Vatican above the law - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

davidmash · #16 03-14-2010, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by okyoureabeast

Last I checked the Vatican is the last remaining vestige of the papal states. It is its own country and can do whatever the heck it pleases.

Kind if like Andorra, San Marino, Sea Land, etc.

They can with in their own walls. How ever the cardinals and priest and bishops and such are not political envoys and do not enjoy diplomatic immunity. When they commit a crime, they are bound by the laws in the country, province state or what ever they are in.

Then there is the court of public opinion. Does not do a lot for your reputation, not to mention your bank account if you are hiring and protecting pedophiles.

davidmash · #17 03-14-2010, 12:29 PM

Then what does cause it

If they are so convinced that the celibacy requirement is not at fault why do they have such a problem? Are catholic men of god more predisposed to abuse minors?

strelnik · #18 03-14-2010, 12:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidmash

Then what does cause it

If they are so convinced that the celibacy requirement is not at fault why do they have such a problem? Are catholic men of god more predisposed to abuse minors?

How come you never hear about the Baptists or the Orthodox, or the rabbis doing this?

Usually they just get caught with hookers, or other men...or tapping their feet in the Minneapolis airport..

R Leo · #19 03-14-2010, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strelnik

How come you never hear about the Baptists or the Orthodox, or the rabbis doing this?

Usually they just get caught with hookers, or other men...or tapping their feet in the Minneapolis airport..

Not by a long shot. Protestants also hide pedophilia.

In another life, I used to be a member of a large Baptist church. One of my former Buildings and Grounds committee members at that church was eventually convicted of child molestation. I never particularly cared for him while he was on my committee...mostly because he was almost too willing to take on any task (mowing, garden work, etc..which, now that I see it in retrospect, almost always involved young boys.

Ultimately, he was arrested after he'd left the church and his conviction was for something he did with unrelated individuals but you have to know he was up to no good when he was volunteering for our committee and, that other people in the congregation knew something wasn't right either.

I realize now that it must have been a sixth sense detecting that the joker just wasn't square with everything.

tonkovich · #20 03-14-2010, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strelnik

If you'd done the same crime, how much time would you spend?

Millionaire Phil Specter killed a 20 year old woman in 2003, got tried in 2008, convicted and still hasn't spent a day in jail.

phil's up north at corcoran, doing 88 years. and across the yard from charlie m.

kerry · #21 03-14-2010, 05:27 PM

The pedophilia in RC is typically male on male. Not a big surprise since the 'gift of celibacy' can often equal 'don't want to have heterosexual sex'. It would be interesting to compare pedophilia in RC vs. non-celibate churches to see if there is any variation in hetero vs. homo.
The whole sexual abuse scandal is getting very close to Mr. Ratzinger. Wonder what would happen if he ever is personally implicated.

davestlouis · #22 03-14-2010, 08:43 PM

Apparently even Ireland is turning against the Catholic church...the abuse scandal may be what finally weakens the church by costing it goo-gobs of money and bankrupting local dioceses. I was raised Catholic and attended an archdiocesan grade school and Jesuit high school and university, haven't considered myself Catholic in decades. To be fair, I was never exposed to any pedophile priests, just mean, grouchy nuns who hated kids, and a bunch of Jesuits, some of whom were a smidge creepy. Most of the Jesuits were OK though...

kerry · #23 03-16-2010, 11:16 AM

NYT is reporting today that a Munich priest convicted of child molestation continued to be allowed to work with boys and girls after the conviction while Mr. Ratzinger was Archbishop of the diocese.

JiveTurkey · #24 03-16-2010, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strelnik

If you'd done the same crime, how much time would you spend?

Millionaire Phil Specter killed a 20 year old woman in 2003, got tried in 2008, convicted and still hasn't spent a day in jail.

Ted Kennedy killed a woman too, look how much time he spent in jail. Next life, I want to be born rich with lots of lawyers

kerry · #25 03-20-2010, 10:08 PM

Ratzinger released a letter today, chastising the Irish church for the way they dealt with child molesting priests. No mention of Ratzinger's own involvement in such cases and his propagation of a Vatican ruling about 10 years ago telling church officials they had to be silent about child abusing priests under threat of excommunication.
Power corrupts and absolute religious power corrupts absolutely.

davidmash · #26 03-26-2010, 12:39 PM

Pope seems to have known

Has a pope ever resigned? Seems the pope was involved in this up to his eye balls. How does one govern from the moral high ground when you have none?

Quote:

When the scandal broke earlier this month Monsignor Gerhard Gruber, who was Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising at the time and in effect Cardinal Ratzinger's deputy, took "full responsibility" for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties.

The Munich Archdiocese also officially acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made in the handling of Father Hullermann, but attributed them to officials subordinate to Cardinal Ratzinger.

But the memo, the existence of which was confirmed to The New York Times by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on January 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest to his district, but that he was also kept informed about the priest’s subsequent reassignment.

Someone will be getting in trouble about this right?

stimpy451 · #27 03-26-2010, 01:00 PM

You forgot the following:

Fritolaysia
Frostbite Falls
Springfield
and my favorite: Moronica

We'll start a blintzkrieg!

Jim B. · #28 03-26-2010, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stimpy451

We'll start a blintzkrieg!

Ja !!!

God's representative on earth was a member of the Hitler Youth, wasn't he?

Jim B. · #29 03-26-2010, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tonkovich

phil's up north at corcoran, doing 88 years. and across the yard from charlie m.

From the Wall of Sound to the Wall of Corcoran, how the mighty have fallen...

aklim · #30 03-26-2010, 02:29 PM

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/89250112.html

Vatican defends decision

A scandal reached Benedict's office when he was cardinal.

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican yesterday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides. Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990s, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - now the pope - to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishops acknowledged that the abuse had allegedly happened years before, but they argued that the deaf community in Milwaukee was demanding justice from the church.
Despite the extensive and grave allegations against Murphy, Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the allegations of abuse were made far too late and that Murphy - then ailing and elderly - should instead repent and be restricted from celebrating Mass outside his diocese.
The official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone - now the Vatican secretary of state - ordered the church trial halted after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he was ill, infirm, and simply wanted "to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."
The New York Times broke the story yesterday, adding fuel to a swirling scandal about the way the Vatican in general and Benedict in particular have handled reports of priests sexually abusing children over the years. Questions have also arisen about abuse cases in Benedict's home country of Germany while he had direct supervision over such cases.
Yesterday, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said there was no cover-up and denounced what it said was a "clear and despicable intention" to strike at Benedict "at any cost."
A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement noting that the Murphy case had reached the Vatican only in 1996, some 20 years after the diocese learned of the allegations. He also said that Murphy died in 1998 and that there was nothing in the church's handling of the matter that precluded any civil action against him.
Police investigated the allegations at the time and never proceeded with a case, Lombardi noted. He said in the statement that a lack of more recent allegations was a factor in the decision not to defrock Murphy and noted that "the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties."
Murphy worked at the former St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wis., from 1950 to 1975.

'I have repented'

Church and Vatican documents obtained by two lawyers who have filed suits alleging the Archdiocese of Milwaukee did not take sufficient action against Murphy show that as many as 200 deaf students had accused him of molesting them, including in the confessional, while he ran the school. Though the documents are remarkable given church officials' repeated desire to keep the case secret, they suggest an increasingly determined effort by bishops, albeit 20 years later, to heed the despair of the deaf community in bringing a canonical trial against Murphy.
Bertone shut the process down after Murphy wrote Ratzinger a letter saying he had repented, was old and ailing, and that the statute of limitations had run out.
"I have just recently suffered another stroke which has left me in a weakened state," he wrote Ratzinger. "I have repented of any of my past transgressions.. . . I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood."
"I ask your kind assistance in this matter," he wrote.
The New York Times also reported yesterday that Ratzinger was kept more closely apprised of a sexual-abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church hierarchy.
Ratzinger was copied on a memo telling him that a priest he had approved for therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.
An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising put full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Ratzinger's deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber.
But the memo, which was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest's reassignment.
What part he played in the decision-making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested a number of boys in his previous job, remains unclear.
The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from contact with children.
The German Archdiocese has acknowledged that "bad mistakes" were made in the handling of Hullermann, though it attributed those mistakes to people reporting to Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself.
Church officials defend Benedict by saying the memo was routine and was "unlikely to have landed on the archbishop's desk," according to the Rev. Lorenz Wolf, judicial vicar at the Munich Archdiocese. But Wolf said he could not rule out that Ratzinger had read it.
According to Wolf, Gruber, the former vicar-general, said that he could not remember having a detailed conversation with Ratzinger about Hullermann but that Gruber refused to rule out that "the name had come up."
Benedict was well-known for handling priestly abuse cases in the Vatican before he became pope. Though some have criticized his role in adjudicating such cases over the last two decades, he has also won praise from victims' advocates.
The future pope's time in Munich has until now been viewed mostly as a stepping-stone on the road to the Vatican. But that period in his career has recently come under scrutiny - particularly six decisive weeks from December 1979 to February 1980.

A potential 'danger'

In that span, a review of letters, meeting minutes, and documents from personnel files shows, Hullermann went from disgrace and suspension from his duties in Essen to working without restrictions as a priest in Munich, despite the fact that he was described in the letter requesting his transfer as a potential "danger." The key meeting was on Jan. 15, 1980. Ratzinger presided over the session of the diocesan council.
The minutes have no references to the actual discussion that day but simply say that a priest from Essen in need of psychiatric care required room and board in a Munich congregation. "The request is granted," read the minutes, stipulating that Hullermann would live at St. John the Baptist Church in the northern part of the city.
Five days later, Ratzinger's office received a copy of the memo from his vicar-general, Gruber, returning Hullermann to full duties, a spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed.
Hullermann resumed parish work practically on arrival in Munich, on Feb. 1, 1980. He was convicted in 1986 of molesting boys at another Bavarian parish.