Catholic Church links gay men to paedophilia

[plekhanov]

Cardinal hailed bishop for hiding predator priest: report

 

(Reuters) - A Vatican cardinal in charge of clergy around the world congratulated a French bishop in a 2001 letter for not denouncing a sexually abusive priest to the police, according to a French website on Thursday.

 

The letter posted by Golias, a critical lay Roman Catholic magazine based in Lyon, is the most explicit of a wave of recently published internal church documents in showing past Vatican encouragement to cover up sexual abuse by priests.

 

In the letter dated Sept 8, 2001, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos backed French Bishop Pierre Pican's decision not to denounce a priest who was later sentenced to 18 years in jail for repeated rape of a boy and sexual assaults on 10 others.

 

Under fire in recent weeks for its secretive handling of abuse cases, the Vatican has insisted the fact that other published documents did not explicitly instruct bishops to inform police of abuse did not prove it told them to hide it.

 

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi did not dispute the letter's content but said it confirmed "how opportune it was to centralize treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics under the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

 

The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, instructed Catholic bishops around the world on May 18, 2001 to report all case of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the Congregation, the top Vatican doctrinal office that he headed.

 

Pican, who received a suspended three-month jail sentence for not denouncing sexual abuse of minors, admitted in court he had kept Rev. Rene Bissey in parish work despite the fact the priest had privately admitted committing pedophile acts.

 

The case shocked France and prompted its bishops to declare that all abuse cases must be reported to civil authorities.

 

"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," Castrillon Hoyos said. "You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

 

BISHOPS NOT REQUIRED TO INFORM POLICE

 

In it, the cardinal said relations between bishops and priests were not simply professional but had "very special links of spiritual paternity." Bishops therefore had no obligation to testify against "a direct relative," he stated.

 

The letter cited Vatican documents and an epistle of Saint Paul to bolster its argument about special bishop-priest links.

 

"To encourage brothers in the episcopate in this delicate domain, this Congregation will send copies of this letter to all bishops' conferences," Castrillon Hoyos wrote.

 

A staunch conservative from Colombia, the cardinal headed the Vatican department for priests from 1996 to 2006. From 2000 to 2009, he also ran a commission dealing with traditionalist rebels who broke from Rome in 1988 and were excommunicated.

 

He conducted the talks that led to the January 2009 decision to readmit the four banned bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X to the Church, which caused an uproar when it emerged that one of them, Richard Williamson, had denied the Holocaust.

 

The controversy was highly embarrassing to Pope Benedict, who said he did not know about Williamson's views, even though they could easily be found on the internet.

 

Two months after the incident, Benedict folded Castrillon Hoyos's commission into the Congregation and the cardinal retired.

 

On Thursday the pope said the church had to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference to the pedophilia scandal.

So once more we have proof that the conspiracy to protect paedophile priests went right to the top, the Cardinal who sent the letter praising the Bishop for hiding a paedophile priest from the authorities and who said he was going to forward the letter to all other Bishops as well. This is the guy who was head of the Vatican department of Priests and remained so long after forwarding of his letter explicitly calling for bishops not to inform the police about paedophile priests to "all bishops' conferences".

 

Grahame you keep on trying to argue that the state is no better than the Christian Catholic Church, can you produce a letter from the Secretary of state for Education warmly congratulating a Headteacher for shielding a teacher known to be a paedophile from the police and saying they are going to forward the letter to all other heads encouraging them to protect paedophiles not children as well?

[purdyamos]

No, I am not a Catholic but I hate witch hunts and the spin-doctoring that goes on is just so unbelievable, it's far worse than what any political party does.

 

 

 

Who invented witch hunts, Grahame? Where does the phrase come from?

[Tradescanthia]

Child abuse always happens when people have power over children. For instance the infamous orphanages we used to have. Scoutmasters have also had their share of 'bad eggs'. I dont think gay men are any more likely to be paedophiles than any other men. Paedophiles are in every group of people, not just gay men. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church are a thousand light years out of touch. They need to get out [of the Vatican] more.

The power the Popes and Cardinals have had over the years has been considerable and should be put to better use, like benefitting mankind instead of covering up scandals and hiding Nazis [after the war]. Kids in Ireland used to be terrified of the local priest and the Jesuit teachers at school. That church has got a LOT of apologising to do.

[Grahame]

Who invented witch hunts, Grahame? Where does the phrase come from?

 

People on here have the same hatred of priests as earlier people had of witches.

 

Look in the mirror.

[MAMALOCHA!]

People on here have the same hatred of priests as earlier people had of witches.

 

Look in the mirror.

 

only when they break the law

[Grahame]

only when they break the law

 

Then let the law deal with it.

 

You may have made a good point there, perhaps you should be blaming the police for failing massively in their duty for years and years, in all the countries around the world.

[MAMALOCHA!]

Then let the law deal with it.

 

You may have made a good point there, perhaps you should be blaming the police for failing massively in their duty for years and years, in all the countries around the world.

 

i blame the perpetrators the hierarchy and the lack of action by the authorities.

[splodgeyAl]

Then let the law deal with it.

 

You may have made a good point there, perhaps you should be blaming the police for failing massively in their duty for years and years, in all the countries around the world.

 

The church has a history of moving said priests and not informing the police. Yes, I blame the police for not investigating crimes which they knew nothing about

[Grahame]

i blame the perpetrators the hierarchy and the lack of action by the authorities.

 

Yes, and it is the same authorities who allow the murder of unborn babies but I don't hear people going on a rant about it.

 

Oh, I was forgetting, the murder of unborn babies is legal so that makes it right. We live in a strange world.

[plekhanov]

Then let the law deal with it.

 

You may have made a good point there, perhaps you should be blaming the police for failing massively in their duty for years and years, in all the countries around the world.

How are the police at fault for not responding to crimes which the Catholic Church went to great lengths to hide from them? Are the police supposed to magically detect children being raped by priests or something?

 

In only one country Ireland is there strong evidence that the state thanks to it's incredible submissiveness to the Church shares the blame. Why would Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos for example so warmly congratulate one f his bishops for protecting a paedophile priest:

 

"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," Castrillon Hoyos said. "You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

 

If as you claim the French police wouldn't have "failed in their duty"?