´óÏó´«Ã½

He know plenty but ain't saying!

Italy and the USA have had an extradition treaty since 1983. Why hasn't the Italian police arrested Bernard Law and delivered him to the proper authorities to return to the USA and face indictments? He has liberty, a very luxurious lifestyle and is still on a pedestal, why?

"After his resignation, John Paul appointed Law to a post in Rome, putting him in charge of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with the title of Archpriest.[6] He is also a member of the Congregations for the Oriental Churches, the Clergy, Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Evangelisation of Peoples, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Catholic Education, Bishops as well as the Pontifical Council for the Family. He held membership of all these congregations and of the council before resigning from the governance of the Archdiocese of Boston, and at that time was also a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.[7]"



Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is in the City of Rome and is well outside of Vatican property. I am suggesting that if Italian police will not nab the blighter then INTERPOL can do the job.

The only way for this 'church' to survive is to come clean on everthing they know. I mean the church, not Mr Ratzinger etc.

DK

That report is another journalistic hand grenade thrown into the heart of the Vatican .
Incidentally am I the only person that feels this scandal is beginning to resemble Watergate. In the same way that Watergate ultimately led back to Richard Nixon it looks like this one is increasingly leading to the door of the Pope himself.
Can the Pope survive evidence of personal complicity in covering up criminal assault of children? More interestingly can the Roman church survive with a Pope the world is beginning to believe is guilty of such cover up?
As more revelations come to light it may not just be conservative Protestants and secular atheists who don't want the pope about the place.

"A perfect storm."

William:

I think that the Pope knows more than he is going to revealled....But, I am not convicting anyone of any troubles.

(Dennis Junior)

Lucy - do try and check some of your facts before posting. Cardinal Law regularly returns to the United States. There is no warrant on him, there is no need for extradition. If the US police want to question him they have only to ask.

And St Mary Majors is part of the Vatican State.

As for this latest story - there are no shock waves because Catholics realise that when stories originate in the New York Times they tend to consist of assertions rather than facts.

The Vatican was informed about this case in 1996, forty years after the first suspicions. Because of his age, state of ill health and the long passage of time, they didn't proceed with a canonical tribunal. Earlier this month Msgr. Charles Scicluna, the chief Vatican prosecutor in sex-abuse cases, explained that in many cases involving elderly or ailing priests, the CDF chooses to forego a full canonical trial, instead ordering the priest to remove himself from public ministry and devote his remaining days to penance and prayer. This was, in effect, the final result of the Vatican's inquiry in this case; Father Murphy died just months later.

This is a story about the abject failure of the Milwaukee archdiocese to discipline a dangerous priest. There is nothing here to implicate the Holy Father in any shape or form. You'll have to find your mud elsewhere.

And of course in the midst of the NYTimes story we have "but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims". So the police and prosecutors did nothing. Why is there no hue and cry over them?

Here is a little question:
If the Pope knew about or was involved in the cover up of child abuse in the Catholic Church can he be sacked? Has there ever been a time when a Pope was removed as head of the Church?

This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain.

Ah..., same old stuff from the ´óÏó´«Ã½: Blatantly Bashing Catholics

@ mccamleyc you wrote:

"Lucy - do try and check some of your facts before posting. Cardinal Law regularly returns to the United States." Do you have some facts to back up that claim? Please post links.

Christopher Hitchens, Slate, April 14, 2008



"However, suppressing information about a crime can also be a crime in itself, and Cardinal Law and seven of his bishops were at one stage subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury."

Andrew Brown, Guardian, March 17, 2010



"Benedict's otherwise inexplicable and indefensible decision to give a job in Rome to Cardinal Bernard Law, who presided over terrible scandals in Boston and is wanted by a grand jury. A pope who wished to end the crisis would sack Law, and order him to return to face the grand jury."

Is Italy or the USA complacent in protecting Bernard Law? If the man sets foot in the USA subpoenas will be slapped on him and if the criminal justice system isn't up to doing the job then civil litigation will proceed.

Lucy - you wrote: "However, suppressing information about a crime can also be a crime in itself, and Cardinal Law and seven of his bishops were at one stage subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury."
Andrew Brown, Guardian, March 17, 2010

Your implication was that Cardinal Law has a subpoena hanging over and is being protected from its execution by Vatican/Italy/US.

The reality is of course that Cardinal Law testified before the Grand Jury in Feb 2003. You can read about it in the New York Times here:


The article notes that "Until 2002, Massachusetts did not have a law requiring the clergy to report accusations of sexual abuse to law enforcement officials. It also lacked a law prohibiting endangerment of children. Moreover, most of the cases of priests accused of abusing children occurred years ago, before the early 1990's, putting them outside the statute of limitations."

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly in releasing the report on a 16-month investigation, said that, though he wished it were otherwise, he could find no criminal statute under which he could prosecute church leaders, including Cardinal Bernard F. Law.

So, Lucy, while we might not like the behaviour of Cardinal Law and other bishops in this matter, your notion that he is fleeing justice and protected by the Vatican is a fantasy.

jboy - # 7

I think they used poison quite a bit in the Middle Ages. If he becomes a major embarrassment Joseph should maybe think of employing a food-taster...

Oi Parr!! Who said you could butt in on this thread? Get back to yer own!!

I am becoming more and more intrigued by post no. 8 now entering its fourth day of moderation. Is this a record? It is about Cardinal Levada, presently head of the CDF, but maybe not for long if what I have written about him happens to be investigated and found to be true.

If it is eventually kicked into touch, I shall write it all again, but this time make use of the word "allegedly."

MCC

Post no. 6 - "When stories originate in the New York Times they tend to consist of assertions rather than facts."

Post no. 11 - "The reality is of course that Cardinal Law testified before the Grand Jury in Feb 2003. You can read about it here..... in the NEW YORK TIMES."

(Grin.)

What a ghastly image, RJB grinning. For some reason I'm seeing that scary clown from a Stephen King novel.

I thought the two shows aired on CNN last night were excellent. One victim revealed what was said to her when she tried to report the matter inside the church, "Don't ruin this man" (first time) "You were at fault" (second time). The victims need justice.

I always laugh when I hear people of faith talk about their so called moral standards, no matter where, no matter when, each and every person should have been screaming about this from the roof tops. The only ones who should have had difficulty with this were the victims, yet many tried.

I agree with Dawkins, I hope Mr Brady and Mr Ratzinger stay, they are perfect candidates for what they represent.
DK

Whatever happened to post number 8?

David Kerr,

"I thought the two shows aired on CNN last night were excellent. One victim revealed what was said to her when she tried to report the matter inside the church, "Don't ruin this man" (first time) "You were at fault" (second time). The victims need justice."

I saw them too, was perhaps a little less impressed. But those lines you quoted struck me too. There was another one, when the victim told the priest she thought it was very wrong. "I can't do anything wrong, I'm a priest.". The most dreadful thing about it was she believed it and went on to blame herself. It's good that the culture of automatic respect for many religious ideas and persons is fading. It can lead to very bad situations.

post 8

God actually created the earth and humanity, made light and all the planets in a shorter time than it is taking to moderate this post.

Are they waiting til Easter Sunday?

David Kerr, or anyone else interested in the CNN program,

The program on the Murphy report has already appeared on YouTube. Not sure how long it will stay there, as it seems outright copyright violation to me. But for however long the link will work, part 1 is here:



The program didn't bring that much new to me. One thing I hadn't heard before is that pedophile priests were not moved from parish to parish as part of the cover-up, but also from country to country. A very Catholic country like Ireland had more priests than parishes, while in the US there was a shortage. So pedophile priests became an Irish export to the US.

post # 8 still under moderation after two weeks. Pathetic.

RJB, I've had a couple of posts referred that have remained in limbo ever since, so have other people. The complaint button is frequently abused to censor posts, exploiting the inadequate moderation by the ´óÏó´«Ã½. People can make posts disappear through it, even if they weren't strong/hateful/etc.

PK

The post was about the guy who was made head of the CDF, appointed almost immediately after Benedict's being made Pope.

He is a US Cardinal named Levada.

In the post I gave a detailed account of three incidents which should have ruled him out of ever being in the CDF, never mind heading it.

On one occasion he sacked a Father Conley for speaking out about an abuser priest. He later had to pay Fr Conley a huge out of court settlement. He also moved the abuser priest to another diocese.

He also appointed a man to head investigations into abuse in his own diocese. This man later resigned claiming that Levada had been an obstacle to him attempting to get at the truth and that he had blocked attempts at trying to access diocesan records.

Thirdly, when a US Bishop in a neighbouring diocese was forced to resign after money went missing and the Bishop admitted to having used a younger priest as an on call rent boy, Levada claimed that the missing money was simply a case of investments gone wrong and he asked the people to join him in thanking the Bishop for all the good work this Bishop had done.

The information about Levada is freely available on the net. He's another one who should be resigning.

The question of what the pope knew (with more evidence against the pope coming to light the other day) might become a matter of legal importance when the pope visits Britain. Dawkins and Hitchens are planning a legal ambush:



Worth a separate thread, Will?

Translation of Ratzinger letter:

IM,just reading this for the first time today and as a mother of child that was abused i can only speak about ireland ,Dublin that is and i can tell you the pop knew all about what was going on. We reported our case in the early 1980s.The priest in question was sent from one parish in Dublin to the next where he abused again and again that was 27 years ago and we still to this day have received nothing from the church. The pope knows everything about what happened and has done long before he became pop look at the job he held, that should tell you how much he knows.Thoes people involved in theese cases will tell you they couldnt do anything they were just following orders well we only have to look at the history of world war one to know who said that,I rest my case.