They did know!

A chilling report from Radio Netherlands Worldwide. The RC church hierarchy knew about the sexual abuse of children in the late 1950s by priests and workers in church run homes and institutions which continued into the 1960s and 70s - and failed to act. The excuse has been that they didn't know anything about it.   New evidence - a letter  in the church archives, written in 1958, reveals that they did know.  And church authorities did act - they took a conscious decision not to do anything to remove the offending priests and workers in the homes.  It was more about protecting the clergy rather than the children!

Burlington: Surprising News...

From Haik's blog.

And from the “I didn’t see that coming” files: Former Ward Four school commissioner Jane O’meara Sanders is selling Colodny’s and moving Burlington College a click north to the Catholic Diocese at 351 North Ave. I wonder if she gets to keep the link from the chain of Saint Peter that Pope Pius IX gave to Bishop De Goesbriand.

Of course not, Nero

"Vatican spokesman says he doesn't feel under siege"

Trouble with a Capital "T" right there in Vatican City

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold writes about Pope Benny:

"If he had any decency he would resign himself, because he is providing cover for others not resigning. Their fingers can point at him. He won't, so presumably he will limp on as Pope until the Vatican sees the need for a thoroughgoing internal reformation. He cannot do it. The period of John Paul II's charismatic conservatism, and this pope's rational conservatism seems to have run its course into contradiction, in that this pope's smaller and purer Church is now bankrupt, in that it is instead smaller and self-serving."

The Men's Club

From Religion Dispatches, a thoughtful analysis: "An Unholy Holy Week: Is the All-Male Rule of the Roman Catholic Church
Self-Destructing?"

'In fact, the all-male rule of the Roman Catholic Church is self-destructing. Ordained men from priests to the Pope are proving that it wasn’t a good idea to leave church governance to an old boys’ network. They have been focused on forgiving each other and covering up crimes “to avoid scandal”—that is, to protect each other, their power, and the church’s wealth.'

Oh yes, hiding behind that clerical collar. My ex, who's a PK, always complained about that! This also happens to a certain extent within some Protestant denominations and certainly within the Anglican Communion (with a smattering of women clergy, it's still a white men's club), whose leaderships remain unaccountable and self-protecting!

Just Plain Pathetic

DutchNews.nl

Church abuse: 'Wir haben es nicht gewusst'

The Catholic church in the Netherlands was simply unaware about the abuse of children in its care, cardinal Ad Simonis told a tv show on Tuesday night.

'Wir haben es nicht gewusst, (we did not know)' the cardinal said. 'It is a loaded term, but it is true.'

The phrase was used by Germans after the Second World War as the horror of the death camps unfolded.

Many bishops in the 1950s, 60s and 70s did not know about the abuse, Simonis said. He himself was a bishop in various places for 38 years.

The number of abuse claims made to the church organisation Hulp & Recht has now reached over 1,100.

'A bishop does not have direct say over religious orders and congregations, so a lot remains hidden from him,' the cardinal told tv talk show Pauw & Witteman.

The cardinal said there is no direct link between the abuse and celibacy laws for Catholic priests. 'It can be connected to poor preparation for celibacy and poor choice of candidates,' he said.

Simonis is lying, of course.

More details on Dutch victims of abuse within the church.

Sullivan: "When will this Pope step down?"

Andrew Sullivan, via The Lead,

"...
The current moral authority for all Catholics personally put the interests of the hierarchy above the welfare of vulnerable children. He heard a case of a priest forcing an eleven-year-old to perform oral sex on him, and he did not take that priest to the police, as he should have, or removed him from his duties immediately. He sent him to therapy and allowed him to continue molesting children in future parishes, and never informed the parents of the priest's past. Would you have done that? Would anyone you know have done that? Would anyone you know who had done that be able to sleep at night?
...
"When will this Pope step down?"

Take your wafer and stick it. Or not

"A priest refusal to grant communion to a gay man has led to uproar in the Catholic south of the Netherlands. A multitude of gay men now look set to descend on Sunday mass in the city of Den Bosch."

What goes around, comes around

BURLINGTON FREE PRESS

The former St. Joseph’s Orphanage on North Avenue in Burlington, now headquarters of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, will be sold as part of a settlement with victims of priest sexual abuse going back decades.

The abuse was by parish priests throughout the state. I wonder what happened inside the building when it was an orphanage. It's a huge property, prime real estate for developers, overlooking Lake Champlain. There have been rumours in the past that some conservative (Republican) residents in the new north end of town want to secede from Burlington to create a separate town, making this property their town hall. Who knows what will happen.

Roman Catholic Hypocrisy

Regarding the tiff over Obama's honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame.

Every good Catholic knows that the church is strictly opposed to capital punishment. Since Bush set records for carrying out death sentences when he was governor of Texas, you would think that the same guardians of virtue that are protesting Obama, who has never personally signed an abortion certificate, would have been out in force for a man who presided over 152 executions. But there was nary a peep. There were no bishops signing petitions opposing Bush’s appearance. There were no protests on campus. There were no students refusing to participate in graduation ceremonies. And there were no cameras from national news networks circling like buzzards.

If these Catholic Crusaders are truly interested in demonstrating their piety without prejudice, they should immediately call for Notre Dame to revoke Bush’s honorary degree. If the press is honestly endeavoring to be objective, they should pose this question to the protesters.