This is disgusting. Much of what is in this 884-page report it is about how most bishops throughout the world dealt with priests accused of serious moral and secular crimes against minors. Much has changed in this regard but not enough. But what is in place in most dioceses in our country, especially reporting these kinds of crimes to law enforcement first, is a good step in the right direction.
Bishops and priests, to include cardinals, who were complicit in the cover-up and the lies need to step aside, in my most humble and unsolicited opinion. And the grand jury's four recommendations for secular reform need to be heeded by legislative branches of government.
We are taught as Catholics that each of us will at the hour of our death have our particular judgement. But that judgement happens prior to our death in so many ways as a foretaste of it.
The same is true of the General Judgement when Christ comes again at the Second Coming. At the General Judgement the institutions of the world will be judged as well, to include the institution of the Catholic Church. But it happens in the here and now as a foretaste of that which is to happen.
I listened to a good portion of the presentation by Attorney General of Pennsylvania which was live streamed. I could not help but think that his solicitude for the victims of these crimes, his concern and compassion for them is a role model for bishops who acted instead, as CEO's to protect the institutional Church. If only these bishops had acted as Attorney General Josh Shapiro did, we would be in a much better place today and fewer Catholics would have been damaged to the loss of their faith and lives by what has happened.
Pennsylvania Releases Damning Report On Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal
WARNING: Reading this report will damage your physical, psychological and spiritual health.
The 884-page report
is the largest, most comprehensive investigation on the church’s sex
abuse scandal by a U.S. state, according to Attorney General Josh
Shapiro. The grand jury identified over 1,000 victims in
the six dioceses examined in the report: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg,
Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. But the jurors suspected the true
number of victims could be much higher.
Shapiro
said the report, which was delayed for months while individuals named
in it raised legal challenges over what portions should be redacted,
showed that church leaders in these dioceses knew abuse was occurring
but systematically covered it up.
12 comments:
Cardinal Wuerl did not clothe himself in glory there but is happy to lead the charge now?
Father - I agree with your assessment. What else can one say other than this, in its repulsive, depraved and criminal totality, must stop.
The PA report is a tragedy for the Church. The US Bishops Conference needs to be RICO investigated.
"Your Holiness, a chronic confusion seems to mark your pontificate. The light of faith, hope, and love is not absent, but too often it is obscured by the ambiguity of your words and actions. This fosters within the faithful a growing unease. It compromises their capacity for love, joy and peace. Allow me to offer a few brief examples." by Fr. Weinandy
He was for nine years the executive director of the secretariat for doctrine at the episcopal conference of the United States. The the bishops fired him to please the Holy Father. They should elect Fr. Weinandy Pope instead!
Divine justice has come, all Satanic agents, sodomites will be exposed and rooted out. God's vengeance for sexual abused little children has begun. Deo gratias.
I think it’s important to note that — although the knee-jerk reaction here is usually to blame sexual abuse on Vatican 2 — the PA cases go back seven decades (because that’s how far back the records go) and there’s no indication that the abuse increased or worsened in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
And that’s true where ever authorities have studied these cases. People have been more willing to speak out about sexual abuse since Vat2, but that doesn’t mean the problem has become worse.
In fact, the John Jay Study which look at records going back before the 1940’s stated the the crisis peaked in 1974 with the most ever cases reported to bishops. Most were priests of the highly controlling Church prior to Vatican II who found in the new moral theology of the 1970’s moral ambiguity to act on their impulses rather than control them.
The John Jay study may not have been as thorough or as far-reaching as the Pennsylvania Grand Jury investigation.
The Jay study was based on self-reporting by bishops, diocesan officials, clergy, and laity.
The Pennsylvania investigation was more direct.
"Most cases reported" -- that is exactly my point.
There's a big difference between crimes occurring and crimes reported. Most sexual crimes are never reported.
We know that families in the past paid a terrible price for calling out the Church or the parish priest. Even into the past two decades, some still did.
But we know from anecdotal evidence that abuse went on for decades and there was no will or mechanism for removing pervert priests. It was much worse in those areas where the Church's power was the strongest -- Ireland or the Catholic communities of the Northeast or South America or some of the more extreme conservative sects.
The Irish Church, in particular, is paying the price right now for those decades of looking the other way. I'm not saying that's fair -- it's not. But the Church is stronger when it does the right thing and holds the moral high ground, and victims are able to speak out.
The media is in anguish since they LOVE gays. But, no worries, they will try to paint this as a pedophila problem when the overwelming number of the cases involved just plain, old fashioned gay sex between adult men and youths along the Greek model. But the "agenda" must be saved at all costs!!! The truth be damned.
An interesting point is being raised at Rorate-Caeli concerning the saints or pre-saints who oversaw the Church during the worst of these sins: John XXIII, Paul VI, and John-Paul II. How much did they know, and did they cover-up any? With the vastness of this sinning in just one state alone one really has to wonder. Ratzinger warned JP2, but it fell on the deaf ears of the perfomer pope. The Vatican is in its own world of clericalism, express-sainting its own. In the past it took time for sainthood because it took time for facts, especially inconvenient ones, to emerge. The chronological snobbery of the Modernists, that "we can do things better and faster now" is showing its ugly face.
300 perverted priests in just one state! Incredible!
Fast tracking men or women for canonization is grotesque. I agree that no one in my living memory should have been canonized, no one, not Pius XII, not John XXIII, not JPII, or I, not Mother Teresa, no one. Why this rush to canonization is beyond me especially modern popes, especially those after the disaster that occurred in the Church after Vatican II and on multiple fronts.
And yes, Pope Francis has fallen into a trap in canonizing those in his and my living memory. Canonizing Pope Paul VI is a mistake.
But I am not the pope and I am not God. It will all come out in the wash in the end.
But I also want to remind orthodox Catholics that if anyone is in heaven, and yes, the repentant thief next to Jesus, St. Dismas, they are saints. I presume that all modern popes who have died, died in a state of grace and are in heaven. I don't think any of them were unrepentant enemies of God like the unrepentant thief next to Jesus, on His left.
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