What’s going on in the Church/Vatican - with (child) abuse

mielia (50)in #religion • 6 years ago (edited)

„The Church“ or the Vatican is an exemplification of an organization majorly influencing news, headlines and publishing about itself.

At the end of July the following news could be found on several websites - you wouldn’t see any of it on ThemTube.

A Pennsylvania grand jury’s landmark report, linking more than 300 “predator priests” to clergy child sexual abuse, will be made public, the state’s Supreme Court said Friday.
The report details cases going back decades in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses and includes allegations of cover-up efforts, the court said.[1]

The order also indicates the scope of the grand jury's investigation of clergy sex abuse. More than 300 people identified by name are alleged to have committed criminal or morally reprehensible conduct in the grand jury report, the court's opinion states.[2]

Spokesman Mike Barley offered these sentiments early Friday evening to news of the court's decision: "The Diocese of Harrisburg has fully cooperated with the Office of the Attorney General. The Diocese and Bishop Gainer strongly support the release of the Grand Jury report and have not filed anything to cause the stay ordered. Ensuring that this Report is accurate is paramount to its integrity and we are pleased that the Supreme Court has shown the leadership to make certain that the information being released to the public is correct."

Earlier this week, Shapiro wrote a letter to Pope Francis and pleaded with the leader of the Catholic Church to bring abuses to light. The Catholic League, an advocacy group, blasted Shapiro for that.

"For the record, there has been no attempt to silence alleged victims, but there certainly has been a well-orchestrated attempt, led by Shapiro, to silence his critics," the league wrote on its website. "In fact, that is what his letter is designed to do. Does he really think the Holy Father is going to accept his unsubstantiated criticisms of Pennsylvania priests and bishops?

Shapiro said in his statement that he intends to hold church officials accountable.[2]

Other sources about the same [3] (very short interview with survivor), [5] (small separate scandal in a specific church funeral).

The Reverend John T. Sweeney, center, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Westmoreland County to sexually abusing a fourth grader.[4] (picture see there)

The priest from Westmoreland County pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy who, now in his 30s, serves in the U.S. Coast Guard.[4]

Philly’s dirty laundry count in 2005, when a city grand jury slammed it: At least 63 priests – and probably many more – sexually abused hundreds of minors over several decades across the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Cardinals John Krol and Anthony J. Bevilacqua “excused and enabled the abuse,” the grand jury found at the time. No one, though, could be prosecuted because time had expired to file charges.

A state grand jury under former Attorney General Kathleen Kane reported in 2016 that 50 abusive priests and religious leaders in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese had done damage to “hundreds” of children over two generations. Again, no charges were filed because of the state’s paltry statute of limitations.[4]

At the 18th may there were everywhere in international and German media articles to be found stating a headline similar to this:

All [34] Chilean bishops present letters of resignation to pope after abuse cases.
Example (below 7k views):

Yes, you read correctly, everywhere. AP, Reuters, CNN, FOX, NBC, NYT, WSJ, all over German newspaper media, tagesschau.de, deutsche welle and on and on.
Have you heard about it? I’d rather bet not. No talk on ThemTube. The press articles had suspiciously low numbers of views and comments.

But maybe it has changed, since meanwhile, on about 11 June 2018 the pope accepted the resignation of two (it is said three now) and on 28 June two additionally making it five.

Also about yesterday the pope recognized or praised (depending on who you ask/read) the effort that was made by the Chilean clergy.

“I was impressed by the reflection, discernment and decisions that were made,” the pope wrote. “But what struck me most was the example of a unified episcopal community. Thank you for this edifying example.”[6]

Type in your search bars yourself, there are a lot of lamestream sources, I’ll just mention two here now:
https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2018/06/28/pope-removes-two-chilean-bishops-accused-of-abuse-cover-ups/
https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2018/08/05/chilean-bishops-apologize-for-failing-victims-of-sex-abuse/
And there is a wiki article about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_cases_in_Chile