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Priests Convicted of Sexual Abuse


Cleopatra7

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By his own admission, Father Joseph Jeyapaul raped two girls when he was assigned to a parish in Minnesota. He fled to his native India, but was extradicted and got a reduced sentence for admitting his guilt. After serving his scant one year sentenced he was deported and suspended from ministry. That should have been the end of the story, but the Vatican reinstanted Jeyapaul into the priesthood and has been assigned to a parish in India where he is in charge of religious education:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/24/the-vatican-just-put-a-convicted-rapist-back-in-a-parish.html

Megan Peterson, one of the victims in the Minnesota case, is now filing a public danger (nuisance) federal lawsuit against the Ootacamund diocese in Tamil Nadu, India for putting Jeyapaul back into ministry and in contact with minors. If you thought that the abuse crisis was over or that Francis was cleaning house, this article shows otherwise. As difficult as prosecuting abusers is in the US, it must be much, much harder in a developing nation like India. The fact that Jeyapaul is in charge of religious education even though he used that post to meet and groom victims in Minnesota reminds me of stories from Boston in the 1950s and 1960s, where the archdiocese knew that such and such a priest had been molesting children but still put him in charge of children' activities in another parish. If rape doesn't make someone unfit for ministry, I don't know what does.

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My dear husband and my FurryHeadships are wondering why mommie is madly screaming at the computer.

FWIW, I am willing to accept that MAYBE sexual abusers might redeem themselves and have a place in some sort of ministry----in a nice, sheltered, restricted monastery or comparable, away from lay people----and spending a whole lot of time in meditation, repentance, and making up spiritual bouquets or decorating altars or something.

But, damn it, putting a sexually abusive person where they can possibly reoffend?---that's like putting an alcoholic in command of a bar, or a noncompliant diabetic in control of a sweet shop.

I. Can't. Even.

 

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  1. Fled the country
  2. Extradicted
  3. Sentenced to one year in prison for admitting guilt

#3 is the problem.  Why is this man not in prison for 50 years for raping TWO children and fleeing the country to evade justice?  Talk about a sweet plea deal.  I hope this woman is suing or has sued the Catholic church. 

Yes, the Catholic church has not learned one damned thing.  

 

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  • 1 year later...

Cardinal Law has died

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Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, has died, the Vatican confirmed. He was 86.

Law died in Rome, where he had served as archpriest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major after he was forced to resign in 2002 as archbishop of Boston.

Law's name became emblematic of the scandal that continues to trouble the church and its followers around the globe after it was revealed the he and other bishops before him had covered for pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

Law will get a full cardinal's funeral at the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday afternoon, the Vatican added later, with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, presiding and Pope Francis participating.

You'll excuse me if I can't quite muster the feelings to feel sorry for this man.  He rode around on his high horse about abortion but looked the other way when evil men in his diocese violated children.  If Francis really wanted to show courage he'd refuse to allow the funeral to take place in the Vatican at the very least.

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It will be interesting to see what kind of funeral Law gets. I’m guess he’ll still get the whole episcopal she-bang, even though he scandalized an entire planet. Once a priest, always a priest, and the Vatican takes care of its own, even if they’re scum.

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Damn it!

Bernard Law was a disgrace to human kind. He couldn't give a damn about the safety of his "flock" and he moved known pedophile priests from parish to parish.  He cared far more about protecting the priests and the reputation of his corrupt archdiocese than for the victims.

 May he rot in the Hell he preached about.

I actually read every single page of Bernard Law's deposition published in the Globe back in the early 2000s.  He was a conniving bare-faced liar.  He disgusts me.

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15 minutes ago, Cleopatra7 said:

Law is going to get a full cardinal’s funeral at the Vatican, despite protests from abuse survivor groups:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/world/cardinal-bernard-law-death-funeral-reaction/index.html

That's a lot more than he deserves.  I wish Francis wasn't so tone deaf about this and had insisted that the funeral be held in some tiny and plain church in Rome instead.  Lord knows there's enough churches in Rome that would have fit the bill.  

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11 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

That's a lot more than he deserves.  I wish Francis wasn't so tone deaf about this and had insisted that the funeral be held in some tiny and plain church in Rome instead.  Lord knows there's enough churches in Rome that would have fit the bill.  

I’m not an expert on canon law, but I believe that the only way Law could be denied an official funeral would be if he violated canon law to the point of committing a excommunicatable offense. While shuffling around abuse priests may be wrong in the eyes of wider society, it doesn’t violate the laws of the Catholic Church. One could argue more convincingly that a big public funeral for Law would scandalize the faithful, but the very fact that he was whisked away to Rome for a cushy job in a beautiful old church when things got too hot in Boston indicates that the Vatican doesn’t really care about that in this case.

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11 hours ago, Howl said:

Oh, to be a fly on the wall cloud at the Pearly Gates today.....

Oh, I would love to see Law's face when the gates of Hell open, and Satan personally welcomes him to the eternal damnation he deserves.

The Vatican's decision to give him such honors and to continue to call him a man of G-d is spitting in the face of G-d and Jesus. Believing that they'd approve of this shit is an insult to them. Hurting innocent children should be an excommunable offense. Also you'd think someone at the Vatican would realize that giving this garbage bag of a person such a formal service just highlights their history of cover-ups/failure. 

Mark Ruffalo commented on Law's death. He starred in Spotlight, which is about the reporters who discovered the cover-up (as mentioned in the articles posted). I saw it a few months ago on Netflix, it was good.

http://deadline.com/2017/12/mark-ruffalo-spotlight-archbishop-bernard-law-profound-suffering-1202230452/

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13 hours ago, HarryPotterFan said:

Oh, I would love to see Law's face when the gates of Hell open, and Satan personally welcomes him to the eternal damnation he deserves.

Satan can use it as practice for Joe Ratzinger.  Law's enabler and involved in every Vatican scandal for years.  He's over 90, IIRC.

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Even some priests weren't down with Law's funeral at St. Peter's

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Yet, many critics felt that this sort of hagiography, including the pomp and circumstance of a full Vatican funeral, was inappropriate. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who writes for America magazine, tweeted that “every Catholic deserves a funeral Mass, but not every Catholic warrants a funeral Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica … It is a stupefyingly obtuse symbol, which undercuts the church’s mission to hold bishops accountable for their actions, particularly regarding the abuse of children.” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops began its statement on Law’s death with information about reporting clergy sexual abuse, noting that it “will likely bring back painful memories for survivors.”

Even O’Malley, who is usually reserved with the press, seemed uncomfortable with the funeral arrangements. “I understand the difficulty with that, and I understand how people are reacting to that,” he told reporters at a press conference in Boston on Wednesday. “It’s unfortunate that he’s had such a high-profile place in the life of the Church, but I think going forward, that kind of decision would not be made. But unfortunately, we’re living with the consequences of that.” In the years since John Paul II gave Law his final appointment, “there’s been enough growth and consciousness of this problem in the Holy See that this would not happen [again],” O’Malley added.

 

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This account of Law’s funeral reminds me of a story about the comedian and writer Steve Allen:  Raised a Catholic, he couldn’t understand why (we’re talking the ‘50s here) divorced and remarried people were denied Church funerals, but known Mafia bosses were buried with full Catholic rites.

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Sylvia Poggioli of NPR was reporting from the Vatican about Law's funeral yesterday.  I can't remember all the details, but she made the points that the funeral was:

  • Comparatively low key and conducted at the very back of the Basilica, with Francis only appearing for 5 minutes at the end.
  • Francis's telegram announcing Law's death was very brief compared to fulsome praise for the last Cardinal who kicked the bucket (I forget the name).
  • The fact that Law had been Archbishop of Boston was never mentioned.
  • Law's involvement in the Clergy Sexual Abuse scandal was never mentioned.
  • O'Malley chose not to attend the funeral (and see his statement above in @47of74's post).

However, the Vatican commission supposedly looking into the Boston Clergy Sexual Abuse scandal, lead by O'Malley, is dead in the water.  The two survivors on that commission left in disgust at the lack of action by O'Malley.   

Pope Francis and O'Malley just want the whole thing swept under the rug and to move forward as though nothing happened.

Sorry, that isn't good enough.

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Yeah I noticed that too that the Gingrichs were there. Birds of a feather....
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5 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Even some priests weren't down with Law's funeral at St. Peter's

 

I couldn't finish reading that article because some bozo was talking about how he felt bad about the way Law was treated post-scandal. Boo freakin' hoo.

And of course that asshat Gingrich was there. Gotta support child abusers. :angry-steamingears:

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Well, the Catholic church's continued attempts to sweep the sex abuse scandals under the rug have caused church attendance to crater in that formerly most Catholic of countries--Ireland. Why, it went from 90 percent to 30 percent in a decade and Ireland voted in same-sex marriage on top of that. On a more personal note, an ex-boyfriend I thought would never, ever stop going to Sunday mass (even as he griped about the conservatism of the priests and the parish) has started going to a progressive Methodist church and is even teaching in their adult Sunday school in the last year. I was stunned, I have to say.

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Well, the Catholic church's continued attempts to sweep the sex abuse scandals under the rug have caused church attendance to crater in that formerly most Catholic of countries--Ireland. Why, it went from 90 percent to 30 percent in a decade and Ireland voted in same-sex marriage on top of that. On a more personal note, an ex-boyfriend I thought would never, ever stop going to Sunday mass (even as he griped about the conservatism of the priests and the parish) has started going to a progressive Methodist church and is even teaching in their adult Sunday school in the last year. I was stunned, I have to say.

 

Yeah 6 years ago no one in my family ever would have thought I would leave the church even as everyone else in my generation did. Here I am 5 years later in an Episcopal church.

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