Should the Pope be held liable for full knowledge negligence in clergy scandal?

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Steven Merten:
Hello MariaG,

Yes I have heard that the Church took the advice of the experts. Some of phycologist experts said these priests would be ok with children. However, Vatican lawyer experts, as I am told, told Church leaders that they had better have a tremendous amount of money for law suits should they continue to put “rehabilitated” sexual predetor priests in unprotected contact with children.

Are not Church leaders being a little selective on which experts they claim to put all the blame on?

Do we all agree that they should have followed the advice of their lawyers? Where is all the money that their lawyers advised them to have should they choose the path they infact did choose to follow? Did not the Church “in good faith” believe their lawyers who deal with these issues daily? Did Church leaders simply rely on their untouchable status of the old days to disregard the advice of their lawyers?
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They believed in the emerging gods of psychiatry for their information. Psychiatrist A says this priest is not a threat and he is put back into active ministry and then reoffends. Is this negligence on the part of the bishop?
 
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buffalo:
The Pope wasn’t Pope in the 60’s and 70’s when these things were happening.

If you are the CEO of a company and 1 of your employees violates a law it is his liablility not yours. Even if you protect his guilt somehow, he is still the one who is guilty. If you change your policy to promote his illegal behavior, then you too are liable.
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That is an interesting concept. I worked in a company which annually issued an ethics statement. It directed all employees to comply with all laws that pertained to their operation.

Now, that didn’t absolve the company from liability, but it did establish responsibility.

I don’t know why the Church accepts responsibility for the actions of those priests, anyway. Certainly the new guidelines don’t leave much room for priests to behave the way that they did in the past.

The Church should be no more responsible for the action of a priest, than they would be responsible for my actions, for example. Priests and bishops should be like independent contractors, totally responsible and liable for their own actions.
 
The question posed here is absurd.

Here is an analogous question.

Should the president of the United States and his cabinet be sued because of sexual harrassment and sexual abuse that goes on in public schools? Should public schools and government offices have to be sold and taxes raised for the entire population to pay off these crimes? Should money be taken from the government funds that go the Red Cross and other national and international aid agencies? After all, the pockets are very deep and who knows what the president knew about the hiring practices of teachers, when he knew it, and what he did about it?
 
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BayCityRickL:
That is an interesting concept. I worked in a company which annually issued an ethics statement. It directed all employees to comply with all laws that pertained to their operation.

Now, that didn’t absolve the company from liability, but it did establish responsibility.

I don’t know why the Church accepts responsibility for the actions of those priests, anyway. Certainly the new guidelines don’t leave much room for priests to behave the way that they did in the past.

The Church should be no more responsible for the action of a priest, than they would be responsible for my actions, for example. Priests and bishops should be like independent contractors, totally responsible and liable for their own actions.
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One of the problems is that Priests don’t work for the Church, they work for God.
 
Steven Merten:
Hello MariaG,

Yes I have heard that the Church took the advice of the experts. Some of phycologist experts said these priests would be ok with children. However, Vatican lawyer experts, as I am told, told Church leaders that they had better have a tremendous amount of money for law suits should they continue to put “rehabilitated” sexual predetor priests in unprotected contact with children.

Are not Church leaders being a little selective on which experts they claim to put all the blame on?

Do we all agree that they should have followed the advice of their lawyers? Where is all the money that their lawyers advised them to have should they choose the path they infact did choose to follow? Did not the Church “in good faith” believe their lawyers who deal with these issues daily? Did Church leaders simply rely on their untouchable status of the old days to disregard the advice of their lawyers?
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No, they should not have relied on the advice of their lawyers. They should have relied on the advice of the law enforcement, which is exactly where the bishops should have gone. Rape of children was then and still now is a CRIME. Why wasn’t it reported to the police instead of handling it “within”? I think that if a murder would have been reported, then a child’s rape should have been reported also.
 
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snoopy:
No, they should not have relied on the advice of their lawyers. They should have relied on the advice of the law enforcement, which is exactly where the bishops should have gone. Rape of children was then and still now is a CRIME. Why wasn’t it reported to the police instead of handling it “within”? I think that if a murder would have been reported, then a child’s rape should have been reported also.
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Abuse was reported to the police.

Form the John Jay Study - 24.2% were reported and 22.3% were investigated by the police. 9.1% were charged with a crime (41% of those investigated) 65% of those charged with a crime were convicted. 73% were sent to prison. 62.2% had 1 incident, 18.4% had 2.

5.1% convicted had acts of sex, 4.9% did not involve an act of sex. (The type of act did not seem to influence whether they were reported)

You really need to look over the facts before you make your charges.
 
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buffalo:
Abuse was reported to the police.

Form the John Jay Study - 24.2% were reported and 22.3% were investigated by the police. 9.1% were charged with a crime (41% of those investigated) 65% of those charged with a crime were convicted. 73% were sent to prison. 62.2% had 1 incident, 18.4% had 2.

5.1% convicted had acts of sex, 4.9% did not involve an act of sex. (The type of act did not seem to influence whether they were reported)

You really need to look over the facts before you make your charges.
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According to your figures if I understand correctly, only 24.2 % of abuse charges were reported to law officials by the church. Why not 100%? Is it not a felony?
 
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snoopy:
According to your figures if I understand correctly, only 24.2 % of abuse charges were reported to law officials by the church. Why not 100%? Is it not a felony?
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I don’t know the answer. Perhaps they were not credible. In any case your statement is disengenuous and you should study the facts before making blanket statements out of ignorance.
 
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buffalo:
I don’t know the answer. Perhaps they were not credible. In any case your statement is disengenuous and you should study the facts before making blanket statements out of ignorance.
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You are the one who posted the study figures, not me. Perhaps you should know what you are posting before you shake your finger at me. My opinion still stands. It was always a crime and a crime should be reported to the police, not try to be handled within the church walls. If the charges were not credible, then the police and or experts would be called to sort it out at that time. Hard to do if the church does not report it. It needed to be a police matter, as it is a felony and thus, a crime.
 
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snoopy:
You are the one who posted the study figures, not me. Perhaps you should know what you are posting before you shake your finger at me. My opinion still stands. It was always a crime and a crime should be reported to the police, not try to be handled within the church walls. It was then and is now a police matter as it is a felony and thus, a crime.
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And I think you were making the point these crimes were never reported. I pointed to the facts that they were.
 
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buffalo:
And I think you were making the point these crimes were never reported. I pointed to the facts that they were.
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24.2% is not good enough, sorry.
 
snoopy said:
24.2% is not good enough, sorry.
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24.2 % of all allegations. How many were not credible? Correct me if I am wrong - are you saying you would expect this number to be 100%? That 100% of allegations were credible?

Looking further into the ones reported a good number that were investigated were found to not be credible.

If you are saying in a general way we could do better, then I would agree.
 
buffalo said:
24.2 % of all allegations. How many were not credible? Correct me if I am wrong - are you saying you would expect this number to be 100%? That 100% of allegations were credible?

Looking further into the ones reported a good number that were investigated were found to not be credible.

If you are saying in a general way we could do better, then I would agree.
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Woo Hoo–we agree on something. All I am saying is 100% of all alleged molestations that the church know about should have been reported to the police by the church. From there, the experts in their field could have sorted it out and the guilty would have gone to prison. Much like what should be done if you saw a body with a gunshot wound in his head. Turn it over to the police.
 
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snoopy:
Woo Hoo–we agree on something. All I am saying is 100% of all alleged molestations that the church know about should have been reported to the police by the church. From there, the experts in their field could have sorted it out and the guilty would have gone to prison. Much like what should be done if you saw a body with a gunshot wound in his head. Turn it over to the police.
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What about the one’s that the child admitted to making the story up? Should they have been reported to the police? Why don’t you think parents have the authority to make that decision?
 
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buffalo:
What about the one’s that the child admitted to making the story up? Should they have been reported to the police? Why don’t you think parents have the authority to make that decision?
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Come on, Buffalo, do you really think that happened alot? Let’s not deflect from the thousands of faithful, innocent children and their families who were destroyed by this heinous crime. I truly do think you agree more than disagree with me on this one. The church needs to be held accountable for not reporting these crimes if they knew about them. There is no way they were doing the right thing by treating it as something other than a horrific crime. Let the police sort it out from there. 24.2 % of all the allegations they knew about and reported is not nearly good enough. In any other walk of life, the adults who did not protect and report crimes would have been strung up or at least chastized and ostracized for not reporting it.
 
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snoopy:
Come on, Buffalo, do you really think that happened alot? Let’s not deflect from the thousands of faithful, innocent children and their families who were destroyed by this heinous crime. I truly do think you agree more than disagree with me on this one. The church needs to be held accountable for not reporting these crimes if they knew about them. There is no way they were doing the right thing by treating it as something other than a horrific crime. Let the police sort it out from there. 24.2 % of all the allegations they knew about and reported is not nearly good enough. In any other walk of life, the adults who did not protect and report crimes would have been strung up or at least chastized and ostracized for not reporting it.
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Snoop - I hear what you are saying. This however is not an ideal world. You keep claiming that the church needs to be held accountable for not reporting them and I have shown evidence that they did report them. So if the Church was reporting them then the OP was whether the Pope should be held liable. Now if an individual is guilty, say a Bishop of a crime, he should be punished. You are relying on the authorities, but you can see even the authorities had problems and could not bring 100% convistions.

I can see no evidence given the report that the Pope should be held liable.

As shown in the report there were different allegations. Some were acts some were not.

And your final comment - I believe the report showed that the reporting is about the same for the general public.
 
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buffalo:
If the Pope learns of this and then gathers the Bishops and tells them in no uncertain terms this has to stop etc… does this satisfy his requirements?
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No - because one of the great fooleries of the last forty years has been, that Popes have blethered endlessly about all sorts of abuses: but done nothing. Anyone can talk - talk is cheap. And blether without action to match, if the blether goes one long enough, leaves the Popes looking like wind-bags who are all talk and no action. Any trad with a good memory will be able to list a lot of examples of Papal talk unsupported by acts.​

It’s at times like this that I wonder whether a revival of the Inquisition would not be a good idea, of that, and of the old process for degrading clergy. I’m not suggesting that anyone should be burned - absolutely not: besides, execution by Church authorities, or even at their request, would probably be impossible both doctrinally and legally.

But some sort of tribunal with universal jurisdiction, which could have its work done in the local Churches, with power to try cases of heresy, apostasy; to judge the orthodoxy of books by Catholics or in use for religious purposes; to judge any Catholic at all; and to suggest remedies for evils in the Church, might be no bad idea. It would have full power to inflict all punishments short of imprisonment and death; and would not employ torture. Most of its personnel would be laity; and the word of all Catholics who had attained their majority would be of equal weight. Those accused would be given every opportunity to rebut the charges against them. There would be no incentives to work in it - that is how corruption sets in; and Church tribunals must be wholly free of that. ##
 
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