Diocese seeks to pay accused

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Source?

You need a link to the news story and your thread title is supposed to match the title of the article.
 
Ok, let’s say that a convicted child abuser (you are speaking of convicted abusers, correct?) happened to work at First National Bank at the time of his abuse/conviction. At the time he had worked for, say, 20 years and was invested in his pension plan.

Now, when he turns 65, he is going to get benefits from the plan because a pension plan is not tied to his criminal activity, right?

If a priest is entitled to legal pension benefits because he has paid taxes (diocesean priests do receive salaries and have pay taxes just like the rest of us), then he is going to ‘get them’ from his employer at the time he paid the taxes etc. (The Church).

It isn’t a question of the Church ‘rewarding’ an abuser, anymore than the First National Bank would be ‘rewarding’ its employee.

Make sense?
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Ok, let’s say that a convicted child abuser (you are speaking of convicted abusers, correct?) happened to work at First National Bank at the time of his abuse/conviction. At the time he had worked for, say, 20 years and was invested in his pension plan.

Now, when he turns 65, he is going to get benefits from the plan because a pension plan is not tied to his criminal activity, right?

If a priest is entitled to legal pension benefits because he has paid taxes (diocesean priests do receive salaries and have pay taxes just like the rest of us), then he is going to ‘get them’ from his employer at the time he paid the taxes etc. (The Church).

It isn’t a question of the Church ‘rewarding’ an abuser, anymore than the First National Bank would be ‘rewarding’ its employee.

Make sense?
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No, a child that is a victim of sexual abuse is not an employee.

The church in most cases must settle with victims to minimize the legal and monetary damage. The reason 85 churches in Boston were closed and sold off, was because insurance companies do not pay for criminal acts even if it is pursued in civil court. This means the church is holding the bag on this alone. To avoid admiting to criminal acts, they pay people off.

What happened was, the church, the faithful, the authorities and the general public did not have a clue as to the enormity and how wide spread sexual abuse in the church was at that time. There is no question that financially it is killing them. Churches filing for bankruptcy is now about survival.

I try to view this as not hating the church. It is the people in the church that this began and shall end with. The church is also an innocent victim.
 
joe_clark said:
No, a child that is a victim of sexual abuse is not an employee.

The church in most cases must settle with victims to minimize the legal and monetary damage. The reason 85 churches in Boston were closed and sold off, was because insurance companies do not pay for criminal acts even if it is pursued in civil court. This means the church is holding the bag on this alone. To avoid admiting to criminal acts, they pay people off.

What happened was, the church, the faithful, the authorities and the general public did not have a clue as to the enormity and how wide spread sexual abuse in the church was at that time. There is no question that financially it is killing them. Churches filing for bankruptcy is now about survival.

I try to view this as not hating the church. It is the people in the church that this began and shall end with. The church is also an innocent victim.
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I think you’re misunderstanding. The OP was not talking of the Church paying benefits to the **victims. **The OP was speaking of the Church paying benefits to the priests who had been the **abusers. **Legally speaking, if the Church is an employer and the priests employees who have paid into a pension/benefit system, the Church will have to pay them benefits even if they are convicted abusers, correct. . .just as any institution whose employees happened to be guilty of crimes would likewise get paid from their pension when the time for payment is due. . .

THAT’s what I responded to. Payment by the Church to victims is a whole different story, not related to this story about the priests’ benefits.
 
steboyz said:
www.delawareonline.com/article/20100118/NEWS/1180312/Diocese-seeks-to-pay-accused

Just to satisfy everyone here is the link and actual headline.I hope the link works.😊

Looks like it does.

ger
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It does, thank you and it does change the situation.

I see that this is not a case where the priest is entitled to a pension.

This is a case where a person is destitute and the Church is planning to give him money on which to live.

Ok, here’s the sitch. . .

The man is rapidly approaching literally not having a cent on which to live.

He is also apparently guilty of rather awful crimes.

Question: Does the Church say, "Well, he’s an awful person. We don’t help out awful people; we only help out worthy people. If we give HIM money, we are probably also depriving some ‘worthy’ people whom we haven’t heard about, or at least, we have less money available for ‘worthy’ people that might come up’.

OR does the Church say, "Yes, this is an awful person, But Christ did not consider whether people were awful or not; He helped them anyway, always of course telling them to ‘sin no more.’

We receive the ‘mercy’ that we deal out to others. I’m not going to comment over what I personally think but I’m going to leave the above as food for thought. .

Are we to be more judgmental than Jesus when it comes to deciding that person X is NOT to receive help of money because he is a ‘bad person’, or to receive ‘forgiveness’ for a particular crime by society?
 
Tantum_ergo said:
I think you’re misunderstanding. The OP was not talking of the Church paying benefits to the **victims. **The OP was speaking of the Church paying benefits to the priests who had been the **abusers. **Legally speaking, if the Church is an employer and the priests employees who have paid into a pension/benefit system, the Church will have to pay them benefits even if they are convicted abusers, correct. . .just as any institution whose employees happened to be guilty of crimes would likewise get paid from their pension when the time for payment is due. . .

THAT’s what I responded to. Payment by the Church to victims is a whole different story, not related to this story about the priests’ benefits.
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I am staying an a legal plain here. If the church wants to pay priests who had been the abusers, they can if they want to, but they are not obligated to do so.

In the corporate world, most companies will handle theft, lateness, drug abuse and fratanizing with termination. At that point it would be up to the unemployed to file a grievance.

In the church abuse senerio, If proven by a reasonable doubt (and this would include the the church’s determination to pay a victim off) should defrock, and terminate a priest from the church. If they chose to do so, they could file formal charges against them with the local District Attorney. Whether they do or not, at that point it would be up to the ex-priest to file a grievance and this would not be likely.
 
If the Church wants to help that is fine with me. but how about the millions of dollars spend paid to the abused? all because of their crimes. should them not be punished for that? why is that they should get any money when we are loosing Churches because of what they have done?
 
wisdomseeker said:
If the Church wants to help that is fine with me. but how about the millions of dollars spend paid to the abused? all because of their crimes. should them not be punished for that? why is that they should get any money when we are loosing Churches because of what they have done?
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Again, is the Church giving money to help people in need (regardless of 'what they have done) something which is Christian behavior (as opposed to strictly secular ‘justice’) or is it Christian behavior to only give to the ‘deserving’?

Surely we aren’t trying to say that 'money changes everything", are we?

Surely we aren’t saying that charity only exists up to a certain ‘dollar value’. . .and surely we aren’t saying that there are sins so ‘unforgiveable’ that Christ and His Church cannot possibly give charity in the form of ‘money’ to those unforgivable people. . .are we???

If the Church did not give give this man and others ‘money’, how else are they to be helped?

Even if the Church were to put these men into a tool shed on some parish property, money is still going to be used. . .it costs money to buy food, even though I’m sure there will be many who would want to be sure the food was as ‘cheap’ and unpalatable as possible. IOW, ‘help’ the people. . .but don’t help them to the extent that they should live like us ‘good’ people.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Again, is the Church giving money to help people in need (regardless of 'what they have done) something which is Christian behavior (as opposed to strictly secular ‘justice’) or is it Christian behavior to only give to the ‘deserving’?

Surely we aren’t trying to say that 'money changes everything", are we?

Surely we aren’t saying that charity only exists up to a certain ‘dollar value’. . .and surely we aren’t saying that there are sins so ‘unforgiveable’ that Christ and His Church cannot possibly give charity in the form of ‘money’ to those unforgivable people. . .are we???

If the Church did not give give this man and others ‘money’, how else are they to be helped?

Even if the Church were to put these men into a tool shed on some parish property, money is still going to be used. . .it costs money to buy food, even though I’m sure there will be many who would want to be sure the food was as ‘cheap’ and unpalatable as possible. IOW, ‘help’ the people. . .but don’t help them to the extent that they should live like us ‘good’ people.
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We must be carefull that we are not trying to be better than God Himself. that we are not trying to surpass God’s goodness.
 
the solution that leaps to the mind is that if the authorities had prosecuted these priests for their crimes the state would be paying for their keep in a cozy prison someplace
 
Let me see if I understand this. Several priests of a diocese rape “too many children to remember”. The bishop files bankruptcy to avoid paying out to the children who were raped. Then wants to instead pay the rapists themselves and abandon the children who were harmed by their dereliction of duty.

Wow. I am absolutely disgusted.
 
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