sfo
Catechumen
Posts: 14
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Post by sfo on Jul 16, 2008 22:54:50 GMT -5
Is there any organization within the Catholic Church that deals with helping victims of sexual abuse by clergy? What can individuals in their respective parishes do (if anything) when they hear or read of cases elsewhere in their state or even in other states?
I was pleased to see that Pope Benedict did meet with a handful of victims during his U.S. visit, but that almost appears to me as tokenism. Is there not more that can be done?
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Post by catholicxjw on Jul 17, 2008 7:26:17 GMT -5
Hi:
Many individual dioceses have set up departments to deal with the victims of sexual abuse. So, I would contact the local chancery to find out what they have in this regard and see what you can do to help.
Groups such as "Voice of the Faithful" and "SNAP" are somewhat helpful but tend to promote an agenda that is inconsistent with what the Catholic Church teaches in many cases.
Another thing that I believe we as Catholics can do is to hold ourselves, our bishops, our priests and fellow lay Catholics accountable when it comes to teaching the faith and living out the faith.
The sexual abuse crisis is a symptom of the poor leadership we have had in the Catholic Church in the USA over the past 40 years or so. You may want to read the book by Phil Lawler entitled "The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture". It details how the Bishops of Boston became more concerned with politics and other things rather than behaving as true Pastors to the people and priests in Boston. Unfortunately, this same thing has happened and is continuing to happen throughout many dioceses in the USA.....(including my own here in Milwaukee which I would argue is at least as bad and maybe even worse than Boston).
To combat this I believe we as laity must do the following:
1. Pray for ourselves and our fellow Catholics (lay, priest, religious and Bishops) that we all might grow in holiness and live the faith out faithfully.
2. Learn the faith extremely well by reading the Bible, the Catechism, and the writings of the Saints and then do our best to live it out.
3. Be obedient to legitimate Church authority. (Blind obedience is NOT a virtue.)
4. When we see any Catholic, including a priest and/or bishop, not doing what is right we have an obligation to point this out to them in a spirit of charity. We also have an obligation to not obey anyone who would have us participate in their own disobedient action, this includes bishops and priests who may want us to support their own disobedient behavior.
5. We have the right to withhold financial support from any entity that claims to be Catholic and yet promotes or enables individuals to behave in a way that is contrary to what the Church teaches. (For example, if your Archdiocese consistently does not discipline priests or others who are openly preaching dissent against the teachings of the Church, you have the right to withhold financial support from this Archdiocese. My wife and I have decided to do this in the case of our Archdiocese here in Milwaukee because the chancery office allows priests to openly support the homosexual agenda and other things which are clear violations of Church teachings and when people complain not only is nothing done, the person who complains is the one that is treated poorly.)
6. We also have the obligation to monetarily support those entities that DO follow Church teachings and promote those. (For example, if you know of an Archdiocese that does discipline their priests and makes sure that their priests are teaching the faithful appropriately, these are the dioceses that we want to support financially. My wife and I send our donations that would normally go to our local Archdiocese to Catholic ministries that actually support and promote the teachings of the Church including EWTN, The Fellowship of Catholic Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and others.)
I really believe that if the laity step up and do this that it will assist the Church in general in doing what it is called to do and will help solve the underlying problem that lead to the clerical abuse scandal.
I also believe that Pope Benedict knows what needs to be done and that he is appointing new bishops who have more of a history of being Pastors and supporters of what the Church really teaches which is also going to help turn the Church in the USA around.
Jeff S.
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Meagan
Church Militant
Posts: 151
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Post by Meagan on Jul 17, 2008 10:24:17 GMT -5
How did you find this out about your Archdiocese? peace
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Post by catholicxjw on Jul 17, 2008 11:54:01 GMT -5
Hi Olivia:
I found this out through my own dealings with the Archdiocese about a priest that was sent to be the Pastor of a parish that I used to be a member of. I was on the Parish council when he arrived and discovered the priest not doing things he is supposed to be doing and doing things he is NOT supposed to be doing. (Nothing illegal in the secular sense but lots of things illicit when it comes to Church law and practice.)
Unfortunately, his malfeasance is not only tolerated by the Archdiocese it is in some sense encouraged by the authorities in the chancery office through the things they write in the local diocesan newspaper and the lack of any type of change in the behavior of the priest.
In fact, the priest himself told me that if we complained to the Archdiocese that nothing we would say would really change his behavior and he was and still is correct.
This has resulted in many of us attending Mass elsewhere. Kathy and I have found many other priests in other areas of the Archdiocese that actually do what they are supposed to do and teach the faith in its fullness. So we attend those parishes.
I am afraid that the Catholic Church is filled with sinners as members of the Church militant (myself included). This means that all Catholics (lay, religious, priests, bishops) must know their faith and live it out faithfully and hold each other accountable in a spirit of charity.
That is another reason why Kathy and I with the help of many others started The Fellowship of Cathoilc Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses. It is unfortunate but many Catholics, including those in positions of authority, do not teach the faith in its fullness as found in the Catechism. Most likely this is due to the very poor formation that they received in the faith over the past 40 years. This is not happening as often as it did in the past but it still does happen. Our goal is to have The Fellowship be an advocate for good spiritual formation for individuals entering the Catholic Church from the Jehovah's Witnesses and also to help Catholics to learn and understand the faith better and share it more effectively with others.
Regardless of how people in the Church misbehave whether they are bishops or priests or religious or laypeople, this does not change the fact that the Catholic Church has the fullness of the Christian faith and gives us everything we need to become the Saints that the Lord wishes us to be.
Jeff S.
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Post by carloshelms on Jul 19, 2008 20:14:02 GMT -5
I'm with you there, Jeffrey. There are some serious issues in some diocese that, for some reason, no one wants to touch. The one that comes to mind is the problem in the Kansas City/St Joseph, MO diocese where I at one time considered becoming a priest. In the era of the early 70s the area seminary was so heavily homosexual that there wasn't much of a chance of making the cut if you were straight, former military, or conservative (with the Jesuit education, strike four). Of those seminarians (the ones that survived, that is), many continue to be diocesan priests. The homosexual lobby is strong in some areas. I can only hope that Bishop Finn has attempted to clean up the Helmsing-Sullivan-Boland KC mess. Two of the three resigned in disgrace (Boland in 2005). The situation is mentioned by Commander Fr Paul J. Shaughnessy, SJ/USN (one of my personal heroes and Navy Chaplain) in his article, "The Gay Priest Problem" (2000) recorded in San Francisco Faith (no less) by permission of the Nov 2000, Catholic World Report. www.sffaith.com/ed/articles/2000/1200ps.htmwww.catholicmil.org/html/call.php?id=788I have no idea how many Catholics were alienated from the faith for the reason of homosexuality in the priesthood, but I have a suspicion that I'm not and never have been alone. Salve, Carlos the Procrastinator
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Meagan
Church Militant
Posts: 151
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Post by Meagan on Jul 21, 2008 12:08:50 GMT -5
I'm with you there, Jeffrey. There are some serious issues in some diocese that, for some reason, no one wants to touch. The one that comes to mind is the problem in the Kansas City/St Joseph, MO diocese where I at one time considered becoming a priest. In the era of the early 70s the area seminary was so heavily homosexual that there wasn't much of a chance of making the cut if you were straight, former military, or conservative (with the Jesuit education, strike four). Of those seminarians (the ones that survived, that is), many continue to be diocesan priests. The homosexual lobby is strong in some areas. I can only hope that Bishop Finn has attempted to clean up the Helmsing-Sullivan-Boland KC mess. Two of the three resigned in disgrace (Boland in 2005). The situation is mentioned by Commander Fr Paul J. Shaughnessy, SJ/USN (one of my personal heroes and Navy Chaplain) in his article, "The Gay Priest Problem" (2000) recorded in San Francisco Faith (no less) by permission of the Nov 2000, Catholic World Report. www.sffaith.com/ed/articles/2000/1200ps.htmwww.catholicmil.org/html/call.php?id=788I have no idea how many Catholics were alienated from the faith for the reason of homosexuality in the priesthood, but I have a suspicion that I'm not and never have been alone. Salve, Carlos the Procrastinator Omgoodness!!!!!!! That is just well ....not right.
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Meagan
Church Militant
Posts: 151
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Post by Meagan on Jul 21, 2008 12:11:15 GMT -5
Hi Olivia: I found this out through my own dealings with the Archdiocese about a priest that was sent to be the Pastor of a parish that I used to be a member of. I was on the Parish council when he arrived and discovered the priest not doing things he is supposed to be doing and doing things he is NOT supposed to be doing. (Nothing illegal in the secular sense but lots of things illicit when it comes to Church law and practice.) Unfortunately, his malfeasance is not only tolerated by the Archdiocese it is in some sense encouraged by the authorities in the chancery office through the things they write in the local diocesan newspaper and the lack of any type of change in the behavior of the priest. In fact, the priest himself told me that if we complained to the Archdiocese that nothing we would say would really change his behavior and he was and still is correct. This has resulted in many of us attending Mass elsewhere. Kathy and I have found many other priests in other areas of the Archdiocese that actually do what they are supposed to do and teach the faith in its fullness. So we attend those parishes. I am afraid that the Catholic Church is filled with sinners as members of the Church militant (myself included). This means that all Catholics (lay, religious, priests, bishops) must know their faith and live it out faithfully and hold each other accountable in a spirit of charity. That is another reason why Kathy and I with the help of many others started The Fellowship of Cathoilc Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses. It is unfortunate but many Catholics, including those in positions of authority, do not teach the faith in its fullness as found in the Catechism. Most likely this is due to the very poor formation that they received in the faith over the past 40 years. This is not happening as often as it did in the past but it still does happen. Our goal is to have The Fellowship be an advocate for good spiritual formation for individuals entering the Catholic Church from the Jehovah's Witnesses and also to help Catholics to learn and understand the faith better and share it more effectively with others. Regardless of how people in the Church misbehave whether they are bishops or priests or religious or laypeople, this does not change the fact that the Catholic Church has the fullness of the Christian faith and gives us everything we need to become the Saints that the Lord wishes us to be. Jeff S. Thank you for explaining this. I am so new to this I would not be able to tell if a priest is doing something they shouldn't be doing and vice versa. Who watches over the Archdiocese? Is there a chance you could contact them and say "HULLO!!! This needs attention!!"? That has got to be very frustrating.
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Post by catholicxjw on Jul 21, 2008 12:56:50 GMT -5
Hi Olivia:
It is very frustating....
The person who is ulitimately responsible for what goes on in a diocese is the Bishop. He is The Pastor of every parish in the Diocese. So, all of the Bishops have an incredible amount of responsibility since they are ultimately responsible for the salvation of each soul in their diocese. (Which is why we pray for our Bishops at Mass every day.)
Like any other family made up of human beings who are not perfect, you have those leaders who are very good at what they do and those who are not so good. You have bishops with good qualities and abilities and those who are not so good. Of course in most cases, it is a mixed bag of good qualities and bad like all of us.
A good analogy is to think of the way in which we have people who become fathers of families, you have fathers who are good at keeping the kids in line and those who are more permissive.
In addition, administering discipline of any kind is extremely difficult as different fathers have different styles of dealing with people and different individuals react differently to those styles. In addition, the Church is rather unique in that it MUST be concerned with the salvation of everyone's soul.
This means that in the case of something as heinous as clergy sexual abuse, the Church must not only be concerned about the victims and their temporal and eternal needs, but she must also be concerned about the soul (both temporal and eternal) of the perpetrator. This makes the Bishop's role all the more difficult particularly since our Society is so self-righteous and decadent at the same time.
(For example, our society pushes for the normalization and acceptance of institutionalized sodomy and fornication and widespread access to pornography, while it screams bloody murder at the inappropriate sexual behavior of certain individuals who were, in most cases, greatly influenced to act out on their deviant sexual impulses due to the very permissiveness that society keeps advocating.)
I really feel for our Archbishop. He is a very holy man by reputation and loves the faith. He has written some excellent books on what it means to be a priest and to be Catholic. When it comes to expressing the faith verbally, he is excellent and from what I understand in his personal life he lives out the faith well.
However, he seems to be non-confrontational by nature and in many circumstances this is a great strength in that his initial reaction is not to condemn but to try and convince the erring individual to change their ways through love and discussion.
Unfortunately, this approach does not work with everyone and there are times that a Bishop must take a more clear and public approach with the individual who is erring (particularly if the erring individual is a priest or works for the Archdiocese or some other Catholic entity.)
To our Archbishop's credit, he has done this recently with certain individuals who have been attempting to use a Catholic platform to promote abortion, contraception, women's ordination and homosexuality. (For example, he took action against a professor at Marquette who did this and a lady who worked for the Archdiocese who claims she was ordained a Catholic priest.) These events made the local newspapers and created a rather large scandal.
But he seems slower to respond to priests in the parishes that also advocate these things but only at the local parish level and not in the newspapers........
I am not sure why this is, it could be that he is just waiting for these priests to retire which is happening at a fairly rapid pace. Most of the priests in this diocese who are advocating dissent tend to be very close to retirement age and the younger priests are much more orthodox. In addition, our Archbishop is asking for priests from different religious orders such as The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priests and other orders that have a reputation of being very orthodox to come in and assist in the running of parishes in the Archdiocese. So, it could be that the Archbishops way of handling things is to get rid of these dissident priests via attrition and replace them with younger better trained and formed orthodox priests.
I may not agree with this particular strategy but then again I am not the bishop.......so what I do is I pray for my Bishop and Priests and then read the Catechism, the Bible, and other good orthodox spiritual reading material, and watch and listen to Pope Benedict so that I can help be part of the solution for our Bishop and not part of the problem. My wife and I also try to support the parishes in the diocese and elsewhere that are promoting the faith in its fullness by sending them money and also praying for them.
You see, the more us laity know about our faith and demand (in a respectful and loving way) that our priests and bishops defend the faith and lead us appropriately, the stronger the Church will become.
I hope this makes sense.
Jeff S.
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Post by carloshelms on Jul 24, 2008 6:06:46 GMT -5
Makes sense to me, Jeff.
My approach has typically been more direct. It's what made me a good (self-righteous) JW. This I am attempting to temper. I consider myself a newbie at Catholicism. Sometimes it's best to do a little "watch and wait" just to see how the bishop handles a situation before ringing the doorbell at the bishop's house. But I'm liking what I'm seeing here in Helena so far. I like your balance.
Salve, Carlos
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Meagan
Church Militant
Posts: 151
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Post by Meagan on Jul 26, 2008 10:58:54 GMT -5
Makes sense to me, Jeff. My approach has typically been more direct. It's what made me a good (self-righteous) JW. This I am attempting to temper. I consider myself a newbie at Catholicism. Sometimes it's best to do a little "watch and wait" just to see how the bishop handles a situation before ringing the doorbell at the bishop's house. But I'm liking what I'm seeing here in Helena so far. I like your balance. Salve, Carlos Carlos, I can relate somewhat to this. I have to admit that yes, I have sat on the high horse often and looked down my nose at others (heh like ya'll couldn't tell ) and I'm learning to (the hard way) shut my trap. So thank you for sharing your thoughts as it gives me something to remember in the future. Jeff: I remember watching a clip of Fr Corapi's Catechism about a year ago. And he was basically defending those priests who had been engaged in sexual abuse. When I say defending, I don't mean he was defending their actions, he was defending them, their soul. Yes, they did something wrong. But before condemning them, he exhorted those in the audience to be Praying for Them. And so it is, your words really bring this together. At the time I was absolutely shocked and thought, that is just wrong of him to be defending these men and I think that was something that turned me away from The Church. I just felt like I was walking into another JW type situation. Since then, I've not thought that much about it. Reading your experience has helped me gain a much keener understanding of where Fr Corapi was coming from. peace
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Post by carloshelms on Aug 13, 2008 22:15:37 GMT -5
Carlos, I can relate somewhat to this. I have to admit that yes, I have sat on the high horse often and looked down my nose at others (heh like ya'll couldn't tell ) and I'm learning to (the hard way) shut my trap. So thank you for sharing your thoughts as it gives me something to remember in the future. Olivia, I know myself well enough to realize that I have a somewhat impulsive nature. It has served me well in areas where I have experience; but most often, my philosophy of "better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission" has worked out to my begging for a lot of forgiveness. Simply put, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." It is becoming more common for me to ask myself, "would I liked to be judged by my own criteria?" That's a good direction, I think. Salve, Carlos
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Post by anne on Aug 16, 2008 3:20:18 GMT -5
I used to think abuses were mostly in the RCC,but not so,they are everywhere.
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Post by javeca on Mar 30, 2009 20:35:11 GMT -5
Sex Abuse isn't limited to the RCC, I know that the WBTS has settled out of court numerous sex abuse cases. Those can be found at silentlambs.com What I would really like to see, is something from the Vatican, demanding that bishops and priest's here in the US start denying the Eurcarist to pro-abortion Catholic politicians (Speaker of the House Nacy Pelosi (D-CA 8th District) and Vice President Joseph Biden. From what I understand, directives have been issued from the Vatican, but are being ignored by many Bishops, the DC diocese is ground zero
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Post by anne on Mar 31, 2009 13:15:50 GMT -5
Javeca. sad isn't it, especially when it is Leaders/Ministers/Priests etc: because they are supposed to care for the flock...
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Post by anne on Nov 29, 2009 8:23:36 GMT -5
Wondering how catholics will react to the recent scandals of the 46 priests ? I think it was Sister Angelica who said not to be too compassionate of abhorrations ? I could be wrong? watched on TV ...
there was also the scandal of children being sent abroad cutting them off from families and how Anglicans helped this.
I liked the reply a friend told me of that his faith was in a man from Galilee
true isn't it. it is not about a place but a person, neither is it about denominations .....it is all about Jesus..
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