Priest who admitted groping boy appointed to high-profile position in Newark Archdiocese

[dixieagle]

I have one last thing to say. In nearly any other job, an employee known to engage in such behavior would be terminated on morals and/or legal grounds immediately. If the behavior was with other employees, underage users of the company’s services, there is no question of termination.

If a physician does such a thing with a patient, the expectation is revocation of his or her medical license, in addition to any other legal proceedings.

Why is this not similar in the Catholic Church? I priest or minister is in a trusted position of confidence and authority. Every other profession which is similar in that sense has strict ethical guidelines. School teachers, police personnel, physicians, military officers, and many other professions will not tolerate such behavior, if their ethical guidelines are followed.

You will never hear on the news (I hope) that Colonel Smith (fictitious name), a known child molester, has been promoted and will be taking over a new prestigious command. More likely you will hear that the person in question has received a reduction in rank, disciplinary action, and a dishonorable discharge.

Fill in your profession. All of them which have the responsibility for the care of people’s welfare, and all of them which have great authority, have higher moral standards than the Catholic Church appears to have in this matter.

I just do not understand. This matter should have been disposed of years ago, and it just keeps on coming up, over and over again.

The problem with you is that you are possessed of common sense.

 

[mgoforth]

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18: 9-14

 

[mgoforth]

With all due respect, there has been terrible damage inflicted in this whole sordid mess (Church molestation scandals) by “legitimate authority figures.”

Fair enough. There have been similar scandals throughout the Church’s entire history. But why do we feel the need to debate which toilet this priest should be assigned to clean for all eternity when that’s not the role God has given us? Does anyone believe that this scandal will be the downfall of the Church that Jesus said would never fall?

 

[Bonnie]

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: themselves will be exalted."

You sound like my husband. It has nothing to do with judging or being self-righteous. If you want a Scripture quote, Jesus also said: “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Matthew 18:5-7

Many of us are scandalized. I have been a Catholic for many years, I thought I had weathered the scandals well, but then came the news about Cardinal Mahony - and now this. It has been more than 12 frikken years of one horrible revelation after another. It’s like the Augean stables - a huge never-ending pile of dung (I’d use a stronger work but I doubt it would be allowed here).

 

[mgoforth]

It has nothing to do with judging or being self-righteous.

Respectfully, I believe it has everything to do with that. Why is everyone so quick to second-guess the Archbishop’s decision in this matter (which is between the priest and the Archbishop) if we’ve all truly forgiven him? The Archbishop is in charge of this, let him handle it and offer up your grief to God.

It’s better to assume the best about someone and be wrong, than to assume the worst and be right. I’m paraphrasing a saint, but I can’t remember who it is.

 

[Bonnie]

The saint probably never had children or knew about child abuse.

 

[BroomWagon]

Respectfully, I believe it has everything to do with that. Why is everyone so quick to second-guess the Archbishop’s decision in this matter (which is between the priest and the Archbishop) if we’ve all truly forgiven him? The Archbishop is in charge of this, let him handle it and offer up your grief to God.

It’s better to assume the best about someone and be wrong, than to assume the worst and be right. I’m paraphrasing a saint, but I can’t remember who it is.

We forgive but the Body of Christ just can not have any more of this, it really hurts all of us, it is a problem of all of us.

 

[BroomWagon]

The saint probably never had children or knew about child abuse.

The thing is is that is practically the most despised crime in society, I can shoplift, steal a car, even commit armed robbery, I can commit assault and battery, I can be caught with heroin but child abuse and all, is what is perceived as a great evil, a great wrong as with Jerry Sandusky. If one goes to prison and is convicted of child abuse, a person would want to be in isolation.

 

[BroomWagon]

Respectfully, if this was a problem that came up in a great while, we could be more understanding and we do have to admit that a lot of news gets recycled, a lot of these things happened 20, 30 years ago or more but it’s still a problem.

 

[mgoforth]

We forgive but the Body of Christ just can not have any more of this, it really hurts all of us, it is a problem of all of us.

There will be more of it, I can assure you. It most likely occurred at various times throughout the centuries but never came to light as it is today. Do you think this is the first period in history when grown men have been attracted to small children? But there’s no need to worry about the Church’s survival, since it has the protection of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Seeker1961]

I have one last thing to say. In nearly any other job, an employee known to engage in such behavior would be terminated on morals and/or legal grounds immediately. If the behavior was with other employees, underage users of the company’s services, there is no question of termination.

If a physician does such a thing with a patient, the expectation is revocation of his or her medical license, in addition to any other legal proceedings.

Why is this not similar in the Catholic Church? I priest or minister is in a trusted position of confidence and authority. Every other profession which is similar in that sense has strict ethical guidelines. School teachers, police personnel, physicians, military officers, and many other professions will not tolerate such behavior, if their ethical guidelines are followed.

You will never hear on the news (I hope) that Colonel Smith (fictitious name), a known child molester, has been promoted and will be taking over a new prestigious command. More likely you will hear that the person in question has received a reduction in rank, disciplinary action, and a dishonorable discharge.

Fill in your profession. All of them which have the responsibility for the care of people’s welfare, and all of them which have great authority, have higher moral standards than the Catholic Church appears to have in this matter.

I just do not understand. This matter should have been disposed of years ago, and it just keeps on coming up, over and over again.

Exactly. The reason the Church can’t get past these issues is because they won’t deal properly with the offenders.

 

[BroomWagon]

There will be more of it, I can assure you. It most likely occurred at various times throughout the centuries but never came to light as it is today. Do you think this is the first period in history when grown men have been attracted to small children? But there’s no need to worry about the Church’s survival, since it has the protection of the Holy Spirit.

That said, you have plenty of this in society: period. I have gone through this exercise before, I go to a news websearch: Bing: bing.com/news/search?q=sodomy&FORM=HDRSC6 (one can search out sodomy or child abuse)

1st organization showing involved in sodomy, Boy Scouts (who just happen to be in the news a lot right now anyway, so take that for whatever it’s worth), 2nd one, a UVA grad student, the next one, some sort of supervisor, next one,

The Rev. Isrom Johnson, 33, a pastor at Prince of Peace Missionary Baptist Church, located at 725 Linden Ave., was in the court for a pretrial conference, at which time another pretrial conference was scheduled for March 25.- newsandtribune.com/local/x1303537057/New-Albany-pastor-in-court

So in fact, another religion, NOT Catholic.

So, I say this not to cast stones at these others, but I have said this before, the rate in the Church is, at least nowadays, low, I hope relatively low and usually when I do these searches, other organizations and other religions come first.

Not to make this a lesser incident, 2 wrongs don’t make a right.

Again, doing this makes me think that while doing bad reprehensible things can not be justified and is evil, perhaps press coverage can be overblown in regards to the Catholic faith.

 

[YoungTradCath]

That’s kind of a lame post, isn’t it? Why is it considered “prestigious?”

 

[Seeker1961]

That said, you have plenty of this in society: period. I have gone through this exercise before, I go to a news websearch: Bing: bing.com/news/search?q=sodomy&FORM=HDRSC6 (one can search out sodomy or child abuse)

1st organization showing involved in sodomy, Boy Scouts (who just happen to be in the news a lot right now anyway, so take that for whatever it’s worth), 2nd one, a UVA grad student, the next one, some sort of supervisor, next one,

So in fact, another religion, NOT Catholic.

So, I say this not to cast stones at these others, but I have said this before, the rate in the Church is, at least nowadays, low, I hope relatively low and usually when I do these searches, other organizations and other religions come first.

Not to make this a lesser incident, 2 wrongs don’t make a right.

Again, doing this makes me think that while doing bad reprehensible things can not be justified and is evil, perhaps press coverage can be overblown in regards to the Catholic faith.

I don’t think you can give too much coverage to these events and I don’t really see the reason to keep score on who gets the most or least press.

These men, whatever religion they belong to, whatever organization they belong to-they need to be outed and punished for what they have done to innocent children.

 

[Sarabande]

Star-Ledger:

Okay, maybe priests who re guilty of abuse have to be assigned to seminaries of the chancery because they can’t serve in parishes. But putting such a person in charge of priestly formation??

I’m speechless, but I’m no longer surprised by these stories. When will it end? Haven’t we had enough salt rubbed into our wounds?

I can’t see how this was a wise decision. I’m afraid more stories like these will push people further away.

 

[BroomWagon]

I don’t think you can give too much coverage to these events and I don’t really see the reason to keep score on who gets the most or least press.

These men, whatever religion they belong to, whatever organization they belong to-they need to be outed and punished for what they have done to innocent children.

So you say they are all bad, yes I agree with that. No, no one is keeping score. I think our church gets saddled though with a lot of the blame. Sometimes though when these other churches get caught, it’s more of a freelance operation by the perpretrator, other churches in general don’t seem to have as much of a structure. No, no one is keeping score, it is important to remember that this not only effects our church but is rather broad in society. One of the news searches turned up even a probation officer. I think it is important to remember this affects many walks of life.

 

[Seeker1961]

So you say they are all bad, yes I agree with that. No, no one is keeping score. I think our church gets saddled though with a lot of the blame. Sometimes though when these other churches get caught, it’s more of a freelance operation by the perpretrator, other churches in general don’t seem to have as much of a structure. No, no one is keeping score, it is important to remember that this not only effects our church but is rather broad in society. One of the news searches turned up even a probation officer. I think it is important to remember this affects many walks of life.

Since you know how many more stories there are about Catholics and you know how few other perpetrators get press…would it not be you who is keeping score?

When you buy a red car, suddenly you see red cars everywhere.

 

[BroomWagon]

Since you know how many more stories there are about Catholics and you know how few other perpetrators get press…would it not be you who is keeping score?

When you buy a red car, suddenly you see red cars everywhere.

No, that is your conjecture that there are many more stories about Catholics, I also note you put “Not a CAF Catholic” or something by your name. Perhaps you resent the fact that there are plenty of these stories that go around to all faiths and you are the one that has a bias. As I said, this is just an exercise of randomness, that on most any day, one can search out these stories and a lot more other organizations come up first.

 

[Brendan]

“Priestly formation”??? This is the kind of person that the Archdiocese thinks is a good role model???

The same type of people who might think that a guy who denied Christ three times might make a good Pope?

 

[BroomWagon]

In the wake of the current crisis in the Church, other religious denominations and non-religious institutions have admitted to having similar problems with both pedophilia and ephebophilia among the ranks of their clergy. There’s no evidence that Catholic prelates are more likely to be pedophiles than Protestant ministers, Jewish leaders, physicians, or any other institution in which adults are in a position of authority and power over children.

• catholiceducation.org/articles/facts/fm0011.html

There are stats out there, bring them that show this is more of a problem with one faith than another. I’ve heard differently.