Catholic Child Abuse Cover-UP 4 Decades in Ireland

[I Love Nigeria]

Anyone who harms an innocent child deserve to have his ball cropped with a scissors. ILN, semi-retired Catholic.

November 26, 2009
Church Covered Up Child Abuse in Ireland, Panel Finds
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009...gewanted=print

Filed at 9:15 a.m. ET

DUBLIN (AP) -- An expert commission says the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin covered up decades of priests' sexual abuse of children because its bishops were determined to protect the church's reputation at the expense of victims.

Abuse victims have welcomed Thursday's publication of a government-ordered investigation into how scores of priests were permitted to molest and rape boys and girls with impunity for decades.

The 720-page report analyzes the cases of 46 priests from 1975 to 2004 against whom 320 complaints were filed. The report names 11 priests who were convicted of child abuse but the others, either dead or yet to face trial, have their names omitted or replaced with aliases.

Investigators spent three years poring over 60,000 previously secret Dublin church files.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

DUBLIN (AP) -- The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland faced another day of recriminations Thursday as the government prepared to publish an investigation into why child abuse by Dublin priests went unchecked for decades.

The investigation focuses on cover-ups in the Dublin Archdiocese, and is one of several government inquiries ordered after the chronic child rape, beatings and other cruelty was revealed in Catholic-run schools, children's workhouses and orphanages. The first major priest-pedophilia court case in 1994 triggered the collapse of the government of the day. More than 15,000 abuse victims have since come forward to pursue claims.

Thursday's report looks into the circumstances under which 46 Dublin priests were able to molest or rape children in 1975-2004. It names only abusers who have died or been convicted, giving aliases for the majority yet to face justice -- including two priests soon facing trial.

The report will ''shock us all,'' said Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has said the church identified more than 150 suspected child-abusers in Dublin since 1940.

Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat, handed over more than 60,000 confidential church files on abuse as part of the three-year investigation, after his predecessor Cardinal Demond Connell dropped a lawsuit last year to keep more than 5,500 files locked in the archbishop's private vault.

The report is certain to implicate Martin's four predecessors as complicit in a culture of cover-up that protected the church's reputation.

Another report published in May detailed the decades of abuse at Catholic schools, workhouses and orphanages -- institutions run by orders of brothers and nuns operating independently of bishops, but like the church often unchallenged by the state.

Counseling services run by charities have since logged record-high levels of calls. The charities on Thursday were being allowed early viewing of the new report, which exceeds 700 pages.





November 26, 2009
Irish Church Obsessively Hid Child Abuse: Report
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/...gewanted=print
Filed at 9:38 a.m. ET



DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Dublin obsessively covered up widespread sexual abuse of children by priests until the mid-1990s in a misuse of the Church's central role in Irish society, an official report said on Thursday.

The government-commissioned inquiry into abuse in the Irish capital from 1975 to 2004, which came six months after a similarly damning report about Church-run industrial and reform schools, also accused state officials of abetting the cover-up.

The report, designed to show how church and state responded to charges of abusing children, said a representative sample of 46 priests made "abundantly clear" that it was widespread.

"The Dublin Archdiocese's pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets," the report said.

"All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities," added the report, which was published by the justice ministry.

Similar abuse cover-up charges have dogged the Catholic Church in other countries, especially the United States. Seven dioceses there have filed for bankruptcy protection to shield themselves from law suits by abuse victims.

Pope Benedict has condemned sexual abuse by clergy and said wayward priests should be brought to justice. He met abuse victims during his 2008 visit to the United States.

Abuse cases have also been reported elsewhere, notably in Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, France and Poland.

"SORDID EVENTS"

The Irish report said the Church was "obsessively" concerned with secrecy and operated a policy of "don't ask, don't tell" about abuse, though the situation improved after 1996.

"Unfortunately, it may be that the very prominent role which the Church has played in Irish life is the very reason why abuses by a minority of its members were allowed to go unchecked," it said.

The government acknowledged the errors of state agencies mentioned in the report.

"Whatever the historical and societal reasons for this, the government, on behalf of the state, apologizes without reservation or equivocation for failures ... in dealing with this issue," the justice ministry said in a statement.

The Church in Ireland has been plagued by sex scandals for at least two decades. The country was shocked in 1992 when the popular Bishop Eamonn Casey of Galway resigned after an American woman revealed they had a child from a passionate affair.

Disclosures in May of decades of floggings, slave labor and gang rape in much of Ireland's now defunct system of industrial and reform schools earlier in the 20th century shamed Ireland and further eroded the Catholic Church's moral authority.

Work on the latest report, begun in 2006, finished months ago but publication was delayed until the High Court cleared it last week with some details removed because they could jeopardize criminal proceedings.

It said some priests had denied the charges against them, but one admitted abusing over 100 children while another said he had abused on a fortnightly basis for over 25 years.

The report said state authorities facilitated the cover up of abuse. "The welfare of children ... was not even a factor to be considered in the early stages," it said.

(Additional reporting by Padraic Halpin and Tom Heneghan, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

[I Love Nigeria]

Married RE teacher Madeleine Martin jailed after seducing schoolboy, 15, on Facebook

By Liz Hull
Last updated at 7:29 AM on 26th November 2009

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Madeleine Martin seduced the boy she was meant to mentor

Abuse of trust: Madeleine Martin seduced the boy she was meant to mentor

A married teacher who had sex with one of her 15-year-old pupils after seducing him on Facebook has been jailed.

Madeleine Martin, 39, had sex with the boy in the back of her car in a country park, at a shopping centre and inside the mother of two's family home during a brief relationship.

The religious education teacher also persuaded the pupil to have her name tattooed on his arm after they became involved when she was assigned to mentor him at an all-boys school.

She was yesterday jailed for 32 months and put on the Sex Offenders Register after admitting ten counts of sexual activity with a child under 16.

Manchester Crown Court heard how Martin fell for the boy after she was assigned to help him with his difficulties with school work last year.

She began giving him gifts, including a mobile phone, and contacting him on Facebook.

One of Martin's messages read: 'Sorry, I cannot add you [as a friend on the website] until you leave school.'

Martin also tried to get the boy into her form at the Manchester school and wrote 'Don't worry, I always got your back' after she lied on his behalf when he missed detention.

By January, they were sending each other up to ten messages a day and the following month their relationship became more intimate.

The court heard that on February 9 Martin drove the boy to a tattoo parlour where she persuaded and paid for him to have a heart, with the name 'Mad' inside it, put on his arm.

She then drove to a nearby retail park where they had sex in the car and Martin performed a sex act on the boy, before they were spotted and asked to leave by a security guard.

The next day, Martin drove to Daisy Nook Country Park near Oldham where she and the boy, whose mother was abroad at the time caring for her terminally ill father, again engaged in sexual activity.

Two days later they had sex again at the empty home of the boy's uncle.

Martin, from Knutsford in Cheshire , then changed her identity on Facebook to hide their growing relationship and invited the boy to her home where they again had sex while her two teenage daughters, aged 14 and 17, were out.

Madeleine Martin with members of her family arriving at Manchester Minshull St Court for sentencing

Madeleine Martin with members of her family arriving at Manchester Minshull St Court for sentencing

But after just nine days the pair decided to end their relationship. The boy confided in his brothers, who in turn told their mother and she called police.

Judge Jonathan Geake told Martin, who was having marital problems at the time of the affair and whose sister had been diagnosed with terminal cancer: 'Rather than mentor him in the proper way, you used him as an emotional support and comfort for yourself.

Martin, 39, has been sentenced to 32 months in prison

Martin has been sentenced to 32 months in prison

'You started to abuse the trust you were entrusted with. Eventually you lured him into intimacies which should never have happened. You are to blame, not him.

'Those of either sex in a position of trust must expect significant punishment when they abuse that trust - especially sexually.'

The victim's mother said her son had been taunted by other children and was no longer in full-time education.

Her 'once vivacious' child had become lethargic and had 'lost his sparkle', the 49-year-old businesswoman added.

Mark Fireman, defending, said Martin, who qualified as a teacher in 2005, had acted 'out of character because of personal difficulties' . He said: 'These events left her depressed and vulnerable to thoughts and actions which should never have taken place.

'She has lost just about everything - her good name and her promising career. She has brought shame upon herself and upon her family.

'She never intended to have a sexual relationship - it was something which grew over time.

'She accepts that it is all of her own doing and that she is to blame - not the boy. She bitterly, bitterly regrets what she has done.'




Read more: http://www.dailymai l.co.uk/news/ article-1230882/ Married-RE- teacher-Madelein e-Martin- jailed-having- sex-15-year- old-schoolboy. html#ixzz0XyfxJu Hg

[agbonizuanghwe]

Madeline Martin is a priest? or teacher of Catholic religious education?

[valteena]

The Catholic hierarchy in Ireland was granted immunity to cover up child sex abuse among paedophile priests in Dublin, a damning report revealed today.
Authorities enjoyed a cosy relationship with the Church and did not enforce the law as four archbishops, obsessed with secrecy and avoiding scandal, protected abusers and reputations at all costs.

Hundreds of crimes against defenceless children from the 1960s to the 1990s were not reported while gardai treated clergy as though they were above the law.

In a three-year inquiry, the Commission to Inquire into the Dublin Archdiocese uncovered a sickening tactic of 'don't ask, don't tell' throughout the Church.

'The Commission has no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the Archdiocese of Dublin and other Church authorities,' it said.
'The structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated that cover-up.
'The State authorities facilitated that cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes.'

Four archbishops - John Charles McQuaid who died in 1973, Dermot Ryan who died in 1984, Kevin McNamara who died in 1987, and retired Cardinal Desmond Connell - did not hand over information on abusers.
The first files were handed over by the Cardinal in 1995 but even then he had records of complaints against at least 28 priests.

Retired Archbishop Cardinal Desmond Connell did not hand information over on abusers
The primary loyalty of bishops and archbishops is to the Church, the report said.

Bishop James Kavanagh, Bishop Dermot O'Mahony, Bishop Laurence Forristal, Bishop Donal Murray and disgraced Bishop Brendan Comiskey, a reformed alcoholic who failed to control paedophile priests when in charge of the Ferns Diocese, all knew about child abuse for many years.
The inquiry, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, said the hierarchy cannot claim they did not know that child sex abuse was a crime.

Cardinal Connell was credited for instigating two secret canon law trials which took place over the 30-year period and led to two priests being defrocked.
Monsignor Gerard Sheehy, a powerful figure in the Catholic Archdiocese, one of the largest in Europe, fought to prevent the internal prosecutions.
Religious orders, for example the Columbans, had clear knowledge of complaints dating back to the early 1970s.

Parts of the 700-page report have been censored to prevent pending or potential prosecutions of abusers being prejudiced with references to two priests, and one of the cleric's brothers, removed.
While the Dublin Archdiocese inquiry found no evidence of a paedophile ring, some of the most shocking findings included:
One priest admitted sexually abusing more than 100 children;
Another accepted he abused on a fortnightly basis during his 25-year ministry;

One complaint was made against a priest who later admitted abusing at least six other children;
It took gardai 20 years to decide on a prosecution of one priest.
The inquiry said it uncovered inappropriate contacts between authorities and the Archdiocese.

Allegations were made against one priest, known as Fr Edmondus, but Garda Commissioner Daniel Costigan handed the case to Archbishop McQuaid and took no other action.

The inquiry also warned of inappropriate relations between some senior gardai and priests in two other cases.
'A number of very senior members of the gardai, including the Commissioner (Costigan) in 1960, clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit,' the report said.

Dublin Archdiocese of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid who died in 1973
'There are some examples of gardai actually reporting complaints to the Archdiocese instead of investigating them.
'It is fortunate that some junior members of the force did not take the same view.'

The inquiry, which was looking at a sample of 46 priests dating back to 1975 but took its review back as far as the 1940s, outlined an insurance scheme for victims set up by the Archdiocese in 1987.
Church files show at the time Archbishops McNamara, Ryan and McQuaid had, between them, information on complaints against at least 17 priests.
The Commission said it proved the hierarchy knew the sex abuse scandals would cost the Church dearly.

'The taking out of insurance was proving knowledge of child sex abuse as a major cost to the Archdiocese and is inconsistent with the view that archdiocesan officials were still 'on a learning curve' at a much later date, or were lacking in an appreciation of the phenomenon of clerical child sex abuse,' it said.

The Archdiocese was pre-occupied until the mid-1990s with maintaining secrecy, avoiding scandal, protecting the reputation of the Church and preservation of assets.

All other concerns, including the damage done to young victims, came second, the report said.
'The welfare of the children, which should have been the first priority, was not even a factor to be considered in the early days,' the Commission said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-priests.html

Its called Turning a blind eye. These priests were supposedly men of God and doubtlessly well respected and trusted by their flock. Imagine using pulpit respectability to cover up such demons while the horrors on the other side of the pew continued. Jeezzzzz so many thwarted people causing so much tragedy in the name of God.

[I Love Nigeria]

November 27, 2009
Report Says Irish Bishops and Police Hid Abuse
By SARAH LYALL

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/wo...gewanted=print


LONDON — The Roman Catholic Church and the police in Ireland systematically colluded in covering up decades of child sex abuse by priests in Dublin, according to a scathing report released Thursday.

The cover-ups spanned the tenures of four Dublin archbishops and continued through to the mid-1990s and beyond, even after the church was beginning to admit to its failings and had professed that it was confronting abuse by its priests.

But rather than helping the victims, the church was concerned only with “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets,” said the 700-page report, prepared by a group appointed by the Irish government and called the Commission of Investigation Into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.

In a statement, the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, acknowledged the “revolting story” of abuses that the report detailed, saying, “No words of apology will ever be sufficient.” He added, “The report highlights devastating failings of the past.”

The report is the latest in a series of damning revelations about the church. In May, a report chronicled the sexual, emotional and physical abuse of orphans and foster children over 60 years in a network of church-run residential schools meant to care for the vulnerable and the disadvantaged.

Although that report portrayed a church that seemed institutionally broken, with guilt spread among many, the new one attaches particular blame to those at the top. It reserved particular criticism for the police and for four archbishops of Dublin: John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973; Dermot Ryan, who died in 1984; Kevin McNamara, who died in 1987; and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who retired in 2004. The report said those four knew of the abuse, but did little about it.

The report, which took three years to prepare, focused on the way complaints about abuse by priests had been handled. It looked into the cases of 46 priests who had been the subject of scores of complaints from about 320 children from 1975 to 2004.

Of the 46 priests, 11 have pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting children or have been convicted of that crime. The rest are dead or have not been prosecuted.

The report said the Irish police effectively gave the church impunity and often referred abuse complaints back to the archdiocese for internal investigations.

The police said Thursday that they regretted their failure to act. “Because of acts or omissions, individuals who sought assistance did not always receive the level of response or protection which any citizen in trouble is entitled to expect,” Ireland’s police commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, said, adding he was “deeply sorry.”

Cardinal Connell apologized in a statement, expressing “bitter regret that failures on my part contributed to the suffering of victims in any form.”

The report details examples of priests who were blatant, notorious abusers, but who were allowed to continue without punishment or censure. One priest admitted to abusing more than 100 children. Another said he had abused, on average, a child every two weeks for 25 years.

One parish priest whose case was examined in the report, the Rev. James McNamee, was locally infamous for his behavior over more than 30 years. Early in Father McNamee’s career, an altar boy said he had seen the priest “bathing with naked adolescent boys and placing the boys on his shoulders”; a parishioner said he had seen the priest exercising in the nude with boys in his backyard.

Numerous complaints against Father McNamee were looked into at various times, and various officials expressed concern, but no action was taken, by either the priests or the nuns who worked with him, the Catholic officials who fielded dozens of allegations, or the police. Father McNamee died in 2002, professing that he had done nothing wrong.

The Irish government vowed to make amends to the victims. The justice minister, Dermot Ahern, promised that “the persons who committed these dreadful crimes — no matter when they happened — will continue to be pursued.”

[Mikky jaga]

Being a non Catholic, I have been wondering how any full blooded priest can so successfully keep his dick in check amidst temptations from daughters of Eve. If Roman Catholics are serious about celibacy of their priests, they had better start castrating them. No other method will suffice.

[Iye]

Being a non Catholic, I have been wondering how any full blooded priest can so successfully keep his dick in check amidst temptations from daughters of Eve. If Roman Catholics are serious about celibacy of their priests, they had better start castrating them. No other method will suffice.

Castration, does it stop the urge or just the ability to reproduce

[Mikky jaga]

Castration, does it stop the urge or just the ability to reproduce

By castration, I mean just slice the JT off. When the ability to penetrate is off, the urge to molest children and congregation evaporetes like a bad dream.

But what do you say about the woman shagging a 15 year old? Women no get shame at all.

[nijalaw]

Castration, does it stop the urge or just the ability to reproduce

I say off with their d**ks

[Fjord]

Being a non Catholic, I have been wondering how any full blooded priest can so successfully keep his dick in check amidst temptations from daughters of Eve. If Roman Catholics are serious about celibacy of their priests, they had better start castrating them. No other method will suffice.

Sons of Adam are just as popular with nasty priests as Daughters of Eve are. In which case, not only would the penile equipment be sliced off, but the tongue too, and the fingers, and more. And what about the police?

It reserved particular criticism for the police and for four archbishops of Dublin: John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973; Dermot Ryan, who died in 1984; Kevin McNamara, who died in 1987; and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who retired in 2004. The report said those four knew of the abuse, but did little about it.

The report, which took three years to prepare, focused on the way complaints about abuse by priests had been handled. It looked into the cases of 46 priests who had been the subject of scores of complaints from about 320 children from 1975 to 2004.

Of the 46 priests, 11 have pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting children [this is the 'nice' expression for sexual rape] or have been convicted of that crime. The rest are dead or have not been prosecuted.

The report said the Irish police effectively gave the church impunity and often referred abuse complaints back to the archdiocese for internal investigations.

Sickening.

And, er, is anyone versed in these matters able to tell how the proceedings might go in heaven or hell for dead priests indicted of these very nasty things?

[Mikky jaga]

Sons of Adam are just as popular with nasty priests as Daughters of Eve are. In which case, not only would the penile equipment be sliced off, but the tongue too, and the fingers, and more. And what about the police?

Don't even go there. That method of keeping men in check had been used over the ages with huge success. Monarchs with harems used Eunuchs to keep guard over these women. No woman will be attracted to a man that cannot do the penetrating act. The other things (finger, tongue, etc) are just jara.