“Victims should know that the Pope is on their side." A MOST EGREGIOUS LIE!
After the release of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report revealing decades of clerical sex abuse and cover up, yesterday a Vatican spokesman declared, “Victims should know that the Pope is on their side. Those who have suffered are his priority, and the Church wants to listen to them to root out this tragic horror that destroys the lives of the innocent.” REALLY???
- On at least five occasions, Pope Francis was personally informed about sexual predators and did nothing to stop them.
- Currently, officials in Chile are raiding Church offices for information on clerical sex abuse because Pope Francis refuses to provide that information.
- On July 24, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, head of the Church in Chile, was accused of covering up sexual abuse. He covered up clerical sex abuse for decades even before Pope Francis elevated him to cardinal in 2014. Ezzati remains in office.
- Luis Ladaria Ferrer, elevated to cardinal May 20 and promoted to prefect of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope Francis, is awaiting a trial announced on April 4 by French authorities for covering up a child sex abuse scandal.
- Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga “had protected a pedophile priest from Costa Rica, a fugitive from Interpol, who was found in bed with an eight-year-old child by her mother.” Rodriquez Maradiaga was chosen by Pope Francis to head his Council of Cardinals to advise him on Church governance.
- Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, the retired archbishop of Santiago, made headlines in Chile for protecting a sexual predator long before Pope Francis chose him for his Council of Cardinals.
- Cardinal George Pell will stand trial for “historical sex abuse” in Australia. Before being chosen by Pope Francis, he made national headlines for his mistreatment of sex abuse survivors. When one former altar boy dared to sue, Pell “instructed his lawyers to “crush this victim.”
- “88 bishops worldwide have been accused publicly of sexual wrongdoing – 60 allegedly abused minors, and 28 are publicly accused of sexual abuse/sexual misconduct with adults only.” To date, only four have been laicized or “defrocked.”
- 14 still-active bishops have been accused of complicity with abusive priests
POPE FRANCIS DID NOT STOP THESE SEXUAL PREDATORS
Fr. Nicola Corradi
By open letter and video message “handed to Pope Francis” in May 2014, former students at the notorious Provolo Institute for the Deaf in Italy where more than one hundred deaf and mute children had been sexually abused, informed the pontiff that one of the predators, Fr. Nicola Corradi, held a current position at the Provolo Institute in Argentina.
The pope took no action to stop him.
Corradi and four others in the Argentine school were arrested in November 2016 and charged with raping and molesting at least 22 children. More reports poured in and “it’s now thought that as many as 60 children fell victim to abuse.” Prosecutors said the alleged anal and vaginal rapes, fondling and oral sex took place in the bathrooms, dorms, garden, basement and chapel. “Victims said they were taken to the Casita de Dios (the little house of God) where they were forced to perform sexual acts on one another and made to watch other students being abused.”
“One of the alleged victims said she witnessed how a girl was raped by one priest while the other one forced her to give him oral sex.” Another accused a nun “of making her wear a diaper to cover up a hemorrhage after she was raped by a priest” when she was five years old.
“The tormentors” knew “the other children wouldn’t hear the screams as they were deaf.”
Fr. Mauro Inzoli
The Vatican found the Italian priest guilty in 2012 of sexually abusing young boys and he was defrocked. But Inzoli is friends with Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio who “intervened on behalf of Inzoli and Pope Francis returned him to the priestly state in 2014, inviting him to ‘a life of humility and prayer.’” Inzoli was later seen at a conference on the family.
In June 2016, a civil court convicted Inzoli of eight incidents of sexual violence between 2004 and 2008 against five children aged 12-16. Fifteen more crimes were barred by the statute of limitations. Inzoli was sentenced to four years and nine months.
The Vatican had withheld information from their canonical trial from the civil prosecutors. “Of course, the pope could have allowed the Vatican to share this information with civil authorities if he so desired,” noted Michael Brendan Dougherty, senior correspondent at TheWeek.com.
The Inzoli case is one of several in which Francis overruled the advice of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and reduced a sentence that called for the priest to be laicized (defrocked). Instead, the priests were sentenced to penalties including a lifetime of penance and prayer and removal from public ministry. At the same time, Francis also ordered three longtime staffers at the CDF dismissed, two of whom worked for the discipline section that handles sex abuse cases.
Inzoli was defrocked again in May 2017 and is still serving his civil prison sentence.
Archbishop Josef Wesolowski
Wesolowski, the Vatican ambassador to the Dominican Republic, was accused of soliciting poor street boys for sex. Pope Francis was informed in July 2013. He dismissed Wesolowski in secret from his post but left him a free man.
The archbishop was finally arrested by the Vatican in September 2014 only after “there was a serious risk that the nuncio would be arrested on Italian territory at the request of the Dominican authorities and then extradited,” reported the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera. The archbishop was found with more than 100,000 computer files of child pornography, a “key ingredient” in sex trafficking.
Wesolowski died mysteriously while he was under house arrest in the Vatican on the eve of his trial which would have publicized the above information
Archbishop Anthony Apuron
Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron was accused by four former altar boys of rape and sexual assault in the 1970s. Apuron’s nephew filed a lawsuit Jan. 10, 2018, claiming that his uncle raped him in 1989 or 1990. On Aug. 9, another survivor accused Apuron of sexual abuse in 1994-1995.
Pope Francis removed Apuron from office in 2016, meaning the pope found the charges against the archbishop to be credible but leaving him with his title, honors, income, benefits and freedom.
Apuron’s “regular canonical trial” began in August 2017. He was found guilty on March 16, 2018, of “some [unspecified] charges.” The sentence was that he leave his position as archbishop of Guam and no longer reside there but “in the case of an appeal, the imposed penalties are suspended until a final resolution.” Apuron made his appeal the next day. So Apuron keeps his title, honors, income, benefits and freedom.
Sex abuse of minors in the Vatican’s preseminary
Pope Francis was personally informed of alleged sex abuse of minors in the Vatican’s preseminary for boys aspiring to become priests, according to Gianluigi Nuzzi’s book, Peccato Originale (Original Sin).
Nuzzi reported that Kamil Jarzembowski, who entered the St. Pius X preseminary at the age of 13, wrote a letter about the sexual abuse and handed it directly to Pope Francis.
The pope did nothing to stop it.
After Nuzzi’s book and an Italian television reported on the abuse, the Vatican said it opened an investigation on Nov. 18, 2017.
POPE FRANCIS REFUSES TO OPEN CHURCH RECORDS TO CHILEAN AUTHORITIES
On June 19, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, described as Pope Francis’ “top sex crimes expert,” was asked whether he would make public a report he had prepared and delivered to the pope in April regarding the sex abuse scandal in Chile. He responded “the decision was up to Pope Francis, adding that the Church’s ‘freedom and autonomy’ should be respected.”
On July 20, the head of the Chilean Catholic Church’s abuse prevention committee said he will not deliver Scicluna’s report to Chile’s attorney general. He said that “the pope is the only recipient of this report.”
The national prosecutor, Jorge Abbott, sent a letter on August 1 to the Vatican to request Church files “in criminal matters for nine persons who are being investigated by the regional prosecutors.” He has not received them.
On Aug. 9, a Chilean prosecutor confirmed that confiscation of records in the Military Bishopric was carried out due to possible concealment.
“The Chilean government asked the Vatican on Aug. 14 for documents related to sex abuse accusations against clergy in Chile, as local prosecutors raided another office of the Church in Santiago … Several offices of senior Church figures have been raided as prosecutors search for evidence of accusations of sexual abuse by clergy not reported to the civilian police, and evidence of cover-ups. Chilean prosecutors have said they are investigating 38 cases of sex crimes committed by clergy and lay people against minors and adults. There are 73 people under investigation and 104 victims, most of whom were minors at the time of the abuse.”
Also on Aug. 14, the National Prosecutor’s Office specifically asked the Vatican for access to the Scicluna report and canonical files of those investigated in cases of alleged sexual abuse against minors.
CARDINAL RICARDO EZZATI, HEAD OF THE CHURCH IN CHILE, IS CHARGED BY CIVIL AUTHORITIES WITH COVERING UP SEX ABUSE.
As archbishop of Santiago, Ezzati is considered the head of the Church in Chile. “Prosecutors investigating criminal accusations against bishops, clerics and lay workers in the Church in Chile are probing claims that Ezzati and others covered up a network of 14 priests who systematically abused minors.”
In a July 31 interview, prosecutor Emiliano Arias said he also “believes Ezzati knew that a former diocesan chancellor had received allegations of sexual misconduct” and did nothing. The chancellor was “a direct adviser” to Ezzati.
It was announced on Aug. 8 that the cardinal retained a high-powered attorney to represent him before the courts.
Ezzati covered up clerical sex abuse for decades even before Pope Francis elevated him to cardinal in 2014. He is still in office.
LUIS LADARIA FERRER, ELEVATED TO CARDINAL MAY 20 BY POPE FRANCIS, IS AWAITING A TRIAL ANNOUNCED ON APRIL 4 BY FRENCH AUTHORITIES FOR COVERING UP A CHILD SEX ABUSE SCANDAL.
Ladaria was accused of covering up a child sex abuse scandal by a French court on April 4, 2018. French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin had sought advice about the case of Fr. Bernard Preynat, accused of being a serial sex abuse predator, from Ladaria in 2015 when he was the No. 2 official in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ladaria advised Barbarin to keep it a secret and “avoid any public scandal.”
Far worse, in July 2017, Ladaria was accused of covering up for Fr. Gianni Trotta. The CDF received complaints against Trotta in 2009 and took three years to find him guilty of child sex abuse in 2012. Trotta was removed from the priesthood but the CDF did not contact the civil authorities. In fact, Ladaria wrote to Trotta’s bishop in 2012 instructing him not to divulge the reasons why Trotta had been laicized “so as to avoid scandal.”
Trotta continued to dress as a priest and became the coach of a youth soccer team.
Already convicted of sexual violence against an 11-year-old and sentenced to eight years in prison by a civil court, Trotta is now standing trial for nine other alleged cases of sex abuse against boys that occurred in 2014. “Trotta allegedly raped five, abused others in his home individually or in groups, photographing them during sexual acts.”
“If Ladaria had informed the police, these children would have been safe,” journalist and Vatican expert Emiliano Fittipaldi noted.
_____
It is idiotic to expect the Vatican to stop lying. But we should expect more truth-telling from our U.S. media.
Comments
Thanks, Betty. The truth needs to be out there, and
you are one of the few trying to ensure that it is.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
That's what I trying to do. Thank you, enhydra lutris. (n/t)
Betty Clermont
Worldwide pedophile rings
Based upon your reports about the Catholic church and now the Q anon posts, these are not isolated incidences limited to rogue pedophile priests, but are symptomatic multiple pedophile rings worldwide. Until relatively recently, few of us were even aware of the extent to which this pervertedness exists. The main reason for that is that pedophiles cover up for one another and often use blackmail to continue.
I am grateful for your posts here which shine a light into the darkest corners of the Catholic church. What I hope other people here will realize, that this is not limited to just the Catholic church but is pervasive in the halls of power and among the Hollywood elite too.
Thank you again, Betty. Please keep writing and posting.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Thank you for your encouragement, gulfgal98. (n/t)
Betty Clermont
I cross post all of your essays to c99's FB page.
You shine a light on something we all need to see.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
stats ~2002 94% offenders male 94% of the abused are female
Need to keep this in the light. Thank you.
Text to a performance piece I did in 2002
becausefuckthisshit
Childhood Sexual Abuse: Stop the Silence
Not only is incest taboo, but apparently talking about incest is taboo also. The word "incest" typically generates reactions. Rooms become silent. People change the subject. This long lived, societal taboo silences the voices of the very people that experience this atrocity.
What is incest? Let’s differentiate the definitions. Incestual assault is sexual contact between a closely related minor and an adult. Childhood sexual assault is perpetrated by non family members. A minor is defined as a child under the age of 14, 16 or 18 depending on the study. A contact offense is sexual penetration or sexual touching. A noncontact offense is exposure or voyeurism.
Over the past forty years there have been a number of different surveys on childhood sexual abuse and all of them have parallel statistics.
94% of offenders are male and 94% of the abused are female (Finkelhor & Russell, 1984). The American Humane Association Children's Division, in a publication of 1969, found that 92% of sexually abused children in their survey were girls and 97% of the child molesters were heterosexual men.
Studies show that childhood sexual assault is most often committed by people known to the child. These are typically men and come from all walks of life. They are criminals, priests, doctors, psychologists, and laborers. They are rich, poor, and are all races. There is no profile. None.
There is no national reporting system for crimes against children. Legal statutes applicable to sexual abuse of children within their families differ from state to state.
The most frequently quoted statistics on abuse state that one in three girls are victims and one in seven boys. Incest most often starts when the child is between one and three and lasts typically for seven long years. Those who first reveal the existence of abuse in their teens have probably been enduring it for years. In 1985, Dr. Arthur Green, director of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center's Family Center, was quoted in a United States Government public affairs pamphlet on incest as saying that the hospital was "horror struck" by the number of babies and preschool children brought in with genital injuries, gonorrheal infections of the throat, venereal warts, and syphilis. Dr. Michael Durfee, of the Los Angeles Department of health Services, reported in 1984, that more sexual abuse was reported on 2 year olds than any other age group. Three and four year olds were next. The height of an average two year old is 5.5 penises and an average penis has the same diameter as the child’s arm. Talk about weapons of mass destruction.
Currently, the best mechanism for determining the scope of child sexual abuse is through retrospective surveys of adult nonclinical populations. Such surveys show some variability because of differences in research methodology -- the population surveyed, survey methods, type and number of screen questions, and definitions of sexual abuse all influence the figures reported.
Two of the best studies show respectively 38% and 45% victimization by age 18 for contact offenses. Both studies had numerous screening questions, used broad definitions, and conducted in-person interviews (Russell, 1984, and Wyatt, 1985).
A telephone survey of a national probability sample of adults revealed 27% of women and 16% of men reported a contact sexual offense by age 18 (Finkelhor et al, 1990). Similarly, in a mail-out questionnaire, to a national, stratified, random sample 32% of females and 13% of males reported a history of contact sexual abuse (Elliott & Briere, 1995) In general, 90% of the perpetrators are heterosexual males and 80% of the victims are females. And, 90% of perpetrators are repeat offenders. Most often members or close friends of the extended family.
Why are perpetrators predominantly men? Men's power over women in patriarchal societies often results in men assuming rights of sexual access to women which often includes certain levels of force, coercion or abuse. Men are socialized to prefer younger, smaller, more innocent, and powerless partners. For men, the opportunity to be sexual is often linked to self-esteem. Such prerogatives are omnipresent in the media. Children mirror the same characteristics as the “weaker sex”.
Incest is a family issue. Interviews held in a Boston hospital with 42 children and adolescents who had been sexually traumatized indicated that half of the offenders were family members, including fathers, grandfathers and stepfathers. These assaults had continued for a period of time because the offenders' access to the children had never been questioned by other family members. In 1969 the Children's Division of the American Humane Association completed a study of 1,100 cases of child sexual abuse in the borough of New York. The organization found that 75% of the offenders were known to the children and their families. 27% of the offenders were members of the immediate household and another 21% were relatives who were not living in the home. The average age of the children who were victimized was eleven years and in 41% of the families studied the sexual abuse had continued for seven years.
Incest is an ugly business. In 1981 the report on child labor to the U. N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities singled out child prostitution as one of the 'most sickening' forms of economic exploitation of children. In the United Stated alone it has been estimated than more than 300,000 boys are sexually exploited outside their families, and the total for both sexes is likely to be more than twice as high.
Incest is horrific. In March 1988, Long Island Newsday published a report about a man accused of molesting a 1-month-old baby, who suffered permanent injury to her bowel.
Although the statistics we have are incomplete, confusing and somewhat inconsistent, they point to a problem of enormous dimension and implication for the lives of uncounted thousands of young people who carry their secret alone and in silence. Stop the silence.
edit - remove words and add thanks
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One of my very best friends in the world
who I have known for over 25 years (we still marvel at that sometimes as we don't live in the same state and haven't since we met) is helping to bring her brother in law to court for abusing his 3 children for years. He pitted the kids against each other, telling each of them the others were jealous. He told them my friend, their aunt, was not to be trusted and they shouldn't talk to her. Well, one of them finally opened up one night with details.
There are 2 girls and a boy. One of them is what we'd call functional I guess but the older girl is in and out of mental hospitals and the youngest boy doesn't stay in touch with family. It's a horrible thing, and my friend has waited 2 years to get law enforcement involved but finally got the kids to agree to it. Two jurisdictions their family lived in have agreed to indict him, and that's recent, has not happened yet or I have not heard yet. He married again and that woman also has 3 children...
Edit to add: The kids' mother died early and young of cancer. I do not know how long she was sick but I believe it was an extended period of time. I know my friend suffers from not seeing it, but she knows full well that is how predators operate and they are skilled at covering their tracks. None of the family saw it but they do now.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Childhood abuse leaves lifetime scars
The secrecy and the silence are the rules that abusers make the abused agree to during the time of the abuse and it lasts for years, decades, lifetimes. As do the scars.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Yes, incest leaves lifetime scars...
Good on your friend for getting involved and pushing for justice. It is always horrific. And it is great that the abused children and willing to get the law involved. Most predators (see stats above) are repeat offenders so the other children in his new marriage have a high probability of being abused by him as well. Well, I hope they put him in prison. I am sending your friend good thoughts and strength.
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Our FB page is open to anyone who wants to post on it
If you would like that posted, let me know.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
yes...
You may publish it. Always good to get the word out. Thanks.
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But, but I thought that this pope was going to clean up
The Catholic Church? And that he is the most progressive pope evah? Francis is just one more pope whose job it is to make sure that the church gets to keep its wealth.
Thanks, Betty. I erased my long comment because you have said it before and much better.
"Will no one rid us of these pedophilic priests?"
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Jimmy Dore nails Francis
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Thank you dkmich and snoopydawg for your help and encouragement
And the discussion on sex abuse of children within the family is horrifying and requires attention and action!
Betty Clermont
Temple of the boy-rapists
Another temple which Jesus may not have respected.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Age old conflict. Church is immune to secular rule.
The Pope and his foot soliders believe they are beyond secular laws. this has gone on for centuries. No crime committed by clergy is under the perview of the state.
The Catholic Church is a criminal organization. The criminality of the is not accidental but deliberate.
One group in the Church which has gotten away with heinous crimes are all the orders of Nuns. At my Church while the parish priest was just an ugly drunk and alcoholic, the nuns in teaching elementary school on the grounds of the church were viciously beating some of us kids. This violence was also endemic to the Church. I used to swap stories from other kids in the Catholic school system with the beatings we endured.
But few understand the dupilicity of the nuns in covering up rapist and pedophile priests. Nuns lived in, taught in, maintained, cooked in , cleaned the churches were they were assigned. They were everywhere in church property and rituals. They knew and saw what was going on, but never said anything.