AOL article: Los Angeles diocese priest abuse

[Nohome]

buffalo:

Sure the scandal of a few has scandalized the many. There are thousands of faithful priests broadbrushed by this scandal.

I’m sure there were many good accountants at Anderson Consulting too, but there is no justice for individuals in a corrupt organization.

Is it wrong to try to protect your reputation?

At the cost of chindren’s lives? YES!

Nohome

 

[buffalo]

snoopy:

I am not asking why the abuse happened. Sick people are all around us. I am asking why the bishops and cardinals covered up the crimes and told victims to keep their mouths shut. I am outraged about that fact. I am also outraged that a few people insist that this is no big deal. What you don’t understand is that every time you deny the abuse, or the cover up, or state that everyone is picking on the church, or whine about the money being paid out to the victims, this is another stake in their heart. The victims should never have to explain themselves or their actions, or insist it wasn’t their fault. We should all know that. And we should be in their corner. What should have happened is that the matter should have been turned over to the authorities. Now it appears that you want a solution. Don’t you understand there can never be a solution for the victims as long as you keep covering up for the perpertrators and making excuses for them? The victims need our support. They need to hear that they did no wrong, their mothers did no wrong. The priests and heirarchy did wrong. We need to rally around them and give them our sympathy and listen to their horror stories. Let them get it out. Not call them liars or criticize them for not putting a stop to it, or insist that the church was just protecting itself. We need to be there for them and maybe then, only then, in time, there can begin a healing.

This is a story about a friend during the sixties. It is typical of the way these things were handled. The father respected the priesthood and the Church. He handled it confidentially.

My friend was kissed one time in the Sacristy. He eventually told his parents. His father went to the pastor. The father told the pastor he wanted this to stop. The pastor told him it would. The father said I am satisfied and I will not press charges. The pastor must have reported this to the Diocese for the priest was tranferred.

What we don’t know.

Whether the priest was put into counseling
Whether he repented
Whether he continued abusing
If he is still a priest.

 

[buffalo]

Nohome:

I’m sure there were many good accountants at Anderson Consulting too, but there is no justice for individuals in a corrupt organization.

At the cost of chindren’s lives? YES!

Nohome

Well let’s test this.

Say one of your colleagues in the workplace was a child abuser. Say he was reported to management. Say it made the papers and since you work for this corrupt organization, the community began to treat you too as an abuser.

How would you handle it? Would you try to protect your own reputation? your families? your children’s?

How would you distance yourself from this scandal?

C’mon get real here.

 

[Nohome]

buffalo:

Well let’s test this.

Say one of your colleagues in the workplace was a child abuser. Say he was reported to management. Say it made the papers and since you work for this corrupt organization, the community began to treat you too as an abuser.

How would you handle it? Would you try to protect your own reputation? your families? your children’s?

How would you distance yourself from this scandal?

C’mon get real here.

Your test has a slight flaw. Please allow me to ammend it.

Say one of your colleagues abused a child IN the work place as part of their job and has been identified as a child abuser. Say the organization found out and systematically moved the abuser to cover up the problem with the result of more abuse. This hits the papers and the community started to treat you as an abuser.

How would I handle it? I would work with the authorities to expose all wrong doing. How would I protect my reputation? By condemning the abuse and helping the authorities bring the abusers to justice. My Family and Children are irrelivant to the question because priests don’t marry or have children.

Which brings another test. What would I do if I found out an organization I had supported was guilty of such crimes? What would I do to protect my family and children? I would leave the organization and that is exactly what I did. I am a former Catholic.

Nohome

 

[buffalo]

Nohome:

Which brings another test. What would I do if I found out an organization I had supported was guilty of such crimes? What would I do to protect my family and children? I would leave the organization and that is exactly what I did. I am a former Catholic.

Nohome

The test had no flaw. It was direct.

So you left the Catholic Church - the Church of Jesus Christ - the hospital for sinners - because men failed? That is a very poor reason - men failed not the Church.

 

[Nohome]

buffalo:

The test had no flaw. It was direct.

So you left the Catholic Church - the Church of Jesus Christ - the hospital for sinners - because men failed? That is a very poor reason - men failed not the Church.

I left Rome, the clergy and a broken institutional church. I remain a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. Why should I continue to support the men that failed Christ and his Church?

Nohome

 

[buffalo]

Nohome:

I left Rome, the clergy and a broken institutional church. I remain a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. Why should I continue to support the men that failed Christ and his Church?

Nohome

Because it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that Jesus founded. There is no other that possesses the fullness of truth.

You are not supporting the men that failed Christ and His church. The Church is made up of all the faithful. Men by their very nature because of the inclination to sin will fail time and time again. So have I and so have you. To leave because they failed when you too fail everyday is not a good reason.

Jesus knew this and gave His Church the Holy Spirit to protect it. Peter and the Apostles failed Him many times and He still gave authority to them and the Catholic Church.

 

[snoopy]

buffalo:

This is a story about a friend during the sixties. It is typical of the way these things were handled. The father respected the priesthood and the Church. He handled it confidentially.

My friend was kissed one time in the Sacristy. He eventually told his parents. His father went to the pastor. The father told the pastor he wanted this to stop. The pastor told him it would. The father said I am satisfied and I will not press charges. The pastor must have reported this to the Diocese for the priest was tranferred.

What we don’t know.

Whether the priest was put into counseling
Whether he repented
Whether he continued abusing
If he is still a priest.

Why in the name of God would that satisfy him? Just because the priest was not abusing my child anymore would not make me sleep at night knowing that he was probably abusing someone else’s child. Wouldn’t any parent who cared about children want to know :

Whether the priest was put into counseling
Whether he repented
Whether he continued abusing
If he is still a priest.

No wonder that there are organizations out there that want to police the church and make it accountable.

 

[buffalo]

snoopy:

Why in the name of God would that satisfy him? Just because the priest was not abusing my child anymore would not make me sleep at night knowing that he was probably abusing someone else’s child. Wouldn’t any parent who cared about children want to know :

Whether the priest was put into counseling
Whether he repented
Whether he continued abusing
If he is still a priest.

No wonder that there are organizations like VOTF out there.

You would have to ask him why it did.

I can surmise that the respect for the priestly office had something to do with it. And during this time the gods of psychiatry set forth the proposition that successful counseling solved the problem. So I can understand in context why he accepted this course of action.

 

[Nohome]

Because it is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that Jesus founded. There is no other that possesses the fullness of truth.

You keep telling yourself that, I for one, remain unconvinced.

You are not supporting the men that failed Christ and His church. The Church is made up of all the faithful. Men by their very nature because of the inclination to sin will fail time and time again. So have I and so have you. To leave because they failed when you too fail everyday is not a good reason.

Make no mistake about it, I am a sinner and I’ve earned my place in hell. That said I didn’t rape children nor did I facilitate such acts by others. Until the church of Rome makes a real effort to cooperate with authorities and bring all wrong doers to justice I will have nothing to do with it.

Nohome

 

[koda]

snoopy:

If it means that probably thousands more children will be abused, then yes, absolutely it is wrong. A no brainer. A natural reaction is to try to protect innocent children, not throw them to the wolves. For the life of me, I can’t understand what people are thinking when they just don’t get it that this is a crime. You see it in the paper and the evening news every day. And people are put in prison for it. Why should any other organization be any different, especially one that is founded by God and designed to protect people. Faithful priests should hold their heads up high and be just as outraged as most of the rest of us are by this crime. If they did nothing wrong, then they have nothing to be ashamed of.

This is it in a nutshell. This kind of crime - as well as the crime of covering it up - are indefensible. And while one might argue that the pedofile preists were mentally unsound can we also say that about the Bishops and other members of the hierarchy who covered up this behaviour again and again. That’s being an accesory after the fact and is a crime. Why are the these men on trial as well? Look at Cardinal Law. He not only didn’t go to jail, he got a cushy position in Rome. Do you realize how corrupt that makes the Church look? Whe entire think stinks to high heaven - literally.

 

[snoopy]

buffalo:

No wonder that there are organizations like VOTF out there.

You would have to ask him why it did.

I can surmise that the respect for the priestly office had something to do with it. And during this time the gods of psychiatry set forth the proposition that successful counseling solved the problem. So I can understand in context why he accepted this course of action.

Please stop making that excuse. The gods of psychiatry shouldn’t have even been involved. The police should have been. Remember–this is a crime.

 

[buffalo]

koda:

This is it in a nutshell. This kind of crime - as well as the crime of covering it up - are indefensible. And while one might argue that the pedofile preists were mentally unsound can we also say that about the Bishops and other members of the hierarchy who covered up this behaviour again and again. That’s being an accesory after the fact and is a crime. Why are the these men on trial as well? Look at Cardinal Law. He not only didn’t go to jail, he got a cushy position in Rome. Do you realize how corrupt that makes the Church look? Whe entire think stinks to high heaven - literally.

Your assumption is Cardinal Law is guilty. Was he guilty in a court of law or the court of public opinion?

Were they coverups or were they honest attempts to deal with a problem that was over their heads?

I cannot say for sure as I am not privvy to the actual goings on. Now the residual smell would lead me to believe all this was intentional. But was it really? Only God knows for sure.

 

[buffalo]

Nohome:

You keep telling yourself that, I for one, remain unconvinced.

Until the church of Rome makes a real effort to cooperate with authorities and bring all wrong doers to justice I will have nothing to do with it.

Nohome

Does Virtus qualify? Every person who ministers to children has to do Virtus. The Diocese are audited for compliance. Is that serious or what?

 

[buffalo]

Nohome:

You keep telling yourself that, I for one, remain unconvinced.

/QUOTE]

Why are you not convinced? Were you ever convinced? Cab you tell me what religion He did found?

 

[snoopy]

buffalo:

Does Virtus qualify? Every person who ministers to children has to do Virtus. The Diocese are audited for compliance. Is that serious or what?

Virtus does not qualify unless the church cooperates with the lawyers for the victims and releases all the records that would tell the truth. The truth is what the victims are interested in. Let’s get to the bottom of this once and for all and finish what was started by the abuse. We have some unfinished business of making reparations to the victims first before we can move on. The reason people are so outraged by the cover up is that it will not stop. The church is still keeping it’s dirty little secrets. The truth needs to come out once and for all.

 

[buffalo]

snoopy:

Virtus does not qualify unless the church cooperates with the lawyers for the victims and releases all the records that would tell the truth. The truth is what the victims are interested in. Let’s get to the bottom of this once and for all and finish what was started by the abuse. We have some unfinished business of making reparations to the victims first before we can move on. The reason people are so outraged by the cover up is that it will not stop. The church is still keeping it’s dirty little secrets. The truth needs to come out once and for all.

No. That is not true. Every diocese was independently audited. The audit went back 50 years, well past the statute of limitations. That shows sincerity on the Church’s part. If not they would have fought for the 7 year statute.

This stuff that is making news again as it is progressing through the system. The media will make anti-Catholic news every time informaton is released.

Reparations - bankrupting and plundering the dioceses that were built on the charity of nonoffenders? Now the courts and lawyers smell big money and the settlements show it.

 

[Nohome]

buffalo:

No. That is not true. Every diocese was independently audited. The audit went back 50 years, well past the statute of limitations. That shows sincerity on the Church’s part. If not they would have fought for the 7 year statute.

This stuff that is making news again as it is progressing through the system. The media will make anti-Catholic news every time informaton is released.

Reparations - bankrupting and plundering the dioceses that were built on the charity of nonoffenders? Now the courts and lawyers smell big money and the settlements show it.

Not all dioceses cooperated with the audit. Not all were truthful or entirely truthful.

LA is in the news because they are witholding information. Open the books and lets indict some of these crooks!

The courts smell no money, justice is blind. Yes, lawyers see the potential for profit, but the church made this problem and is culpable. The church bankrupted itself, morally, spiritually and now financially.

Nohome

 

[buffalo]

Nohome:

The church bankrupted itself, morally, spiritually and now financially.

Nohome

I am not aware LA was not audited. I would like to see some proof. If the files going back were audited for 50 years by an independent auditer, what more do you want? Or are you making an accussation that files were shredded?

I didn’t and I am part of the Church.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

 

[HappyCatholic01]

Not to get off topic and the tragic events, but I have been a member of AOL for years. However, admittedly, there is a reason why AOL has long been considered the “intellectual runt” of the internet community. Quotes like the following didn’t spawn for no reason:

“Comparing AOL to other internet services is like comparing the beating the first level of minesweeper to solving advanced calculus.”

“AOL: Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, their posters get out the shovels and start diggin.”