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isabella R

E F pastor emeritus - 0 views

efpastormeritus.blogspot.com

Roman Catholic abuse of power sexual-abuse scandal Ireland Cloyne

shared by isabella R on 26 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • The report cited a 1997 letter sent to the Irish bishops' conference by then-nuncio Archbishop Luciano Storero (1926-2000), who stated that the Congregation for Clergy considered the child protection guidelines outlined in "Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response" as a mere "study document."
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      SAY WHAT???????
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      "the severity of certain criticisms of the Vatican are curious, as if the Holy See was guilty of not having given merit under canon law to norms which a state did not consider necessary to give value under civil law." CAN YOU SAY LOOPHOLE---LOOKING FOR ANY AND EVERY LETTER OF THE LAW....AND SURELY NOT USING COMMON SENSE...AND THIS CAT AND MOUSE GAME WILL GO ON FOREVER...OR AT LEAST THERE ARE AT LEAST 1 PRIEST AND A COUPLE OF LAITY LEFT IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • . In fact, it warned against the risk that measures were being taken which could later turn out to be questionable or invalid from the canonical point of view, thus defeating the purpose of the effective sanctions proposed by the Irish bishops.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      YOU WANT STATE STATUS AND TO PLAY WITH THE BIG BOYS?????   IF YOU THINK COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN STATES SHOULD BE POLITE, THEN YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION....SHOW UP FOR A FEW MEETINGS AT THE UN (THAT DON'T INVOLVE ABORTION) AND LISTEN TO THESE "REAONABLE" DELEGATES AND THEIR POLITE DISCUSSIONS.
  • Referring specifically to the letter's objection to "mandatory reporting,"
  • "the severity of certain criticisms of the Vatican are curious, as if the Holy See was guilty of not having given merit under canon law to norms which a state did not consider necessary to give value under civil law."
  • Father Lombardi stated the text of the letter has been misinterpreted, and that "there is no reason to interpret that letter as being intended to cover up cases of abuse."
  • Not only is Mr. Kenny's language intemperate for any Prime Minister to use when  speaking of another State, or  Head of State, but what he says is UNTRUE.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      AND NONE OF THE TAXPAYER MONEY GOES TO PAY FOR ANY ABORTION....NOT ONE RED CENT.
  • They have been invited to the meeting to discuss a €200 million shortfall in an expected 50:50 contribution by them to costs incurred by the State in compensating former residents of the institutions.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      IS THIS THE "CHURCH BODY" THAT CLAIMS IT WAS THEM AND NOT THE STATE THAT "DISCOVERED" ABUSES????  JUST ASKING
  • American taxpayers are being forced to directly support this abortion-
  • I’m asking them for a 50:50 contribution. The taxpayer has already paid out the bulk of it. Their share should be about €680 million and they are half shy of that . . . they need to do far more.
  • The first the congregations heard about a 50:50 contribution was on April 15th, 2010, when they met then taoiseach Brian Cowen and ministers, the source said
  • Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the Education Finance Board.”
  • “Congregations are, understandably, unclear as to why they should be held responsible for the costs of the Ryan commission, etc. They would appreciate being given the overall costs of the redress board itself as an entity.”
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      I am appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority of clergy-I AM SO SICK OF THE CONSTANT "SURPRISE" OF THE VATICAN....No matter how many times it happens-they are always shocked!!!!!
  • am appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority of clergy
  • The Report finds that the Diocese of Cloyne did not implement the procedures set out in the Church protocols for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse in the period concerned.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 26 Aug 12
       
      I have looked at the materials written by churches to educate children about inappropriate "touching", but have yet to see A SINGLE INSTANCE of a "bad person" approaching the child to be portrayed as a PRIEST.....
  • apologised for their failures in the implementation of the Church procedures
  • Structures have been put in place to reach out to every corner of every parish in the Diocese of Cloyne so that people will have full and adequate information on the safeguarding of children and on what actions to take if suspicions arise in relation to child sexual abuse by clergy or Church personne
isabella R

Cover story -- Philadelphia: Shining light on a cover-up - 0 views

natcath.org/...042806a.php

catholic abuse scandal sexual-abuse priest bishops abuse of power philadelphia

shared by isabella R on 23 May 12 - No Cached
  • “They needed someone with my talent for drudgery.”
  • Molloy met victims in a small office on the 12th floor of the archdiocese’s Center City headquarters, which was located across the hall from the cardinal’s large office and a few doors down from the “Secret Archive” records room. The secretary for clergy, Msgr. Bill Lynn, was also present. One of the men would take notes while the other conducted the interview. To avoid giving the impression that the accused priest might be guilty, Molloy said he and Lynn were instructed not to treat complainants with excessive sympathy or compassion.
  • We were functionaries, auditors,” said Molloy. “Our job was to interview the victim and the accused priest, then write up a report for the archbishop. We didn’t have marching orders to do anything other than that.”
  • ...40 more annotations...
  • One of the earlier cases Molloy handled was that of Fr. Nicholas Cudemo.
  • Cudemo already had numerous allegations and subsequent reassignments on his record. Molloy told the latest victim that although he still had to talk with Cudemo, he had “no reason not” to believe her. He assured the victim the cardinal would suspend Cudemo if he contacted her family. Upon learning of his remarks, Molloy said, Cullen verbally reprimanded him for “overreaching.
  • The Cudemo case was when I truly realized that I couldn’t be sure that I could trust my superiors to do the right thing,” said Molloy. “So I decided to operate in a manner that would eliminate the need to trust anybody.” Molloy said he then went into “hyper-documentation” mode, taking great pains to make his files to Bevilacqua and Cullen as detailed as possible. At the time, he said, it was the best contribution he felt he could make to the situation, to history. If it all blew up one day -- and he was pretty confident it would -- he wanted as detailed a record as possible to exist. If his superiors were making the correct decisions in handling the abusers, they would be happy to have his reports. If his superiors were making the incorrect decisions, then his reports would help explain what went wrong.
  • “I wanted my memos to be there,” he said, “if the archdiocese’s decisions were eventually put on the judicial scales.” He was also motivated by self-protection.
  • Molloy said he never contemplated calling the press, alerting parishioners or contacting the authorities.
  • “The archbishop was still the archbishop,” he said. “He deserved the benefit of the doubt.”
  • Two of Gana’s victims informed the archdiocese of their abuse in the early 1990s.
  • In filing his report to Bevilacqua, Molloy strayed from his usual recitation of the facts and injected his own bit of advice, suggesting to the cardinal that a “forensic psychiatrist” examine Gana. In Molloy’s eyes, offering this common sense suggestion was some type of bold, defiant course of action. He was, he said, a “frustrated messenger.”
  • The secrecy surrounding the complaints had become too much for him. “It had gotten to the point where I felt like I was working for the CIA instead of the church,” he said.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 23 May 12
       
      Spade sat at the prosecutor's table, listening as another attorney asked Lynn to identify for the grand jury a batch of documents detailing the transfers of dozens of abusive priests. It was as if the courtroom had become an arena for the unimaginable. Fr. Nilos Martins, who in the mid-1980s was the assistant pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord in North Philadelphia, invited a 12-year-old boy, Daniel, up to his rectory room one Saturday afternoon to watch television. The priest ordered the child to undress and then anally raped him. Spade listened as Daniel, now a Philadelphia police officer, testified that as he cried out in pain, the priest kept insisting, "Tell me that you like it." When the priest was done, he gave Daniel a puzzle as a present and told the boy to get dressed and leave.A few days later, Daniel returned to the church to serve Mass as an altar boy. The pastor, Fr. John Shelley, had learned of the attack from a teacher Daniel confided in. He informed Daniel that he was no longer welcome as an altar boy. Word of the attack then spread through the parish school. According to his testimony, one of Daniel's teachers, a Sr. Mary Loyola, began to refer to him as Daniella, prompting laughter from the rest of the class. When Daniel begged his teacher to stop, she gave him a demerit."I can't be sitting here listening to this," thought Spade. "I must be imagining what I'm hearing." The names of the victim and Sr. Mary Loyola were changed for the report.
  • “I washed my hands of the place,”
  • There is John Delaney, who explained how the priest who began raping him when he was 10 years old made him believe that his own mother consented to the abuse.
  • “I’ve harbored this feeling toward my mom for going on 20 years,” Delaney testified, “only to come to find out the other night that it wasn’t true. She had no idea. She had absolutely no idea. I’ve been hating her for 20 years for no reason whatsoever, and that’s not right. That’s my mom.”
  • ome of the testimony is so shocking Allen wishes she could forget it as quickly as she heard it. “These were just babies, 9 or 10 years old,” said Allen. “And to think they had to live with the fear of this happening day after day and not knowing if it would ever end. It was heartbreaking.
  • Allen was shocked that the archdiocese didn’t conduct more serious investigations when allegations arose. Most times, if the accused priest denied what happened, that was good enough for the archdiocese. “They were feeding these kids to the wolves,” she said.
  • Lynn explained, was not only having sex with children. He was also sleeping with women, abusing alcohol and stealing church property. “You see,” said Lynn, “he was not a pure pedophile. Otherwise he would have been removed.”
  • “It must have fallen through the cracks.” “We all just gasped at that,” remembered Allen. “It was sickening.”
  • Bevilacqua as “arrogant and cocky”
  • In his final act as assistant vicar for administration, Molloy requested the alarm code to the records room be reprogrammed and that all the locks and combinations to the filing cabinets and safes be changed. He wanted to make sure no one could ever accuse him of coming back to steal or alter the reports he had written.
  • Bevilacqua testified in front of the grand jury a total of 11 times. “You could tell how annoyed he was at having to be there,” said Allen. “His tone, his mannerisms, they never changed. He was always cold. And every time it was the same thing of ‘I’m the cardinal and I’m telling you our main concern was for the children.’ ” Allen wondered how someone could be in a position of power all those years and never do anything to stop the evil being committed against those children. “In the end,” she said with a sigh, “I guess he knew that regardless of what he did he’d always have people supporting him.”
  • “He would ignore every question and answer with the same refrain of ‘Our main concern was the safety of the children.’ It was angering because it was obvious that his main concern was protecting his priests and the church.”
  • Fr. Nilos Martins, who in the mid-1980s was the assistant pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord in North Philadelphia, invited a 12-year-old boy, Daniel, up to his rectory room one Saturday afternoon to watch television. The priest ordered the child to undress and then anally raped him. Spade listened as Daniel, now a Philadelphia police officer, testified that as he cried out in pain, the priest kept insisting, “Tell me that you like it.” When the priest was done, he gave Daniel a puzzle as a present and told the boy to get dressed and leave.
  • A few days later, Daniel returned to the church to serve Mass as an altar boy. The pastor, Fr. John Shelley, had learned of the attack from a teacher Daniel confided in. He informed Daniel that he was no longer welcome as an altar boy.
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 23 May 12
       
      This was never an anti-Catholic project. It was just something that needed to be done."
  • According to his testimony, one of Daniel’s teachers, a Sr. Mary Loyola, began to refer to him as Daniella, prompting laughter from the rest of the class. When Daniel begged his teacher to stop, she gave him a demerit.
  • He believes the scathing tone of the report was due to the investigators’ anger over the archdiocesan attorney’s “hardball tactics.”
  • The investigation allowed Spade an opportunity to meet the noted Jesuit canon lawyer Ladislas Orsy
  • Over lunch, the Jesuit delivered a long discourse on how the general attitude of the Vatican, as well as the local hierarchy in Philadelphia, was to save the “institution” from scandal while the biblical precept to protect children went largely ignored.
  • “I was learning about canon law and the rituals and history and tenets of the Catholic faith,” he said. “And I found myself being drawn to it.” He began attending Mass. Spade would discuss his feelings with his wife, Karen, a lapsed Catholic. “I would tell her how I really liked the faith and she would say, ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re seeing what this institution has done to these kids and you’re saying you like it?’ And I’d say, ‘No, I don’t like the institution but I like the faith, I like the intellectual and spiritual part of it.’ “It’s funny,” he continues. “We were all being bashed as being anti-Catholic and here I was defending the church to my own wife, who was Catholic.
  • Once, while going over old documents, Spade had asked him, “Father, you’re such a nice guy, how could you have been a part of this? I mean you had to know what you were doing was wrong.” “He didn’t have any real answer,” recalls Spade, “other that it was his job and that he was trained to be obedient to his cardinal.” When it is all done, when the report is finally released, a single sentence on Page 41 will distinguish Molloy from others who participated in the handling of the complaints. It reads, “Molloy displayed glimpses of compassion for victims.”
  • He found himself becoming overprotective and paranoid about his own children’s safety. “I was dealing with all these cases where kids were betrayed by those they were taught to trust the most,” he said. “I was like, ‘My God, you can’t trust your children with your friends, teachers, or even other family members.’ I don’t think it’s healthy to be like that.” From the very beginning of the investigation, public relations spokespersons connected to the archdiocese condemned the probe as an anti-Catholic witch-hunt. The Catholic-bashing talk became a running joke among investigators. Three of the five frontline investigators were Catholic. “I was raised Catholic,” said former prosecutor Maureen McCartney. “I had 12 years of Catholic school. My family is very Catholic. It is a big part of my life. This was never an anti-Catholic project. It was just something that needed to be done.”
  • “I look back and say what happened was insufficiently protective of the welfare of children,” Molloy said. “But I don’t want to say there was a lot of badly motivated men trying to conspire to achieve a cover-up.” As for his own regrets, he said, he wished he had shown more compassion, offered more assistance to the victims he encountered. “I regret that very much,” he said. “More than anything.” He said he sat down numerous times to write letters offering assistance to John Salveson, the president of the Philadelphia Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP. He said he wanted Salveson to know he would meet with the victims with whom he had had contact “to try to answer any questions they had about the way things had developed in the diocese with their cases.” But he never finished the letters.
  • I had to hesitate in the end because there is the possibility of lawsuits being filed down the road, and I did not want to create a situation which would be construed as an attempt to manipulate people’s opinion.”
  • At the time of the interviews with this writer, which occurred during the final three months of Molloy’s life, he said attendance at St. Agnes was strong and collections were increasing. “People have been supportive and understanding.” “After all,” he said. “I wasn’t the one making the decisions. I was just a frustrated messenger.” Would he have done anything differently? “I suppose that I would like to think that there could have been more insistence on my part that some of these perps could have been dealt with more severely.” Or maybe, he said, “I would find some polite way of convincing the archbishop that it would not be good for me to accept appointment to a position in such an office of the central administration.” But in the end, he said, “My job now is the same as it was then. To do the assignments I get from my bishop to the best of my ability.”
  • No mention was made of Molloy’s cooperation with the grand jury investigators. “I’m disappointed nothing was said about it,” Spade said after the funeral. “After talking with Molloy for a long time, I believe he was a good and decent man who was a product of the church he had committed his life to. I think he realized mistakes had been made and would have liked people to know that he helped get the truth out.”
  • “I’m beginning to believe it [the investigation] will amount to nothing more than just a scathing report which will set out in detail the way the archdiocese through Krol and Bevilacqua allowed child abusers to continually abuse children without removing them from their ministries.” “Prophetic, huh?” he asks now.
  • There was also another major obstacle to prosecution. Because of the way the archdiocese is set up legally, as an “unincorporated association” rather than a corporation, investigators realized that a loophole in Pennsylvania law most likely protected church officials from being prosecuted for crimes such as endangering the welfare of children, intimidation of victims and witnesses, and obstruction of justice. In short, Pennsylvania law did not seem to hold Bevilacqua or other church officials responsible for “the supervision of children.” Only the individual priests who committed the abuse could be prosecuted, but they were almost all protected under the statutes of limitations.
  • ivision developed within the district attorney’s office on how to proceed. Some believed the office should indict Bevilacqua and other church officials in the hope of creating new precedent. Others within the office viewed indictments as irresponsible and unlikely to succeed, given the narrowly defined laws. They feared failed indictments would tie the investigation up for years, which would delay them from releasing a detailed report, create sympathy for church officials, and open the office up to even more accusations of Catholic-bashing than the archdiocese was already hurling at them. “That’s where we had arguments,” said Spade. “On whether or not we should try and push the envelope.” Spade was among the most vocal calling for indictments.
  • “When someone is harmed, there should be retribution,” he said. “I thought that’s why we have a legal system.”
  • He still occasionally attends Catholic Mass and he and his wife have decided to send their children to a Catholic grade school in the Philadelphia suburbs run by the Sisters of Mercy but not directly associated with the archdiocese. “That was important to us,” said Spade. “We liked the ideal of service and charity that the sisters instill in the children, but we did not want any school that was actually run by archdiocese officials.
  • isabella R on 23 May 12
     
    Fr. Nicholas Cudemo.
isabella R

Most of Obama's "Controversial" Birth Control Rule Was Law During Bush Years | Mother J... - 0 views

m.motherjones.com/...birth-control-rule-already-law

obama contraception health catholicism abuse of power Roman Catholic

shared by isabella R on 04 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 04 Jul 12
     
    President Barack Obama's decision to require most employers to cover birth control and insurers to offer it at no cost has created a firestorm of controversy. But the central mandate-that most employers have to cover preventative care for women-has been law for over a decade. This point has been completely lost in the current controversy, as Republican presidential candidates and social conservatives claim that Obama has launched a war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church
isabella R

ARE THEY ALL YOURS?!??: Why I don't vote - 0 views

stevenandersonfamily.blogspot.com/...why-i-dont-vote.html

misogyny christianity religion abuse of power injustice lies corruption voting women's rights women'ss vote

shared by isabella R on 01 Oct 12 - No Cached
    • isabella R
      isabella R on 01 Oct 12
       
      Based on the Bible, it is wrong for women to exercise authority over men.  However, women voting can lead to a passing of laws that the majority of men  would oppose.  One example of this is abortion -  more than 50% of men are against it,  but more than 50% of women are for it, which is why it is legal. 
  • isabella R on 01 Oct 12
     
    As a citizen of the US, I have a right to vote. However, I do not exercise this right, because I believe that based on the Bible, it is wrong for women to vote.  Based on the Bible, it is wrong for women to exercise authority over men. However, women voting can lead to a passing of laws that the majority of men would oppose. One example of this is abortion - more than 50% of men are against it, but more than 50% of women are for it, which is why it is legal. And yes, having women rulers/politicians is mentioned as a curse in the Bible. I DO NOT support any women politicians. They are way outside the natural role that God intended for them, and as such, are not qualified. 
isabella R

Bishop Accountability - 0 views

www.bishop-accountability.org/...mahony-2002-05-b.htm

bishop abuse Cardinal Roger Mahony abuse of power Roman Catholic

shared by isabella R on 23 May 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 23 May 12
     
    Cardinal Roger Mahony's projected himself as leading a charge to clean up the Roman Catholic sex scandal. Now, like Boston's beleaguered Cardinal Bernard Law, his dismal record of protecting predator priests has come back to haunt him.
isabella R

Attack on Girl Scouts shows current law isn't working | National Catholic Reporter - 0 views

ncronline.org/...shows-current-law-isnt-working

shared by isabella R on 23 May 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 23 May 12
     
    The question is, Where has all this energy for empirical destruction come from in a church now projecting its own serious problems with sexual issues onto everything that moves?
isabella R

Why The Hierarchy Fears The Nuns - 0 views

opentabernacle.wordpress.com/...y-the-hierarchy-fears-the-nuns

catholic Roman Catholic LCWR abuse of power misogyny

shared by isabella R on 25 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 25 Jun 12
     
    The Vatican has revealed itself in the current spectacle as more reactionary than conservative. Even the suggestion of discussing progressive takes on dogma is often denounced as heresy. Arguably, moderate and liberal Catholics live in a new reign of terror whose principal players are Bernard Law, disgraced former Boston Cardinal; Cardinal William Levada, Prefect for the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura; and well-placed, movement conservative-friendly bishops and cardinals in cities such as Madison, Wisconsin, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
isabella R

Father Geoff Farrow: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." - 0 views

fathergeofffarrow.blogspot.com/...protest-too-much-methinks.html

abuse of power Roman Catholic corruption abuse scandal bishops

shared by isabella R on 06 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 06 Jul 12
     
    "In the writings and speeches of Catholic bishops and evangelical leaders in recent months, "religious freedom" has come to mean something close to its opposite. It now stands for "religious privilege". It is a coded way for them to state their demand that religious institutions should be allowed special powers that exempt them from the laws of the land.
isabella R

Philadelphia Priest Abuse Trial Blog: Judge Denies Bail for Monsignor While Archdiocese... - 0 views

www.priestabusetrial.com/...-bail-for-monsignor-while.html

abuse of power Roman Catholic Phiadelphia Monsignor William Lynn child-abuse

shared by isabella R on 26 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 26 Aug 12
     
    Lindy cited extraordinary circumstances, namely that Lynn had been the first supervisor in the history of Pennsylvania to be charged under the 1972 state statute for endangering the welfare of a child. Normally, those charged under the child endangerment statute had direct contact with children, such as teachers, parents or guardians. Lynn, however, never laid eyes on the victim in this case, the former 10-year-old altar boy, until he took the witness stand. But Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington told the judge that this was the third time the defense was trying to get their client out on bail, and that under the law, Lynn wasn't entitled to it
isabella R

Bilgrimage: Richard Sipe on Sexual Abuse as Product of Clerical Culture - 0 views

bilgrimage.blogspot.com/...n-sexual-abuse-as-product.html

richard sipe abuse abuse of power Roman Catholic Catholic

shared by isabella R on 23 May 12 - No Cached
  • "The context of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic bishops and priests is the culture of the priesthood."
  • clerical culture centers on the maintenance of a club whose boundaries are impermeable to non-ordained outsiders and are premised on the assertion that everything one does to keep those boundaries intact is done for God and the church--even when that "everything" comprises keeping noxious secrets, telling toxic lies, and maintaining absolute silence when faced with demands for transparency and accountability.
  • Sipe writes:  If a priest is apparently compliant with the demands of the culture he receives automatic status regardless of any individual merit. The culture provides an assurance of employment and continued material compensation for the duration of his life. The identification with the power system and subordination to it relives individuals of responsibility for the consequences of their individual actions. Truth telling is curtailed and subjected to the welfare of the organization (the good of the church). The prevailing rationale is that clerics’ first duty is to the higher law of God. Secrecy and loyalty are essential binding elements operative to the function of clerical cultural. Men within the clerical culture are labeled "special" since ordination confers an "ontological" superiority. Clerics thus incorporated into the culture often demonstrate qualities of dependency, entitlement, superiority/arrogance, variable degrees of psychosexual immaturity, but in many cases "they possess enormous powers of empathetic discernment—albeit for purposes of self-aggrandizement." And he concludes:
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The fundamental causes of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy are within the clerical culture.
  • That is, after the gentlemen running things get done with their bashing of Girl Scouts.  And gays.  And women in general and nuns in particular.  And abuse survivors.
  • Anybody but their own sweet selves.  And the super-rich right-wing men on whose behalf they are doing all this theatrical staging
isabella R

7th Most Powerful Person in the World and a Formidable Opponent of Obama « Th... - 0 views

opentabernacle.wordpress.com/...a-formidable-opponent-of-obama

abuse of power Roman Catholic catholic vatican Pope Benedict XVI 7th most powerful man in the world Pope Benedict XVI money_laundering bank fraud corruption influence_pedling vatileaks

shared by isabella R on 16 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Ascension Health Alliance, sponsored bhe Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, the Daughters of Charity and the Congregation of St. Joseph, is “planning to build a $2 billion ‘health city’ in the Cayman Islands with an India-based hospital group. ‘We’re not considering this a medical tourism facility. That’s not the intent at all,’ said Anthony Tersigni, president and chief executive…. But the system’s for-profit partner, Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospitals in India, has cast the project in sharply different terms. For years, Narayana’s founder, Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, has promoted the idea of building an offshore medical center to serve primarily American patients who cannot afford health care in the United States.”
  • A Mexican official admitted in 2007 that the Church accepted drug money.“ This appears to be so widespread that the spokesman used the customary term for this – “narco-alms.”
  • s ‘Octopus Dei,’ it created a financial empire…replete with offshore accounts, financial scandal and nefarious names.” Murder by digitalis-induced heart attacks is their preferred method of dealing with their enemies. This led Opus Dei, pledged to support and promote hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church, “to the jubilant arrival at the right hand of Catholic power.” “On its tightening Church ties, Hutchison sketches in how Pope John Paul II as archbishop of Cracow, Poland, and many other bishops, were brought into Opus Dei’s network, or net.”
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • The American fraternal society, the Knights of Columbus,
  • The modern day Knights of Malta
  • Opus Dei prelate
  • Neocatechumenate, Focolare, Legion of Mary for example – as well as the Knights of Columbus, the Legion of Christ’s lay group, Regnum Christi, and Opus Dei, turning out large crowds in St. Peter’s Square“to cheer the pope and his policies, and they have these people all over the world.”
  • According to a November 2011 study conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Catholics had 41 lobbying groups in Washington D.C. “
  • Mercy Health, with revenue of nearly $4 billion, “could qualify as one of the largest corporations in the St. Louis region.” But due its 501(c) (3) status “pays few corporate, income, property, capital gains or sales taxes…and is exempt for federal requirements to disclose certain financial data about its operations….Mercy Health oversees a network of more than 55 tax-exempt organizations, including fundraising foundations, physician groups and hospitals in Missouri and three other states.
  • The financial statements list “Social Development and World Peace” as an expense category which received only 8 percent of chancery (archdiocesan headquarters) spending from 1997 through 2009. Catholic Charities (CC), the only archdiocesan agency completely dedicated to helping the unfortunate, states year after year in its annual report that it receives only 3 to 4 percent of its income from the “archdiocese, parishes and other church” while 35 percent came from the government. Most people think that the Roman Catholic Church receives the bulk of its income from a percentage of parish collections forwarded to the (arch)bishop. From 1997 through 2009, only $54 million (21 percent) of $251 million in chancery income came from the parishes. For the archdiocesan entities combined, $312 million (34 percent) came from gifts. (The rest came from investment income, program fees, tuition, cemetary sales, etc.) The archbishop gave away $34 million in gifts. Some dioceses are not as wealthy as Denver; some more so. With 200 dioceses in the U.S., their numerous foundations and the USCCB also receiving millions in donations and government grants, that’s a staggering amount of money coming and going with no transparency or accountability.
  • A good example of how Roman Catholic money flows around the world is when the Los Angeles archdiocese had to pay a $660 million settlement to its victims of sex abuse, the Allied Irish Banks (AIB) provided a loan of $240 million in 2009.  AIB loans of up to $500 million were extended to four American dioceses in 2005-07 which had claimed bankruptcy. According to the Irish Daily Mail in 2011, the loans are being serviced and repaid “…from an unknown source.”
  • As noted in His Holiness, the Church fears exposure more than monetary loss
  • have fought so hard to prevent laws which extend the statutes of limitations on sexual abuse
  • The Church wants to prevent more lawsuits and, therefore, further exposure of their internal documents. And that’s also why there will probably never be another diocesan bankruptcy due to sex abuse lawsuits – because the debtors must provide the court with a list of their assets.
isabella R

Ugandan Bishops Push Notorious Anti-Gay Bill | Religion Dispatches - 0 views

www.religiondispatches.org/...s_push_notorious_anti-gay_bill

corruption catholic abuse of power Roman Catholic Anglican orthodox church Uganda homosexuality law politics

shared by isabella R on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • isabella R on 14 Jun 12
     
    The Uganda Joint Christian Council, which includes Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox bishops, has called on parliament to move the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill forward. According to the Ugandan newspaper The Daily Monitor:
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