Abuse victim believes Irish pedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth murdered an American child

DeanJackson, I recommend that you read the online interview in "Spiegel," Nov 22, 2010, with gay theologian David Berger: "A Large Proportion of Catholic Clerics and Trainee Priests Are Homosexual." There IS a gay culture in the Roman Catholic Church, probably for longer than it has existed in the USA. David Berger can write about it "from the inside." It is nurtured by, and he learned of it in, far-right conservative groups like Opus Dei (Bsp Finn of Kansas City, etc.). Let's not underestimate the power of sexual repression by an ultra-conservative ideology. Repressed impulses and desires achieve great power over human beings and can explode in violent attacks on the innocent. I think Berger has explained better than anyone else how the gay culture, as well as the horrendous rate of pedophilia, developed over the generations and why Church officials protected both. He wrote his book in German (Das Heilige Schein...), and it's not been translated into English, but his analysis is widely blogged about now in English. He explains why gay males are attracted to the priesthood and are in high proportion in Catholicism (and Anglicanism). Again, it does not take a conspiracy theory to explain it, though it involves some conspiracies of protection by church officials.

Maybe it's time for me to confess that I too have a favorite "Vatican takeover" conspiracy theory. It's one that offers some independent historical evidence ranging from the 19th century to current times-- the Masonic takeover theory. This much I'm sure of: if there are secret Masons in the Vatican, there ain't no communists there! The Masons would sniff out and drive out any communist sympathizers. I'm not going to bother to argue my conspiracy theory, however, because it doesn't matter who's to blame. The point is to prevent the suffering of more sex abuse cases.

Once a Church trial on a sex abuse charge is underway, everyone involved has vowed absolute secrecy. No police investigation or criminal or civil court trial can succeed when everyone with knowledge of the alleged crime MUST refuse to give evidence. It may also be technically true, as Fr Doyle says, that bishops could report allegations to civil authorities BEFORE calling for a Church trial under canon law. But the culture of secrecy (Omertà) surrounding sexual offenses was, in effect, the honor code of clerics and bishops. How could it not become that when the Vatican enforced strict secrecy on all proceedings? Less than one year ago, the Vatican finally allowed bishops to OBEY civil law: “Specifically, without prejudice to the sacramental internal forum, the prescriptions of civil law regarding the reporting of such crimes to the designated authority should always be followed." Until then, Vatican officials behaved like Cardinal Silvio Pio, who wrote to Arizona Bshp Moreno, “Your Excellency should therefore make known immediately and with clarity that no priest’s files will be sent to any lawyer or judge whatever.” And like Card. Hoyos, who wrote to Bsp Pican: "I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who ... preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest." And AB Storero, who instructed Irish bishops in 1997 not to require mandatory reporting....

How the spirit of Catholicism has changed! I can remember when discussion and debate were amicable: “In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas”-- "In what is necessary [indisputable], let there be unity; where there is doubt, let there be liberty; and in all things, let there be charity. Instead now we endure name calling like "creepy, crawley haters." ~~~~~ DeanKackson, no Vatican document permitted filing evidence with police until Benedict's recent permission to the bishops to comply with mandatory reporting laws in nations that have them. Canon 1370 (1917) on canon law trials: "For obtaining the purpose of the investigation the inquisitor may call [witnesses]... under oath of telling the truth AND OF KEEPING THE MATTER SECRET." Requiring that witnesses vow secrecy precludes their testifying under civil law at a state trial. Your quotation does not mean that priests were "turned over to" civil authorities; it means that priests could be returned to the status of laity (defrocked) if convicted of crimes by ecclesiastical court. On your point #2, check out how many accused priests/bishops, like Bp Finn of KC and Card. Law of Boston, are associated with Opus Dei or C&L or other right-wing sects. Protecting pedophiles is not a communist trait, whether communists are atheists notwithstanding. Communism? the first "Crimen Solicitationis" papal document was written in 1917, disseminated widely in 1918. Communists were far too busy elsewhere in those years deposing a Czar and fighting a war to infiltrate the Vatican! Canon law expert Thomas Doyle, writing on Instructions for "Crimen Solicitationis," Mar 4, 2010: "these documents (1922, 1962, and 2001) were ... continuing to enforce a Church policy of secrecy in the canonical handling cases of clergy sex abuse."

ciaradexy ----- You may be entitled to your fantasies...but not to creating your own 'facts' ---- I have watched the Eucharistic Congress celebrations, and unfortunately for your dark desires there are plenty of young, enthusiastic people among the attendees. --- Don't be too cross then if your ill wishes for the CC turn out to disappoint you ultimately. It might well be that the prospects for her demise in Ireland may have been greatly exaggerated by the creepy, crawley haters who gather on this site.

In conclusion (as my final attempt), Deanjackson, if you must think in terms of conspiracy theory rather than consistent Church history, why do you target Communists, "Bulgarian Protestant and Orthodox" Vatican personnel? I suggest that you have a look-see at the schism created by Communion and Liberation, Opus Dei, SSPX, Legion of Christ, and other ultra-conservative groups asserting their politics in Vatican positions under the two most recent popes. There's plenty of info on "takeover" by these groups, which represent the worst of pre- and anti-Vatican-II, anti- ecumenical, misogynist, ultramontane, triumphalist, papal- monarchist Roman Catholicism.

Correction: I wrote that "the 1962 document and canon law have CONSISTENTLY tried" to prevent investigation and trial of the accused. I should have written that they've been amazingly successful. With the exception of a few Irish trials and the ongoing Philadelphia trials, accused priests have benefited from powerful Church protection. Without investigations and trials-- real reform from the outside-- the sexual abuse problem will continue. "Innocent until proven guilty" means that innocent priests and some for whom evidence is insufficient will be exonerated. If their "good names" suffer permanently, they, like all of us, pay a price for "innocent until proven guilty," and the price paid by the victims and their families when they are deprived of justice is far more costly than anyone's loss of good name.

Deanjackson, you still believe that two decades' proliferation of RCC child abuse cases represents a "takeover" of the Church by outside forces? Please supply some evidence, not just speculation about what the Vatican would or would not have done if "non-believers" had not taken it over. Without evidence, you have only an "argument from ignorance." It's like my concluding that the lotus tea I drank just before I started swimming must explain how I was able to swim 10 extra laps. Couldn't the explanation be simply that practice made me stronger? Similarly, the Vatican's consistent history of protecting rogue priests DOES explain the 1962 document, as well as the Vatican's reply to Enda Kenny about the Vatican interfering with Irish govt in the escalating problem of sexual abuse. In its reply, the Curia wrote, "since both canon and civil law hold to the principles that everyone has a right to his or her good name and that an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, both ecclesiastical and civil authorities rightly insist on the necessity of due process and respect for the basic rights of all the parties involved. In addition, the Congregation itself is bound by canon law and has no power to modify it." But civil law does NOT give equal protection to the "good name" of the accused because doing so OBLITERATES the right of alleged victiam to investigation and trial of the accused. To protect the good name of its priests, bishops PREVENTED the accusation from becoming public, in the media, even in police records! Thus the rights of victims are trampled on and accused priests are protected from prosecution. This canon law protection has not changed FOR CENTURIES! "Innocent until proved guilty" pertains to results of a trial, not to PREVENTING investigation and trial in civil courts, which is what the 1962 document and canon law have CONSISTENTLY tried to do.

bill mcintosh, you mistake moral outrage for "unbridled hatred." Even a glance into the Murphy Report and the other diocesan reports on child abuse is sufficient to show you why emotion runs high on the issue of sexually predatory priests and religious, especially in Ireland, where children have always been considered worthy of special solicitude. And the fact that you were "never molested" does not diminish the anguish of those who were molested or their families or the ex-Catholics who have seen no reform to make the problem less likely to continue. People who pray on a regular basis should find it possible to understand the "hunger and thirst for justice" that the reality of child abuse generates.

Shocking but before we throw out the baby with the bath water let me say that millions have had basically good experiences with Catholic clergy. I was an altar boy and never molested and attended Catholic schools for 14 years. I hope those who have seen this tragedy not harbor hatred for the Catholic Church (founded by Christ upon St. Peter)which has been infiltrated and or betrayed by homosexual clergy in numerous cases. I think these cases have been more complicated than they appear and a lot of people are angry over birth control and take it out on the Church when they never really bothered to bring problems to prayer. There is a lot of unbrideled hatred out there.

The natural law is a paradigm for civil law, hermitTalker; Roman Catholic doctrine is NOT. It's interesting how you conflate RCC teachings with natural law when it's convenient, and ignore the fact that natural law philosophers are appalled at RCC's citing "natural law" to support discrimination against homosexuals and women! Cardinal Dolan and the USCCB's current political campaigns supply ample evidence that in the Roman Catholic Church, "natural law"--whose first tenets have always included the equal moral worth of all human beings--means whatever serves the Church's political ambitions. Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors is indeed an embarrassment for RCC, and you cannot diminish that embarrassment with your moral relativism about the era of the French Revolution! Also, you've quoted not the US Constitution but Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. "Self-evident" simply means that no argument is necessary and no argument can convince a supremacist that human beings develop their full humanity only under conditions of political and social freedom. "Unalienable" means that it is always and everywhere wrong for anyone to deprive us of those rights and liberties without due process of law, as Dolan is attempting to deprive women and LGBTs of them. The HHS mandate is necessary to safeguard my rights and liberties (equal treatment under law/liberty of conscience) from RCC's attempt to impose archaic and UNNATURAL doctrine as law.

Regarding the 19th century, words that opposed "church-state" separation were mostly directed against the fallout of the French Revolution and following which took away property, schools and banned as much public expression of Faith as possible,see Spain and Mexico in the 1920s, The Natural Law trumps civil law, the US Preamble recognises that "self-evident truths" "inalienable" "endowed by the Creator, That is what Cdl Dolan is warning about- a civil law that impinges on First Amendment freedoms, as in Natural Law and he is getting lots of support from Evangelicals, Jews and Moslems and Atheists who are quite concerned. The Vatican is quite concerned about one of the basic human rights to a good reputation, which is protected in civil law, which is why libel and slander are illegal, ignored today because of the logorrhea (diarrhea of the mouth) by internet and media who care little. The Church has its own Court system for Church law- there is absolutely conflict today in most democracies where the rule of law is observed in reporting criminal activity. That sadly is often abused too when corrupt officials and anti-Faith groups get involved. A Christian in Iran. A believer in Ogaga-bamas USA. Suggesting that Catholic clergy reveal confessions was stupid and against Natural law and common sense but it was proposed in Ireland and they are using a 1949 Court decision not to do it. DUH- Natural Law and why do I not just trot down to the prosecutor and tell her myself!

The catholic church was a paedophile ring. Luckily enough less than 10,000 people , all over the age of 60 attended the mass to mark the start of the eucharistic conference and over half of those were from overseas and were not irish. This church is on its way out of my country, I cannot wait for that day when people decide to opt in or out of it and its not shoved in their faces anymore.

It's not clear from what you've written, DeanJackson, so just to clarify: "42. In the case of conflicting laws enacted by the two powers, the civil law prevails" is, according to the pope, a grievous ERROR which the Church CONDEMNS. Condemnation of #55, "The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church," directly contradicts the US Constitution and explains why no Catholic was elected to high national office until JFK's "Separation" speech in 1960. How could a non-Catholic vote for Vatican influence over American political life? With American Catholic clergy (Dolan and the USCCB) again asserting the sovereignty of religious doctrine over civil law, we're back to the days of Pius IX. The 1962 policy was nothing new; it codified what most bishops had been doing all along--covering up, protecting, shifting around predator priests. "Their children sit by other men's fires," wrote the anonymous author of the Medieval morality play "Everyman," c. 1500. If anything was new in 1962, it was an increase in the number of pedophiles in proportion to priests soliciting sex from women in the confessional. The increase probably stemmed from expanded enrollments in Catholic schools, orphanages, churches (more altar boys). There was no takeover of the Vatican; the Vatican's temporal ambitions and hard-right social/political doctrine are reasserting themselves in the style of FIRST Vatican Council, 1868-1870, after a brief Vatican II respite.

DeanJackson, There's nothing at all inexplicable about the secrecy imposed in 1962 by the Vatican on predator priest investigations and canon law trials. The number of cases of solicitation of sex by priests in the confessional posed a great danger of scandal, and the Vatican acted strongly to protect the reputation of the Church. I understand your need to consider the pope's action NOT a criminal conspiracy when he wrote and sent to all bishops the 1962 "Instruction on the Manner of Proceeding in Cases of Solicitation" that held everyone involved to absolute secrecy under heavy penalties for any leaks. But if we apply a simple version of Parkinson's Law, we can easily see that no extraordinary explanation in terms of conspiracy theory is necessary. With Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors, Vatican personnel fully believed they were above civil law and could act to suppress evidence of Church crimes with impunity. The 1962 order to elude the force of criminal laws in the state was integral to Vatican history. You need to catch up on that history. The 1962 document, available on the Internet, is full of references to 19th century encyclicals and canon law. It was normal Vatican functioning.