A victim’s father writes to the priest who abused his son

Must Read: A Victim’s Father Writes to the Priest Who Abused His Son
Voice from the Desert
November 21, 2007
OPEN LETTER TO:

November 21, 2007
"Reverend" (?) Donald J. McGuire
The Most Dangerous Priest in America
Oak Lawn, Illinois

Congratulations! You have successfully accomplished much of the work of your spiritual mentor, Lucifer. For at least 40 of your 46 years of Satan inspired priesthood you have ruined the lives of countless of young boys and their family's with your forced pedophilia. A special place in Hell waits, unless before death, you repent and seek forgiveness. I never imagined so much evil could exist in one individual as it does in you, Donald McGuire! You as well as your cohorts, the Jesuits, have known of your deviant lifestyle for decades, yet have done nothing to stop it. With so many male prostitutes available for your perverted pleasure why do you target young innocent boys from decent families for your lewd and lascivious behavior? Is it because your deranged criminal mind only finds joy in murdering the souls of your countless innocent victims through your evil behavior?

In my October 8, 2007 letter to Judge James L. Carlson in Walworth County (WI) asking for revocation of bond and incarceration, as you certainly deserve, I noted how you have made a mockery of the Sacraments of Holy Orders (Priesthood) and Penance (Confession) as you often molested young boys (including mine) in the confessional. Since then, I've discovered your Sacramental Mockery #3 extends to Matrimony (Marriage) - You deliberately drove wedges between husbands and wives and to create an opportunity for you to essentially kidnap our sons for your world wide perverted sexual encounters, including in the convents of Mother Teresa, and continued to traumatize them. Also, your sexual abuse of our younger son, while you were in Phoenix to witness the Marriage of our oldest son (your earlier victim) is unconscionable. Sacramental Mockery #4 (Baptism) – Your eager willingness to baptize our three youngest children and stay at our home was obviously a deceptive ploy to sexually abuse our oldest son again, and again. Sacramental Mockery #5 (Eucharist) – On retreats you typically reserved the Blessed Sacrament in your bedroom at night, where you also sexually abused my sons and other boys. How much more demonic can you be? I can only pray that through your fraudulent and sacrilegious priesthood somehow this Sacrament was invalid.

You dare to tell the few supporters you have left that my sons' motivation in filing a lawsuit against you and your co-conspirators (the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus) is "for the money". Even the Archdiocese of Chicago is getting on this bandwagon. All the while you solicit money for "The Donald McGuire Defense Fund" from widows and other unsuspecting victims, proclaiming your innocence, even after a 5 felony (Indecent Behavior with a Child) Wisconsin jury conviction last year and nearly 40 years of well documented evidence against you. If not money, which "medium of exchange" do you suggest as a trade off for the lonely, silent depression and shame you've put my two sons through for the past 19 years and 7 years respectively? It's still far from being over, if ever. What about the constant, painful reminder we as parents feel that we ever allowed a then, unknown psychopathic child predator into our lives that destroyed forever the innocence of our sons? Are we supposed to sit around a campfire, hold hands sing Kumbia and hope all is forgotten? Whatever the final outcome, it will not have been worth the ongoing tears, anguish and humiliation that you, Donald McGuire, have caused. Certainly you know by now there are multiple criminal complaints filed against you in various counties where your despicable crimes were committed. The U.S. Attorney of Northern Illinois is prosecuting you for your malfeasants (Case #07CR 716).

What baffles me, Donald McGuire, is how in the twilight years of your life you don't acknowledge your obvious guilt, apologize to the multiple victims, now young men, and their families and help us all begin the healing process. Even Jeffery Daumer, who ironically, had the same criminal defense lawyer, Gerald Boyle, as you did in your Wisconsin trial, sought and received partial forgiveness from some of his victims' families before his untimely miserable death. You say: "I'm losing friends because people don't know my side of the story" and "my lawyer says I can't talk". You've had ample opportunity to tell your story, yet you remain mute with a disgusting smirk. Why? In fact at your sentencing on July 18, 2006 in Walworth County, (WI) you swore on the Bible: "I wish I ignored my lawyers' advice and testified in my own behalf. Given the opportunity for a new trial I swear I will not remain silent". Your multiple motions for a new trial were all denied on November 1, 2007. So, now's your chance; let's hear your story. Also, you won't have your lawyer at your side on Judgment Day. What will you do then? You never got permission from parents of your victims to introduce them to gay pornography or to impose your deviant sexual fantasies on them. Why do you now need permission from your lawyer to be contrite? Please let us know when you get the OK from your lawyer to apologize – then do it!

.R.C. - father of: Victims 5 & 10 (see NPR.com for details, Search - Donald McGuire)

- aka: John Does' 117 & 118 (Cook County, IL – Civil Case #2007L011952)

Nuns On The Run In Africa

The Sunday Mail
Nov 25 2007
By Marion Scott Exclusive

Scots Sisters Flee Orphanage In Zambia Amid Cruelty Claims Official Says Kids 'Starved' In 'Concentration Camp' Conditions

TWO elderly Scots nuns were forced to flee Africa after being accused of cruelty to children in the orphanage they founded. Dorothy Clark, 65, and Jane Burchill, 76, ran the Little Sisters in Jesus orphanage in central Zambia."

The country's human rights commission are investigating, although the women deny reports that include:

The conditions were like something out of a "concentration camp".
An official compared the situation to "slavery".

A Zambian nun said they kept their dogs well fed while orphans "starved".
She said they addressed the 18 orphans as "pigs" and made them work for medicine.

Sister Dorothy and the Reverend Burchill - a Scottish Episcopal Church priest - founded the orphanage in 1994 in the bush village of Fiwila, around 300 miles from capital Lusaka.
It is home to five girls and 13 boys.

It was run by a charitable trust which raised funds in Scotland.

At their home in Bucksburn, Aberdeen, Sister Dorothy said: "We can't understand what happened."

Human rights commissioner Pastor Godfridah Sumaili said: "I am very angry at the way they treated children.
"These are vulnerable children and we will not tolerate them being abused. Their treatment has been cruel.
"The children have told me that they were starving. They had no proper bedding or clothing.

"They were forced to use toilets and showers with no privacy at all, just in the middle of a room.
"But the two Scottish nuns were very comfortable. They fed their dogs and cats better than they fed the children.
"This was total slavery."

The two Scots visited Zambia around once a month.

Sister Prudence Kunda, who is in charge day-to-day, said: "The children lived in fear each time the two sisters were present. They called the orphans pigs.
"We are now living happily with the children but we are not sure if aid will still flow.
"The two white sisters were in charge of everything.
"They would prescribe medicine as though they were doctors. Then they would ask you to work for it in the garden or kitchen.
"The misery of the children could be seen in their eyes. Most got malnutrition. Three children shared a blanket."

Bishop of Central Zambia Derek Kamukwamba raised concerns with the Scots on a visit to the UK in September.
They went to Zambia to collect their belongings on November 1 before returning to Scotland.

Sister Dorothy said: "We were dedicated to making sure the children were educated, so they in turn could help their own people.
"Every hut we built had roofing, mosquito nets and was plumbed with flush toilets. While not ideal conditions, it was better than how many of the neighbours lived.

"In September, the bishop told us he could no longer guarantee our safety. We were told to come back and collect our belongings.
"We don't know how or why this has happened."

Dr Noel Mack, from Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, is a trust official for the orphanage. The GP said: "I have been to the orphanage three times and always found the children to be happy and looked after."

The Foreign Office said they were not aware of the situation.

The Scottish Episcopal Church said: "We have no role in the governance of the orphanage."

'They fed their dogs better than the children'

Godfridah Sumaili

Zambia: When Fiwila Orphanage Angels Turned Evil
The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
21 November 2007Posted to the web 21 November 2007
Abel MbooziNdola

IT is shocking and difficult to understand how devoted Christians who are firm believers in the word, works and teachings of Jesus Christ can harbour evil intents and pour their wrath on innocent orphans.

Unfortunately, this happens more so often far away from us around the world, yet today, the call comes this close to home as the tale of two Scottish Anglican Church sisters of Mkushi, who have fled the country after their years of inhumane, cruel treatment of 18 orphans of Lioboth Convent and Orphanage was laid bare by Medicare of Ndola.

Sister-in-charge of the convent, Prudence Kunda, narrated how orphans at the convent, including herself and other workers, suffered at the hands of the two Scottish sisters, Dorothy and Jane aged 80 and 72 respectively.

The two sisters have since fled the country for fear of prosecution.

The years of abuse and sub-humane treatment of orphans was brought to light when Human Rights Commission (HRC) commissioner, Godfridah Sumaili visited the orphanage to establish the situation after persistent complaints from staff and people living around the orphanage.

The orphanage was started in 1998 by sisters Dorothy and Jane, with the help of Scottish aid and the support of the local Anglican Parish at Fiwila which has 18 orphans, five girls and 13 boys.

"We used to receive funding from Scotland through the two white sisters who used to take care of our needs as well as the needs of the orphans. We did not know how much aid we got because the two white sisters were in charge of everything, but we stayed happily until in the last five years when the attitude of the nuns became weird," Sister Kunda recounts.

Medicare of Ndola visited the orphanage early this year and they were shocked to discover that no one was allowed to receive medical treatment at the local health post, a matter that forced the visitors to report the matter to the HRC.

"We were denied medical attention. Even when a child or a Zambian sister fell ill, the two sisters would prescribe medicine for you as though they were trained doctors. After you took the medicine, they would ask you to work for it either in the garden or in their kitchen, which was not fair.

"Children survived on a bun and tea for lunch and sometimes even supper for a long period. Most of the under-five children even developed malnutrition. The misery of the little children could be seen in their eyes. They have had no linen on their beds while the bed space is too small to accommodate three. Three children were made to share one blanket, their clothing is tattered as you can see," complained Sister Kunda.

She said the two sisters used to receive clothes for the children but no one knew where they used to take the garments, some of which is said to have been burnt on the incinerator.
Sister Kunda said many times, the children would run and fall over themselves to the incinerator to try and salvage any remains of the clothes when the two sisters were away.

"Orphans starved while food for the two sisters' dogs was readily available. The children had no freedom to play around the orphanage, they lived in fear each time the two sisters were present. They preferred going to the chapel with their dogs and watch videos with them than with the poor orphans whom they called pigs.

The nuns, who were excessive beer drinkers, never allowed the local sisters to use their cooking utensils and as such, they (local sisters) were forced to fetch firewood with the help of children almost everyday.

"There was no harmony at this orphanage when the two whites were around because even us elders were mistreated like young ones, but we had little to do and had it not been for Medicare of Ndola, this misery would have continued.
"We are now living happily with the children, but we are not too sure whether aid would continue to flow as promised by the two nuns who have since left," Sister Kunda said.

To add salt to injury, the sisters sold the vehicle they used at the orphanage and left for Scotland with the cash.

Gladys Musuka, 15, a grade nine orphaned pupil at Fiwila Basic School, recounting her ordeal, said the two sisters made them live in perpetual fear when they were around adding that they were called pigs and not by their names and if any of them dare failed examinations in school, they were asked to leave the orphanage.

"We were not allowed to worship in the Convent Parish Church, children were scared to run to them each time they came from a trip. No child used to jump in their car even when it rained but their dogs were allowed and even sheltered properly than us," Musuka narrated.

The children have now found peace with the local sisters.
Another orphan, Innocent Chibwe, 16 and in grade nine at Fiwila, narrated how he and other kids suffered at the hands of the two white sisters.

"We are relieved now that the two whites have left the orphanage, we never went for evening studies and we never used to eat well even when food was in abundance. Our beddings and clothing are in tatters, we need plenty food and the whole orphanage needs assistance.

It was in this line that Pastor Sumaili promised that the commission would make recommendations to have the orphanage closed so the children can be relocated or better still find means to sustain its operations for the well being of the children.
Commissioners; Pastor Sumaili, Kenneth Maduma and Alfred Sakala could not hide their grief about the plight of the children at the orphanage.

"This was total slavery. The HRC is concerned about the critical issues that have been raised and we shall follow them up with relevant officials.
"It is inhumane to subject children to such conditions, the sanitation is bad and beddings are not there. It is important that a solution is urgently found to assist the poor orphans," Pastor Sumaili promised.

The two sisters left Zambia on November 1.

Laat horen die stemmen! ‘These are the voices that need to be heard’

DAVID LEASK
The Herald - Scotland's Leading Quality Daily Newspaper:
"Sorry. Elizabeth McWilliams is sick of the word. She said it when she was lied to. She said it when she was beaten. She said it when she was raped aged nine.

Now she thinks it's time somebody else apologised.

Ms McWilliams was one of the children - their number simply unknown - who were physically, sexually and emotionally tortured in Scottish care homes. And then told they had only themselves to blame. Yesterday she sat through the first independent report into Scotland's 'national shame', a half-century of abused youngsters whose cries for help were ignored."

"I hope society can now accept this once and for all," Ms McWilliams, 70, told the report's author Tom Shaw. "I hope I am going to get an apology."

The Shaw report - officially titled Historical Abuse Systemic Review - was not the full-fledged public inquiry Ms McWilliams and hundreds of fellow campaigners had wanted. It was certainly not an apology. But it remains the biggest public acknowledgement of children's suffering to date.

Mr Shaw, a former teacher and schools inspector from Northern Ireland, named no names. Nor did he hazard a guess at the scale of the abuse in the period he covered, 1950 to 1995. Instead he gave voice to the unheard. A whole chapter of his report was devoted to the words, anonymous but strong, of those who survived abuse.

One of those voices was Ms McWilliams. For around 16 years, from 1939 to 1954, she lived - and suffered - in the Quarriers Village in Bridge of Weir, a Christian community of cottages, each with their own mother and father, that was supposed to replace the horrors of mass orphanages.
The cottage parents, however, expected some gratitude from Ms McWilliams, then little Elizabeth Miller, and her fellow residents. Their story is typical of those abused, but always made to feel guilty on behalf of their abusers.

"All my life I kept apologising," she said last night. "Please, please, please, I am so sorry, I would say. That's why I don't like the word.

"I had such low esteem. We were children but we were told we were worthless good-for-nothings."
Ms McWilliams came to Quarriers at one.

She arrived with a twin brother, but was separated from him. "He was put in Cottage nine, for the boys. I was in Cottage 11."

She only learned that the boy, Archie, was her brother when they were, she thinks, about 12. "A teacher let it slip," she said. "But we were still not allowed to talk.

"It was a really religious place. The boys and girls went to church together, but the boys came in one door and the girls another. I never got to know my brother. We have no relationship."

She can't be exactly sure that she found out about her brother when she was 12. Age was always tricky. "We never knew our birthdays," she explained. "We only knew our age by the jobs we were doing. When I was five I was the bedroom girl. When I was 15 I was the kitchen girl."
They could count on Christmas, of course, but not on Christmas gifts. "I wanted Fair Isle gloves," she said. "One year I asked for them. You would say what you wanted and you would get a slap. Think again,' I was told. A bible would suit you.' Next year I got a hymn book. I couldn't read. I was blind in one eye but only got glasses when I was eight and a half."

When she was nine - or thereabouts - she was raped by the man Quarriers called her house father. "He took his chance," she said matter-of-factly.

Some children complained of abuse. That had consequences. "Boys," she said. "Well, they were hung up on door hangers and their penises tied to doorhandles."

Her worst abuse? "Having no identity," she said yesterday. "To be told, wrongly, you were an orphan. To be lied to as a child, not even being able to dream about belonging to anybody. I don't belong to anybody or any place. It's a terrible feeling."

Quarriers was just one of many institutions where children were abused. Nobody knows the scale. Records are lost - "scattered", said Mr Shaw. No-one even knows for sure how many institutions there were from the 1950s to 1990s that looked after children, many the orphans of the men and women who fought for Britain in the war.

David Whelan, however, believes Quarriers is a special case, deserving a study, a public inquiry, in its own right, such was the horror of its regime. He said: "It was not a care ethos. It was an abuse ethos."

Mr Whelan was at the Bridge of Weir village from 1969 to 1974, between the ages of 10 and 15. He kept silent about the abuse he suffered, until he was asked, by the wife of a man under investigation for child abuse, to serve as a character witness.

He refused and instead turned witness for the prosecution, helping to secure the conviction of John Porteous, who was jailed for eight years, later reduced to five on appeal, for sexually abusing Mr Whelan, now 50, and others.

Mr Shaw, from the outset of his report, had warned of the dangers of applying 21st century morals to historic abuse. Mr Whelan, however, has little time for such niceties. The abuse that took place, after all, would have been illegal at the time. "We should not make excuses for the past," he said.

Helen Holland agrees. Now 49, she was sent to Nazareth House in Kilmarnock, a children's home run by nuns, when she was five. "My grandmother had died and my father was told, by our parish priest, that it was not decent for me and my sisters to live in a house with three men.
"The three men were my dad, my uncle and my grandfather. Ironic, really, at Nazareth House I was raped by a priest."

Two days after Ms Holland was brought to the home she was beaten to a pulp by a nun after being found, lonely and frightened, snuggling up to her big sister in a single bed. "She called me a brazen hussie," Ms Holland said.

Later, when Ms Holland was eight, a nun pulled a hood over her head to help a priest rape her. The sexual abuse went on for three years until, aged 11, she fell pregnant. The same nun kicked her in the stomach until she miscarried.

Scotland, Mr Shaw announced, should have a national task force, answerable to parliament and not the executive, whose sole job should be to listen to children, young and old, in whoever's care they are in, church or state.

"I am deeply concerned about the possibility of people who were not listened to as children not being listened to as adults," Mr Shaw said yesterday, calling for a centre for historic abuse, a one-stop shop where stories - and records - could be collected, lest anyone forget.

Why? Because, Mr Shaw said, there are still children who are "out of sight and out of mind".


"De leiders van het land"

Denk ik aan de dode dagen
Van 't laatste cricketspel
Aan de stemmen, nu verslagen
Van de mensen rond 't veld
.....

Laat mij dan ook, Heer hierboven
Denken aan de overkant
Waar die lieve doden wonen
O, de leiders van 't land
Waar die lieve doden wonen
O, de leiders van het land

Dromend zien wij Cambridge liggen
En de kerk van Engeland
Boerderijen met veel biggen
Oude dames met hun krant
En dan smeek ik: Landgenoten
Breek uzelf niet langer af
Maar prijs God omdat ge blank zijt
En nog wel in Engeland
O, blijf daarom immer bidden
Voor de leiders van 't land
O, blijf daarom immer bidden
Voor de leiders van ons land

Liesbeth List zingt Theodorakis
1967

Hollands water: mirakels goed.












Zwarte Piet wiedewiedewiet
'hoor je wel maar 'k zie je niet
wil je Sint de groeten doen


Call for care home abuse centre BBC news 22 November 2007,
A centre should be established to help former victims of abuse in children's homes, a report has suggested.
It also recommended a "national task group" to oversee services for children in care and residential homes.
The recommendations came in an report commissioned by the previous Scottish Executive, into abuse in Scottish children's homes between 1950 and 1995.
Children's Minister Adam Ingram said he would consider how lessons could be learned from the past.
The report by Tom Shaw, former chief inspector of education in Northern Ireland, focused on child welfare regulations over a 45-year period, and how these were enforced.
It said that despite extensive and complex regulation, they were not "wholly effective in ensuring children's safety and welfare".
Mr Shaw warned that problems still existed, 12 years on from 1995.
'Same problems'
"In some respects you could say that everything that was identified as needing to be done in 1995, is now in place," he said.
"And yet, the same problems are occurring, the same needs exist, and the same concerns that motivated government to legislate in 1995 still exist."
The Children (Scotland) Act was passed in 1995, which set out the rights of children in care.
The proposed centre would help former victims find counselling and other services, would carry out research into children's residential homes and maintain a database of past and present children's residential establishments in Scotland.
The task group recommended in the report should have "oversight" of services provided for children in care and in accommodation, study ways of improving their welfare and report to Holyrood's education committee.
Mr Shaw's review also highlighted an "urgent" need for action to preserve old records and ensure former residents can obtain access to them.
The report was commissioned after a Holyrood debate in 2004 in which the then First Minister, Jack McConnell, publicly apologised to children who were abused while in care.
The Scottish Executive had already ruled out an inquiry into allegations of abuse in Scotland's residential homes dating back to the 1940s.
Mr Shaw's report warned against imposing 21st Century views on what happened in the past and noted that attitudes to children had changed, with legal acknowledgement of children's rights only taking full effect within the last ten years.
Public awareness
It said that although abuse was known about during the study period, public awareness did not develop until the 1980s.
"Throughout the period there was a lack of qualified care staff, perhaps a symptom of the low status given to residential child care," he said.
The law responded only slowly to growing awareness of the abuse of children, and corporal punishment was allowed in some residential establishments until the 1980s.
Mr Ingram said: "We are in full agreement with the principles of the findings and recommendations but we must consider with partners and survivors how we can most effectively take forward the lessons to be learned."
He said there would be specific proposals for those formerly in residential care as part of a wider strategy for people who have suffered childhood sexual abuse.

50 miljoen dollar voor een nachtmerrie van misbruik

Het is pas dertig (30!) jaar geleden! Here God, wat een nachtmerrie.
Hoezo, God ging dood in Auschwitz?
Wen d'r maar an: hij overleefde dat Auschwitz!

Jezüïeten betalen 50 miljoen dollar aan slachtoffers seksueel misbruik
Geplaatst door Theo Borgermans
di 20 nov '07 om 10:05u

NEW YORK (RKnieuws.net) - De jezuïeten betalen 50 miljoen dollar schadevergoeding aan 110 vermeende slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door piresters en missionarissen in Alaska.
Dat heeft het Franse persagentschap AFP vandaag gemeld op basis van berichten in de lokale pers.

De advocaten van de slachtoffers hebben laten weten dat er een akkoord is bereikt. Volgens de jezuïeten "moeten er echter nog vele vragen gefinalisereerd worden".

De beschuldigingen slaan hoofdzakelijk op 12 priesters en 3 missionarissen. De feiten zouden zich in vijftien dorpen hebben voorgedaan tussen 1961 en 1987.

Volgens sommige kranten zouden geestelijken die zich aan seksueel misbruik schuldig hadden gemaakt naar Alaska gestuurd.

Dat wordt door de jezuïeten echter formeel ontkend.

Volgens de Los Angeles Times zou een jezuïet zich tussen 1968 en 1975 vergrepen hebben aan haast alle jongens van twee dorpen.
De klagers stellen dat de feiten aanleiding gaven tot alcoholisme, geweld, psychologische problemen en zelfmoordpopingen. (tb)



UNITED STATES la Repubblica
The sum of money, 50 million dollars, is the highest ever paid by a religious order
The victims lawyer: "the priests who gave trouble were sent to Alaska"
USA, pedophile missionaries among the eskimos The Jesuits will pay for the damages
from our own correspondent
MARIO CALABRESI

NEW YORK - The Society of Jesus will pay 50 million dollars as penalty damages to 110 Eskimos who were sexually abused by Jesuits priests when they were children or adolescents, in the period between 1961 and 1987.

The scandals in the American Church continue to reveal new and unexpected stories, which started to be known in 2002 in Boston. Those scandals seemed to have ended last summer, when the Los Angeles diocese made a settlement with 508 victims who had been sexually molested or raped during the last seventy years.

But now from Alaska comes the news that for the last 30 years, in 15 small villages among the most isolated and remote in the world, inhabited by the Yupik, who together with the Inuit form the Eskimo population, about ten priests belonging to the society founded by Ignazio de Loyola committed repeated sexual violence and abuses.

Those accusations were made four years ago but before the process started there was a plea bargain, which according to the eskimos' lawyer, Ken Roosa, constitutes a record payment for a religious order, having each victim been offered half a million dollars to avoid the arraignment and pleading guilty on the part of the Jesuits.

The Society of Jesus's provincial father of Oregon, John Whitney, who is also responsible of Alaska, was very upset for the publicity given to the plea bargain, defining that announcement as "premature" and denying the Jesuits had sent to exile for many years priests whose sexual tendencies were already known, as was reported by some of the victims.

On the contrary, the Society of Jesus affirms that Northwest state, being one of the most difficult place for their mission, is where only the most proficient and courageous missionaries are being sent.

At St. Michael, a small island 15 km. long located on the North sound, the bay of the Bering Sea discovered by James Cook in 1778, the Deacon Joseph Lundowski abused almost all children from Stebbins and St. Michael, two minuscule villages inhabited by 150 families.

Lundowsky was accused by 34 people, who reported the violence occurred in a small church after catechism lessons, during the dark afternoons of the Alaskan winter.

The man was a bald blue-eyed giant and he worked as a deacon in the diocese, even if the Jesuits denied any tie with their order and that they even didn't know who he was. He left the island in 1975 and it was discovered he died 10 years ago in Chicago at the Pacific Garden Mission, a religious shelter with a cafeteria and a dormitory.

Most of the accused priests are now dead and their victims, who were then between 5 and 15 years old, are now between 30 and 60 years old.

The money the Jesuits will pay is due to the their responsibility for lack of control and for covering up the scandal for years.
In 2004 there was added the accusation of their having burned and destroyed documents which showed their real behavior.

Among the accused there was the Rev. James Poole, founder of the Catholic radio in the North of Alaska, now living in a retirement home. According to the plaintiffs, the Jesuits knew of his "inappropriate behavior" but even when he was sent back to Portland they let him continue his teaching to the children.

The victims' lawyer, from his studio in Anchorage, tells nobody had the courage to denounce those episodes until the news of the priests sexual scandals in the Boston diocese erupted. Since then stories of alcoholism, desperation and suicides emerged.

"In some eskimos' villages," Roos said. "It's rare to find an adult who wasn't sexually abused.The Jesuits have never admitted that priests with a sexual problem were sent to Alaska.

Now for my clients this accord means their stories of abuse , always denied, are finally made public," he said.

aartsbischop waarom moest jij naar tribunaal?

Na klacht van priester
Spaanse aartsbisschop moet voor rechter verschijnen
Geplaatst door Theo Borgermans opvr 16 nov '07 om 00:05u


GRANADA (RKnieuws.net) - Aartsbisschop Francisco Javier Martínez van Granada moet zich als eerste hoge gezagsdrager in de Spaanse kerk voor de rechter verantwoorden, meldt het ANP. De aartsbisschop wordt ervan beschuldigd dat hij een priester van het Zuid-Spaanse bisdom het werken onmogelijk heeft gemaakt.

Aartsbisschop Martínez is aangeklaagd voor belediging, ongeoorloofde dwang en het toebrengen van lichamelijk letsel. De priester die de klacht heeft ingediend, is door de aartsbisschop als pastoor ontslagen.


Volgens berichten in de Spaanse pers verdacht aartsbisschop Martínez de betrokken priester van het achteroverdrukken van goederen van de kerk.


Aartsbisschop Martínez spreekt de aantijgingen tegen. Hij zegt de pastoor te hebben ontslagen, omdat hij geen vertrouwen meer in hem had.



Archbishop accused of bullying fails to avoid being tried in secular court
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Published: 16 November 2007


The Archbishop of Granada has caused a stir in the Catholic hierarchy by becoming the first Spanish cleric of his rank to stand trial in a secular, rather than religious, court.


Archbishop Francisco Martinez made his historic appearance at Granada's criminal court, accused of bullying, moral assault, insults and slander against a fellow priest.


The case, which finally reached court this week after months of obstructions by religious authorities, was brought by the former archivist and canon of Granada cathedral, Javier Medina, whom the archbishop had stripped of all religious duties.


The ousted priest told the court on Tuesday that the archbishop had said: "You are not boss here. You are a bad, disobedient priest and I'm going to teach you obedience with the whip."


The priest sued the archbishop in February for having falsely accused him of illicitly appropriating funds and church property, and of obtaining copyright of a book that Fr Javier wrote about the history of the cathedral.


According to the dismissed priest, the archbishop sacked him for "disobedience", changed the locks on his office and instructed cathedral employees to watch him remove his belongings.


Mgr Martinez has been a controversial figure since he took over the archbishopric. Last year 132 priests signed a document critical of his conservative management of the diocese.


Mgr Martinez denies all charges, and said at a tense court session on Wednesday he was "a victim of assault by the media".



If found guilty, he faces a €45,000 (£32,000) fine.

He has also invested €1,940 on newspapers adverts protesting his innocence, and publicising his latest sermon – on religious persecution.







Spanish parishioners on hunger strike after church removes priest
By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Published: 15 August 2007


Eighteen parishioners in the town of Albuñol near Granada have started a hunger strike in protest at the removal of their popular young priest. Up to 300 neighbours have joined the strikers in a church sit-in, holding placards declaring their love for Fr Gabriel Castillo and demanding his return.
"We call the Archbishop in Granada every day asking for an explanation, but they seem to live in another world, very far from the likes of us who are poor and ill-educated," said Consuelo Manzano, a spokeswoman for the campaign.


In his two years at Albuñol, Fr Gabriel, 27, introduced forward-looking practices, such as letting homeless Senegalese live in his house, holding Sunday school on a hillside and appointing disabled altar boys. But his methods antagonised traditionalists, including a local community of nuns who defected to a village about six miles away to hear mass.


Villagers believe the nuns' mother superior complained to Granada's hardline Archbishop, Francisco Javier Martinez, and asked that Fr Gabriel be transferred. "I'm sure they are behind this," says Ms Manzano, who dismisses the Archbishopric's assurance that the transfer is a routine matter. "We want to know the real reasons," she insists.


Parishioners vow to maintain their hunger strike at least until Saturday, when they will send a delegation to the Archbishop of Seville, "since our own Archbishop keeps ignoring us,"

Ms Manzano says.



Seville's Archbishop, Cardinal Carlos Amigo, is renowned for his openness. Archbishop Javier Martinez is embroiled in a lawsuit with another priest, who accuses him of bullying and "moral assault".



JUICIO / Monseñor Martínez niega ante el juez que coaccionase a un sacerdote Arzobispo Juzgado por acoso moral RD Martes, 6 de junio 2006 El arzobispo de Granada, Francisco Javier Martínez, declaró ayer ante el juez en relación a la querella presentada contra él por uno de sus sacerdotes, que le acusa de injurias, calumnias y coacciones en el contencioso que mantienen por la propiedad intelectual de un libro. El prelado aseguró que actuó dentro de la normativa de la Iglesia y nunca lo hizo con la intención de dañar al religioso. La declaración ante el Juzgado de Instrucción número 1 de la ciudad duró nada menos que cuatro horas debido a un error de transcripción de unos documentos. Mientras se producía, un grupo de fieles se concentró a las puertas del edificio para rezar el rosario. El pleito entre ambos, que curiosamente se llaman igual, arranca en diciembre, cuando el canónigo pidió al arzobispo que se retractara de las acusaciones realizadas en una carta sobre una supuesta apropiación indebida de los derechos de propiedad intelectual de un libro sobre la catedral encargado por el anterior arzobispo, Antonio Cañizares, cuya publicación paralizó el demandado hace un año. Medidas disciplinares El libro fue encargado por el anterior arzobispo a 35 profesores de siete universidades españolas y una francesa. Tras la paralización de la obra, los autores presentaron una demanda civil por incumplimiento de contrato contra el arzobispo. La denuncia fue retirada la pasada semana tras llegar las partes a un acuerdo que incluye llevar a cabo dicha obra. Sin embargo, el arzobispo inhabilitó al clérigo para ejercer sus funciones sacerdotales, lo destituyó como canónigo y lo retiró de su acceso a la cátedra de Teología. El Arzobispado dijo ayer en un comunicado que Francisco Javier Martínez declaró que su actuación ha estado «siempre dentro del gobierno interno de la Iglesia» y que ha actuado según la normativa de la misma y en el libre ejercicio de su ministerio. El arzobispo se negó a responder a las preguntas de la acusación y dijo que la suspensión al sacerdote de sus funciones se debe a otras actuaciones previas del querellante que le «obligaban a tomar medidas para preservar la libertad o los derechos de la Iglesia». En este sentido, recordó que «jamás ha dado publicidad alguna a las medidas disciplinares que le ha sido preciso tomar, que hubiera sido más cómodo no tomar y que también hubiera deseado no tener que tomar». La remoción en el oficio de canónigo está vinculada, según la nota, a la «negativa del querellante» a entregar al arzobispo y al Cabildo -con el fin de que pudieran disponer de forma adecuada sobre su publicación- un libro de la catedral en sus «aspectos teológicos y pastorales» que le había sido encargado en el año 2000. El sacerdote interpuso la querella después de haber apelado a la Santa Sede, quien le impuso unas condiciones que «nunca cumplió». Por eso, dice el Arzobispado, abandonó ese ámbito jurisdiccional y se dirigió a los tribunales civiles.



http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=354606&p=11

rorate forum weer open

Mededeling bestuur
Update verwikkelingen Rorate forum
Geplaatst door onze redactie

do 15 nov '07 om 12:30u


UTRECHT (RKnieuws.net) - De verwikkelingen rond het Rorate-forum kunnen u haast niet ontgaan zijn. De brede media-aandacht die het sluiten van het forum teweegbracht, geeft eens temeer aan dat Rorate een spilfunctie heeft in de Rooms-katholieke nieuwsverzorging en klankbord. Bovendien weet het stichtingsbestuur zich gesteund door een grote schare betrokken leden. Wij vinden het belangrijk om onze leden tijdig en direct op de hoogte te houden van dit nieuws.
Het bestuur van Stichting Rorate heeft zich beraden op de gebeurtenissen en de balans opgemaakt van alle argumenten die voor en tegen hernieuwde openstelling zijn geuit. Hierbij zijn wij tot de conclusie gekomen dat het forum onder enkele voorwaarden weer open moet. Daarbij zijn wij ons er terdege van bewust dat het forum in de huidige vorm schadelijke situaties kan opleveren.



Met het nieuwe forum wil Rorate haar leden een veilige en vertrouwde omgeving bieden. Daarom zal het niet langer mogelijk zijn om anoniem, onder een nickname, bijdragen te posten. Leden van Rorate kunnen zich straks persoonlijk aanmelden voor het forum en krijgen na aanmelding een unieke combinatie van een gebruikersnaam en een wachtwoord thuisgezonden. Hiermee kunnen zij onder hun eigen naam inloggen op het forum. Een uitgebreid team is momenteel druk bezig met de voorbereidingen van de openstelling. Zij stellen de nieuwe forumregels op, passen de voorwaarden aan van het lidmaatschap en passen de techniek van de website aan. De streefdatum van openstelling is januari 2008.Wij brengen u graag in herinnering dat Rorate een vrijwilligersorganisatie is en dat uw donatie hartelijk welkom is en goed gebruikt zal worden in de uitvoering van onze internetactiviteiten. Namens het bestuur van Rorate en alle vrijwilligers,Wil Keurentjes, directeur

Botero

Paus vindt Portugese Kerk te clericaal
Geplaatst door Theo Borgermans op
wo 14 nov '07 om 18:25u

VATICAANSTAD (RKnieuws.net) - Paus Benedictus XVI wil dat de Portugese bisschoppen de kerkelijke mentaliteit meer afstemmen op het Tweede Vaticaans Concilie (1962-1965). Dat heeft Katholiek Nederland vandaag gemeld.
In diplomatieke bewoordingen uitte Benedictus XVI kritiek op de wijze waarop de Portugese Kerk geleid wordt. Hij zei het niet met zoveel woorden, maar de paus vindt de Portugese kerk te clericaal. Te weinig wordt er volgens hem rekening gehouden met het algemeen priesterschap van alle gelovigen, gewijde ambtsdienaren én leken. "Het is noodzakelijk om de organisatorische stijl van de Portugese kerkgemeenschap en de mentaliteit van haar leden te veranderen, om daarmee een Kerk te krijgen die overeenstemt met Vaticanum II, waarin de functie van de clerus en de leken duidelijk is gedefinieerd”, aldus de paus.

Is die Kerk werkelijk zo blind; Jason Berry

Is the Church really this blind?

Chicago's archbishop is an example of a church hierarchy that still hasn't learned the lessons of the abuse scandal.
By Jason BerryNovember 11, 2007

In 2004, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, proclaimed that after two years of relentless investigations into priests who sexually abused children and the bishops who protected them, "the scandal is history."

For reporters weary of the scandal's emotionally draining subject matter, Gregory's sound bite invited a retreat. The bishops pointed to the "youth protection charter" they had developed, laying out guidelines for removing predator priests and for treating victims responsibly.

They released data showing that they had identified about 4,400 abusive U.S. priests. They had a reform agenda, it seemed, and promised new vigilance in protecting children rather than clerics. In the months that followed, the sexual abuse crisis receded as national news, though civil litigation and criminal prosecutions continued to make occasional headlines.

But did the church really learn its lesson? Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, is currently preparing to assume the presidency of the Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose annual meeting begins Monday in Baltimore. His new position would make George highly visible when Pope Benedict XVI arrives on his first trip to the U.S. next spring, which is fitting because George was a valuable ally of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when the cardinals' conclave chose him to be pope in 2005.

The problem is that George shows little indication of having internalized the lessons of the scandal. He displays a stunning insensitivity to the church's failures. And twice since the 2002 conference in Dallas that adopted the youth protection charter, George has flouted the church's supposed zero-tolerance attitude in his handling of abusive priests.

In February 2003, for instance, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Father Kenneth Martin of Wilmington, Del., a consultant to the archdiocese on liturgical texts, had been staying at the cardinal's mansion during his monthly visits to Chicago. He had been staying there despite the fact that he had pleaded guilty in 2001 in Maryland to sexually abusing a teenage boy over three years in the 1970s when he was a lay teacher. Martin received a suspended sentence and was declared by the diocese to be a "priest in good standing" in Wilmington, provided he not do public ministry.

Needless to say, this was shocking news.

The members of the 12-person National Review Board, which had been appointed by the Conference of Catholic Bishops to conduct research on the causes and context of the scandal and report back with recommendations on how to avoid future scandals, had met with George just the day before the story broke in the Sun-Times -- yet he had told them nothing about the priest's visits. What could be more telling about George's attitude than his willingness to welcome an admitted pedophile as a houseguest?

When Sun-Times reporter Cathleen Falsani asked George why he had allowed Martin to stay in his official residence after his misdeeds had become known, and why the priest was still working for the archdiocese as a consultant, George did not apologize but defended his colleague. "Are we saying that people with any kind of question in their past are not employable?" he responded. "Unless we want to say these people are simply permanent pariahs, is it appropriate to put his [Martin's] life under scrutiny that way?"

"When I read the Sun-Times," said former Rep. Leon Panetta, a California Democrat who served on the National Review Board and was one of those who had met with George that week, "it confirmed for me what is at the heart of this [pedophile priest] problem -- the [Catholic] hierarchy's failure to understand the seriousness of the crisis."

Members of the National Review Board made a second trip to Chicago nearly a year later to consult with the cardinal. George celebrated Mass for them, but then, according to three sources present at the meeting, he issued a warning over coffee and doughnuts: "You will be the downfall of the church!"

The group was dumbstruck. "The bishops and priests have failed to deal with this [scandal]," Panetta said he told George. The healing process could not begin, Panetta said, unless the church acknowledged the problem.

Several people present at the meeting subsequently confirmed George's remarks before I called the cardinal for comment for an article for the National Catholic Reporter. George's spokesman called me back to say: "The cardinal categorically denies making the statement attributed to him, and anyone who said that he said that either heard him wrong or misunderstood him."

But matters got worse. In August 2005, police questioned Father Daniel McCormack of Chicago after a mother charged that he had molested her 8-year-old son at Our Lady of the Westside School, where he taught. In October, George ignored his own archdiocesan review board's recommendation to remove McCormack, instead allowing him to continue teaching and coaching. In January 2006, McCormack was arrested on charges of sexually abusing another boy at the school. When asked about it, the cardinal, incredulously, said he had taken no action because he had had no information from law enforcement. McCormack has since pleaded guilty and gone to jail.

The archdiocese did take action against Barbara Westrick, the school's principal, who had called the police after she learned of the complaint against the priest. She was fired in June. Although the archdiocese denies it, it seems likely that her criticisms of the church's response cost her her job.

A reform group, Voice of the Faithful, has called on George not to assume the presidency of the Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Despite all the supposed reforms, and despite the new guidelines and rules that were supposed to have taken care of the problems several years ago, the reality is that many members of the church hierarchy have been slow to change their attitude.

Listen to the words of Thomas J. Paprocki, one of George's auxiliary bishops in Chicago. Paprocki, who has a law degree and church license in canon law, gave a sermon Oct. 15 for the Red Mass, a gathering of lawyers and jurists, in Grand Rapids, Mich. The bishop scorned the church's escalating financial losses to victims of predatory priests.
"The church is under attack," Paprocki declared, comparing the civil litigation to Henry VIII's seizure of "church property and kill[ing] those who did not accept his notion of the supremacy of the crown.

"Displaying the callousness that has cursed so many Catholic bishops for so long, Paprocki insulted the victims of the scandals, as well as the attorneys and judges in their cases, with these words: "We must use our religious discernment to recognize that the principal force behind these attacks is none other than the devil.

"The youth protection charter says that a priest accused of child abuse must be removed until his case is resolved. For bishops who conceal or move or condone such priests, there is no penalty. They serve at the pleasure of the pope. That double standard -- which strikes a lot of us Catholics as devilish -- is personified in Cardinal Francis George, who is unfit to be president of the Catholic bishops.

Jason Berry is the author of "Lead Us Not Into Temptation" and, with
Gerald Renner, "Vows of Silence," among other books. He is directing a
documentary, based on the latter book, to be released next year.

nieuwe voorzitter US bisschoppenconferentie: Sex-abuse bill 'about money'

Letter to victim's parents attacks proposed state law
November 13, 2007
BY SUSAN HOGAN/ALBACH , Religion Reporter

Cardinal Francis George and one of his top bishops are stirring up controversy because of statements they recently made criticizing lawsuits from victims of priest sexual abuse.
In a letter obtained by the Sun-Times, the cardinal earlier this year wrote to the parents of a victim and apologized "for the terrible abuse suffered by your son at the hands of Ken Ruge and Robert Becker," two Chicago area priests who are now dead.

The cardinal also wrote that money was the motivation for proposed state legislation that would allow adults who were abused by priests as children to sue their perpetrators in cases where statutes of limitation have expired.
"This is irresponsible, is not about the safety of children as the sponsor claims, and is clearly, to me at least, about money," he wrote.

The victim, who is 35 but was in grade school when he was molested, called the letter outrageous.
"Victims sue for justice, not for fabulous houses," said the man, who hasn't sued the Archdiocese of Chicago but is negotiating a settlement. "Nobody wants to live in a fabulous house that reminds you that you were molested by two priests as a boy."

Survivors say because of the psychological damage of sex abuse, statutes of limitation often expire before victims can come forward.
They also say lawsuits are often the only means to expose pedophile clergy and hold bishops accountable for failing to protect the public.
Officials from the archdiocese did not comment.

State Sen. Terry Link, a Lake County Democrat who introduced the legislation earlier this year, said Monday that the measure isn't targeting the Catholic Church, but all victims of sexual abuse.
Link, who described himself as a devout Catholic, has heard similar remarks from the cardinal about money being behind the bill, and told him they were offensive.

George is expected to be elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at a meeting this week in Baltimore. Never has a candidate been as widely protested by clergy victims, who point to his handling of cases.

After California did away with its statutes of limitation in 2003, more than 500 victims filed suits involving 200 priests in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which settled the cases for $600 million on the eve before Cardinal Roger Mahony was to testify.

In Illinois, legislation has been delayed, largely because of opposition by the Catholic Church, according to the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Meanwhile, Bishop Thomas Paprocki said in a sermon to lawyers recently that abuse suits undermine "the charitable works and religious freedom of the church." The Chicago bishop, who said he is George's representative on the review board that scrutinizes abuse allegations, wants some protection for charities.

"This attack is particularly directed against bishops and priests," he said, adding that the principal force behind the attacks "is none other than the devil."

In an interview, Paprocki said he wasn't criticizing victims.
*****************

William Skylstad, George voorganger als voorzitter van de US Bisschoppenconferentie, lijkt, tot in zijn openingsspeech van de conferentie toch een andere mening te hebben gehad over duivels en duivelse krachten, en die religieuse vrijheid van die Kerk.

Je vraagt je, naast andere zaken, toch af of niet zal blijken dat die Kerk zich een dergelijke voorzitter ook financieel niet kan permiteren.

Maar beter Skylstad eigen, bijbelse, woorden, waarmee hij zijn openings besloot, de verwijzing naar Habakuk 2:3.; Profetie; visioen van de profeet Habakuk. Mooi genoeg om helemaal hier neer te zetten. Feit is natuurlijk dat 2 x in een week een gezagsdrager die zegt: "houd je waffel toch eens, jij" meer is dan een wereld aan kan.

(uit Habukuk 1: [2] Hoe lang nog, HEER, moet ik om hulp roepenen luistert u niet,moet ik ‘Geweld!’ schreeuwen en brengt u geen redding?

[3] Waarom toont u mij dit onheilen ziet u zelf de ellende aan?Ik zie slechts verwoesting en geweld,opkomende twist en groeiende tweedracht.

[4] De wet wordt ondermijnd,het recht krijgt niet langer zijn loop,de wettelozen verdringen de rechtvaardigen,het recht wordt verdraaid.

[5] Kijk naar de volken, let goed op,jullie zullen verbaasd zijn en verbijsterd! Er gebeurt iets, nog tijdens jullie leven,iets zo uitzonderlijksdat je het niet zult geloven als het je wordt verteld.......

2: [1] Ik ga nu op mijn wachtpost staan,betrek mijn post op het bolwerk,kijk uit om te zien wat de HEER mij zal zeggen,wat hij mij antwoordt op mijn verwijt.

[2] Dit was het antwoord van de HEER.Schrijf dit visioen op,grif het duidelijk in platen, zodat het snel te lezen is.

[3] Het visioen wacht tot zijn tijd gekomen is,het getuigt ervan, het liegt niet.Ook al is het nog niet vervuld,wacht maar, het komt zeker,het zal niet uitblijven.

[4] Wie niet oprecht is kwijnt weg,maar de rechtvaardige zal leven door zijn trouw.

[5] Zo bedrieglijk als de wijn is,zo hoogmoedig is deze man,maar hij zal zijn doel niet bereiken.Net als het dodenrijk spert hij zijn keelgat open,net als de dood raakt ook hij niet verzadigd. Hij verzamelt alle volken om zich heen,haalt alle naties naar zich toe.

[6] Iedereen zal spreuken op hem toepassen, spotliederen en raadsels. Ze zullen zeggen:‘Wee hem die zich verrijkt met andermans goed en zo een steeds zwaardere schuld op zich laadt.

Hoe lang gaat hij daar nog mee door?’

Heel goed nieuws Charles Molineaux gehele tekst

Een verassend indrukwekkende tekst van Charles Molineaux over de door de RKK in te nemen positie in de noodzaak van het verlengen van de verjaringstermijnen, zoals deze week gepresenteerd op het congres van sociale wetenschappers

De hele tekst is hier te vinden, want is veel te lang voor dit blog.
Jammer genoeg niet in het Nederlands, hoewel de vertaling daarvan de moeite waard maar een bereklus zou zijn, omdat er niet gesproken wordt over de verschillende juridische schema's, maar uitvoerig ingegaan wordt op de problemen in vanuit en met de RKK. En de verschillende manieren waarop er naar de Kerk in haar verschillende betekenissen gekeken kan (dan wel dient te) worden.

The Church: What is Her Proper Role in this Discussion??

Wat zeker niet alleen van belang is voor de Amerikaanse situatie, gericht op die verjaringstermijnen, maar van internationaal.
Ook zeker heel direct slaat op de Nederlandse situatie, zoals ook nu weer bleek door de uitspraak van Hisrch Ballin en de reactie van Hulp en Recht.

Daarom indien er iemand dit leest, die er, door het Engels echt niet uitkomen, neem dan maar even contact op, misschien kunnen we een oplossing vinden. Dat is dit artikel zeker waard. (hoewel dit geen belofte is tot het aanleveren van een complete vertaling! Desalniettemin: doe je mond open, laat die taal geen onoverkoombaar obstakel zijn om ook na te denken en dit soort goed nieuws te krijgen! ) Wie weet is er zelfs wel iemand die er plezier in heeft wel een (deel) vertaling te maken??? :-)

Want wat een genot een dergelijk artikel! Dat moet je helemaal niet alleen voor een groep RK sociaal wetenschappers in Verwegistan laten. Doodzonde.
Da's nog eens een Credo.

The Abuse-and-Coverup Scandal:
The Church Should Not Oppose Extending Statutes of Limitation

Introduction
The mission of the Catholic Church is evangelization - the bringing of the Good News to mankind, the bringing of mankind to Christ. The word “evangelization” has been reclaimed from the television evangelicals but we might say, to put it in the vernacular, that it is about public relations, about putting out a message. The Church has had a continuing evangelization disaster, a public relations disaster, on its hands since 2002 with respect to its internal abuse-and-coverup scandal – partly as a result of an inversion of episcopal priorities: placing concern for property and the institutional Church ahead of concern for souls. The present public opposition, by most dioceses, to extending statutes of limitation continues the same mindset and exposes the institutional Church to the charge of hypocrisy. It should end.


The Church: What is Her Proper Role in this Discussion??
The Church as Mystery
To touch on ecclesiology, and I am no ecclesiologist, what should be the attitude of the Church at this sorry juncture? The Church is characterized in the Catechism as the People of God, united in the Body of Christ, and as the temple of the Holy Spirit. [7] A mystery, visible and invisible, the essential mission of the Church is to evangelize all men.

Vatican II made changes in ecclesiology, not in dogma but certainly in emphasis.[8] Some writers (rather like Kremlinologists noting placement at public events during the Cold War) seek significance in the placement order of key ideas in Lumen Gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, a critical document of the Council. For example, while the main image of the Church is that of the Body of Christ, it has been noted that Chapter 2 of Lumen Gentium, considering the People of God, precedes Chapter 3, which considers the hierarchy [9] . The British historian Paul Johnson has remarked that in mediaeval times, “ [t]here was a tendency to equate the clergy with ‘the Church’”[10] a concept which now, a few hundred years after the Council of Trent and four decades after Vatican II, has perhaps been adjusted by a newer emphasis on the “People of God” as a dominant vision.

In considering the proper role of the Church in the statute of limitations extension argument, we can turn usefully and briefly to what Cardinal Avery Dulles terms visions or “models” of the Church. He considers five models: the Church as institution, as mystical communion, as sacrament, as herald, and as servant, with particular reference to the institutional Church and what he terms the deformation of institutionalism.[11] And at the outset, he warns that, in discussion, the Church should not be lowered to the same plane as other human communities
[12].

The Institutional Church is Secondary
Cardinal Dulles refers to an institutional vision of the Church, a view that defines the Church primarily in terms of its visible structures. As to institutionalism, he means “a system in which the institutional element is treated as primary. From the point of view of [Dulles], institutionalism is a deformation of the true nature of the Church—a deformation that has unfortunately affected the Church at certain periods of its history, and one that remains in every age a real danger to the institutional Church.”[13]

As Dulles expresses it, “[t]he institutional structures of the Church are secondary in the sense that they are intended to preserve and promote communion.”[14]

We might thus say that the institutional structure constitutes a sort of useful infrastructure. In other words, the Church is not primarily the hierarchical power structure, the clergy, and the buildings, Rather, it is, in the words of John Paul II, “a communion in many different ways. Its character as communion renders the Church similar to the communion of the Divine Trinity…Thanks to this communion, the Church is the instrument of man’s salvation. It both contains and continually draws upon the mystery of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice.”[15]

If the mission of the Church is to lead men to Christ, to save people through the Church but by the grace of Christ, what then should be the proper attitude of the Church toward victims of its errant churchmen? As secondary - lower in importance than, and supportive of, the communio – the institutional Church should be more than merely apologetic.

Put another way, as Gaudium et Spes of the Vatican II documents expresses it, “The order of THINGS must be subordinate to the order of PERSONS and not the other way around, as the Lord suggested when
He said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.”[16]


Conclusion
The unpleasant and disappointing reality is that it has only been because of the secular justice system that the institutional Church has been forced to move toward saying that it is making changes in its priorities. But it is apparent that “clericalism” and accompanying secrecy continue in the institutional Church.
When we say, at Mass, “Credo…in unam Ecclesiam,” we express our belief in, and loyalty to the Church. We are a community of faith and prayer, People of God, enhanced by the sacraments instituted by Christ Himself, not a club or fraternity or corporation concerned primarily with asset preservation.

Loyalty does not mean blind loyalty to, or tolerance of, thieving priests and luxuriating bishops. The MAGISTERIAL Church merits our total loyalty and acquiescence. No “cafeteria Catholics.”.

The INSTITUTIONAL Church merits a sort of discrete loyalty. A judge in the Roman Rota explains the difference: “Although we have a guarantee that Christ’s truth is behind the solemn exercise of the Church’s teaching office, it would be a mistake to look for the same guarantee in relation to the ruling office…”Footnotes][52]

In the first instance we support with assent and assets the teaching and activity of the bishops appointed by Peter.

But, the entire meaning of “the Church” and its basic mission must be perceived. Hiding the fiscal and physical assets of the institutional Church from justice, via outmoded and arbitrary statutes of limitation, is not a consideration when it clashes with the mission of the Church - the bringing of men to Christ, by word and example. The institutional Church should not dodge moral responsibility by invoking pragmatic rules as to the timing of lawsuits or by stalling with secrecy the production of record evidence.

In sum, the institutional Church, its credibility already damaged by careerist, cowardly and criminal bishops, should not now, via its chanceries and lobbyists, attempt to block justice, to block legislative efforts to update outmoded and pragmatic statutes of limitation with respect to the commencement of lawsuits.
—Charles Molineaux
(CMlnx@aol.com)

Charles Molineaux, Esq., is an attorney, a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law. Born in New York, he was educated in public, Catholic, and Jesuit schools in Massachusetts, New York and Washington, D.C. and currently resides in northern Virginia where he serves as an international commercial arbitrator and sometime free-lance writer. His articles and poetry have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Georgetown Academy, The Catholic Lawyer and New Oxford Review. He is a member, inter alia, of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and of the Knights of Malta. The opinions expressed here are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent those of any organizations of which he is a member.

Hulp en Recht

Een mooie reactie, van een bestuuurder. Over zelfreinigend vermogen.

Van een bestuurder van een commissie die in het leven moest worden geroepen omdat er smerigheid was. Da's geloven tegen de klippen op.

Ze werd danook ook in de steek gelaten door een minister.
En besturen besturen.

Hulp en Recht:
Priesters gescreend, vrijwilligers straks ook
woensdag 7 november 2007 UTRECHT (RKnieuws.net)
Geplaatst door Theo Borgermans op (Bron: Nederlands Dagblad)

- Iedereen die in een rooms-katholieke parochie wordt aangesteld als kerkelijk vrijwilliger, moet vanaf 1 januari verklaren dat hij geen verleden heeft als dader van seksueel misbruik. Deze regel gold al voor priesters en leden van religieuze orden in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk.

Dat zegt secretaris Maria ter Steeg van de instelling Hulp en Recht. Die is in 1995 door de kerkleiding opgericht om slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik door geestelijken te helpen.

Minister Hirsch Ballin (Justitie) liet gisteren weten dat hij een verplichte verklaring - zoals in het onderwijs geldt - voor priesters en kerkelijk werkers niet nodig vindt. Het Tweede Kamerlid Raymond de Roon (PVV) had daarom gevraagd.

Volgens Ter Steeg hanteren de bisschoppen zelf al zo’n verklaring bij benoemingen. Priesters die naar een ander bisdom overgaan, moeten een verklaring omtrent het gedrag overleggen.

Per 1 januari wordt die regel uitgebreid tot mensen die als vrijwilliger worden benoemd, bijvoorbeeld als koster of koordirigent in een parochie.

De Roon stelde Kamervragen na een tv-uitzending eind september. Het programma Netwerk
(klik voor de uitzending)
vroeg zich af of seksueel misbruik door priesters ook in Nederland voorkomt.

Met name in de Verenigde Staten, Ierland en onlangs in Duitsland zijn nogal wat schandalen in de publiciteit gekomen. In de VS werden tot dan toe betrapte priesters vaak overgeplaatst, waarna ze opnieuw in de fout konden gaan.

Volgens Netwerk komt het ook in Nederland voor, dat priesters of kloosterlingen na zo’n misdrijf elders in de kerk weer aan het werk komen, soms ook weer met kinderen.

Het programma belde onder meer met een priester en trof hem op jeugdkamp met de misdienaars uit zijn nieuwe parochie. Een andere priester, die wel uit het ambt was gezet, deed elders vrijwilligerswerk. Ook bleek een pater nog in zijn kloosterorde actief, zonder dat zijn medebroeders van zijn verleden wisten









Mahony:
nederlands fabrikaat, mirakels goed.



In dat Verwegistan en elders hebben gelovigen met behulp van het burgerlijk recht en de media de RK Kerk echter inmiddels gedwongen het Sacrament van de biecht weer in te voeren!

Kwestie van cultuur. Niet van homofiele pedo's, maar van transparantie.

Niet opgelet

,,Het zal best eens hier en daar gebeuren dat een benoemende instantie niet goed oplet'', reageert Maria ter Steeg. Maar zij benadrukt dat de bisschoppen als regel stellen dat een dader van seksueel misbruik niet weer in een functie mag komen waar hij met kinderen te maken heeft.

In het tv-programma werd ook gesuggereerd dat Hulp en Recht slachtoffers zou tegenwerken om een formele klacht in te dienen. Ter Steeg erkent dat iemand dat gevoel kan hebben. ,,Maar wij zouden daar geen enkel belang bij hebben. Wij zijn er juist om seksueel misbruik te bestrijden.''

In de Protestantse Kerk moeten aankomende predikanten eenmalig een 'verklaring omtrent belijdenis en wandel' overleggen, die is afgegeven door hun gemeente van herkomst, zegt een woordvoerder.

Bij vertrek naar een andere gemeente moet worden vastgesteld dat er geen kerkelijke tuchtprocedure tegen de predikant loopt.

Voor de PKN is niet te overzien wat de gevolgen zijn als zo'n verklaring gevraagd zou moeten worden van álle vrijwilligers die in de kerk bezig zijn, Minister Hirsch Ballin schrijft dat hij contact heeft gehad met de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk, de Protestantse Kerk en ook met moslimorganisaties.

Volgens hem zien zij het belang om seksueel misbruik te voorkómen en doen ze daar al hun best voor. Een verplichte verklaring omtrent het gedrag vindt hij daarom voor kerkelijke voorgangers en werkers niet nodig.

Over de moslims merkt hij op, dat bij lessen in de moskee meestal ouders aanwezig zijn. ,,De kans op seksueel misbruik acht men daarom uiterst gering.''

Hirsch Ballin voelt in elk geval niets voor het PVV-idee van een website om kerkelijke misbruikers aan de kaak te stellen.

en dat is heel slecht nieuws voor de Kerken

Heb je daar een katholiek als minister, heb je daar als Kerk geen meter aan, want steekt die sufferd zijn kop in het zand.
Da's dus heel slecht nieuws. Een minister die kennelijk nog steeds gelooft wat overal steeds duidelijker wordt: jongens stront aan de knikker, en miljarden heeft gekost.
Zit daar die Hollander kennelijk te geloven dat het hier - dankzij de kwaliteit van het water of zo?- niet zo is.
Schiet je als Kerk ook geen meter mee op natuurlijk.
Als gelovige ook niet. En als ouder, laat staan kind al helemaal niet.

Als collega minister ook niet bepaald.
Misschien toch Rouwvoet en Hirsch Ballin eens samen eucomenisch aan tafel gaan zitten om hun hersens te gebruiken over een paar vragen:
Heren, wat meent U dan dat er in dat hollandse water zit? Dat ons zo uitzonderlijk zou maken?Meent U dat dat uit Lourdes komt of zo? Zo ja, kan in dat geval bisschop Punt een declaratie indienen voor het leiden van processies naar de Amsterdamse waterleidingsduinen?

Maar veel belangrijker: ben u nu echt zo naif, terwijl per week ook in Europa en dus ook in Nederland, meer mensen hun mond open gaan doen, te menen dat het niet door begint te sijpelen , en U de Kerken hiermee knap eenzijdig opzadelt met een probleem?

En hoe gek denkt U dat die verzekeringen in Nederland zijn?
Waar dacht U eigenlijk dat vorige week dat proces tegen die gezinsvoogd van dat meisje Savannah over ging ?

Trias politica is leuk, maar een ministerieel beleid (met ballen) is ook nooit weg.

Slecht nieuws voor die Kerk, zo'n naive katholieke minister!
Hij voert de scheiding Kerk en Staat heel rigoreus door, en neemt zijn eigen Kerk niet eens serieus meer.

Dom hoor van die aartsbisschoppelijke staf!
Gemiste kans, stelletje sufferds. Al was het alleen maar het gebaar, want zo'n verklaring lost natuurlijk helemaal niets op.

Soms kun je maar beter niet te veel staan op die scheiding Kerk en Staat als je jezelf niet teveel wenst te isoleren.

Nederlands katholieke struisvogels gesignaleerd. Iemand de behoefte om met een - niet al te parochieel -vaandel te gaan lopen zwaaien?

Volgende rondje Islam in Europa trappen?
Reken maar uit wat dat de christelijke Kerken kost!

Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin:
Geen verplichte gedragsverklaring priesters
Geplaatst door Theo Borgermans 6 nov '07 om 11:55u (Bron: ANP)

DEN HAAG (RKnieuws.net) - Rooms-katholieke priesters en andere kerkelijke medewerkers die met kinderen werken hoeven geen bewijs van goed gedrag te hebben. Een meerderheid van de Tweede Kamer had erop aangedrongen de Verklaring omtrent het Gedrag (VOG) ook voor deze groep verplicht te stellen om seksueel misbruik van kinderen tegen te gaan.
Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin van Justitie ziet daartoe echter geen reden, zo bleek dinsdag uit zijn antwoorden op schriftelijke vragen van de PVV. Volgens de bewindsman hebben kerken en moskeeën al maatregelen genomen om seksueel misbruik zoveel mogelijk te voorkomen. Hij vindt het wel ongewenst dat iemand die is veroordeeld wegens seksueel misbruik van kinderen daarna opnieuw de gelegenheid krijgt om met kinderen te werken.

Is 't heel goed nieuws? Druk achter de window en Help for victims of abuse Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/05/2007

Should Statutes of Limitations on Sexual Abuse be Extended?
By Beth Griffin11/3/2007
Catholic News Service

The controversial topic of whether the Statutes of Limitations on allegations of sexual abuse should be extended gives rise to a lively debate at the 15th annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.NEW YORK (CNS)

- The church opens itself to charges of hypocrisy when it opposes extending the statute of limitations for bringing clergy sexual abuse claims, according to attorney Charles Molineaux.

He called it an "inversion of episcopal priorities" that places concern for property and the institutional church ahead of concern for souls. Molineaux, an international commercial arbitrator, addressed a panel on the clergy sexual abuse scandal Oct. 27 at the 15th annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists at St. John's University School of Law in Queens.

Molineaux is a graduate of the law school. The Oct. 26-27 meeting drew some 450 registrants and featured more than 70 panels with 200 speakers. Among the speakers were Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver; William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; Stephen Krason of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, who is the society's president; and Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things.

A statute of limitations is a pragmatic, legislative device to preclude stale claims, said Molineaux. Such statutes limit the length of time in which a suit must be begun before the right to sue is lost. "The usual rationale is that old claims are hard to defend against because of the passage of time, the fading of memories, the disappearance of witnesses and the loss of records," he said. "This argument ignores the reality that the burden of proof is on the plaintiff in any event and that ... it is usually easier to defend than to attack."

In several states, legislatures have proposed revising or eliminating the statute of limitations for civil suits in child sex abuse cases, including Colorado. In a May 2006 article in the journal First Things, Archbishop Chaput wrote that such efforts are prejudicial to the Catholic Church and harmful to the cause of justice.

The archbishop wrote that plaintiffs' attorneys and victims' groups in several states "often work together" to pressure lawmakers to relax the statute of limitations so that old cases can be reopened and new suits demanding huge damages can be filed.

In his speech, Molineaux said there are recognized exceptions for suspending or extending the fixed time in which to bring a lawsuit for an injury, he said. These include delayed discovery of the injury or the minor age or mental incompetence of the person potentially bringing the claim.

Molineaux mentioned repressed memory of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder as relatively recent arguments for extending the statute of limitation. "Initially, many loyal Catholics were appropriately skeptical in reaction to what seemed yet more psychobabble to prop up lately appreciated actionable facts," he said.

"But there have just been too many verifiable cases which have emerged in different states and dioceses to ignore this development."

If the mission of the church is to lead people to Christ, the institutional church should be more than merely apologetic toward victims of errant churchmen, said Molineaux.

Quoting the Second Vatican Council document "Gaudium et Spes," the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, he said: "The order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons and not the other way around, as the Lord suggested when he said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath."

Molineaux said that the "crisis has always had two distinct aspects: abuse and cover-up. The abuse aspect involved a tiny percentage of priests; the cover-up aspect involved a majority of bishops.

The overriding policy of the cover-up bishops -- some behaving criminally -- was the protection of the institutional church, its physical assets and the careers of its churchmen."
voor vervolg hier



En Philadelphia. Als dit, 20 jaar na het Doyle-Mouton rapport, 2 jaar na het Grand Juryrapport, waar moge zijn.

Maar wanneer zijn na die gevechten slachtofferorganisaties weer in staat die Kerk te vertrouwen?
Wie heeft die sleutels? Die Kerk(en), de Wetgever, kerkelijke groeperingen als VOTF, de slachtofferorganisaties en -advocaten? Kanonnen als Father Doyle cs?
Zo'n congres van katholieke wetenschappers?
Dit soort bisschoppen en vrouwen, met de notie van belang van die cultuurverandering?

Zolang er nog zulke dubbele belangen zijn, zouden die sleutels nog wel even gebroken kunnen blijven.

Maar het aanbod lijkt revolutionair, de aanpak is het in ieder geval.
Moge het heel goed nieuws blijken te zijn.

Help for victims of abuse
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer

After decades of hiding its clergy sex-abuse problems, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia says it is aggressively encouraging abuse survivors to seek its assistance.
"We've gone from [simply] making a report to asking: 'Who are you? What are your needs? How can we help?' " said Mary Achilles, victims' advocate for the archdiocese.

The changes, a strictly local effort, are outlined in a new brochure sent to every registered Catholic household in the five counties covered by the archdiocese, she said.

The three-page foldout, "Enhanced Efforts to Assist Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse," includes a letter from Cardinal Justin Rigali and describes the archdiocese's efforts to reach out to victims and meet their psychological and financial needs.

Victims of clergy sex abuse, their families, and public-policy advocates contacted for this article said they thought the archdiocese had improved its outreach, but complained that it was working to bar them from winning a right to sue their assailants.

Achilles said the archdiocese was working with 95 victims, and predicted it would spend more than $1 million on their care in 2007.

The improved outreach springs in part, she said, from a 2005 Philadelphia grand-jury investigation that revealed extensive sexual assaults by priests in the archdiocese - mostly in the 1970s and 1980s - and a broad pattern of concealment by the local hierarchy.

"Our response to victims in the past was wrong," Achilles said in an interview. "We are in a new phase of 'bishops forward, lawyers back.' "

John Salveson, president of a locally based lobbying group advocating for changes in sex-abuse laws, said he did not challenge the archdiocese's assertion that it had improved its outreach. "I suppose they have," he said.

But Salveson, who was abused in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., said he was skeptical of the archdiocese's motives and the timing of the brochure.
He noted that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and his Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse Inc. were lobbying the state legislature for a change in the civil statute of limitations that would allow adult victims of child sex abuse to sue their assailants, even for abuse long ago.

Of the brochure, Salveson said: "I think this is a document they are hoping can stop us - something to show lawmakers so they can say, 'Look how great we're doing.' "

Civil suits can "expose perpetrators who have escaped detection because of the statute of limitation," he wrote in a subsequent e-mail.

In past decades, victims of sexual assault in Pennsylvania had as little as two years to file criminal or civil charges, regardless of their age. Now sexually assaulted minors have until age 30 to bring charges, but victims of past assaults may bring charges only within the time frame in effect at the time.

Four bills seeking to expand the time in which abuse victims may sue are in House and Senate committees. One would extend the age for filing civil suits to age 50.
Three bills call for suspending the civil statute of limitations in sex-abuse cases for one or two years, during which adults who were assaulted as children could sue their assailants.

In 2003, California allowed adult victims such a one-year "window." In July, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $660 million to settle 508 claims of abuse by clergy, some dating from the 1940s. Last month, the Diocese of San Diego agreed to pay $198 million to settle 144 abuse claims.

In July, Delaware granted adult victims of sexual abuse a two-year window to sue.

It's no secret that the Philadelphia Archdiocese opposes efforts to allow lawsuits in old abuse cases, said Donna Farrell, archdiocese spokeswoman.

"People die. It's very difficult to remember situations clearly. Files don't exist," she said. "Those are all the reasons there are statutes of limitations."

She also said the archdiocese was studying the feasibility of a capital campaign, but had not decided whether to proceed.

Achilles denied the brochure was timed to woo donors or sway lawmakers. Rather, she said, it was a progress report to the Catholic laity.

"I think the church was really wrong in the past" in how it handled victims and perpetrators, she said. "I just say to them, 'Let's do these things because they're the right thing to do.' "

Rigali hired Achilles as a consultant in January 2006. A former victims' advocate for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and the state, she came on board four months after the grand jury reported an "immoral cover-up" by archdiocesan leaders.

That report concluded that at least 63 priests, and as many as 100 more, abused hundreds of youngsters over five decades. Rigali, who became archbishop here four years ago, was not implicated in the cover-up.

Achilles said she had spent the last 22 months helping Rigali change the culture of the archdiocese's approach to known abuse victims, all now adults.

"The changes reflect the recognition that victims are not at fault, and that we are committed to assisting them in any way for as long as they have need," Rigali wrote in the brochure.

Achilles said the archdiocese's Office of Child and Youth Protection had received "more than a few" phone calls in response to the brochure from victims previously unknown to the archdiocese. She declined to say how many.

Among the recent policy changes, Achilles noted, are that victims' therapists no longer have to file periodic "progress reports" to the archdiocese for reimbursement, and the archdiocese reimburses for previous counseling paid out of pocket.

The archdiocese does not require abuse victims to sign any agreements stating they will not sue it in exchange for services, Achilles said.

The archdiocese has also sent letters advising all alumni of two of its high schools of abuse allegations there, and offering assistance to victims who have not yet come forward.

Relatives of abuse victims who have recently availed themselves of the archdiocese's outreach services gave mixed reviews.

Several, who asked that their names or their children's names not be used, described the program as "helpful" and the staff sympathetic. But they complained that most of the services had become available only after they demanded them, and said they did not feel the office was "proactive" enough in guiding victims' recovery.

"The people in the victims' office were very nice," said David Eyes, 31, who was abused by a priest while in his early teens, but added that he still found it painful to "beg from the people who hurt you the most."

For InformationA copy of the brochure is available on the archdiocesan Web site at www.archphila.org. The phone number for the Office of Child and Youth Protection is 1-888-800-8780. Its e-mail address is philavac@adphila.org.