Sex scandal has reached the Pope - he penned letter directing priests to keep abuse cases silent

In 2005...and more...

VATICAN CITY – Germany's sex abuse scandal has now reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese acknowledged it transferred a suspected pedophile priest while Benedict was in charge and criticism is mounting over a 2001 Vatican directive he penned instructing bishops to keep abuse cases secret.

The revelations have put the spotlight on Benedict's handling of abuse claims both when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982 and then the prefect of the Vatican office that deals with such crimes — a position he held until his 2005 election as pope.

Benedict got a firsthand readout of the scope of the scandal Friday in his native land from the head of the German Bishop's Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who reported that the pontiff had expressed "great dismay and deep shock" over the scandal, but encouraged bishops to continue searching for the truth.

Hours later, the Munich archdiocese admitted that it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. It stressed that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger didn't know about the transfer and that it had been decided by a lower-ranking official.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100312/ap_on_re_eu/eu_church_abuse

:nuke:

with nothing being done for it not to have come from the top.

He could murder choirboys and there would be no way to go after him.

No donations for starters.

And the Vatican bank is already in trouble for money laundering.

Plus, if Berlusconi had the balls he's always bragging about, the Vatican is on their territory.

And of course the Mafia is likely to take a dim view of this.

We've already had one pope die mysteriously not too long ago. At this rate, we'll have two.

That was one heckuva cold.

Found sitting up in bed, too.

33 days he was pope...and then pffft.

why couldn't the international criminal court try him?

I doubt it. :rofl:

dare send anyone in without Vatican permission to take him. That's an act of war and frowned upon by all but the most barbaric nations (such as the US under W).

I'm no catholic, mind you, and think all those damned pedophiles and crotch sniffers need to be locked up in the loony bin. But we do need to respect international law.

made illegal war against his neighbors, comitted genocide? Nope. He may be a pedophile and scum himself for all we know, but we do try to comply with laws. He is the head of state of the Vatican, a sovereign nation, and cannot simply be taken away.

And pedophilia is a crime few people would support.

what's so different about the Ratfucker?

It would be especially sweet if UN forces arrested members of the Vatican hierarchy and tried them for operating an international pedophile ring (oh, there's also the male prostitution ring Ratfucker's right hand man was running too...)

If international police can go after the Mafia, why not the Vatican?

Crimes of this scale are crimes whether the person committing them has a lot of money or not.

This is just what all the Republicons do with their skanky shit. They pretend it never happened. They go all occult. Then they forgive themselves, and get a Standing O from the other Republicons.

It's infallible.

It's freaking amazing - for covering up all this criminality on their behalf, he became their pope.
Fuck all of them - I'm so glad I saw though all that BS very early and not only walked out of the Catholic church but abandoned all religion.

Time to lock up these bastards.

demise of the Catholic Church will strengthen the Evangelical Church. Very sad really. What an ass Ratsie is.

Duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/world/europe/13pope.html?hp>

He is going down (no pun intended). They are all just so corrupt that even the the biggest and best liars in the world (the Vatican) are having a hard time covering up.

They will likely weasel out of it but it's going to be messy.

I never ascribed to Catholicism even when it was forced down my throat, but the older generation of my family never left. They are pissed about this whole thing.

Let it crumble down

with a crime and try them in Den Hague, in the way that international war criminals are tried?

Why doesn't pedophilia rise to the level of crimes against humanity, when entire generations have been destroyed by this criminal organization.

I would love to open the Vatican as a museum. get rid of the pedophiles and open the Vatican records.

Never been tried with the pope.

I think the time has come, don't you?

pedophiles who want to force women to have children should be in jail.

This is disgusting, and it's gone on a long, looooong time.

in the streets, in their parishes, and via the guillotine.

I understand why they did this.

The church was simply another abusive arm of power that worked to sustain the incredible inequity in French society. The priests paid for this with their lives.

I wouldn't be one bit sad if the same fate befell this group - along with fundies who spew the same line of hate about women and homosexuals. I would be happy if they all dropped dead.

it would be a good thing for society if they no longer existed.

I'm also reminded of what happened to Mussolini when he was captured trying to escape from Italy. The partisans took him out into the street, murdered him and his mistress and strung them up in front of a gas station.

My dad was 17 at the time. He was ordered by his army sgt to march around Mussolini and spit on him.

I wish I could do the same with the Ratfucker in the Vatican now.

Would you draw the line at deacons or simply unconfirmed Catholics?

I said I understand why the certain aristocrats, the middle class and the peasant class revolted against the abuse of the church and murdered them.

I don't approve of another reign of terror.

but honestly, if a priest who had abused a kid was murdered, I wouldn't care. I would applaud, even.

because they have broken the fabric of society by their actions, so it's no wonder that people grow to hate the abusers.

if you had ever been abused, you would understand the rage and desire to punish them.

personally, I would prefer a trial in the international criminal court. I would love to see the catholic hierarchy walk out of the vatican in leg irons and stand trial.

I would love to see all assets of the church seized.

and those who perpetuated the abuse, if found guilty, would rot in jail b/c Europe does not have capital punishment, so in reality they would rot in jail for the rest of their lives, but, no, I wouldn't care if someone killed them.

I think they deserve to die for what they did.

They've been a 'reign of terror' for that long.

"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." Denis Diderot (1713-1784)

See how barbaric they've become?

Fanaticism engenders broad leaps.

No one is making any 'broad leaps'.

We know...and it's been proven...that child abuse, especially sexual abuse, took place all over the world...for years and years, and was ignored and even accepted by the RC church.

Including by the current pope.

Leap is an understatement.

I don't know what's more pronounced, the distortion of the Catholic church or the distortion of international criminal law.

Where have YOU been?

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop!"

Which is why I would like to see the very top of the hierarchy of the church tried for running an international pedophile ring. The church has covered up these abuses all over the world.

you know, the catholic church as it exists for most people wouldn't change all that much. it's the family connection, the ritual, the observance and reflection that seem to make people stay with the church, at least the people I know. I understand that.

These same people are also pro-choice, use birth control, do not think women should be second-class citizens... they are catholic by tradition, not because of the powers-that-be in the church.

I know the old ones are comforting...but this is beyond the pale.

Sometimes you just gotta let go.

most all of the really important people in my life have been or are ex-catholics, or, more to the point, catholics by tradition who don't feel the need to actively promote those traditions.

if someone wants to believe in some version of a god, that's their business.

my grief is with the hierarchy who conspired to cover up the abuse of children all over the world.

no one that I know who is a practicing catholic would or does approve of such a thing. they are not the issue.

someone else's religious beliefs are only of concern to me when they try to intrude upon my rights or when they abuse the vulnerable.

They are priests 24/7/365.

At every level of the church

I don't think the machine he referred to was the church - or the guillotine.

and as I noted earlier, I'm not calling for the guillotine.

maybe someone can ask Mario what he thinks about the current state of the church.

which has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.

from the NYTimes piece-

When a sex abuse scandal broke in Boston church in 2002, Pope Benedict — then Cardinal Ratzinger — was among the Vatican officials who made statements that minimized the problem and accused the news media of blowing it out of proportion.

But as the abuse case files landed on his desk at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, his colleagues said he was deeply disturbed by what he learned. On his first visit to the United States as pope, Benedict met with abuse victims from Boston and said he was “deeply ashamed” by priests who had harmed children.

But victims’ advocates accuse the pope of doing little to discipline the bishops who permitted abusers to continue serving in ministry. The case in Munich, which was brought to the attention of the diocese by the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, was a result of “serious mistakes,” the archdiocese said in its statement.

---

lol. apparently not "deeply concerned" enough to not repeat the same actions in Germany.

but, really, the entire issue here is whether Savio is dead or alive.

IIRC. It was discussed here in the DU forums during the scandal and around the time he was going into office.

Basically, he wrote the church policy about how to keep victims quiet. 40 freaking years ago.

They've changed the name of it, but that's what it was.

'On July 21, 1542, Pope Paul III, with the Constitution Licet ab initio, established the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, staffed by cardinals and other officials whose task it was "to maintain and defend the integrity of the faith and to examine and proscribe errors and false doctrines". It served as the final court of appeal in trials of heresy and served as an important part of the Counter-Reformation.

This body was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1908 by Pope Saint Pius X. It was changed to Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on December 7, 1965, at the end of the Second Vatican Council.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_for_the_Doctrine_of_the_Faith#History

...you may be interested in this book.

much more protection than mere lip service. Unconscionable behavior from the alleged men of God.

The church only cares about the well being of a child before it is born. After that, fair game!

Thank heavens I left the church a long time ago.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23369148-pope-led-cover-up-of-child-abuse-by-priests.do

This is from 2006.

Although they have apparently been pretty successful to this point.

My mother's side of the family is all Italian catholic and they are disgusted. This pope needs to resign now.

hypocritical dudes that wear pretty gowns? With all their money and secrecy, they feel immune to the law. I don't even think these dudes really believe in anything they preach. They just dig the power and oppression of the poor and women.

:popcorn:

I've never seen anybody defend this pope.

All the Catholic "communion politics" with the Repukes did it back in 2004 -- many things (including prop 8 here in CA) have made me glad since, add this to the stack. I sure don't miss it!

casting stones at good people while he is guilty of this and so much more. Rotten to the core. People in that organization call him 'Holy Father'. Imagine that.

"How much did Nancy Pelosi know & when did she know it?" ;-)

(sorry... I douldn't resist)

He's got the right sort of creepiness about him and as Pope he'd be ineligible to serve on the Supreme Court.

according to prophesies...He's the next to the last pope to inhabit the earth.

I've been counting them off for years. ;)

... we can only hope.

It would cause a huge ruckus at first, like draining a pus-filled wound, but in the long run, it would leave it much, much healthier.

In Munich case, a priest from Essen, “despite allegations of sexual abuse, and in spite of a conviction — was repeatedly assigned work in the sphere of pastoral care by the then-Vicar General Gerhard Gruber,” who worked under Benedict when he was the archbishop.

In June 1986, the priest was convicted of sexually abusing minors and given an 18-month suspended sentence with five years of probation, fined 4,000 marks and ordered to undergo therapy...The former vicar general took full responsibility for the decision to reinstate the priest to pastoral work.

There was immediate skepticism that Benedict, as archbishop, would not have known of the details of the case.

The Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, who once worked at the Vatican Embassy in Washington and became an early and well-known whistle-blower on sexual abuse in the church, said the vicar general’s claim was not credible.

“Nonsense,” said Father Doyle, who has served as an expert witness in sexual abuse lawsuits. “Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He’s the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he’s trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope.”

---

This abuse was not only in Germany. There are cases being investigated in Austria and 200 people have come forward in the Netherlands with claims of abuse so an investigation is starting there as well.

to assume this problem is as widespread as the RCC. Finding a link to the very top might just cause the sort of uproar necessary to clean the place out. Another reformation?

And, this story exposes the face of those who would try to dictate another's conscience through such means.

Sue him. Back them he was the Holy Fixer.

...I married into a clan of hard-core Catholics, loaded with nuns and priests, who will defend Joey Ratz to the bitter end. They are old school types who believe in the traditional ways and the infallibility of the church. In a lot of ways, they are just as frustrating and hypocritical as my family of Southern Baptists.

I was born and live (again) in Germany, in Bavaria, and am disgusted and ashamed.

There is a book by Peter Wensierski, published by Goldmann in 2007: "Schläge im Namen des Herrn" - my loose translation of the title is "Beatings in the Name of the Lord". This book tells the stories of children in Germany who were removed from their families in the 1950s and early 1960s, and ended up in the "care" of more than 3000 so-called Christian facilities, both Catholic and Protestant.

Reading their accounts of negligence, bigotry, abuse and outright sadism made me want to vomit. All under the guise of The Church. God. Jesus.

There was the Holocaust which was hatched right here in the country of my birth, a fact of history my generation has had to acknowledge in all of its horror, try to come to grips with (how?), speak to our children and grandchildren about, and cannot ever allow to be forgotten.

And then there are these accounts on top of it all. And no one knew about it?

The children this book speaks of have already reached retirement age; they have only now, after decades of agonizing, found the strength to come forward. No one had listened to them, because no one wanted to stir the pot - until now.

The terrible pain and scars they are carrying with them... Thanks to the great care they received courtesy of the Church.

This is shocking...but not really.

It's how armies of unquestioning Right Wing Authoritarian foot soldiers are created.

I fear such an army has been created here, by the same means.

and it seems to be heritable.

the abuse the priests inflicted upon children, in other words, gets passed down through generations.

Holy moly.

That would probably be Rick Santorum's answer....

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/07/13/santorum_resolute_on_boston_rebuke/