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Irish victims critical of new Vatican guidelines on child abuse

CATHAL DERVAN,

IrishCentral.com Staff Writer

Published Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 8:20 AM

Updated Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 8:20 AM

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Vatican

Irish victims of pedophile priests have reacted angrily to new Vatican guidelines that Bishops and not police should deal with child abuse in the first instance.

The Irish Independent has secured details of a report drawn up Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

In his presentation, Cardinal Levada concludes that: “The responsibility for dealing with child abuse cases within the church belongs in the first place to bishops.”

The statement comes in the wake of repeated claims across the world that bishops have shielded child abusers in Church cover-ups.

The Vatican however has claimed that the document is: “An important new step to cleanse the church of recurring child abuse scandals.

It has also urged bishops to co-operate with police in reporting priests who rape and molest children.

According to the paper, Cardinal Levada had instructed bishops to send their updated national guidelines for preventing abuse by May 2012.

The guidelines are aimed at ‘facilitating the correct application’ of rules that Pope Benedict XVI issued last year on handling sex abuse.

The new document calls on bishops to ‘investigate every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric’ and makes distribution of child pornography a crime in canon law.

The new guidelines have been welcomed to a degree by victim support groups in Ireland.

Maeve Lewis of the One in Four survivors’ support group said they were dangerously flawed and that bishops had little expertise or experience in recognizing child abuse.

“It is not acceptable that reporting an allegation is at the discretion of a bishop,” Lewis told the paper.

“The Vatican has missed an opportunity to deal definitively with the sex abuse scandal and to protect thousands of children throughout the Catholic world.”

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eiriamach | May 18, 2011, 01:10 PM EDT

Yesterday the USCCB received a report from their 5-year, $1.8Mln study of child abuse by clergy. It merely repeats the pope's Dec. 2010 self-serving statement by blaming the "sexual revolution." A transparent tactic! Ever since the St. Pölten scandal in Austria, the Vatican has manipulated gay priests to cast the blame for sex scandals on liberals in the church. It's far more likely that the church's centuries-old war on human sexuality generated the secretive, shameful culture of sexual exploitation of children and priestly impunity. The Vatican's 'guidelines' and the USCCB report testify to a church caught in the snares of the "demon" its Magisterium most often condemns. During the 1970s, as the US women's movement began to expose the harm caused by repressed sexual drives and unnatural social sex roles, the church not only turned a deaf ear but demonized the feminists who studied homophobia and misogyny and advocated enlightened attitudes. If the bishops had listened to how Catholic attitudes toward sex perpetuate sexual violence and exploitation, they might have begun to understand the criminal behaviors spreading under their eyes. How much suffering of children could they have prevented by reforming the "cultic purity" and exclusively-male "authority" of the priesthood then? Will they reform now? No, in the name of "reform" they'll scapegoat progress, intensify their fight against equality for LGBTs and women, continue to preach against "liberation" movements that transform schools and workplaces, and drive out anyone who refuses to support their repressive politics.

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JuneAnnette | May 18, 2011, 12:40 PM EDT

The time is come to expose the sick and twisted Romish paedophile priests who stole their innocence and consigned them to a life of unrelenting misery, fear, & trauma, reducing them to nothing more than chattel to be passed among themselves as play things to satisfy their insatiable and depraved sexual appetites. Time to tell the world of the forgotten children, whose harrowing stories of degradation, humiliation, shame, pain, suffering and sorrow cry unto Heaven above for justice and redress. Ex. 22:22-23: “Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry . . “ May God be pleased, in His mercy and providence, to bring the uncensored . . unedited account of these unspeakable crimes to light!***'Catholicabusesurvivorsni'

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JuneAnnette | May 18, 2011, 12:39 PM EDT

“Suffer the little children” . . a flagrant abuse of power “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; nor hid, that shall not be known.” (Luke 12:2) The time is long overdue to tell the story of what has to be the most unreported news story of the century in the context of the Roman Catholic X files . . time to expose the brutal institutional abuse committed by RC clergy in Northern Ireland, of what can only be regarded as crimes against humanity, which the so-called “princes of the church” of Rome are working tirelessly to consign to history and keep hidden from the public eye, in what amounts to the MOTHER OF ROMAN CATHOLIC COVER UPS!. More here: 'Catholicabusesurvivorsni' The time is come to expose the depraved men of the cloth in the RCC who subjected vulnerable children to a life of terror and torment, whom they abused with impunity and intimidated into silence.

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Intercessor | May 17, 2011, 02:34 PM EDT

The new "Vatican Guidelines," where the semi-sainted Cardinal Levada clearly states: "The responsibility for dealing with child abuse cases within the church belongs in the first place to bishops” is a great example of how the Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church lives in a "Parallel Reality!" Why did I refer to Cardinal Levada as being "semi-sainted," is because like Pope John Paul II he will probably be proclaimed a future saint after his death for the brilliant manner in which he has protected children from Pedophile Priests and members of the clergy! Nothing has changed! The words might be a little different, but the concept is the SAME! Continue to give bishops the option of dealing with the Priest Pedophilia Scandal, FIRST, before contacting legal authorities! Excuse my language but this new directive from the Vatican "Is a bunch of *%#@!"

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JuneAnnette | May 17, 2011, 02:21 PM EDT

- continued - He soon discovered however that Rome was irreformable and broke his ties with them. The rest is history. Martin Luther is widely known as “Father of the Reformation” (1483-1546) His timely words:“The Roman Catholics have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly.Firstly, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal.Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that none may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope. Thus they have stolen our three rods and entrenched themselves behind these three walls, to act with all wickedness and malice, which we now witness.”

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JuneAnnette | May 17, 2011, 02:20 PM EDT

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JuneAnnette | May 17, 2011, 02:09 PM EDT

Yet another example of ROME's double-speak. The crafty use of the word “guidelines” by the pope once again reveals in truth that the R.C.C. is not committed to the rule of law and and once again affirms their long-held arrogant assertion that they are above the law.In his day Martin Luther witnessed firsthand the gross immorality, the unchecked vice, the corrupt practices, most notably, the “selling of indulgences”, and the unbridled abuse of power amongst the clergy, and like some today who remain in the RCC, had noble thoughts of reforming it from within. He soon discovered however that Rome was irreformable and broke his ties with them. The rest is history. Martin Luther is widely known as “Father of the Reformation” (1483-1546) His timely words:“The Roman Catholics have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly. Firstly, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal. Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that none may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope. Thus they have stolen our three rods and entrenched themselves behind these three walls, to act with all wickedness and malice, which we now witness.”

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