Top Vatican Priest Accused of Sexually Abusing His Own Sons

Source: ABC News

Lawsuit Claims Pope, Vatican Covered Up Sordid Life of Legion of Christ Founder

A prominent Catholic priest, praised by Pope John Paul II as "an efficacious guide to youth," Father Marcial Maciel, sexually abused not only young seminarians under his control but also abused his own children, according to a lawsuit filed today in Connecticut by a man who claims to be Maciel's son.

In an interview to be broadcast Monday evening on ABC News Nightline, the priest's son, Raul Gonzalez, 30, says he thought his father worked for the CIA or an international oil company, until he saw the priest's picture in a 1997 magazine article detailing allegations of sexual abuse.

"My mom said, 'Is that you?' and my dad said, 'No, it's not me' and my mom said, 'Yeah, it's you,'" recalled Gonzalez in the interview, conducted by Jason Berry, an investigative journalist who first reported on widespread sexual abuse by Maciel at the Legion of Christ and writes for the National Catholic Reporter.

The Legion of Christ has acknowledged that Father Maciel fathered at least one child as a priest.

...

The lawsuit claims Vatican ignored reports of sexual abuse by Maciel since the 1950s, until he was forced out of the Legion by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006.

Citing his age, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declined to put Maciel on trial but he was ordered to a "life of prayer and penitence."

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/top-vatican-priest-accused-sexually-abusing-sons/story?id=10968647

Snort

Aren't they supposed to do that anyway?

Truly sickening!

What is the percentage of priests that have been convicted vs. those who have not been charged?

This one is too bizarre.

...in each and every community the "priest" decides to live.

This is bullshit! If I did what these priests have done, I'd either been in prison now, or traipsing on down to the county office to register my "sex offender" status!

200 or more known victims!

This was a priest tongue-kissing a third grade schoolgirl in front of a Catholic nun --

and raping a young boy in a hospital who was in a cast having just had back surgery!

Porter went on to marry and have children which many suspect he also abused.

Porter was found because he began to try to sexually abuse the baby sitter!

As bad as the priest who drugged and raped his victims!

PRIEST DRUGGED AND RAPED BOYS
BSO Case Number: OP06-01-03690
PIO Number: 06-1-36
Date: 1973 – 2000
Place of Occurrence: Broward, Miami-Dade, and Broward Counties
Victim(s):
Three boys and one adult male (names withheld)
Suspect(s):
Neil Augustine Doherty, male, 62, 2/15/43, 5851 N. Andrews Ave., #129, Ft. Lauderdale
Description of Incident:
A former Catholic priest from Broward County is in jail, charged with giving drugs and alcohol to young boys and raping them when they passed out.

Broward Sheriff's Office investigators began looking at 62-year-old Neil Augustine Doherty in August 2005 after getting information from the Broward County State Attorney’s Office that Doherty may have sexually abused several children. Over the course of the investigation, BSO detectives found four victims who all told chillingly similar stories.

One victim said he first met Father Doherty at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Ft. Lauderdale in 1973 when he was 27-years-old. During that meeting, Doherty steered the conversation towards sex. After several more meetings, Doherty brought the victim to a private home, gave him alcohol and marijuana, and then sexually assaulted the him.

Another victim, a young boy, told investigators he first met Doherty when he was about seven years old.
He said Doherty would hold “private confessions” with him nearly every day. The victim said that several times, Doherty gave him soda that made him pass out. While the boy was unconscious, Doherty would sexually assault him. The attacks on this victim went on for several years, ending in March 2000.

--more--
Broward Sheriff's Office

that name --

circumstances are often similar though!

Did he have these kids out of wedlock? It's that excommunicable?

...brought a lot of moola and power to the Vatican and they learned to turn deaf ears to the complaints until the sound became deafening. The man was a pig.

They finally got around to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcial_Maciel#Formal_denunciation_by_the_Vatican">rebuking him at the Vatican, and then they took over the organizations he'd built, the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/1997_02_23_Renner_HeadOf.htm">Head of Worldwide Catholic Order Accused of History of Abuse

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/8282097/Legionaries_of_Christ_face_disaster_after_founders_double_life_is_exposed/">Legionaries of Christ face disaster after founder's double life is exposed

the church so they didn't bother him at all....

The fact that he was a lying hypocrite who abused women and boys...nothing for the Vatican to be concerned about.....

PUKE

- Before all this became public he was on the fast-track to sainthood. Now, not so much. Which still raises questions about all those other "saints" that made it.

One should NEVER have BLIND FAITH in anyone or anything...

According to the Bible just having lust for sex is a sin so if you're going to be charged with a sin, then you might as well have the fun of having sex. I've always wondered about that huge loophole in the Bible. And no, I'm not saying have sex with anyone other than adults is appropriate. I was just trying to make light out of a ridiculous part of the Bible that equates thinking about sex with having sex.

I wonder how much damage all of the taboos against sex, or even thinking about sex, has haunted people throughout their lives. In primitive tribes those taboos and condemnations usually don't exist. But Christian beliefs have made sex a dirty experience or something to feel shame over. But even in the Bible there are many instances where incest was condoned by God, like when Lot's daughters had sex with their father after God turned their mother into a pillar of salt. God wanted daddy Lot's 'seeds' to go forward so he had his little girls each screw their father.

WTF

:shrug:

the Cardinal of Naples being accused of taking kick-backs.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gG54zE1_Lt-66bwk8JPG-HDTk4fQD9GFNDEO2

An enormous amount of dirty laundry is being brought into the light. Try to keep up.

"Sepe said Monday he was sure of the Vatican's staunch support as he confronted the accusations." Different crime, same response.

The Vatican is like any other good old boy network and corporation for the collecting of money, plus government for the running of people's lives. They make BP look like Mr. Rogers. What do you expect from a centuries old organized extortion scheme?

The Vatican is going nuts trying to figure out what to do with the Legion of Christ. It's a very authoritarian organization that tells people to obey every word the Pope utters. John Paul II loved these guys! Even better, there is strong evidence that Maciel bribed Cardinals to look the other way. So, how do you investigate the Legion of Christ without knocking John Paul II's canonization into the garbage can?

:shrug:

sorry this kind of news is so hard for some to swallow.

:thumbsup:

as having a secret wife and abusing women. So much for the theory that celibacy leads to pedophilia. I think it's authoritarian structures that caused the problem. Celibacy is a problem only in so far as mandatory celibacy for priests reinforces the authoritarian structure and leads to too many people afraid to speak out because of the rules they themselves are breaking.

it is the belief that men with power count more than anything and can do anything they want. It is the belief that power comes to men in a church which values men more than women and children and can order them about. It is the belief that god wants them to follow stupid rules that abase people instead of believing in a god who wants the best for everybody and doesn't set stupid little rules.

That character is not in the Bible. Why would you think they believe in it?

What would we do without authoritarians telling us "no nookie for you" so they can sample it first?

Obviously hypocrisy is no barrier to the priesthood.

:sarcasm:

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

Gonzalez says he has met several times with officials of the Legion of Christ about a possible financial settlement, demanding $26 million.

Father told him of what sounded like Swiss bank account but never gave the details --

plus a family fund was also found empty?

Looks like the Vatican needs a lot more investigating!!

For wearing street clothes and for having their own opinions.

But it was at the expense of a fetus, so these morally upstanding jackasses climbed up on a high horse and excommunicated her.

Meanwhile, the men of the cloth can commit monstrous crimes that hurt actual born children, and they look the other way.

I honestly don't know how my mother can keep asking me why I turned my back on Catholicism...

:grr:

bringing down the church all on their own.!

The Vatican itself, thru its actions, are proclaiming the 'Death of God' moreso than the self-proclaimed 'Anti-Christ' ever could.

:wtf:

*sarcasm*

Where might we be now as a human race with the violence and myths of organized

patriarchal religions?

:banghead:

fuck me with a ginsu.

This has to be the sickest, most perverted thing I've ever heard in my life. And all for the "perception" of celibacy...un-freakin-believable!

would allow a nun a 'life of prayer and penitence' if she had an abortion or a child out of wedlock?????

These dudes are beyond belief.

Anyone?

that the Catholics don't demand to see exactly where their tithing goes, and that their church refuses to give any to the puss filled wreck that controls their religion.

but, to hear there was a billionaire priest who was actually secretly married, and molested his own kids, and others? no, not surprised, sadly.

Thus no civil court can bring any criminal action against the Priest. Sorry, the statute of limitations started to run as soon as the victim turned 18, he had two to four years after that date to bring a criminal action. He did not thus no criminal action can be filed.

As to Civil Action, the victim is suing the Church, the statute of limitations is generally four years (California has extended this for a substantially longer time period, but this is a Connecticut case). Civil Action can be filed after the four years Statute of Limitations if a material fact was unknown and unknowable to the Plaintiff. In this case the actual name of the perpetrator and his address. Furthermore until 2006 when the church did its administrative action as to the Priest, they appear to be no actual complaint by this victim (i.e. he did NOT tell the Catholic Church of the abuse, how can the Church do anything if no one files a complaint?). Now a priest did file a complaint with Rome in the 1980s AND a action was filed by a Canon Lawyer in 1998 (in another case) with the Vatican, but no action was done on either complaint. In 2006 a case involving Maciel was held and the sentenced cited given. It is the most the Vatican can do for it has no prisons, opposes the death penalty and does NOT accept Corporal punishment as a valid means of punishment, thus all it can do is expel the Defendant from the Priesthood OR sentence him to "life of prayer and penitence." That is all the Church can do.

We, as a society, do NOT want any non-governmental organizations to be able to imprison employees so what the church did was all it can do when it comes to punishing the Priest. It should have been done earlier (i.e. when Father Vaca made his complaint in the 1980s) but no one is suing the Vatican, the Defendants include the Religious Order that Maciel ran but not the Vatican per se.

Nothing to see here - move on folks.

how typical.

religion is rotten to the core.

How messed up is that?

http://www.freep.com/article/20100615/NEWS06/6150334/News-briefs-Church-leader-charged-with-molesting-teen

<snip>

A Warren pastor remains behind bars, scheduled to be in court June 24 on charges he molested a 15-year-old student at the church school.

The Rev. Christopher Settlemoir, 26, has been placed on paid administrative leave as pastor of Antioch Baptist Church and principal of the K-12 school, according to the church's Web site. He's charged with two counts each of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct, accused of sex acts with the boy between Feb. 1 and June 4 at his church and home.

Settlemoir's attorney Mark Torrice said during Monday's arraignment that the charges are a "shock" to the pastor, married with a 7-month-old daughter.

<more>

:puke:

although the guy in your article did not found one of the biggest conservative organizations in the baptist church, did not marry three different women while lying about his celibacy and did not receive coverage from the former head of the baptists... which is exactly what the last pope did with this reptile in the op.

there is just as much rejection of right wing protestant lies and abuse as there is catholic abuse. the level of criminality in this case, however, does not compare to the one originally posted here.

in addition, the pastor you mention is behind bars, unlike the priests who were shielded from prosecution at the highest levels of the catholic church. this is corruption that is so repulsive you have to wonder how anyone could defend such an organization... but some do.

:hi:

they need to have sex but not with the innocent

Ride em Cowboy



http://osu.okstate.edu/audio/rideem.mp3

Those poor kids...

:cry:

Really?

'Onion' piece?

}(

Crimes, both within the church and secular legal statutes.

Having your own children to screw.

Shut the damned church down already. Let the faithful take it over, let priests marry, let females become priests.

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around "sexually abused" and "own sons" in the same sentence. :puke: