Do the imposition fails? (No spam)

[Luis Antonio]

Catholic Group Receives 1,092 New Sex Abuse Reports
By NEELA BANERJEE

Published: February 19, 2005


WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 - Roman Catholic bishops reported on Friday that they had received 1,092 new accusations of sexual abuse by priests as they released the second annual survey of the church's procedures for handling and preventing such abuse by clergy and employees.

Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the overwhelming majority of the accusations, which were made against 756 priests, concerned incidents that took place about 30 years ago. Twenty-two accusations of abuse were made by children in 2004, and they were all turned over to the police, Dr. McChesney said.

The findings were released on Friday by the national conference, which has hired independent auditors to assess the church's response to the sex abuse scandals that exploded in 2002.

Dr. McChesney said the costs to the church had exceeded $800 million since 1950. Last year alone the costs from settlements, therapy for victims and offenders, and lawyers' fees came to about $139.6 million, according to the report.

The 1,092 new accusations of abuse were made by 1,083 people, mostly men. Last year the bishops released an analysis conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, based on figures from bishops and religious orders, that found 10,667 minors had allegedly been abused from 1950 to 2002.

The actual number of victims will probably remain unknown because many people never come forward, Dr. McChesney said.

"We weren't surprised by the numbers because many people are still finding the courage to come forward," Dr. McChesney said, "and the church is in a better place to accept those allegations."

Of the 756 priests implicated, about half already faced previous accusations of abuse, the report said. Most of them are now dead or out of the ministry, the auditors found.

The scope of the auditors' work so far is to determine if the American church's 195 dioceses have programs and processes to help victims and educate employees and parishioners. A greater percentage of dioceses last year moved to put programs into place, auditors found, 96 percent compared with 90 percent in 2003.

Seven dioceses and eparchies, which are dioceses of the Eastern Catholic Churches, were not in compliance by year's end.

The report noted that it does not evaluate the actual efficacy of the programs themselves.

David Clohessy, executive director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said he was heartened that more people were stepping forward to report abuse.

But he and other critics of the auditing effort argued that it did not address one of the crucial issues: the power of the bishops, many of whom, critics said, hid or played down reports of molesting, allowing the sexual abuse to continue.

"True reform would be bishops opening their files and punishing bishops who covered up the crimes," said Anne Doyle, co-director of bishopaccountability.org, an online clearinghouse of information about the sex abuse scandals. "If they truly want Catholics to trust them, they have to expose themselves."

The audits were conducted by the Gavin Group Inc. of Boston, headed by William Gavin, a former official of the F.B.I.

The areas where the auditors found dioceses most lagging were in putting in place a system of background checks and in training priests, laity and children to identify and avoid sexual abuse.Fifty-six auditors from the Gavin Group conducted audits of the 194 dioceses that participated in the process. The auditors first mailed paperwork the dioceses needed to fill out and return, and then followed up with a visit.

For a midsized diocese, like the one in Peoria, Ill., for example, two auditors would go for about five days, Mr. Gavin said. Critics of the audits charge that the auditors spoke to very few victims. Mr. Gavin said that auditors had spoken to 135 adult survivors of abuse, or fewer than one per diocese.

Mr. Gavin said that in the third audit, which will cover 2005, he planned to send more auditors out. But auditors will not visit about 100 dioceses that instead will forward reports on their compliance.

Auditors will visit dioceses that were not in compliance this year or that fell short on some programs, a few that volunteered for a full audit and others, like the Archdiocese of New York, that are far too large to avoid visiting, for a total of about 91 dioceses, Mr. Gavin said. Those that are not visited this year will go through an on-site visit within two or three years, Dr. McChesney said.

Anne M. Burke, a justice of the Illinois appellate court and the former acting chairwoman of the church's National Review Board, a group of laypeople monitoring the church's response to the sexual abuse crisis, said she feared it was too soon for the church to rely on self-reporting.

"I'm afraid of backsliding," Ms. Burke said.

Priest Sues Own Diocese Over Abuse

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 18 (AP) - A Roman Catholic priest is suing his own diocese, saying he was sexually abused as a teenager by a priest who has since died.

The Rev. John Nesbella was placed on a leave of absence on Friday after filing the lawsuit this week claiming he was abused more than 25 years ago at a rectory operated by the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, the diocese said in a statement.

Father Nesbella says he was abused by the Rev. Martin Brady, his teacher at Bishop Carroll High School in Ebensburg, when he was 16. Father Brady died in 2003.

The lawsuit names the diocese, Bishop Joseph Adamec and a former bishop, James Hogan, as the defendants.

"The fact that the accused is deceased makes it next to impossible to confirm the allegation," Bishop Adamec said.

Clergy abuse claims by active or former priests are unusual but not unprecedented, said David Clohessy, executive director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

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Is it only me, or its about time for the RCC to reconsider the no sex impositions that are around ever since the RCC has been founded?

[fable]

First of all, the headline confuses me. It refers to 1,092 new sex abuse reports, but nowhere in that article does it state the period used to define "new." My impression was in fact that the headline is misleading: the new instances of sex abuse were only new in the sense that they hadn't been heard before, but that most of them were actually spread over a period of more than 50 years. It seemed like the actual number of abuses made in 2004 in 22:

"Twenty-two accusations of abuse were made by children in 2004, and they were all turned over to the police, Dr. McChesney said."

And they weren't XXXX number of reports, but rather, one report containing XXXX number of accusations. In short, that's a really terrible headline. Typically, article writers don't do their own heads or decks (as headlines and lead sentences are called), and this one is just another example of sloppy journalism.

On to your comment.

Is it only me, or its about time for the RCC to reconsider the no sex impositions that are around ever since the RCC has been founded?

No; actually, it was time for them to reconsider this back in the 14th century, when accusations of simony and sexual activity first began circulating on a broad scale against the RCC. The RCC responded by forbidding marriages by lay priests, and ignored the rest. Since then, it's been a policy of "eyes tightly shut." This papacy is in the grand tradition. I've already got a thread on it; search on RCC, and I'm sure you'll pull it up.

I do share the concerns of those who believe the bishops aren't going to implement to changes. There are some bishops and archbishops (like the current one in Philadelphia, Bevilacqua) who make claims to prevent abuse, but refuse to cooperate with federal authorities. Bevilacqua initially wouldn't turn over the names of accused priests to the feds, and later wouldn't state the names of those accused in public, despite the fact that all were still serving in his archidiocese. It's the whole argument of the RCC being sacred and a separate law outside the concerns of secular government.

[Luis Antonio]

Here is the link to the ancient thread (from 2002, I wasnt here at that time)

Ancient Pedophily Thread

I also agree with you that the Bishops wont do a thing. But, no offense meant to catholics, wont this be a good time for the pope to resign and for the new pope to assume this and change the house policy?

You're right Fable, they should have apologized, but at that time the church was still retaining absolute power in europe. It wasnt really possible to react against the pope at that time, IMO. But now it seems very easier to me, and very better to the church to gain a "friendly" face within the community.

[Maharlika]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luis Antonio I also agree with you that the Bishops wont do a thing. But, no offense meant to catholics, wont this be a good time for the pope to resign and for the new pope to assume this and change the house policy?

...as much as I would like to be optimistic about it, I see that the new pope would hardly be as different as the collective group of the Vatican leadership, much similar to your proverbial "Old Boys Club."

They have the tendency to protect their ranks and any internal action/punishment against their erring members still tend to remain "internal."

It's not that different in my country, the Philippines -- the biggest Catholic country in Asia.

[fable]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maharlika ...as much as I would like to be optimistic about it, I see that the new pope would hardly be as different as the collective group of the Vatican leadership, much similar to your proverbial "Old Boys Club."

It also has to be remembered that 90% of the current College of Cardinals (who pick the popes) were appointed John Paul II. They share his views. They're not about to replace him with a relative liberal, or even a moderate. I suspect they'll look for an extremely energetic, charismatic arch-conservative, rather like JP2 was, years ago. And that will solve nothing.