The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[Jan Klimkowski]

A truly pathetic non-apology apology - 'Cardinal Brady said he wanted to apologise to "all those who feel I have let them down"' -from Ireland's top priest:

The head of the Catholic church in Ireland has used his annual St Patrick's Day sermon to apologise for his role in the cover-up of child abuse by one of the country's most notorious paedophile priests.

Cardinal Sean Brady is under intense pressure to resign after he admitted attending meetings where two 10-year-olds were forced to sign vows of silence over complaints against Father Brendan Smyth, who continued abusing children for another 18 years.

Brady said last weekend that he had taken notes during one meeting and interviewed the children in another. He referred the abuse claims to his superior but did not report them to the police, and it was only in 1994 that Smyth's appalling abuse came to light. Smyth died in prison 13 years ago, while serving 12 years for 74 sexual assaults on children.

Delivering his homily in Armagh's Catholic cathedral, Brady said he wanted to apologise to "all those who feel I have let them down".

"This week, a painful episode from my own past has come before me. I have listened to reaction from people to my role in events 35 years ago.

"I want to say to anyone who has been hurt by any failure on my part that I apologise to you with all my heart. I also apologise to all those who feel I have let them down. Looking back, I am ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess and believe in."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar...ile-priest

[Jan Klimkowski]

Monsignor Maurice Dooley, a priest and friend of Cardinal Brady, Ireland's top priest, just topped yesterday's pathetic non-apology apology by his boss by stating baldly that if, today, he learnt that one of his priests was a paedophile, he would not report that priest to the police.

Dooley considers he has no obligation legally or morally to do so.

Dooley is a self-styled Man of God. His definition of morality is as shocking as his practice of immorality.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, has apologised for failing to alert police about one of the country's worst paedophile priests. But he has said he will not resign. On his show in Belfast yesterday Stephen Nolan asked Monsignor Maurice Dooley, a priest and friend of Cardinal Brady, if another priest came to him now and told him that he had abused a child, would he report him to the police?

"I would not. I've no obligation to do it in law. I would also regard myself as not having any obligation to do it morally.

"Your conscience is only your brain facing up to a moral question. Now my brain, having taken everything into account almost certainly would say I'm not going to report this matter to the police."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/fivelivebreak...catho.html

[Keith Millea]

"I would not. I've no obligation to do it in law. I would also regard myself as not having any obligation to do it morally.

"Your conscience is only your brain facing up to a moral question. Now my brain, having taken everything into account almost certainly would say I'm not going to report this matter to the police."

OH MY GOD!! :eek:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Vatican accepts resignation of Irish Catholic bishop John Magee

Cleric John Magee, who was once personal secretary to three popes, steps down over mishandling of sexual abuse allegations in his diocese

The Vatican has accepted the resignation of an Irish bishop who was once the personal secretary to three popes, it was announced today.

The papacy said Bishop John Magee was stepping down over his mishandling of allegations of clerical sex abuse in his Irish diocese.

Although Magee quit the day-to-day running of parishes across rural Cork last March, it has taken the Vatican bureaucracy a year to formally confirm his resignation.

The cleric, originally from Northern Ireland, faced scathing criticism after the church's watchdog found he had taken minimal action over accusations against two of his priests.

He served as personal assistant to Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I and Pope John Paul II in Rome.

There have been many calls for Magee's resignation since the report into the Cloyne diocese earlier this year.

The announcement of his official resignation was made in statement released through the Irish Catholic Bishops' conference.

"His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of the Most Reverend John Magee, Bishop of Cloyne," it read.

In a message issued from the Cloyne diocesan centre, Magee welcomed the acceptance of his resignation.

He extended his "sincere apologies" to any person who was abused by "any priest" during his time as bishop "or at any time".

"To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon," his statement said.

"As I said on Christmas Eve 2008 after the publication report of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, I take full responsibility for the criticism of our management of issues contained in that report."

Magee said he would continue to be available to the Irish government's commission of investigation into child protection procedures in the diocese "at any time".

He added that he "sincerely hopes" the work and the findings of the commission "will be of some help towards healing for those who have been abused".

In January, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, welcomed Father Michael Mernagh, one of Magee's strongest critics, to Dublin's Pro Cathedral. The invitation was seen as a snub to the former papal secretary.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar...on-vatican

[Jan Klimkowski]

Pope 'failed to discipline US priest' who abused deaf children

Pope declined to defrock Father Lawrence Murphy while head of church's doctrinal enforcement institution, US newspaper claims

The Vatican today faces an allegation that the pope failed to take action against a dying US priest who admitted molesting deaf children.

The claim, made by the New York Times, is the latest in a wave of child abuse scandals to hit the Catholic church and its leaders, and brings the storm closer to the pontiff himself. At the weekend he issued an unprecedented apology and an admission of institutional errors.

The latest charge relates to a case when Benedict – in his previous incarnation as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – was in charge of the church's doctrinal enforcement institution, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the late 1990s. The New York Times obtained papers relating to the case which it says church officials had tried to keep private.

The newspaper alleges that Vatican officials including the future pope declined to discipline or defrock the priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, who was a teacher at a school for deaf children in Wisconsin for 24 years and was suspected of sexually abusing up to 200 boys.

The officials overruled pleas from US diocesan bishops and apparently dropped an instruction by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation and now the Vatican's secretary of state, that the local bishops should initiate a secret canonical trial.

The Vatican appears to have accepted Murphy's plea, in a letter to Ratzinger in 1998, that he was dying, had repented and that the offences had occurred many years before and so were out of time. "I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," Murphy wrote. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter." The files contain no indication of a response; Murphy died a few months later.

The latest case is one of thousands forwarded over decades by bishops to the Congregation, which Ratzinger headed from 1981 to 2005. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

The documents that the church allegedly wanted to keep secret include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims' affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Murphy, and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.

Local police and prosecutors also ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents. During Murphy's time at the school, between 1950 and 1974, three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that he was sexually abusing children, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.

Instead of being disciplined, Murphy was quietly moved by the archbishop of Milwaukee, William Cousins, to the diocese of Superior, in northern Wisconsin, in 1974, where he worked freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention centre, until his death.

The Vatican told the newspaper that Murphy had certainly violated "particularly vulnerable" children and the law, and that it was a "tragic case", but added that it was not informed about the case until 1996, years after civil authorities had investigated the case and dropped it.

It was not until 1996 that Cousins's successor as Milwaukee archbishop, Rembert Weakland, tried to have Murphy defrocked. After getting no response from Ratzinger, Weakland wrote to a different Vatican office in March 1997 saying the matter was urgent because a lawyer was preparing to sue, the case could become public and "true scandal in the future seems very possible".

Weakland, who resigned in 2002 after a scandal involving his relationship with a man and the disclosure that church money had been used to pay him a settlement, said that in 1998 he had failed to persuade Cardinal Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Murphy. He told the newspaper: "The evidence was so complete and so extensive that I thought he should be reduced to the lay state, and also that that would bring a certain amount of peace in the deaf community."

After Murphy died aged 72Weakland wrote a last letter to Bertone explaining his regret that Murphy's family had disobeyed his instructions that the funeral be small and private, and the coffin kept closed. Weakland wrote: "In spite of these difficulties, we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church."

In a statement rushed out by the Vatican's press office, Benedict's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, stressed that the allegations had previously been investigated by the civil authorities and that the future pope's decision only concerned a possible trial under canon law.

The Vatican said: "It is important to note that the canonical question presented to the Congregation was unrelated to any potential civil or criminal proceedings against Father Murphy." Since he was "elderly and in very poor health, and … was living in seclusion and no allegations of abuse had been reported in over 20 years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggested that the archbishop of Milwaukee give consideration to addressing the situation by, for example, restricting Father Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts. Father Murphy died approximately four months later, without further incident."

It added that neither that directive "nor the code of canon law ever prohibited the reporting of child abuse to law enforcement authorities".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar...dren-abuse

[Jan Klimkowski]

Pope accused of mishandling case of German paedophile priest

Cardinal Ratzinger copied into memo transferring known paedophile to German Catholic parish where abuse continued, claims US paper

Fresh revelations have been made directly implicating Pope Benedict XVI in mishandling the case of a paedophile priest in his former archdiocese of Munich.

According to the New York Times, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was copied in on a memo from his deputy in which the priest was transferred to parish duties in Bavaria that brought him into contact with children. As a result of that decision by the then vicar-general, Father Gerhard Gruber, the priest was able to continue abusing boys, for which he was later tried and convicted.

A spokesman for the archdiocese told the Guardian: "The report does not contain false information, but the interpretation – that Cardinal Ratzinger knew – is pure speculation." The spokesman added: "I do not know if any copy [of the memo] exists. But it is a usual procedure that a decision about priests goes to the office of the archbishop. But it is not usual that he takes note of every written piece of paper; every decision of the vicar-general."

Father Peter Hullerman, who was known to be a paedophile, was originally moved to Munich to allow him to undergo therapy. The future pope attended a meeting in January 1980 at which the transfer was agreed, the New York Times reported today. The paper said the reason for the priest's transfer was clear, even though not explicitly stated.

The allegations come a day after the Vatican responded angrily to the allegation that as a cardinal the pope had ignored an American diocese's request that another predatory priest should be defrocked.

Hullermann had been removed from his previous parish in September 1980 and did not deny the allegations made against him. Correspondence at the end of that year referred to a formal request that he should be transferred for psychiatric treatment in Munich.

Although sexual abuse of boys was not explicitly mentioned in the letter from Essen, it stated: "Reports from the congregation in which he was last active made us aware that Chaplain Hullermann presented a danger that caused us to immediately withdraw him from pastoral duties." It warned of possible legal action but suggested that Hullermann could teach religion "at a girls' school".

A report, drawn up by one of Ratzinger's closest colleagues before the meeting, stated that a young chaplain needed "medical-psychotherapeutic treatment in Munich" and a place to live with "an understanding colleague". It presented the priest from Essen as a "very talented man, who could be used in a variety of ways". As soon as he arrived, however, Hullermann was placed in a parish where he continued to abuse boys before being convicted six years later.

The suggestion that the pope was more closely involved in the case than previously suggested followed allegations that while he was head of the congregation in Rome in the mid-1990s, he acceded to a plea from an American priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, not to be disciplined or defrocked for abusing as many as 200 deaf boys at a school where the chaplain taught between 1950 and 1974. Murphy died a few months later and there have been allegations that earlier bishops in his US diocese had ignored the complaints against him and that the diocese tried to hush the matter up.

The continuing and spreading allegations are devastating for the authority and reputation of the church – the world's largest Christian denomination, with more than 1 billion adherents. Previously the Vatican has denied accusations that it has covered up systemic abuse by priests in many countries for decades in the interests of protecting its reputation. It formerly blamed a handful of perverted priests and even suggested that abuse was a problem of the church in "Anglo-Saxon" countries, including the Irish diaspora.

The pope has apologised for the way the church handled allegations without accepting any personal responsibility for his actions in Munich nor during his 24 years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. But the accusations are getting closer to him all the time.

The Vatican's spokesman, attempting to stem the relentless tide of allegations that the church – and now the pope himself – covered up or dismissed complaints against clergy paedophiles in the 1980s and 90s, complained about an "obvious and ignoble attempt to strike at all costs Benedict and his closest collaborators". A statement published in the official Vatican daily paper, L'Osservatore Romano, said: "The prevalent tendency in the media is to gloss over the facts and force interpretations with the aim of spreading an image of the Catholic church almost as if it were the only [institution] responsible for sexual abuses."

Meanwhile, speculation is rife that Cardinal Seán Brady, the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, will shortly offer his resignation following accusations that as a young priest he took part in a cover-up and the silencing of victims of a paedophile priest there. The cardinal has apologised, but has so far resisted calls that he should go.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar...se-germany

[Magda Hassan]

It formerly blamed a handful of perverted priests and even suggested that abuse was a problem of the church in "Anglo-Saxon" countries, including the Irish diaspora.

It is certainly not restricted to 'Anglo Saxon' countries. There is a huge scandal about it in Chile and other places in South America where it has also recently made it to the headlines. Long term systemic abuse of children by Catholic priests (and others) is universal within the church and not restricted to one or two cultures. No doubt we will be hearing about the happenings of the priests, and the cover up, in Africa soon enough.

[David Guyatt]

Yes, a "limited hangout" ploy.

I can see a Vatican priest of the Roman languages persuasion sniggering as he wrote that only the nassy ol' Anglo's were guilty.

Two birds - one stone.

[Magda Hassan]

It formerly blamed a handful of perverted priests and even suggested that abuse was a problem of the church in "Anglo-Saxon" countries, including the Irish diaspora.

It is certainly not restricted to 'Anglo Saxon' countries. There is a huge scandal about it in Chile and other places in South America where it has also recently made it to the headlines. Long term systemic abuse of children by Catholic priests (and others) is universal within the church and not restricted to one or two cultures. No doubt we will be hearing about the happenings of the priests, and the cover up, in Africa soon enough.

And here is an article about the very mob of pedophiles the Legion of Christ:

Secretive Right-Wing Catholic Order Founded by Accused Pedophile Under Fire

14th March 2010

” … horror stories … brainwashing, manipulation, pederast seduction rituals, character assassination, bribes, drug abuse, gulag-type threats … “
By Dana Kennedy | AOL News





(March 14) — As sex abuse scandals rock the Vatican, the results of an investigation into a rich, ultra-conservative and secretive Roman Catholic order founded by a priest accused of pedophilia and incest are due to be filed in Rome tomorrow.
The sordid story of the Legion of Christ, whose late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, was a close ally of Pope John Paul II before being forcibly retired by the Vatican in 2006, is a microcosm of the crisis currently enveloping the church. At stake is whether Pope Benedict XVI will decide to take over the Legion and install new leaders from the outside or allow it to continue with its same hierarchy. Five bishops from five countries are expected to submit their reports about the Legion Monday.
The controversy over the Legion, which is now barred or severely restricted from operating in six U.S. dioceses, is especially awkward for Benedict because he wants to have John Paul, a staunch defender of the order, canonized.
“Maciel was a sexual criminal of epic proportions who gained the trust of John Paul II and created a movement that is as close to a cult as anything we’ve seen in the church,” said author Jason Berry, one of two reporters who broke the Maciel story in 1997 and who directed a 2008 documentary about the priest called “Vows of Silence.”
“But he got away with it for years and still in a sense he’s getting away with it.”
The Vatican ordered a worldwide investigation into the Legion, founded in Mexico in 1941, last year. But its response to decades of allegations involving Maciel has been as slow and often reluctant as its reaction to the long-festering sex abuse scandals now erupting in Ireland, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
In 1997, nine former high-ranking seminarians accused Maciel, who died in 2008, of sexually abusing them when they were boys training for the priesthood. Last year, it was discovered Maciel had an illegitimate daughter born in 1986 in Spain. Two Mexican men who say they are Maciel’s sons claim he also sexually abused them as children.
With a leader said to be a manipulative monster who built a shadowy but powerful organization for elite, wealthy Catholics with schools in 22 countries – and a tradition of grooming handsome, clean-cut priests who all wear their hair parted on the left and black double-breasted suits — the Legion of Christ sounds straight out of a Dan Brown novel. But while Opus Dei, the other controversial conservative Catholic order, was made famous in Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code,” the Legion of Christ is virtually unknown to most Americans – at least on the surface.
Two of the most visible priests in America are Father Thomas Williams, a movie-star-handsome CBS News analyst, and Father Jonathan Morris, who is sometimes referred to as “Father Knows Best” on the Fox News Channel. They belong to the Legion of Christ but rarely identify themselves as such on camera.
“Dan Brown got the wrong group,” said Genevieve Kineke, an orthodox Catholic who was a member of Regnum Christi, the legion’s lay movement, from 1992 to 2000 and writes a blog about her experiences. “The Legion of Christ is the scary cult embedded in the bosom of the mother church. Not Opus Dei.”
Though the Vatican knew of improprieties involving Maciel as far back as 1956, he was praised and protected by John Paul II, who became pope in 1978 and once called Maciel “an efficacious guide to youth.”
Even when the former seminarians went public in 1997 about Maciel’s sexual abuse and filed a formal complaint with the Vatican, the church at first did nothing while the Legion and other high-profile conservative Catholics called them liars.
A book, Vows of Silence, written by Hartford Courant reporter Gerald Renner and writer Jason Berry, was published in 2004 with what one reviewer called “horror stories… of brainwashing, manipulation, pederast seduction rituals, character assassination, bribes, drug abuse, gulag-type threats — you name it.”
Shortly after that, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would succeed John Paul, ordered an investigation that ended with Maciel being consigned to a life of “prayer and penitence” after John Paul’s death in 2005. But the Legion itself was not condemned nor the victims acknowledged.
It wasn’t until the discovery that Maciel had a daughter living in Spain that the Vatican ordered the worldwide investigation, reportedly to find out who in the Legion knew about Maciel’s behavior and how it was covered up.
“Of course we’re shocked and disappointed by all of this,” said Jim Fair, the spokesman for the Legion of Christ in North America. “It’s as if Father Maciel lived in two different universes, like some old science fiction movie. And now it’s all blowing up.”
Fair said the order has “toned down the veneration,” such as often removing the photographs of Maciel that adorned Legion facilities. He added that the Legion welcomed the apostolic visitation, which is what the Vatican investigation is called.
“He was obviously a very flawed man,” said Fair. “It’s hard to reconcile the guy we now know with the man who built hundreds of seminaries. But we will go on. The work of the church is bigger than humans. It’s a little as if we found out Abraham Lincoln was a serial pedophile after he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”
Interviews with former members of the Legion and Regnum Christi paint a chilling picture of Maciel as a sociopathic master salesman who knew how to charm the upper echelon at the Vatican as well as enlist the wealthy and elite to his fast-growing order, all while using cult-like techniques.
“He created a structure that allowed sexual abuse, financial fraud and spiritual improprieties to go completely unchecked,” said Kineke. “Believe me, the best and the brightest got sucked into this scam. I was one. I was an elite bully for Christ.”
Kineke said part of Maciel’s allure was that he represented an old-school alternative in a modern, post-Vatican II world.
“But these recent incest claims have rattled even the sturdiest of cages,” she said.
Paul Lennon, 66, was a member of the order from 1961 to 1984 and directs ReGAIN, an organization founded by ex-Legionaries.
“It was nothing short of mind control,” said Lennon, who wrote a 2008 book about Maciel called Our Father Who Art in Bed. “He conned everybody.”
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, 70, who was named the world’s richest man by Forbes last week, has long been a supporter of the Legion. His children attended Legion schools in Mexico.
Harvard professor and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Mary Anne Glendon has also been a staunch supporter of the Legion.
But the man whom all Legionaries venerated as a near-saint and called “Nuestro Padre” (Our Father) allegedly led a double life as a pedophile and had at least two mistresses and three children.
“He destroyed my life,” said Juan Vaca, 73, a former superior of the Legion of Christ who said he was molested by Maciel for ten years beginning when he was 12. “I dreamt of being a good priest. He killed all my dreams.”
Vaca, like many interviewed by AOL News, doubts that the Vatican will make any lasting changes to the Legion of Christ, despite the investigation.
“The Vatican may distance itself a bit but the Legion is too powerful to shut down,” Vaca said.
Vaca who left the order in 1978, is an adjunct professor of psychology and sociology at Mercy College. He remembers the first night he was summoned to Maciel’s room. He said he found the man who was “a holy man, my mother and my father, everything to me,” masturbating in front of him.
“I turned into a block of ice,” said Vaca, who had left his family behind in Mexico to move to the order in Spain. “I was petrified.”
Vaca said 28 other young seminarians were sexually abused by Maciel at the same time he was, and adds that some of them “went on to abuse others as they grew up.”
That misuse of sex and power was an undercurrent that helped fuel the growth of the order, according to several former members of the Legion and Regnum Christi.
“Maciel always told me to recruit the most handsome boys from the best families,” said Vaca. “They were trained to approach rich women. I’m not saying they had sexual relationships with these women but they did know how to charm them.”
Kineke and others also said Legion priests are notoriously successful in winning over women to the church.
“They are spiritual seducers,” said another former Regnum Christi member. “They are the only priests I’ve seen who have swept people off their feet. These men woo women because they want access to our children and our husbands’ wallets.”
In an interview not long before his death in 2007, “Vows of Silence” author Gerald Renner said Maciel was not the only priest in the Legion who led a double life. Renner referred to one priest who he said was known as “the horndog of Rome” for his many affairs with women.
“The Legion by its very nature spawns people who lead double lives,” said Lennon. “Maciel was certainly not the only hypocrite in the Legion but he was definitely the worst one.”
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/secretive-catholic-order-founded-by-accused-pedophile-under-fire/19398262?icid=main|compaq-laptop|dl1|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fworld%2Farticle%2Fsecretive-catholic-order-founded-by-accused-pedophile-under-fire%2F19398262

[David Guyatt]

Is it just me, or do the brigade of paedo's invariably have very right-wing political leanings?