Tag: The Catholic church

A priest in Australia has been charged with hiding child sexual assaults by another priest.

He didn’t just hide them, either, he caned two boys who reported being assaulted.

Father Brennan, 74, was arrested and charged yesterday with two counts of  misprision of a felony – failing to disclose a serious crime – relating to alleged child sex offences by defrocked priest John Denham against two boys in  the late 1970s.

The offences allegedly occurred at St Pius X, in the Newcastle suburb of  Adamstown, where Father Denham was a teacher and Father Brennan was school principal.

In addition Father Brennan, of Toronto, south of Newcastle, was charged with assaulting the two boys by caning them after they allegedly reported being  sexually assaulted by Father Denham, 70.

“Compassion is at the heart of every great religion.” Karen Armstrong.

One of the  men from the Hunter Valley, who alleged Father Brennan caned him in 1978 after he alleged Father Denham had repeatedly sexually assaulted him at the school, thanked police for a determined investigation.

”If this makes one person stand up and say, ‘This is what happened to me’, then I’ll feel better,” he said.

Another Hunter man, who also alleged Father Brennan caned him after he alleged Father Denham had repeatedly sexually assaulted him at the school, said it was ”great news”.

”I feel better now that I’ve got it off my chest after saying nothing for all these years, but there’s still a dark side of it,” he said.

Probably because of the 34 years it took before Pa Brennan was charged.

But, hey, the boys probably seduced Pa Denham. That’s what they do you know.

A Catholic newspaper has removed an interview from their website in which a priest said that pedophiles are seduced by children in “a lot of the cases” and the abusers should not go to jail.

During an interview with National Catholic Register, 78-year-old Father Benedict Groeschel was asked about his experience working with priests involved in abuse.

Mmmmyes, and of course (assuming there is any truth in that, which I haz my doubts) the adult has no responsibility whatever to resist the child’s “seduction.”

You know what’s scary about that?

Groeschel has a PhD in psychology from Columbia University and hosts a television talk show on the Eternal Word Television Network, which also owns National Catholic Register.

That’s what. A PhD in psychology from Columbia.

Fabulous. The Republicans are having New York’s archbishop Timothy Dolan saying a goodbye prayer at their convention, so now the Democrats are having him too, so that everyone will know that both parties suck up to the Catholic church because hey, votes.

The fact that Dolan will be speaking at both conventions, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, shows the measure of respect both parties have for “ou[r] new cardinal.”

Yes exactly, and why the hell should they do that?

Mind you, the rest of what Bloomberg said sounded a tad perfunctory, or even contemptuous.

“It’s very flattering, I think, to him,” Bloomberg said. “He’s a very good speaker, and I’m sure he’ll give a very nice invocation, blessing or whatever he chooses to call it.”

Mmmmmmf.

But seriously. Timothy Dolan is the guy who pitched a huge fit at the New York Times for reporting on priestly child rape because other people do it too. He’s not someone both parties should respect. He’s a moral imbecile.

The Catholic church in the UK is finding itself having to answer to the law. What an indignity! What presumption! Mere secular humans with secular training in secular law daring to meddle with sanctified Standers-in For Jesus. The church is god’s telephone line! Don’t these presumptuous mundane unholy law-botherers realize that? How dare they haul a bunch of priests to court?

A landmark hearing at the Supreme Court in London on Monday will consider who is responsible for compensating victims of child abuse by Catholic priests.

The case is being brought by 170 men who allege that they were sexually and physically abused at a Roman Catholic children’s home.

The High Court at Leeds and the Court of Appeal have already decided that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Middlesbrough is responsible for compensating victims of child abuse at the St William’s children’s home, Market Weighton, East Yorkshire, between 1960 and 1992.

On account of the former principal of that children’s home was found guilty of sexually assaulting 22 boys, some as young as 12. Did the church cry out in compassionate anguish and rush to do everything it could to compensate? No it did not. It did the other thing.

Compensation proceedings on behalf of claimants were started in 2004. Although two Roman Catholic organisations were involved in running the St William’s children’s home, both organisations have attempted to use legal technicalities to escape responsibility, a tactic mirrored in other Catholic child abuse cases.

Despite a series of shocking examples of Catholic priests being convicted over the past decade, the Catholic Church continues to argue that it is not responsible for abuse committed by its priests and officials. In the most recent example the Roman Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth attempted to argue that he was not responsible for compensating a victim of abuse by a priest named Father Baldwin, on the basis that he did not employ him but simply allowed him ministry in his Diocese. Unsurprisingly on 12th July 2012 the Court of Appeal decided that the Bishop was indeed responsible.

You see, this is that problem again – the fact that they constantly claim to be morally better than the rest of humanity, because of their churchness – their adherence to “church teachings” – when in fact they’re selfish self-protecting shits. They’re not compassionate, they’re not generous, they’re not other-regarding – they’re not good.

They seem to think nobody can see this. We can see it.

A dog ate the bishops’ homework.

Most of the bishops’ conferences around the world have missed a Vatican deadline on drawing up anti-abuse guidelines, it emerged yesterday.

But Mgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top investigator of clerical sex abuse, said that without counting Africa “more than half of the conferences responded” to the May deadline.

Or even better, you just decide not to count any of the late ones, and that way you can say all the conferences responded to the deadline. Dropping all of Africa just to get to more than half seems inefficient.

More than 4,000 cases of sexual abuse have been reported to the doctrinal office over the past decade, the office reported earlier this year. Cardinal William Levada, former prefect of the CDF, said those cases revealed that an exclusively canonical response to the crisis had been inadequate and that a multifaceted and more pro-active approach by all bishops and religious orders was needed.

Ahhh that’s a tactful way of putting it. A less tactful way of putting it would be to say that trying to deal with child rape by hiding it from the police was both criminal and immoral. (I love the idea that actually informing the police of the rape of children by employees is a “multifaceted and more pro-active approach” – it makes it sound like a motivational meeting, or a retreat to a spirit lodge with sauna attached.)

Bishops’ conferences have been encouraged to develop “effective, quick, articulated, complete and decisive plans for the protection of children”, bringing perpetrators to justice and assisting victims, “including in countries where the problem has not manifested itself in as dramatic a way as in others”, the Vatican said in November 2010.

Bishops’ conferences have been encouraged to do what they should have been doing all along and treat crimes as crimes, assault as assault, child rape as child rape. Golly gosh gee wow, how impressive.

Lisa Miller in the Washington Post takes a look at the Vatican’s way of using the epithet “radical feminist.”

Members of the Vatican hierarchy are using the word “feminist” and even “radical feminist” the way third-graders use the word “cooties.” In April, the Vatican accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 57,000 nuns nationwide, of allowing “radical feminist” ideas to flow unchecked in their communities. In 2008, after launching an investigation against American nuns (the results of which have not yet been released), Cardinal Franc Rode told a radio interviewer that the nuns are suspected of “certain irregularities,” a “secular mentality” and “perhaps also a certain feminist spirit.”

That second item is especially impressive – “irregularities” – meaning deviation from authoritarian “rules” laid down by an ecclesiastical heirarchy; a “secular mentality” – meaning thinking about human issues in human terms; “a certain feminist spirit” meaning thinking women are as capable of thinking about human issues as men are (and perhaps, when the men in question are Vatican clerics, quite a lot better). Granted, they’re the Vatican hierarchy, so they’re not going to think about things in reasoned, secular, egalitarian, rights-based, liberal terms…but it’s a little surprising that they don’t even disguise their adamant opposition to reason and secularism and equality and rights and liberalism.

Their casual use of these terms convinces me that the cardinals, in their vast experience, have never actually met a radical feminist theologian. Such creatures do exist, although American religious orders are hardly their breeding ground. What the Vatican hierarchy sees as a “radical feminist” is a woman who dares to believe that she’s equal to a man.

They start from a different place, so any feminism at all looks hair-raisingly radical.

Lisa Isherwood is a real-life radical feminist theologian. She is editor of the journal Feminist Theology and a professor at Winchester University in England. She believes that the men at the Vatican are using the term “radical feminist” as a right-wing scare tactic, for it evokes other enemies far more dangerous than nuns. Their thinking, she says, goes like this: “We hear the word radical Islam, and everyone panics, so let’s chuck that at them.”

They’ve been studying the Republican party in the US, haven’t they.

Cardinal Brady is still at the same old stand – saying he won’t resign despite new disclosures of his failure to pass on names and addresses of children being abused by Brendan Smyth.

The Catholic primate of all-Ireland has said that he will not resign as Church leader despite revelations in the BBC’s This World programme.

It found Cardinal Sean Brady had names and addresses of those being abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

However, he did not pass on those details to police or parents.

And Brendan Smyth went on abusing the children in question.

He says he had no authority. He says it was all the higher ups. He says he trusted them to deal with Brendan Smyth. He says he was just there to hold their coats. He says why is everybody picking on him. He says the BBC is being mean to him.

Senior Vatican Prosecutor Monsignor Charles Scicluna has defended Cardinal Brady.

“My first point is that Fr Brady was a note taker in 1975, he did what he should have done. He forwarded all the information to the people that had the power to act,” he said.

“My second point is that in the interest of the Church in Ireland, they need to have Cardinal Brady as the archbishop of Armagh because he has shown determination in promoting child protection policies. You need to have leaders who have learned the hard way and are determined to protect children.”

You need to have leaders who have learned the hard way. Really. So leaders should all be involved in botched self-protecting institution-protecting pseudo-investigations of child abuse early in their careers so that they can do a good job later, having “learned the hard way”? So it’s good that Ratzinger grew up under the Nazis and it’s a pity that other “leaders” missed out on that experience?

Sean Brady’s role in the affair became clear in 2010, when it became known that he had been present when the abused boy [Brendan Boland] was questioned.

He claimed, however, that the boy’s father had accompanied him, and described his own role as that of a note-taker.

However, the BBC This World investigation has uncovered the notes Cardinal Brady took while the boy was questioned.

The child’s father was not allowed in the room, and the child was immediately sworn to secrecy.

Brendan Boland’s father was not allowed in the room as a matter of canon law, according to Irish Times Religious Affairs Correspondent Patsy McGarry. Good old canon law, eh, protecting the clergy at the expense of anyone and everyone else.

H/t Sigmund.

Ah the Catholic church in Ireland – always shameless, always brazen, always ignoring the harm it does to other people while demanding infinite respect for itself. This time it has its mitres in a knot because a broadcaster said it had fucked things up in Ireland. Yes, and?

The Communications Office of the Irish bishops has demanded a full apology and retraction from radio presenter Ray D’Arcy after he told listeners “the Catholic Church, in many ways, has fucked up this country”…

Catholic communications chief Martin Long has demanded that the station and presenter retract the “insulting” and “offensive” comment on air tomorrow.

Oh has he. Has he really. The Irish bishops who concealed child rape and transferred rapist priests instead of reporting them to the police, thus enabling them to go on raping. The Irish bishops at the head of an organization that for generations imprisoned women in laundries to do slave labor for decades – an organization that made those women raise their children for three years and then hand them over to the “mother superior” and sign an oath “never to attempt to see, interfere with or make any claim to the said child at any future time.” The Irish bishops at the head of an organization that imprisoned the children of parents with no money for the sake of the cash the state paid them; an organization that starved the children and tortured them emotionally and physically. Those Irish bishops.

How fucking dare they.

H/t Robin.

It gets worse – the castration story.

The Toronto Star reports

The Deetman Commision, set up by two Catholic bodies, the Conference of Bishops and the Dutch Religious Conference, concluded last year that tens of thousands of children had been abused by Catholic clergy in the Netherlands since 1945.

The commission was set up by two Catholic bodies, one being the Conference of Bishops.

Hello? Fox? Henhouse? Custodiet? Custodies?

Mr Madoff, would you draw up a report for us on how you defrauded people out of billions of dollars?

Col Qadaffi, can we get you to set up a commission on torture and human rights abuses by your regime?

Mr Milosevic, could you and a few of your friends investigate war crimes in Bosnia for us, thanks so much?

It’s Radio Netherlands that first blew this open, along with NRC Handelsblad.

We now know that former Dutch cabinet minister Wim Deetman did not meet the expectations he raised when he chaired the commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church. He did not get to the bottom of the abuse scandal or reveal all of the horrors that took place behind church doors in the Netherlands.

We know this thanks to investigative journalist Joep Dohmen of the newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Dohmen wrote about a boarding school student who had been sexually abused by a Dutch monk. When the former student reported the abuse to the police in 1956, he was brought to a Roman Catholic psychiatric ward, declared a homosexual and then castrated. The same surgery was probably performed on at least ten other schoolmates of his who tried to blow the whistle on abuse.

The main abuser in this case was ‘Gregorius,’ the brother superior of the Roman Catholic Harreveld boarding school in the east of the Netherlands.

And nothing was done about it because the elite didn’t want anything done about it.

The bigger picture is this: Victor Marijnen was just one member of a wider elite of Catholic notables who wielded vast power in the 1950s. They were captains of industry, chairmen of commissions, judges, high-ranking civil servants and politicians. And it was through this old boys network that abuse at Harreveld and other Roman Catholic institutions was covered up.

In short, the Harreveld castration story reveals collusion between institutions, bishops, politicians, the police and the justice system that enabled sexual abuse in the church to continue unpunished for decades on end.

Funny how similar to Ireland it sounds, when we don’t normally think of the Netherlands as in the grip of the church the way we do Ireland.

More from that bottomless file, The Evil Deeds of the Catholic Church. This time it’s in the Netherlands.

Government inspectors were aware that minors were being castrated while being looked after in Catholic-run psychiatric institutions, local paper the Limburger reported on Monday.

The NRC reported on Saturday at least one boy under the age of 16 was castrated to ‘help’ his homosexual feelings while in Catholic church care in the 1950s.

…

But there are indications at least 10 other boys were also castrated, the NRC reported on Saturday. The claims were not included in the Deetman report on sexual abuse within the Catholic church which was published at the end of last year.

The paper says the one confirmed case concerned a boy – Henk Heithuis – who reported being sexually abused by priests to the police in 1956. After giving evidence, he was placed in a Catholic-run psychiatric institution where he was then castrated because of his ‘homosexual behaviour’.

Holy sweet hopping christ on a griddle – he was what where he was what because of what? 

He was placed in a Catholic-run psychiatric institution where he was then castrated because of his ‘homosexual behaviour’.

Oh my god.

The paper says the Deetman committee was informed about the castrations in writing but did not include mention of them in its report because ‘there were few leads for further research’.

The Deetman committee was set up by the church itself in 2010 after the sexual abuse scandal broke. It reported in December having identified some 800 priests and monks who abused children in their care between 1945 and 1985.

…

MPs are now calling for a full parliamentary investigation into the abuse scandal because of concerns about the neutrality of the Deetman inquiry. Govenment MPs and the anti-immigration PVV have so far blocked calls for a formal inquiry, the NRC said on Monday.

And these are the people who want to tell us all what to do, and impose their warped ideas about sex and contraception and abortion on all of us, and “fight militant secularism” with the help of other reactionary theocrats around the globe.

The Vatican has issued a report on priestly child rape in Ireland. The Vatican is happy to see “the deep faith of many men and women” despite all this brouhaha about child rape. The Vatican knows what to do moving forward: it is to have “deeper formation in the content of the faith for young people and adults.”

And there’s another thing.

 Since the Visitators also encountered a certain tendency, not dominant but nevertheless fairly widespread among priests, religious and laity, to hold theological opinions at variance with the teachings of the Magisterium, this serious situation requires particular attention, directed primarily towards improved theological formation. It must be stressed that dissent from the fundamental teachings of the Church is not the authentic path towards renewal.

That’s the important bit. The power and authority of the (all-male, all celibate) priests and bishops. It’s the male celibate priests and bishops who do the Magisterium, and nobody else is allowed to touch it.

I was on a plane or in an airport much of March 9, and busy the rest of the day, so I missed the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s full-page ad in the New York Times. The ad is a good thing.

Before the ad, there was an open letter.

Dear ‘Liberal’ Catholic:

It’s time to quit the Roman Catholic Church.

It’s your moment of truth. Will it be reproductive freedom, or back to the Dark Ages? Do you choose women and their rights, or Bishops and their wrongs? Whose side are you on, anyway?

It is time to make known your dissent from the Catholic Church, in light of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops’ ruthless campaign endangering the right to contraception. If you’re part of the Catholic Church, you’re part of the problem.
Why are you propping up the pillars of a tyrannical and autocratic, woman-hating, sex-perverting, antediluvian Old Boys Club? Why are you aiding and abetting a church that has repeatedly and publicly announced a crusade to ban contraception, abortion and sterilization, and to deny the right of all women everywhere, Catholic or not, to decide whether and when to become mothers?  When it comes to reproductive freedom, the Roman Catholic Church is Public Enemy Number One. Think of the acute misery, poverty, needless suffering, unwanted pregnancies, social evils and deaths that can be laid directly at the door of the Church’s antiquated doctrine that birth control is a sin and must be outlawed.

Damn right. This was one thing my co-author and I agreed on when writing Does God Hate Women? It doesn’t work to claim to be liberal when you’re helping to sustain a reactionary woman-hating institution; you should get out.

No self-respecting feminist, civil libertarian or progressive should cling to the Catholic faith. As a Cafeteria Catholic, you chuck out the stale doctrine and moldy decrees of your religion, but keep patronizing the establishment that menaces public health by serving rotten offerings. Your continuing Catholic membership, as a “liberal,” casts a veneer of respectability upon an irrational sect determined to blow out the Enlightenment and threaten liberty for women worldwide. You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.

That. That, that, that.

By the way the ad’s headline should be “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church” but the Times made them change it to “It’s Time to Consider Quitting” – the worms.

Oh hey gee what do you know, the US Conference of Catholic bishops is on Twitter. One can keep up with their theocratic doings so easily…

Here’s yesterday’s press release. It’s about their plans to pray for success at imposing their filthy theocratic laws on the entire US population.

The Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), at its March 13-14 meeting in Washington, called for a nationwide prayer campaign for protection of religious freedom and conscience rights from several threats, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that forces employers, including religious ones, to provide contraception/sterilization in their health plans.

What about my religious freedom? What about my conscience rights? And by “my” I mean those of people like me, who don’t agree with your arbitrary retrograde vicious ideas about contraception. I mean our religious freedom and conscience rights. I mean our right not to be governed by a group of Catholic bishops.

“We call upon the Catholic faithful, and all people of faith, throughout our country to join us in prayer and penance for our leaders and for the restoration of our First Freedom—religious liberty—which is not only protected in the laws and customs of our great Nation, but rooted in the teachings of our great Tradition,” the bishops said in “United for Religious Freedom” a March 14 statement. “Prayer is the ultimate source of our strength—for without God, we can do nothing; but with God, all things are possible.”

Their “freedom” to block the freedom of other people, is what they mean. Their “freedom” to prevent other people from getting contraception; their “freedom” to make it more difficult for other people to get contraception.

There is also of course their treasured “freedom” to try to compel all Catholic hospitals to refuse to provide life-saving abortions. There is their treasured “freedom” to conceal child rape from law enforcement, and to demand the right to deal with child rape according to canon law instead of the secular law of the relevant country.

I’d better take some deep breaths before I read any more of their press releases.