by Deputy Dog 12 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse
Has anyone else seen this?
The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.
In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety.
doesn't surprise me , the WTBTS even has been saying they've been doing it for a long time .Then to find out the WTBTS does practically the same thing by simply letting the offender move to a new hall without telling them the history . So I've read on the board anyway.........
Last updated at 23:22pm on 30.09.06
Top: Tom Doyle and, bottom, Pope Benedict
The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.
In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety.
The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, witnesses and perpetrator not to talk about it. And, to keep victims quiet, it threatened that if they repeat the allegations they would be excommunicated.
The Panorama special, Sex Crimes And The Vatican, investigates the details of this little-known document for the first time. The programme also accuses the Catholic Church of knowingly harbouring paedophile clergymen. It reveals that priests accused of child abuse are generally not struck off or arrested but simply moved to another parish, often to reoffend. It gives examples of hush funds being used to silence the victims.
Before being elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April last year, the pontiff was Cardinal Thomas Ratzinger who had, for 24 years, been the head of the powerful Congregation of the Doctrine of The Faith, the department of the Roman Catholic Church charged with promoting Catholic teachings on morals and matters of faith. An arch-Conservative, he was regarded as the 'enforcer' of Pope John Paul II in cracking down on liberal challenges to traditional Catholic teachings.
Five years ago he sent out an updated version of the notorious 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis - Latin for The Crime of Solicitation - which laid down the Vatican's strict instructions on covering up sexual scandal. It was regarded as so secret that it came with instructions that bishops had to keep it locked in a safe at all times.
Cardinal Ratzinger reinforced the strict cover-up policy by introducing a new principle: that the Vatican must have what it calls Exclusive Competence. In other words, he commanded that all child abuse allegations should be dealt with direct by Rome.
Patrick Wall, a former Vatican-approved enforcer of the Crimen Sollicitationis in America, tells the programme: "I found out I wasn't working for a holy institution, but an institution that was wholly concentrated on protecting itself."
And Father Tom Doyle, a Vatican lawyer until he was sacked for criticising the church's handling of child abuse claims, says: "What you have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy and to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by the churchmen.
"When abusive priests are discovered, the response has been not to investigate and prosecute but to move them from one place to another. So there's total disregard for the victims and for the fact that you are going to have a whole new crop of victims in the next place. This is happening all over the world."
The investigation could not come at a worse time for Pope Benedict, who is desperately trying to mend the Church's relations with the Muslim world after a speech in which he quoted a 14th Century Byzantine emperor who said that Islam was spread by holy war and had brought only evil to the world.
The Panorama programme is presented by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a priest when he was 14. He said: "What gets me is that it's the same story every time and every place. Bishops appoint priests who they know have abused children in the past to new parishes and new communities and more abuse happens."
Last night Eileen Shearer, director of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults said: "The Catholic Church in England and Wales (has) established a single set of national policies and procedures for child protection work. We are making excellent progress in protecting children and preventing abuse."
I always try to post the article on JWD because the link sometimes disappears in time.
Blondie
I always try to post the article on JWD because the link sometimes disappears in time.
I wasn't sure if that is allowed.
I'm not quite sure what this has to do with the current pope, who is pictured. And his name is not "Thomas", it's Joseph. Wonder if that's the only detail they got wrong. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/06/eveningnews/main566978.shtml
(CBS) For decades, priests in this country abused children in parish after parish while their superiors covered it all up. Now it turns out the orders for this cover up were written in Rome at the highest levels of the Vatican.
CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales has uncovered a church document kept secret for 40 years.
The confidential Vatican document, obtained by CBS News, lays out a church policy that calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to sexual abuse by priests - anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church.
The policy was written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani.
The document, once "stored in the secret archives" of the Vatican, focuses on crimes initiated as part of the confessional relationship and what it calls the "worst crime": sexual assault committed by a priest" or "attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals."
Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases "in the most secretive way...restrained by a perpetual silence...and everyone {including the alleged victim) ...is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office...under the penalty of excommunication."
Larry Drivon, a lawyer who represents alleged victims, said, “This document is significant because it's a blueprint for deception.”
Drivon said this proves what he has alleged on behalf of victims in priest-abuse lawsuits: that the church engaged in a crime – racketeering.
“It's an instruction manual on how to deceive and how to protect pedophiles,” Drivon said. "And exactly how to avoid the truth coming out."
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the document is being taken out of context, that it's a church law that deals only with religious crimes and sins. And that the secrecy is meant to protect the faithful from scandal.
“The idea that this is some sort of blueprint to keep this secret is simply wrong,” said Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, a spokesman for the Conference.
“This is a system of law which is complete in itself and is not telling the bishops in any way about how to handle these crimes when they are considered as civil crimes,” Maniscalco said.
But Richard Sipe, a former priest who has written about sex abuse and secrecy in the church, said the document sends a chilling message.
“This is the code for how you must deal with sex by priests. You keep it secret at all costs,” Sipe said. “And that's what's happened. It's happened in every diocese in this country.”
According to church records, the document was a bedrock of Catholic sex abuse policy until America's bishops met last summer and drafted new policies to address the crisis in the church.
©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Okay. Read this and see what you think:
http://www.catholicleague.com/release.php?id=1178
| Sunday July 27, 2008 | |
| BBC’S HIT JOB ON THE POPE October 3, 2006 On October 1, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) aired a documentary, “Sex Crimes and the Vatican,” that accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) of covering up priestly sexual abuse for 20 years. The show, which aired on the BBC’s flagship, Panorama, says that Cardinal Ratzinger had been in charge of enforcing a 1962 Vatican document that was allegedly written to cover up these crimes. Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented as follows: “It is a tribute to American journalism that the lies told by the BBC have not been widely disseminated in the United States. The 1962 document that the BBC refers to had absolutely nothing to do with covering up priestly sexual abuse. Quite the contrary: it dealt specifically with solicitations that a priest might make in the confessional. In fact, it prescribed penalties for any priest who, ‘whether by words or signs or nods of the head’(my emphasis) might convey a sexual advance. “This was an ecclesiastical response to a possible offense that, given the priest-penitent privilege, lay outside the purview of civil authorities. Furthermore, if a priest were found guilty, he could be thrown out of the priesthood. To top if off, if the penitent were to tell someone about sexual solicitation by a priest in the confessional (perhaps another priest), he or she had 30 days to report the incident to the bishop or face excommunication. In other words, the Vatican document actually prescribed punishment for the penitent if he or she didn’t turn in the guilty priest. The 1962 document was superseded by the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the norms established in 2001 for dealing with serious crimes involving the sacraments. As for the sexual abuse scandal, it was not until 2002, after the scandal had exploded in the media, that Pope John Paul II appointed Cardinal Ratzinger to investigate these matters. “In short, the BBC’s hit job on the pope demands a quick and sincere apology.” Share this Article | |
StAnn,
I am sure you are sincere, and your support of your church and it's corruption is what we are used to from equally sincere Jehovah's Witnesses.
Same product.................different label.
yesidid
I'm not supporting any corruption. I'm just wanting to get the entire story. When I saw the name "Thomas Ratzinger" instead of Joseph Ratzinger, I wondered, if a reporter could miss something so simple as his name, was the rest of the article inaccurate, too?
I haven't had time today to watch the documentary.
I don't know if, in 1962 when the document was written, a solicitation in the confessional would have become a police matter, but I would think if it happened today that at the very least the police should be notified and asked to investigate the priest involved. I'm not sure what the Church's stand on that is today.
The sex abuse scandal in the Church is horrendous, should never have happened, and I blame it on the Bishops. Personally, I can't stand my own Bishop. (Well, I can't stand 7/8 of the Bishops in the USA.) I'm still angry because I don't believe that the Bishops have taken the responsibility for the scandal that they should. Perhaps privately they are eaten up inside but there is no way to know, is there? But Ratzinger/B16 has been villified by the media for years because he has been a person of such integrity. It's rare to find a person in this world who has real integrity and B16 appears to be one of those people. (JPII was, too.) I'd hate to see his name dragged through the mud undeservedly.
It's very frustrating to be Catholic because of the reality (to us) that our faith is the faith that was given to us by Jesus, so we believe that we are part of a continuum of people who have followed Christ from the very beginning; however, there are people in positions of power who do such stupid things. But despite the stupid people, i.e, Bishops and Cardinals and some Popes, the teachings and doctrines of the Church remain the same and they are what we believe. We have the consolation that at least our faith and our tenets are valid and we are following Christ. In the WTS, the teachings are poppycock, so there is nothing to fall back on.
StAnn
In the WTS, the teachings are poppycock, so there is nothing to fall back on.
It is my opinion, that were there to be a "poppycock" competition, the RC's and the JW's would run neck and neck.
yesidid
