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In the late 20th century, and especially at the turn of the 21st, the Catholic Church in several countries was confronted with a series of allegations concerning sexual abuse of children under the legal age of consent ¹ by Catholic clergy and religious. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...
The Roman Catholic Church (also known as the Catholic Church) is that Christian Church which is led by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is the one holy catholic and apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ. ...
Sexual abuse is a relative cultural term used to describe sexual relations and behavior between two or more parties which are considered criminally and/or morally offensive. ...
In criminal law, the age of consent (AOC) is the age at which a person is considered to be capable of legally giving informed consent to sexual acts with another person. ...
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. ...
In the lexicon of the Church, especially the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox, religious as a noun usually refers to a member of a religious order of monks, nuns, friars, clerics regular, or other individuals who take the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience (the evangelical councils). ...
The controversy was at its most famous when it hit the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, several countries, including Canada, had already faced similar controversies with high-profile cases such as the Mount Cashel Orphanage scandal in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Duplessis Orphans in the province of Quebec. The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ...
Saddam Hussein shortly after his capture Major controversy over U. S. presidential election (November 7-December 13, 2000) September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New Yorks World Trade Center and Virginias Pentagon killing almost 3000 people. ...
Motto: Quaerite Prime Regnum Dei (Latin: Seek ye first the kingdom of God) Official languages English Capital St. ...
The Duplessis Orphans (French: les Orphelins de Duplessis) refers to a scandal where several thousand orphaned children were falsely certified as mentally ill by the government of the province of Quebec, Canada and confined to psychiatric institutions. ...
Motto: Je me souviens (French: I remember) Official languages French Capital Quebec City Largest city Montreal Lieutenant-Governor Lise Thibault Premier Jean Charest (PLQ) Parliamentary representation - House seat - Senate seats 75 24 Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd 1,542,056 km² 11. ...
Well-publicized charges that some members of the Church in certain instances deliberately covered up such crimes have fueled criticism of the institution and its leadership. While not every allegation stood up to scrutiny, most did, resulting in apologies and restitution by the Church and the criminal prosecution of those who engaged in the acts. It should be noted that the Roman Catholic Church doctrine has always considered the sexual abuse of children to be mortally sinful. When a scandal breaks, the discovery of an attempt to cover up the evidence of wrongdoing is often regarded as even more scandalous than the original deeds. ...
According to the beliefs of Catholicism, a mortal sin, as distinct from a venial sin, must meet all of the following conditions: its subject must be ‘grave matter’; it must be committed with full knowledge, both of the sin and of the gravity of the offense; it must be committed...
Threefold allegations The allegations concerned: - 1. The sexual abuse by some religious and secular clergy of children with whom they had contact in the community;
- 2. The sexual abuse of children in some religious-run houses, orphanages and schools, by both clergy and laity;
- 3. The policy of Catholic clergy in dealing with the abuse, namely a failure to report what were criminal acts to the local police, and efforts to pressure the victims, their families and independent witnesses into not reporting the incidents to civil authorities. Canon law (internal church law) was often given priority over secular criminal law, an action which led some Catholic Church leaders to be accused of "perverting the course of justice", itself a criminal act. (Note: the fight between Church Law and Civil Law's jurisdiction over the clergy is a centuries-old political struggle.)
While not every allegation stood up to scrutiny, some did, resulting in the criminal prosecution of those who engaged in the acts. Senior church leaders, including the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law (USA) and Bishop Brendan Comiskey of Ferns (Ireland) resigned over their mishandling of cases in their dioceses and in particular their failure to report incidents to police. In the aftermath, some national hierarchies introduced new rules of childcare and in the reporting of sex abuse allegations. However, very few dioceses experienced a drop in numbers of Catholics attending weekly Mass. In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ...
Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of common law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ...
As archpriest the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Bernard Cardinal Law had the honors of presiding over one of nine official masses of mourning after the funeral of Pope John Paul II. He escorts Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in this photo. ...
Brendan Comiskey is the former bishop of the Diocese of Ferns in County Wexford. ...
Mass is the term used of the celebration of the Eucharist in the various liturgical rites of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, and in certain Lutheran parishes and provinces, such as the Church of Sweden which are largely High Church. ...
Abuse in the community The largely unrestricted contact clergyman had with children (through teaching in schools and parish links with families) meant that a child molester in the priesthood was a serious danger to children. In part, this was because priests and religious officials and persons across all religions were viewed as trustworthy individuals, whom families allowed to get close to them. The clergy were involved in every aspect of their community's and its families' lives; from baptising the young to the weekly celebration of Mass, giving children First Communion to marrying couples and being the celebrant of their funerals. The First Communion (First Holy Communion) is a Roman Catholic ceremony. ...
Apart from direct family connections, many Catholic families sent their children to Catholic schools, where Catholic priests either taught as teachers or visited regularly as the local parish priest or curate. Participation in the Catholic faith involved a close association with, and proximity to, priests. While the vast majority of priests never sought to abuse a single child, the small minority who did had easy access to children.
One of the worst examples of a clergyman using his links with families to facilitate the abuse of children occurred in Ireland, where one priest ² systematically raped and sexually abused hundreds of children between 1945 and 1990. The scandal over the Fr. Brendan Smyth case, and the systematic obstruction of justice in his case by the Norbertine Order caused immense damage to the credibility of the Catholic church in Ireland, as did other cases, such as that of Fr. Jim Grennan, a parish priest, who abused children as they prepared for First Communion, and Fr. Sean Fortune, who committed suicide before his trial for the rape of children. The abuse by Grennan and others in the Diocese of Ferns in south-east Ireland led to the resignation of the local bishop, Brendan Comiskey while similar scandals in the Archdiocese of Dublin severely damaged the reputation of its archbishop, Cardinal Connell. Although there were other social factors at play, some have argued that the ten-year drop in the percentage of Irish people attending weekly Mass (from 63% to 48%) was related to these events. 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
This article is about the year. ...
Brendan Smyth (1927–1997) was a child molester from Northern Ireland, who used his position as a Catholic priest to obtain access to his victims. ...
Obstruction of justice, in a common law state, refers to the crime of offering interference of any sort to the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. ...
The Premonstratensians, also called Norbertines, and in England the White Canons (from the color of their habit) are a Christian religious order of Augustinian Canons founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, afterwards archbishop of Magdeburg. ...
The Eucharist or Communion or The Lords Supper, is the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus instruction, recorded in the New Testament, to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. ...
Fr. ...
It has been suggested that Suicide and culture be merged into this article or section. ...
The Diocese of Ferns is an Irish diocese covering most of County Wexford. ...
Brendan Comiskey is the former bishop of the Diocese of Ferns in County Wexford. ...
His Eminence Desmond Cardinal Connell is a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, and formerly Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland. ...
Abuse in institutions Like most religions, Catholicism has a direct involvement in other areas beyond parish work. Its many religious orders operate schools, hospitals, orphanages, and reformatory schools, and are involved in social work. Some of these institutions have been associated with allegations of sexual abuse of children. While the allegations made apply to only a minority of institutions and a minority of people working in that minority of institutions, enquiries have established the existence of both abuse and of a failure of the leaderships running the institutions, when confronted with evidence of abuse, to act in the best interests of the children or in accordance with the criminal law in their jurisdiction. Governmental institutions have also been heavily criticised for neglecting to adequately ensure that children placed in those institutions by agents of the state were properly looked after.
Some of the most serious allegations of abuse were made against clergy who either worked in the institutions or who were allowed unlimited visitation rights and access to children. As with the secular clergy in parishes, the majority of allegations have resulted in criminal convictions.
Perhaps the most serious charges facing the church in the contemporary world relate to Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ, a Catholic order of priests founded in Mexico in the 1940s. In the 1990s, Maciel was accused by nine former seminarians of his order with molestation. One subsequently retracted his accusation, saying that it was a plot intended to discredit the Legion. Maciel has always denied the accusations. However, he recently stepped down as head of the order. Whether this is due to the charges is hard to determine. The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ...
The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. ...
Flawed policies
Abusers moved from location to location Some bishops have been heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish rather than seeking to have them stripped of their faculties. Many dioceses submitted priests guilty of child abuse for intensive psychotherapeutic treatment and assessment, with the priests only resuming parochial duties when the bishop was advised that it was safe for them to be so assigned.
In response to questions, defenders of bishops' actions suggest that in re-assigning priests for duty after treatment they were acting on the basis of the best medical advice then available. Critics have questioned whether bishops are necessarily able to form accurate judgments on the nature of the recovery of a priest.
Failure to report criminal acts to police From a legal perspective, the single worst failure—other than the actual abuse of children—was the unwillingness of certain Church leaders to report the incidents directly to the police. This phenomenon occurred in every country with rare exceptions. This is proving to have extremely negative consequences. The Norbertines, for example, knew not merely of Fr. Brendan Smyth's apparently pedophilic tendencies but also of allegations of sexually interfering with children from as early as 1945, yet it was only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that the two police forces in Ireland, the Garda Síochána and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, were able to gather sufficient information to prosecute Smyth. The Premonstratensians, also called Norbertines, and in England the White Canons (from the color of their habit) are a Christian religious order of Augustinian Canons founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, afterwards archbishop of Magdeburg. ...
Brendan Smyth (1927–1997) was a child molester from Northern Ireland, who used his position as a Catholic priest to obtain access to his victims. ...
1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ...
The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ...
The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ...
A member of the motorcycle unit of the Garda SÃochána. ...
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. ...
In May 2001, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (at that time prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and since made Pope Benedict XVI) sent a letter[1] to all Catholic Bishops declaring that the Church's investigations into claims of child sex abuse claims were subject to the pontifical secret and were not to be reported to law enforcement, on pain of excommunication. However, the letter did not discourage victims from reporting the abuse itself to the police; the secrecy related only to the internal investigation. Look up May in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: ), born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on April 16, 1927 in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, Germany, is the 265th and reigning pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and sovereign of Vatican City State. ...
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) (Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei) is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. ...
In Catholicism, the pontifical secret is a code of confidentiality applied to some confidential knowledge within the Church. ...
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Allegations of systematic plots to conceal evidence Reviewers of the Smyth case differ as to whether it was a deliberate plot to conceal the nature of his behaviour, or whether much of what happened involved complete incompetence by his superiors, the abbots of Kilnacrott Abbey, or perhaps a mixture of an institution presuming that what happened to its members was its own business, plus the complete incompetence of his superiors, who failed to grasp the human and legal consequences of the actions of a particularly manipulative child molester, who found ways to circumvent whatever restrictions the abbots placed on him. (Cardinal Daly, both as Bishop of Down and Connor (where some of the abuse took place) and later as Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh, is recorded as having been privately scathing at the Norbertine "incompetence".) Cahal Brendan Cardinal Daly (born October 1, 1917) was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 1990 to 1996. ...
Primate of All Ireland is the title held by the Archbishop of Armagh. ...
Citing a belief in an international Catholic conspiracy, a Louisville, Kentucky lawyer filed suit in June 2004 against the Vatican, alleging Roman participation in a cover-up of sexual abuse problems. Legal experts predict an unsuccessful outcome to this case, given the sovereignty of the Holy See and the lack of evidence of Vatican complicity. Sovereign immunity however, was recently denied upon appeal in a separate (WW II/ Vatican Bank/Ustazhe Genocide) United States federal lawsuit . Nickname: Derby City or, River City Motto: Official website: http://www. ...
Payments to victims Some have even gone so far as to allege that Church members paid off victims of child abuse, either in settlement of compensation claims, or in order to prevent them reporting to the police. In the mid-1990s, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Connell of Dublin lent money to a priest who had abused altar boy Andrew Madden; this money was used to pay compensation to Madden and to prevent him from reporting the abuse to the police. Connell later claimed never to have paid money to a victim, insisting that he had simply lent money to a priest who just happened to use the money to pay off his victim. The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, the last decade of the 20th Century. ...
Implications of the scandal
Celibacy and the scandal Critics have suggested that the discipline of celibacy in the Catholic priesthood offers a means by which priests with sexual urges that are aimed towards children rather than adults can hide those tendencies, their lack of sexual feelings towards adults being unnoticeable in a completely unmarried clergy. There have been suggestions that child molesters deliberately enter the Catholic clergy due to the "cover" its celibacy provides, and due to the fact that clergy have frequent access to children; these theories, however, remain unproven. Though child molestation rings have been found, the fact that there is no noticeable difference between the level of child-oriented sexual activity among the unmarried Catholic clergy and the married clergy of other denominations suggests that child molesters as a group have not specially targeted the Catholic clergy for entry, though it seems likely that some child molesters have entered its ordained ministry as they have other ministries elsewhere. Clerical celibacy is the practice of various religious traditions in which clergy, monastics and those in religious orders (female or male) adopt a celibate life, refraining from marriage, sexual relationships including masturbation and impure thoughts (such as sexual visualisation and fantasies). ...
There is no evidence whatsoever that child molestation is in any way related to celibacy itself. Some child abusers were themselves the victims of child abuse, as children, their sexual abuse tendencies being formed long before they reach the age of forming adult relationships. While some child abusers may prove incapable of forming stable adult relationships (though many do, producing the phenomenon of parents who abuse their children) their celibate status is not a cause of their abuse of children but a symptom of their sexual desires for sexual activity with children, not adults.
Seminary training Clergy themselves have suggested their seminary training offered little to prepare them for a lifetime of celibate sexuality; a report submitted to the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1971, called The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood by Dr. Conrad Baars, a Dutch-born Catholic psychiatrist from Minnesota, and based on a study of 1500 priests, suggested that some clergy had "psychosexual" problems. It is a matter of speculation as to how much of the Catholic Church's mishandling of sex abuse cases was influenced by such problems. A seminary is a specialized university-like institution for the purpose of instructing students in religion, often in order to prepare them to become members of the clergy. ...
A synod (also known as a council) is a council of a church, usually a Christian church, convened to decide an issue of doctrine or administration. ...
City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area - City Proper 1285 km² Population - City (2004) - Metropolitan - Density (city proper) 2. ...
1971 (MCMLXXI) is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ...
The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood, a report submitted to the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1971, by Dr Conrad Baars, a Dutch-born Catholic psychiatrist from Minnesota, and based on a study of 1500 priests, suggested that...
Conrad W. Baars, M.D., (1919-1981) was a Catholic psychiatrist [See www. ...
Official language(s) None Capital Saint Paul Largest city Minneapolis Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 12th 225,365 km² 400 km 645 km 8. ...
In some countries in the aftermath of the crisis caused by the sex abuse allegations, the Church has begun reforming seminary training to provide candidates for the priesthood with training to deal with a life of celibacy and sexual abstention. Homosexuality within the clergy has also come under scrutiny, in large part due to the disproportionate number of abuse cases involving post-pubescent males. (See Ephebophilia.) This article is about human homosexuality. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Other Catholic teachings, practices The Catholic Church clearly teaches the sexual abuse of children to be gravely sinful. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church's list of moral offences, one finds: Codex Manesse, fol. ...
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- "...any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it, all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing." (CCC 2389).
In the New Testament, Jesus says: "[H]e that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matthew 18:6). See New Covenant for the concept translated as New Testament in the KJV. The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Testament or Greek Scriptures, and, in recent times, also New Covenant, is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written after the birth of Jesus. ...
Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus the Nazarene (circa 4 BC/BCE – 30 AD/CE), is the central figure of Christianity, in which context he is known as Jesus Christ (from Greek ΙησοÏÏ‚ ΧÏιστός) with Christ being a title meaning Anointed One or Messiah. Christian viewpoints on Jesus (known as Christology) are...
The Gospel of Matthew (literally: according to Matthew, Greek: Κατα Μαθθαιον ) is one of the four Gospel accounts of the New Testament. ...
Despite these teachings, some critics have charged that specific doctrines or traditional practices in Catholicism contributed to the problem. Catholic teaching affirms that so long as the officiant has been validly ordained, his personal sins have no effect on the validity of the Masses, absolutions, baptisms, and other sacraments he has administered. The doctrine of apostolic succession makes valid ordinations and institutional affiliation the chief consideration in clerical status. Doctrine, from Latin doctrina, (compare doctor), means a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system. ...
Holy Orders in the modern Roman Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, and Independent Catholic Churches, includes three degrees: bishop, priest, and deacon. ...
Mass is the term used of the celebration of the Eucharist in the various liturgical rites of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, and in certain Lutheran parishes and provinces, such as the Church of Sweden which are largely High Church. ...
Penance is the actual name of the Catholic Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation (also called Confession). ...
A Catholic baptism Baptism is any water purification ritual practiced in any of various religions including Christianity, Mandaeanism, and Sikhism, and has its origins with the Jewish ritual of mikvah. ...
In Christianity, the doctrine of Apostolic Succession (or the belief that the Church is apostolic) maintains that the Christian Church today is the spiritual successor of the Church of the Apostles. ...
In other cases, traditional Catholics have made the charge that the Second Vatican Council fostered a climate that encouraged priests to abuse children. In the January 27, 2003 edition of Time Magazine, actor and traditional catholic Mel Gibson charged that "...Vatican II corrupted the institution of the church. Look at the main fruits: dwindling numbers and pedophilia." However abuse by priests was occurring long before the start of Vatican II. The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, or Vatican II, was an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church opened under Pope John XXIII in 1962 and closed under Pope Paul VI in 1965. ...
January 27 is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
(Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American-born Australian-reared actor, director and producer best known for acting in the Mad Max movie series, the Lethal Weapon series, acting in and directing the Academy Award winning Braveheart and directing the 2004 blockbuster The Passion of the...
It is also widely understood that Catholic clergy are in short supply, at least in the United States. The doctrines outlined above and this understaffing combine, it has been claimed, to make Catholic clergy extraordinary valuable human capital. It is alleged that the Catholic hierarchy acted to preserve this human capital and ensure that they were still available to supply priestly services, in the face of serious allegations that these priests were unfit for duty. Human capital is a way of defining and categorizing peoples skills and abilities as used in employment and otherwise contribute to the economy. ...
Others, however, disagree and believe that the Church's mishandling of the sex abuse cases merely reflected prevailing attitudes of the time towards such activity, in which the tendency was to suppress the information lest it cause scandal and a loss of trust in the institution, an approach reflected in the manner in which the media and secular organisations hid damaging information or ignored it; from the sexual promiscuity of leading politicians to domestic violence. They see the Church as having made horrendous but genuine mistakes, their leaders being out of touch with society's increasing demand for exposure and retribution.
Yet others—including non-Catholic academics such as Philip Jenkins—have observed that the Catholic Church is being unfairly singled out by a secular media which they say fails to highlight similar sexual scandals in other religious groups, such as the Anglican Communion, various Protestant churches, and the Jewish and Islamic communities. The term paedophile priests, widely used in the media, implies a distinctly higher rate of child molesters within the Roman Catholic priesthood when in reality its 1.5–2% is no higher than any other segment of society and lower than many. The Anglican Communion uses the compass rose as its symbol, signifying its worldwide reach and decentralized nature. ...
Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ...
Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. ...
Islam (Arabic: ; ( (help· info)), the peaceful submission to the will of God) is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions and the worlds second-largest religion. ...
Episcopal resignations - Bishop Séan P. O'Malley, the Capuchin friar who replaced Law as archbishop, was forced to sell a good deal of valuable real estate and to close a number of churches in order to pay $120,000,000 in claims against the archdiocese.
As archpriest the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Bernard Cardinal Law had the honors of presiding over one of nine official masses of mourning after the funeral of Pope John Paul II. He escorts Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in this photo. ...
In Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop. ...
Boston is a town and small port c. ...
Official language(s) English Capital Boston Largest city Boston Area - Total - Width - Length - % water - Latitude - Longitude Ranked 44th 10,555 mi²; 27,360 km² 183 mi; 295 km 113 mi; 182 km 13. ...
John J. Geoghan (about 1935 - August 23, 2003) was a key figure in the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandals that rocked the Boston Archdiocese in the 1990s and 2000s, and eventually led to the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law on December 13, 2002. ...
December 13 is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2002 (MMII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005) reigned as pope of the Roman Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from 16 October 1978 until his death, making his the second-longest pontificate. ...
The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See, coordinating and providing the necessary organisation for the correct functioning of the Roman Catholic Church and the achievement of its goals. ...
The Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore is the largest church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and used for Christian liturgy. ...
Archbishop Seán P. OMalley The Most Reverend Archbishop Seán Patrick OMalley, O.F.M. Cap. ...
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (OFM Cap) is an order of friars in the Roman Catholic Church, the chief and only permanent offshoot of the Franciscans. ...
Brendan Comiskey is the former bishop of the Diocese of Ferns in County Wexford. ...
Ferns (Fearna in Irish, meaning elder trees) is a small historic town in north County Wexford, Ireland with a population of about 900. ...
Hans Hermann Groer (13 October 1919 - 24 March 2003) was the former Archbishop of Vienna (1986 - 1995) and a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. ...
The Archbishop of Vienna is the metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of Vienna, which includes the dioceses of Eisenstadt, Linz and St. ...
1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Palm Beach is a town located in Palm Beach County, Florida, 65 miles north of Miami. ...
Anthony J. OConnell was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Palm Beach, Florida. ...
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the New England region of the United States. ...
Bankruptcy Citing monetary concerns arising from impending trials on sex abuse claims, the Archdiocese of Portland filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 6, 2004, hours before two abuse trials were set to begin, becoming the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy. If granted, bankruptcy would mean pending and future lawsuits would be settled in federal bankruptcy court. The archdiocese had settled more than one hundred previous claims for a sum of over $53 million. The filing seeks to protect parish assets, school money and trust funds from abuse victims: the archdiocese's contention is that parish assets are not the archdiocese's assets. Plaintiffs in the cases against the archdiocese have argued that the Catholic church is a single entity, and that the Vatican should be liable for any damages awarded in judgement of pending sexual abuse cases. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon (Archidioecesis Portlandensis in Oregon) encompasses the western part of the State of Oregon from the summit of the Cascades to the Pacific Ocean, an area of about 29,717 square miles (76,967 km²). The Archbishop of Portland serves as the Ordinary...
Notice of closure stuck on the door of a computer store the day after its parent company, Granville Technology Group Ltd, declared bankruptcy (strictly, administration - see text) in the UK. Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. ...
July 6 is the 187th day of the year (188th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 178 days remaining. ...
In the most general sense, a liability is anything that is a hinderance, or puts one at a disadvantage. ...
The Diocese of Tucson likewise filed bankruptcy in September, 2004, as has the Diocese of Spokane in December of that year. The Diocese of Tucson reached an agreement with its victims, which the bankruptcy judge approved June 11, 2005, specifying terms that included allowing the diocese reorganization to continue in return for a $22.2 million settlement. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the southwestern region of the United States. ...
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane is an ecclessiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the State of Washington in the United States. ...
June 11 is the 162nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (163rd in leap years), with 203 days remaining. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
On 22 October 2005 a government-commissioned report compiled by a former Irish Supreme Court judge delivered a damning indictment of the handling of clerical sex abuse in the Irish diocese of Ferns. The report revealed over 100 cases of child sex abuse in the small diocese, involving a number of clergymen, including Monsignor Micheál Ledwidth, the former head of the National Catholic seminary, Maynooth College. The Ferns Inquiry (2005) was an official Irish government inquiry into the allegations of clerical sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Diocese of Ferns. ...
October 22 is the 295th day of the year (296th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 70 days remaining. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The Diocese of Ferns is an Irish diocese covering most of County Wexford. ...
Maynooth College may mean: National University of Ireland, Maynooth St Patricks College, Maynooth Until 1997 St Patricks College was a constituent college of the National University of Ireland, they are now legally two separate institutions but still share a common compus. ...
Among the facts revealed were
- the "inexplicable" failure of Bishop Donal Herlihy to exclude clearly unsuitable candidates from the priesthood;
- his failure to report incidents of proven sexual abuse to the legal authorities and his failure to acknowledge that abusers needed to be kept from children;
- the failure of his successor, Brendan Comiskey to report incidents of abuse and remove abusers from positions where they worked with children.
Among the cases revealed were Brendan Comiskey is the former bishop of the Diocese of Ferns in County Wexford. ...
- the rape of teenage girls on the altar of a church by one priest;
- the use of blackmail by another priest to force children to perform sex acts on him;
The report was also highly critical of the failure of the Garda Siochána to properly investigate incidents reported, and in particular the disappearance of one file detailing serious incidents of clerical sex abuse. The local health authorities also failed to protect children even when aware of allegations. A member of the motorcycle unit of the Garda SÃochána. ...
There was however praise in subsequent debates and among survivors of abuse of the actions of the new Apostolic Administrator (acting bishop) for instituting wholesale reforms, including the toughest anti-abuse rules in any diocese in the Catholic Church, and also his willingness to hand over all files and all information to the inquiry. Victims' spokesman and himself one of the victims of one of the abusers, Colm O'Gorman praised the administrator and compared his actions with the inaction and incompetence of his predecessors. Colm OGorman is the founder and director of the Irish child sexual abuse victims group, One In Four. ...
Forth-coming Dublin Inquiry and Irish Parliamentary comment Following November confirmation concerning a subsquent child sexual abuse Inquiry for the Diocese of Dublin, on November 09, 2005, TD Liz O' Donnell, former Government Minister and member of the liberal Progressive Democrats governing alliance, spoke at length in the Irish Parliament concerning the necessary changes required following the Ferns report. November 9 is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 52 days remaining. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Look up liberal on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Liberal may refer to: Politics: Liberalism American liberalism, a political trend in the USA Political progressivism, a political ideology that is for change, often associated with liberal movements Liberty, the condition of being free from control or restrictions Liberal Party, members of...
The Progressive Democrats (in Irish An Páirtà Daonlathach, literal back-translation: The Democratic Party) is a free market liberal party in the Republic of Ireland founded in 1985. ...
O' Donnell stated that it was clear to her, and to everyone, that the Ferns report would prove to be entirely typical of any such report carried out in any Irish Diocese, and that therefore the relationship between Church and state in Ireland must now change from that of deference towards complete separation . A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty. ...
O' Donnell characterised the Catholic Church in Ireland and as a whole as a secret, un-accountable, and anti-democratic organisation at variance with the State through its inability to uphold or adhere to civil law. She called for immediate financial auditing of all Church assets in Ireland .
Liz O' Donnell also called for termination of deference to supposed Church morality in the fields of IV treatment, stem cell research, abortion, homosexuality and Third-world birth-control programs. Ireland does not possess civil legislation for the protection of children, and the references to separation of Church from State arises in the context of providing such legislatory enaction.
Media programming containing debate upon the child sex-abuse scandals has focused particularly on the fact that Diocesan insurance policies against financial reparation claims by the victims were opened from 1987 throughout Ireland. The contradiction between this action and the complete inaction and failure at civil reporting, coupled with continuance of ministry by the very numerous offenders, has led to a point in Ireland where even the Church's senior theologian is unable to continue the general hierarchy claim of being within a "learning -curve" at that time. On state broadcast , it is admitted that indeed this contradiction is as indefensible as the crime and the seeking of insurance against sex abuse settlements overshadows the validity of what O' Donnell referred to as Catholic Church "denial" and "self-preservation" . 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The question of "canon law" and its quasi-legality in a modern state has been democratically raised amidst general popular shock that abusive rapist priests were authorised to continue ministry, or treated as if for alcoholism prior to re-instatement, or simply allowed full continuance of their abusive behaviour (as was the case in the seminary). The leading Irish theologian Father Twomey, on the same evening as the O'Donnell intervention, was unable to publicly affirm, on State broadcast, that any one of the 26 docesan bishops of Ireland would, in 1987, have understood or recognised that child sexual abuse (rape) was a civil crime. This contrasted weakly against Deputy O' Donnell's assertion as to the necessity for legal accountability of the Catholic Church in Ireland in 2005.
Footnotes 1 The age of consent, that is, the age at which the law presumes a teenager has the physical, emotional and sexual maturity to make an informed adult decision to enter into sexual activity, differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from a low teenage in Italy and Spain to a mid to high teens age elsewhere, for example 16 in the United Kingdom, 17 in Ireland. (Some states also provide different ages of consent for homosexual boys as against heterosexual boys and girls.) Yet separately the law may specify a different age where a teenager ceases to be a child and becomes an adult. As a result, where a difference exists, it may be perfectly legal to have sex with a child where the individual, though still deemed a child in law, is above the age of consent specified in local legislation.
2 Paedophilia and child sex abuse are not always the same: a paedophile may practice sexual abstinence, and not everyone who sexually abuses a child is a paedophile. Sexual abstinence is the practice of voluntarily refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity. ...
3 Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2001). ISBN 0195145976
See also Barry Ryan (born 1949) is a U.S. Roman Catholic priest who in late December 2004 pleaded guilty to repeatedly molesting a six year-old boy and who was sentenced to two years in prison. ...
Hans Hermann Cardinal Groër Hans Hermann Groër OSB (October 13, 1919 - March 24, 2003) was the former Archbishop of Vienna (1986 - 1995) and a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. ...
Bishop Kurt Krenn Bishop Kurt Krenn (born June 28, 1936, in Rannariedl, Upper Austria) is a Catholic bishop from Austria, who has been controversial for his ultraconservative views. ...
Jehovahs Witnesses, as an organization, were accused of child molestation by their members, as well as cover-ups of this abuse. ...
Father Paul Shanley, a defrocked priest, served at St. ...
John J. Geoghan (about 1935 - August 23, 2003) was a key figure in the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandals that rocked the Boston Archdiocese in the 1990s and 2000s, and eventually led to the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law on December 13, 2002. ...
The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ...
In Catholicism, the pontifical secret is a code of confidentiality applied to some confidential knowledge within the Church. ...
Academic seduction is sometimes considered a type of sexual abuse, and refers to the phenomenon of college professors having sexual relations with their students. ...
Additional reading - Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2001). ISBN 0195145976
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