'Prepare to be shocked," Milwaukee archbishop warns of priest sex files

[ReConverted]

jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/prepare-to-be-shocked-milwaukee-archbishop-warns-of-priest-sex-files-b9944386z1-213713061.html

Batten down the hatches, folks. The MSM will have a field day.

Oh, please. Poor us. The mean old “MSM” is “making war” on us. Excuse me, but untold numbers of lives were destroyed by people in authority within the Church. When I hear Catholics complain about the victims, it makes me sick. How dare anyone minimize rape? (And yes, a lot of Catholics are doing just that in order to “Defend the Church”) These abuses have gone on thru the entire history of the Church. The Church members, HIERARCHY AND LAITY who perpetrated, and ignored CHILD RAPE have gotta face up to it and take the medicine. REAL REPENTANCE, NOT MORE BLATHER IS WHAT’S NEEDED. When the Church dioceses voluntarily disclose this info instead of trying every trick in the book to weasel out of telling the truth, THEN we’ll see some credibility come back in the eyes of those who need God’s Holy Church.
**
"As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”**

• St. Paul in Romans 2:24

2+2=4 whether or not the “MSM” (What a cheeseball term!) reports it, or someone else does.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

 

[chaunceygardner]

They should have released all of these documents at one time. That way we could have dealt with it and moved on. They way they are releasing it piece by piece means we are dying deaths by a thousand cuts.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese is releasing the documents, including depositions by various bishops, all at once. But each diocese, each religious order, and each country is going through this at different times and in different ways. The Los Angeles Archdiocese released records and documents just a few weeks ago; others have been out for some years. At some point the revelations will peak, but the reports will continue to surface for several more years, as various civil law suits, bankruptcies, investigations and criminal actions proceed.

In perusing several of the depositions and documents released today, what I noted is the time and money spent dealing with the priests accused of or knowingly involved in sexual activity and abuse, but little mentioned about what was done for the victims, other than paying them some money and having them sign confidentiallity agreements. There was one whole set of documents just about the frequent meetings of a deacon “counselor” with one of the abusing priests over a fairly long period of time (sort of like with AA), but nothing about similar meetings or assistance for his victims. That, to me, is quite damning of the priorities that were followed.

 

[ReConverted]

Even if it leads people astray and gives people yet one more excuse to ignore church teaching?

God is in charge. Repentance and transparency will speak far better to the world than hiding our dirty laundry. Remember, repentance causes JOY in heaven.

 

[manualman]

…These abuses have gone on thru the entire history of the Church.

WAY over the top. On what basis could you possibly make such an outrageous and sweeping assertion? The gold standard study on the subject, the John Jay report found that the abuse crisis in the church followed the trend of general sexual license in the culture at large, starting an upswing in the 50’s surging in the 60s and declining starting in the80’s to very low levels today.

I’m aware of no evidence that there was a statistically significant problem * in other eras. Are you, or are you just blowing hard? A 50 year period in which the overal culture underwent massive upheavels in sexual self-understandings is hardly basis to make judgements about the “entire history” of the church.

• Naturally “statistically significant” means that there is always going to be a percentage of Judas priests due to the fact that they’re humans like the rest of us. In other words fallen and prone to sin.

My problem with posts like yours is NOT that they point to the fallibility of mere men, but that they suggest that there is something peculiar about the church that results in incidences of abuse. That’s just silly. Abuse comes from the fallen nature of man, so does the temptation to cover up scandal. Neither of these result from the nature or character of the church, which is why you also see these behaviors in schools, athletics, counseling institutions, jails, etc. Abuse arises from human failures, not failures in the structure of the church.

 

[ReConverted]

WAY over the top. On what basis could you possibly make such an outrageous and sweeping assertion? The gold standard study on the subject, the John Jay report found that the abuse crisis in the church followed the trend of general sexual license in the culture at large, starting an upswing in the 50’s surging in the 60s and declining starting in the80’s to very low levels today.

I’m aware of no evidence that there was a statistically significant problem * in other eras. Are you, or are you just blowing hard? A 50 year period in which the overal culture underwent massive upheavels in sexual self-understandings is hardly basis to make judgements about the “entire history” of the church.

• Naturally “statistically significant” means that there is always going to be a percentage of Judas priests due to the fact that they’re humans like the rest of us. In other words fallen and prone to sin.

I WISH my statement was “Way over the top” An examination of early Church history will prove my point. Read up. I did the homework.

 

[ReConverted]

Some people with psychological problems can be rehabilitated…but not by prayer alone or by hiding someone’s crimes or by slipping their problems under the rug or by putting the perpetrators in a situation where they can harm again.

If the people in charge were hoping the priests in question could be rehabilitated, they the proper route to take is to:

1. report criminal activity
   and
2. get medical help for the person

But from what I understand here, those in charge did not do these things in the past. Hopefully they will do this in the present and future.

.

Well said. God bless all those in the Church who are working to clean house.

 

[Jaysuitical]

Why would the sexual revolution have an effect on Catholics wanting to be priests? There wasn’t a sexual revolution within the church.
Have you seen a study done on this?

Are you saying the authorities knowingly ordained men with same sex attraction? In hopes it would avoid affairs/scandals between priests and women?
Where are your quotes coming from…who is said these words?

You wouldn’t consider a 15 year old girl as being underage?

He is a victim.
He or someone else already said that none of the victims want the records to remain closed.
The victims say they will find some healing in the release of the documents and that is the most important priority right now, don’t you think?

If anyone did anything illegal, I imagine, they shall be removed from their duties and be charged or disciplined appropriately.

There is a big difference between truth and gossip.
Gossip may hurt but truth helps.
This is truth.
And plenty of good can come out of it. As well as helping the victims, people inside and outside the church will be more aware of how these things happen and how better to protect potential future victims.

.

There was indeed a sexual revolution going on in the priesthood at the time, which came into the Church, as the updating of Church institutions was mistaken by many to mean a jettisoning of disciplines and an embrace, not of people in the world who were alienated from the Church, but an embrace of the morals, including sexual morals, of the world. In their book “Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis,” Matthew Bunson & Greg Erlandson cite one of Benedict’s addresses concerning the bad theological formation of many priests and future bishops in the '50s, '60s and '70s, when a theoretical ‘proportionalism’ took the place of natural law teaching and spread out through the clergy.
Rembert Weakland was one of the most notorious of prelates, and faithful Catholics in the diocese constantly tried to have him removed. The problem with removing bishops and priests was that the ecclesial procedures that existed in the decades when these priests were exercising ministry is that they envisaged rare cases, and priests previously had not had the backing of forces within or outside the Church, as they had during the decades of disobedience.

 

[Jaysuitical]

Easy there hombre! Betcha dollars to donuts that what will be revealed is NOT Cardinal Dolan looking the other way, but the fruit of former Archbishop Weakland’s “wink/nod” attitude toward sexual immorality among the priesthood. Weakland and too many bishops like him considered catholic sexual morality repressed and prudish and scoffed at the very idea of chastity. You reap what you sow.

If you’re going to throw rocks, at least have better aim, OK?

Weakland claims that he suppressed his homosexual impulses until he became archbishop and then began his many affairs with men. So all the time he was complaining about sexual repression in the Church, he was consciously and deliberately practicing sodomy.

 

[manualman]

I WISH my statement was “Way over the top” An examination of early Church history will prove my point. Read up. I did the homework.

It’s slander and calumny unless you can back you your assertions. I’ve read plenty of church history and have seen no evidence of a consistent pattern of abuse and related enabling behavior. Put up or shut up. And please, no Dan Brown or Maria Monk stories.

 

[ReConverted]

It’s slander and calumny unless you can back you your assertions. I’ve read plenty of church history and have seen no evidence of a consistent pattern of abuse and related enabling behavior. Put up or shut up. And please, no Dan Brown or Maria Monk stories.

Telling the truth is neither slander or calumny. Do your homework. I don’t take orders. If you don’t want to look into the topic, it’s not MY obligation to provide you with info. I did my homework…if you want info, do your own. PS: I don’t shut up because someone doesn’t like a post of mine. God bless you and yours.

Nice try with the Maria Monk and Dan Brown zinger.

 

[markomalley]

Telling the truth is neither slander or calumny. Do your homework. I don’t take orders. If you don’t want to look into the topic, it’s not MY obligation to provide you with info. I did my homework…if you want info, do your own. PS: I don’t shut up because someone doesn’t like a post of mine. God bless you and yours.

Nice try with the Maria Monk and Dan Brown zinger.

I don’t doubt that for several hundred years, particularly when families like the della Rovere, Medici, Cibo, Piccolomini, and Borgia were dominating affairs of the Church, that it was a horrible time of corruption.

And that Renaissance period was certainly not the only time of corruption in the Church.

But I also believe that it is stretching matters to imply that it has gone throughout the entire history of the Church…implying that this is the norm.

Generally speaking, in an argument, when one advances a thesis, one should be prepared to defend that thesis. And if the one who advances a thesis fails to provide a defense, the thesis can be rejected out of hand.

So do you have some sort of reference you can supply to back up your assertion?

 

[manualman]

I’ve done the homework and found NO pattern of the sort you allege. You got nothin’ but innuendo and accusation without basis. The accuser is responsible for substantiating allegations, not the defendant. That’s a basic precept of decency and charity.

In charity, I should point out that I’m NOT arguing for an impeccability of the priesthood. There have been easily our share of scoundrels hiding under the cloth. But alleging a pattern of extraordinary abusive behavior and enabling is something more than an occasional anecdote can support. It’s an extremely serious allegation to make.

 

[agnes_therese]

Since you began this by quoting my post, it looks like it’s me you’re accusing of whining. Please read the rest of my posts on this subject. The fact that the mainstream media – cheeseball term for them or not – will have a field day with this is simply that: a fact. Pointing out a fact does NOT mean you’re whining about it.

Oh, please. Poor us. The mean old “MSM” is “making war” on us. Excuse me, but untold numbers of lives were destroyed by people in authority within the Church. When I hear Catholics complain about the victims, it makes me sick. How dare anyone minimize rape? (And yes, a lot of Catholics are doing just that in order to “Defend the Church”) These abuses have gone on thru the entire history of the Church. The Church members, HIERARCHY AND LAITY who perpetrated, and ignored CHILD RAPE have gotta face up to it and take the medicine. REAL REPENTANCE, NOT MORE BLATHER IS WHAT’S NEEDED. When the Church dioceses voluntarily disclose this info instead of trying every trick in the book to weasel out of telling the truth, THEN we’ll see some credibility come back in the eyes of those who need God’s Holy Church.
**
"As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”**

• St. Paul in Romans 2:24

2+2=4 whether or not the “MSM” (What a cheeseball term!) reports it, or someone else does.

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

 

[agnes_therese]

If you don’t want to look into the topic, it’s not MY obligation to provide you with info.

When you make an assertion like that, it most certainly IS your obligation to back it up.

 

[LisaA]

I think this needs to be reiterated:

In their letters, both Listecki and Sklba emphasized a common theme within the church hierarchy throughout the sex abuse scandal — that the understanding of child sex abuse has evolved, and that —*** to use Listecki’s words, “it is easy to question decisions of the past with the insight of today.”

Over 40 years, Sklba wrote, “society’s general attitude toward perpetrators of sexual abuse moved in a trajectory from understanding abuse as sin with the possibility of forgiveness, to psychological flaw with hope of treatment, to deeper issues of addiction and finally to criminal activity.”***

Note the bolded portion. We all know that hindsight is 20-20 but for some reason this is the standard with respect to this issue when it comes to the Church. Consider the way alcoholism is viewed today vis a vis forty or fifty years ago. Recall that many professionals felt one could be treated for alcoholism and still drink socially. Now remaining “dry” is essential to avoiding a return to the addiction. And no I am not saying the two situations are equivalent, just that we cannot consider today’s standards and yesterday’s events as equivalent.

And no this doesn’t mean that the victims should be ignored and the behavior excused but to claim that this problem is somehow only applicable to the Church and thus the Church must be brought down as the only way to atone for these egregious sins is specious. The incidence of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not inordinately high, either in actual numbers nor particularly in comparison to other religious denominations. Unfortunately for the Church the comparative wealth and the structure make it ripe for the picking. It doesn’t matter that the East Yabip Bible Church’s pastor abused kids for decades, it has no money and thus neither creates headlines nor is a lucrative target. Further much more abuse occurs in SCHOOLS and I have yet to hear of an equivalent to SNAP with respect to the many children abused every year. And the union protection of these offenders would make the Church’s efforts to shuffle offending priests around look like amateur hour. I don’t see any attorneys shutting down schools or kids’ sports leagues or clubs because there were some unforgivable acts perpetrated within them.

Like Willie Sutton, attorneys could answer the question, why did you go after the Church? “Because that’s where the money is…”

Oh and before someone sets up a tirade that I’m excusing the Church or ignoring the victims, nope. But please don’t insult our collective intelligence by pretending that the wealth of the Church did not make for a very inviting target.

Lisa

 

[markomalley]

From the AP:
As more victims of clergy sex abuse came forward, then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan oversaw a plan to pay some abusers to leave the priesthood after writing to Vatican officials with increasing frustration and concern, warning them about the potential for scandal if they did not defrock problem priests, according to documents released Monday.

Dolan’s correspondence with Vatican officials and priests accused of sexual abuse was included in about 6,000 pages of documents the Archdiocese of Milwaukee released Monday as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court with clergy sex abuse victims suing it for fraud. Victims say the archdiocese transferred problem priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covered up priests’ crimes for decades.

The documents have drawn attention in part because of the involvement of Dolan, who is now a cardinal and New York archbishop and the nation’s most prominent Roman Catholic official by virtue of his position as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The records provide new details on payments made to some abusers to leave the priesthood and the transfer of nearly $57 million for cemetery care into a trust as the archdiocese prepared to file for bankruptcy.
So now they are starting to scour the database, trying to dig up dirt on Cardinal Dolan.

 

[ringil]

Even if it leads people astray and gives people yet one more excuse to ignore church teaching?

The truth is the truth.

 

[markomalley]

Note the bolded portion. We all know that hindsight is 20-20 but for some reason this is the standard with respect to this issue when it comes to the Church. Consider the way alcoholism is viewed today vis a vis forty or fifty years ago. Recall that many professionals felt one could be treated for alcoholism and still drink socially. Now remaining “dry” is essential to avoiding a return to the addiction. And no I am not saying the two situations are equivalent, just that we cannot consider today’s standards and yesterday’s events as equivalent.

Instruction on the Careful Selection And Training Of Candidates For The States Of Perfection And Sacred Order (1962)

(snip)

D) The Required Chastity

(snip)

1. Those To Be Excluded; Practical Directives

1. A candidate who shows himself certainly unable to observe religious and priestly chastity, either because of frequent sins against chastity or because of a sexual bent of mind or excessive weakness of will, is not to be admitted to the minor seminary and, much less, to the novitiate or to profession. If he has already been accepted but is not yet perpetually professed, then he should be sent away immediately or advised to withdraw, according to individual cases, no matter what point in his formation he has already reached. Should he be perpetually professed, he is to be barred absolutely and permanently from tonsure and the reception of any Order, especially Sacred Orders. If circumstances should so demand, he shall be dismissed from the community, with due observance of the prescriptions of canon law.

2. Consequently, any candidate who has a habit of solitary sins and who has not given well-founded hope that he can break this habit within a period of time to be determined prudently, is not to be admitted to the novitiate. Nor can a candidate be admitted to first profession or to renewal of vows unless he has really amended his ways. But if a novice or a temporarily professed religious gives evidence of a firm purpose of amendment with good grounds for hope of success, his probation can be extended as provided for in canon law (canons 571, S2; 574, S2; 973, S 3; Stat. Gen., art. 34, S 2, 3 ).

Well-grounded hope of amendment can be provided by those youths who are physically and psychically normal or endowed with good bodily and mental health, who are noted for solid piety and the other virtues intimately connected with chastity, and who sincerely desire the religious and priestly life.

(snip)

4. If a student in a minor seminary has sinned gravely against the sixth commandment with a person of the same or the other sex, or has been the occasion of grave scandal in the matter of chastity, he is to be dismissed immediately as stipulated in canon 1371, except if prudent consideration of the act and of the situation of the student by the superiors or confessors should counsel a different policy in an individual case, sc., in the case of a boy who has been seduced and who is gifted with excellent qualities and is truly penitent, or when the sin was an objectively imperfect act.

(snip)

**5. Very special investigation is needed for those students who, although they have hitherto been free of formal sins against chastity, nevertheless suffer from morbid or abnormal sexuality, especially sexual hyperesthesia or an erotic bent of nature, to whom religious celibacy would be a continual act of heroism and a trying martyrdom. **For chastity, in so far as it implies abstinence from sexual pleasure, not only becomes very difficult for many people but the very state of celibacy and the consequent loneliness and separation from one’s family becomes so difficult for certain individuals gifted with excessive sensitivity and tenderness, that they are not fit subjects for the religious life. This question should perhaps receive more careful attention from novice masters and superiors of scholasticates than from confessors since such natural tendencies do not come out so clearly in confession as in the common life and daily contact.
Did they, at some point, just stop looking to see if any of their candidates for Orders had any of these issues? I’m citing a document from 1962. I’m not citing something from today.

 

[ringil]

Regarding the sex abuse crisis.

It’s not the media
It’s not greedy lawyers
It’s not greedy abuse victims
It’s not the homosexuals
It’s not the 60’s.
It’s not Vatican II.
It’s not the Liberals
It’s not heterodoxy
It’s not sexualized kids tempting priests.
It’s not the Devil
It’s not that the lay people aren’t praying for priests enough.

It’s grievously sinning (and criminal) predatory priests and equally, the church leadership that covered up the abuse.

Stop the excuses.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Regarding the sex abuse crisis.

It’s not the media
It’s not greedy lawyers
It’s not greedy abuse victims
It’s not the homosexuals
It’s not the 60’s.
It’s not Vatican II.
It’s not the Liberals
It’s not heterodoxy
It’s not sexualized kids tempting priests.
It’s not the Devil
It’s not that the lay people aren’t praying for priests enough.

It’s grievously sinning (and criminal) predatory priests and equally, the church leadership that covered up the abuse.

Stop the excuses.

I must disagree with nos. 4, 5, perhaps 7 and 8, and certainly 10.

Although that by no means indicates a disagreement on my part with your comment about sinning and criminal predatory priests.