9 priests in my diocese have sexually abused a minor/minors since 1968

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I just meant priests that are saying stuff like “it happened 40 years ago” or “most of the abusers are dead.” a priest I know in my diocese that I liked a lot recently posted that on facebook. I’m very, VERY bothered by it because those statements miss the point entirely.
 
I thinking loving and serving the Church has come to mean something - almost 180 degrees off in some cases - from loving and serving Christ. The Church in its all too human form has supplanted orthodox Christianity. It is the corruption of the institution, the defensiveness about things like reputation, prestige, status quo, career advancement that is so repellent - the dishonesty and deception - not to mention perversions - you can’t help but see right through it to something very human and very not God.
 
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Factually, they are correct. I know it is probably not the “right” thing to say right now, as some of the CAF apologists in their “Do’s and Don’ts when addressing the scandal” column noted.

Speaking as someone who was involved in the legal process of child sex abuse prosecutions once upon a time, 40 years ago is also about an eon ago in terms of the development of the law and understanding of this subject.

Both of these responses are likely to just cause people to blow steam out their ears while jumping up and down and screaming…but they are facts.
 
keeping it from the public didn’t happen 40 years ago. that’s the point of contention
 
Again, you’re a lawyer. Does it not make sense to you why these things were not shared with the public? We have a discovery process in the USA. If there is a need for the public to know then the public is supposed to go through the legal process to get.

We also have “innocent until proven guilty” and we also require the P to prove liability in a civil case. No potential D is going to hand ammunition to the other side.
 
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the church ought to operate according to higher standards. that’s all. according to the 1917 code of canon law, priests that were caught sexually abusing boys/girls were ousted and defrocked. I don’t know why this isn’t being done
 
Many if not most of the accused priests who are not dead have been laicized and/or had their priestly faculties restricted. It is a fair point that in some cases this took way longer than it should have, but the Church did do it.

Have you read the lists of names on the Diocesan websites and the status of each priest? Each diocese published the full list of unredacted names. I frankly found that more informative than the lurid and incomplete stuff in the Grand Jury report.
 
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you’re right, we do have “innocent until proven guilty.” the problem is many in the church did all they could to avoid bringing the matter to the courts.
 
Again, that is how a defendant acts. If you were the lawyer for the church, it would be your duty to advise them to do that, most likely. Same as if they were a large company or a large institution of any sort. Because your duty would be to minimize the risk and minimize the harm to your client.

You can reasonably expect the Church to have tossed these guys out of the priesthood a lot faster than they did and not just keep shuffling them around for years. But you can’t reasonably expect the Church to voluntarily incriminate itself.
 
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sure, I probably would. but as an entity, it would be better for the church to be as transparent as possible when so much of her survival depends on public image.
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
the church ought to operate according to higher standards. that’s all. according to the 1917 code of canon law, priests that were caught sexually abusing boys/girls were ousted and defrocked. I don’t know why this isn’t being done
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Huh?

It’s still being done. Maybe not in every case (and maybe it should be done in every case), but there have been many priests in the last 20 years that have been defrocked due to sexually abusing boys, girls and adults.

 
that’s what i’m saying, it’s discretionary now. I think it should be done in EVERY SINGLE CASE
 
No, her survival does NOT depend on public image.
The Church survives because of the grace and protection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s the Church, not IBM or the Trump Administration.
To those of us who are in the Church because Jesus is within, “public image” matters not.

I just got done saying the Litany of Humility, a prayer which gives me the heebie jeebies, but it is required for the Novena for our Nation, so I say it, and maybe it’s a lesson I need to learn.
It is basically a prayer asking the Lord to keep you from caring about being despised and embarrassed and mocked and all that stuff. It is a prayer asking the Lord to give you the grace to not care 2 hoots about “public image”.

A church built on prayers like that is not depending on its public image to survive.

Granted, it’s nice to have a nice public image. It keeps up morale among the ranks. It makes other people want to join (even though they might be pretty weak members, at least to start, if they’re drawn to “public image” without more.)
But we can’t walk out on Jesus because the Church is having an image problem this week. It already has a huge image problem because it doesn’t support abortion, gay rights, women priests, premarital sex, and all the other stuff the culture thinks is good.
 
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I just think that the church should be more forthcoming with what they know
 
This has really shaken my admiration and trust in the priesthood. I’ve always looked up to them as our guides in this wicked age. I know that there are more good priests than bad, but now I don’t know who to trust anymore. I love my parish priests, but I hope and pray that they haven’t nor will ever be corrupted.
 
Don’t worry about the bad ones. Look to the good ones as your guides. Is it hard? Yeah. If it was easy, you would never hear cases of people unknowingly marrying serial killers, pedophiles, etc. People who enjoy doing bad things will always look for easy targets. Just like people who break into homes…they look for neighborhoods with a high trust factor where they leave their doors unlocked. If the priesthood was perfect and safe…then we would have never had Judas.

Just fyi, I’m nit saying we should ignore the bad priests. We should totally punish them appropriately and keep them far away from victims like every other criminal. Just stay vigilant and know that the devil will always try any trick to get you to turn your back on God. God allows free will so we can all choose our own eternal path to heaven or hell.
 
You are going to go through several stages in dealing with this. It’s perfectly normal. It’s a bit like those 5 stages of grief. Where we finally come to acceptance. I pray your diocese has strong leadership through this. It’s not enough to just publish a list of names, both priests and laity , and then leave people to it.

We have help available here for people struggling with it all. I pray you do too
 
I think I wanted to believe a lot of this was not true or exaggerated or was in the past. This Philadelphia scandal is distracting from other issues such as modern day sexual activity and predators in the priesthood and hierarchy, seminaries, Curia, happening now. There is a lot more than just this - that is what those in the know all say - and they always prove right. Everybody handles these things differently in terms of faith. Believing in the RCC is a lot more work than believing in Christ rising from the cross. I think the sheep really have to visibly break from the goats.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013...omosexuality-ticking-time-bomb_n_2765550.html
This is 2013.
 
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Not right now, no. As my mother always taught me, you can see people’s faces but never their heart. Just observe your priests and trust your gut. It is usually right. For now, just pray/talk to God as another post suggested. Express your grief to Him. Go through your stages of grief as another post suggested. This is a true statement. We do go through stages when we are blindsided. You’ll feel better. hug
 
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