The Price of Priestly Pederasty

[Lisa_N]

snoopy:

In response to my own quote, I repeat, what about the true victims. Why does no one want to focus on them? It seems all we want to do is debate whether the predators were homosexual or heterosexual. I believe it is important when speaking of this crime, that we never forget the victims. It really is all about the victims. My friend committed suicide while being sexually molested by a priest. I often wonder, will God give him a free pass into heaven because of being molested by a man representing God and the Catholic Church? It seems to me like he should have a non-stop ticket into heaven. He suffered so much on this earth. I for one never speak about the evil scandals without mentioning the word “victims.” I always incorporate them into the discussions.

No it’s not really all about the victims. It has become much larger. This situation is like nuclear waste, it’s taken on a life of its own that is far beyond what the victims suffered and are still suffering.

As to why no one takes the ‘bait’ as it were, possibly because there is nothing to debate about the true victims. What was done to them was unconscionable and disgraceful. They deserve our prayers for healing and support as they get the help they need. What is there to argue about?

Lisa N

 

[Anna_Elizabeth]

snoopy:

In response to my own quote, I repeat, what about the true victims. Why does no one want to focus on them? It seems all we want to do is debate whether the predators were homosexual or heterosexual. I believe it is important when speaking of this crime, that we never forget the victims. It really is all about the victims. My friend committed suicide while being sexually molested by a priest. .

Why don’t you start a thread to that effect, snoopy? It seems especially appropriate given the fact that your friend actually committed suicide while being molested.

That would enable you to go into some detail about how that all came about, the previous history of both the priest and the young man, how you and others found out about it, and the final (as of this date), outcome of this sad tale.

Anna

 

[snoopy]

Lisa N:

No it’s not really all about the victims. It has become much larger. This situation is like nuclear waste, it’s taken on a life of its own that is far beyond what the victims suffered and are still suffering.

As to why no one takes the ‘bait’ as it were, possibly because there is nothing to debate about the true victims. What was done to them was unconscionable and disgraceful. They deserve our prayers for healing and support as they get the help they need. What is there to argue about?

Lisa N

HMMMMM. Nothing to debate about the true victims. Let me see… How about the people debating whether they should receive money or not, how about the heirarchy hiding under the cover of statute of limitations, (If they were abused, it shouldn’t matter how long ago it happened). How about the hurt a victim must feel everytime a parish has a fundraiser for a predator priest when he ( my friend) knew how evil the priest was. How about dealing with the predator priests as they would be in any other walk of society by being put in prison–Unlike our St. Johns in Collegeville housing 13 brothers under “restrictions” where they in reality come and go as they please, eat fabulous steak dinners, etc, etc, etc. How do you think this must feel for the victims to see their molesters go unpunished? How would you feel if it were you, or your son or daughter, or brother or sister or friend or yourself? It really is all about the victims.

 

[snoopy]

Anna Elizabeth:

Why don’t you start a thread to that effect, snoopy? It seems especially appropriate given the fact that your friend actually committed suicide while being molested.

That would enable you to go into some detail about how that all came about, the previous history of both the priest and the young man, how you and others found out about it, and the final (as of this date), outcome of this sad tale.

Anna

Thanks, Anna. I can see you feel my pain and also the pain of the victims. I’ll probably start a thread, as soon as I can figure out how!!

 

[Lisa_N]

snoopy:

HMMMMM. Nothing to debate about the true victims. Let me see… How about the people debating whether they should receive money or not,.

Well so far no one has explained how paying someone millions will erase the past or make it all better. However be that as it may, I don’t think there is so much argument about some kind of financial award as how much. Is a million bucks enough to overcome the trauma of having Father X pat you on the rear? Honestly some of the awards vis a vis the actual accusations seem out of line. Some of the victims reported only a single incident and have not tied the incident to any subsequent trauma or mental health issue. In most civil cases, the plaintiff must prove damages. In this case the Church is guilty and the payments are punative and unrelated to the consequences of the abuse.

snoopy:

how about the heirarchy hiding under the cover of statute of limitations, (If they were abused, it shouldn’t matter how long ago it happened)…

There is a reason there is a statute of limitations. If you have ever been involved with a legal case, the reality is that after some point in time, it is almost impossible to prove guilt or innocence. Many of the cases are against priests that have been dead for decades. How does a priest or diocese defend a case when it is only the word of the complaintant against a dead priest?

You can call it ‘hiding’ behind the statute but why should it this limitation be tossed out just for this case? I guess I should be able to sue the dentist who molested me, my sister and my best friend although it happened thirty years ago and he’s dead right?

snoopy:

How about the hurt a victim must feel everytime a parish has a fundraiser for a predator priest when he ( my friend) knew how evil the priest was. .

Well having never heard of any fundraisers for CONVICTED abusers, I can’t really relate to the comment. So your friend knows that the priest is evil, does that mean he doesn’t deserve to have his day in court?

snoopy:

How about dealing with the predator priests as they would be in any other walk of society by being put in prison–Unlike our St. Johns in Collegeville housing 13 brothers under “restrictions” where they in reality come and go as they please, eat fabulous steak dinners, etc, etc, etc. How do you think this must feel for the victims to see their molesters go unpunished? How would you feel if it were you, or your son or daughter, or brother or sister or friend or yourself? It really is all about the victims.

Again are these CONVICTED priests or accused priests? Since there have been numerous instances where completely innocent priests were accused and then the case was found to have no merit, do you think that accused priests should be treated differently than any other accused? The law is not perfect but it’s what we have.

So I still disagree, it’s not ALL about the victims. There are always others who are impacted and sometimes it’s the innocent priest who is the victim.

Lisa N

 

[snoopy]

Lisa N:

Well so far no one has explained how paying someone millions will erase the past or make it all better. However be that as it may, I don’t think there is so much argument about some kind of financial award as how much. Is a million bucks enough to overcome the trauma of having Father X pat you on the rear? Honestly some of the awards vis a vis the actual accusations seem out of line. Some of the victims reported only a single incident and have not tied the incident to any subsequent trauma or mental health issue. In most civil cases, the plaintiff must prove damages. In this case the Church is guilty and the payments are punative and unrelated to the consequences of the abuse.

I have read that the majority of victims a few years ago got between 20 and 50 thousand dollars. Not alot of money when you think of how much a therapist or counselor costs per hour, and how many hours or lifetimes would a person need to start the lifetime process of recovery. As for generalizing that Father X only patted you on the rear, I believe that is about as naive as you can get. My friend was brutally sodomized over and over, but it really is more about the mental anguish of trusting a man of God and then having them betray you in such a horrific, barbaric, evil way. Surely I must be misunderstanding you if you think that certain types of abuse are ok. Also, how can you possibly know if some of the victims have tied the incident to any subsequent trauma or mental health issues or not? Have they all told you? Why is it ok for the church to send predator priests to fabulous retreats for rehabilitation and not pay victims a just amount. I would really like to know how much it costs to send a priest to rehab. If hundreds of thousands or millions can be spent on predator rehab centers, why can’t victims get the same type of rehab and or money? After all, they did nothing wrong.

*There is a reason there is a statute of limitations. If you have ever been involved with a legal case, the reality is that after some point in time, it is almost impossible to prove guilt or innocence. Many of the cases are against priests that have been dead for decades. How does a priest or diocese defend a case when it is only the word of the complaintant against a dead priest? *
You can call it ‘hiding’ behind the statute but why should it this limitation be tossed out just for this case? I guess I should be able to sue the dentist who molested me, my sister and my best friend although it happened thirty years ago and he’s dead right?

Right is right and wrong is wrong. That should be decided in the courts and it shouldn’t matter how long ago it happened. Perhaps that is why some restrictions have been lifted by the church recently. Evidently even they knew that the church needed to be less rigid about that, not all have however. There is no statute of limitations on murder and cases have been prosecuted years and years after the fact, even after the deaths of key witnesses. If there is no statute of limitations on murder, then in my humble opinion there should be none for rape either. Children’s lives were destroyed and their souls were murdered.

*Well having never heard of any fundraisers for CONVICTED abusers, I can’t really relate to the comment. So your friend knows that the priest is evil, does that mean he doesn’t deserve to have his day in court? *

I have. Put yourself for a minute in the place of a raped child or his parents. How would you feel if people rallied around this man who raped you and essentially called you a liar. That’s why many victims never come forward. Who needs to be victimized over and over again.

*Again are these CONVICTED priests or accused priests? Since there have been numerous instances where completely innocent priests were accused and then the case was found to have no merit, do you think that accused priests should be treated differently than any other accused? The law is not perfect but it’s what we have. *

Convicted. I will agree with your last sentence however. You must remember though that the church has deep pockets, and are able to hire junkyard dog lawyers and brutalize a victim back into submission. Most middle class people don’t have the resources or the resiliance. Only when a priest admits it or there are multiple victims is it really clear. Didn’t Geoghan have something like 87 victims? In how many other walks of life would
someone be able to rack up victims of those numbers?

So I still disagree, it’s not ALL about the victims. There are always others who are impacted and sometimes it’s the innocent priest who is the victim.

Lisa N*

*We will just have to agree to disagree on this one. I will always say it is about the victims, and I will always go to bat for the true victims. If it’s a priest who absolutely did nothing wrong, I will go to bat for him also. *

*I don’t know how i messed this up, but I’m sorry. I somehow got my response in italics, and didn’t mean to so I underlined instead. *

 

[Lisa_N]

snoopy I can’t untangle your post because your response is within the quote box. So I will try to respond to your main points.

First, I don’t think anyone is objecting to the real victims receiving awards to cover counseling, proven damages, and lost income. I don’t think anyone is objecting to even extremely high awards going to those who were as severely traumatized as your friend. But understand that your friend’s case is NOT the typical case. Most of them were not repeated acts of sodomy. In fact one of the more famous cases that was heard because it was within the statute of limitations was a single incident where a priest was accused of putting his hands in a boy’s trunks while swimming. Apparently there had been other accusations against this priest but nothing was within the statute. Again is that worth millions?

Further, even the Boston Globe reporters stated that many of the boys who were targeted already had various problems and issues that led to mental health crises later in life and that was sadly one of the reasons they WERE targeted, because they were vulnerable. This reporter (who certainly could not be said to be on the side of the Church) said that priests tended to go for boys from troubled families, with alcoholic parents, with non-existent fathers. So not only were they easy targets, they already had two strikes against them having a successful future. That being said, how do you decide that a person became an alcoholic or drug addict or depressed because of an incident with a priest three decades ago? What has happened is that while it may be true that the most seriously impacted victims are not getting their due, many hangers on, bandwagon jumpers, and opportunists are USING this situation to make money for themselves.

One of our priests is involved with the case in a local diocese and he said there was a major difference between the original complaints and the recent complaints. Many of the recent complaintants cannot document what parish or what priest or even what event was involved. I know of a man who was solicited numerous times by attorneys even though he said he had NOT had any issues with priests. But because he was an altar boy at the time a pervert priest was assigned to the parish, he could get in on the case. He finally said, why not? Might be something in it for me and signed up.

So both of us are looking at it through a different lens. I certainly do not begrudge the REAL victims receiving financial awards but I do mind millions going to lawyers (and trust me the victims have plenty of ‘junkyard dog’ types willing to take the case for a share of the pot) and people who really cannot document damage getting anything. There are other innocent victims including falsely accused priests and those of us who had NOTHING to do with the pederast priests seeing our parishes suffer for the acts of a few.

Lisa N

 

[HagiaSophia]

More on the subject of this thread: apparently the NCCB is still “in the dark” about what caused the entire scandal – any volunteers here to advise them?

Study on the “causes and context” of the problem of sexual abuse of minors by members of the Catholic Clergy in the United States, 1950 - 2002.

Request for Proposals - “Causes and Context Study”

The National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People announces the release of a Request for Grant Proposals (RFP) for a comprehensive study on the causes of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons in the United States and the social context in which it occurred.

During the past 52 years, at least 10,667 boys and girls were abused by members of the Catholic clergy in nearly every part of the country according to a recent study commissioned by the Board.1 The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has also directed the Board to commission a study to determine the causes of the abuse. The results of this study may enable the Church to affirm its current procedures for the prevention of abuse and to realize additional methods that would promote safety for children in all types of environments. The study will also seek to learn:…"

usccb.org/ocyp/gprelease.shtml

 

[JOHNYJ]

Yes, the church is becoming Gun shy.
Just the accusation alone is enough to get some diocese to shell out thousands.It has been reported that the strategy used until recntly to avoid paying and opening records has failed ,obstruction, delay, and block has failed .Instead the report say the strategy usualy wound up infuriating the judge and juries. So much that when they got the chance they fined the church even more than they would have if the church had been reasonable.To there great credit Catholic judges and juries have been the hardest on diocese and bishops that tried to not pay.
Oh yes the latest figures show the payouts have come to $ 1,600,000,000,.00 and will go up as we speak.

 

[Nohome]

st_felicity:

I blame the discernment process of these priests and their spiritual directors who thought of the Priesthood as a career rather than a vocation.

Sadly, I think you are right. With fewer and fewer men considering the priesthood, I think the standards have gotten very low. If you’ve got a pulse, are single and male, you are in.

Nohome