Miscellanea Agnostica

Pity the poor archdiocese of Los Angeles. It’s beset by huge bills which have racked up during several years of legal gamesmanship over its complicity in the abuse of children by its own clergy. It’s in dire financial straits, as the Los Angeles Times reports, and needs big money to pay it all off (WebCite cached article):

In the midst of renewed public outrage over its handling of clergy sex abuse, the Los Angeles Archdiocese is considering a $200-million fundraising campaign that could erase debts brought on by the scandal.

The archdiocese has hired a New York company, Guidance In Giving Inc., to study the feasibility of a large-scale fundraiser that would shore up a bottom line hit hard by costly abuse litigation. It would be the archdiocese’s first capital campaign in 60 years.

The archdiocese’s $660-million settlement in 2007 with more than 500 victims was the largest in U.S. history. According to a December financial report, the archdiocese is still paying down loans it used to cover the settlement, and its liabilities now outstrip its assets by $80 million.

Attempting such a massive fundraising campaign may be especially difficult, just now:

If the new fundraiser occurs, it would place Archbishop Jose Gomez in the potentially difficult position of seeking large contributions from people whose anger at the abuse scandal has been stoked anew. Files released in a court case last month showed how Gomez’s predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, and a high-ranking church official, Thomas J. Curry, plotted to hide molestation from police in the 1980s and 1990s.

How a fundraising push would resonate with parishioners remains an open question.

What a wonderful, moral way to handle a scandal: Spend years, if not decades, allowing clergy to abuse children; whenever there’s a risk the abusers may be caught, shuffle them around to keep it quiet; when you’re found out, issue denials and hang up the cases in court for years; when that runs out, blame the abuse and the intentional thwarting of justice on everything and everyone else you can think of; and finally consent to pay off your victims, but turn around and demand the money from your parishioners, because you staunchly refuse to cough up any of your own. Yeah, that’s the way to handle it. No doubt!

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: archbishop jose gomez, archdiocese of los angeles, cardinal roger mahony, catholic child abuse scandal, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, clerical child abuse scandal, guidance in giving, guidance in giving inc, jose gomez, los angeles, los angeles CA, priestly pedophilia, roger mahony, roman catholic, roman catholic church

Over the last 10 years or so, a lot of civil cases against Catholic dioceses have been launched and played out in courts around the country. A side-effect of these has been the sporadic release of administrative documents showing the Church’s complicity (usually after-the-fact) in child abuse committed by its clergy. This happened in San Diego a couple of years ago. A little to the north, as the Associated Press reports, the archdiocese of Los Angeles recently loosed its own trove of documents that reveal its own guilt (WebCite cached article):

Prosecutors who have been stymied for years in their attempts to build a criminal conspiracy case against retired Los Angeles Archdiocese Cardinal Roger Mahony and other church leaders said Tuesday they will review newly released internal priest files for additional evidence. …

Thousands of pages from the internal disciplinary files of 14 priests made public Monday show Mahony and other top aides maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark.

Some of the documents provide the strongest evidence to date that Mahony and a top aide worked to protect a priest who acknowledged in therapy to raping an 11-year-old boy and abusing up to 17 children, many of them the children of illegal immigrants.

These documents finally came to light — and they will be followed by more — due to a settlement over 5 years ago, whose terms the archdiocese only just now decided to obey:

The files of dozens more accused priests are expected to be released in the coming weeks as part of a 2007 settlement agreement with more than 500 alleged victims. A judge recently ruled that the church must turn the files over to attorneys for those people with the names and titles of members of the church hierarchy blacked out after The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times intervened.

The documents released Monday and the additional 30,000 pages expected soon raise the possibility of renewed criminal scrutiny for Mahony and other members of the archdiocese hierarchy. Mahony retired in 2011.

Despite the fact that these documents might reveal criminality, and even in spite of their own stated interest in them, prosecutors are still hedging, and aren’t promising much:

In a 2010 memo, a lead prosecutor in that eight-year investigation [launched in 2002] said the documents he had showed “the possibility of criminal culpability” by members of the archdiocese leadership, but a criminal conspiracy case was “more and more remote” because of the passage of time.

Deputy District Attorney William Hodgman said investigators had insufficient evidence to fill in a timeline stretching over 20 years and were, even then, hampered by the statute of limitations. He did not return a call or email seeking comment Tuesday.

It looks as though California prosecutors’ longstanding habit of giving the Church a “pass” is continuing; they have their rationale for not going after the archdiocese, and I expect they’ll stick with it. As usual.

One final note: Cardinal Mahony claims he’d been ignorant of the fact that child abuse is bad:

Mahony was out of town but issued a statement Monday apologizing for his mistakes and saying he had been “naive” about the lasting impacts of abuse.

Of course, his claim of ignorance is no excuse. Child abuse has been illegal — in California and lots of places — for a very long time. Mahony and his archdiocese was subject to a mandatory-reporting law beginning in 1997. Child abuse was wrong in the 1980s. It was wrong in the 1990s. And it’s wrong now. So he can’t credibly and rationally say he had no idea that child abuse wasn’t something he ought to try to prevent. Of course he knew it.

Note this is not the first time we’ve heard this sort of claim from a Catholic hierarch, in spite of how inexcusable it is. Former Milwaukee archbishop Rembert Weakland made a similar admission, a few years ago. Other hierarchs have expressed a flippant, dismissive attitude toward abuse allegations. Really, this is an old story. The hierarchs’ lack of anything remotely resembling morality has been on the record for many years. Yet, millions of Americans still cling to the Roman Catholic Church and continue to do the hierarchs’ bidding. Sad, really.

Photo credit: Reed Saxon / AP photo.

Tags: archdiocese of los angeles, cardinal roger mahony, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, catholic clerical child abuse, child abuse, clerical child abuse scandal, los angeles, los angeles CA, priestly pedophilia, priestly pedophilia scandal, roger mahony, roman catholic, roman catholic church

I’ve blogged about the worldwide Catholic clerical child-abuse scandal repeatedly over the last few years, and more than a few correspondents have complained that I seem to be targeting only Catholic abusers, and not those in other churches or faiths. (As though this somehow absolves abusive Catholic clerics of their guilt … to be honest I have no idea how that works, but it seems to be a common presumption among Catholic apologists.)

That said, it’s just not true that I’ve solely blogged about Catholic child abusers. I’ve stated explicitly — and repeatedly — that child abuse at the hands of clergy is not only a Catholic problem, and have highlighted this in lots of other blog posts on the matter.

This time, it’s my sad duty to report this scandal has hit the Anglican Church in its homeland. As the Guardian reports, a retired English bishop has been arrested and charged with abuses a couple decades ago (WebCite cached article):

The arrest of Bishop Peter Ball on suspicion of sexual offences against boys and men at addresses in East Sussex and elsewhere is the latest development in a wide-ranging and often contentious series of official inquiries into decades of alleged child protection failures in the diocese of Chichester on England’s south coast.

Sussex police said on Tuesday that Ball is suspected of committing offences [cached] during the late 1980s and early 90s, when he was Bishop of Lewes, with responsibility for most of the parishes of East Sussex.

As big a “catch” as this is, it seems to be merely the beginning of this case:

Ball is the highest-profile church figure yet to be arrested, but the attention the scandal is likely to receive is only set to rise. Between now and next April, three separate child abuse cases against priests in the diocese of Chichester will be heard at Lewes crown court.

It’s not as though this diocese hasn’t been investigated. The Guardian explains that there had been prior reviews of child-abuse cases there, and some of them had concluded there were failures. But, until now, there hadn’t been any arrests. There might be more, this time.

Once again we see similar behavior to what we’ve seen in other churches and faiths: A reflexive desire to protect the reputation — and wealth — of the organization, even at the cost of allowing children to be abused. To what degree the civil authorities went along with this desire, remains to be seen … but the multiple reported cases, over a few decades, had to have alerted them to the fact that someone unsavory was going on. Why they waited until now to take action, is incomprehensible.

Photo credit: SWNS.Com, via (UK) Guardian.

Tags: anglican church, bishop peter ball, chichester, child abuse, christian, Christianity, christians, church of england, clerical child abuse, clerical child abuse scandal, diocese of chichester, east sussex, england, peter ball, priestly pedophilia, sussex, uk

Over two years ago I blogged about a letter to the Irish Times in which the victim of a Roman Catholic priest’s abuse recalled the priest blaming him for his own heinous actions. I’ve also blogged many times about how the Roman Catholic considers the clerical child-abuse scandal that has spread like wildfire around the world for a decade or more, is not its own fault, but rather a vile attack upon God’s unwaveringly holy Church by Satan and the Forces of Darkness. These are in addition to the litany of other slimy excuses they’ve trotted out over the years.

Of course, Church officials haven’t often overtly blamed the victims for the abuse. They’re more likely to imply such a thing by their behavior, than say it out loud. Even so, every once in a while, some cleric or other lets it slip. ABC News reports on one recent example of it (WebCite cached article):

The Rev. Benedict Groeschel, 79, who hosts a weekly show on the Catholic television network EWTN, originally made the comments in an interview with the National Catholic Register. He also referred to convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky as a “poor guy.”

“People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to — a psychopath. But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer,” Groeschel was quoted as saying in the interview, which is no longer available on the paper’s website.

Groeschel even offered his own pet theory as to why these kids “seduce” pedophiles:

“Well, it’s not so hard to see. A kid looking for a father and didn’t have his own — and they won’t be planning to get into heavy-duty sex, but almost romantic, embracing, kissing, perhaps sleeping, but not having intercourse or anything like that. I’s an understandable thing, and you know where you find it, among other clergy or important people; you look at teachers, attorneys, judges, social workers,” Groeschel was quoted as saying.

Now, all of this is bad enough. But in the wake of the shitstorm this creature’s remarks have kicked up, Groeschel and the National Catholic Register took it all back. Sort of. They yanked the interview off their Web site and replaced it:

The interview has now been replaced by a statement from Fr. Benedict:

“I apologize for my comments,” it said. “I did not intend to blame the victim. A priest (or anyone else) who abuses a minor is always wrong and is always responsible. My mind and my way of expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be. I have spent my life trying to help others the best that I could. I deeply regret any harm I have caused to anyone.”

Jeanette R. De Melo, the site’s editor in chief, included her own apology for posting the interview.

“Child sexual abuse is never excusable,” she wrote. “The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel’s comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

These apologies are pathetic, however. Groeschel denies having said something which — in fact — he very clearly said, having elaborated on it with hypothetical scenarios to explain his position. He might not have “intended to blame the victim,” but he actually did do so … undeniably! And the NCR’s apology amounts to, “We’re sorry we got caught running something we shouldn’t have,” which is basically no apology at all. By removing the article, they tried to make it seem as though Groeschel hadn’t said anything heinous. Well, he has … and the Internet has taken notice.

I continue to wonder why lay Catholics keep swearing allegiance to an institution which is governed by a collection of amoral reprobates. I just don’t get it. Really, I don’t. Obviously there’s a lot more wrong with the Roman Catholic Church, than just the mafiosi who run it. They have legions of followers who apparently have no problem with what they’re doing and are happy to let them continue doing it.

Update: Groeschel is off the air at EWTN (cached).

Photo credit: ABC News.

Tags: benedict groeschel, catholic child abuse, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, catholic clerical child abuse, christian, Christianity, christians, clerical child abuse, clerical child abuse scandal, EWTN, fr benedict groeschel, jerry sandusky, pedophile, pedophilia, priestly pedophilia, rev benedict groeschel, roman catholic, roman catholic church, roman catholic clerical abuse

Just when you thought the R.C. Church couldn’t have reached a new low in depravity — for instance, they stole newborns from “wayward” mothers in Australia, and in Spain, and probably lots of other places — the (UK) Telegraph reveals the Church managed, back in the 50s, to have had boys mutilated because they were “homosexual” (WebCite cached article):

Evidence of the castrations has emerged amid controversy that it was not included in the findings of an official investigation into sexual abuse within the church last year.

The NRC Handelsblad newspaper identified Henk Heithuis who was castrated in 1956, while a minor, after reporting priests to the police for abusing him in a Catholic boarding home.

This particular form of abuse was apparently not included in an abuse report released a few months ago. The claim is that there was no way to trace the allegations, however, the real reason is that the report’s writers were trying to cover up government participation:

Evidence emerged on Monday that government inspectors were aware that minors were being castrated while in Catholic-run psychiatric institutions.

Minutes of meetings held in the 1950s show that inspectors were present when castrations were discussed. The documents also reveal that the Catholic staff did not think parents needed to be involved.

There are also allegations that Vic Marijnen, a former Dutch Prime Minister, who died in 1975, was linked to the case.

In 1956, Mr Marijnen was the chairman of the Gelderland children’s home where Mr Heithuis and other children were abused. He intervened to have prison sentences dropped against several priests convicted of abusing children.

The involvement of former prime minister Marijnen — even though he’s long since deceased — certainly might cast a shadow on the Dutch government, so it’s natural the report may have avoided this matter.

It’s amazing how the R.C. Church continues to lament its lack of influence on occidental society, and even pitches fits when it feels it’s being disrespected … but clearly the Church tore up and burned its “respect” card long ago. It no longer deserves anyone’s deference or respect. The sooner society understands this, the better off we’ll all be.

Oh, and once again, I have to ask all the lay Catholics out there who may read this (and since I’ve heard from some of you, I know you’re out there): When the hell do you plan to get the fuck off your sorry, lazy little asses and do something about the horrific monstrosity that is your own Church? Only you can change it. Either you have the courage to force it to change, or you don’t. But since you refuse to try, I can only assume you approve of this abusive behavior.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Hat tip: Mark at Skeptics & Heretics Forum on Delphi Forums.

Tags: castrati, castration, catholic child abuse, catholic child abuse scandal, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, catholic scandal, child abuse, christian, Christianity, christians, clerical child abuse, clerical child abuse scandal, dutch, dutch catholic church, gay, gays, gelderland, henk heithuis, holland, holy see, homophobia, homophobic, homosexual, homosexuals, mutilation, netherlands, priestly pedophilia, roman catholic, roman catholic church, vatican, vatican city, vic marijnen

I’ve already blogged about the case of Raymond Lahey, erstwhile Catholic bishop of Antigonish (NS), who was found to have had child porn on his computer. He pleaded guilty, and the CBC reports on his sentence, which appears rather lenient (WebCite cached article):

Raymond Lahey, the disgraced Roman Catholic bishop who admitted he was addicted to looking at child pornography, has been released from prison after being sentenced to time served.

He was sentenced Wednesday to 15 months in prison and two years probation but received a two-for-one credit for time served. Lahey pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography for the purposes of importation to Canada.

What’s ironic here is that, as a bishop — presumably at the same time that he was collecting child porn — Lahey had negotiated a settlement a substantial settlement over child abuse in his diocese. So one would assume he’d been well aware of the fact that what he was doing was wrong, and that it harmed children, at the time he was doing it. Moreover, it turns out his child porn was religiously-flavored:

The Crown’s case involved 588 photos and 63 videos, with the Crown pointing out that some involved adolescent boys engaged in sex acts while wearing a Crucifix and rosary beads.

Naturally the current bishop of Antigonish had some remarks on the sentencing:

In a written statement, the current bishop of Antigonish said many people have been disturbed and upset by Lahey’s case.

“This entire matter has caused a great deal of hurt, disappointment and anger within and outside of our Diocese,” said Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn.

“Church leaders are called to provide good example and to show moral integrity in their lives. When they commit serious moral failures, this can have a significant impact on the faith community.”

This sounds all nice and contrite, but that apparent contrition is contradicted by the fact that, in most cases (albeit apparently not in Lahey’s), the R.C. Church goes to bat for abusive clergy and refuses to acknowledge they might have done anything wrong. This repeated denial is a pattern of conduct the Church has exhibited around the world. And I find it difficult to believe they’ve given up this particular habit.

Photo credit: CBC.

Tags: antigonish, antigonish NS, canada, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, child abuse, child porn, christian, Christianity, christians, clerical abuse, clerical child abuse, clerical child abuse scandal, diocese of antigonish, nova scotia, pedophilia, priestly pedophilia, raymond lahey, roman catholic, roman catholic church, sentence, sentenced, sentencing

For the first time in the US, an actual member of the Roman Catholic hierarchy has been indicted for his role in a priestly-pedophilia scandal. The New York Times reports on this astonishing development (WebCite cached article):

The Roman Catholic bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Robert Finn, and the diocese he leads have been indicted by a county grand jury on a charge of failure to report suspected child abuse in the case of a priest who had been accused of taking lewd photographs of young girls.

The indictment [cached] is the first ever of a Catholic bishop in the 25 years since the scandal over sexual abuse by priests first became public in the United States.

The accusation is fairly stunning:

Bishop Finn is accused of neglecting to report abuse that occurred as recently as last year — almost 10 years since the nation’s Catholic bishops passed a charter pledging to report suspected abusers to law enforcement authorities.

The bishop has acknowledged that he knew of the existence of the photos last December but did not turn them over to the police until May.

We see, here, how strictly the American bishops live up to their promises. In two words … they don’t! Like the rest of the Catholic machine worldwide, these guys have all the morals and ethics of the Mafia.

Note that this is only a misdemeanor charge. However, that bishop Finn was charged at all, is monumental. I just hope the prosecutor sticks with this case, as small as it is, and doesn’t let go of it until a conviction has been won.

Photo credit: Wikipedia.

Tags: bishop robert finn, catholic child abuse, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse, catholic clerical abuse scandal, clerical child abuse scandal, diocese of kansas city-st joseph, jackson county MO, kansas city, kansas city diocese, kansas city MO, pornography, priestly pedophilia, robert finn, roman catholic, roman catholic church

It appears the government of Ireland is unruffled by the Vatican’s recent rejection of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s condemnation of the Vatican over its attempts to prevent secular governments from prosecuting child-abusing clergy. Almost immediately after the Vatican’s fierce denial, CNN reports that Justice Minister Alan Shatter proposed a new law that would hit the Church particularly hard (WebCite cached article):

Ireland stepped up its battle with the Roman Catholic Church over child abuse Sunday, with Justice Minister Alan Shatter vowing to pass a law requiring priests to report suspicions of child abuse, even if they learn about them in confession.

The Catholic Church regards information learned in confession as completely confidential.

But under the law proposed by Shatter, priests could be prosecuted for failing to tell the police about crimes disclosed in the confession box.

Shatter said in a statement through a spokesman last week that priests’ failure to report what they learn in confession “that has led sexual predators into believing that they have impunity and facilitated pedophiles preying on children and destroying their lives.”

The R.C. Church considers the confessional to be more sacred than almost anything else, so it’s sure to resist this law. Furthermore, even outside the confessional, the Church is vehemently opposed to any kind of mandatory-reporting requirement. This was a key sticking point in the Vatican’s rejection of changes in procedure which had been contemplated by Irish bishops in the mid-90s, and specifically and explicitly condemned in the (now famous but then secret) letter to Ireland’s bishops in January of 1997 (available at the NY Times and on this server):

In particular, the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature.

Shatter’s proposal, then, is especially provocative, and it strikes at the very heart of how the Vatican wishes to operate. Good for him … and good for the Irish government.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Tags: alan shatter, catholic child abuse scandal, catholic church, catholic clerical abuse scandal, christian, Christianity, christians, clerical child abuse scandal, confession, confessional, holy see, ireland, mandatory reporting, priestly pedophilia, priestly pedophilia scandal, roman catholic, roman catholic church, vatican, vatican city