Om een hesp en een ton bier wel Pier

Palingtrekken Lindegracht, juli 1886
bron Nederlands politiemuseum



foto ANP
1e Jordaanfestival 1956

Krijgsraad over
augustus 1970
bron

Basta de rosarios en nuestros ovarios. De Fernando Lugo trucs in flauwe kul berichtgeving over Uruguay en Francisco Domingo Barbosa De Silveira.

Stop met de rozenkranzen in onze baarmoeders.
Het recht om te beslissen over onze lichamen

is niet aan het geloof, maar aan de democratie.

R.K.Priester
Forum: Katholiek / Traditie in debat. Geplaatst op 2/7 '09 15:12u. Onderwerp: Vaticaan herhaalt:: Wijdingen traditionalisen zijn ongeldig.

Ik verwacht ook een snelle oplossing in deze zaak. De leiding en de priesters van de fraterniteit zijn begonnen de heilige Vader te vertrouwen. De gelovigen van de fraterniteit die ik ken spreken vol genegenheid over de heilige Vader. Dat was één jaar geleden nog heel anders.

De volgende vragen aan het concilie worden niet alleen vanuit de fraterniteit gesteld:

1. Hebben ongelovigen het recht om in een katholieke staat vrij de dwaalleer te verkondigen?2. Maakt het voor je zieleheil niet uit of je nu katholiek, protestant of orthodox bent?

3. Kom je zuiver door het beoefenen van de joodse of een andere niet-christelijke godsdienst in de hemel?

Deze vragen zou je vanwege nogal zeer algemeen en iewat onduidelijk taalgebruik van sommige zinnen binnen enkele verklaringen van het concilie heterodox kunnen beantwoorden. Wat in het verleden ook regelmatig door tal van theologen is gebeurt.

Het antwoord op vraag 1 is duidelijk en slechts een boekhoudtechnische, dwaalleer verkondigen levert in die enige katholieke Staat, nogalniet wat op, nietwaar?

Maar wat een interessante vragen binnen een club die een week geleden nog liep te jammeren en zo solidair was met de demonstranten in Iran, waar haast dagelijks nachtemerries over de Sharia geventileerd worden en men zichzelf leent voor de steeds smeriger wordende propaganda over het bezit van vrouwenlijven, zoals die nu weer bleek uit de berichtgeving over Uruquay en een homofiele bisschop die misbruik maakte van zijn machtspositie tov twee kennelijke criminelen die op hun beurt ook macht dachten uit te kunnen oefenen op die man.

Die afpersers hadden er kennelijk niet op gerekend dat déze bisschop zich niet liet chanteren, zichzelf en, niet onmogelijk, zijn bisdom daarmee behoedend - maar aangifte deed.

Maar laat nu toch die aangifte de bisschopsconferentie en hun maatjes op het Vaticaan heel goed uit zijn gekomen.

Nogal wat rk berichtgeving denkt blijkbaar nog steeds dat het voetvolk niet helemaal goed snik is en waanzin berichtgeving voor zoete koek slikt...

Die hebben de brief van B XVI over die Lefebristen kennelijk niet goed gelezen.

Benedictus zei toch echt dat in de besluitvorming over die holocaust ontkenners en zijn maten de internetcommunicatie en -informatie was onderschat.

Tja, dat heb je zo bij autoritaire machtssystemen. Kunnen ze je in Iran ook alles van vertellen.

Maar je bent toch wel volkomen gestoord wanneer je in 2009 werkelijk gelooft dat in die verzameling machtsmisbruik en sexuele verkniptheid binnen de RKK een bischop eruit zou worden gegooid omdat hij homofiel is?

En wanneer je dit soort propaganda als berichtgeving serieus neemt?
Dan maak je een keus. Die strijdig is met ethiek van integere berichtgeving en de opdracht daarover vanuit het Vaticaan. En strijdig aan de belangen van die Kerk waarin gekozen wordt voor veiligheid, transparantie en verantwoordelijkheid.
In democratiën!

Zonder akkoord te gaan met welke ambtsdrager dan ook die sexuele relaties aan gaat met zijn (volwassen) clienten of pastoranten:

denkend over machtsmisbruik binnen die RK Kerk kun je je maar beter eens afvragen of déze homofiele (ex)bisschop alléén maar weigerde zich te laten chanteren door die 2 geld afpersende criminele mannen.

Of deed wat die ex bischop president Fernando Lugo (Cute en consorten ), achteraf, als goed getrainde rk hypocrieten, alsnog proberen.

Dan zou deze ex-bisschop weleens een van die velen kunnen zijn die zich niet aan het celibaat hield, een van die heel vele pastorale werkers kunnen zijn geweest, die de grens tov. zijn clienten overging. En nog knap stompzinnig ook, ook daar staat (veel)rk training garant voor.

Maar met homofilie heeft dit alles niets, maar dan ook helemaal niets te maken.

Machtsmisbruik gaat tenslotte helemaal niet over sex.
Daar kun je, als dat zo uit komt en met een vroom smoel, sex of geloof wél voor gebruiken.

El silencio mate... niet meer in tijden van internet,in een wereldkerk.

Ten Common Myths about the Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Adults by Clerics

About Patrick J. Wall

Clergy Abuse and the Catholic Church Home
Patrick J. Wall (blog)

Ten Common Myths about the Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Adults by Clerics
Myth #1 - Catholic priests are no more likely to be pedophiles than other groups of men.

Roman Catholic bishops, priests, and deacons are vowed to a life of perfect and perpetual continence. (canon 276 CIC83) This is the lens with which we should view the following facts from the John Jay Center for Criminal Justice Study commissioned by the Bishops.

Since 1950, 4,392 priests and ten bishops have resigned or been removed for credible accusations of sexual abuse against minors and vulnerable adults. Twenty-two percent of the allegations self-reported by the bishops were for children under the age of ten and 6% of the victims were under the age of seven (John Jay pg.9). I know of no other religious denomination, organization, or group in the world who is reporting these percentages or gross numbers of crimes as agents of their organization.

Myth #2 - The celibate state of priests does not lead to pedophilia.

Three different theologians and scholars employed by the Church in the twentieth century - as well as the Church’s own psychiatrists and psychologists who were ignored by the Hierarchy - disagree. I would go further and say that celibacy itself violates the natural law, betrays revealed faith and reason, and leads to numerous sexual paraphilia, including pedophilia, ephebophilia and bestiality. Beginning with Reverend Thomas Verner Moore in 1936, the Church has been attempting to understand the crime of stuprum (sex between an adult and a child) and other psychological infirmities of the clergy in the discipline of psychology.

Moore first studied the insanity rates among Catholic clergy and found them higher than the general population. Further, Moore also studied and published on detection measures of pre-psychotics who apply for admission to the priesthood or religious communities. In November 1971, Conrad W. Baars, M.D. of the Mayo Clinic presented a paper to the Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome titled, “The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment, and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood.“

The results were that only 10%-15% of priests attain adult maturation and 20%-25% have serious psychiatric difficulties.

Also during 1971, the Holy See made the Servants of the Paraclete an order of Pontifical rite. The third church therapist who was ignored is Reverend Michael Petersen of the Saint Luke Institute. Petersen along with Thomas Doyle, O.P. and Raymond Mouton, Esq. submitted a report to the Bishop for the 1985 Collegeville, MN. meeting that the scandal was going to explode if the Hierarchy did not attend to the victims.

Myth #3 - Married clergy would make pedophilia and other forms of sexual misconduct go away.

The track record of the hierarchy enforcing the discipline of clergy in sexual matters is riddled with holes. The bishops first met at Elvira in 309 AD and published in Power and Sexuality, to discuss and legislate against the sexual perversions of the clergy.

The pope was also given a detailed report by Saint Peter Damian in 1051 AD, The Book of Gomorrah, detailing the graphic evidence of the sexual activities of the clergy.

In the end, marriage will not change the current situation because the Hierarchy has not been able to enforce the legislation and delicts already on the books.

Myth #4 - Clerical celibacy started in the early church.

Celibacy was idealized in the early church but never officially enforced. Beginning in 1123 AD at the Council of Worms, Pope Calixtus II promulgated a canon that impeded married persons from being ordained but more importantly, the marriages contracted by clerics were declared invalid and had no effect.

Pope Calixtus then ordered all married priests to abandon their wives. The record indicates the medieval period did institutionalize celibacy. The First Lateran Council proclaimed that a male in Holy Orders attained an indelible mark and celibacy was an essential element of that priestly character.

Myth #5 - Female clergy would help solve the problem.

The fact is that we will never really know because the current teaching of the Church is that any layman and all women are not capable of holding the priestly or episcopal office.

Myth #6 - Homosexuality is connected to pedophilia.

Sexual abuse is a civil and canonical crime. The sexual orientation of the perpetrator is not relevant to prosecuting the crime.

We are all sinners but we are not all criminals.

Myth #7 - The Catholic hierarchy has made significant strides to address pedophilia.

No. The bishops have done nothing out of fear it will hurt their image and the image of the. The Hierarchy has never enforced penalties on the crimes of stuprum, sexual abuse of minors, sodomy, solicitation in the confessional, bestiality, and all the other crimes by clerics noted in canon 2359.2 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The Hierarchy has had the evidence of the sexual abuse of minors, the knowledge of recidivism, and the complete power over the clergy … and they have done nothing.


The cover-up of the sexual abuse of minors is necessary in the Hierarchy’s worldview to maintain the image of the church as the perfect society.

Myth #8 - The Church’s teaching on family sexual morality is not the real problem.

The sexual morality of the clergy as evidenced in the thousands of sexual abuse cases across the world (look at Ireland) leads one to question the moral maturity of the clergy. If the clergy are emotionally immature it follows that they too are morally immature in regards to the sexual abuse of a child or vulnerable adult.

There has been a long-standing cry by the laity for the Hierarchy to concentrate less on the morality of the bedroom and more on the boardroom.

The evidence of the stuprum cases is cause for the Hierarchy to concentrate first on the morality in the rectory and less on the family home.

Myth #9 - Catholic journalists have ignored the pedophile problem.

Roman Catholic journalists, like priests, are in a difficult spot. They are paid and owe obedience to the Hierarchy who are deathly afraid of negative press and scandal. I believe if a Roman Catholic journalist was to fully plumb the depths of the scandal, they would be warned and then relieved of duty. The Roman Catholic journalist who studies and searches below the surface is like the nail that sticks out: they are hammered down.

Myth #10 - Requiring celibacy limits the number of men as candidates for the priesthood, resulting in a high number of sexually unbalanced priests.

This is the age old question, nature or nurture? The question we should be asking (noting that the Hierarchy has never successfully enforced the rule of celibacy) is: Does the Hierarchy - by omitting their duty to enforce the laws of the Church - attract a group of sexually unbalanced priests and religious thereby endangering all children at Roman Catholic Institutions?

Indrukwekkende recenscie van Leon Podles, Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church « Oak Leaves

Hohoho!

Publisher: Crossland Press
Pub. Date: January 2007
ISBN-13: 9780979027994
Sales Rank: 96,864
676pp

En een indrukwekkende recenscie op een vaker verassend en interessant blog .
En dat is, vlak voor de kerstboom, bij een niet zo makkelijk verkrijgbare studie (TIP) van maar liefst haast 700 pagina's natuurlijk nooit weg. En dat op een blog waarvan ook de reacties, alweer, ook interessant zijn.

Net als Podles eigen weblog, orthodox katholiek met een aantal zeer uitgesproken meningen wo over kerk en politiek en zeker over man/vrouw en de op zijn weblog beschikbare artikelen
dat zeker doen.

Hohoho Steeds meer goed nieuws vanaf het groeiend-front-misbruik-'t-is-welletjes-geweest!

It’s not a sin to be angry. This is evident from the scriptural injunction to “Be angry and sin not” (Eph. 4:26), as well as references to God being angry. For Thomas Aquinas, anger is a necessary element of the virtue of fortitude—fortitude isn’t a matter of just putting up with evil, or of enduring sorrow, but includes actively resisting evil, bravery in the struggle, and anger at the evil which has led to sorrow. Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, Q. 123, Art. 10.

Leon Podles is angry, and wants us to be angry, too. He wants us to be angry at the sin of sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy. But more than that, he also wants us to be angry at the bishops and pope for not being angry at that same sin. That’s what irks him about this crisis more than anything else—never have the bishops or popes expressed any anger that priests molested kids or that other bishops covered it up and transferred the predators to new hunting grounds.

Podles had done his work well—as I read, I felt a surge of anger at both the system and my own participation in it as a chancery bureaucrat for nine years. I decided I needed to take a breather before writing this review. I wanted to get some perspective.
I read two other books on the sexual abuse crisis, Jason Berry’s 1992 chronicle of the Gilbert Gauthé case in Lafayette, Louisiana, Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, and Berry’s 2004 book with Gerald Renner, Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II, which concentrates on the Legion of Christ.

I’m still angry, but I’m now better able to see what is unique about Podles’ book.

These other authors give us great detail about particular epicenters of the crisis and their own journeys as they covered the stories, but Podles’ work stands out as a masterful portrayal of the big picture, linking the stories Berry and Renner reported with stories from other times and places. He paints with broad strokes in places, but gets into some very fine detail in others to help us to grasp the magnitude of some truly horrendous cases. Podles also gives us analysis of the abusers and the victims, and of how each was treated by bishops, and what went wrong.
The bishops are clearly the focal point of his anger:
...
But he goes further, seeing the crisis as about more than the bishops and the priests they coddled: Catholic culture is implicated; specifically a narcissistic clericalism in which the laity, including police and judges and prosecutors colluded.

“The abuse is far more widespread, goes back farther, and is far worse” than has been recognized to date. (9)

A canonized saint tolerated abuse. Rings of abusers go back at least to the
1940s in America, and abuse involved sacrilege, orgies, and probably murder (and
perhaps even worse). Bishops knew about the abuse and sometimes took part in it.

Those who complained were ignored or threatened, and the police refused to
investigate crimes committed by clergy. (10)

Podles reveals some of the reasons for his personal connection to the subject, and these revelations give us some insight into how he came to target clericalism. He recounts an experience of physical abuse at the hands of a Christian Brother in high school—”He walked to my desk and slugged me so hard on the face that he broke my glasses.” The teacher went to the principal, and Podles was expelled for having objected to an injustice. This served as a lesson for the boys who remained. But it is also for Podles an example of how the Christian Brothers ruled their schools by intimidation, and he sees what happened to him as one instance of a pattern of physical abuse at Christian Brothers schools extending from Ireland to the US and Canada. Many of these same schools had problems of sexual abuse as well, and Podles sees a clear connection: “An atmosphere of physical abuse had prepared the way for sexual abuse.” The Brothers got the point across that you were to do what they asked without question or complaint. (4-5)

Podles, like many Catholic young men of the period, considered the priesthood; he went to Providence College in Rhode Island, which was run by the Dominicans, and lived in Guzman Hall, a dorm for those considering priesthood. There was an undercurrent of homosexuality there, however, and when a roommate “made a sexually aggressive move” on Podles in his sleep, he fled. (6)

Over the years, he began to wonder about the Catholic Church’s relationship with men. What is it about the Catholic Church—and the priesthood in particular—that attracts such a high percentage of homosexuals and drives off heterosexuals? This question led him to write his 1999 book, The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity:.........

“I had been puzzled by the lack of men in Catholic activities, and I was
surprised that my circle of acquaintances included a large number of
homosexuals. I realized that I had met these men through Catholic activities,
through Mass and the charismatic renewal. My research soon revealed that men had stayed away from all the branches of Western Christianity for centuries. Men had doubts about the masculinity of those men who were closely involved with the Church (such as the clergy) and sometimes those doubts were justified. I decided
there was a centuries-old misunderstanding of masculinity and femininity, a
misunderstanding that led men to distance themselves from the Church and that
relegated women to a role of passive obedience.” (7-8; see also pp. 350ff)

.....
The revelations of 2002 should not have caught anyone by surprise. The Gauthé case involved all the same factors of abuse and cover-up, and had brought national attention upon the subject twenty years before. It brought together three unlikely allies, Fr. Thomas Doyle, OP, who was working for the Apostolic Nunciature, Gauthé’s attorney, Ray Mouton, and Fr. Michael Peterson of the St. Luke Institute, who together wrote a report for the US bishops in 1985, “The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and responsible Manner.” They submitted it to a committee chaired by Bernard Law. They warned of what could happen if the bishops didn’t change their ways. But their report was ignored, Doyle was sent into exile, and the bishops continued doing what they had always been doing.

But the Gauthé case wasn’t the beginning, either. Neither was Davenport. In fact, says Podles, “there is a centuries-old underground in the Church that perpetrates a tradition of abuse,” (68) and this underground is protected and is made possible because of clericalism.

While abuse exists among the laity and outside of Catholicism, among clergy of other denominations as well as scout leaders and teachers, the Catholic crisis is unique. Catholicism makes claims about its priesthood that are made by no other institution (412), exemplified by the statement of Pope Pius XI, “The priest is indeed another Christ, or in some way he is himself a continuation of Christ.” Clericalism is the idea that the clergy really are “the church,” that the role of the laity is to be quiet, give generously, pray faithfully, and, above all, to obey. Clericalism has created a vision of the church where bishops are seen as divinely appointed shepherds whose voice should be heard by both church and state on all issues, spiritual and civil, as evidenced by the plethora of letters on matters such as economics, war, immigration and criminal justice. (416)

Podles sees clericalism as just an institutional variety of narcissism, which is a psychological disorder defined by DSM-IV as a “pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.” The narcissist “has a grandiose sense of self-importance,” “believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions),” “has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations,” “is interpersonally exploitative,” and “lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.”

That last point, the lack of empathy, is especially important for considering the reaction of the hierarchy to abuse.

The victims were invisible to everyone. The abusers were narcissists
who had no empathy for the sufferings of their victims. The priests,
officials, and bishops of the Davenport diocese were all caught up in a
clerical narcissism, in which only repercussions that affected them had any
meaning. The laity too were afflicted by a Catholic narcissism that idolized
the clergy. (70)

Narcissism pervades Catholic clerical culture, as Podles portrays it. It creates a vision of priesthood characterized by a sense of performance. It leads to a preoccupation with reputation and appearances at all levels (299ff). It requires an audience who adore the performer, lay accomplices who grant clerics deference and privilege. They, in turn, have reacted in anger when bishops have disclosed the faults of their favorite priests and suspended them. The laity also joined the bishops in seeing court cases and newspaper articles as attacks on the church—which is why newspapers didn’t stay with the story after the Gauthé case. (p. 423 ff)

Clericalism also affects the society as a whole, as was seen in the past willingness of cops and judges to overlook the crimes of priests in the belief that bishops were better able to deal with the problem. Even in the wake of the scandals, some defend this system of privilege; Podles points to an article by Michael Orsi, “Bishops Sacrifice Accommodations, Privileges and Rights: Everybody Loses,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review, 2002. (418)

Narcissism isn’t the only psychological disorder affecting priests. Podles summarizes studies done with seminarians and priests over the past six decades indicating that psychological illnesses pervade the priesthood. Already in 1948 William Bier noted that seminarians were more likely to answer questions as women generally did. A 1968 study showed that 70% candidates for religious life were “psychosexually immature, exhibiting traits of heterosexual retardation, confusion concerning sexual role, fear of sexuality, effeminacy and potentially homosexual dispositions.” (93) A 1972 report by Eugene Kennedy said priests tended to have the emotional maturity of adolescents, and not only had sexual difficulties but problems relating to adults. (94) A 1971 study by Conrad Baars found that 60-70% of priests were emotionally immature, and as many as 25% of priests had “serious psychiatric difficulties.” In particular, they did not properly understand the role of human emotions. (95)
...........
If they read Podles’ book, maybe they might begin to understand why people are angry. Maybe then, things might change. That’s his hope. I can’t share it. I think the narcissism, the clericalism, and the emotionally repressed culture go too deep. How do you change an ancient culture? How do you change people who have been selected because they fit a certain profile and whose basic disposition has been reinforced by training and conditioning?

For me, the narcissism and authoritarianism of the Catholic clericalist system reveals the working of “the mystery of iniquity.” It illustrates how the Catholic system as a whole is corrupted by principles that are contrary to the spirit of Christ. Catholic teaching refers to “structures of sin.”

Podles is not about to abandon the Catholic Church, despite all he has related and concluded. He thinks it can be saved, and proposes a series of reforms. A policy of zero tolerance is essential, he argues, as it not only removes individuals but disrupts networks of abusers. The Vatican must extend it worldwide (495). Canon law must be changed to give bishops authority over all priests in their diocese, religious or diocesan, to hold bishops accountable, and to make it possible for bishops to discipline each other (496). The laity must be more directly involved in governance, and should be consulted in all matters that concern them; parishes and dioceses should be audited annually and the audits made public. He suggests care should be taken in ordaining homosexuals—but he goes further, and advocates the barring of abuse victims from seminary. This may well be his most controversial recommendation, but he sees it is necessary because so many abusers were abused themselves. The cycle of abuse must be ended.

Finally, he calls for a renewed ethic which restores the place of righteous anger and the fear of God. “Righteous anger is a forgotten concept, zeal is condemned as disruptive.” (507) “The bishops fear bad publicity; they need to remember the fear of God, if in fact they believe in Him.” (508)
....
That’s his hope. I can’t share it. I think the narcissism, the clericalism, and the emotionally repressed culture go too deep. How do you change an ancient culture? How do you change people who have been selected because they fit a certain profile and whose basic disposition has been reinforced by training and conditioning?

For me, the narcissism and authoritarianism of the Catholic clericalist system reveals the working of “the mystery of iniquity.” It illustrates how the Catholic system as a whole is corrupted by principles that are contrary to the spirit of Christ. Catholic teaching refers to “structures of sin.”

… [S]in makes men accomplices of one another and causes concupiscence,
violence, and injustice to reign among them. Sins give rise to social situations
and institutions that are contrary to the divine goodness. “Structures of sin”
are the expression and effect of personal sins. They lead their victims to do
evil in their turn. In an analogous sense, they constitute a “social sin”
(Catechism 1869).

I’d suggest that the Catholic understanding of the papacy and the episcopacy is just such a “structure of sin”; it is “the expression and effect of personal sins,” especially narcissism. These structures that have developed from human sin, and that in turn perpetuate sin, are now seen as constitutive of the Church for Catholicism. Reformation is not possible without undoing what Catholicism sees as of its esse. This reinforces for me the urgency of the prophetic call, “Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sin.”

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.

ex-priester gepakt. Dank U wel, slachtoffers, zei de kardinaal. Mahony's antwoord en nog wat verklaringen.

Wat een timing!!!
Na de informatie over Manning, Mahony's voorganger in LA, de afgelopen dagen alweer, nu ook over de al al zo lang bestaande centra voor seksueel gevaarlijke priesters,
een week na de LA deal met 508 slachtoffers: ligt de volgende consequentie van het het kerkelijk misbruik, alweer voor Mahony LA onomstotelijk op tafel met de arrestatie van een ex-priester.

De vraag is natuurlijk inderdaad: wat doe je met ze?
Ze zijn tenslotte jarenlang hun gang kunnen gaan!

Als't U blieft, kardinaal.
Wie misbruikers kweekt krijgt misbruikers!

Wie zolang met zijn fikken aan kinderen kon en mocht zitten, zit met vingers aan kinderen! Of je ze er nu wel of niet die kerk uitschopt.
Dank u wel, kardinaal!

En dat geheugen van Mahony? Op zijn minst fascinerend te noemen.
Misschien is de correcte vertaling van mental reservation dan ook wel niet: ik lieg alleen als het nodig is, maar die gouden borden uit de hemelse eeuwigheid hier op aarde een eeuwigheid voor je kop hebben.


Ex-L.A. priest charged with sexually abusing boy
Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:11PM EDT
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Just over a week after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a record $660 million deal to settle clergy abuse cases, a former priest was arrested on Tuesday on charges of molesting a young boy.

George Miller, who served in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacoima, is the first current or former Catholic priest to be charged with sex abuse in the city since the nation's largest Roman Catholic diocese finalized the settlement with 508 plaintiffs on July 16.

That settlement covered only civil cases pending against the church and does not affect criminal cases.
Miller, who is 69 and left active ministry in 1996, was taken into custody at his home in California on a felony complaint charging him with three counts of committing lewd acts on a child and three counts of sodomy on a minor.

He is accused of sexually abusing a young boy from 1988 to 1991, starting when the alleged victim was 5 years old. Miller was being held on $600,000 bail and was due in court as early as Wednesday for an arraignment on the charges. The victim was not named.

"As promised, investigations are ongoing into alleged sexual abuse of minors by priests," Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said. "As evidence is developed to sustain criminal filings, we will do so."

Miller had been assigned to the Guardian Angel Church in Pacoima when he met the 5-year-old boy, befriended his mother and became a frequent guest in the family's home. He is accused of molesting the boy while taking him on overnight trips.

In 2002, Miller was charged with 24 counts of sex crimes against minors, including the boy's older brother.

That case was dismissed the following year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an extension of California's statute of limitations on sex crimes against children was unconstitutional.
The current case is within the statue of limitations.

The settlement reached last week after 4-1/2 years of negotiations came on the eve of the first trial involving sex abuse cases was due to begin. Victims' attorneys would have called Cardinal Roger Mahony to testify about the church hierarchy's alleged protection of abusive priests.

The church, in which priests take a vow of celibacy, has faced abuse allegations worldwide over the past decade. Victims have charged that church leaders often knew of the abuse but did not do enough to stop it.

The Los Angeles settlement dwarfs other landmark payouts. The Archdiocese of Boston, where the U.S. scandal erupted in 2002, reached a 2003 deal for 550 people worth $85 million.


Published: Friday, July 20, 2007
Pastoral Letter to Catholic Faithful in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
July 18, 2007
As you have heard, this past week our Archdiocese settled 508 civil cases involving clergy and ay persons accused of sexual abuse. The emotional pain of the victims of this abuse remains intense, and I invite each of you to join with me in praying for them on their difficult journey toward healing.

I again apologize personally, and on behalf of those who led the church in past decades, to all those who were abused, regardless of how long ago the abuse took place.
As much as we might wish that the past could be reversed and the harm undone, it cannot be. But we can work to ensure that our parish ministries are as safe as we can humanly make them for all of our parishioners, especially our children and young people.

Throughout our Archdiocese, in our parishes and schools, our priests and lay people have worked hard over the past several years to create safe environments for our children. At this important moment in our Local Church's history, as we remember our past failings, it is also appropriate to reflect on what has been accomplished so far:

---There is no priest or lay person currently in ministry in the Archdiocese who has been found to have abused a young person.
---Complaints of abuse are promptly reported to civil authorities.
---A Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board receives complaints of inappropriate conduct and makes recommendations about the disposition of individual cases.
---More than 40,000 priests, teachers, lay employees, coaches and volunteers have been trained in abuse prevention techniques under the Archdiocese's Safeguard the Children program.
---Before being allowed to work alone with children, church employees and volunteers are being fingerprinted and will clear a criminal background check.
---More than 350,000 of our children and youth already have been trained in age-appropriate programs that teach them to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behavior and how to report inappropriate behavior to a parent or guardian.

For more information on these and other child protection efforts of our Local Church, please visit the various websites of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Again, I invite you to join me in fervent prayer for the healing of all victims of sexual abuse, and for reconciliation across the Archdiocese.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Cardinal Roger Mahony
Archbishop of Los Angeles


Posted on Tuesday July 24, 2007
Statement Of The Archdiocese Of Los Angeles Regarding The Arrest Of George Miller

In 2005, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles released a summary of information related to priests who had been accused of sexual abuse in civil lawsuits.

The information regarding George Miller indicates that despite written allegations of abuse in 1977, a firm denial of misconduct by Father Miller resulted in the decision of Cardinal Timothy Manning to retain Father Miller in ministry.

There were no further reports of problems to the Archdiocese regarding Father Miller for 12 years. In September of 1989, a priest reported that he felt uncomfortable with Father Miller’s friendliness toward boys. But no abuse was reported. Father Miller again denied any wrongdoing.

On May 16, 1996, a complaint of sexual abuse against Father Miller was made to the Archdiocese’s Vicar for Clergy. The Vicar for Clergy interviewed Father Miller, and on May 20, 1996, Cardinal Roger Mahony placed Father Miller on sick leave and sent him for psychiatric evaluation.

Father Miller was never returned to ministry. He continued in therapy, and was placed on inactive leave in 1997. At the request of Cardinal Mahony, Miller was laicized in May 2005. In 1977, Cardinal Manning allowed Miller to remain in ministry based on Miller’s denial of an accusation of abuse. Such a thing would not happen today.

According to Archdiocesan sexual abuse policies and procedures enacted by Cardinal Roger Mahony, an allegation of sexual abuse against a minor is immediately reported to the police.

The priest is removed from ministry and placed on administrative leave. Pending the results of a police investigation, the Archdiocese’s Clergy Misconduct Oversight Board, comprised mostly of professional lay experts, reviews the case against the priest and makes a recommendation directly to Cardinal Mahony.

The Archdiocese will continue to cooperate with the authorities as they investigate claims of sexual abuse against individual priests.

July 24, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Former Priest Arrested,Charged with Sexual Molestation

LOS ANGELES – A former priest with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was arrested today on a felony complaint charging him with multiple counts of sexual molestation of a child under the age of 14, the District Attorney’s office announced.

George Miller, 69 (dob 3-12-38), was arrested at his residence in Oxnard by investigators with the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation. He is charged in case No. PA059590 with three counts of lewd act on a child and three counts of sodomy of a person under 14 – all felonies. He is being held on $600,000 bail.

“As promised, investigations are ongoing into alleged sexual abuse of minors by priests,” Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said today. “As evidence is developed to sustain criminal filings, we will do so.”

Miller allegedly met the victim when he was 5 years old while Miller was assigned to the Guardian Angel Church in Pacoima. Miller allegedly befriended the victim’s mother and became a frequent guest in her home. He allegedly first formed a close relationship with the victim’s older brother. Miller began taking the victim on overnight trips and allegedly began sexually molesting him. He’s charged with sexually molesting the victim between March 1988 to March 1991.

In 2002, Miller was originally charged with 24 counts of sex crimes against minors involving John Doe’s older brother and two other male minors, who were brothers. That case was dismissed in 2003 pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Stogner decision that ruled California’s statute of limitations extension was unconstitutional. Deputy District Attorney Sam Dordulian with the Target Crimes Division will prosecute the case.

Miller is scheduled to be arraigned after 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 25, in San Fernando Superior Court. If convicted, he is facing up to 18 years in state prison.


LOS ANGELES – District Attorney Steve Cooley issued the following statement today on the archdiocese settlement:

“Today’s massive civil settlement highlights the institutional moral failure
of the archdiocese to supervise predatory priests who operated for years
under its jurisdiction.

“Our office worked for five years to obtain archdiocese records regarding the alleged criminal acts committed by these priests. The archdiocese resisted our efforts. We successfully obtained these records through the California Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in our favor last year.

“While we were attempting to obtain records from the archdiocese, the U.S. Supreme Court in another case – Stogner – significantly limited statutes of
limitation allowing prosecution of molestation cases. This poses a continuing
legal problem to us.

“We are aware there could be records that may become available to us as
a result of today’s settlement. If these documents reveal evidence of criminal
activity on behalf of individual priests or anyone else, we will pursue them.

“The book is not closed on our investigation.”
sg

Als'tu blieft, kardinaal.

dank u wel, kardinaal.

dank U wel, slachtoffers, wees verzekerd van mijn medeleven en mijn excuses, zei de kardinaal.

Misschien is de correct uitleg van mental reservation (zie Tomas Doyle, Sipe en Wall)
dan ook wel niet: Ik lieg alleen wanneer het nodig is, zoals Sipe eerder zei over Mahony (en Manning), maar die gouden borden uit die hemelse eeuwigheid gewoon hier op aarde een eeuwigheid voor je kop hebben!

Oorzaken van het misbruik

New Study Will Look At Homosexuality, Dissent
BY WAYNE LAUGESEN
REGISTER CORRESPONDENT
February 11-17, 2007 Issue

NEW YORK — The U.S. bishops are undertaking a second study of the priest abuse scandal. Those conducting the research say hot button issues such as homosexuality and dissent will be part of the study.
The first phase of the study, conducted in 2004 by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, was considered a landmark in its field.

John Jay’s first report called for a more searching examination of the effects of homosexuality on the priesthood. It stated, “For those who choose to ordain homosexuals, there appears to be a need for additional scrutiny and perhaps additional or specialized formation to help them with the challenge of priestly celibacy.”

The bishops in November allocated funding for a follow-up on causes and context. It’s expected to be similarly groundbreaking.

Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, pointed out that in the first phase of the study John Jay proved its “open, objective, thorough, impeccable and professional.”

She said the follow-up wouldn’t pull any punches when it comes to tough issues like homosexuality.
“Their reputation is on the line at a very high level, and they are not willing to risk their reputation by getting steered by external forces of political correctness,” Kettelkamp said. “I’m convinced they are seeking truth, and know how to find it.”

Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist and the author of the book Homosexuality and Hope, said that, after the first study, “the facts speak for themselves: Seventy-five percent to 80% of victims in the sex abuse crisis were adolescent males, so the cause is primarily the homosexual predation of adolescent males.”
He said John Jay researchers “were a good choice for that study of statistical data, and those findings are what confirmed for us that this is a homosexual crisis.”

The first report by John Jay, which is part of the City University of New York, found that at least 10,667 boys and girls were abused by Catholic clergymen in the United States between 1950 and 2002, and between 75% and 80% of the abuse involved adolescent male victims.

Margaret Smith, data analyst for John Jay on the causes and contexts study, said John Jay would look at every factor.
“I’m a researcher,” she said. “I have no interest in being politically correct.”

It was Smith’s analysis of Church personnel files and complaint files by parents and grown victims of prior sexual abuse that established the statistics regarding adolescent male victims.

Yet Smith takes issue with Fitzgibbons’ assertion that homosexuality is a cause for major concern. Smith said sexual preference or inclination may be largely “irrelevant” to the causes and contexts of sexual abuse of children.
“In secular society, the majority of men treated for sexual abuse of adolescent boys consider themselves heterosexual, so you cannot make this problem go away by saying the problem is homosexual priests,” Smith said. “That’s overly simplistic. Very many heterosexual men engage occasionally in homosexual behavior.”

Smith said while some psychologists and psychiatrists see a distinction between adults having sex with children and adults having sex with adolescents, the law sees it all as child abuse.
“If the victim is under the age of consent, it’s child abuse. That simple,” Smith said. “When someone abuses a child, it usually has little to do with sexual preference. It’s about abusing a child.”

In the study, however, Smith and other researchers will try to determine how many priests who have abused children identify themselves as homosexual.
Karen Terry, the principal investigator on the causes and contexts study, responded that there is “nothing in our data to indicate that this is or is not a crisis of homosexuality.”

“Although 81% of the victims in our study were male, it is not clear whether this is due to a sexual attraction to the male victims or whether the priests primarily abused males because this is the population to whom they had access,” she said.
“For instance, in prison,” she said, “many individuals of the same gender have sexual relationships even though most would identify themselves as heterosexual.”

.....
The “historical context and influences” portion of the study will look at the Church and society “to frame our analysis of sexual abuse by priests.” One hypothesis researchers plan to explore is whether social changes of the 1960s and ’70s increased sexual attraction by adults to children.

Among four hypotheses researchers will explore while examining the response by Church leadership is that a “higher tolerance for non-traditional sexual behavior (adult heterosexual and homosexual relationships) will have a higher tolerance (and slower response) to abuse of children.”

Researchers also want to know if beliefs opposed to Church doctrine played a role in sexual abuse.
....