The message conveyed to any who generalise about christians and catholics having knowledge of and assisting in these crimes
Is that every victim now adult, was also a 'christian and catholic victim' of their generational times
many catholic boys and girls, away in boarding schools,you'll find.

Unless a person has been a victim physically and mentally
you will never truly know or understand the many aspects involved
Paedophilia and the covering up issues yes bring out into the open
though not using condemnation and ridicule of all catholics and christians, many victims, degraded yet again, by anti-christian people's words spoken.

We Are Unique, I would like to respond to your post of April 20th.
Just as I was thinking of quitting the OLO on this subject along came your lovely email. All the others were making the usual clucking intellectual arguments with easy sophistication I was growing disenchanted with.
Then there was you and what was a quintesential existential poem with its quaint idiom but loaded with angst. It stood out as something genuine ...no posturing and smart-assing. I was very moved by it. It offered me an insight into a poem of my own on your position. My poem resonates with the emotional argument you put forward.
Maybe the other posters who regularly contribution to this OLO topic may out of curiosity go to your previous post and re-read it.

socratease

Dear George,

If you read Gibbon on the first three centuries of the primitive church, one readily sees the transition of the church leadership from simple fisherman to presbyters of equal status to the congregation, to provincial bishops as administrators, to bishops usurping secular powers, privilege and authority over the congregation. As late as the 1870s (if memory serves), there were secular Papal States. In no way do I believe that saying the Church regards itself in special position, to be “sweeping”: Overarching, perhaps, but neither vague nor untethered. Some people have bad hair days. I think you had right brain day.

It was the Boston police who were “thwarted” by the Vatican. The police wanted to detain the Bishop but he found sanctuary in the Vatican.

As I noted, a Bank (I know this having been there) will quite ready involve the police not only over theft, but also the police bribery case. The Vatican and the Bishops don’t act like Banks, as if, they are special and above secular authorities.

I was not saying that clergy should be denied access to legal advice or psychiatrists. If a Bank Manager took a child from the Banking Chamber and raped the child in his offie, no way any Australian bank would manage the criminal’s defence. The police would be called. Presumably, the civil lawyer and the Court would appoint two psychiatrists.

It might surprise you that I believe, except in case where a duty of care has been breached or there is a cover-up or similar, the Church should not be pay compensation. The Church should pay only if has done wrong. Protecting priests/brothers is wrong.

I agree that after-the-fact criminality is a difficult issue. After the Lincoln assassination, I believe that I am correct in saying that some people who helped John Wilkes Booth were unaware of the crime and the issue hanging or not them was debated. Three months suspended sentence seems very light for covering-up a major crime. Any extenuating circumstance would need to significant. I put protecting the Universal church is insufficient reason for clemancy.

Oliver,

That is a remarkable statement.

"It was the Boston police who were “thwarted” by the Vatican. The police wanted to detain the Bishop but he found sanctuary in the Vatican."

That rumour relates to Cardinal Law doesn't it? Can you substantiate that the police wanted to detain a Bishop? Wasn't he investigated but the Attorney General determined that criminal prosecution was not available?

http://www.snapnetwork.org/legal_courts/stories/boston_weak_statutes.htm

Of course from prior experience in this thread and related ones no doubt you or someone else will simply repeat it again irrespective of evidence.

Thanks mjpb for providing a link to the Boston Globe article.

Most illuminating.

I hadn't realized before that:

- the Attorney General entrusted with the task of laying criminal charges against the Archbishop was a Catholic. But then again, it is Boston...

- the weakness of Massachusetts law concerning obstruction of justice was given as one of the reasons for the lack of charges laid. In other States, the cover-up itself would have been sufficient to prosecute, but in Mass. they needed to show intent, "to interfere knowingly with the investigations".

- similarly, he was reluctant to prosecute for "accessory after the commission of a felony", given the apparent lack of intent "of helping an offender escape prosecution or avoid detection" when the offenders were moved on to another diocese

- finally, he decided against prosecution of the archdiocese as a corporation, for the abuse performed by their employees. Although the State allowed the corporation to be held responsible for the acts of its people, he decided that he could not prove "that the archdiocese had benefited from the abuse by their priests"

They seem to me to be extremely thin grounds for holding off. Almost as if... no, surely the fact that the Attorney General was a good Catholic boy didn't influence him in the slightest?

Heaven forfend.

I would suggest that a competent jury would decide... ah, but they'd all be good Boston Catholics too, eh.

Compelling raw material, though.

[Please excuse unintended earlier cross-post to Creationist thread. I apologise]

mjpb,

It has been some time ago, challenging my keyword searches. However, I did found the following BBC report and Time Magazine Article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2573723.stm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,400020,00.html

Also,

http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories3/121202_jury.htm

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2479&dat=20021215&id=B1k1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=iyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=185,35426531

Please refer to December 6 in BBC Report. My memory of earlier claims involved the Police, not the Attorney General. I Agree, perhaps, I need to look more closely at the matter . Any pursuit by police might involve Law being in Contempt of the Grand Jury, not protecting paedophiles?

He does seem to have left for the Vatican to avoid questioning. Do you agree?

- What did the Pope do? … Promote him:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/08/international/worldspecial2/08cardinals.html?_r=1