Suit says priest impregnated teenager

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KostyaJMJ said:
On the bright side at least the priest is interested in women of legal age.
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I’m not sure if you are pulling a POE here or not. However, I object to your flippant comment on a matter of such gravity.
 
Unfortunately this case will be used by anti-Catholics as justification for a married priesthood :rolleyes:
 
StrawberryJam said:
Hopefully this means he will step up and take on his financial responsibilities to this child. Assuming that he is the father, and if he is not and decided to anyway-
This is great news indeed!
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We don’t know that he had not accepted financial responsibility for the child. The news does not say that they were filing for child support. They were filing for damages. These are different kinds of suits.
Originally Posted by **miniquedoes **
Unfortunately this case will be used by anti-Catholics as justification for a married priesthood
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The left wing does not need an excuse to push the celibacy button. I don’t even think about what they will or will not say. My concern is always the typical Catholic in the pew whom the extremists try to persuade. Some people will forget that this was a case of a man who is 40 and a girl who was 17 or 18. This was as wrong a snow on a summer day. It has to do with boundaries, not celibacy.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
 
DOShea said:
What else does anyone want to happen?
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Since you asked, here’s what I want to happen. I can’t say in this case because I didn’t read the story and will take your word for it that there was no dragging of the feet or coverup in this case on the part of the bishop.

I know this kinda would mess with people’s faith in Apostolic succession and all of that. And a person’s faith might need tweaked or reworked a bit. But if there is coverup what I want to see happen is this.

For Catholics to say, "Hey you are a false teacher. Jesus taught by your fruits we shall know. And if we in the flock know better than to cover up abuse and can keep ourselves from abusing minors, then you who are supposed to be Apostolic successors, preaching to us about the sanctity of life should know as much and should be able to do the same. And if you can’t then you are a false teacher, a false shepherd, and not a true Apostolic successor. Abuse of a child and its coverup should be graver than for instance disobeying a bishop by missing Mass on a weekday holy day of obligation. All the more so when there is not universal teaching the same in each diocese on when the holy days are to be observed by Mass attendance.

A case in point is Bernard Law. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Francis_Law

Should never have been put brought to Rome by JP2 to be put in charge of a basilca, should not be a member of the Curia, and so on.

So that’s what I want to see if a bishop turns his head the other way. Thanks for asking and God bless and peace.
 
JReducation said:
We don’t know that he had not accepted financial responsibility for the child. The news does not say that they were filing for child support. They were filing for damages. These are different kinds of suits.

The left wing does not need an excuse to push the celibacy button. I don’t even think about what they will or will not say. My concern is always the typical Catholic in the pew whom the extremists try to persuade. Some people will forget that this was a case of a man who is 40 and a girl who was 17 or 18. This was as wrong a snow on a summer day. It has to do with boundaries, not celibacy.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF 🙂
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The parents can not file for her unless she is as they claim, to be unable to do so for herself.
That would mean that they would have to petition for guardianship.
This article is very hard to comment on since it lacks so much information.
Yes, the child support issue is one thing that I wished people would have commented more about.
It seems so irrelevant here though. Have the baby, but don’t make us have to step up to the plate to care for that baby.
 
Just wanted to clarify that I don’t hold this “theory.” I was just saying that there are those out there who do (not that it matters really) :o
 
miniquedoes said:
Just wanted to clarify that I don’t hold this “theory.” I was just saying that there are those out there who do (not that it matters really) :o
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Got it! And, unfortunately** it does matter **in terms of today who holds ideas like this. All of it matters very much actually. For good or bad or indifferent.
It all matters.
 
JReducation said:
Had there been grounds to call this abuse, this would not be tried in a civil suit, but as a felony.
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As always, you make very good points. It is unusual that the woman’s parents filed the lawsuit since apparently she is not on their side of this. I’m not sure why their lawyer thinks they have case, since apparently they didn’t have convincing evidence of wrong-doing until she was already 18, and thus an adult.
JReducation said:
The Church cannot guarrantee that any human being will not commit a sin. She can only guarrantee that she will respond and in this case, it appears that she has done so.
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Yeppers. Everyone, even priests, are human and thus suffer from the same flawed condition. And the Church seems to be doing the right thing.

In my first post I was summarizing the news article, which was linked to without any comment or explanation. My second post (and I should have mentioned this) is that the added complications are likely to keep this in the news longer than it should be. I apologize that I was not more clear in my postings.
 
This kind of stuff makes me physically sick and angry. Why become a priest and then do stuff like this.

How hard most the church already work to try restore some dignity and morale decency into the clergy.

I dont think the diocese should of showed a “blind eye” aswell these people got a duty to fulfill.
 
Patrick_Joshua said:
This kind of stuff makes me physically sick and angry. Why become a priest and then do stuff like this.
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Yes, it is cause to be angry and frustrated. However, priests are human and subject to the same temptations and flawed judgement or willpower that all of us are. As many people have noted in this forums, the rate of sexual exploitation among Catholic priests is no higher than among other clergy. And it seems to be lower than the rate among school teachers. Catholic priests simply attract more attention, in part because we group them all as Catholic. In contrast, when, say, a Baptist minister and a Presbyterian youth group leader do something similar we don’t we don’t group them together as a Protestant sex abuse problem.

Br. JR laid out the case for how the diocese responded, and that it did so appropriately. The claim that the diocese looked the other way when notified was made by the lawsuit. It is unproven, and of course, has a motive for presenting the diocese in the worst light possible.
 
Dale_M said:
Yes, it is cause to be angry and frustrated. However, priests are human and subject to the same temptations and flawed judgement or willpower that all of us are. As many people have noted in this forums, the rate of sexual exploitation among Catholic priests is no higher than among other clergy. And it seems to be lower than the rate among school teachers. Catholic priests simply attract more attention, in part because we group them all as Catholic. In contrast, when, say, a Baptist minister and a Presbyterian youth group leader do something similar we don’t we don’t group them together as a Protestant sex abuse problem.

Br. JR laid out the case for how the diocese responded, and that it did so appropriately. The claim that the diocese looked the other way when notified was made by the lawsuit. It is unproven, and of course, has a motive for presenting the diocese in the worst light possible.
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any chance you have a link on this

i believe you and all, its just when i would like to use this i dont have any stats for it
 
Montalo said:
any chance you have a link on this
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I am sorry, but I couldn’t find them. And in fact, a 2004 comprehensive review concluded that such studies may not exist, at least in the US:
However, there are no national government funded studies that document the prevalence of educator sexual misconduct.
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At least one study estimates that approximately 4-5% of teens report sexual contact with an educator.
www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

I suspect that the actual rate among teachers may be lower than among clergy since there are so many teachers.

BTW, here is an article about Catholic priests being no more sexually dangerous than other clergy.
newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html
 
When I was in High School in the 80’s a teacher married a student when she was 18. It was highly likely that they had a relationship prior to the marriage. He was in his late 30’s and had been divorced.

Not a peep from the press, not a peep from anybody…

How old was this Priest…?
The Priest has now changed vocations…he is a Father…pardon the pun…:rolleyes:.
Who am I to judge…???
They are living together are they married?
Are they going to be?

How old was Mary?

It is wrong from a modern day Pastoral sense, but it is not pedophilia and it is not illegal unless they can prove he had sex prior to her 18th birthday and in some states the age of consent is lower.

I don’t mean to stir up the pot, but the young family needs our prayers now to stay together. To raise that child correctly.

My :twocents: anyway…
 
Dale_M said:
Apparently the mother and the priest are living together. The baby was born six weeks ago, and the couple have been under the same roof for at least three months.
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Yes. I still can not figure out who is supporting this arrangement?
 
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