I think I am at the place........... THEM ALL......put any and all of them in prison, the folks the covered up, moved around, re-assigned are as guilty at the ACTUAL perpetrator. Am I a nut? It is just a natural outgrowth of maturing and leaving a cult? Where does this fit for ME?
quote: I am constantly at war with myself....what makes the rc's more culpable?
Hi ROR -- I think they are more *culpable* (at least in the eye's of the public), simply because they are a huge denomination, and "main-stream" enough to garner the negative attention.
I wish all that did the same could be called into account by the same lawsuits that the RC's are now seeing visited upon them and their ranks --- but unfortunately, it seems that only the really big outfits get the attention when they do something wrong.
btw -- when scandals hit *big-time* folks like it did with Jim Baker and Tammy Faye, Jimmy Swaggart, etc. -- the media is all over them too. The larger and more prestigious the group, the more you sell the news stories. Perhaps this is the reason, I don't know for sure --- it's just a thought.
quote:.....put any and all of them in prison, the folks the covered up, moved around, re-assigned are as guilty at the ACTUAL perpetrator. Am I a nut?
No -- no nut! :)-->
You're right --- those that intentionally cover up a deed, are guilty too. It's a travesty that none of the *back-room boys* who allowed this sort of thing to continue (albeit in different parishes), are called to question as well.
Only a few months seperate the Jim&TammyFaye Bakker and PASSING OF THE PATRIARC.
I had a very personal and direct conversation with Donna Martindale during that time. I asked her if she felt there was any similarities between the Bakkers and twi. She was utterly ....ed off at me for asking.
What does it mean for those of us that were there at the time, but knew nothing, Radar? Nothing. There is no law against naivet?or stupidity.
The only culpability is toward those who knew there was coercion, drugging, or minors involved. Adultery, in and of itself, is not a crime, just a reason to not be in charge of a ministry.
I smack myself upside da head quite a bit. And I contribute to this forum, in hopes that my little part of the story will help others understand what happened to them.
what the RC church did and what the Way did are very different.
The way leaders used their power to influence and coerce their victims. With only one exception that I know of, they were adults.
The RC church had PEDOPHILES on their payrolls. These scumbuckets Robbed naive children of their innocence. It was Rape, although Statuatory. Then when it came to light, these priests were simply transferred, to freely do it again. With the veil of secrecy and superiority, they continued their sick and sadistic crimes against children.
Well, I BELIEVE that twi had a rapist on the payroll and the entire bot knew it, condoned it, and covered it up. I think twi should be completely culpable for the actions of it's LEADERSHIP for their actions.
The catholic church should sure as hell be responsible for the actions of their clergy...I just wish the courts could figure out how to charge and win against the INDIVIDUALS and THE CHURCH. There is virtually no way the catholic church can be bankrupted.....how else does HUMANITY voice their disapproval? IT SUCKS big time.
Did anyone watch the trial today? The accuser broke down on the stand and begged the judge not to make him come back tomorrow. According to courttv, one of the other 3 men that won the civil case against Shanley, came out of the prelim, and vomited and then refused to join in the criminal case. I really hope that there is some sort of special hell for attorneys!!!
having come from an abusive (large family,roman cahtolic) childhood dah dah dah
yup it's true i'm not the only a$$hole target, kinda runs in our family
my little brothers were raped my a priest. a little while ago ONE of them met before the board of CATHOLICS (with an attorney). the other brother couldn't bear to be involved
here's this wonderful gorgeous man (with a heart of gold, i might add) sobbing and re-living everything that happened to him. with this panel of bastards questioning him
a certain monsignor was supposed to be on the panel but didn't show up when he found out who would be telling their story (cover up, and he damn well knew it)
anyway, father butler had come to us from new york (i can't recall which borough but i have it somewhere) after having abused boys there
then they sent him on from our parish
finally he got exposed
this bastard is in his late 70's now and he made it through AT LEAST 3 parishes that i know of
anyway my brother got jack sheet
whatever the lawyer did in setting up this table discussion or whatever the law are i don't know
i just know that the bastard ruined two of my kid brothers for a long long time
The bastards may escape man's judgment but God's judgment is another story. Seems like I remember something about it being better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast in the sea than to offend one of these little ones.
Secondly, there were, according to testimony in the trial, no accusations levied against this guy until 1993, after he had left the Boston diocese. This victim had his memories repressed until 2002. The victim related that his accuser said, "He told me nobody would ever believe me if I told anybody." This should be a warning to parents out there to maintain trust and communication with their kids. Years of abuse cannot get fixed after the fact. Note: I am not defending the Boston archdiocese here. But the fact of the matter is that had an accusation been levied when he was doing the abuse, it would have been far more likely that something could have been done to stop it. Judging from Cardinal Law's actions in the Geoghan case, I'm not saying that this would have happened, but there's no way that it could have been fixed after the fact. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people in positions of authority who use that authority to take advantage of children. Priests, ministers, teachers, pshrinks, etc. Its a lot easier for an abuser to say "nobody will believe you" if there are barriers to communication between the child and his parents.
Bottom line: there were a lot of mistakes made by a lot of people. Due to the negligence of people in positions of authority, an (objectively disordered) evil man was allowed to ruin a minimum of one life and, in all likelihood, many, many more. May God have mercy on that (objectively disordered) evil man's soul, because I won't. My only wish is that Bernard Law somehow be held accountable for his (at a minimum) negligence or (at a maximum) conspiracy.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in the sex scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese, was convicted Monday of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at his Roman Catholic church during the 1980s.
The conviction on all four charges gives prosecutors an important victory in their effort to bring pedophile priests to justice for decades of abuse at parishes around the country.
Shanley, 74, could get life in prison for two counts each of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child when he is sentenced Feb. 15. His bail was revoked and he was immediately led off to jail.
The victim, now 27, put his head down and sobbed as the verdicts were announced after a trial that turned on the reliability of what the man claimed were recovered memories of the long-ago abuse. Shanley showed no emotion as he stood next to his lawyer.
The jury deliberated 13 hours over three days.
During the trial, the accuser broke down on the stand as he testified in graphic detail that Shanley pulled him out of Sunday morning catechism classes and molested him in the bathroom, the rectory, the confessional and the pews starting when he was 6 and continuing for six years.
"He told me nobody would ever believe me if I told anybody," he testified.
The accuser said that he repressed his memories of the abuse but that they came flooding back three years ago, triggered by news coverage of the scandal that began in Boston and soon engulfed the church worldwide.
Shanley, once a long-haired, jeans-wearing "street priest" who worked with Boston's troubled youth, sat stoically for most of the trial, listening to his accuser's testimony with the help of a hearing aid.
The defense called just one witness — a psychologist who said that so-called recovered memories can be false, even if the accuser ardently believes they are true. A lawyer for Shanley argued that the accuser was either mistaken or concocted the story with the help of personal injury lawyers to cash in on a multimillion-dollar settlement resulting from the sex scandal.
The accuser, now a firefighter in suburban Boston, was one of at least two dozen men who claimed they had been molested by Shanley. The archdiocese's own personnel records showed that church officials knew Shanley publicly advocated sex between men and boys, yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish.
Prosecutors said the young man had no financial motivation in accusing Shanley of rape in the criminal case because he received his $500,000 settlement with the archdiocese nearly a year ago. They also cited his wrenching three days on the stand, during which he sobbed and begged the judge not to force him to continue testifying.
"The emotions were raw. They were real," prosecutor Lynn Rooney said in closing arguments.
Rodney Ford, whose son Greg was one of three accusers dropped from the case, called the verdict "a relief for my son, and all the other victims."
"The validation that all the victims of Paul Shanley must feel today must be unbelievable," Ford said.
Shanley's niece disagreed.
"There are no winners today. There are only losers," Teresa Shanley said. "We're no closer to finding out the truth about this scandal or finding out what happened."
Frank Mondano, Shanley's lawyer, said he will appeal. "It appears that the absence of a case is not an impediment to securing a conviction," he said.
Shanley is one of the few priests prosecutors have been able to charge. Most of the priests accused of wrongdong escaped prosecution because the statute of liminations ran out long ago. But in Shanley's case, the clock stopped when he moved out of Massachusetts.
He was arrested in California at the height of the scandal in May 2002, and brought back to Massachusetts in handcuffs — charged with raping four boys from his parish in Newton, outside Boston. All four claimed they repressed memories of the abuse, then recovered them when the scandal broke.
But the case ran into numerous problems. In July, prosecutors dropped two of the accusers in what they said was a move to strengthen their case. Then, on the day jury selection began, they dropped a third accuser because they were unable to find him after a traumatic experience on the witness stand at a hearing last fall.
The clergy abuse scandal in Boston began in early 2002 when Cardinal Bernard Law acknowledged he shuffled a pedophile priest from parish to parish despite evidence the priest had molested children. That priest, John Geoghan, was convicted of assault and was later killed in prison.
The scandal intensified later in 2002 when the church released Shanley's 800-page personnel file. Despite church teachings, he argued for acceptance of homosexuality and pushed for gay rights. He called himself a "sexual expert" and advertised his counseling services in the alternative press.
He resigned from parish work in 1989 and moved to California. At the time, Law, who resigned as archbishop in December 2002 at the height of the scandal, praised his "impressive record." Boston church officials recommended him for a job in the Diocese of San Bernardino as a priest in "good standing."
Recommended Posts
krys
IMHO they aren't more culpable just a bigger organization so more individuals were hurt.
Both organizations are equally guilty of the same heinous crimes.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Radar OReilly
Thanks Krys,
I think I am at the place........... THEM ALL......put any and all of them in prison, the folks the covered up, moved around, re-assigned are as guilty at the ACTUAL perpetrator. Am I a nut? It is just a natural outgrowth of maturing and leaving a cult? Where does this fit for ME?
any ideas?
ror
Edited by PawtucketLink to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
Hi ROR -- I think they are more *culpable* (at least in the eye's of the public), simply because they are a huge denomination, and "main-stream" enough to garner the negative attention.
I wish all that did the same could be called into account by the same lawsuits that the RC's are now seeing visited upon them and their ranks --- but unfortunately, it seems that only the really big outfits get the attention when they do something wrong.
btw -- when scandals hit *big-time* folks like it did with Jim Baker and Tammy Faye, Jimmy Swaggart, etc. -- the media is all over them too. The larger and more prestigious the group, the more you sell the news stories. Perhaps this is the reason, I don't know for sure --- it's just a thought.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dmiller
No -- no nut!
:)-->
You're right --- those that intentionally cover up a deed, are guilty too. It's a travesty that none of the *back-room boys* who allowed this sort of thing to continue (albeit in different parishes), are called to question as well.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Radar OReilly
Oak.....glad you started this thread with m
Only a few months seperate the Jim&TammyFaye Bakker and PASSING OF THE PATRIARC.
I had a very personal and direct conversation with Donna Martindale during that time. I asked her if she felt there was any similarities between the Bakkers and twi. She was utterly ....ed off at me for asking.
What do you think about the church's culpability>
ror
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Shellon
Link to comment
Share on other sites
shazdancer
What does it mean for those of us that were there at the time, but knew nothing, Radar? Nothing. There is no law against naivet?or stupidity.
The only culpability is toward those who knew there was coercion, drugging, or minors involved. Adultery, in and of itself, is not a crime, just a reason to not be in charge of a ministry.
I smack myself upside da head quite a bit. And I contribute to this forum, in hopes that my little part of the story will help others understand what happened to them.
Regards,
Shaz
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Shellon
Shaz: I smack myself upside da head quite a bit
================================================
Me too Shaz and think about it WAY too much. My thinker hurts, I think I'll stop it now.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
pawtucket
what the RC church did and what the Way did are very different.
The way leaders used their power to influence and coerce their victims. With only one exception that I know of, they were adults.
The RC church had PEDOPHILES on their payrolls. These scumbuckets Robbed naive children of their innocence. It was Rape, although Statuatory. Then when it came to light, these priests were simply transferred, to freely do it again. With the veil of secrecy and superiority, they continued their sick and sadistic crimes against children.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
excathedra
damn right pawtucket
haven't read the thread yet too close to home
Link to comment
Share on other sites
CoolWaters
TWI was caught in aiding, abetting and harboring pedophiles only once...
The truth is that it was far more common than anyone could possibly imagine.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Radar OReilly
Paw,
Well, I BELIEVE that twi had a rapist on the payroll and the entire bot knew it, condoned it, and covered it up. I think twi should be completely culpable for the actions of it's LEADERSHIP for their actions.
The catholic church should sure as hell be responsible for the actions of their clergy...I just wish the courts could figure out how to charge and win against the INDIVIDUALS and THE CHURCH. There is virtually no way the catholic church can be bankrupted.....how else does HUMANITY voice their disapproval? IT SUCKS big time.
Did anyone watch the trial today? The accuser broke down on the stand and begged the judge not to make him come back tomorrow. According to courttv, one of the other 3 men that won the civil case against Shanley, came out of the prelim, and vomited and then refused to join in the criminal case. I really hope that there is some sort of special hell for attorneys!!!
ror
Link to comment
Share on other sites
excathedra
having come from an abusive (large family,roman cahtolic) childhood dah dah dah
yup it's true i'm not the only a$$hole target, kinda runs in our family
my little brothers were raped my a priest. a little while ago ONE of them met before the board of CATHOLICS (with an attorney). the other brother couldn't bear to be involved
here's this wonderful gorgeous man (with a heart of gold, i might add) sobbing and re-living everything that happened to him. with this panel of bastards questioning him
a certain monsignor was supposed to be on the panel but didn't show up when he found out who would be telling their story (cover up, and he damn well knew it)
anyway, father butler had come to us from new york (i can't recall which borough but i have it somewhere) after having abused boys there
then they sent him on from our parish
finally he got exposed
this bastard is in his late 70's now and he made it through AT LEAST 3 parishes that i know of
anyway my brother got jack sheet
whatever the lawyer did in setting up this table discussion or whatever the law are i don't know
i just know that the bastard ruined two of my kid brothers for a long long time
and sadly.... oh never mind
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Radar OReilly
((Exxie))
ror
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Belle
(((((excathedra)))))
I'm so sorry for you and your brothers.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
oenophile
Exie,
The bastards may escape man's judgment but God's judgment is another story. Seems like I remember something about it being better to have a millstone tied around your neck and cast in the sea than to offend one of these little ones.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
markomalley
Well, the verdict came in:
And let me say that I certainly hope that:
1) He has a really appropriate cellmate (pun intended) in prison
2) That they make him suffer greatly before slowly killing him
3) That he has a special place in hell reserved
There are a couple of interesting little tidbits about this case that I found interesting:
First, the case was based primarily on "repressed memories" of his victim, as reported by The memory is a weird thing to rely upon. Does anybody here remember a daycare scandal from California several years ago (early 1980s, I believe) There is a condition called "false memory syndrome" that discusses this. You can see this site for more information. Note: I am not saying that this was the case here -- there was corroborating evidence that supported the recovered memories of the victim.
Secondly, there were, according to testimony in the trial, no accusations levied against this guy until 1993, after he had left the Boston diocese. This victim had his memories repressed until 2002. The victim related that his accuser said, "He told me nobody would ever believe me if I told anybody." This should be a warning to parents out there to maintain trust and communication with their kids. Years of abuse cannot get fixed after the fact. Note: I am not defending the Boston archdiocese here. But the fact of the matter is that had an accusation been levied when he was doing the abuse, it would have been far more likely that something could have been done to stop it. Judging from Cardinal Law's actions in the Geoghan case, I'm not saying that this would have happened, but there's no way that it could have been fixed after the fact. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of people in positions of authority who use that authority to take advantage of children. Priests, ministers, teachers, pshrinks, etc. Its a lot easier for an abuser to say "nobody will believe you" if there are barriers to communication between the child and his parents.
Third, I find it interesting that this guy was apparently an activist for the Church to change its teaching on homosexuality. According to the article below, "Despite church teachings, he argued for acceptance of homosexuality and pushed for gay rights. He called himself a "sexual expert" and advertised his counseling services in the alternative press." That should have been some sort of a warning signal, IMO. And, Abigail, I know that you made a definitive (but unsupported) statement that most pedophiles are heterosexual, but, the fact of the matter is that of children victimized by priests were male. The position of the Church for several years was (and no longer is) that a homosexual could be ordained, as long as they lived celibately. The Church also teaches that a homosexual inclination is "objectively disordered" while saying that people with this inclination must be "accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity." Why they would ordain somebody with an inclination that they themselves identify as "objectively disordered" is beyond me. I look at it this way: had the Church not made this (imo) error, several of the cases of reported male-male abuse cases would not have happened. I realize that some of the cases would have still happened, but not nearly that high a number. (Yes, I realize that I'm going to get flamed here, but, oh well. Been flamed before, will happen again)
Bottom line: there were a lot of mistakes made by a lot of people. Due to the negligence of people in positions of authority, an (objectively disordered) evil man was allowed to ruin a minimum of one life and, in all likelihood, many, many more. May God have mercy on that (objectively disordered) evil man's soul, because I won't. My only wish is that Bernard Law somehow be held accountable for his (at a minimum) negligence or (at a maximum) conspiracy.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stayed Too Long
"There is virtually no way the catholic church can be bankrupted....."
Tucson and Portland Diocese's have filed because of the sexual abuse payments.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stayed Too Long
"Well, I BELIEVE that twi had a rapist on the payroll and the entire bot knew it..."
As Pawtucket pointed out TWI used their power to influence and coerce Adults not children.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.