That may be true … however bankrupting the Catholic dioceses is they only thing they have actually responded to!It is one thing to get to the bottom of a problem, but I really don’t like that some folks think that bankrupting Catholic diocese will make anything better.
I don’t see how lots of $$$ would heal any emotional scars.
While he may have legal immunity responding would be the moral and ethical thing to do. Or are we called to be legalistic?
There was a time the episcopate was thought to be credible.
Interesting …
No, lots of $$ won’t heal the scars but it will help as the payment in ‘compensation’ will acknowledge that the person was wronged. That acknowledgement is a huge step towards healing.I don’t see how lots of $$$ would heal any emotional scars.
Exactly. You could look at it as a “penance” of sorts.
Very interesting, indeed…Interesting …
In order to acknowledge a wrong, we bankrupt dioceses? Take the money given by the people for the upkeep and running of the local Church and give it to a few people? Making some rich (or fairly well off) at the expense of the Church is wrong.
This is where I would disagree. If the abuser is held accountable and tried in secular courts, the bishops (and the Pope is a bishop) should also be held accounable by the same judicial system. What is good for the priest is good for the bishop.
The obligation of the Bishop to report the issue to the police is going to be found in the statutes of the State concerning criminal law.
Co-authored??? Can anyone point to one church document that said it is okay to sexual abuse minors?
A sexual abuser is held accountable in criminal court because he committed a sexual assault of a minor. To hold a bishop accoutable “by the same judicial system” would be a severe miscarriage of justice. They do not need to be tried the same as if they went out and committed a sexual assault.
No, it is not a matter of being legalistic. That immunity goes back long into history.
The police are involved when the crime is made known. Most of the sexual abuse charges brought against the Church were committed against teen age boys. In the large majority of the cases, the boys made no report to anyone for years. No one, therefore, other than the boy knew it had happened, and the boy wasn’t talking.I completely disagree. In my opinion, EVERYBODY is obligated to report a case of sexual abuse of another person.
This includes, bishops, priests, nuns, teachers, parents, siblings, school custodians, neighbors, or any child who is molested or knows of someone being molested.
What I want to know is why the police are never involved. When a child is molested, should not the parent report this to the police? And should not the police file a case in this matter, not hand it over to a bishop? I have asked this question before: how does it happen that the police are not doing their job? Did all these parents go directly to the bishop? It seems unlikely. Are priests granted immunity from crimes automatically?
because a) the bishop controls the priests in terms of their activities in the Church; b) because the parents often did not want to create scandal in both the Chruch and the community, and c) until recently, there were no mandatory laws requiring the reporting of abuse to the police (parents are still not bound by those laws, to the best of my knowledge; the laws are directed at teachers, doctors, and others in authority).
His immunity stems from the fact that he is now the head of the Church, and the head of Rome (the state).
He neither “covered it up” nor had any responsibility in the issue. He was in Rome as head of a dicastery. That does not give him juridical authority over the rest of the memebers of the Church.
Oh, and so the Pope, the Supreme Head of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church AND in his own right the sovereign of the Vatican City State should go before a secular U.S. court for a grandstanding, money-grubbing lawsuit? The very idea is appalling.
The Pope is not subject to any temporal authority.Absolutely. When is enough enough? When the whole American Church is flat broke?
Most of these perverts committed their crimes long before the present bishop or even the present bishop's predecessor came to office, and many are deceased or were removed from ministry anyway. To make dioceses (let alone the Vatican) today pay millions for these sins of 30 or more years ago and committed outside the priest's authority is unjust, which is just one of the many reasons why statutes of limitations should be enforced.
Just what is a "coverup" anyway? Is it simply staying quiet? If so, every one of us who declined to report any crime to police is guilty. Methinks one has to actually conceal or destroy evidence outside of the normal course of business, or lie to investigators, to "cover up" a crime. No one is claiming that happened; indeed the diocesan records explored in the John Jay study reveal that the records are intact and reveal much. If there were really a cover up, those records would have been destroyed long before 2002.
No way should B16 or JPII be credibly accused of a "coverup." Nothing in their documents or instructions prevents bishops or others from reporting any crime of sexual abuse to police. Indeed, they did much to solve the problem before it even came to light. They couldn't do it all alone, though. (See my last line.) Not exactly. Not only has the priest-penitent privilege already been mentioned, but there are also the attorney-client and doctor/psychotherapist-patient privilege. Even if there were not a privilege, where there is no special duty (such as a social worker), an ordinary person should not have to make a judgment call as to whether some conduct is both truthfully told to him and constitutes "abuse" and report it to police or else risk criminal sanctions.
Having said all this, our bishops were foolish to let this go on at all, let alone for 30+ years.
I can’t buy into that … guilt and responsibilty are both direct and indirect. The bishops who were responsible for covering up abuse and relocating sexually abusive clergy should also be tried–in a civil court. When they concealed the crime they became accessories after the fact.
Again, I take exception. The Pope was not “pope” when he allegedly concealed the abuse. Having a letter that so states that fact is not merely “looking for deep pockets.”