Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

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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Those who have noticed the patterns in the hierarchy’s handling of abusive priests will have a sense of déjà vu while reading this story. I have emphasized the parallels.
Pericles Clergeau as a child emigrated from Haiti to the U.S. He soon manifested violent behavior:

The father, Joslin Clergeau, said Pericles started exhibiting emotional and behavioral [...]

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I often wonder at what age the male mind starts functioning in a rational manner (some women say never).
 
The NYT has an article on a young song writer who thought it would be hilarious
 
·       To sing an innocuous children’s song to a grade school class
 
·       Video their response
 
·       Go home and on his computer [...]

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Der Spiegel has an interview (in English) with Manfred Schneider, who has researched assassinations. Schneider thinks that assassins like Jared Loughner are not crazy but hyper-rational. He explains: 

Every assassin is a perceptive observer and interpreter of signs and events. For him, nothing happens by accident. He scrutinizes the world in search of hostile intentions, and [...]

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When sinners repent, we are informed by the highest authority, the angels in heaven rejoice.
 
Michael Anthony Rodriguez paid a hit man to kill his wife because he was infatuated with a young woman. He was imprisoned in Texas, and with the Texas Seven escaped on Christmas Eve 2000. They killed a young police officer who [...]

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The Naples Daily  News reports

A Brevard County woman claiming to be God’s messenger has been charged with attempted murder after reportedly shooting at a family on their back porch.
The sheriff’s office reports that 47-year-old Kathleen Aceto showed up with a gun and began shooting Friday morning. A man in the house grabbed a gun and [...]

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The New York Times has described the new cooperation between the Unites States and Mexico in combating the drug trade. What the Times (perhaps wisely) did not mention is that the narcotraficantes are popular in Mexico, at least in some areas. 
Popular Catholicism, as Arturo Vasquez reminds us in his blog Reditus, has some unusual saints. [...]

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As the Murphy Report noted, church discipline in Ireland was almost totally neglected in Ireland. In thirty years only two canonical trials were held, and these were held in opposition to the chief canonist. 
The Roman Catholic Church sometimes suffers from legalism, to which voluntarist moral theology and casuistry contributed. But law has a place in [...]

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Roman Polanski promised and crossed his heart and hoped to die that he would not leave Switzerland if he were let out of jail. He would wait patiently to see whether he would be extradited to the U.S. where he would be put in prison in uncomfortable circumstances. He would under no circumstances consider crossing [...]

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Nightmares are a hazard of those who investigate child abuse, and one of the most potent sources of the nightmares is the explicit sacrilege that is sometimes, perhaps often, involved in the abuse. Some abusive priests have dressed boys as Jesus and then assaulted them.
 
Bishop Lahey not only had child porn on his computer (bad [...]

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The merde has hit the fan in the Canadian Church: 

An arrest warrant has been issued for a former Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia charged with possession and importation of child pornography. The Chronicle Hearld reports:
The Ottawa Police Service Internet child exploitation unit charged Raymond Lahey, 69, on Sept. 25, 10 days after he was [...]

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If I may quote from my 1998 book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church:

Both literary critics for whom transgressive is a word of praise and whose hero is the Marquis de Sade, and psychologists who desire an ever-expanding field of sexual; liberation put forward the idea that sex with boys is the next area [...]

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The abortionist George Tiller was apparently killed by a pro-lifer. This has led to attacks on the pro-life movement at innately violent.
The widespread denunciations of the Vietnam War as illegal, unjust, cruel, and criminal, led students at Brandeis to plot the violent overthrow of the government.

On Sept. 23, 1970, Brandeis University woke up to [...]

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Santa Muerte and “Bishop” David Romo Guillén

The faithful followers of Santa Muerte, the Death Saint, are unhappy that the government destroyed the shrines they had built on public land (see blog below).

One bishop, according to the Washington Post, agreed with them
But the destruction enraged Death Saint church leaders, including archbishop David Romo who in [...]

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White-collar perpetrators of fraud are a popular target of rage, with good reason. I have lost a substantial amount to fraud over the years, including some to Bernie Madoff – and I’m not even Jewish. It is therefore extremely satisfying to see such crooks enjoy the hospitality of the Department of Corrections.

The New York Times [...]

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