A message from SNAPDFW’s facilitator, Lisa Kendzior
Acknowledge your courage
;)
It takes courage to acknowledge that we’ve been abused and it is not easy to even admit it to ourselves. Just browsing this website is a big step.Know that you are not alone!
If you’ve been victimized by clergy, please know that you are not alone. You can get better. You can reach out to others who’ve been hurt just like you have.
Together, we can heal one another.
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;)
According to AP and Reuters stories today, the French government has condemned remarks by a top Vatican official linking the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church to homosexuality.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero Wednesday said the remarks linking the abuse to homosexuality was "unacceptable." He said France is committed to the struggle against discrimination and prejudice linked to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Gay rights groups also condemned the remarks by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Read the whole story on the Voice of America Website ...
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Connecticut Public Broadcasting has reported that Catholic Bishops sent a letter to parishioners statewide this weekend voicing their opposition to pending legislation that would help victims of sexual abuse by priests.
"The passage of this legislation could potentially have a devastating financial effect on the Catholic dioceses of Connecticut, including parish assets and those of other Catholic service organizations," said the letter to pastors from Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford, Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport and Bishop Michael R. Cote of Norwich.
The bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits in cases of sexual abuse.
Catholic News Service today reports that the bishops' letter was distributed in churches April 10 and 11. In it the bishops said H.B. 5473, which "also targets the Catholic Church across the state ... has potentially disastrous fallout for all of us" The measure could be voted on in the General Assembly within two weeks.
Read the story on the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Website ...
Read the CNS article in today's National Catholic Reporter ...
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Atlantic columnist calls Ratzinger letter protecting pedophile priest instead of victims "The Third Strike"
"But it's clear that the age of the priest is of far more importance to Ratzinger than the age of the minors he raped. All the sympathy and concern is with the rapist, not the raped. This is a document about protecting the powerful even when they rape the powerless." -- The Atlantic, 10 April 2010
Read the full story in The Atlantic ...
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Former priest, and author James Carroll calls for church rescue from Vatican "fundamentalist-in-chief" Joseph Ratzinger
"Vatican II was a step toward the democratizing of the Catholic Church, which is why Catholic fundamentalists have been seeking to undo it ever since. Fundamentalist-in-chief has been Joseph Ratzinger. ...
An example of what must happen now came from the American nuns who recently defied the Rome-obsessed bishops to support President Obama’s health reform bill. The nuns acted as if the reforms of Vatican II are real. Now priests and lay people must do the same, rescuing the Catholic Church from its fundamentalists, including the present pope." -- Former priest, and columnist for the Boston Globe, James Carroll.
;)
Read Carroll's "Rescue Catholicism from Vatican" in the Boston Globe ...
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The Boston Globe reports today that priest James J. Scahill says the reaction to his Sunday sermon, in which he called for the pope to resign over his handling of clergy sexual abuse, has been "overwhelmingly supportive."
Read the entire story in today's Boston Globe ...
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SNAP President says "long secretive, convoluted policy" for defocking priests will change nothing by merely posting the already public document
"History and commonsense tell us that ancient, rigid, secretive cultures change very slowly, especially when the basic structure causing and sanctioning hurtful behaviors doesn’t change at all. A dictator abuses power because he can. He can promise reform, but if he remains a dictator, it’s naïve to expect real change." SNAP President Barbara Blaine
;)
Read the entire SNAP statement on the SNAP National Website ...
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Italian bishop says Jews are Roman church's "natural enemies" and are behind public outcry against pope
According to a reporter for the Italian Roman Catholic website Pontifex who interviewed Italian Bishop Giacomo Babini, the bishop said during the interview that Jews “do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies”. He added: “Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are deicides [God killers].”Babini denied he had made any anti-Semitic remarks, and was backed by the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), saying: “Statements I have never made about our Jewish brothers have been attributed to me.”
However, Bruno Volpe, who interviewed Babini for Pontifex, confirmed that the bishop had made the statement, which was reported widely in the Italian press today. Pontifex threatened to release the audio tape of the interview as proof.
Read the entire article in the British publication TimesOnline ...
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Vatican's "belligerent, resentful, paranoid response" to sex abuse by priests calls for radical change, say three Catholic authors
Three Catholic authors speak out on the urgent necessity of radically changing a Catholic Church government that has taken its moral codes and orthodoxy to hideous extremes, and with impunity."The Vatican must realize that the church’s belligerent, resentful and paranoid response to the global scandal is not working because it now says it will cooperate with secular justice systems and that the pope will have more meetings with victims. It is too little, too late." -- NY Times, April 11, 2010
Read More...
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Vatican letter shows Ratzinger protecting the church, the pedophile and the hierarchy, while ignoring victims
Vatican spokesperson Ciro Benedettini, said a letter published in the NYTimes, signed by Ratzinger, and which clearly shows that Ratzinger delayed the defrocking of a pedophile priest for 2-6 years, showed no attempt at a cover-up, but merely showed "the need to study the case with more attention, taking into account the good of all involved."Here is the paragraph from the letter, translated from Latin by the Times, in which Ratzinger listed "all involved" who would benefit from his judgment. They are:
- "The Universal Church;"
- "The petitioner" (in other words, the pedophile asking for laicization); and
- The church hierarchy, fearing "that granting the dispensation can provoke the community of Christ's faithful."
"This court, although it regards the arguments presented in favor of removal in this case to be of grave significance, nevertheless deems it necessary to consider the good of the Universal Church together with that of the petitioner, and it is also unable to make light of the detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner." -- Joseph Ratzinger
Nowhere in the Ratzinger list, or in any other place in the letter, are the victims mentioned.
Read the letter, and follow the entire document trail in today's NYTimes.
Read the AP article reporting Vatican responses.
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Vatican spins Ratzinger's protection of pedophile priest as not understanding "the context in which it was written"; Times publishes "the context"
Vatican spin specialist, Federico Lombardi, commenting on the report yesterday that documents confirm Ratzinger was directly involved in protecting a convicted pedophile priest, said it was wrong to draw conclusions based on one letter, without carefully understanding the context in which it was written.“It’s evident that it’s not an in-depth and serious use of documents,” Lombardi said.
Judge for yourself, then, says the NYTimes:
Follow the document trail for this Vatican cover-up letter signed by Ratzinger in today's NY Times.
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Ratzinger delays defrocking of convicted pedophile priest for 2 years in signed letter; for" the good of the Universal Church"
;)
In a signed 1985 letter received by the NY Times, Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, ordered delaying the defrocking of an Oakland, California priest convicted of pedophilia in 1978. The priest was finally defrocked in 1987. "Bishop Cummins had first petitioned the doctrinal office to defrock Mr. Kiesle in 1981. He also wrote directly to Pope John Paul II. Cardinal Ratzinger requested more information, which officials in the Oakland Diocese supplied in February 1982. They did not hear back from Cardinal Ratzinger until 1985, when he sent the letter in Latin suggesting that his office needed more time to evaluate the case." -- NYTimes, 09 April 2010.
According to records published today by the NYTimes, Kiesle was convicted of sexually abusing young boys between the ages of 11 and 13 in 1978. His bishop wrote the Vatican to have him defrocked -- which Kiesle himself demanded -- in 1981. Ratzinger responded in 1985, and Kiesle was defrocked in 1987.
Here are longer excerpts, followed by a link to the entire article and to SNAP's response.
"In August of 1978 he was arrested by the police and charged with having taken sexual liberties with at least six young men ranging from eleven to thirteen years of age during the period of November 1977 through May 1978. When he appeared in court, Father Kiesle pleaded "nolo contendere" (no contest) to the charges."
... "Given all the circumstances surrounding this case and Father Kiesle's irrevocable decision to leave the active ministry, it would seem to me most prudent that his petition be granted.
"Therefore, since all of these things are attested to in the Acts of the case, it is our opinion that this case should be submitted to you with the petition that Father Stephen Kiesle be relieved of all of the obligations of the priesthood."
-- John S. Cummins, Bishop of Oakland, 19 June 1981.
"This court, although it regards the arguments presented in favor of removal in this case to be of grave significance, nevertheless deems it necessary to consider the good of the Universal Church together with that of the petitioner, and it is also unable to make light of the detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke with the community of Christ's faithful, particularly regarding the young age of the petitioner. "
-- (signed) Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, November, 1985.
Kiesle was defrocked in 1987, 2 years after Ratzinger's reaction to the case, and 9 years after Kiesle's conviction as a pedophile.
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Guardian commentator claims pope has no diplomatic immunity from prosecution for "crime against humanity"
A British news commentator, writing in the Guardian this week, claims that the Vatican, and the pope can no longer ignore international law, which now counts the widespread or systematic sexual abuse of children as a crime against humanity. Therefore, the claim of the Vatican to be a state – and of the pope to be a head of state and hence immune from legal action – cannot stand up to scrutiny.But the commentary goes even further, suggesting that the diplomatic immunity of the Vatican "state" itself is in question.
Former Bush administration lawyer John B Bellinger III, in 2005, had certified that Pope Benedict the XVI was immune from suit "as the head of a foreign state" when the pope and his entourage came to America. Bellinger is now notorious for his defence of Bush administration torture policies. His opinion on papal immunity is even more questionable. It hinges on the assumption that the Vatican is a state.
"But the papal states were extinguished by invasion in 1870 and the Vatican was created by fascist Italy in 1929 when Mussolini endowed this tiny enclave – 0.17 of a square mile containing 900 Catholic bureaucrats – with "sovereignty in the international field ... in conformity with its traditions and the exigencies of its mission in the world."
Read the full story in the Guardian.
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