Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

The Philadelphia prosecutors are going after the Archdiocese of Philadelphian as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of Msgr. Lynn, and want to introduce evidence of the pattern of enabling abusers.
When I had lawyers review my book Sacrilege for libel issues, they were astonished at what bishops had done. Bishops came very close to being [...]

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When we are in Baltimore, we often go to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Towson. The pastor, Father Joe Barr, is an energetic priest and the masses are more than tolerable. One of his assistants is (or was until this weekend) the Rev. Mark Bullock.
Alas, the Baltimore Sun had this story:

According to a [...]

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Accusations of sexual abuse often provoke disbelief and comments “How could he have done such a thing? He done so many good things.”
Parishioners still leap to the defense of priests accused of abuse. In New York:

A Marine Park Catholic church dedicated its Christmas display to a priest accused of sex abuse, drawing outrage from one [...]

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Edelson and Lahey
Bishop Lahey was NOT a pedophile, his lawyer Edelson and his psychiatrist Bradford have emphasized.
Lahey, who has been involved in a 10-year romantic relationship after a number of one-night stands, imagines himself in a “submissive role” in his sado-masochistic sex fantasies, Bradford said. (Ottawa Citizen)
However, Bradford acknowledged he gave little consideration to [...]

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CBC reports from Canada

Disgraced former Roman Catholic bishop Raymond Lahey is not a pedophile and does not pose a risk to the community, his lawyers argued at his sentencing hearing Monday.

Lahey, 71, former head of the diocese of Antigonish, N.S., pleaded guilty earlier this year to possession of child pornography for the purposes of importation [...]

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The Deetman commission is Holland that investigated sexual abuse has concluded that since 1945 between ten and twenty thousand children were sexually abused by Catholic priests and religious. This is in a country that currently has about five million Catholics.
The commission also suggested that homosexuality was a major factor in the abuse. FAZ reports:

Homosexuelle Subkultur [...]

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Archbishop Chaput in Philadelphia knows he faces some very bad publicity in the spring when a trial for the archdiocese’s  failure to protect children commences.
Chaput in a letter that is to be read this weekend in all churches in Philadelphia is announcing his strategy: to protect the treasures of the Church, not, as was [...]

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Croissant
Madre
Albert

The background story for the history of abuse in the Community of the Beatitudes might give us some sympathy for the church and police investigators who are trying to entangle what really happened. Religion en Libertad summarized it.
Gerard Croissant (Aka Ephraim) was the founder of the Community. He was born in 1949 of a Protestant [...]

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Solweig Ély

French law makes “cults” illegal. The behavior of some members of the Community of the Beatitudes helps explain why the French have such a law.  Marie-Claudine Chaupitre interviewed a woman who had grown up in the community:

A Victim of Abuse, Forced to be Silent

The sexual abuse experienced at the age of 9 years [...]

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John Paul Receiving Members of the Community of the Beatitudes
Jesus said, “By your fruits you shall know them,” but sometimes very bad men can bear seemingly good fruit.
Many Catholics dislike the Legion of Christ, and do not see it as a good fruit of the psychopathic con artist incestuous abuser Maciel. But I have always wondered how such a [...]

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The Board of Trustees at Penn State University has fired both the president Spanier and the legendary coach Paterno for their failure to act legally and ethically in handling the allegations of child abuse against Sandusky.
Note the contrast to the Vatican, which has NEVER removed a bishop for similar failures.
The behavior of the coaches and [...]

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The Bishops will no doubt take comfort in the Canadian belief that punishment is not the proper response to sexual abuse. The National Post reports:

As North America’s top experts on sex abuse gather in Toronto this week, a philosophical debate about how to treat some of society’s most reviled criminals is coming into stark [...]

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Rod Dreher is back in the blogosphere, and has two very good blogs (here and here) on the situation in Kansas City, where Bishop Finn has just been indicted.
Dreher makes most of the important points. I have only a few words to add.
Bishops cannot be trusted implicitly. Some consider it their duty to lie to [...]

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Years ago, before I started investigating the sexual abuse crisis, I had a series of dreams in which I encountered the souls of boys who had died and did not know that they were dead. They had to make the final step into death but they were afraid. I tried to comfort them as best [...]

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As a board member of BishopAccountability.org, I agree with Chaput, the new archbishop of Philadelphia. John Allen interviewed him:
What about the issue of the accountability of bishops inside the church itself? Critics often argue that recovery from the crisis can’t happen until bishops who covered up the abuse are punished as severely as the priests [...]

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