical account of her own knowledge and experiences, “Amen” [Malayalam], Sister Jesme bore witness to what happened to her and to other nuns who entered the church in good faith, expecting to lead lives of virtue and service to god and society. What happened behind closed convent doors was rampant exploitation of nuns by priests and same sex relations [Mote and the beam, Sandhya Jain, 3 March 2009,www.vijayvaani.com]

Sister_Abhaya_300.jpgHer story confirmed allegations that church authorities made use of a notorious institution called the Divine Life institution to declare recalcitrant nuns insane. Her frontal assault upon the misdeeds of the church closely followed the arrest of two nuns in theSister Abhaya rape-cum-murder case, which the Catholic Church struggled to suppress for 16 long years; the suicide of Sister Anupama Mary in Kollam and the allegations by Mary’s father of sex abuse by convent superiors.

The History

51DJh4CrueL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpgWhether or not Sex is Man’s Original Sin, it seems to be the oldest and most chronic activity encountered, and forbidden, by the Catholic Church – that too, in vain. This is the suppressed truth of the church, scrupulously documented by three priests in “Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes. The Catholic Church’s 2000-year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse,” [Thomas P. Doyle, A.W. Richard Sipe and Patrick J. Wall, Volt Press, Los Angeles, 2006].

Written after scandals and lawsuits began to rock America, the book demonstrates that sexual abuse of minor boys, girls, women, by priests can be traced back to the time records were kept! A conspiracy of silence was institutionalized, and this allowed the sexual abuse to prosper. Only the recent pressure of exorbitant lawsuits and settlements that endangered church assets triggered church concern about rampaging sexual predators in its ranks.

  • The oldest known instruction to Church officials, the Didache, dates from the second century AD and commands, ‘Thou shalt not seduce young boys’. [What an interesting Commandment]
  • The Council of Elvira, 309 AD, the earliest recorded gathering of bishops, spelt out 81 Canons; 38 dealt with sex. It excluded from receiving communion ‘bishops, presbyters, and deacons committing a sexual sin’, ‘those who sexually abuse boys’, and ‘people who bring charges against bishops and presbyters without proving their cases’.
  • St. Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah (1051 AD) attacked the sexual immorality of the clergy of his time and the lax superiors who failed to curb it. He condemned priests who defiled men or boys coming for confession, and priests who gave the sacrament of penance to their own victims. He urged Pope Leo IX to act to redress the damage caused by offending clerics – the response was a model of inaction, a prelude to the experience of our own era.
  • Why would the early Church mention such things if they were not rampant?
  • After his elevation as Pope, the first US prelate granted a personal audience with Benedict was Cardinal Bernard Law, who three years previously had resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston following revelations that he had systematically moved predator priests from parish to parish, never alerting parents to the danger in which their children were being put. Yet Benedict chose to honour him just 12 days into his papacy.
  • The same attitude was on display in his response to the report three years ago on abuse of children in Ferns, Wexford. In a 271-page document, retired US Supreme Court judge Frank Murphy identified more than 100 allegations against 26 priests. The judge found that the diocese was silencing the victims and protecting the abusers from the law in conformity to standard instructions from Rome. Benedict claimed horror at the behaviour of the priests but made no comment, or apology, at the finding against the Vatican.

95513522.jpgIf an institution is found by its own people to protect and nurture rotten apples, can it be permitted to function with impunity in the public domain? With what face does the church talk of the Spirit when the sons of the church are smitten with the sins of the flesh? How can any country permit church officials to operate freely amongst potential victims? The public debate on the future of the church must be truly international for a correct picture to emerge.-

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VIJAYVAANI: Benedict XVI: Papal Infallibility to Moral Frailty – Sandhya Jain



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Buggery and Pope Benedict XVI – Media Reports

March 26, 2010

wolf-shepherd-catoon.jpg

bugger: ME mid-14c., “heresy,” later “unnatural intercourse” with man or beast,”carnalis copula contra Naturam, & hoc vel per confusionem Specierum”.

  • The Netherlands: More than 200 Catholics have until now reported sex assaults.
  • Germany: Over 250 sex assault cases are under investigation.Austria: A series of accusations of sex abuse have surfaced recently.
  • Ireland: Two reports in 2009 document sexual and physical abuse on a huge scale in Catholic institutions.
  • USA: An independent commission in 2004 received 10,667 accusations of abuses by Catholic priests from 1950 to 2002.
  • UK: A monk who ran a Catholic school was given 8 years prison for decades of child sexual abuse. Two other monks were convicted for sex assaults in 2007.
  • Australia: In 2008, there were 107 convictions in sex abuse cases connected to the Catholic Church.
  • New Zealand: There has been a series of accusations of sex abuses in Catholic schools.
  • Canada: In 1989 a newspaper exposed sex abuse in a Catholic children home in Newfoundland, after which 300 previous children homes have reported sex abuses!
  • ArgentinaBrasilPeru: the Philippines and Senegalhave all reported similar cases. – Source: Norsk Telegram Byrå and DPA
  • India: Zero Abuse!?(Do these ’statistics’ suggest that all the pig-eating wine-swilling Christian priests in the schools, seminaries & orphanages in the Indian subcontinent are celibate!?)

Of course the real cover-up is not in the US or Germany but here in India. Our Nehruvian secular press will not touch a child raper or nun raper with a barge pole. They cannot because they and the electronic media are either Christian owned or Christian controlled or Christian something. We will never know exactly. Either about the media or what goes on in all those Christian orphanages and boarding schools. The media does not look and we don’t want to see. It is a conspiracy of convenience. Unfortunately there is the Internet and international TV channels, so we get informed anyway. But so long as the scandals stay in the US and Europe we are safe. The kids are safe too – they’re up in the hills at that famous boarding school with the Fathers you know. – IS

St. Augustine’s legacy: The doctrine that allows an abuser priest to be excused and suggests that the victim in fact is not abused.

LAT Two brothers claim tearfully that not only was Fr. Marcel Maciel their father, he had also sexually abused them.

SNAPSurvivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

VIDEOSPope Benedict accused of cover-up in sex abuse case.

NYT - A Nope for Pope – Maureen Dowd

 

 

pope_benedict.jpg

"The Pope is a fraud and a hypocrate." - Fr. Murphy's deaf mute sex abuse victim.

The New Indian Express, Chennai, 27 March 2010:Sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has a long and dishonourable history. Long before the present uproar about the sexual abuse of children in its care, there were many s******ing references to the bambini of the more notorious popes of antiquity. Nor did this always refer to their illegitimate children; in some cases it was a reference to catamites. Given this background, sexual abuse should come as no surprise, but the sheer scale of continuing revelations is staggering.

The latest case involves the abuse of 200 boys in a Wisconsin school for the deaf. Before that was the truly horrifying tale from Ireland of decades of abuse. Thousands of children were the victims, and the church suborned the police into covering up the crimes. From Germany, the home of the Pope, 300 cases have been reported, and similar allegations are coming out of Austria, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.

Pc0121200.jpg

Pope John Paul II blessing plagiarist & child abuser - his own sons included - Fr. Marcel Maciel who founded the Legion of Christ.

It is only recently that this tale of wholesale betrayal and subsequent cover-up has begun to come out. For a long time the church’s response was denial. It systematically aborted attempts to uncover the truth. When that did not work, the sort of apologies began. Pope Benedict XVI’s statement on Ireland expresses remorse and shame for the conduct of guilty Irish priest and prelates, but he ties in their behaviour with the uncertain morals of their times. Surely, this is the most egregious of defences, coming from an organisation that preaches a code for all time.

img_115.gif

How many paedophile priests are hiding in the Madras archdiocesan closet?

The story has troubling implications for the Third World, too. In Brazil three priests are under investigation for their conduct. There could be many more. It is impossible at this moment to say whether abuse happens in other countries as well, but one case from India is instructive.

Simon Palathingal, a Catholic priest of the Salesian order, was convicted in 2004 of sexually abusing a boy by a Wisconsin court. The abuse happened in the early 1990s. The same man was vice-principal of a prominent Chennai school in the late Seventies and Eighties. Given its record it is possible that the church knew of his leanings and did nothing.

If paedophile priests got away with their crimes in countries with robust legal systems, think how much easier it would be in India, with its endemic corruption. That is something for child rights activists to ponder as they struggle with the already Herculean task of protecting their charges from sexual predators.

 

The Daily Telegraph in The New Indian Express, Chennai, 26 March 2010: Vatican City: Pope Benedict XVI has been hit by fresh allegations that he was among a group of top Vatican officials that failed to defrock a US priest who allegedly molested up to 200 deaf boys. Church files obtained by The New York Times, which emerged as part of a lawsuit surrounding children in a school for deaf children in the Us state of Wisconsin, show direct correspondence from the accused priest to the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1996.

A trial against Reverend Lawrence C. Murphy was halted after he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger directly to protest against possible punishment for the abuse, the Times said.

“I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood,” Murphy wrote to the future Pope, according to files. “I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” The documents contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger, but they show that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the Church from scandal.

Father Murphy died in 1998, still a priest, the newspaper said.

According to the paper, the Wisconsin Church documents show that three successive archbishops in the state were informed that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children but that the incidents were never reported to authorities, either criminal or civil.

The documents also include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.

They come amid a scandal over long running sex abuse involving Catholic clergy in several other countries, including Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The scandals have been inching closer to the Pope himself.

Times of India,Mumbai, 26 March 2010: Vatican City: Two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—now Pope Benedict XVI—to let them conduct a church trial against a priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys, but the Vatican ordered the process halted, Vatican documents show.

Despite the grave allegations, Ratzinger’s deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the alleged molestation had occurred too long ago and the accused priest, Rev Lawrence Murphy, should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside of his diocese.

The New York Times broke the story on Thursday, adding fuel to an already swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general, and Benedict in particular, have handled reports of priests raping children over the years.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the case had only reached the Vatican in 1996, that Murphy died two years later.

Murphy worked at the former St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis from 1950 to 1975.

Documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed lawsuits alleging the archdiocese of Milwaukee didn’t take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school. While the documents—letters between diocese and Rome, and summaries of meetings—are remarkable in the repeated desire to keep the case secret, they do suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.

Ratzinger’s deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, though, shut the process down after Murphy wrote him a letter saying he had repented, was old, and that the case’s statute of limitations had run out.

According to the documentation, in July 1996, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland sent a letter seeking advice on how to proceed with Murphy to Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 until 2005, when he was elected pope. Weakland received no response from Ratzinger, and in October 1996 convened a church tribunal to hear the case.

In March 1997, Weakland wrote to the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican high court, asking its advice because he feared the statute of limitations on Murphy’s alleged crimes might have expired. Weeks later, Bertone told the Wisconsin bishops to begin secret disciplinary proceedings against Murphy according to 1962 norms concerning soliciting sex in the confessional.

But a year later, Bertone reversed himself, advising the diocese to stop the process. Bertone suggested that Murphy should instead be subject to “pastoral measures destined to obtain the reparation of scandal”.

The archbishop then handling the case, Bishop Raphael Fliss objected, saying in a letter to Bertone that “Scandal cannot be sufficiently repaired… without a judicial trial against Fr. Murphy”. – AP

Times of India,Mumbai, 14 March 2010: Vatican City: Germany’s sex abuse scandal has reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese disclosed while he was archbishop a suspected paedophile priest was transferred to a job where he abused children.

The pontiff is also under fire for a 2001 Vatican document he penned instructing bishops to keep such cases secret. The revelations have put the spotlight on Benedict’s handling of abuse claims when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982 and the prefect of the Vatican office till 2005.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, said the pope had expressed “great dismay and deep shock” over the scandal.

The Munich archdiocese admitted it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. The archdiocese said there were no accusations against the chaplain, known as H, during his 1980-1982 spell in Munich, where he underwent therapy for suspected “sexual relations with boys”. He moved to Grafing, where he was suspended in 1985 following new accusations. The following year, he was convicted. The Vatican spokesman, Rev Federico Lombardi, said the Munich vicar-general who approved the priest’s transfer had taken “full responsibility” for the decision.

The pope is also under fire for a 2001 Vatican letter he sent to all bishops saying all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to his thenoffice, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret.

Germany’s justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the document shows the Vatican created a “wall of silence” around abuse cases. Lawyers for abuse victims in US have said the document shows the Catholic Church tried to obstruct justice. – AP

The Great Catholic Cover-up – Christopher Hitchens

Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing—indeed endless—scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made “to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse.” He stupidly went on to say that “those efforts have failed.” Continue article athttp://www.slate.com/id/2247861/

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April 2, 2010

Vatican tries to block attempt to make Pope face US court over abuse

The Vatican has moved to block an attempt to force the Pope to appear in court in the United States, after a lawyer filed a motion seeking his sworn testimony on what the Vatican knew about paedophile scandals.

Giuseppe dalla Torre, head of the Vatican City Tribunal, said that Benedict XVI had diplomatic immunity as a head of state. The Vatican lawyers are also expected to argue that US bishops who oversaw priests who committed abuse were not Vatican employees.

The Kentucky action by William McMurry comes after a lawsuit filed in 2004 by three men who allege that they were abused by priests in the state.

The Vatican tried to get the case dismissed, but in 2007 a judge approved a process under which both sides can request information and documents, including the questioning of witnesses.

The Kentucky motion alleges that Pope Benedict “discouraged prosecution of accused clergy and encouraged secrecy to protect the reputation of the Church” in his 24 years as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The motion refers to documents published last week by The New York Times showing that, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope ignored two letters from Rembert Weakland, then the Archbishop of Milwaukee, about Father Lawrence Murphy, who was accused of sexually assaulting up to 200 deaf children between 1960 and 1974. The Vatican halted a secret church trial after Father Murphy appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger. The priest died in 1998.

Monsignor Jerome Listecki, the present Archbishop of Milwaukee, said the decision had been taken at a local level, not by the Vatican. Pope Benedict had “been firm in his commitment to combat clergy sexual abuse”, he said.

Cardinal William Levada, the Pope’s successor at the CDF, said that a lengthy trial would have been useless because the priest was dying by the time his diocese initiated a canonical trial. He noted that police had investigated but took no action.

Attempts to embroil the Pope in the scandals because of his record as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982 and later as head of doctrine are seen by the Vatican as “media attacks” inspired by lawyers acting on behalf of victims.

At a ceremony in St Peter’s dedicated to the priesthood yesterday, the Pope said Christians must “keep the law and do what is just and good”, and priests were “called to oppose violence”. He made no mention of the scandals.

He later washed the feet of 12 priests in a Holy Thursday ceremony at St John Lateran commemorating the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus before the Last Supper.

Father Federico Lombardi, his spokesman, said “The Pope is a person of faith. He sees this as a test for him and the Church.” He stressed that the 82-year-old pontiff was fully able to cope with the demanding Easter schedule, which involves a torchlit Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) evening procession at the Colosseum today and his Urbi et Orbi (to the City and the World) address on Easter Sunday.

At the Good Friday procession in 2005, shortly before he became Pope, he condemned “this filth in the Church”. However, this year’s meditations on the Stations of the Cross by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the former Vicar of Rome, do not refer even indirectly to the crisis.

A letter was released yesterday showing that in 1963 the Servants of the Holy Paraclete, a US Catholic order, urged Pope Paul VI to remove paedophile priests. Anthony DeMarco, a Los Angeles lawyer representing abuse victims, who released the letter, said it proved that the Vatican had known of the matter for decades but failed to act.




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Vatican offers 3 reasons it's not liable for abuse

AP

VATICAN CITY – Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys' questions under oath.

Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren't employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the "smoking gun" that provides proof of a cover-up.

The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public aboutRoman Catholic priests who molested children.

The case was filed in 2004 in Kentucky by three men who claim they were abused by priests and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.

"This case is the only case that has been ever been filed against the Vatican which has as its sole objective to hold the Vatican accountable for all the priest sex abuse ever committed in this country," he said in a phone interview. "There is no other defendant. There's no bishop, no priest."

The Vatican is seeking to dismiss the suit before Benedict XVI can be questioned or documents subpoenaed.

The preview of the legal defense was submitted last month in U.S. District Court in LouisvilleThe Vatican's strategy is to be formally filed in the coming weeks. Vatican officials declined to comment on Tuesday.

Plaintiffs in the Kentucky suit argue that U.S. diocesan bishops were employees of the Holy See, and thatRome was therefore responsible for their alleged wrongdoing in failing to report abuse.

They say a 1962 Vatican document mandated that bishops not report sex abuse cases to police. The Vatican has argued that there is nothing in the document that precluded bishops from calling police.

With the U.S. scandal reinvigorated by reports of abuse in Europe and scrutiny of Benedict's handling of abuse cases when he was archbishop of Munich, the Kentucky case and another in Oregon have taken on greater significance. Lawyers as far away as Australia have said they plan to use similar strategies.

At the same time though, the hurdles remain enormously high to force a foreign government to turn over confidential documents, let alone to subject a head of state to questioning by U.S. lawyers, experts say.

The United States considers the Vatican a sovereign state — the two have had diplomatic relations since 1984. In 2007, U.S. District Court Judge John Heyburn rejected an initial request by the plaintiffs to depose Benedict.

"They will not be able to depose the pope," said Joseph Dellapenna, a professor at Villanova University Law School an author of "Suing Foreign Governments and their Corporations."

"But lower level officials could very well be deposed and there could be subpoenas for documents as part of discovery," he said.

McMurry last week filed a new court motion seeking to depose the pope; Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, currently Vatican secretary of state but for years the pope's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;Cardinal William Levada, an American who currently heads the Congregation; and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican's representative in the U.S.

On Tuesday, McMurry filed a memorandum in support of his demand to question Benedict based on court documents unearthed last week detailing the role of the Congregation in shutting down a canonical trial for a Wisconsin priest who allegedly molested up to 200 deaf boys.

"These documents confirm that the CDF, under Pope Benedict XVI's lead, discouraged prosecution of accused clergy and encouraged secrecy to protect the reputation of the church," wrote McMurry, who represented 243 sex abuse victims that settled with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003 for $25.3 million.

Jeffrey Lena, the reclusive architect of the Vatican's legal strategy in the U.S., is seeking to have the court rule on the Vatican's other defenses before allowing the pope to be deposed, in hopes that the suit will be dismissed. In his filing, Lena noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that when a defendant enjoys immunity, a court shouldn't allow a "discovery fishing expedition on claims that are baseless or speculative."

Lena also has argued that the pope's deposition would violate the Vatican's own laws on confidentiality, and would set a bad precedent for U.S. officials.

"If Pope Benedict XVI is ordered to testify by a U.S. court, foreign courts could feel empowered to order discovery against the president of the United States regarding, for example, such issues as CIA renditions," Lena wrote in a 2008 brief.

McMurry is eager to find out what the Vatican knew and did, in particular, about Rev. Louis Miller, who was removed from the priesthood in 2004 by the late Pope John Paul II. Miller pleaded guilty in 2003 to sexually abusing one of the Kentucky defendants and other children in the 1970s. He is serving a 13-year prison sentence.

In a deposition transcription obtained by The Associated Press, Miller said he had offered to resign as early as 1962 to his then-Archbishop John Floersh, and that two subsequent archbishops knew of his crimes but continued to keep him as a priest, moving him from parish to parish.

In explaining why he wanted to resign, Miller said: "I just knew that the crime was so horrendous in my own mind that I didn't feel that I was worthy to remain a priest."

But he said Floersh was "compassionate," kept him on, and told him, "You will always be a good priest."

Plaintiffs in the Kentucky suit contend that bishops are employees of the Vatican. That point is crucial to determing whether the Holy See can be held responsible for their behavior.

There's a general consensus among legal scholars that an employee is someone who works for the employer, who controls the details of the work. Attorneys for the Vatican are expected to argue that diocesan bishops do not work for the pope, and that the Holy See does not exercise the day-to-day control over their work necessary to create an employment relationship.

Also crucial to the Kentucky lawsuit is the 1962 document "Crimen Sollicitationis" — Latin for "crimes of solicitation." It describes how church authorities should deal procedurally with cases of abuse of children by priests, cases where sex is solicited in the confessional — a particularly heinous crime under canon law — and cases of homosexuality and bestiality.

McMurry argues that the document imposed the highest level of secrecy on such matters and reflected a Vatican policy barring bishops from reporting abuse to police.

Lena declined to comment Tuesday, but he has tried to shoot down McMurry's theory by arguing that McMurry's own expert witness, canon lawyer Thomas P. Doyle, has rejected theories that Crimen was proof of a cover-up.

The plaintiffs, Lena wrote in a 2008 motion, "fail to offer any facts in support of their theory that Crimen caused their injuries, nor indeed any facts that Crimen was ever in the possession of the Louisville archdiocese or used in Kentucky."

McMurry insisted Tuesday that Crimen is a smoking gun.

"The fact is, this document and its predecessors make it an excommunicable offense to reveal any knowledge of allegations that a priest has sexually abused," he said in an e-mail.

The existence of Crimen did not become publicly known until 2003, when a lawyer noticed a reference to the document while reading a 2001 letter written by Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. McMurry is seeking to subpoena Ratzinger's letter, which instructed all bishops to send cases of clerical sex abuse to him and to keep the proceedings secret.

In 2008, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the go-ahead for Kentucky lawsuit to continue, ruling that an exception to sovereign immunity, which shields most foreign governments from U.S. lawsuits, should be applied.

The 6th Circuit eliminated most of the plaintiffs claims' in its late 2008 ruling before returning it to district court.



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Vatican defends handling of Wisconsin priest

VATICAN CITY — A top Vatican official strongly defended the church's decision not to defrock a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf boys, saying the lengthy trial process would have been "useless" because the priest was dying.

In an article posted on the Vatican's Web site Wednesday, Cardinal William Levada strongly criticized The New York Times, which first reported on internal documents in the case last week. He said the paper wrongly used the documents to find fault in Pope Benedict XVI's handling of abuse cases.

Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, hailed Benedict's reforms in how the church handles abuse allegations against priests.

The Vatican's handling of the case involving the Rev. Lawrence Murphy has fueled claims by victims of clerical abuse that the Vatican in general and Benedict in particular were more concerned about protecting the church than children.

Levada said he was writing to urge a "more balanced view" of Benedict.

Murphy was accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys in the confessional, in dormitories, in closets and during field trips while working at a Milwaukee-area school for the deaf from the 1950s through 1974. He died in 1998 at age 72.

In his article, dated March 26, Levada wrote that Murphy should have been defrocked in the 1960s and 70s for his "egregious criminal behavior." But he noted that when accusations first arose in the 1960s and 70s, police and diocesan officials took no action against Murphy.

Two decades later, when the Vatican first heard about the case, the Congregation suggested the canonical trial that had been initiated against Murphy by his diocese in 1996 be suspended because he was dying, Levada wrote. Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led the Congregation at the time.

"My interpretation would be that the Congregation realized that the complex canonical process would be useless if the priest were dying," Levada wrote.

In his article, Levada noted that the judge who was handling the case for the diocese, the Rev. Thomas Brundage, had recently said he would have appealed the decision to suspend the trial, but that Murphy died, making the question moot.

In an article on his diocesan Web site, Brundage points out that because he had never received the instruction to suspend the trial, Murphy actually died as a defendant in a church criminal trial.

The Vatican has been on the defensive ever since the Times story was published, lashing out at what it has called a smear campaign against the pope and denouncing suggestions that he wanted to let abusers off the hook. Levada's article marks the highest-level official response to the story to date.

Levada's criticism of the Times focused on a news story and an editorial that appeared March 26; he said both were "deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness." He said the articles ignored Benedict's contributions and were designed to attribute the failure of defrocking Murphy to the pope.

Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty defended the articles, saying they were meticulously reported and that no one has cast doubts on the reported facts.

"The allegations of abuse within the Catholic Church are a serious subject, as the Vatican has acknowledged on many occasions," McNulty said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Any role the current pope may have played in responding to those allegations over the years is a significant aspect of this story."

Levada praised Benedict for what he called his "pro-active" hand in reforming church policies concerning cases of sexual abuse.

The reforms, outlined in a 2001 Vatican document "Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela," streamlined the church's administrative process for dealing with such cases, allowed for the Vatican to waive the statute of limitations and gave new resources for dioceses to obtain uniform advice from Rome on how to proceed, Levada said.

"This in itself has shown the seriousness with which today's church undertakes its responsibility to assist bishops and religious superiors to prevent these crimes from happening in the future, and to punish them when they happen," Levada wrote.

The document, he assured, does not remove a local bishop's responsibility from acting against an accused priest.

"Nor was it, as some have theorized, part of a plot from on high to interfere with civil jurisdiction in such cases," he said. Rather, it directed bishops to send the cases to Rome for review.

Levada did not mention that a letter the former Cardinal Ratzinger sent to bishops in 2001 explaining the new policies, noting that "Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret."

Victims groups have charged that such an instruction to keep the cases secret amounted to a cover-up. The Vatican insists there was nothing in the documents that precluded reporting to civil authorities.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.



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More Trouble for Papa Ratzi and the Vatican

PopePalpatine.jpgI truly feel at times that perhaps at long last the Roman Catholic Church is reaping some Divine justice for all of the horrors and misdeeds throughout its history.Certainly not least for the countless LGBT lives that it poisoned and/or destroyed. What's particularly unique is that this Divine justice is striking very close to Pope Benedict XVI, a/k/a God's Rottweiler. It seems his brother - while sill claiming to have known nothing about sexual abuse (so far anyway) - has admitted that he himself engaged in physical abuse of boys and ignored other signs that physical abuse of students was occurring. Adding to the fun for the Vatican is the fact that the German government is accusing the Vatican of outright complicity and cover up of sexual crimes against children and youth. So, as I have asked many times before, why does anyone listen to a word uttered by the Church's hierarchy - including Benedict XVI who headed up the Vatican office formerly known as the Inquisition for roughly two decades? First some highlights from Yahoo News on the Pope's brother and abuse:
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BERLIN – The pope's brother said in a newspaper interview published Tuesday that he slapped pupils as punishment after he took over a renowned German boys' choir in the 1960s. He also said he was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir but did nothing about it.
*
The scandal sweeping church institutions in many European countries kept widening Tuesday. In Austria, the head of a Benedictine monastery in Salzburg admitted to sexually abusing a child decades ago and resigned. Dutch Catholic bishops announced an independent inquiry into more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests at church schools and apologized to victims.
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The German abuse allegations are particularly sensitive because Germany is the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI and because the scandals involve the prestigious choir that was led by Georg Ratzinger from 1964 till 1994.

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Then there are these highlights from the Irish Times on the German government's latest condemnation of the Vatican's involvement in the sordid saga:
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Germany's justice minister accused the Vatican today of covering up severe sexual abuse in the Church after fresh reports surfaced at three Catholic schools in Bavaria. SabineLeutheusser-Schnarrenberger called the developments "frightening" after the cathedral choir inRegensburg, the Benedictine monastery school at Ettal and a Capucian school in Burghausenrevealed new cases of sexual and physical abuse.
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The revelations followed reports last month that Catholic priests had sexually abused over 100 children at Jesuit schools around Germany. . . . "In many schools there was a wall of silence allowing for abuse and violence,"
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Ms Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a secular liberal politician who has been the government's leading critic of the Church, told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio. "Even the most severe cases of abuse are subject only to papal secrecy and should not be disclosed outside the Church," she said, citing a 2001 Catholic congregation directive.
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The justice minister also urged the Church to take part in a public discussion with political leaders and victims on the issue that could potentially include compensation, a call she has made previously. . . . Archbishop Zollitsch had previously rejected the idea, and accused the justice minister of bashing the Church. He is due to travel to the Vatican on Friday to discuss the abuse scandal.
*
Far right Catholics want Pope John Paul II canonized. It seems a posthumous criminal indictment might be more in order. Meanwhile, Benedict XVI and churlish old queens condemn normal gays and oppose recognition of same sex relations between consenting adults. Pretty screwed up priorities for those who sound pretty close to being accessories to criminal acts. But sadly, that is today's Catholicism.


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VATICAN: POPE HAS IMMUNITY IN ABUSE CASES

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Posted on Apr 1, 2010
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AP / Silvia Izquierdo

On Thursday, the Vatican’s top legal official pointed out that Pope Benedict XVI won’t be implicated in any of the sex abuse cases currently under investigation, as he is technically a head of state. Also, the Vatican would like The New York Times to “reconsider its attack mode” regarding the pope.

Reuters via Yahoo News:

Dalla Torre outlined the Vatican’s strategy to defend the pope from being forced to testify in several lawsuits concerning sexual abuse which are currently moving through the U.S. legal system.

“The pope is certainly a head of state, who has the same juridical status as all heads of state,” he said, arguing he therefore had immunity from foreign courts.

Lawyers representing victims of sexual abuse by priests in several cases in the United States have said they would want the pope to testify in an attempt to try to prove the Vatican was negligent.

But the pope is protected by diplomatic immunity because more than 170 countries, including the United States, have diplomatic relations with the Vatican. They recognize it as a sovereign state and the pope as its sovereign head.

Read more

Pope Ratzinger, while Cardinal under Pope John Paul, headed up the “The Office of Inquisition” - the good old boys Rotisserie Club, in 1983, euphemistically, recast as: The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

So, now, this god of fire, as head of State claims to be immune from any inquiry…the inscrutable patriarchal dictator without a Queen.

Michael Baigent - Inquisition: The Reign of Fear

http://www.amazon.com/Inquisition-Reign-Fear-Toby-Green/dp/0312537247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270236152&sr=8-1


Given the quotes below regarding the pope’s 
relationship to God and Christ:

These words are written in the Roman Canon Law 1685: 
“To believe that our Lord God the Pope has not the 
power to decree as he is decreed, is to be deemed 
heretical.”

Father A. Pereira says: “It is quite certain that 
Popes have never approved or rejected this title 
‘Lord God the Pope,’ for the passage in the gloss 
referred to appears in the edition of the Canon Law 
published in Rome in 1580 by Gregory XIII.”

Writers on the Canon Law say, “The Pope and God are 
the same, so he has all power in heaven and earth.”
Barclay Cap. XXVII, p. 218. Cities Petrus Bertrandus, 
Pius V. - Cardinal Cusa supports his statement.

Pope Nicholas I declared: “the appellation of God had 
been confirmed by Constantine on the Pope, who, being 
God, cannot be judged by man.”
Labb IX Dist.: 96 Can. 7, Satis evidentur, Decret 
Gratian Primer Para

“The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus 
Christ, he is Jesus Christ himself, hidden under the 
veil of flesh.”
Catholic National, July 1895

“We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty”
Pope Leo XIII Encyclical Letter of June 20, 1894

The above comes from;
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=258966

It’s ludicrous, not to mention a gross hypocrisy; to 
issue a statement to the effect the pope is above 
prosecution for the abuses of the church.
If it weren’t so pathetic it would be laughable.

I don’t need constant reminders of why I quit the 
church when I was 8 years old.

---------

Meanwhile, despite now knowing that at least 4% of parish priests are pedophiles*, what’s amazing is that Catholics still serve up their young boys to these predatory priests for their amusement and pleasure.  Goes to show what Church indocrination has turned parishioners into - totally compliant pie-in-the-sky seekers, willing even to sacrifice their children, if that’s what it takes to get those last rites.  The Church, of course, gives believers a way out of this dilemma by putting the blame on the messenger (the NYT, for example), rather than fessing up to its being complicit up to and including the highest level of authority.  Were any other institution found to be as thoroughly riddled with pedophiles as is the Church, there wouldn’t just be an uproar, the court dockets would be replete with the names of alleged pedophiles awaiting trial on the charge of sexually molesting children.

“Members of the jury, on the charge of sexually molesting little boys, what is your verdict?”

“Guilty as charged, your honor.”

*according to the 2004 John Jay Report commisioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

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The Vatican has condemned reports that Pope Benedict XVI covered up a sex abuse scandal when he was a powerful cardinal in the 1990s.

The reports concern the case of a priest in the United States who is alleged to have abused as many as 200 deaf boys. The Vatican describes the reports as a scandalous attack on the Pope.

On Thursday, it became known that US bishops had reported the affair to a Vatican committee headed by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, who went on to become the present pope.

According to the New York Times, it was decided to take no action in order to protect the church from the effects of the scandal. The Vatican, however, denies there was a cover-up, arguing that the clerical authorities in Rome only got to know about the case in 1996.



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German Priest Suspended

March 16, 2010 Politcol News report -The Pope knew about and covered up the sex scandal of Peter Hullermann 30 years ago and moved him to Germany.

Now that the media has uncovered this news in a sexual-abuse scandal and a homosexual prostitution scandal and only after the facts were known the Vatican has suspended but not disbarred a Roman Catholic priest.

pope-in-his-red-hat-253x300.jpg

Pope Benedict Knew About the Sex Scandal of Peter Hellermann Yet Refused to Report the Crimes

For decades the Catholic Church has denied the fact that priests abuse children in their churches around the world.  The Catholic Church had simply moved the priests to other churches and let them continue to abuse children.

The Pope Knew about the Sexual Abuse Case- A Child Molester Set Free

Today in Munich a priest who is close to the inner sanctum Mr. Peter Hullermann has only been suspended of his duties after 3 days of media coverage.   The previous story we brought to light was the then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger – who is now the Pope moved Mr. Hullermann to Munich Germany for therapy 20 years ago.

The Pope Allowed Peter Hullerman to Continue Being A Priest

Here you have the current Pope who knew full well that Mr. Peter Hullerman had a sexual abuse case and had committed a crime -who should have been brought to justice and jailed for his crimes -but the Pope hushed the matter and sent him for therapy.

The Priest was Not Jailed or Brought to Trial for Crimes against Children

This is damnation – within the Catholic Church that is capturing the attention of Catholics world wide that the Archbishop Ratzinger again note that he is now the Pope of the Catholic Church -allowed this child molester to continue molesting children in Germany.  Decades of child abuse cases are now coming to our attention that prove Mr. Hullermann continued his criminal activity under the guise of being a Priest and continued crimes against children in many Bavarian churches.

It is only thanks to the persons who are reporting this information in the news that enough pressure has been put on the Catholic Church and only with this pressure has the Church suspended this criminal priest Hullermann.

According to the New York Times the current pope Benedict who was then an Archbishop had the opportunity to review the case and prescribe actions of either reporting this priest to the authorities as he should have done or allow him to continue in another parish.

Children Made to Perform Oral Sex on A Catholic Priest- Peter Hullerman

The Times states that in 1980 Hullermann was accusted of forcing an 11 year old boy to perform oral sex on him.  This was after the rules were layed out that Peter Hullerman was not to have contact with children as set out by the Church elders.  This in itself shows how uneducated the church is about pedophilia and child sexual abusers in that, simply saying they are to have no contact with children does not cure the person.  Firing him as a priest would have and bringing him to justice would have saved the broken lives of those children Hullermann abused for the past 30 years.

This priest taught religious classes for 6 hours a day in Grafing Germnay and started teaching in 1984 only a few years after he was moved there for sexually abusing children.  The Church elders were quite aware of his activities and criminal activity yet they chose to ignore the facts.  The Church hid the facts from the public in its own internal struggle and chose to remain biased to favor its own priests.  The politics of the Church has been damaging to itself as a viable religion.

The worst part of this revelation is that the Pope knew about this man and yet he did nothing to stop the crimes against children.   In a trusted place as a Church a child is vulnerable to the power, influence and whims of Priest who is entrusted by the Church and apparently God -to protect children -not to prey on them as has been the case with the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church has lost credibility and followers for decades and now this will surely cause many to demand an investigation and removal of all priests who prey on children in every parish.  An investigation is called for in every Church in the world if this criminal activity is to stop once and for all.

It is time the Catholic Church held itself up to its own standards and also to abide by the law when it comes to sexual abuse criminals they are to be tried and sent to jail not to continue on with their molestation and sex crimes.

The Church has for years punished its own followers for lesser crimes and has indeed been operating in the “dark” ages of hiding its own activities yet punishing its congregation.

For example recently the Catholic Church stated it would cut off health benefits for the Catholic Charities employees if they were in same sex marriages.  TheCatholic Church has not changed much in the last 20 years as more scandals are uncovered they still distort the truth and continue along their merry way of abusing children.

Parents should be warned not to leave their children alone with a priest in any Catholic church and to consider joining another religion.  Many other denominations do not abuse children or commit sexual acts and try to hide them from their own parishes.

TAGS: German Priest Suspended by the vatican, Priest Hullermann accused of sexual abuse, Archbishop Joesph Ratzinger, Joe Ratzinger the Pope, Pope Refused to report the Crimes of Child abuse, Pope Benedict knew about the sex abuse of children, Catholic Charities, Distortion of the Truth by Catholic church, Politics News, Politcol News.



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German archbishop says Church covered up sex abuse for decades

The head of the German Bishops Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, has admitted that the Roman Catholic Church consciously covered up cases of sexual abuse for decades.

 

The weekly German news magazine Focus reported on Sunday that Archbishop Zollitsch, the leader of the German Roman Catholic Church, admitted during an interview with the publication that cases of child sex abuse were known and covered up. "Yes, we did have that," he said, but denied allegations that he personally had suppressed information.

While most cases happened outside the Church, "assaults that took place in such numbers within our institutions shame and frighten me," Zollitsch told Focus. "Every single case darkens the face of the entire Church," he said.

Zollitsch emphasized, however, that the Church has been moving for years in the other direction to uncover and investigate reported cases of sexual abuse.

The archbishop was critical of proposals to file a complaint in every instance of suspected abuse. He said many victims had told him explicitly that they did not desire legal action. He stressed that it was also important to avoid baseless allegations which could ruin the lives of those falsely accused. Pope Benedict (l) in a meeting with German Archbishop Zollitsch at the VaticanThe pope and Zollitsch have tried in vain to limit the damage

On Saturday, Zollitsch apologized personally for a cover-up of sexual abuse that happened 20 years ago while he was in charge of human resources and staffing in the Freiburg diocese.

Victims disappointed by papal letter

Meanwhile, many abuse victims have expressed deep disappointment with the content of a pastoral letter published by Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday.

Victims in Ireland, to whom the letter was addressed, said the pontiff had not accepted the responsibility of the Vatican, nor did he recognize that there was a structural problem within the Church. "My first reaction was deep disappointment," said Maeve Lewis from the One-in-four alliance.

Catholics in the United States said the pope should have mentioned the extent of sexual abuse in numerous countries. Benedict also made no reference to the cases in Germany, his home country.

gb/ap/AFP/Reuters
Editor: Andreas Illmer



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Child abuse: Ex-archbishop brought back accused US priest

PORTLAND: A top Vatican official who now oversees the office that handles cases of alleged abuse by priests once returned an accused priest to administrative duty in Oregon on the condition that he be barred from direct contact with children or teenagers. 

As archbishop in Portland from 1986 to 1995, Cardinal William Levada removed Father Joseph Baccellieri in 1992 after learning about 20-year-old complaints involving teenage boys but allowed him to return on a limited basis under close supervision in 1994. 

The move had conditions, according to a letter released Saturday in defense of Levada. The archdiocese's clergy personnel director outlined a plan approved by Levada that prohibited Baccellieri from having contact with children or teenagers. 

Other conditions included continuous counseling and therapy, regular reporting by his therapist to the archdiocese, close monitoring, limitations on ministry activities and restrictions on living outside a parish setting or under the supervision of other priests. 

Levada explained his decision not to tell any parishioners in a 2006 deposition to attorneys handling dozens of lawsuits against the archdiocese claiming abuse by Oregon priests. 

``It might give people the implication that if they are being told this, that I am suspecting that he _ he may be at risk _ he may be a risk to their children,'' Levada said during questioning by Kelly Clark, one of the attorneys for dozens of alleged victims. 

``If I thought Father Baccellieri would be a risk to any child, I would never have reassigned him,'' Levada said. 

Clark was critical of Levada during the deposition. ``Wouldn't you have some sort of a pastoral moral requirement to let individual parishioners make that determination for themselves?'' Clark asked. 

``I think it was prudent to act the way I did,'' Levada replied. ``I stand on that - on that judgment I made.'' 

In the deposition, Levada insisted he had given complete information to the pastor of the parish about the history of Baccellieri and that was his standard practice. Documents provided by the archdiocese show Baccellieri was returned as a parochial vicar, an administrative, not pastoral post. 

Levada also testified he did not recall whether the allegations against Father Baccellieri were ever reported to law enforcement. He did say that it was his policy at the archdiocese to comply with all requirements for reporting possible crimes, but the allegations happened 20 years before. 

The deposition was released by Erin Olson, another attorney who represented Oregon abuse victims and was instrumental in getting Levada to testify. 

Olson said she decided to release it because she was angry over Levada's defense of the way the Vatican handled a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys. 

Levada posted a statement on the Vatican Web site saying that Pope Benedict XVI should not be held responsible for a church decision in the 1990s not to defrock the Wisconsin priest. 

Olson said Levada's comments ``reflect an arrogance that is largely responsible for the current crisis.'' 

Levada succeeded Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith after Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005. The Wisconsin case went to the Vatican office when Ratzinger was in charge. 

After Olson released the transcript of the deposition late Friday, an attorney for Levada responded with a copy of the letter dated March 16, 1994, to Levada from Father Charles Lienert, then the clergy personnel director, outlining the conditions imposed on Baccellieri to return to duty. 

Levada's attorney, Jeffrey Lena, noted the alleged abuse by Baccellieri had occurred before Levada arrived in Portland and that Levada pulled Baccellieri from service immediately. 

``Only upon receipt of full assurance from qualified psychological counselors was the priest in question re-introduced into limited service, under supervision and with extensive limitations on his access to parishioners, after which he did not re-offend,'' Lena said in an e-mail. 

Levada left Portland to become archbishop in San Francisco in 1995. Lena, who was part of the 2006 deposition, noted that Levada was in Portland for only about a year after Baccellieri returned to limited duty but ``has always treated these matters with the utmost seriousness and responsibility.'' 

In a 2004 release, the Archdiocese of Portland said the current archbishop, John Vlazny, asked Baccellieri in 2001 to study church law at Catholic University. 

``In July of 2002, after the United States Catholic Bishops decided upon a policy of 'one strike and you're out,' Father Baccellieri, who was in ill health at the time, was retired,'' the release said. 

The Portland archdiocese settled its sex abuse lawsuits for more than $50 million in 2007, after becoming the first Roman Catholic diocese in the nation to declare bankruptcy on the eve of trial for the first of those lawsuits in 2004.


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The New Indian Express, Chennai, 28 March 2010

Church, abused students square off on Italian TV


Three deaf men who say they were repeatedly sodomized and abused by priests as children confronted the church diocese on Friday about why it hadn’t punished their abusers.

The three men, first interviewed last year by The Associated Press, appeared on a prime-time talk show on Italy’s state-run RAI television, squaring off with the spokesman of the Verona diocese amid a swirling global sex abuse scandal that has inched closer to Pope Benedict XVI.

The former students haven’t gone to the police because the 10-year statute of limitations expired. They have asked the priests in question to waive the statute of limitations so a case can be opened, but to date none of them have.

The former students of Verona’s Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf refused to shake the hand of spokesman of the Verona diocese, the Rev. Bruno Fasani during the show.

One of the three, Dario Laiti, 59, said, “It’s a problem of justice.” Laiti has said he was sodomized repeatedly at the boarding school from the age of seven.

“We want justice for everything we went through, the suffering for all of our life,” said Gianni Bisoli, 61, another former student who says he was sodomized by and forced to perform oral sex on a dozen priests at the institute.

Bisoli, Laiti and 65 other former pupils signed a statement last year saying sexual abuse, paedophilia and corporal punishment occurred at the school from the 1950s to the 1980s. – AFP

by IS March 28, 2010 at 10:19 am


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A horror story to learn from

Priest
Author:
Editorial

An 81 year old retired Irish cardinal, Desmond Connell, has gone to the High Court in Dublin for a writ to stop his successor as Archbishop of Dublin from handing over church files on paedophile priests to a state-organised inquiry into clerical abuse of children.

He has called on the court to prevent the head of the Catholic Church in the Dublin diocese from handing over information about criminal priests to the government-appointed investigation. He has got an interim writ, freezing proceedings until there can be a full court hearing. He claims that some of the files contain solicitors’ advice to him, and therefore that they are privileged, exempt from scrutiny without his say-so.

This strange affair deserves the attention of socialists and secularists in Britain.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Primate of the Catholic Church here, who plausibly claims that his is now the most numerous Christian denomination in the country, has a lot to say on social and political questions these days.

A lot of it is reactionary — its attitude to lesbians and gays, for instance.

His overriding concern is to have as large a part as he can of the affairs of society — its mores, its morality, what it allows and what it forbids to the citizen — regulated by the “laws of God”, as his church understands them. In Britain now it is an effort to have society ruled according to the teachings of a church which the big majority does not accept.

The attempt by Murphy O’Connor and his bishops to impose the prejudices of their church so that lesbians and gays could not adopt or foster children is only one recent example.

The Catholic people of Ireland are now once again, in the grotesque Cardinal Connell affair, being unpleasantly reminded of what rule by priests, bishops, and cardinals sometimes has meant for them. For many decades, Catholic priests, members of the Christian Brothers (a monk-like teaching order), and nuns, running Irish schools, orphanages, and reformatories, savagely abused children, beating and raping them.

That they subjected them to relentless and merciless violence was known to everyone. What was not widely known — scarcely known at all, except to its small victims and to maimed and troubled adults who had been small victims — and certainly never discussed in public, was that sexual abuse of children in schools, orphanages, and reformatories, was also an everyday thing.

The abuse of children is now understood to be a feature of all institutions where children are helpless at the mercy of adults. In Ireland, within a loose and light framework of state regulation to check such things as the qualifications of teachers, schools (etc.) were an archipelago of hell-holes run or supervised by priests, Christian Brothers, and nuns.

Officially, Catholic Ireland was a desert of lacerating, arid sexual puritanism — a place where for many decades the average age of marriage was 35, and many lay men and women, never marrying, lived entirely celibate lives.

The poet Patrick Kavanagh — he is also the author of the well-known song, “On Raglan Road” — borrowed the common name for the Famine of the 1840s, in which a million starved to death, the Great Hunger, for the title of a long poem about that, Ireland’s other great hunger.

In that Ireland, the priests and nuns were honoured as paragons and models, demigods more closely connected to the Big God than anyone else could be. They were the moral police for a strict and very puritanical morality.

In the towns and in the villages, the priests were central in all social and political activities, honoured and deferred to in a way that people in Britain’s quasi-secular society cannot easily imagine. They set the standards in everything, including what writers of fiction could publish. They imposed rules under which most of Ireland’s best writers had at least some of their work banned in Ireland.

They laid down the law to politicians. When, half a century ago, an attempt was made to bring in state provision of rudimentary medical care for mothers and children, the bishops squashed it. They sent for the Minister of Health, Noel Browne — a Catholic who would be Ireland’s leading socialist until his death a decade ago — and told him that it should not be done.

Why? He tried to ask, and was told — the minister of the elected government — that they would not discuss it. It was not for such as himself to have explanations given to him by such as themselves, the Princes of God’s Own Church.

He asked why, then, the bishops had not denounced the National Health Service in Northern Ireland, which was a great deal more advanced that what he proposed. He was told: we do not explain.

The answer was only too obvious: in the 26 Counties they could get away with banning reform; in the UK they couldn’t, and didn’t try.

In Catholic Ireland, the priesthood had for centuries shared the oppressions of the people at the hands of the then bigotedly Protestant British state. They were the leaders of the helot Catholic people. Their prestige and their power with their people came to be greater than anywhere else in Europe, even in clerical-fascist Spain. The Irish clergy did not need a police state: they ruled with the reverent consent of the people.

Those priests who were the conscience and model of Ireland were — and are now generally known to have been — often viciously hypocritical child-molesters; and the Bishops are generally known to have been, at best, their protectors. An accused priest was frequently, perhaps normally, simply moved by his bishop to another diocese — and new victims.

Cardinal Connell, who became Archbishop of Dublin in 1988 was forced out in 2004 after a big sex scandal was exposed in Dublin. Now, like the savage spirit of the old Irish hierarchy rising out of its bolthole, the old clerical hoodlum has rudely pushed aside his successor as Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, appealing to the courts to prevent the church files compiled during his Archbishopric being read by the official investigation.

It is said that his action has the quiet support of many priests. But now there is a well-informed and critical Irish citizenry watching and listening and judging.

The good side of this story, if it can be said to have one, is that Connell, a priest since 1951, bred in the old school of Irish Catholic priests, is digging the Irish Catholic Church deeper into the mire by his arrogant assertion that the clergy are a privileged breed, answerable only to their own caste and to God.

The historical atrocity that is the story of Christianity in modern Ireland — of the Catholic Church, but not only the Catholic Church: arguably the most evil of all the Christian bigots in recent Irish history is the 83-year old Ian Paisley, now “First Minister” of Northern Ireland — holds the mirror up to Britain.

Religious bigotry is growing. Segregation of religious-ethnic communities is increasing. The bungling clumsiness with which the Government pursues its “war on terror” is contributing greatly to communal polarisation. Religious assertiveness by organised groups of bigots is growing.

In Britain faith schools have multiplied, encouraged by the New Labour government.

These are schools where Christian bigots, Jewish obscurantists, medieval-minded Muslims and others are licensed by the state to inflict their fantasies, obsessions and food-fetishes on emotionally and intellectually vulnerable children.

The Catholic Church campaigns against the right of a woman to abort a foetus at any stage in pregnancy. Murphy O’Connor recently even presumed to tell Catholics in Britain that Catholic doctrine on abortion should determine how they voted.

The horror stories from the land where the Catholic Church ruled the lives of the people and of the children, and the cover-ups by bishops like Connell, show how much they care about living, real children.

What the unrepentant old scoundrel Connell says to us in Britain is, don’t be complacent. What Solidarity says is: fight for a secular Britain, for the separation of church and state, the banishment of religion from public life, the abolition of faith schools, and the creation of a comprehensively secular schooling system where the children of parents of all religions and of none are educated in a common secular citizenship.



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