Wednesday, June 11, 2008
ARE THE BACKGROUND CHECKS WORKING ?
The bishops have implemented their policies which they would like us to believe will prevent the sort of disgrace we laity have been living with from ever happening again. They would like us to get back to trusting our bishops as though nothing ever happened. But can we?
TOLEDO -- Lucas County Sheriff's deputies have found a sex offender who's been "missing" for quite some time. They say he's been working at a Toledo parish and school -- for years.
Five years ago, 60-year-old William Werner was a sex offender looking for work. He found it at as a part-time cleaner at St. Joan of Arc Parish.
Parish representatives have told deputies Werner did a good job at the church and also helped clean the school. The Catholic Diocese of Toledo says when the parish hired Werner, no one knew of his past.
It wasn't until last week, when officers in California checked on Werner's whereabouts, that the parish discovered he had committed sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl. He was convicted in 1989, released 10 years later and then came to Toledo.
Read the rest...
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S.N.A.P. Says Yakima Catholic Diocese Is Not Doing Enough to Make Amends for Past Abuse
Posted: June 10, 2008 07:55 PM
Video Gallery
Catholic Diocese of Yakima Asked to "Speak Up"
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YAKIMA, Wash. -- Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests delivered a letter to the Yakima Catholic Diocese Tuesday afternoon, accusing the church of covering up abuse by former clergy members.
The letter was addressed to the Diocese's Bishop Carlos Sevilla.
Read it here...
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World Net Daily reports:
A Catholic priest has been sentenced to three years of probation after he pleaded no contest to groping an undercover male sheriff deputy at a nude beach in California.
Authorities said Rev. Geronimo Enrique Cuevas, 52, was hiding in bushes near a trail leading to the beach at Pirate's Cove, where they discovered him masturbating.
When a male deputy approached Cuevas, the priest reached out and touched the agent's genitals, investigators said.
Rev. Geronimo Enrique Cuevas, associate pastor at Saint Joseph Catholic Church in Nipomo, has been on administrative leave from his parish while the church investigates the incident, the San Luis Obispo County website reports.
Here's the story...
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SignOnSanDiego.com reports:
LA JOLLA – A retired Roman Catholic bishop who questions whether the church's celibacy rules have played a role in sexual abuse by priests will speak in San Diego, defying church leaders.
Retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson of Sydney, Australia, was asked by San Diego Bishop Robert Brom and several other U.S. bishops – and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony – to stay away.
He is banned from speaking on church property in several dioceses while on a tour sponsored by a lay Catholic group, Voice of the Faithful.
At 6:30 tonight, he will speak at the Faculty Club at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla. His talk is not sponsored by the university.
Robinson, who was a victim of sexual abuse as a child, was a lawyer in church courts and co-chairman of a committee investigating abuse of children by Australian clergy in the 1990s.
Then he broke ranks, retired and wrote a book taking on the church's response to the crisis.
He criticizes the governance of the present and previous popes, and claims that the obligation of celibacy must be put on the table for discussion. He has been chastised by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, who claim there are "doctrinal difficulties".
Thomas Reese, senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown, says his ideas have been around but the fact that a bishop is saying it makes it a crowd draw.
I personally do not think the scandal will dissipate until the total extent of it has been exposed, including the homosexuality that exists within the priesthood that does not involve minors, but may involve two priests, and the entire picture of homosexuality and sexual abuse that has taken place within the religious orders. We are not out of the woods yet--not by a long shot--and the bishops are still actively covering up, perhaps to save their own skin.
