by SSBubbles » Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:41 pm
silvercar wrote:IS anyone really surprised about this coming from a Priest in Cyprus?
They are the biggest con artists in the world, hiding behind that black cloak.
by Supertrotter » Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:37 am
Sotos wrote:Supertrotter wrote:Why should anyone be exempt from blatant examples of animal cruelty?
Do they not have rights too?
not really. For humans the most basic right is the right to live. Animals don't have even that. We butcher millions every day.
by kafenes » Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:33 am
The trial of John J. Geoghan, a former priest of the Archdiocese of Boston who is alleged to have molested more than 100 children, has been a distressing reminder that sexual abuse is committed by priests. It has also been a goad to action. Under pressure from the media and, in turn, civil authorities, the archdiocese has turned over to district attorneys the names of other priests against whom accusations have been made and has instituted a zero-tolerance policy with respect to future accusations. In doing so, it has served as a model for dioceses from Manchester, N.H., to Los Angeles, Calif. It has been a trying time for everyone involved and a test of faith for some, and served this Lent as a desert few of us would choose to enter but into which the church has been led.
Yet under the press of crisis, perspective has been compromised at points. Some in the media have suggested that clerical celibacy and the particular culture that it engenders is the underlying disorder, of which sexual abuse is but the most egregious symptom. Others, in Rome and at the Vatican, have been quoted as saying that this is an American problem or that it is evidence that a homosexual orientation is incompatible with the ordained priesthood. While the temptation to fix blame is understandable, yielding to it in these ways serves no good purpose and can distract from the need to understand and remedy a crisis that has caused untold suffering to victims and that threatens the lived experience of the priesthood. It may be more helpful, therefore, to understand the sexual abuse of children by priests within the broader context of child victimization, to measure the American experience against the experience of the church elsewhere and to make important and informed distinctions in the delicate and complex matter of sexual orientation.
by kafenes » Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:38 am
49 priests accused in archdiocese
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Study covers 50 years; abuse victims doubtful
By Dan Horn
The Cincinnati Enquirer
One out of every 17 priests who worked in southern Ohio during the last half century was accused of sexually abusing children.
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati released the numbers for the first time Wednesday as part of a national study on clergy abuse in America. The study is due out Friday, but the archdiocese disclosed its statistics early.
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Church officials said 49 priests - or 5.9 percent of all priests who worked in the archdiocese between 1950 and 2003 - were accused of abuse.
The abuse allegations involve 188 victims and more than $3.4 million in out-of-court settlements, legal fees and counseling for priests and victims.
Victims and their advocates immediately challenged the accuracy of the numbers, saying the disclosure Wednesday was akin to taxpayers doing their own IRS audits.
"I'm skeptical," said Christy Miller, leader of the Cincinnati branch of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "These are the same people who have spent decades and millions of dollars to hide the problem."
But church officials said their statistics include every sexual abuse complaint in their files.
"Some victims feel that we have not done enough," Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk wrote Wednesday in an open letter to southern Ohio's 550,000 Catholics. "I agree - because I don't think we can ever do enough.
"There is no way to fully repair damage done to a child."
American bishops ordered the disclosure of abuse statistics in 2002 amid a public outcry over clergy sexual abuse scandals across the country. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice compiled the statistics and will release them in a report Friday.
The report is expected to show that about 4 percent of the 110,000 priests who served between 1950 and 2002 have been accused of sexual abuse.
by kafenes » Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:44 am
Pope Given Priests ‘Sex Time Bomb’ Warning 30 Years Ago
by Roger Dobson and Maurice Chittenden in The Sunday Times, Dec. 22, 2002
The present Pope was among several Catholic bishops warned in a secret report more than 30 years ago that the church faced a potential “psychosexual” time bomb in the priesthood.
The report, which foreshadows the scandals over sexual abuse of children which have erupted in the church in recent years, was prepared for a synod of bishops at the Vatican in 1971. Its authors estimated that a quarter of clerics had psychiatric difficulties and most were emotionally immature.
Those at the synod included John Paul II, then Archbishop of Cracow, and the late Cardinal John Heenan, then Archbishop of Westminster and Catholic primate of Britain.
Lawyers representing alleged victims of child abuse by priests in Britain and America are studying the unpublished report by Dr Conrad Baars, a Dutch-born Catholic psychiatrist from Minnesota, based on the records of 1,500 priests treated for mental problems. Baars reported that “psychosexual immaturity expressed in heterosexual or homosexual activity was encountered often. Virtually all of these priests were . . . suffering from a severe to moderate frustration neurosis”.
The report, The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood, estimated that less than 15% of all priests in western Europe and North America were emotionally fully developed. Of the rest, 20-25% had serious psychiatric difficulties that often showed themselves in alcoholism; 60-70% suffered from lesser degrees of emotional immaturity.
Baars made 10 recommendations, including better vetting of applicants to the priesthood. None were implemented. Baars died in 1981.
“It was hugely prophetic. The description it gives of underdeveloped priests closely resembles the profile of priests who have sexually abused children and adolescents. Unfortunately those to whom it was presented did not heed it at all,” said Tom Doyle, an ecclesiastical lawyer and US air force chaplain.
Doyle has produced a history of clerical sexual abuse which estimates that over the past 15 years there have been 200 trials and 1,800 civil suits involving alleged sexual abuse by priests in America. Doyle, who has investigated many cases in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, has described Dublin as one of the worst cities in the world for covering up clerical child abuse.
Peter Garsden, a solicitor and vice-president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, said: “If the Catholic church saw the writing on the wall in 1971 and ignored it and didn’t provide counselling it is tantamount to bad practice and maladministration which will be the foundation for any action in negligence. It seems to be a highly damaging report.”
David Pearson, director of the London-based Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service which has carried out 4,000 individual checks on criminal records for churches in Britain, said the report would have been “ground-breaking” in 1971.
He added: “It is about time the church stopped making excuses and started to address the issue of the real pain caused to the victims.”
On Friday it was announced that the Irish Catholic Church’s Independent Commission on Child Sex Abuse is to be disbanded in light of the government’s plan to set up a wider inquiry.
by Paphitis » Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:49 am
GorillaGal wrote:SSBubbles wrote:Alas animal cruelty is a world-wide problem GG. Sad but true!
yes, but gladly in USA there would be jail time, not just a fine.
Inadequacies of American laws and suggested reforms
David Wolfson and Mariann Sullivan detail the exclusion of most animals from current anticruelty legislation in the U.S. They note that "approximately 9.5 billion animals die annually in food production in the United States" (Sunstein, 206). But the only federal legislation applicable to the killing of these animals, the Humane Slaughter Act, is administered through regulations that "exempt poultry, the result of which is that over 95 percent of all farmed animals ... have no federal legal protection from inhumane slaughter." What is more, "there are no fines available for violation of the statute and significant penalties are never imposed" (208). This is symptomatic. Anticruelty legislation generally allows people to do what they want under a façade of animal protection. For example, legislation enacted in 1877 regulates the rail transport of livestock to reduce cruelty, but it does not apply to transport by truck, and therefore does not apply to the overwhelming majority of livestock transportation. Just as bad, the maximum penalty for illegal animal transport by rail is $500.
Most state laws against cruelty to animals either exempt agriculture altogether-34 of 41 recently enacted statutes-or they exempt common, customary, or normal farming practices. Commonly practiced cruelty thus becomes legal in spite of an anticruelty statute that applies to agriculture. Wolfson and Sullivan provide vivid descriptions of common practices regarding laying hens, breeding pigs, and veal calves. Jim Mason and Mary Finelli, writing in the Singer collection, provide an even more vivid and complete picture of cruel treatment on factory farms in the United States.
by Oracle » Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:52 am
by GorillaGal » Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:24 pm
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