Alongside Cardinal Bernard Law and Cardinal Roger Mahony, there are
numerous senior Catholics who have protected pedophiles. This list
will take time to compile, but we plan to add names often.
Before we look
at the senior Catholics who have protected pedophile priests, we
need to be aware of the following:
Early Alarm for Church on Abusers in the Clergy
By
LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published:
April 2, 2009
The founder of a Roman
Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled
priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back
to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the
priesthood because they could not be cured.
Skip to next
paragraph
The Rev. Gerald M. C. Fitzgerald, founder of the order, Servants
of the Paraclete delivered the same advice in person to Vatican
officials in Rome in 1962 and to Pope Paul VI a year
later, according to the letters, which were unsealed by a judge
in the course of litigation against the church.
The documents contradict the
most consistent defense given by bishops about the sexual abuse
scandal: that they were unaware until recently that offenders
could not be rehabilitated and returned to the ministry.
Father Fitzgerald, who died
in 1969, even made a $5,000 down payment on a Caribbean island
where he planned to build an isolated retreat to sequester
priests who were sexual predators. His letters show he was
driven by a desire to save the church from scandal, and to save
laypeople from being victimized. He wrote to dozens of bishops,
saying that he had learned through experience that most of the
abusers were unrepentant, manipulative and dangerous. He called
them “vipers.”
“We are amazed,” Father
Fitzgerald wrote to a bishop in 1957, “to find how often a man
who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted
with the cura animarum,” meaning, the care of souls. ...
The scandals, which began in
the 1980’s and reached a peak in 2002, revealed that for decades
bishops had taken priests with histories of sexual abuse and
reassigned them to parishes and schools where they abused new
victims.
It was not until 2002 that
the American bishops, meeting in Dallas, wrote a charter
requiring bishops to remove from ministry priests with credible
accusations against them.
Asked why Father Fitzgerald’s
advice went largely unheeded for 50 years, Bishop
Blase J. Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., chairman of the United
States Bishops Committee for the Protection of Children and
Young People, said in a telephone interview that in the first
case, cases of sexually abusive priests were considered to be
rare [So what???? – Dusty].
Second, Bishop Cupich said of
Father Fitzgerald, “His views, by and large, were considered
bizarre with regard to not treating people medically, but only
spiritually, and also segregating a whole population with sexual
problems on a deserted island.” [(a) What is so “bizarre”
about a professing follower of Christ believing that God can
heal people without having to rely on medical treatment? (b)
Fitzgerald’s idea of keeping these molesting monsters on an
island where they could not access more children is no more
“bizarre” than putting a prison on Alcatraz island. - Dusty]
And finally, he said, “There
was mounting evidence in the world of psychology that indicated
that when medical treatment is given, these people can, in fact,
go back to ministry.” This is a view, he said, that the bishops
came to regret. [Where is this “mounting evidence”? And what
did it really amount to compared to the evidence that medical
treatment (short of castration) did NOT mean these people could
safely be given trusted access to children? And anyway, why did
Rome ever rely on secular, and frankly godless, psychologists
instead of taking the advice of their own, highly-experienced,
expert?? Why not at least investigate the evidence he had to
offer? - Dusty]
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev.
Federico Lombardi, said he could not comment because he did not
have enough information.
Responding to Bishop Cupich’s
comment about Father Fitzgerald, Ms. Zukin, who represents abuse
victims, said: “If the bishops thought he was such a bizarre
crackpot, they would have shut him down. In fact, they referred
their priests to him and sent him financial contributions.”
She also said the
psychiatrists who worked at the Servants of the Paraclete’s
centers said in legal depositions that they had rarely
recommended returning sexually abusive priests to ministry, and
only if the priests were under strict supervision in settings
where they were not working with children.
From the 1940’s through the
1960’s, bishops and superiors of religious orders sent their
problem priests to Father Fitzgerald to be healed. He founded
the Servants of the Paraclete in 1947 (“paraclete” means “Holy
Spirit”), and set up a retreat house in Jemez Springs, N.M.
He took in priests who were
struggling with alcoholism, drug abuse or pedophilia, or who had
broken their vows of celibacy, whether with men or women. He
called them “guests.” His prescription was prayer and spiritual
devotion to the sacraments, which experts say was the church’s
prevailing approach at that time. [I don’t recommend
‘spiritual devotion to the sacraments’, for the reasons given in
the book cited
here, but Fitzgerald was plainly sincere and his huge
experience of dealing with pedophile priests should have been
listened to by his ‘superiors’ - Dusty]
At one point, he resolved not
to accept pedophiles at his center, saying in a letter to the
archbishop of New Mexico in 1957, “These men, Your Excellency,
are devils, and the wrath of God is upon them, and if I were a
bishop I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for
involuntary layization.”
Laicization — or removing a
priest from the priesthood — was what Father Fitzgerald
recommended for many abusive priests to bishops and Pope Paul
VI.
But that step was rarely
taken...
[Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/us/03church.html?_r=1&hpw]
------------------------------------------
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor:
"In the 1980s Murphy O'Connor
was the bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Although he was
aware that one of his priests — Michael Hill — was a
dangerous paedophile he did nothing to prevent his
access to children. When the abuse came to light, Murphy
O'Connor helped Hill to move from one parish to another,
where his activities continued. Murphy O'Connor ignored
three warnings that Hill was likely to offend. Finally,
Hill was moved to a place where he could do most harm,
with the least chance of discovery - as a chaplain at
Gatwick airport. It was there that he abused even more
defenceless children. The police eventually brought his
reign of terror to an end, but not before this monster
had ruined the lives of countless children and young
people, some of them suffering from disabilities.
"Not only was there abuse on a massive scale, of which
the Cardinal was aware, money was paid by the Roman
Catholic Church to victims in his diocese to hush the
matter up. I am not aware of any apology or explanation
for this by the Cardinal.
...
"There were strong suspicions that other priests in the
Arundel and Brighton area had also been involved in
child abuse while under the wing of Murphy O'Connor, but
for some reason the investigation into the Cardinal's
culpability came to an abrupt halt. The Times reports
are very disturbing.
"The BBC, which was investigating the matter
inexplicably dropped the story and the police enquiry
fizzled out when the Catholic Church accused the media
of "persecuting" Murphy O'Connor.
"The victims of the crimes committed under the
leadership of this man, who is now about to be given
privileged access to our lawmaking body, certainly don't
think he was persecuted. They think that the real crime
is that he got off scot-free.
"Murphy O'Connor's defence is that "the decisions he
made at that time were not irresponsible and that there
was a genuine ignorance among bishops, priests, and
society at large about the compulsive nature of child
abuse". For a bishop of an organisation purporting to be
a moral authority to claim to be ignorant of something
everyone else knew can only be stupidity and / or
dishonesty of a stunning degree."
[Source:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/01_02/2009_02_27_NationalSecularSociety_MurphyOConnor.htm]
Cardinal Sean Brady,
the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland:
Brady
was “embroiled in controversy earlier this year when it emerged that
he had sworn two of Fr Brendan Smyth's teenage victims to secrecy in
1975 after recording their statements in a church inquiry. He
refused to resign when the revelations emerged.” [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/cardinal-sean-brady-must-resign/]
Monsignor
Francisco de Guruceaga, a bishop in
Venezuela:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/how-the-church-shuffled-p_n_538010.html
Certain
cardinals and bishops in Ireland
“[B]ishops of the Catholic church in Ireland have
been ... censured in a report on clerical child abuse over three
decades in the Archdiocese of Dublin. An official commission
investigated 320 allegations against a sample of 46 out of 183
priests from 1975 to 2004. It found that several cardinals and
bishops protected criminal priests while taking no action to protect
children.” [http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ireland/091126/abuse-report-catholic-church-dublin?page=full]
Here are some specifics:
· -
Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. He ruled the Dublin
archdiocese from 1940 to 1972. Among other instances, his dealings
with a Father Edmondus in 1960 “were aimed at the avoidance of
scandal and showed no concern for the welfare of children.”
· -
Archbishop Dermot Ryan, “who served in Ireland from
1972 to 1984, “failed to properly investigate complaints” against
six priests and ignored the warning of a psychiatrist in the case of
another priest who subsequently seriously assaulted a young
teenager.”
· -
Archbishop Kevin McNamara, who served from 1984 to
1987, restored to the ministry a priest, Father Bill Carney, who had
pleaded guilty to charges of child sex abuse.
· -
Cardinal Desmond Connell, who held office from 1988
to 2004, while “appalled” was slow to realize that it could not be
dealt with “by keeping it secret and protecting priests from normal
civil processes.”
· -
The report was also critical of three auxiliary
bishops of Dublin, Dermot O’Mahony, James Kavanagh and Donal Murray
for dealing “badly” with complaints. Bishop Murray, now Bishop of
Limerick, said last night he would not resign. His failure to
reinvestigate earlier suspicions against an offending priest was
described as “inexcusable.”
Cardinal Francis George:
For some
details of Cardinal George's protection of a pedophile,
see
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/01_02/2006_02_26_ChicagoTribune_SNAPCalls.htm
"When Cardinal Francis George released his deposition on
the sexual abuse scandal last week, he offered an
unprecedented look into the Roman Catholic Church's
shameful actions and also into his own mind.
Many Catholics were appalled to learn the cardinal
worked to reduce the 20-year prison sentence of a
convicted child molester, Norbert Maday. Others were
infuriated by evidence of his repeated refusal to follow
recommendations and promptly remove abusive Chicago
priests from ministry. ...
As president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
George is the most influential leader in the American
church and ... the third American cardinal to be deposed
in sex-abuse litigation. ...
The deposition was released Tuesday by the Chicago
archdiocese as part of a $12.7 million settlement
involving 16 victims and 11 priests.
...[B]y the time he became Chicago's archbishop in 1997,
George had apparently become convinced sexual abuse was
mostly a thing of the past.
He couldn't fathom a Daniel McCormack. When McCormack
was arrested in January 2006, George said: "We thought
this was done, or at least contained," referring to
clergy sexual abuse. ...
"While it's a milestone on one hand, the road ahead is
very long," said Timothy Lytton, an Albany Law School
professor who wrote "Holding Bishops Accountable: How
Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy
Sexual Abuse."
"The cardinal's rhetoric about protecting victims and
showing compassion to perpetrators and pastoral concern
for incarcerated priests omits the theme on people's
minds," Lytton said. "That theme is: What is the
institutional church going to do to hold officials
accountable?"
Victims advocates remain cautious and say change can
only come by disciplining those officials who covered up
for abusive priests."
[Source:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/07_08/2008_08_17_Brachear_ReleaseOf.htm
See also:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/05_06/2006_05_08_Blakley_CardinalGeorge.htm
Cardinal Egan (ex-Cardinal of New
York):
For just some details of Egan's
protection of pedophiles, see this article :
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news9/2002_03_17_Hamilton_EganProtected.htm
For more, see:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/11_12/2009_12_01_Altimari_CardinalEdward.htm
For even more, see
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2009/01_02/2009_02_23_Tepfer_EganLeft.htm
Cardinal George Pell:
For an example of Pell's
protection of pedophiles, see:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/07_08/2008_07_07_SydneyMorningHerald_CardinalPell.htm
Consider too:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2010/09_10/2010_09_20_TheAustralian_ChurchPayout.htm
Consider also http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/05_06/2006_06_17_SydneyMorningHerald_HiddenSins.htm
Bishop Dingman:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ia-davenport/archives/jnw-ex-19-J-57.pdf
Archbishop Kelly:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/docs/requested/1983_Kelly_CreaghMemos.htm
Bishop Banks:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/docs/requested/1990_01_16_Banks_ShanleyToCA.htm
Bishop McHugh:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news5/1994_11_01_Graham_SexAbuse.htm
Archbishop Rembert Weakland:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/timeline/1998-10-08-Weakland-Marcoux-Agreement.htm
Bishop Robert
Finn:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15318725
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Note for visitors: For
more details about the protection
afforded pedophiles by these Senior
Catholics, simply plug their name into
the search engine of
www.bishopaccountability.org
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