New documents show how the former Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- and his successor Reinhard Marx failed to properly deal with a suspected pedophile. Despite massive allegations of abuse, the archdiocese allowed the priest to continue working with children.
The priest H. had put a great deal of effort into his letter of application. On a summer afternoon in 1980, he copied photos and articles from local newspapers and church newsletters and provided a comprehensive description of his dedicated work with the young people of Munich's parish of St. Johannes Evangelist, as a way of recommending himself for higher office.
He submitted his request directly to the head of the archdiocese at the time. He wrote "For the personal attention of His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger" on the envelope and delivered the letter directly to the addressee on the morning of July 31, 1980, as members of the Catholic parish recall today. H. told colleagues in the rectory that, at the age of 32, he felt that he was getting a bit old to be an assistant priest; he now wanted to have his own parish.
It appears that "His Eminence" dealt with the letter. At any rate, the disappointed priest later told members of his parish that Cardinal Ratzinger felt that H. should remain in his position at St. Johannes Evangelist for the time being, since the old priest was often ill and he was so popular among the young people in the neighborhood.
Read complete report:
Lies & Lies & Still More Lies - Consistent With Benedict XVI’s Past | Define Benedict XVI’s Meaning of - GRAVE MISCONDUCT – Did not refer to child sexual abuse or bishops cover-ups
Pope Sought in Past to Punish Errant Priests, Report Says - By Rachel Donadio, December 1, 2010 – The New York Times
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI pushed for “more rapid and simplified” procedures to punish errant priests as far back as 1988, when he was the Vatican’s chief doctrinal officer, but his request was not met, according to documents released by the Vatican on Wednesday.
At the height of the sexual abuse crisis last spring, Benedict’s defenders said he had long argued for disciplining priests who had been found guilty of grave misconduct, while other Vatican officials advocated more lenience. The new documentation is the most comprehensive made public to date supporting those claims.
It comes amid new reports in the German media questioning the pope’s record as archbishop of Munich when a known pedophile priest was transferred to his diocese.
The new documentation, released online Wednesday by the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, appeared to defend the pope against claims that as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office he was part of a culture of inaction and delay that failed to swiftly discipline priests who had abused minors.
Read more:
30 years of Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s - Directives To Hierarchy – To make - THREATS, SILENCE, HARM AND DISPOSAL of Catholic Personnel Supportive of LGBT Adults and Children
Ratzinger, Hurley, Maida & Accomplices - Kids Are Being Hurt!!! (Sequential Order of Reactions)” November 28, 2010
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Emile Zola
What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.
Luke 12:3
AUTHORITARIAN ≠ AUTHORITATIVE Benedict XVI UNSUBSTANTIATED Antigay Teachings, November 29, 2010
Ignorance, Arrogance, Indifference - Propaganda - BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS – November 27, 2010
Active Hate Group - Benedict XVI UNSUBSTANTIATED Antigay Teachings - Anti-Gay Rhetoric | Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
Smokescreens
for
BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS
“What the Pope Knew”
Gary Tuchman,
September 25, 2010,
CNN & CNN International
(Investigative documentary)
video
Read more/related links:
Priest says he was pressurised into taking blame for pope
– by PADDY AGNEW, DEREK SCALLY and PATSY McGARRY
4/19/10
Priest says he was bullied into taking fall for Pope in abuse scandal
- The Local – 4/18/10
Germany’s News In English – read more
Ratzinger & Vatican
“They did as much as they had at each point in time given the public outcry, and no more.”
Katrin Bennhold – 4/27/10
The New York Times – read more
“…the church must … end its campaign to block the weak and the vulnerable from receiving help to deal with the consequences of criminal sexual abuse.”
By Lawrence Lessig – 4/26/10
The New York Times – read more
Hurricane Katrina - Nancy Pelosi - Washington, DC – 2005
& Accountability
Benedict XVI Child Sexual Abuse
Who Can Mock This Church?
By Nicholas D. Kristof
May 1, 2010
The New York Times
Pope hits out at 'unjust and offensive' accusations over Boffo resignation
Richard Owen
Times Online – February 9, 2010
The Pope has deplored as "unjust and offensive" accusations that Vatican officials close to him were behind smears which last year forced the resignation of Dino Boffo, a Catholic editor critical of Silvio Berlusconi's sexual conduct.
In an unusual statement the Secretariat of State, headed by Cardiinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's deputy, said there was "a defamatory campaign under way against the Holy See which involves the Roman pontiff himself"…
…La Repubblica said the move was part of a power struggle between the Vatican and Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) and his predecessor, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, with the Vatican at odds with the Italian bishops over their involvement in Italian politics.
However in a recent editorial in Il Giornale Mr Feltri said he did not know either Cardinal Bertone or Mr Vian, and had never met them. Today's Vatican statement said reports that either Mr Vian or Gendarmerie sources were involved in the plot to oust Mr Boffo or had "inspired it" were "false" and "completely without foundation".
The statement said the Pope had been kept fully informed of the affair, and that he deplored "these unjust and offensive attacks".
The pontiff had "renewed his full confidence" in his advisers and staff, and urged "those who have the good of the Church at heart" to use every means at their disposal to affirm "truth and justice". The Pope recently confirmed Cardinal Bertone in office even though he has reached the retirement age of 75.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Vatican Congregation of Bishops, who is close to the Pope, rejected the allegation that Vatican officials had been behind the smear against Mr Boffo as "unthinkable" and "a squalid manoeuvre".
When he resigned last September Mr Boffo said he had been besmirched "for days and days in a war of words which has wrecked my family and stunned Italians".
He said the "defamatory" attacks by Mr Feltri had "violated my life" and amounted to "a desire to desecrate which I could not have imagined existed".
Read complete report:
Italian Catholic scandal draws in Pope Benedict
By NICOLE WINFIELD – AP
abc NEWS/International – February 9, 2010
A scandal in Italy's Catholic Church has morphed into a tale of Vatican intrigue complete with forged documents, reports of dueling cardinals and a papal admonishment Tuesday to put the matter to rest.
The scandal erupted in August, when the newspaper Il Giornale reported that it had court documents showing the editor of the newspaper of the Italian Bishops' Conference had paid to settle charges that he harassed the wife of a man he was romantically pursuing…
Italian newspapers routinely publish unsourced stories about machinations in the Vatican. Rarely, though, do such reports elicit thorough and high-ranking denials.
On Tuesday, however, Bertone issued a statement saying that reports of Vatican involvement were false and that Pope Benedict XVI himself "deplored these unjust and insulting attacks" that were "defaming the Holy See."
L'Osservatore Romano ran the statement on its front page with a note saying Benedict had approved the text and ordered it published.
The statement — unusual in its line-by-line denial of unsourced rumors — was confirmation that the case had reached the highest echelons of power in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, making clear that the pope had become personally involved.
Read complete report:
Vatican Asking For Male Prostitutes
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”
Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back.
The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.
Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.
The explosive claims about Balducci's private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.
While Catholicism does not condemn homosexuality outright, its teaching is that homosexual acts "are intrinsically disordered". The Catechism of the Catholic church states unequivocally: "Under no circumstances can they be approved."
Balducci was arrested on 10 February, suspected of involvement in widespread corruption. A senior Italian government official, he is alleged to have to steered public works contracts towards favoured bidders. He has not been charged.
Read complete article - by John Hooper – quardian.co.uk
Related links:
Gay Prostitution Probe Rocks Vatican - 2 Officials At Center Of Investigation In What Officials Call An 'Organized' Male Prostitution Ring – CBS NEWS
Vatican chorister hired escorts for papal attendant: Report - Montreal Gazette
Pope embarrassed by Vatican gay sex scandal - By GayNZ.com
The Church and Gays: Can't Decide Whether to ""Love" 'Em" or Leave 'Em?" - By Jodi Jacobson, Editor, RH Reality Check
“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.”
Though you drive Nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back. MW
Vatican’s MALE PROSTITUTES | “Pope Benedict endorses condom use — for male prostitutes only” By The Associated Press, November 20, 2010 – Raw Story
Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop the spread of HIV, a stunning comment for a church criticized for its opposition to condoms and for a pontiff who has blamed them for making the AIDS crisis worse. Read more:
MALE PROSTITUTES | Pope: Condoms to stop AIDS may be OK in some cases – November 29, 2010 - msnbc.com
“This is about the reckless endangerment of children in a calculated, purposeful strategy to protect the institutional Church”
December 2, 2009
Ireland released a report into 30 years of Catholic priest abuse of children in Dublin that found the police frequently looked the other way to protect accused clerics.
Dublin, Ireland
That the Catholic church covered up sexual abuse by priests for years is hardly news anymore. But the highest-profile investigation into abuse allegations yet in Ireland found another breach of public trust: The Garda Síochána, the police force for the republic, failed to investigate reports of priest abusing children and conspired to protect Catholic officials in Dublin for 30 years. Photo
The commission on child abuse by Catholic priests in Dublin led by Judge Yvonne Murphy released its long-awaited report on the matter last week. Justice Murphy's commission investigated how allegations of child sex abuse by priests in the Catholic archdiocese of Dublin were dealt with by both state and church authorities from 1975 to 2004. The report slammed the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland and, for the first time, reprimanded state agencies, particularly the Garda. Photo
Unlike the Catholic sex abuse scandal uncovered by The Boston Globe in the archdiocese of Boston in 2002 where, instead of reporting the incidents to police, the dioceses directed the offenders to seek psychiatric treatment, in Ireland children, parents, and others reported suspicions of abuse to police but investigations did not follow. Many cases were simply referred back to church authorities instead. Photo Boston
Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy said that the report exposed "misguided or undue deference" shown by the police to religious institutions and said, "That has no place in criminal investigations, it certainly has no place in 2009 under my watch." "This is not about failings or learning curves. This about the reckless endangerment of children in a calculated, purposeful strategy to protect the institutional Church," said the abuse charity One in Four in a press release.
Read complete article
Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' – 2006 - London Evening Standard – standard.co.uk
The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.
In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety.
The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, witnesses and perpetrator not to talk about it. And, to keep victims quiet, it threatened that if they repeat the allegations they would be excommunicated.
The Panorama special, Sex Crimes And The Vatican, investigates the details of this little-known document for the first time. The programme also accuses the Catholic Church of knowingly harbouring paedophile clergymen. It reveals that priests accused of child abuse are generally not struck off or arrested but simply moved to another parish, often to reoffend. It gives examples of hush funds being used to silence the victims.
Before being elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April last year, the pontiff was Cardinal Thomas Ratzinger who had, for 24 years, been the head of the powerful Congregation of the Doctrine of The Faith, the department of the Roman Catholic Church charged with promoting Catholic teachings on morals and matters of faith. An arch-Conservative, he was regarded as the 'enforcer' of Pope John Paul II in cracking down on liberal challenges to traditional Catholic teachings.
Five years ago he sent out an updated version of the notorious 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis - Latin for The Crime of Solicitation - which laid down the Vatican's strict instructions on covering up sexual scandal. It was regarded as so secret that it came with instructions that bishops had to keep it locked in a safe at all times.
Read complete report:
Church in worst credibility crisis since Reformation,
theologian tells bishops
by HANS KÜNG,
April 16, 2010 – The Irish Times
Pope Benedict has made worse just about everything that is wrong with the Roman Catholic Church and is directly responsible for engineering the global cover-up of child rape perpetrated by priests, according to this open letter to all Catholic bishops.
…
Pope Benedict XVI seems to be increasingly cut off from the vast majority of church members who pay less and less heed to Rome and, at best, identify themselves only with their local parish and bishop.
I know that many of you are pained by this situation. In his anti-conciliar policy, the pope receives the full support of the Roman Curia. The Curia does its best to stifle criticism in the episcopate and in the church as a whole and to discredit critics with all the means at its disposal. With a return to pomp and spectacle catching the attention of the media, the reactionary forces in Rome have attempted to present us with a strong church fronted by an absolutistic “Vicar of Christ” who combines the church’s legislative, executive and judicial powers in his hands alone. But Benedict’s policy of restoration has failed. All of his spectacular appearances, demonstrative journeys and public statements have failed to influence the opinions of most Catholics on controversial issues. This is especially true regarding matters of sexual morality. Even the papal youth meetings, attended above all by conservative-charismatic groups, have failed to hold back the steady drain of those leaving the church or to attract more vocations to the priesthood.
You in particular, as bishops, have reason for deep sorrow: Tens of thousands of priests have resigned their office since the Second Vatican Council, for the most part because of the celibacy rule. Vocations to the priesthood, but also to religious orders, sisterhoods and lay brotherhoods are down – not just quantitatively but qualitatively. Resignation and frustration are spreading rapidly among both the clergy and the active laity. Many feel that they have been left in the lurch with their personal needs, and many are in deep distress over the state of the church. In many of your dioceses, it is the same story: increasingly empty churches, empty seminaries and empty rectories. In many countries, due to the lack of priests, more and more parishes are being merged, often against the will of their members, into ever larger “pastoral units,” in which the few surviving pastors are completely overtaxed. This is church reform in pretense rather than fact!
And now, on top of these many crises comes a scandal crying out to heaven – the revelation of the clerical abuse of thousands of children and adolescents, first in the United States, then in Ireland and now in Germany and other countries. And to make matters worse, the handling of these cases has given rise to an unprecedented leadership crisis and a collapse of trust in church leadership.
There is no denying the fact that the worldwide system of covering up cases of sexual crimes committed by clerics was engineered by the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger (1981-2005). During the reign of Pope John Paul II, that congregation had already taken charge of all such cases under oath of strictest silence. Ratzinger himself, on May 18th, 2001, sent a solemn document to all the bishops dealing with severe crimes ( “epistula de delictis gravioribus” ), in which cases of abuse were sealed under the “secretum pontificium” , the violation of which could entail grave ecclesiastical penalties. With good reason, therefore, many people have expected a personal mea culpa on the part of the former prefect and current pope. Instead, the pope passed up the opportunity afforded by Holy Week: On Easter Sunday, he had his innocence proclaimed “urbi et orbi” by the dean of the College of Cardinals…
Read complete open letter:
Catholic Church sex abuse documents made public
By Gillian Flaccus,
Associated Press, October 25, 2010 - Salon
10,000 pages of litigation-related paperwork reveal the Diocese of San Diego's disturbing history
Nearly 10,000 pages of previously sealed Catholic church documents have been made public and showed that the Diocese of San Diego long knew about abusive priests, some of whom were shuffled from parish to parish despite credible complaints against them.
After a three-year legal battle over the diocese's internal records, a retired San Diego Superior Court judge ruled late Friday that they could be made public. Attorneys for 144 people claiming sex abuse made the papers public Sunday.
The records are from the personnel files of 48 priests who were either credibly accused or convicted of sexual abuse or were named in a civil lawsuit. They include a decades-old case in which a priest under police investigation was allowed to leave the U.S. after the diocese intervened…
Read more:
New Rules Affirm Pope Benedict's Stance Against Gays
By Daniel Williams,
October 8, 2005 – The Washington Post
ROME, Oct. 8 -- In the first five months of Pope Benedict XVI's reign, stern opposition to homosexuality in and outside the Roman Catholic Church has quickly become a prime public message for the Vatican.
The new pontiff plans to issue guidelines that attempt to inhibit homosexuals from entering seminaries to train for the priesthood. Church inspectors have embarked on a tour of U.S. seminaries and, according to their working papers, are tasked to ask: "Is there evidence of homosexuality in the seminary? (This question must be answered.)"
Benedict also has energetically fought legal recognition of homosexual couples.
For the church and for Benedict, taking a public stance on homosexuality is not unusual. Church observers have noted that for the quarter-century before becoming pope, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, served as the Vatican's chief enforcer of orthodoxy, drafting official positions regarding homosexuality.
"No doctrinal chief has ever written and spoken about homosexuality as extensively as Ratzinger has, because homosexuals have never had the freedom to organize and demand recognition they enjoy today," wrote author John L. Allen Jr. in a biography of Benedict, published before he became pope.
His papacy's early focus on homosexuality is a reaction to outside events, some analysts have said: the spread of so-called civil unions or marriage rights to same-sex couples, and the disclosure of sexual abuse by priests. Vatican officials have largely blamed the abuse on homosexuality…
Some bishops note that the church already has prohibitions on homosexuals from entering the priesthood and suggest that a restatement will only make the church look intolerant, Vatican officials say…
Read complete report:
Professor's view:
Witch hunt for gay priests off base
when target
should be child abusers
By: Iver Bogen,
University of Minnesota Duluth - Duluth News Tribune
Pope Benedict XVI in August 2005 ordered an investigation of America’s 229 Catholic seminaries in order to eliminate gay seminarians. The week of Sept. 27, Vatican investigators began the “witch-hunt” at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. The question posed to the students: “Are you, or have you ever been, a homosexual?”
The investigation was reminiscent of the house arrest of Galileo in his home near Florence from 1633 until his death in 1642 for espousing the Copernican heliocentric view of the universe. The church does not suffer “heretical” thinking well and is extremely slow in altering its doctrines to be consistent with scientific progress as well as changes in cultural mores regarding acceptable human behaviors… photo
… It is my belief the Catholic Church’s focus on gay priests is merely a strategy for affixing blame and is consistent with its historical antipathy toward homosexuality and same-sex behaviors. However, research in the area of child sexual abuse suggests that pedophilic intrusions occur preponderantly with heterosexual males rather than gay men. It is not one’s orientation that is predictive of pedophilia. According to Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy, “The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or women.”
Being immature psycho-sexually, these men find themselves responding sexually to other males who also are immature. One’s orientation is not predictive of pedophilia. Read complete article - By: Iver Bogen, University of Minnesota Duluth - Duluth News Tribune
Watergate 1973
Ripping Open An Incredible Scandal
(TIME, April 30, 1973) -- The denials, the evasions, the secretiveness, and, yes, the lies, all had failed. The Watergate case was breaking wide open. A 10-month campaign by some of the highest past and present officials of the Nixon Administration to cover up their involvement was crumbling. Read more - CNN TIME Photo Nixon
Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse
“cover-ups”
ordered by Benedict XVI
to avoid public outrage & criminal charges
- falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE?
No “Checks and Balances”
A major problem with the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church is that there are no “checks and balances.” When the necessary “checks and balances” are not in place to protect any organization, it leaves “not making waves” the rule that governs the hierarchy and opens the way to many devastating mistakes harmful to everyone and allows corruption to grow.
The following statements are harsh statements, but unfortunately they are heavily documented. (1) Benedict XVI and his hierarchy failed to protect children from child sexual abuse for decades. (2) They mistreated and intimidated the victims and their families who came to report the child sexual abuse, in order to cover up publicity of any child sexual abuse. (3) They failed to protect children by repeatedly reassigning the child sexual abusers to assignments where children would be present. (4) When the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children became public, globally, in 2002 they shifted the blame wrongfully onto gay priests. Photo
Read complete report:
Child Protection Service of the Archdiocese of Dublin http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
(5) By falsely, against known research to the contrary, blaming gay priests they implicated the entire LGBT community and how they are fighting against Marriage Equality. When the scientific facts known for decades about human sexuality have been discounted with no substantiated facts given to explain why, it causes many questions whether Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s fight against Marriage Equality is more a fight to maintained the cover-up of the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children? Benedict XVI and his hierarchy need to clearly offer substantiated reasons why they are against Marriage Equality. This statement needs to be spelled out in great detail and follow Pope John Paul II’s test of truth of not separating science and religion. Photo Nixon
(6) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous public propaganda against homosexuality encourages public intolerance towards LGBTQ&I adults and children. They continue to do this even though this summer 2 major Christian denominations approved LGBT singled and partnered people for all forms of ordained ministries. (7) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous promulgation of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings that are harmful to children in their early childhood psychological developmental years, harm that is crippling throughout their lives. They have continued this even after the beginning of the year, 2009, the Family Acceptance Project research studies had shown the negative effects caused to youths, when their sexual orientation is not accepted, having health problems, suicidal ideation, etc. They ignore all the major medical, psychiatric, psychological and social workers national and international professional associations regarding their findings regarding human sexuality and sexual orientation. WHEN DO WE START PROTECTING CHILDREN?!?!
Written by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
December 17, 2009 – Revised January 15, 2010
July 2010
President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
50 United States Governors
Dear -- --------,
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, a Roman Catholic priest from the Diocese of Grand Rapids Michigan ordained June 16, 1979.
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling "different" is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics, the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and last throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but also affect their families, siblings, friends and anyone whom they might consider special in their lives. They are a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which place at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. They stifle an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offering better ways of maintaining peace among people and improving the quality of life for everyone in the world.
Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-separation-between-church.html
GAY YOUTH SUICIDE | BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS Child Sexual Abuse Cover-ups – Negligence Protecting (1) Children & (2) LGBT Children | Family of Rutgers suicide victim lends name to bill – November 19, 2010 – CNN
Protecting Children from the Church's Abuse Of Power
by William F. McMurry
November 19, 2010 – The Huffington Post
The world continues to watch with genuine interest as the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church parades masks of contrition before the media, in an effort to convince the faithful that the Church has turned the corner on the clergy sexual abuse crisis. On Nov. 19, a gathering of Cardinals from every corner of the Church's influence will convene in Rome at the request of the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI. This meeting of Cardinals will include a discussion about the Vatican's response to sexually abusive priests…
This week, as the most powerful officials of the most politically influential religious organization in the world gather to discuss the Church's response to the priest sexual abuse scandal, the stark contrast between those with power and those with none could not be more profound. The Church continues to operate in complete secrecy, without any governmental oversight or accountability. This confluence reminds me of Lord Acton's most famous quote regarding the corruption inherent in power. Most readers will know this oft-quoted phrase, but few, if any, will know that Lord Acton was speaking of the Pope when he wrote the following in a letter to Mandell Creighton in 1887:
“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did not wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Until the governments of our world wrestle the power over children away from religious organizations operating in secrecy and without accountability, justice will remain an elusive butterfly.
Read complete report:
“Crimes Against Humanity” BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS | “Clergy Abuse Victims Rally At Vatican”
by Sylvia Poggioli,
November 1, 2010 – National Public Radio NPR (NP)
Is Pope Benedict Guilty of Accessory to Rape After The Fact?
October 14, 2010 - I-Newswire
According to the Preacher Bureau of Investigation Pope Benedict has a lot of explaining to do.
In the US Judicial System there exists a felony charge called Accessory after the Fact. A suspect in the United States can be charged with this offense if he knowingly shelters or aids a criminal after they have committed a crime. Another serious felony charge in the United States is Child Endangerment which equates to placing a child in a potentially harmful situation through negligence or misconduct.
Pope Benedict has come under a tremendous amount of criticism because of his handling of cases that involved Priests who raped children. Pope Benedict in his role as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which deals with sex abuse cases is accused of moving pedophile priests from one Diocese to the next in order to conceal child rapists. As Prefect of this division of the Vatican, it was his sole responsibility to discipline Priests accused of raping children.
Read more:
“Someday,
maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of
all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.”
…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Photo
Matthew 18:6
Protect children and the entire world will be safe.
Important note: No disrespect meant to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children.
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
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