Catholic Charities refuses to place children with same sex couples

"CATHOLIC CHURCH IN FRESH SCANDAL INVOLVING MONEY-SPINNING BABY TRAFFICKING IN SPAIN"

Fresh revelations about the Catholic Church's involvement in a host of human rights abuses in Spain under Franco's dictatorship and even later have surfaced in the last week, causing outrage in a country fast distancing itself from its Catholic past. The latest scandal centers on baby-trafficking by the Catholic Church, government officials and clinics over several decades. As many as 300,000 babies may have been the victims of a practice that saw infants taken from "morally or economically deficit" parents and sold to couples deemed more acceptable. The scandal was the subject three days ago of a BBC report by Katya Adler, who gained access to a right-wing Catholic doctor, Eduardo Vella, said to have been complicit in the money-spinning business. Dr. Vella stands accused of telling women that their babies had died when they hadn't, and handing over the infants to other couples for cash. The elderly doctor genially welcomed Adler to his home in Madrid, thinking that she was a patient, but when she revealed she was a BBC correspondent, he turned hostile, Adler reported: Dr. Vella grabbed a metal crucifix standing on his desk. He moved towards me, branding it in my face.'Do you know what this is?' he said, brandishing it in my face.'I have alwasys acted in his name, always for the good of the children and to protect the mothers.Enough!'
According to this report, no one really knows for sure how many of these cases exist. Enrique Vila, a Barcelona lawyer who specializes in adoptions, estimates there might be as many as 300,000, about 15 percent of the total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989. At the moment, more than 900 cases are being investigated by regional prosecutors across the country. That amount is increasing every month. The Spanish Confederation of Religious Orders, a prominent Catholic organization, has declined to comment due to the ongoing investigation. But a spokesperson added that the cases are "very unpleasant" and hope that the full weight of the law is applied to the perpetrators "whether they were members of a religious order or not." Despite the staggering numbers and the fact that these cases are spread across Spain, prosecutors say they don't believe it was a "baby mafia," but a macabre business involving public and private hospitals, doctors, nurses, midwives and even nuns who wanted to make money. Typically, doctors and nuns would tell mothers their babies had been born dead, or that they had died shortly after birth. Then they would sell the newborns to adoptive parents and forge all official documents. After being told their newborns died, mothers would usually request to see their children, but doctors and midwives would deter them. The Guardian reported that a Madrid clinic that closed in the 1980s after being investigated for its role in illegal adoptions, the Clinica San Raman, is at the center of the allegations. Journalists found a baby's corpse in a fridge, leading to rumors that bodies were kept to show parents who doubted their own child had died. A former clinic employee recently confirmed that babies were illegally given up for adoption. The Freethinker, 10-18-11

nOgOd wrote:

"CATHOLIC CHURCH IN FRESH SCANDAL INVOLVING MONEY-SPINNING BABY TRAFFICKING IN SPAIN"
Fresh revelations about the Catholic Church's involvement in a host of human rights abuses in Spain under Franco's dictatorship and even later have surfaced in the last week, causing outrage in a country fast distancing itself from its Catholic past. The latest scandal centers on baby-trafficking by the Catholic Church, government officials and clinics over several decades. As many as 300,000 babies may have been the victims of a practice that saw infants taken from "morally or economically deficit" parents and sold to couples deemed more acceptable. The scandal was the subject three days ago of a BBC report by Katya Adler, who gained access to a right-wing Catholic doctor, Eduardo Vella, said to have been complicit in the money-spinning business. Dr. Vella stands accused of telling women that their babies had died when they hadn't, and handing over the infants to other couples for cash. The elderly doctor genially welcomed Adler to his home in Madrid, thinking that she was a patient, but when she revealed she was a BBC correspondent, he turned hostile, Adler reported: Dr. Vella grabbed a metal crucifix standing on his desk. He moved towards me, branding it in my face.'Do you know what this is?' he said, brandishing it in my face.'I have alwasys acted in his name, always for the good of the children and to protect the mothers.Enough!'
According to this report, no one really knows for sure how many of these cases exist. Enrique Vila, a Barcelona lawyer who specializes in adoptions, estimates there might be as many as 300,000, about 15 percent of the total adoptions that took place in Spain between 1960 and 1989. At the moment, more than 900 cases are being investigated by regional prosecutors across the country. That amount is increasing every month. The Spanish Confederation of Religious Orders, a prominent Catholic organization, has declined to comment due to the ongoing investigation. But a spokesperson added that the cases are "very unpleasant" and hope that the full weight of the law is applied to the perpetrators "whether they were members of a religious order or not." Despite the staggering numbers and the fact that these cases are spread across Spain, prosecutors say they don't believe it was a "baby mafia," but a macabre business involving public and private hospitals, doctors, nurses, midwives and even nuns who wanted to make money. Typically, doctors and nuns would tell mothers their babies had been born dead, or that they had died shortly after birth. Then they would sell the newborns to adoptive parents and forge all official documents. After being told their newborns died, mothers would usually request to see their children, but doctors and midwives would deter them. The Guardian reported that a Madrid clinic that closed in the 1980s after being investigated for its role in illegal adoptions, the Clinica San Raman, is at the center of the allegations. Journalists found a baby's corpse in a fridge, leading to rumors that bodies were kept to show parents who doubted their own child had died. A former clinic employee recently confirmed that babies were illegally given up for adoption. The Freethinker, 10-18-11

wow image that.... not the cathardo church... lololol

Jos Soroka wrote:

An update on the LA teachers and their version of playland.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/06/...
I am sure the teachers were surprised to find out that they were supposed to be teaching the children.
I hope the teachers remembered o wash their hands.

Why don't they have ethics classes in teachers schools? Or at least just be blunt and say, "Don't have sex with the kids." It seems that every time we open a paper or watch the news there is another case involving teachers having sex with children.

Lawyers: Judge in priest abuse case should step down.

Lawyers for the Philadelphia monsignor accused of enabling priests to molest children have asked the trial judge to step down, saying she compromised her impartiality when she said anyone who doubted there is "widespread" child abuse within the Catholic Church "is living on another planet."
The attorneys said the remark by Common Pleas Court Judge M. Theresa Sarmina during a hearing in open court last week suggests she "harbors a firm predisposed opinion against the Catholic Church and its representatives," including their client Msgr. William J. Lynn. The Inquirer Daily News, 2-8-12

"VATICAN DECLINED TO DEFROCK U.S. PRIEST WHO ABUSED BOYS" Originally published 3-25-10

Top Vatican officials including Pope Benedict XVI did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal. The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer. The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregations for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked. In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee's archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican's secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy's dismissal. But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church's own statute of limitations.
"I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood," Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. "I ask your kind assistance in this matter." The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger. The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, fromJeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims' affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican. Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church's own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities. Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was QUIETLY MOVED by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest. Even as the pope himself in a recent letter to Irish Catholics has emphasized the need to cooperate with civil justice in abuse cases, the correspondence seems to indicate that the Vatican's insistence on secrecy has often impeded such cooperation. At the same time, the officials' reluctance to defrock a sex abuser shows that on a doctrinal level, the Vatican has tended to view the matter in terms of sin and repentance more than crime and punishment. The New York Times, 2-8-12

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/14/...

Looky here. Yet another LA teacher arrested for frogeding little children. Forgot to keep her poms in her blouse.

Jos Soroka wrote:

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n ews/2012/02/14/10405988-la-tea chers-aide-arrested-on-suspici on-of-lewd-acts
Looky here. Yet another LA teacher arrested for frogeding little children. Forgot to keep her poms in her blouse.

Let's be fair Joseph, teachers in Chicago are also masticating with their young students.

http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-teacher-arres...

Teachers like the soft flesh of the young ones.

"PENNSYLVANIA CHURCH SEX ABUSE TRIAL JUDGE WILL NOT STEP DOWN"

PHILADELPHIA - A judge presiding over a Catholic church sex abuse trial refused on Wednesday to step down from the case following complaints from defense lawyers that she was biased against a Monsignor accused of aiding abusers.

Calling herself fair and impartial, Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina denied the request by defense lawyers for Monsignor William Lynn that she relinquish her position.

The lawyers, in a petition filed last week, quoted Sarmina had said in an earlier hearing that "anybody that doesn't think there is widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church is living on another planet" and the statement showed a bias against their client.

Sarmina briskly read her decision from the bench on Wednesday, saying she would stay put and oversee the child endangerment trial of Lynn, 61, the former secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Catholic archdiocese and the highest ranking cleric charged in the case. Jury selection is scheduled to begin February 21.

Lynn's is charged along with two priests, a former priest, and a former archdiocese school teacher, who are accused of sexually abusing children between 1996 and 1999.

"Other than the statement that has been distorted and taken out of context, the defense has not and cannot identify a single instance during these lengthy proceedings where I have been other than balanced, fair and impartial," the judge said. Reuters, 2-15-12

"ARCHDIOCESE HAS DECIDED WHICH METRO DETROIT CATHOLIC CHURCHES WILL CLOSE"

The fate of the 270 Catholic parishes in the six-county Archdiocese of Detroit is sealed.

Detroit Catholic Archbishop Allen Vigneron has made his decision about the pending parish closings, informing pastors of his decisions this week. According to parish insiders, letters will be mailed to 278,000 registered Catholic households informing them of their parish's fate.

Church pastors were informed earlier this week of Vigneron's decisions, which could close as many as 48 parishes in the next five years. They were instructed to report to parishioners at weekend mass. The archdiocese says the closings are necessary because of the severe priest shortage and because some parishes are failing financially.

The Rev. Norm Thomas, who heads Detroit's Sacred Heart parish near Eastern Market and St. Elizabeth parish, said he was informed Wednesday that both parishes should merge.

"It's supposed to merge, but I have no plans for that," said Thomas, who says that laypeople can perform many duties once performed solely by priests. "If I'm gone someday and you put somebody in charge of Sacred Heart, you also take St. Elizabeth."

Thomas said he was told that parishioners would be getting a mailing about Vigneron's decision later this week, and he was also directed to announce Vigneron's decision at weekend masses.

The archdiocese plans to make Vigneron's decisions about all parishes public on Monday afternoon. Vigneron said in November that he was likely to approve most of the recommendations made to him by the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, composed primarily of laypeople who had also worked with parishes to assess their stability and possible realignments.

Since then, Vigneron's spokesman, Ned McGrath, has said there have been instances in which some of the original recommendations were modified.

The Archdiocese of Detroit is the sixth largest dioceses in the country, and covers Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, St. Clair, and Lapeer counties. Detroit Free Press, 2-16-12

In one study of 225 cases of teacher sex abuse in New York, although all the accused had admitted to sexually abusing a student, not one was reported to the police and only 1 percent lost their license to teach.



• A 2003 study reports that 159 Washington state coaches were “reprimanded, warned, or let go in the past decade because of sexual misconduct”– and yet,“at least 98 of them continued coaching or teaching afterward.”


• A 2004 study reports that many school districts make confidential agreements with abusers, essentially trading a positive recommendation for a resignation. In one case, a Seattle educator named Luke Markishtum “had two decades of complaints of sex with students and providing alcohol and marijuana to students prior to his arrest for smuggling six tons of marijuana into the state. The district paid Markishtum the remainder of his salary that year, agreed to keep the record secret, and gave him an additional $69,000.”

‘Lucky day’

Recently, there has been a seeming explosion in a special type of teacher sexual abuse – female teachers having sex with underage teenage boys, who as a rule are willing participants in the sex.

“Generally the male doesn’t feel victimized,” said Steven B. Blum, a consulting psychologist to a sex offender program in Nebraska.“A lot of teenage boys would see that as their lucky day,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Salinas, CA.- The Catholic Diocese of Monterey settled a lawsuit with a parishioner who made allegations of sexual abuse against a former priest, Father Edward Fitz-Henry.

In a letter addressed to all priests of the Monterey diocese and obtained by KSBW on Thursday, the diocese counsel announced a $500,000 settlement with the priest's accuser.

In the letter, the counsel said the diocese chose to settle the sex abuse case because "during the investigation into the 2005 allegation, the diocese learned information about a 1992 situation that we previously believed was a non-sexual boundary violation involving a minor."

The letter goes on to explain that the Diocesan Independent Review Board believes the violation is a credible violation of the charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, and that the next step is for the diocese to send Fr. Fitz-Henry case to Rome in the next few weeks.

Under the settlement, neither the Monterey Diocese nor Fitz-Henry admitted and wrongdoing. Fitz-Henry will remain suspended from the ministry.

The diocese and plaintiff attorney declined to comment on the settlement. KSBW, 2-18-12

"KC BISHOP'S LEGAL TEAM FIGHTS TO GET CRIMINAL CHARGES DROPPED"

Attorneys representing Bishop Robert Finn filed motions Wednesday seeking dismissal of the criminal charge filed against him in October.

The misdemeanor charge alleges that Finn failed to report suspected child abuse related to a priest accused of child pornography charges.

In addition to charging Finn individually, Jackson County prosecutors filed a criminal charge against the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, which he heads.

Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the United States to face criminal prosecution related to the church's child sexual abuse scandal.

On Wednesday, Finn's attorneys filed four motions related to dismissing the criminal charge, each based on different grounds, and another motion seeking to have the bishop tried separately from the diocese if the case proceeds to trial.

Defense attorneys Gerald Handley, J.R. Hobbs and Marilyn Keller maintained in their motions that the law Finn is charged under is unconstitutionally vague on its face as well as unconstitutional in how it was applied in Finn's case.

They also argued that the grand jury that indicted Finn and the diocese was not properly instructed on the law.

"The text of the indictment appears to be the result of a faulty instruction which implies the existence of a legal duty on Bishop Finn under the reporting statutes," the defense wrote in its motion.

The grand jury indictment alleged that Finn, as a member of the clergy, and the diocese, as the operator of schools, are required under Missouri law to report reasonable suspicions of child abuse. But they did not do that for five months in the case of the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, the indictment alleges. Ratigan faces child pornography charges in Clay County and federal court. He has pleaded not guilty.

In Wednesday's motions, Finn's attorney argued that he could not be prosecuted for violating the law because he was not the designated reporter for the diocese. A response team headed by another diocesan official had that responsibility, they argued.

"While Bishop Finn may be a mandatory reporter, by statute his legal duty to report is extinguished when the religious organization designates an agent or agents to report in an official capacity on behalf of the organization," the defense wrote in its motion.

Attorneys for the diocese on Wednesday said that they were joining in the dismissal motions and were also seeking to have the cases tried separately if they proceed to trial.

A spokesman for Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Wednesday that the office was not surprised by the motions and would oppose them.

"We believe the charges filed by the grand jury are appropriate," said spokesman Mike Mansur.

Finn has pleaded not guilty. In a statement released after the charges were filed, he said he has cooperated with authorities and initiated changes to strengthen the church's efforts to protect children.

"We have carried this out faithfully," Finn said at the time.

The charge against Finn carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. The diocese faces a fine of up to $5,000.

Missouri's child abuse hot line law requires a broad range of professions to notify child welfare authorities when they have any evidence to suspect abuse or neglect. Teachers, doctors, jail guards, ministers and a host of others are covered by the mandatory reporting requirement.

Finn's attorneys note that Missouri Supreme Court ruling in Wednesday's motions, but they argue that the court's decision was based on issues different than those present in Finn's case.
Kansas City Star, 2-16-12

Of course boys do like sex. So any kind of sex with kids is really a good thing.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/21/...

Jos Soroka wrote:

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n ews/2012/02/21/10465939-where- do-problem-teachers-go-las-rub ber-room

One has to wonder why people do not recognize this elephant in the living room. The replies to these articles are those wishing to have sexual relationships with their teachers in junior high, or offering congratulations to the children in question. The public schools do a good job keeping this problem quiet. It usually makes the evening news once, and you never hear about it again.

Two Hawaii priests deemed guilty of molesting kids have been dealt setbacks recently.

One sought release from prison but was denied parole, while the other has been permanently ousted from the priesthood by the Vatican.

Fr. Robert Mac Santry, a former priest of the Diocese of Honolulu who is now residing in Georgia, has been "dismissed from the clerical state," effective immediately. As of this time, it is unknown what infractions caused Santry to be ousted. A priest can be dismissed for a multitude of crimes, including sexual abuse and financial fraud.

"Bishop Clarence Silva owes it to his parishioners, and especially to Santry's neighbors in Atlanta to disclose what his crime was," said David Clohessy, Executive Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Whether it was child abuse or fraud, we call on Bishop Silva to live up to his promise to be open and honest about clergy crimes and make a full accounting of what happened with Santry."

Fr. Mark Matson, a Catholic priest of the Colorado-based Theatine Fathers order was fried and convicted in 2000 in Hawaii for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy. Matson was sentenced to twenty years behind bars. Last week, a Hawaii parole board voted to keep him in jail after Matson applied for release after 12 years.

Matson had been accused of abusing young boys in both Colorado and California before being arrested in Hawaii.

"We are glad that the parole board recognized the risk here," said Clohessy. "It's important to take steps like these to keep kids safe, and kids are safer when predators are behind bars." SNAP, 2-23-12

"SHREDDED-MEMO MOTION DENIED TO DEFENSE IN PREDATOR PRIESTS TRIAL"

The discovery of Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua's 1994 order to shred a memo about 35 Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests suspected of molesting children is no reason to dismiss the case against one of his key aides, a judge ruled Monday.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina denied a bid by defense attorneys to drop the charges after prosecutors argued that the shredding directive and other recently unearthed files were the equivalent of "a smoking gun" that bolstered not weakened, their case against Msgr. William J. Lynn.

The documents, they say, prove Lynn plotted with Bevilacqua, the longtime archbishop who died Jan. 31, and others to protect abusive priests and shield the church from lawsuits.

They said Lynn's attorneys miss-portrayed the files last week in a bid to try out a new strategy - "a combination of the dead-guys-did-it and the I-was-only-following-orders defenses" - and to sway potential jurors.

"Defendant has used this phony legal motion to falsely paint himself in a sympathetic light - as the pawn of a conspiratorial clique that did not include him," Assistant District Attorneys Patrick Blessington and Mariana Sorensen wrote in court papers.

The clash over the records came as the district attorneys and lawyers for Lynn and two former parish priests charged with him began interviewing prospective jurors. On Monday, lawyers chose five of the 12 jurors and 10 alternates they will seat. The trial starts March 26 and could last four months.

Lynn is the first Catholic church official to be tried for covering up clergy sex abuse. Prosecutors say that as the archdiocese's secretary of clergy from 1992 until 2004, he endangered children by recommending two priests, the Rev. James J. Brennan and Edward Avery, for assignments that enabled them to abuse boys. Each has denied the charges.

The fireworks Monday stemmed from revelations that Bevilacqua had ordered another aide to shred a 1994 memo Lynn wrote about 35 priests suspected of molesting children.

In a motion to dismiss the case, Lynn's attorneys, Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy, argued that Lynn had drafted the memo because he wanted to gauge the problem of priest misconduct involving children. They contend that he was unaware Bevilacqua ordered it destroyed and that the order suggested that any scheme to protect predatory priests flowed from the top.

Lynn had described the list to a Philadelphia grand jury examining clergy sex abuse eight years ago, but said at the time that he was unable to find it. Officials discovered a copy of it in 2006, secretly hid the records in the safe. They say that he, Bevilacqua, and two other ranking administrators, Bishops Edward Cullen and Joseph Cistone, misled investigators during the first grand jury investigation and that Lynn was unfairly charged based on that flawed testimony.

"The only person who appeared before the grand jury and told the truth with respect to that list was Father Lynn," Bergstrom told the judge Monday. "The rest of them lied."

In their filing and in court, prosecutors scoffed at the argument. They say that Lynn, not Molloy, was the one who placed the list of priests in a locked safe and that he later denied knowing where it was. They said they also learned last week that another copy of the memo had been recently found on diskettes in Lynn's former office.

"Oh yeah, there was a whole lot of lying going on at that grand jury," "Blessington told the judge before jury selection resumed. "Some of the most pervasive and offensive was by defendant Lynn."

One of the priests identified in Lynn's 1994 memo was Avery, now his co-defendant in the case. Lynn had included Avery under the heading "Guilty of Sexual Misconduct with Minors."

According to the charges, Lynn later approved Avery's assignment at a Northeast Philadelphia hospital. There, prosecutors say Avery sexually abused a 10-year old boy. philly.com , 2-28-12

Peter Kennedy, 72, a defrocked Irish priest, was extradited from Brazil and charged in Dublin with 55 counts of sexually abusing 18 children from 1968-84. Kennedy fled to England in 2002 and was defrocked in 2003, the year the church paid $425,000 to a victim. AP, 1-25-12

Eugene Boland, 65, Omagh, N.IRE: 4 counts of indecently assaulting a female child. Boland is accused of committing the offenses in 1990-92 while he was pastor at a Catholic parish in Derry. Belfast Telegraph, 2-1-12