US high school sports coach Carla Hale.
In a termination notice, the principal explained that Carla’s “spousal relationship violates the moral laws of the Catholic Church.”
Pedanto writes:
A beloved teacher is fired from a Catholic school for acknowledging her partner in her mother’s obituary.
Can’t you just smell the compassion?
(Pic: NYT)
Cardinal Seán Brady
The host with the most to hide.
After the statement [by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland] was issued, Cardinal Sean Brady told RTE that the bishops believed that the legislation was a denial of religious freedom.
Cardinal Brady said the bishops had not discussed if Communion should be refused to politicians who supported the bill.
In February, Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis and the head of the Vatican court, urged priests to withdraw communion from politicians who supported abortion legislation in Ireland.
He told the newspaper The Catholic Voice that the legalisation of abortion in Ireland would create a “culture of death.”
Cardinal Brady said that though the bishops were calling on parliamentary representatives to oppose the bill, “there would be a great reluctance to politicise the Eucharist.”
Politicians, he said, “have an obligation to oppose the laws that are attacking something so fundamental as the right to life and they would have to follow their own conscience.”
We’ve missed him.
He’s been a wafer so long.
Wafer.
Oh, suit yourselves.
(RTE)
Bishop Peter Connors (above) of the diocese of Ballarat appeared, at the government-lead inquiry into the handling of child sex abuse cases by the Catholic Church in Victoria, Australia, today
He was asked by Committee member David O’Brien about Fr Paul Ryan a paedophile who was moved from parish to parish.
O’Brien: “Was there awareness of Ryan’s sexual problems from early on?”
Bishop Connors: ”Yes.”
O’Brien: “Was there persistent conduct in not warning parishioners?”
Bishop Connors: ”I can’t comment.”
O’Brien: “Was there a persistent determination to retain him despite the high risk?
Bishop Connors: ”Yes.”
O’Brien: “Was there a persistent disregard for victims?”
Bishop Connors: ”Yes.”
O’Brien: “There hasn’t been any investigation or explanation of how a priest like Ryan could be shifted around?”
Bishop Connors: ”No.”
O’Brien: “The church has effectively facilitated child sex offences by leaving known offenders in place?”
Bishop Connors:”I agree with that.”
O’Brien: “Very unChrist-like, isn’t it?”
Bishop Connors: ”Absolutely.”
Thanks Mark Geary
There has been some sympathy expressed for Redemptorist priest Father Tony Flannery (above) in light of the Vatican’s attempt to silence him over his support of women’s ordination and Church teaching on sexuality.
A voice of enlightenment from the priesthood supporting teh wimmin and teh gays, you say?
What does he have to say about clerical abuse victims?
The common assumption today is that the experience of sexual abuse does almost irreparable damage to a child, which will impact on their whole life. It would appear to be classified as the worst form of abuse. But can we be sure of that?How does one measure the damage done to a child by one form of neglect or abuse more than another?
Oh.
Does it strike anybody that it is a bit strange that we are devoting so much time, money and energy to inquiring into the abuse of children half a century ago when there is so much that is unsavoury in the lives of children today?
Ah.
The other obvious anomaly, beginning to be highlighted by some commentators, is that all the inquiries are into the behaviour of Catholic Church institutions and people, even though their abuse, dreadful as it was, is only a tiny fraction of all the abuse of children that happened in the past.
Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
Rite and Reason and Reality. Tony Flannery C.S.S.R. Redemptorist (Marie-Thérèse O’Loughlin, Goldenbridge39)
(NYT)
More than 70 per cent of the brothers in the St John of God order are suspected child abusers and Sydney Archbishop George Pell should immediately shut the order down, says a psychologist employed by the order to meet with its scores of abuse victims.
Almost 200 victims have sought compensation after alleging they were abused in special schools and homes run by the brothers in Victoria, New South Wales and New Zealand.
Last week, a Melbourne inquiry into child abuse heard allegations that brothers had drugged and pack-raped boys at their facilities in Victoria.
Pack raped.
Pell Urged To Close Order Over Abuses (TheAge)
PM Announces Abuse Inquiry (TheAge)
Thanks Mark Geary
Oh.
And that’s just Melbourne.
[Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Professor Des Cahill] told the [Australian] parliamentary inquiry [into clerical sex abuse] that 14 of 378 Melbourne priests were convicted of child sexual abuse, and church authorities had admitted that another four who had died were also abusers.
But the actual figure was much higher when under-reporting was taken into account. “One in 20 is a minimum. It might be one in 15, perhaps not as high as one in 10,” Professor Cahill said.
Professor Cahill said the Church hierarchy was incapable of resolving abuse issues because of the way the institution operated with a “clerical caste system” that made protecting the church’s reputation and priests more important than caring for victims. Bishops who did want to put victims first were prevented by the Vatican.
It operated by canon law rather than civil law, “but canon law has nothing to say about the rights of child victims”.
Same stuff.
Different continent.
In a “scathing” submission [to a government inquiry into the church's handling of clerical child abuse] Victoria’s police commissioner today listed the number of ways the criminal justice process was being hindered by the Catholic Church.
It says the church dissuaded victims of sexual crimes from reporting them to police, and alerted suspects of allegations against them ”which may have resulted in loss of evidence”.
And, of course, it is accused of moving – from parish to parish - known or suspected sexual offenders
The submission also includes this scene:
“Father [George] Pell was in the room when the victim told another priest what happened. Both times the victim tried to tell his story he was badly beaten, though not by the now Archbishop of Sydney, the submission says.”
Father Pell, now Cardinal Pell, is the most senior Catholic in Australia.
Police Slam Catholic Church (The Age)
Thanks Mark Geary
What the Doctor ordered:
“In addition, I wish to apologise for my own previous lack of understanding of the sinister and recedivist nature of the child abuser, and the life-long damage that this destructive behaviour has on victims.
Most of all – whilst I did notify the civil authorities at the time of these complaints – I profoundly regret and apologise for moving the priests concerned to different parishes thereby placing others at serious risk.
Both these parish changes occurred in the early to mid-1990s before the 1996 publication of Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response, the first Catholic Church guidelines for the handling of abuse issues.
Whilst no further abuse has been reported, this act was a grave mistake on my part. I operate very differently now and will continue to do so in the future.”
Bishop of Clonfert, Dr John Kirby
Child Protection Reports Live (RTE)
Lars Biscuits writes:
Brendan Smyth’s extradition controversy brought down the Albert Reynolds’ government in 1994. It was one of the biggest news stories of that year after the World Cup and the IRA ceasefire. How Bishop Kirby can say he did not understand “the recidivist nature of the child abuser” lacks all credibility when Smyth’s crimes were so well publicised.
Listen here: Bishop Thought Paedophilia Was “Friendship That Crossed Boundary Line”(Newstalk.ie)
Some 15,000 abuse victims are expected to receive compensation from the State’s Residential Institutions Redress Board with the bill expected to reach €1.47billion.
Under an indemnity scheme, and following proposals from the 2009 Ryan Report, the Government has been pushing for the cost to be split between the State and the 18 offending religious orders, on a 50:50 basis.
However just one of the orders has accepted this.
Last Friday, at the unveiling of a memorial for victims of clerical sex abuse in Dublin, Education Minister Ruairi Quinn said the pace at which congregations were signing up to a 50-50 contribution with the State in compensating abuse victims was “very unsatisfactory”.
Patsy McGarry, of the Irish Times, noted: ” (Quinn) had no “desire to bankrupt” the congregations, “all of which are ageing”, but noted that “they do have substantial health and educational structures” under their control.”
This morning The Irish Examiner, reports that the orders are €400 million short.
And as has already been reported one of the obstacles facing the State is that the church has been placing assets into trusts.
In April of this year Katherine Donnelly, of Irish Independent, wrote: “Mr Quinn now wants the orders to hand over the deeds of schools and medical facilities to finally settle the deal on compensating victims of abuse in residential institutions.
However, it may prove difficult to implement the handover of deeds as many schools controlled by the orders have been placed in trust and are no longer in the ownership of the orders. Trusts are complex legal entities, and NUI Maynooth law lecturer Neil Maddox said that the Government was facing a “legal headache” on this front.”
In May of this year, Carl O’Brien, of Irish Times, wrote:“In order to address the shortfall, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn is seeking to negotiate the transfer of school infrastructure owned by 18 religious orders to the State.These talks are ongoing. However, religious congregations have moved many schools into trusts, making it difficult to transfer them into State ownership.”
Which is what is getting the Quinn family into so much trouble.
In 2009, a study, headed by NAMA Boss Frank Daly, found the 18 congregations had assets worth €3.7billion.
Ain’t life grand?
“It would have been no different if he had taken a gun and shot him, it just took longer.”
A horribly familiar and genuinely frightening story broadcast this evening in Australia of child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church in Ballarat, Victoria.
The abuse involved “many children, committed over several years” and is believed to have lead to 40 suicides in the state
But “the most alarming revelation is the fact that the Church turned a blind eye to [one of the] the priest’s crimes…despite clear evidence of abuse, the Church allowed him to move from parish to parish, apparently without alerting the police.”
The programme reveals that “even now the Church will not admit the full extent of what it knew.”
Watch here
Thanks Mark Geary
