Rebuttal of the PA grand jury report

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I have explained this to you already before but this report provides justice to the victims and survivors of abuse. This is about justice as well as providing a road map for the Church to prevent abuse and cover-up from happening in the future.
 
Then I’d be interested in hearing why that is. I think those priests and their bishop should have the opportunity to explain.
 
Justice? If I or a family member were abused I wouldn’t think a grand jury report is justice. Also, if people are falsely accused then this isn’t in any way justice. Then this would be injustice.
 
anikins said:
This comes off as an attempt to minimize the evils committed.
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I respectfully disagree. Yes, there have been evils committed here and elsewhere. All Catholics are horrified by them, and we have been acknowledging and apologizing for them for years now, as well as reforming how the Church prevents abuse and handles reports of it. There is still much work to be done.

But surely fair-minded people are interested in finding out the truth, as best as it can be ascertained. I certainly am. I am not going to roll over and concede to an 800-page report of sheer allegations, when much of it seems to be an attempt to throw as much garbage as possible at the Church to see what sticks. Abuse is a terrible thing, but false accusations are also a grave injustice.
 
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Precisely. I don’t doubt abuse occurred. But that doesn’t mean I have to or even should concede that the report is substantially reflective of reality. I haven’t yet seen anyone deny that abuse has happened or that it is awful. People who don’t care about justice don’t seem to hear that or don’t care. What can you do with such people? If they won’t be reasonable then you can do nothing.
 
The survivors DO feel that this report bring them justice. The Church silenced them, and this report freed them.
 
These are not just allegations. They are substantiated in official diocesan documents which appear in the report, if you would bother to read it. It is well documented that diocesan staff and Church leadership at the level of bishop were aware of child abuse and covered it up.
 
How could you possibly know that? How can you or anyone speak for such a broad group? And how did the Church silence them? It may be the Church didn’t give them the justice they deserved, but that isn’t silencing them.
 
I believe a lot of what you claim is substantiated just means the diocese recorded the allegation. That doesn’t make it a fact. In some cases the diocese may have gathered evidence and found the allegation credible. That still doesn’t make it a fact.
 
I have no interest in discussing this with you unless you have actually read the report in question which it is clear you have not. The Church knew of the abuse and acted to cover it up.
 
Paywall. But still a statement even by many can’t speak for all.

Threats are attempting to silence. Covering it up isn’t. There is no need to be inaccurate in how we describe this. What happened is bad enough and certainly unjust without doing injustice to the English language.
 
You’ve read the report? The whole report? That is a lot of reading. If I may ask why did you read it? What did you hope to gain from reading it?

I have no interest in reading it beyond the first few pages I read. The intro tells me enough about the report to know what it is, a hit piece. My opinion has been validated by trustworthy sources who have read the whole thing.
 
To be fair, though, the diocese would have documentation of an allegation made against a priest even if that allegation were completely fabricated. Simply having an official diocesan document with an allegation doesn’t necessarily make it true. Of course, it doesn’t make it false either.
 
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You are not reading.

The dioceses in question do not simply have reports of the allegations, but have verified the claims. And then covered them up.
 
As the grand jury report says these were in the ‘secret archive’. It points out this is the Church’s term, and not the jury’s. It says only the bishop has the key. This all sounds nefarious like various Seventh Day Adventist conspiracy theories about the Vatican Secret Archives.

Of course secret just means private. It is used in an older sense from Latin. And by the way the grand jury itself has secret archives. So if secret archives makes one nefarious the grand jury itself is.
 
Yes, as requested by several bishops, I read the report. I did so to acknowledge the survivors and disease within my Church instead of burring my head in the sand like a coward.

Cover-ups are an attempt to silence. Thankfully the Church did not get away with it in the end.
 
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