Dublin's archbishop gets it

The 'avoiding scandal' rational/excuse for the cover-up should go down in church history as the stupidest, most corrupt excuse ever given. And I think this excuse is still imbedded in the DNA of too many in the heirarchy and their minimalists allies. Would that A/B Martin be replicated world wide.. . Tom ... you gave Martin the title Cardinal... I take this as a hope...[A sign to watch for is 'When will will Martin receive the Red Hat if ever?]
The real rationale for any cover-up is to avoid prosection .. ask the more honest Hells Angels and Mafia.. they don't give a damn about 'scandal '. they always say a 'coverup is to avoid prosecution...

NOT AGAIN!
What the hell is wrong with you people?

Martin's not a cardinal, but he should be.

If you've ever seen (it's on youtube) the footage of the then Cardinal Ratzinger slapping the US reporter for asking embarassing questions about Fr Maciel, the sexually abusive founder of the Legionnaires of Christ, you'll understand why Martin won't be a cardinal any time soon.

Martin's is the way forward - Ratzinger's (like his liturgical preferences) is the way to a dim, dark past.

But what is Martin going to do about it?

Talk is very, very cheap, particularly when it comes to Catholic clergy opining after-the-fact.

I'll jump on his bandwagon when I see some tangible results from HIM.

I agree that Diarmuid Martin has outwardly expressed horror and rage at the clergy abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Dublin. However, he only goes so far. When he was asked today if bishops should be sanctioned/fired and/or disciplined, he responded, "No." He can't seem to say that his "colleagues in the hierarchy" should go to jail, lose their titles and jobs, and make restitution to the families and victims they abused. When will these guys stop protecting each other? When another whole generation of children is lost to abuse?

Thank God for Martin's goodness; God help him survive the evil of his predecessors. No one can protect the church from its apparent mission to destroy itself from within with its lies and abuses.

Did he get a paper cut from reading all of the legal documents? Did he get in his car and visit some victims? Did he get a headache? What axactly did he get?

The victims get it. They got it, and are stll getting it.

The Vatican gets it...deny, deny, deny....then cry. Someone gets it all right.

Whitewashed tombs for all.

Note to Americans" If you were victimized by clergy, Catholic or otherwise, SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, can help you find support and counseling in a confidential healing environment.

: Millstones and Glass Houses: the Catholic Church's Protection of Child Rapists Is Coming To Light
"It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than for him to harm these little ones." - Luke 17:2"

According to a report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, over 11,000 allegations of child and adolescent sex abuse have been made against nearly 5,000 priests in the United States between 1950 and 2002. That's only the reported cases.

Cardinal Roger Mahoney of the Los Angeles Archdiocese knew he had pedophile priests in his charge, but didn't think that sexual urges towards children should disqualify someone from the priesthood. The L.A. Archdiocese spent $2 million per month on lawyers whose sole job was to block release of information about pedophile priests to law enforcement. In July of 2007 a record-breaking 508 victims who were abused by priests in California were awarded a $660 million settlement.

The Boston Archdiocese, under Cardinal Bernard Law, has been forced to pay $157 million settlement to victims of its priests. Cardinal Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston in 2002, and was brought back to Rome, where he is currently being protected from extradition to the United States to face charges of criminal negligence in his willful complicity in covering up known pedophile priests in his charge.

And now, the Diocese of Wilmington, Delware, is pleading in bankruptcy court that it is obligated to pay pensions and healthcare coverage to known pedophile priests.

In a filing submitted late Thursday, attorneys for the diocese now seek authorization to provide pensions, housing costs and medical coverage to six confirmed child abusers. They cited an obligation to care for retired clergy, including priests dismissed from public ministry and facing laicization, or defrocking.
"Only the Vatican has the power to laicize clergy," the diocese said. "Thus, while several priests have been dismissed from the public ministry and have laicization proceedings pending against them, for the time being they remain clergy whom the debtor supports, and must continue to support."

The motion also seeks permission to keep paying benefits to another priest who has been accused of sex abuse, though the claims have not been substantiated. He still has authority to serve as a priest.

Instead of paying restitution to its victims, the Diocese is paying $100K per month to a public relations firm and trying to justify health benefits and pension to child rapists.

It's not just the mainland U.S. It's here in Hawaii, as well. A teacher in Kamehameha schools recently resigned after it was found that as a Catholic cleric in a Wisconsin school he had been charged with child sex crimes and quietly removed by church officials. There have been thirteen priests in the Honolulu diocese accused of child rape since 1961.

This is the way the Catholic hierarchy has worked for decades. In 1962, an official instruction on how to deal with sex abuse allegations, the Criminales Solicitaciones (English translation opens as .pdf), was issued by the Vatican's Holy Office, now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, signed by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani. Addressing "Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and other Diocese Ordinaries," the document lays out the requirement to nullify and silence such allegations, to reassign those priests if necessary, and to never reveal the accusations, on pain of excommunication. In 2003, when the Criminales Solicitaciones was publicized by CBS News (it has since been removed from the CBS website), the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops claimed that the 1962 document was superseded by a new instruction, issued in 2001. That is only partly true.

There was a new instruction issued in 2001, but it hardly superseded the 1962 order of secrecy and enabling child rapists. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was anointed Prefect of the Congregation in 1981. On May 18, 2001, he sent a letter to the general church, which was based on Pope John Paul II's Apostolic letter concerning the church's past and future actions on allegations of abuse. (Sorry, no comprehensive English translation available at this moment. My Latin is a bit rusty.) The letter from Ratzinger does not urge the hierarchy to disclose criminal acts committed by priests to appropriate law enforcement. Rather, it re-emphasizes the requirement for secrecy under the pretext of the confessional seal, calling for internal investigation and handling only.

Joseph Ratzinger was not only complicit in the coverup of child rape committed by priests, but as Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he actively continued the church policy of secrecy and obstruction of justice. He was one of its chief architects for twenty years.

I hope he does 'understand' though most human could not understand actions like the following that were not only hidden but officially condoned ( see the l962 writ, and 2001 nstructions from Cardinal J. Ratzinger.) by these supposedly 'moral' men.
This from a commenter: under the posting of the original news release from Ireland.

"And the public still has NO IDEA the extent

My mother and her sisters were removed from their mother's home, when a parish priest in Northern Ireland deemed my grandmother to be an unfit Catholic. The girls were sent to an "orphanage," which was a euphemism for "Industrial School." The abuse there was unimaginable. My mother awakes in the middle of the night to this day screaming in terror, an old woman unable to escape the black veiled Catholic devils who beat her in her sleep. The town's largest contributor to the Church liked to stop by and take a girl out occasionally for a little "father time," and my mother and aunts, being particularly attractive, were a favorite of his. The nuns were all to happy to accommodate him, knowing full well what was going on. All three grew to be women who still find it nearly impossible to untangle themselves from the webs of shame that the Church spun for them. When abuse was discovered by one nun or another, she was kept on the premises, until the cries grew too loud, and then she was simply transferred to another parish, to another school. I've researched this subject extensively, and in my research uncovered stories of 10 year olds hanging themselves in broom closets, drowning themselves in the icy cold waters that lap up at Ireland. I'm now discovering other victims, new victims--the children who were raised by those who came from these institutions, who grew to be the abusers themselves, like my own mother (whose abuse towards her children was extensive, yet I can't find it in my heart to be angry with her, because I know where it comes from). The legacy of the Catholic Church is one of abuse and pain, and it is a gift that keeps on giving to new generations to grapple with, among their denials. (I apologize for not proofing--if I reread, I'll be unable to bring myself to post)."

It's almost startling, and refreshing, to hear someone in the hierarchy actually admit that the power structure and arrogance of that same hierarchy aided and abetted this whole terrible obscenity. Will any of our bishops, archbishops or cardinals read this statement and weep? Will Bernard Law, comfortable in Rome, care? Will any of the priests here who don't (or won't) understand the pain and disillusionment of the laity get a clue? I am not optimistic. I can only pray for a new showering of the Holy Spirit upon those who choose not to hear or understand.

Archbishop Martin's words condemn the protectiveness & the "blame the victim/blame the lawyer" attitude of the bishops, collectively & individually, in the U.S. The U.S. scandal would not have "gone away", but the defensiveness of the bishops in the U.S. has helped the scandal to remain in the hearts & minds of the victims, victims' parents and, indeed, in all of us. We have been disabused of our belief that our bishops were mature & responsible men. Their own attitudes have led us to distrust them with our children, with fiscal responsibility, and our spiritual lives. The bishops have sinned and have not yet admitted it even to themselves. They are not leaders...even leaders with clay feet have the ability to apologize without excusing their behavior.

When will the bishops (and those above them in the ranks) admit what they have truly done?

We're still waiting.

The filthy Irish religion racket, now revealed for all to see, must be brought to an end, and Ireland must no longer be permitted to use the United States as a dropping off point for its perverted criminals who wear Roman collars. Irish priests must be prohibited from entering the United States, and all those who are here, and who are not citizens, should be deported at once. Any Irish priest who has become a citizen should be investigated, and if irregularities or misconduct is found, that person's citizenship should be revoked, and he should be returned.

Thank God there is at least one bishop who is speaking out honestly about the criminal activities of abusing priests and enabling bishops. Canon law, as well as civil war, was violated by those bishops who secretly enabled abuse while concurrently preaching a rigid sexual morality on the Irish people. No wonder people have lost confidence in the Catholic Church's hierarchy.

As one commentator opined, "These revelations are shocking but not surprising." Interestingly, it is shocking but not surprising that the Irish church and the American church were on the same page when it came to how they handled the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious. In both countries the reputation of the church and priests were put ahead of the welfare of innocent children and their families. And this is something which should never be forgotten: were it not for the publicity which revealed this sordid secret, the bishops would have continued to protect the abusers.

In this country, Cardinal George has stated that the bishops need to get out of the prison of the sexual abuse scandal. Instead, he and his brother bishops in the United States, Ireland, and in every other country where abuse was tolerated and enabled should be put in prison or, at least, should be made to resign. The bishops have put into place procedures for dealing with abusing priests. Where are the procedures for dealing with bishops who enabled criminal acts against children?

Oh, does he now?

Then why is he defending his predecessor against the criticisms in the report?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/martin-defends-connell-over-his-...

Perhaps Mr. Roberts and the reporter who wrote the above story were stood on opposite sides of the Archbishop's mouth!

Yes, what Cardinal Martin says is true and heartfelt. There is not one statement by an American cardinal, archbishop or bishop that comes close to this.Why is this? Why have we had such pablum, such jejune, banal and insipid sentiments expressed by Americans? Cardinal Martin's statements do not seem to be lawyer inspired as is evident in the American
so-called apologies. What a shame that in this country there is no shame; there is only the usual fear of the monetary, the scandalous. Thank God, that at least there are some left in the church of his caliber.

Here are 3 Irish Times Editorials and very recent articles on the Irish Church. Some of the comments offer some creative and revealing options for what next can the Irish people do with such Church leaders...
1) "Church Relationship with Irish society has itself been abusive"
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1128/1224259619182.html
2) "Mental reservation and the Church's version of truth"
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1128/1224259619053.html
3) "Pressure mounts on Bishops named in abuse report to resign"
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/1128/1224259622606.ht...

Original links brought to notice on the Catholica.com.au website -- http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?id=37685.

Sometimes, it pays to be on the early side of the International Date Line!

Let's hope the next bishop in this country that gives a sworn deposition on this horror has the guts to say: "The sexual abuse of a child is and always was a crime in civil law; it is and always was a crime in canon law; it is and always was grievously sinful." So far (especially here in the midwest) none has had the guts to say it. Instead they have (and continue to say) the mantra of psychobabble about their 'discoveries' in the early 1980s.

I think the archbishop will need to do more, and do it for a longer period of time. The scandal isn't about the abuse. Catholics mostly recognize and lament that individuals will commit grave sin and sexually misbehave. The scandal is about the cover-up. If and when he is prepared to change structures of secrecy, label harboring of sex predators a sin, and take public steps to reconcile and heal, then we might see a cooling of this anger against him and the hierarchy.