Terrible

[devogue]

Imagine you worked for a Counselling Service called "Outreach" as a junior operator.

You and your colleagues attend to the emotional and mental wellbeing of people in towns and villages up and down your country.

In 1975 two boys approach one of your colleagues, Mr Smith, and claim that they were sexually abused by another of your colleagues, a Mr Jones.

You are then appointed by your superiors within Outreach to participate in an internal process within the company that leads to the children signing oaths of secrecy, oaths which prevent them from seeking medical treatment linked to their abuse.

At no point are the police or civil authorities informed about all of this by your superiors, and you know this. However, you remain quiet and do not approach the police with your information.

Mr Jones goes on to abuse a number of other children within his role as an employee of Outreach before he is finally arrested some nineteen years later.

You, as a good and loyal company man have worked your way up through the ranks to become Managing Director of Outreach within your country - you have reached the pinnacle of your career.

Then the word gets out about your actions in 1975 and you have to explain yourself. You do this by "saying sorry" to "everyone you have let down", by promising to talk to an invisible and most likely non-existent entity, to reflect on the writings of relatively ignorant ancient scribes, and to discern the will of a supernatural entity for which there is no evidence. You will take your time to make your mind up.

Hundreds of people from the community which has been let down so badly by your organisation decide to applaud you.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ ... 26286.html

[Feck]

This is all starting to make me feel very angry and sick .....really sick ..... If it isn't nuns beating and abusing children in their 'care' it's pervert priests !

And the cover up is world wide .....

[charlou]

Telling it like it is, dev.


Utterly disgraceful specimens.

[orpheus]

Telling it like it is, dev.


Utterly disgraceful specimens.

+1

[Elessarina]

I am so fucking tired of this shit. Are the catholic church teaching these vile people to do this?

What the fuck is going on?

[devogue]

On Friday the diocese of Munich and Freising said that the pope, when he was archbishop there, had approved in 1980 giving a priest reportedly suspected of abusing an 11-year-old boy Church housing for "therapy".

Two years later, by which time the pope had been transferred to the Vatican, the priest was given pastoral duties in a Bavarian town and convicted of sexual abuse of minors in 1986, according to the diocese.

So it goes right up to the "Holy Father".

Three questions, Herr Ratzinger:

1) Why weren't this man's crimes reported to the police?

2) What did his "therapy" involve?

3) Why did you not follow up and take an interest in how his "therapy" and career was progressing?

[devogue]

Define: arrogance

Amid the snowballing scandal, Vatican number two Tarcisio Bertone said Tuesday that the Roman Catholic Church enjoys "special help from on high" as it faces its detractors amid a string of paedophile priest scandals.

[maiforpeace]

Wouldn't this sort of complicity and cover up be considered aiding and abetting? I don't get how this cardinal, and the others get away without one criminal charge against them.

[orpheus]

Dev's account puts this in a perspective that always stuns me: if this sort of thing happened in any other walk of life, it simply wouldn't be tolerated - and the scandal would be immediate and deservedly huge. Forgiveness would not come easy. Religion somehow gets special treatment.

To take another tack: I know it's a different situation, but just for comparison of scandals... Tiger Woods? People reacted like he ate babies. And this gets soft-pedaled?

[Elessarina]

To take another tack: I know it's a different situation, but just for comparison of scandals... Tiger Woods? People reacted like he ate babies. And this?

that's what makes me laugh.. a rich and successful sports star stuck his cock in a few women.. big fucking deal!

[Twoflower]

The catholic church tried to pass one of the pedophile priest onto my middle school. The outrage from the parents was so strong they didnt send him.

[Conny]

This topic (very much discussed in the news here) has me wondering. What is it about some men who like to abuse children? do other large apes do anything similar to this? I know bonobos copulate all the time, do chimps? gorillas? orang-utans? with very young members? and it seems to be predominantly common of older boys doing this to younger boys in some schools.... A "power" or "status" thing?

Aside- Girls can be at times cruel and catty, but while growing up i never ever heard of older girls sexually abusing younger ones. I have heard of some nuns hitting and spanking each other and children, but there was never a sexual connotation to that.

[maiforpeace]

And, on another continent, in Brazil.

Brazil Church Sex Scandal: Video Allegedly Shows Priest Abusing Altar Boy

BRADLEY BROOKS | 03/16/10 07:09 PM | AP

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian authorities are investigating three priests accused of sexually abusing altar boys after a video allegedly showing one case of abuse was broadcast on television, police and church officials said Tuesday.

The case came to light after the SBT network aired a video purportedly showing an 82-year-old priest having sex with a 19-year-old altar boy who worked for him for four years. Other young men appeared on the report saying that they, too, had been abused by Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa.

Also under investigation are Monsignor Raimundo Gomes, 52, and Father Edilson Duarte, 43, for allegedly having sexual relations with boys and young men.

According to a statement from the church, the three priests are "supposedly involved in acts (yet to be proven) of sexual abuse." The statement did not say whether the men admit or deny guilt. None of the priests could be located to ask about the case, and the church would not provide contact details for them.

A church official in the Penedo archdiocese, in the northeastern state of Alagoas, said the three have been suspended. A police official said the men are free pending the investigation, which should last until the end of April. Both the church official and the policeman spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said officials there were aware of the case.

In its report last week, SBT showed footage of a man who looks like Barbosa having sex with the 19-year-old. It said the footage was secretly filmed in January 2009 by a 21-year-old man who charges Barbosa had abused him since age 12.

SBT said the video was sent anonymously to the network, and reporters went to the town of 200,000 people to investigate last month.

An SBT reporter visited Barbosa's house to conduct an interview and confront him with the allegations.
Story continues below

Before raising the allegations of sexual abuse, the reporter asks if the priest had ever sinned.

"Who has never committed a sin?" Barbosa responds.

The priest is then asked if the region has problems with pedophilia.

"I think it is more (a problem) of homosexuality than pedophilia," Barbosa says.

Asked directly if he ever abused boys, Barbosa says he could only answer such a question "in confession." He then ends the interview, which was aired Thursday and posted on SBT's YouTube page.

Bishop Valerio Breda released a statement saying that in light of the "grave and lamentable facts made public on television," Barbosa and the two other priests had been suspended.

"We reproach, without restriction and with hearts broken by shame and sadness, the facts in the report which, despite their not having been proven, have outraged human and Christian conscience," Breda wrote.

He added that none of the alleged victims or their families had ever contacted the church regarding the allegations of abuse.

Breda said the church was cooperating with police and would also conduct its own investigation.

The church said it would not comment further on the case.