Bishops need to hold each other accountable, reform group says

It is very hard to think that the Bishops will be willing to lessen the power they hold by giving another Bishop the ability to call them to task. That idea - that a Bishop is the power of the Church in his own diocese - is deeply embedded. Besides breaking a centuries old tradition, it impinges on the idea of the fraternity, the collegiality between bishops. It is what is needed, but the idea of a group of bishops taking on another bishop is a big WOW.

Bishop Vasa is/was Coadjutor Bishop of the Santa Rose California diocese. He is mentioned above as one of the Bishops who is not good about following child protection guidelines. Didn't I read elsewhere today that he has just been named Bishop of the Santa Rosa, California diocese, after the Pope accepted Bishop Walsh's resignation? Sigh.

Bishops think that each diocese is 'onto itself' Note to bishops...When a McDonald's serves poison food in Peoria all franchises lose business. You guys have lost 35% already wake up DUH

While I'm not sympathetic to VOTFaithless, I think they are barking up the right tree here. But one must be careful since each bishop is supreme in his diocese only answerable to the Pope. So the Vatican needs to take a hand here. People carp about Bruskewitz not obeying the Charter but clearly he is proactive in this regard. He did offer 22 amendments to the Charter which were all rejected.

Personally, I think the Vatican needs to set clear standards in this regard yet not micromanage since each country has different laws. Even back in the day when this was mishandled, someone should have said out loud that if you give a priest a second chance there will be absolutely no third chance. By this I mean a priest starts out in ministry & then abuses & gets caught. He is allowed a second chance after removal from ministry & therapy provided the therapist assures the bishop that the priest is not likely to abuse again. But if when back in ministry the priest does indeed abuse again then he will be laicized.

To some extent this point is moot since there is now at least theoretically zero tolerance but I don't think zero tolerance is really a good policy & it is not likely to last. However, I will say that there should be zero tolerance for any priest who engages in even one act of actual sexual activity with a child under the age of 12. This policy should be written into the canon law.

I support the work of Voice of the Faithful, but they make the same mistake nearly everyone else makes. They expect the bishops to change their ways. If the last ten to twenty-five years have proven anything is that the bishops don't care what the faithful think. They only care what the Vatican thinks. Since the Vatican protects bishops who protect child abusers, it is up to the faithful to use other ways to protect children: the press, the courts, withholding money from unfit bishops.

The bishops believe they ARE god in their own respective domains and they are not going to do anything that will change their situation. By holding their colleagues accountable, they will be submitting themselves to the same limitations on they hold in their own domains. They will never do that. Any reform that occurs will have to be imposed on them. Reform from within the RCC heirarchy will never occur.

It's too late to trust any Catholic bishops.

Report everything to the police. When they did a Grand Jury investigation in Philadelphia, they found horrific child sex abuse by priests, and an indefensible cover-up by the monsignors and bishops.

Google "Philadelphia district attorney grand jury report" and read just the first 6 pages, and you’ll see what Catholic sex abuse really is.

"BISHOPS NEED TO HOLD EACH OTHER ACCOUNTABLE"

The title of this article says it all. As a life-long Philadelphia Catholic, our archdiocesan leaders, both lay and clergy, wouldn't know "accountability" even if a THIRD Grand Jury Report was issued regarding their conduct, decision-making and criminal conduct.

After Cardinal Bevilacqua (civil attorney, for those who didn't know; it is an impossible human endeavor to hold civil attorneys accountable) and Cardinal Rigali ("....no credibly accused priests are in active ministry..."), I just can't wait for the successor. I'm foolishly praying that the third time will be a "charm".

In the soon-to-be released ABC's of Philadelphia archdiocesan clergy-abuse management, "A" does not represent "accountability." Evidence has clearly indicated that "A" represents "arrogance."

As long as the clerical cuture survives, the Bishops will not hold each other accountable. It is very sad that the Vatican does not mandate the compliance with the charter by ALL bishops much less insist that the bishops hold each other accountable. The bishops virtually did nothing in their review of the charter. Their "revisions" were an attempt to make themselves look good but lack any substantial improvement.

The Bishops are not supreme in their own dioceses, God is! Bishops are not dieties. They are mortal and fallable men who pretend to represent God. They have brought shame upon the Catholic Church because 60% of them admitted in a Dallas newspaper in 2002 that they knew of priests who had abused and transfered that priest from parish to parish. They admitted to covering up the abuse for decades in the name of collegiality, the fraternity of bishops. There is no evidence that demonstrates that merely 60% of Bishops were guilty of protecting pedophiles, but instead the true number is 100% of Bishops protected pedophiles. Such a cohesive policy of cover-up and protection of pedophiles goes straight to Rome as the source of the policy, especially now that the abuse is exposed as world-wide; and the same policy of cover-up and transfer was done around the globe. Yet, this is contrasted with how swift the church is to ex-communicate women priests (24 hours doesn't set on this) and how swift the church is to remove priests who married from ministry. The church has paid out billions to hush up victims of abuse, spent decades protecting pedophiles and only reluctently dismissing them from the priesthood, many just moved to "safe houses."

In the meantime, the majority of priests have to be defamed by the pedophiles who abused, and by the majority of bishops who put the needs of the pedophiles over the rights of children, the laity, and the reputation of other priests who didn't abuse. The rights of pedophile priest trumped the rights of women priests, married priests, deacons, laity, celibate priests, and God by an unethical and untrustworthy hierarchy of Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes who set themselves up as dieties to be worships. No they are not the supreme authority, except in their own perverted imaginations, and the imaginations of their followers. God is the supreme authority. This is the First Commandment, the basic truth, because TRUTH triumphs over the false god of egotism the Bishops, Cardinals, and Popes represent. We have this scandal because they DIDN'T represent Christ.

VOTF is asking for Bishops to break rank and expose those among them who are engaged in wrong doing. We shall see if any Bishop is willing to stand up and speak for Jesus.

"Bishops need to hold each other accountable"

You could start here in Philadelphia. Retired Cardinal Bevilacqua, civil attorney, years ago assigned a credibly accused abuser as chaplain at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Of course, that is followed in 2011, by Cardinal Rigali who asserted that "there is no credibly accused priests in active ministry." I guess that's why we had the criminal charges against priests followed by several civil suits since the beginning of 2011 here in Philadelphia.

"Accountable", here in Philadelphia? We have not been able to find any evidence of "accountability" here ever since the release of the first Grand Jury Report in September 2005. We do have something in great abundance in archdiocesan leadership and it too starts with an "A".....it's called "arrogance".

Re: The pedophile scandal and coverup

How can the greater glory of the church be served by the denial of truth and justice?