www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Catholic Priest on Trial in L.A.

I didn't know there were still ongoing cases till I saw an article in the L.A. Times: a catholic priest accused of child sexual abuse is currently on trial in L.A. The case went to the jury this week.

Trial testimony highlighted how the priest surrounded himself with boys in one parish after another and for years no church officials expressed concern or intervened. Trial testimony that the church did not act on information given it may impact not only the trial but also the Los Angeles Archdiocese. Apparently the ARchdiocese is named in more than 560 lawsuits that charge it failed to protect children from abusive priests.

See article at the L.A. Times February 8, 2006
Chronicling Priest's Pattern of Abuse
By Jessica Garrison and Jean Guccione
Times Staff Writers

Nonna - is it absolutely necessary to post this ?

I'm sure we are all well aware that the problems are not all ended .

Enough people have been damaged by this in the past - and though you have not been a member here for long , I'm sure I'm not breaking any confidences when I say that some members here have also been affected by this.

I really can't see of what use it is to re-open so many old wounds.

Anhelyna

Dear Anhelyna,

I have been posting on this topic several times already at this forum. It is an important one that should be noted as news comes up. I think victims have been kept hidden and in the dark under a cover of shame long enough.

It's not their faults, it's not their faults, it's not their faults.

A public airing of these issues is important for everyone's healing.

with love,
Nonna

Nonna

I agree you have posted several times on the subject of Homosexuality on this forum in the comparatively short time you have been here.

My comment as to the wisdom of further announcements still holds.

There have been many and lengthy threads in the past , is it really necessary to start all this again - in another thread ?

Dear Anhelyna,

I think you're mistaken. I think you may be confusing the one thread that was started by another on the issue of treatments for homosexuality ( to which I only posted a few times), versus my posts in other threads about the abuse of children. It's usually called pederasty, also pedophilia. Those are the posts I'm referring to. I actually haven't posted much on homosexuality. I know people often confuse the two -- pederasty and homosexuality are very different-- so I wanted to clarify that.

With love in Christ,
Nonna

Dear Nonna,

I have to agree with Anhelyna on this. I don't think that there is anything edifying in pursuing this topic.

This is a painful subject that has been beaten to death by the press and has demoralized and scandalized more than a few souls into turning away from God--and not just the unfortunate ones that were directly affected by this.

This is a time for purging the sexual sins of the decades.

May God have mercy on the children/victims, on the Bishops, on the Catholic Church, and even on those priests who allowed the demons of sex and ego--demons which manifested themselves in an unprecedented way in these past decades of liberalized thought and behavior-- to permeate their souls and cloud their judgement.

Remember that St. John Chrysostom said that the roads of hell are paved with the skulls of priests and Bishops, and that scripture tells us that Jesus warned not to harm even one hair on the head of a child.

So, let's pray for all, and also for our society which has allowed the gates of hell to open and pollute the minds of man (and women), young and old, with all sorts of easily accessable and unpure images...however, we have a promise: The gates of hell will not prevail.

In Christ,
Alice

I thought that no matter what the sin, or crime, a man is innocent in this country until proven guilty. If you MUST post such distinctly unedifying posts, can't you wait until AFTER the trial is over? Then you can report a conviction, if there is one.

Gaudior, disgusted by the topic, but still maintaining that the laws of the land must prevail...all else is mere slander and speculation.

I think we need to recall that newspapers are notorious for getting their facts wrong. Facts! Did I say facts? Here down under one daily wrote an article on how the OSBs have a skull in their rooms to remind them of their own importality. Now that was news to the monks. What they were particularly concerend with was the bit after describing their valuable library that the author added that there were no locks on the doors. The monks decided quickly to upgrade their library's security. Their art gallery has been robbed since. Lucky for them they got most of the collection back. Luckily no one was badly hurt in the robbery but they could have.

ICXC
NIKA

One thing that really frightens me is the free access to pornography on the internet in our own homes. There is much need for healing of these sins of the past, but there is also much need for prayer for the great evil that is being unleashed all over our country on the internet in the present. How can there be healing if daily more are being destroyed?
OK, I am not that much of a pessimist, I know that God has overcome the Evil One and the gates of hell will not prevail, but, there is still much pain being inflicted(and self-inflicted) because of this source of sin.

Dear Doulos,

I agree with you totally. Demons have never been able to enter anyone's soul and home as easily as they can today through internet pornography.

In Christ,
Alice

Dear Alice you said:

"May God have mercy on the children/victims, on the Bishops, on the Catholic Church, and even on those priests who allowed the demons of sex and ego--demons which manifested themselves in an unprecedented way in these past decades of liberalized thought and behavior-- to permeate their souls and cloud their judgement."

I say:

Beautifully said, but may I add that those 'negativities' (demons) of sex and ego have manifested themselves in other denominations too. Could it be that we're holding the Catholic Church to a higher standard?

Zenovia

Dear Pavel you said:

"What they were particularly concerend with was the bit after describing their valuable library that the author added that there were no locks on the doors. The monks decided quickly to upgrade their library's security. Their art gallery has been robbed since. Lucky for them they got most of the collection back. Luckily no one was badly hurt in the robbery but they could have."

I say:

Maybe it was not the article that caused them to be robbed. Maybe their lack of faith in upgrading their library's security was.

Zenovia

Dear Doulos you said:

"One thing that really frightens me is the free access to pornography on the internet in our own homes. There is much need for healing of these sins of the past, but there is also much need for prayer for the great evil that is being unleashed all over our country on the internet in the present. How can there be healing if daily more are being destroyed?"

I say:

It is not only the pornography on the internet, but that everything on the computors and TV's are being fed into the minds of children so that what is presented to them becomes a virtual 'reality' to them.

The perfect solution would be to have to adjust one's TV to 'accept' a program, rather than the other way around. As for computors, I don't know what could be done...but I'm sure that if we had some laws in place, they could be regulated as to what can be viewed and what can't be viewed.

I'm not saying that something should be censored if someone wants it. But programs that are unfit for young people, should only be seen on 'demand'. Access should not be automatic.

Oh for the good old days when we went to read and see something only because it was banned in Boston. And then, (believe it or not), the TV show 'Three's Company' outraged the RCC. From then on it was all downhill.

Zenovia

I have thought long and hard (more than 3 years) before deciding to take a public stand on this issue. Its now time to stand up and take a position.

Those who committed felonies should be prosecuted, and if convicted, incarcerated or given another appropriate punishment. The offenders should not be allowed to hide behind the statute of limitations or be whisked away to another jurisdiction so there can be no extradition to the jurisdiction which wants to prosecute them.

My decision was influenced greatly by two articles in the Roman Catholic Sunday Visitor today. The first said that the statutes of limitations should not be extended and we should forgot about the past rapes of boys and girls. The second said that it is a grievous sin to support stem cell research.

The Church needs to fully assist the authorities on the first issue before She will be seen to have the moral authority to oppose the second issue.

In a nutshell, one who lives in a glass house should not throw stones.

I apologize to those I have offended by this posting. Like I said, I have waited and prayed a long time before publicly stating my views.

Zenovia the point of the posting was that some seem to take news paper articles, as if they were correct in the information and details they put out in their papers. The point being that incorrect information can cause problems to some. The monks do not have skulls in their rooms. If this was the case there would be thousand of headless bodies all over the world. The monks got robbed because someone believed the rubbish they read in the paper and decided to act on it. The lady tied up in the toilets was unharmed and the art was recovered by the Police. The point being the details in the article were not correct and this is not rare for newspapers and magazines to get things wrong. I recall 2 major international news magazines publishing 2 very different accounts of the finding of the body of Pope John-Paul I when he died. This would be a very good example of jurnalists not checking their facts and making things up. They were published as fact.

ICXC
NIKA