Many U.S. Catholics have independent streak – survey
A majority of American Roman Catholics feel strongly about the sacraments and traditional church values such as caring for the poor, but they may not agree with the church teachings on topics such as abortion, same-sex marriage and maintaining a celibate, male clergy, a survey has found.
The “Catholics in America” survey of Roman Catholics published by the National Catholic Reporter found 86 percent said Catholics can disagree with aspects of church teaching and still remain loyal to the church.
“Stated in simplest terms, Catholics in the past 25 years have become more autonomous when making decisions about important moral issues; less reliant on official teaching in reaching those decisions; and less deferential to the authority of the Vatican and individual bishops,” according to the study led by William D’Antonio, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America.
The weeklong survey was conducted online with a representative sample of 1,442 Catholic adults beginning on April 24 (Easter Sunday), and had a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.
“It is noteworthy that helping the poor is almost as core to Catholics’ identity as their belief in Jesus’ resurrection, with 67 percent rating this dimension of Catholicism as very important,” the survey said.
Seventy-three percent said belief in Jesus’ resurrection was very important to them personally.
By contrast, 40 percent said the church’s teachings opposing abortion are very important to them, and even fewer said church teachings opposing same-sex marriage and the death penalty were very important to them.
Survey found 86 percent said Catholics can disagree with aspects of church teaching and still remain loyal to the church. Join DiscussionIreland attacks confessional secrecy after Catholic sex abuse scandal
Ireland’s prime minister has said Catholic clerics would be prosecuted if they failed to tell the authorities about crimes disclosed during confession, the latest blow to the prestige of the once-dominant Church. A report this week found that the Church concealed from the authorities the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, and that clerics appeared to follow Church law rather than Irish guidelines to protect minors.
“The law of the land should not be stopped by a crozier or a collar,” Prime Minister Enda Kenny told journalists on Thursday, referring to the hooked staff held by Catholic bishops during religious services. Kenny said his government would submit legislation to parliament that could jail clerics for up to five years if they failed to report to authorities information about the abuse of children.
The law will override the confessional privilege in Church law that prevents clerics from sharing information, he said. A series of revelations of rape and beatings by members of religious orders and the priesthood in the past have shattered the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore on Thursday summoned the Pope’s representative, the papal nuncio, after the report said that the Vatican had undermined Irish guidelines on reporting sex abuse by referring to them as “study guidelines.”
“We consider it absolutely unacceptable that the Vatican intervened here in a way which had the effect of undermining the efforts to deal adequately with the issue of child sexual abuse,” Gilmore said. “We want a response from the Vatican.”
The report on the diocese of Cloyne in county Cork lists how the diocese failed to report all sexual abuse complaints to the police and did not report any complaints to the health authorities between 1996 and 2008. The bishop formerly responsible for the diocese, John Magee, who had previously served as private secretary to three popes, falsely told the authorities that he was reporting all abuse allegations to the police, the report said.
via Ireland attacks confessional privilege after scandal | Reuters.
Ireland's prime minister has said Catholic clerics would be prosecuted if they failed to tell the authorities about crimes disclosed during confession, the latest blow to the prestige of the once-dominant Church. Join DiscussionGerman Catholic Church opens sexual abuse files, some back to end of WWII
Germany’s Roman Catholic Church will open its files to independent investigators into a sexual abuse crisis, allowing a search as far back as 1945, a bishop announced on Wednesday. Nine German dioceses will open records dating back to the end of World War Two while the 18 others will do so for the period 2000 to 2010, Bishop Stephan Ackermann said in Bonn.
“We want to track down the truth that may be lying undiscovered in the files of previous decades,” said Ackermann, the spokesman on abuse issues for the bishops’ conference. The two studies will provide “not only formal statistics, but also research into the causes (of abuse),” he told journalists, “so we can better understand how this monstrous sexual abuse by clerics and church employees came about.”
The German Church, one of the worst affected in a wave of abuse revelations that swept Europe last year, will use the studies to help hitherto undiscovered victims and improve prevention of future abuse, Ackermann said.
In Ireland, the latest of several government-sponsored reports said on Wednesday the Irish hierarchy continued to conceal cases of child molestation by priests even after it set abuse prevention guidelines in the 1990s.
Christian Pfeiffer of the Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute, which will conduct one study, said the nine dioceses examined back to 1945 should provide an adequate sample to determine if the child molestation cases, which were particularly frequent from the 1950s through the 1970s, had deeper roots.
The second study, conducted by a psychiatric institute at the University of Essen-Duisburg, will analyse the biographies and abusive behaviour of predator priests to identify possible risk factors to consider in prevention efforts.
Germany's Roman Catholic Church will open its files to independent investigators into a sexual abuse crisis, allowing a search as far back as 1945. Join DiscussionTHIS IS A WORLD WIDE PROBLEM IN EVERY INSTITUTION.
The percentage % of abuses is much higher in public schools,hospitals couples living together with kids from theirs previous relationships,and relatives.
if you have children beware of this places and people.
and with wide spread access to internet pornography the numbers are increasing everywhere.
you don’t believe me investigate government statistics.
Irish Catholic Church concealed child abuse even after new prevention rules in 1990s
A government-sponsored report said on Wednesday the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Ireland continued to conceal the sexual abuse of children by priests even after it introduced rules in the mid-1990s to protect minors.
Revelations of rape and beatings by members of religious orders and the priesthood in the past have shattered the dominant role of the Catholic Church in Ireland. But the latest report into the handling of sex abuse claims in the diocese of Cloyne, in County Cork, shows that senior-ranking clergy were still trying to cover up abuse allegations almost until the present day.
“This is not a catalogue of failure from a different era. This is not about an Ireland of 50 years ago. This is about Ireland now,” Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald told a news conference.
The report, which focuses on 19 priests who allegedly abused children during a period from January 1996 to February 2009, lists how the diocese failed to report all sexual abuse complaints to the police and did not report any complaints to the health authorities between 1996 and 2008. The bishop formerly responsible for the diocese, John Magee, falsely told the authorities that he was reporting all abuse allegations to the police, the report said. He resigned in March last year after a Church investigation said his handling of abuse allegations had exposed children to risk.
The report also criticized the Vatican as “entirely unhelpful” in describing guidelines on how to deal with abuse accusations as “merely a study document.” The government will decide soon whether to summon the papal nuncio, the pope’s representative in Ireland, over the matter, Shatter said.
The report said that the Church’s own guidelines would have protected children had they been implemented. Complainants’ pain was compounded by the fact that their abusers appeared to have suffered no sanctions after the abuse had been revealed. One priest even officiated at the wedding of one of his victims.
Read the full report by Conor Humphries here.
A government-sponsored report said on Wednesday the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Ireland continued to conceal the sexual abuse of children by priests even after it introduced rules in the mid-1990s to protect minors. Join DiscussionThis matter shocked the population of Ireland, especially since it was revealed that the Vatican had, in previous times, sent out an ultra-secret letter, written in Latin by Cardinal Ratzinger as he then was, the present Pope Benedict, ordering bishops worldwide to conceal child abuse from the civil authorities, and letting either the Vatican or the local Catholic Archbishops handle the matter. These letters became public, and it was also revealed that worldwide there were so many cases of priests abusing children that the Vatican was swamped in trying to deal with the matter. After the Irish Prime Minister made a strong emotional speech to Parliament on the matter, the Vatican responded by recalling its Ambassador (Papal Nuncio) to Ireland and publicly scolding the Prime Minister. It will be interesting to see what the Irish population will do in response. Will that, as the people of the German State of Bavaria did in response to a similar episode of widespread child abuse by Catholic priests and resign en-Mass from the Catholic Church, and then try to reform it from the outside ((Shades of Martin Luther))…?
C. ALEXANDER BROWN
Offending priest handled “by the book” by Episcopal Church leader
The Episcopal Church’s diocese of Nevada sought to calm an uproar over a former Benedictine monk who admitted sexual indiscretions with a parishioner before he was ordained an Episcopal priest by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who is now leader of the 2.3 million member U.S. church.
“It looks to me like she handled the situation by the book,” Bishop Dan Edwards said of Jefferts Schori’s actions regarding Fr. Bede Parry, a church organist and former Episcopal priest.
Jefferts Schori became the 450-year-old church’s first female leader when she was appointed presiding bishop in 2006.
Parry, 69, is a defendant in a Missouri lawsuit filed last month over his admitted sexual relationship with a male parishioner at a summer camp run by a Roman Catholic monastery. He has since resigned from the priesthood and from All Saints Episcopal Church in Las Vegas, Edwards said.
Jefferts Schori ordained Parry in 2004, aware that he had offended while a Benedictine monk at Conception Abbey, which runs a large monastery in Northwest Missouri.
Jefferts Schori and a committee of clergy and lay people were also aware that Parry went for treatment, but that a subsequent psychological examination in 2000 found he was a sexual abuser who had a proclivity to reoffend with minors.
Jefferts Schori forbade Parry from having contact with minors, under the church’s decade-old policy, “Safeguarding God’s Children,” that requires windows on all doors and does not allow children to go somewhere with a single adult.
The Episcopal Church's diocese of Nevada sought to calm an uproar over a former Benedictine monk who admitted sexual indiscretions with a parishioner before he was ordained an Episcopal priest. Join DiscussionI am a member of the Episcopal Church. This article has missed a lot of details (for example, the lawsuit is a civil, not criminal, lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Abbey where the man was a priest, no Episcopal church or other body is named as a defendent, nor even is the priest himself, and he has had no incidences of abuse reported since 1987. He was received as an Episcopal priest in 2002).
The article also has at least one major thing incorrect. In the article as written:
“Jefferts Schori and a committee of clergy and lay people were also aware that Parry went for treatment, but that a subsequent psychological examination in 2000 found he was a sexual abuser who had a proclivity to reoffend with minors.”
However, from the report (where some of the article’s quotes are taken from): http://www.episcopalnevada.org/index.php ?option=com_k2&view=item&id=156:stateme nt-regarding-resignation-of-fr-bede-parr y&lang=en
“It has been reported that there was a psychological examination showing that he was likely to repeat his offense. No such report was sent to the Diocese of Nevada and, to this day, we have no knowledge of its existence other than an assertion by the plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer in a John Doe lawsuit against the monastery. [...] The Diocese of Nevada, however, did have our own independent psychological evaluation done by a psychologist and it did not indicate any pathology or risk.”
From the people who have the archives relating to his reception, this report doesn’t exist. A cynic might say that this is “covering up,” but the reporting done here in this blog doesn’t address that question; rather, it either assumes it or has bad information.
Ireland eyes Catholic religious orders’ properties to meet abuse damages costs
The Irish government asked religious orders on Tuesday to consider transferring buildings and land to the state to cover a 200 million euros shortfall in their contribution to a compensation fund for victims of abuse. The congregations agreed in 2009 to provide more compensation to victims of rape, beatings and slave labour in now defunct industrial schools they ran after the publication of a report into the abuse shocked the once devout Catholic country.
The government wants the congregations, including the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy, to contribute half of an estimated final compensation bill of 1.36 billion euros ($1.9 billion). The government has paid out around 1.3 billion euros in compensation so far.
“The congregations’ total offers fall well short, by several hundred million, of the 680 million contribution they should bear towards the cost of institutional residential child abuse,” Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn said in a statement.
To make up the gap, Quinn said he would seek the congregations’ agreement to a legal deal that would transfer ownership of school buildings and properties to the state currently owned by them. “I recognise that there are complex legal issues to be addressed to realise the transfer of school infrastructure,” he said. “Nevertheless I believe that this approach affords the congregations involved the opportunity to shoulder their share of the costs of responding to the horrendous wrongs suffered by children in their care, while at the same time, recognising the legitimate legacy of their contribution to Irish education.”
A spokeswoman for the Conference of Religious of Ireland, the umbrella group which represents the congregations, declined to comment.
Quinn said only two out of the 18 congregations had previously offered to help make up the shortfall.
During Ireland’s property boom, some religious orders sold tracts of land to developers for large sums. Quinn said religious orders had made about 600 million euros from property deals during the boom. “They realised values of the order of 600 million but we don’t know what is there now,” he told Irish state broadcaster RTE.
The Irish government has asked Catholic religious orders to consider transferring buildings and land to the state to cover a 200 million euros shortfall in their contribution to a compensation fund for victims of abuse. Join DiscussionIreland is finally getting it! You all gave your country away to the Roman Catholic Church and look how they cared for it. Deep Shame be upon them!
This is a good idea but not just the orders. The whole RCC is involved and they should take responsibility for the “spiritual murder” of all these precious innocents over the centuries.
Catholic Church should pay Dutch sexual abuse victims – commission
TheDutch bishops’ conference had sought the recommendation of an independent commission after cases surfaced involving paedophile priests in the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Victims should be paid on a sliding scale starting at 5,000 euros, with 25,000 for victims of rape and the maximum of 100,000 euros ($142,300) for “exceptional cases of sexual abuse”, the commission concluded. Its report released on Monday said financial compensation alone was not enough, and victims should receive apologies, assistance and recognition for their suffering.
A separate commission had reported in December that 1,975 people had come forward to declare that they were victims of sexual and physical abuse while they were minors in the care of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands.
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The Catholic Church should pay compensation of 5,000-100,000 euros each to victims who were sexually abused while in its care in the Netherlands, according to a report commissioned by its bishops. Join DiscussionVatican turns to Internet to stem sexual abuse scandals
The Roman Catholic Church, often accused of dragging its feet on sexual abuse scandals, will turn to the Internet with a new e-learning center to help safeguard children and the victims of molestation. The Vatican presented the move at a news conference on Saturday flagging an international conference on sexual abuse of children by clergy to be held next February at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University with church backing.
“The e-learning center will work with medical institutions and universities to develop a constant response to the problems of sexual abuse,” Monsignor Klaus Peter Franzl of the archdiocese of Munich. It will be posted in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian and help bishops and other church workers put into place Vatican guidelines to protect children.
“We want people to know that we are serious about this and that we think the Church has to be at the center of a solution,” said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi. “This is not a flash in the pan initiative but something we are committed to in the long-term.”
The e-learning center will offer guidance to those who have to respond to abuse cases as well as information for victims.
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The Roman Catholic Church, often accused of dragging its feet on sexual abuse scandals, will turn to the Internet with a new e-learning center to help safeguard children and the victims of molestation. Join DiscussionU.S. Catholic bishops approve slight shifts in clerical sexual abuse policy
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday approved slight revisions to their policy governing child sex abuse, saying the church would not tolerate offending priests. But critics said children were still vulnerable. After minimal debate, the bishops passed revisions to its decade-old Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which for the first time listed child pornography as equivalent to sexual abuse and cited the need to protect mentally disabled people from abuse.
The bishops voted 187 in favor of the revised charter, with five opposed and four bishops abstaining. A two-thirds vote was needed for approval.
“We are not going to put the priest offenders first,” Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, told reporters after the vote. “We learned the hard way the advice we got from psychology that people could be rehabilitated was bad advice … they re-offended. You cannot take that risk,” said Cupich, who headed the bishops’ committee on the topic.
Victims’ groups have argued the church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis has been inadequate, since some offending priests have been reassigned to unsuspecting parishes, or received “treatment” and put back into ministry. “The bishops had a choice between being complacent or being vigilant. They chose to be complacent,” said Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We fear that the charter, as it stands, with no consequences for failure to observe it or to in any way protect children, is dangerous,” she said. “The kids are no safer than they were yesterday.”
Critics of the church’s response say U.S. church officials are given a free hand to discipline offending clergy, yet some ignored reporting requirements and covered up crimes.
The charter, which was previously revised in 2005, was created under pressure after a rash of clergy abuse cases were uncovered in the Boston diocese. Abuse discoveries subsequently spread across the United States and then around the world. Additions to the sex abuse charter approved on Thursday align American church policy with Vatican dictates and statements by Pope Benedict urging healing and no tolerance for offenders.
Read the full story by Elaine Porterfield here. See also Catholic bishops defend policy on sex abuse
U.S. Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday approved slight revisions to their policy governing child sex abuse, saying the church would not tolerate offending priests. Join DiscussionWhy does anyone allow the Catholic church to police themselves?
They should use RICO laws to investigate the entire institution. This is organized crime, where the crime is child rape. Thousands of priests raped thousands of children in the US alone, and bishops clearly, willfully hid them. They moved them to rape again. This has been proven over and over and over again.
Want proof? See what they found in Philadelphia http://bit.ly/jyfXni
It is a consistent, institutional practice. It’s organized crime, and should be investigated.
Belgians molested by Catholic priests to file suit against Vatican
Belgians molested by Catholic priests will go ahead with their legal proceedings against the Vatican for damages despite an offer by local bishops to compensate them, their lawyers said on Wednesday. Pope Benedict enjoys diplomatic immunity but other Vatican officials and Belgian bishops will be summoned to testify in the case, lawyer Walter van Steenbrugge said.
Christine Mussche, another lawyer for about 70 victims, said the Vatican failed to intervene even when it learned about the scandals in the Belgian Church. Over 500 cases of alleged abuse have been registered in the past year. “There were instructions from the pope that said those things had to be kept secret and silent,” she said, adding the Church could be guilty of harmful neglect under Belgian law.
The Belgian bishops’ conference said on Monday that it would set up a commission to compensate victims molested so long ago that their cases can no longer be prosecuted. Some reported cases go back several decades. “As long as there are no concrete results from the arbitrage commission, the victims will continue the procedure,” Mussche told a news conference.
Several victims explained why they were part of the suit which the lawyers said they would file in Ghent in September.
Read the full story by Robert-Jan Bartunek here.
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Belgians molested by Catholic priests will go ahead with their legal proceedings against the Vatican for damages despite an offer by local bishops to compensate them, their lawyers said. Join Discussion-
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I like how some people ASSume that we who respectfully disagree are ignorant hicks who never read the Catechism. I have a fatal flaw. I THINK for MYSELF. I read, pray, disseminate and then THINK. I am tired of having spiritual enemas from annoying people who think that liberal people are ignorant.