Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report on Catholic sex abuse released

[KevinK]

How did she do that? And how do you know?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The Pope himself, JPII, said that she did it by deflecting the bullet. He put the bullet in the crown of Our Lady of Fatima, in thanksgiving. You can see it in the crown if you visit Fatima. In the Third Secret of Fatima, a Pope was supposed to be killed, and he said that was the assassination attempt.

He is now a saint, on top of having been Pope. So I believe his take on it.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...on_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html

 

[bmaz]

That predators can fool people is no surprise; they wouldn’t be good predators if they couldn’t conceal their malice. However, it is outrageous that such things were known and covered up. Send them to contemplative monasteries away from children to do penance for the rest of their lives.

I agree, they shouldn’t defrock them, they will only go out into the world and cause more harm. Sending them away to do penance forever i agree with!

 

[Roseeurekacross]

so have a government enquiry about the extent of all this, then prosecute individuals.

naming 300 without having them go through trial and convicting them amounts to anti catholic harassment. ’

we are innocent until proven guilty.

 

[bmaz]

This seems to be a hit piece. Why is a grand jury investigating and then issuing a report about allegations of crimes that are well past their statute of limitations? There can’t be a trial to determine truth. So all this does is make the Church look bad. They can include any salacious claim in this report with no accountability.

Do they do this to all religions? Of course not.

I’m sure there was plenty of truly awful things that went on. But this seems to me just a smear campaign and not a quest for justice.

Did you read any of it? This isn’t just a smear campaign. They have proof of much of this, and it is sickening.

 

[exnihilo]

Did you read any of it? This isn’t just a smear campaign. They have proof of much of this, and it is sickening.

What is the proof?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you read the report and the lists of names on the diocese websites, you see that many of the accused priests are dead. Many more have already had their priestly faculties restricted or removed.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

so have a government enquiry about the extent of all this, then prosecute individuals.

naming 300 without having them go through trial and convicting them amounts to anti catholic harassment. ’

we are innocent until proven guilty.

It’s the USA. We’re not going to have a “government enquiry” beyond these grand jury investigations at the state level. Constitutional rights and traditional state areas, etc.

Like I said, many of those named are already dead.

In the case of those living, many of them cannot be tried because there is a statute of limitations issue, insuficient evidence etc. Some of them have already been through some court process. Many of them already were laicized at least to some degree.

The big legal issue about all this is whether to extend the statute of limitations to allow older and older people to come forward with allegations. I doubt they will get it extended as far as they like because prosecutors have difficulty bringing a case once a certain number of years have passed, due to lack of evidence, and unless it’s a murder case they usually don’t want to deal with really old cases. It’s possible they might get the statute of limitations bumped up by 5 or 10 years from what it currently is. But the idea of somebody 70 years old alleging that they were abused when they were 10 and trying to have the 80-year-old abuser prosecuted is probably not going to fly.

 

[Cruciferi]

insuficient evidence

due to lack of evidence,

We should all remember that the accused are innocent until proven guilty.

 

[ucfengr]

All of the Chilean bishops tendered their resignations to Pope Francis. I’m beginning to wonder if the American bishops should do the same. Even the wonderfully good ones who are innocent. Clean house and start anew.

I think the problem is that the corruption isn’t just at the top, but goes all the way down. How far down do you have to go to get rid of the rottenness? Does “cleaning the house” even begin to deal with the problem or is the house rotted down to the foundation. Then we’re talking less about a thorough cleaning and more a demolition. It is very depressing.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

We should, but remember that just because someone isn’t criminally guilty, doesn’t mean they can’t be held civilly liable (lower standard). OJ Simpson was the classic case of that.
So, somebody who doesn’t get prison time can still cost the Church a mint of liability money.
And guilty people do get off on technicalities.

 

[Cruciferi]

You still need some concrete evidence though, right?

 

[on_the_hill]

This seems to be a hit piece. Why is a grand jury investigating and then issuing a report about allegations of crimes that are well past their statute of limitations? There can’t be a trial to determine truth. So all this does is make the Church look bad. They can include any salacious claim in this report with no accountability.

Are you saying the priests in the report who reported cases of abuse are lying?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Depends on what you mean by “concrete”. I’ve heard that in criminal cases, juries these days all want to see some DNA or they don’t convict, because they’ve all watched too many of those investigation shows on TV.
I don’t think you would need DNA for a liability suit, necessarily.

 

[F_Marturana]

My opinion the last time this scandal came to light was that the Church shouldn’t have settled. Each case should have been brought to civil trial with testimonies and transcripts.

It would have been a PR nightmare, but necessary to bring this to light and to get rid of it.

This is scandal.

“It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.“

 

[Tis_Bearself]

From a practical standpoint, no lawyer is going to advise a large client to take every case to court. The vast majority of ALL cases settle. If they didn’t, the court system would quickly cease to run. The judges don’t like it either and will often push lawyers towards a settlement.

In addition, victims in these cases don’t all want to go to court. Some of them would be traumatized all over again by that experience. The one lady in the grand jury report had a panic attack when she saw a juror who kind of looked like her alleged abuser, and she knew he was just a juror.

So your opinion is not practical or workable and is never going to happen.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

if there is no government inquiry, the persons in the government blocking that inquiry as just as guilty.

they are also guilty of coverups. And they also should be tarred with the same cover up brush and jailed. This entire issue needs to be stamped out.

and that is where the people need to start demanding it. Here in Australia it took a few years and a lot of dialogue before a Royal Commission happened.
Many are also dead here, some are in jail, some , as we know, are still in trial.

But the idea of somebody 70 years old alleging that they were abused when they were 10 and trying to have the 80-year-old abuser prosecuted is probably not going to fly.

it flies here , it had to start flying here. because ignoring it, says, hey this is acceptable because these are elderly people. The ArchBishop is elderly. WE have elderly on trial. We have elderly survivors who are finally being heard.

 

[exnihilo]

Are you saying the priests in the report who reported cases of abuse are lying?

No, though some could be. Or some could be mistaken. This report is very big and covers a lot of time and alleged abusers.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

if there is no government inquiry, the persons in the government blocking that inquiry as just as guilty.

they are also guilty of coverups.

You don’t understand. The grand jury investigation WAS a “government inquiry”. It was run by the state government.

In the USA, the government as in the federal government does not just launch an “inquiry” into crime without a federal basis for doing so. Nobody is “blocking” anything. It’s a Constitutional rights matter.

Please try to understand that we are not like Europe, UK and Australia and we don’t want to be. Our entire legal and government system works differently from those countries. On purpose - and I think ours is much better than those systems as well.

The only reason Congress might have an “inquiry” into something like this would be if there was some federal legislation proposed that they had to consider…and we would need to have a basis for the federal government to legislate. They don’t get to just barge in and say OK we’re taking over.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

it flies here , it had to start flying here. because ignoring it, says, hey this is acceptable because these are elderly people. The ArchBishop is elderly. WE have elderly on trial. We have elderly survivors who are finally being heard.

Fine for your country and its system, which I’m sure you’re convinced is the greatest in the world. I like my own, thank you. There are very good legal reasons for not having a 50 or 60 year old statute of limitations on crimes other than murder under the US CRIMINAL system (not civil).

An elderly victim in USA might still be able to sue for civil liability, so that is one way to “be heard” and perhaps a much more effective way as it costs the other party money and is not dependent on the preferences of a prosecutor, who is a political official. There are also other ways for them to “have a voice”.