We should pray for all those clergy falsely accused of sexual abuse

I don’t know a thing about him, or his accuser, but don’t you think we should wait patiently for the truth to come out (either way) before we get too involved? I hope that he is innocent, but at the end of the day, I’m not in the know, so whatever the Church says I’ll go with. I see a lot of the same behaviour about this man as I see about Medjugorie – people essentially threatening disobedience to the Church if the Church doesn’t decide that Corapi is innocent/Medjugorie is real. And I don’t see what is Catholic about disobeying the church….

Most studies show that at least 7% of priests have been credibly accused of abuse.

You miss the point regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic church. It is about the cover-up, the protection and enabling of abusing priests by the hierarchy. This is a systematic problem which has existed in the church for decades, probably centuries. The church in many ways continues to protect the perpetrators; blames the messengers; views the victims as the enemy; refuses to hold the enablers accountable (case in point, Bernard Law); refuses to be transparent regarding what they know. I know of no other institution which has this documented record regarding these crimes. The fact that it is a religious institution only makes them all the mnore hypocritical. There is nothing “tiny” about the numbers of Catholic clergy who have either abused, kept quiet about known abuse; or deliberately protected abusers.

http://www.BishopAccountability.org

This idea that people are pouring out of the woodwork to accuse priests of abuse is utter rubbish.
The opposite is true, there are many more cases of abuse by priests than are reported. Most sexual abuse victims do not tell anyone for decades (for reasons which make sense if one understands abuse), therefore we know that clergy abuse victims will keep coming forward for decades. Half of all rape victims never report the crime.

Also, one does not just accuse a priest of abuse and receive a settlement, or have their case taken by a lawyer. They have to be credible accusations in order for the case to proceed. And, the church has dismissed cases when there IS credible evidence.

Please, please, focus on the real problem with abuse by priests. It is NOT false allegations.

Having this great preacher being accused of inappropriate behavior saddens & confuses me.

On one hand, I happen to know the priest who was part of the formation team (This man is a convert who had a very colorful background.) that admitted Fr Corapi to the orthodox seminary. If there was any hint of deviancy, this team would have dismissed him. It so happens that Fr Corapi had a very sinful past & does not hide from it; but, uses it as an example of God’s mercy & forgiveness. In my heart I believe Fr Corapi is totally innocent. Will his reputation be recovered if found innocent?

On the other hand, the Catholic Church can not let another Fr Marciel be involved in active ministry. The bishop & his religious superior fully admit that Fr Corapi is innocent until proven wrong & will be placed on administrative leave until the truth is revealed. I see nothing wrong with that.

Your facts are incorrect. The John Jay study conducted in 1993 shows that 6% of priests had credible accusations against them. As new accusations roll in, that number has staedily climbed. Remember that that the John Jay report was a self survey conducted by the very bishops who covered up these crimes. Of all the dioceses in the US, 7 have been scrutinized by and independent process (ie grand jury or DA investigation). In all 7, the original repoirting of the diocese was found to be exceedingly low. In fact all 7 show a consistent 10% abuse rate amoung priests. It is hard for me to believe that these 7 just appen to be the exception to the rule. The number people should be using, the one generated by a disinterested 3rd party, is 10%.

Statistics. 6% of priests who had accusations made against them had credible acusations against them.

We should pray for all those clergy falsely accused of sexual abuse?????

Leave it to the Catholic Herald to print such Propaganda !

There is a well known lawyer among priests, his name…”Patrick Schlitz”. Patrick Schlitz has defended more than 500 cases of Priests accused of Sexually Abusing Children, fewer than 10 were found to be based on False Accusations-NYTimes 2002

“Patrick Schiltz, dean of the University of St. Thomas law school in Minnesota, said that over more than a decade he had defended Catholic dioceses against sexual-abuse lawsuits in more than 500 cases, and that he had concluded that ‘fewer than 10′ of those cases were based on false accusations.” See Doubt Is Cast on Accuser of 2 Priests, Judge Says, by Sam Dillon, New York Times, August 31, 2002. Schiltz was named a federal district court judge in 2006.

The Schiltz estimate is corroborated by a 2004 report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The report analyzed surveys completed by the U.S. dioceses and many religious orders. The collated results of one of the surveys show that 5,681diocesan investigations of abuse allegations in 1950-2002 yielded definitive results:
4,570 allegations were substantiated (80%)
1,028 allegations were unsubstantiated (18%)
83 allegations were deemed false (1.5%)

Note that these definitively investigated allegations represent slightly more than half of the 10,667 allegations reported in the John Jay study. The other allegations were investigated without definitive result or were not investigated at all. Moreover, the church-funded research project did not collect any data on 298 priests who were considered by their bishops to be exonerated when the dioceses completed the surveys in 2003.

Kathleen McChesney, who was the first executive director of the Office for Child and Youth Protection of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has summarized the John Jay findings on false allegations: “False reporting of sexual abuse by children is very rare.”

Lets Start Praying for the Victims.

I would be careful when you quote from the NY Times; they are very anti-Catholic. Are these numbers actually in the John Jay Report or do you trust the NY Times reporting?

One item that has not gotten much attention from the mainstream media is a report from Los Angeles by a former FBI agent who reviewed hundreds of cases and concluded professionally that as many as 50% of the accusations are false.

I personally know one priest who was not accused until he was not longer able to defend himself (he had Alzheimer the last 5 years of his life). And since we are not allowed to know who the accusers are, we cannot make an informed decision as to the merits of these cases.

And it must be acknowledged that organizations such as SNAP must continually stir the pot if they wish to have an ongoing cash flow from the Church.

Isn’t it interesting that the Church is the organization being the most heavily sued when the percentage of abusers in the public school system is much higher that the percentage of priests? School districts are protected by law as to the amount of monetary awards that can be obtained by the victims. So the Church, which is not protected or limited as the governmental agencies are, has the deep pockets ripe for picking.

While there is no doubt that true abusers cannot ever be tolerated in the Church, prudence and justice demand that the accusations be real and the accused is afforded the basic right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

But this isn’t a child who is making these allegations.

YES you are completely right! It is so typical of right wing Catholics to blame the victims instead of looking at their own church and asking how or why it allowed known sex offenders to continue in ministry.
It is literally unbelievable that the Catholic Church has so actively spat at the Gospel and undermined the entire ministry of Jesus, which included the condemnation of false religiosity!
Anyway – thanks for posting some sanity
- why didn’t they have a ‘pray for the victims of child abuse’ story?

Dr. Oddie, Of course, you’re right. We must pray for the innocent who are unjustly accused of any crimes. However, let us not use this as a pillow upon which law enforcement authorities and a vigilant Catholic laity everywhere should rest their heads in their relentless drive to protect children and schools by diligently seeking out, prosecuting, and imprisoning those who are now simply suspects. When there are serious allegations and strong evidence of possible criminal acts.

It’s understandable why the hierarchy want to quickly put the issue of priestly sexual impurity and their criminous acts on the back burner. Where ,hopefully, they will die a quick death, but this issue is a worldwide issue now, and it isn’t about to go away.

In the U.S.A. there may be fresh allegations in the making as we speak. With a hierarchy , the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ,using every opportunity to deflect,obfuscate, and delay any further investigation of priestly pederasty by local legal and the police. The ruinous publicity is creating a nightmare for the Catholic Church in America. This is not the time for innocent Catholics, priests or laity, to head for the caves and bury their heads in the sand hoping the demons go away. This only encourages the malefactors.

Isn’t it interesting that the Church is the organization being the most heavily sued when the percentage of abusers in the public school system is much higher that the percentage of priests?
———————————————————————————————————————————————-

There is no such proof the percentage of abusers in higher in the American public school system. This is a frequent quote from extreme traditionalist groups who are guilty of being in a state of denial. FBI agents can provide anecdotal evidence, but only from their own experience. Along side the John Jay Report and the Irish Government’s report on sexual abuse those FBI claims simply don’t hold up and are absurdly laughable.

Priests are held to a far higher standard–I would hope they would be–than public school teachers. To say it happens elsewhere does not for a moment excuse any priest or bishop. When I hear priests and bishops making the claim you have cited, those who do the paying, praying, and obeying in the pews need to take action to remove them from public ministry, or refuse to bankroll their parishes and dioceses.

Remember though that these cases involving Catholic clergy were relatively rare. It just seemed a lot because crimes that had occurred over a period of thirty or forty years suddenly came to light in a period of three or four years so the perception was that the problem was much worse than it actually was.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Nicolas, You might be interested to know that the claim that there are few cases and those are rare doesn’t ring true today. Anymore than it rang true in the 1980s. When certain people in the Vatican claimed the scandals were largely confined to America and very rare. We’ve learned quite painfully, that was not true.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, America’s largest archdiocese now, was forced to turn over diocesan records by court order. Those records showed cases of pederasty and transfers of clergy with “problems” going back to the early 1920s.

The pope is being sued at the present to turn over similar records from the Vatican archives. Benedict XVI will throw them into a bonfire before they ever see the light of day. With bishops reporting, or obliged to report, these sex abuse cases , resulting legal action, and court awards to the papal nuncio and then to Rome as part of their “ad limina visit” report, I’d wager the pope is sitting on perhaps the greatest documentary hoard of evidence illustrating clerical and episcopal crimes in the history of the Church. Going back centuries, not decades. Benedict XVI can run, but he can’t hide.

A Wikileaks seminarian buried in the bowels of the Congregation of Bishops, or other dicastery will let the cat out of the bag someday. The whole edifice leaks like a sieve as it now. Then, we’ll see the most illustrious case of the cat thrown amidst the pigeons in history.

As a practising Catholic in secular Canada (we’re about halfway between the USA and France/ Britain with regards to religious practice, and many other things) I feel very sad and weary over clerical sex scandals and wonder when this bombardment of bad news will be over. I’m involved with Catholic education (and mental health) and have a lot of exposure to priests. I believe that 90% would never be inappropriate with a kid. As well, most men and women I know have largely positive memories of priests. There is however the 6 to 10% who are willing to treat the young as objects for personal pleasure. As well, there are other priests who have sexual relationships with adult women (I’ve seen far more of this). But I am still morally certain that most priests in my area are trying to be good servants of God and the people, and are men of integrity. I am sad that a large minority (sorry, I do think it’s larger than many care to admit) of priests unfaithful to the celibate commitment drag the larger number of faithful priests down. And even worse, drag the credibility of Christ’s Gospel down as well.

I simply asked that Oddie comment on the latest development. I am still waiting.

Catholics are being abused and persecuted all over the world, before and now, however, for some reason nobody seams to care for it. And, of course, some people, most of the time the persecutors, do not believe in God, and in many cases, consciously or subconsciously, serve the Devil. To my understanding, many of the “priests abusing children” stories are simply made up by greedy people who trusted their lives to evil. Evil or devil is the first enemy of God and His Church, and devil will do anything and everything to destroy the Church. So, those who worship Devil listen to it and do exactly what the Devil tells them to do. In this case it is destroying the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ. Devil desires to destroy as many people as it only can. Devil wants everybody, us, to fall out of the Church, so that we would not be rescued from the sins and be granted Salvation. And the God’s Apostles, our Priests, on the other hand, bring people to God and to Salvation through the HOLY SACRAMENTS, such as Baptism which washes us from the original sin, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Penance, and Anointing of the Sick. These Sacraments wash our daily sins and purify us, make us stronger in our faith, hope, and love, teach us forgiveness and mutual love, and open for us the gaits to eternal happiness with God in Heaven. And the Sacrament of Marriage through which God brings together two people, man and woman, and blesses them to love each other and bring to life children, the miracles of life. And also the Sacrament of the Holy Orders which is Priesthood, through which we can receive Jesus in the Holy Sacraments, and through which God can rich us and grant us Salvation. How amazing is that. However, the Devil hates that. It does not want us to go to Heaven to live in eternal Happiness with God. It wants us to go to hell and suffer eternal condemnation like It is suffering. Devil knows that it can achieve that by, first, destroying the Pope and the Priests, and then, by spreading a hateful and malicious lies all over the world that there is no God. It uses the technique as the Bible says, “Strike the Shepherd and the sheep will be scattered” Zechariah 13. 7. However, thanks to God, the Church will prevail. “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build My Church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” Mt. 16, 19.

Because of Priests, Devil fails to destroy the Holy Catholic Church and to bring the entire world to everlasting condemnation. It hates God and God’s Church. It hates everybody who in the name of Jesus Christ is doing Good. Using its malicious lies, Devil wants to bring the entire humanity to eternal death. Nonstop, Devil develops different and, each time, more treacherous and deadlier forms of attacks on Catholic Church. It wants to destroy the Priests, and through that bring the Catholic Church to an end.

We have to open our eyes and see what is happening! We cannot let ourselves to fall into devil’s trap. Evil is tricky, it will devour in no time those who sttay away from God and will overcome them far before they even have chance to recognize it. It does not matter how strong these people think they are; without God they are week, they are helpless, they are nothing.

I beg all of you to pray a lot. Pray Rosary which is the biggest weapon against evil. Rosary contains in It the entire Gospel – The Good News of Salvation. Plus, Devil fears our Holy Mother Mary because She broke it. She is pure, great, and with no sin. Let’s go to Daily Mass and get strength from God Himself. Allow Jesus Christ feed us with His Holy Body and Blood; allow Jesus feed us with His words of eternal life and light. There is nothing as strong and powerful as the Holy Mass at the Catholic Church. And if we do not have Priests, who will celebrate the Holy Mass and bring us Holy Sacraments, who will? The attack is carefully thought and planed; evil knows what it is doing. Evil tries to tell us that there is something else out there that can fill our hearts; however that is a lie. There is nothing out there but emptiness, grief, grudge, hatred, evilness, envy, anger, lack of forgiveness, darkness, and death. Evil leads nowhere but to hell, to eternal condemnation and, eventually, to eternal death when Jesus Christ comes to Earth the Second time.

There is so much anger, greediness, grudge, and hatred in us and in the world that produces wars and death. We have to return to God; we have to pray for forgiveness, for love towards each other, for hope, and for the faith in One True God. God will listen to our prayer and He will grant us Salvation. And please, let’s do not watch too much TV; there is nothing good on there. TV teaches us egoism and jealousy which leads to anger and hatred, which consequently leads to killing. Let’s rather turn to God to be fed with His Holy Body and Blood. Let’s fill our hearts with his Holy words; the words that are full of Love and Hope. Listen to the Gospel. And then we will be able to do good, to love one another, to forgive. And then, the world will become a better place to live. Our future lies also in our hands