Here is the question I am pondering tonight: How many priests have publically confessed to molesting children? How many bishops or cardinals have confessed to covering up these crimes?
The credibility of the catholic church rests on this.
How can it be that there have been all these convictions and payouts and the perpetrators aren't VOLUNTARILY coming forward to confess the truth?
More after the altar boy jump...
I'm reading tonight of the growing pedophile scandal in Latin America.
On Tuesday, a Mexican citizen filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. federal court in California against former priest Nicolas Aguilar Rivera and the Roman Catholic cardinals of Mexico City and Los Angeles, claiming they moved the priest between the two nations to hide abuse allegations. An advocacy group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the plaintiff alleges Aguilar Rivera molested him in the mid-1990s when he was 12.
Two other lawsuits against Aguilar Rivera have been thrown out by California state judges who ruled a Mexican citizen could not sue another Mexican citizen in a U.S. court, but the advocacy group said the new suit employs an 1789 federal law that allows a foreigner to file a civil claim in the United States.
The whereabouts of Aguilar Rivera in Mexico are unknown.
Where is the moral authority of the catholic church?
Who, in the hierarchy, has EVER issued an emphatic order TO TELL THE TRUTH? Or unequivocal instructions to fully coopeate with lawful authorities?
Oh no, even here in California in the very diocese where molestations caused the passage of a state law REQUIRING reporting of molestation charges the bishop issued instructions to report incidents to the archdiocese who would decide whether they had merit IN CONTRAVENTION OF STATE LAW!
United States. Canada. Ireland. Germany. Mexico. Chile.
WHEN WILL THE CHURCH START TELLING THE TRUTH?
Who defends this?
Who excuses it?
WHO CONTINUES TO SUPPORT IT?
Hello?
What kind of person continues to sit in their pew, week after week, giving their tithe, acquiescing to the absolute authority OF UNREPENTANT CRIMINALS?
Victims and families have been routinely threatened. This is the norm. This is NOT the exception. The standard operating procedure has been to deny the truth, attack the victims, protect the molestors, move them to other locales where they can molest again, AND THEN ACT AS IF THE CHURCH AND THE CRIMINALS WHO HAVE CARRIED OUT THE MOST WIDESPREAD MOLESTING OF CHILDREN IN HUMAN HISTORY ARE THE ACTUAL VICTIMS!
I simply have no words.
How many priests have come forward and admitted their culpability as molestors or witnesses? How many bishops have admitted to covering up the molestation of children, the intimidation of parents, or moving molestors on to molest EVEN MORE CHILDREN?
And how many catholics continue to support these criminals?
NOTICE:
I'll respect catholics just as soon as they start forming democratically elected lay councils in each parish to receive tithes and offerings and disburse them to the parish according to their elected representatives.
Until them, I have ZERO respect for the catholic church and every parishoner who continues to enable their criminal enterprise.