Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal Nears Pope

(CBS)  A papal letter of apology is the latest effort to save the Catholic Church from a scandal that threatens to become a plague of Biblical proportions.

Even Pope Benedict XVI has admitted that the Church has been "severely shaken" by repeated allegations of high-level cover-ups of sexual abuse and demands for a clear apology.

"My hope is that it (the letter) will help in the process of repentance, healing and renewal," the pontiff said earlier this week.

The letter will be released on Saturday, but CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports that it's unlikely to assuage the anger of victims in parishes from the U.S. to Ireland., the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Brazil.

"I don't think a pastoral letter is the proper context in which to respond to a report about the cover up the rape of children," said Andrew Madden, an abuse victim.

Government-ordered inquiries in Ireland have documented cases of abuse and cover-ups between the 1930s and 1990s that involved more than 15,000 children.

"Children were sworn to secrecy, having made allegations against a priest, and subsequently that priest was allowed to carry on being a priest," said Madden.

In fact, the practice of protecting offending priests at the expense of the victims reportedly involved the Pope himself. When he was an archbishop in Germany, at least one known offender was moved from one parish to another.

A Germany psychiatrist told the New York Times in a story published Friday that he repeatedly warned the diocese Benedict then headed about the priest in question.

"I said, 'For God's sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,'" the psychiatrist, Dr. Werner Huth, told the Times in a phone interview from Munich. "I was very unhappy about the entire story."
His alleged warnings, which were repeated to Benedict's senior aids, went unheeded.

German bishops have now recommended what they termed, "a compulsory registration of suspected sexual and physical abuse cases to state prosecutors."

"I don't want to blame the Pope," Archbishop Reinhard Marx said in Germany. "We as bishops have the responsibility in our dioceses."

Be that as it may, what really matters now is how far the Pope will go towards righting a massive wrong that just seems to keep on growing.

[DennieWilliams40]

I read with great interest a Page One New York Times story yesterday (Monday, May 3, 2010) about Pope Benedict's failures to resolve the scandalous sexually abusive conduct of one of the Catholic Church's most powerful former leaders, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. I am astonished that it took the paper so long to report on this story. It was published repeatedly years ago in The Hartford Courant, The National Catholic Reporter and in a book by the very same writers, Jason Berry and the late Gerald Renner, a Courant reporting colleague of mine. In fact, on March 18, over six weeks ago I sent The New York Times an email (attached) that informed the paper of these investigative stories and the book, "Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II." At that time in March of this year, the cover ups of scores of pedophilia episodes by priests were the subject of repetitious nationwide news stories. They raised questions about whether Pope Benedict took proper actions to deal with these decades of scandals either as Pope or as Cardinal Ratzinger, then directly responsible for oversight of such inquiries. This story line has continued rumbling for a couple of months. During that time, the Vatican was highly critical of The Times for its coverage by suggesting the paper was being too harsh on the Pope. And in one story, The Times used a history, apparently supplied by church officials, to suggest that Benedict's final forced retiring of The Rev. Degollado showed what a fine job the Pope was doing. That is exactly why it was so critical for The Times to discover and write the whole story about how Benedict, as Pope, and as the former Cardinal Ratzinger, repeatedly failed for years to take prompt action against the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. Meanwhile, he continued working as an extremely powerful church figure and leader uninterrupted.
As I wrote you in March: Renner and Berry implicated the Rev. Maciel Degollado, the Mexican founder of the powerful Legionaries of Christ, in molesting nine former male students between the ages of 10 and 16 while they were attending church schools. The story and follow-on articles first appeared in The Courant in 1997 when Pope John Paul II reigned. For years, the Rev. Degollado, the former Pope and the church leadership emphatically denied the overwhelming truth of the in depth articles. The Vatican hired two high priced lawyers to check into the stories, attorneys who offered the press little insight into the situation, Renner told me after the stories appeared. In fact, one of them tried to intimidate the reporters by producing a retraction from one of Maciel's alleged victims. It wasn't until Berry's and Renner's book about the scandal, ready to be translated into Spanish, the language of some of the Rev. Degollado's victims, that Pope Benedict finally forced his retirement and relieved him of his duties. Berry's and Renner's fine and detailed inquiries showed that both as Cardinal and as Pope Benedict failed to take effective action against the Rev. Degollado and his final action failed to recommend him for removal from the church or prosecution.



Sincerely,

Thomas "Dennie" Williams, Freelance Writer

PO Box 511, 56 Brush Hill Road, Litchfield, Ct. 06759

Telephone [phone]

[laffewi]

As Titus 1:16 states " They publicly declare they know God, but they disown him by their works. Because they are detestable......"
Christ warned of wolves in sheep's covering falsely professing to be his followers. Christ said by their fruitage you would recognize both True and False Christianity. What kind of fruitage has the Catholic Church produced??? Priests too numerous to keep track of that are wicked Gay/pedophile wolf-like sexual predators of innocent children!!!Read Matthew 7:15-23,Christ disowns them by saying "Get away from me you workers of lawlessness, I never knew you!!!" Very soon Almighty God will put it in the hearts of Governments to do away with all FALSE RELIGION as is prophesied at Revelation chapters 17&18 leaving only True Christianity remaining. Christ also states at John 8:32 that "the Truth will set you free." from false religion. To find the Truth and True Christians one must study and follow the Bible which is God's word the only truth,guide and solution to the wickedness so rampant in today's world.

[laffewi]

As Titus 1:16 states " They publicly declare they know God, but they disown him by their works. Because they are detestable......"
Christ warned of wolves in sheep's covering falsely professing to be his followers. Christ said by their fruitage you would recognize both True and False Christianity. What kind of fruitage has the Catholic Church produced??? Priests too numerous to keep track of that are wicked Gay/pedophile wolf-like sexual predators of innocent children!!!Read Matthew 7:15-23,Christ disowns them by saying "Get away from me you workers of lawlessness, I never knew you!!!" Very soon Almighty God will put it in the hearts of Governments to do away with all FALSE RELIGION as is prophesied at Revelation chapters 17&18 leaving only True Christianity remaining. Christ also states at John 8:32 that "the Truth will set you free." from false religion. To find the Truth and True Christians one must study and follow the Bible which is God's word the only truth,guide and solution to the wickedness so rampant in today's world.

[markmarks1]

Ok so the Pope said ?refrain from judging sinners? and this comes a day after he rebuked Irish bishops for their handling of a half-century of sexual abuse of minors by clergy!!! ?It was as if he didn?t say a word on it and no one was surprised? is what a news reporter said. I mean just so I am clear on what the rules are - someone commits a heinous act and others in positions of authority cover it up, then all they have to do is say, "oops, sorry," when they are caught. You know if that is the new rule, then we can start closing down all the prisons and jails because I'm sure all the criminals caught from now on will be happy to simply say they are ?just so sorry from the bottoms of their hearts?. Seriously though most Priests are there for the people and hate these criminals?this was actually interesting though?
<a href="http://ketiva.com/News_and_Events/pope_rebukes_irish_bishops__makes_no_mention_in_weekly_address.html">http://ketiva.com/News_and_Events/pope_rebukes_irish_bishops__makes_no_mention_in_weekly_address.html</a>

[from_the_north]

Seems like the Catholic church has just turned into one of the worlds biggest businesses. It lost the teachings of Jesus somewhere along the way, making way for pedophile wierdos to be free to do what they want with little kids. There is no punishment for them - they just get sent to another community so they can abuse some more poor kids.

[rrfrankie]

It seems the Church is really shooting itself in the foot with this latest request from the pontiff.
Pope Benedict XVI extends an invitation to Boy Scouts:

http://www.youtube.com/user/rrfrankie?feature=mhw4#p/u/18/H9csR_VOXMU

[ToolMangler1]

Whether or not the Pope is even slightly tainted in this scandal, the MSM will hammer at every word coming from any source until they have made the Pontiff appear guilty. It is like this anytime that a Religious organization comes under scrutiny. The Media report their version of the facts, not the truth. The Media is controlling the world more and more.

[SueZeeeQue]

Ok Skippy, the gist of this story is that the Catholic church, including it's very highest leadership, has been aiding and protecting child molesters within it's ranks for decades.


The fact that the church would pursue a policy of protecting molesters over protecting thousands of innocent children for decades, should cause you just a moment of pause if you are a sane person.

[AttentionDeficit]

Sticking your head in the ground and ignoring everything is the answer, ToolMangler

[SueZeeeQue]

Of course these are the very same religious lunatics that believe they have the moral authority to tell everyone else how to live.

The Catholic church is anti-choice and pro-molestation.

Nice.........

[RespectOthersAlways]

The cover-up continues. In all reports, the church has tried to give the false impression that these crimes of rape against children happened way in the past -- 1930s to 1990. Uhm? When will the files be opened on 1990 to 2010.

[rev_hellhorn]

Apparently the story is that His Holiness will express regret that the Church's "No Child's Behind Left Untouched" policy was ever publicly mentioned in any language other than the original Latin. After all, it's been a perk for the clergy since long before Peter, why get upset now?