Avoiding Corporate Responsibility – Page 125

April 26, 2016April 26, 2016

Catholic Diocese of Yakima won’t list names of abusers on website

By Jane Gargas

The Lay Advisory Board of the Catholic Diocese of Yakima will not be listing the names of local clergy on its website who have had credible claims of sexual abuse leveled against them.

The board last month discussed listing priests’ names on the diocesan website and took no action nor made any recommendations to Bishop Joseph Tyson. Joseph J. Tyson

The seven-member group, which meets quarterly, investigates any allegations of sexual misconduct in the local Catholic church.

The subject arose after the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle published a list of clergy and other church personnel accused of sexually abusing children on its website in January. The 77 names were those who either admitted abuse, had credible claims made against them or claims established to be true, the Seattle Archdiocese said.

In an email sent last week to the Yakima Herald-Republic, Monsignor Robert Siler, Yakima Diocese chancellor, explained that the lay advisory board concluded that the names of credibly accused priests here already had been made public, either released in notices by the diocese, listed in this newspaper or named in the legal system.

“While the Bishop will continue to consult widely (including the Board) as to the advisability of making any further public release of names, the Diocese does not see a pressing need to do so at the present time,” Siler wrote.

He added that the Diocese is continuing to provide safe-environment training to its clergy, employees and volunteers, as well as provide care for victims and investigate any cases of alleged sexual abuse.

Since 2003, the Herald-Republic has published the names of 16 priests and church personnel, who served in the Yakima Diocese and who were determined to have credible allegations of abuse of minors made against them. Ten are deceased, and none is still active in the ministry.

Complete Article HERE!

April 24, 2016April 24, 2016

Where Do Priests Accused Of Abuse Go?

by Amna Shoaib

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Churches in South America are buzzing with priests who were transferred there from places like U.S. and U.K. But many of these priests have a dark, unknown past.

A lot has changed in U.S. and U.K. in the past several decades. As society distances itself from the hold of religious institutions, the power of clerical authorities has waned in the developed countries. This has weaved new patterns on our social fabric, but one undeniably positive thing to come out of this change was that priests and religious figures are no longer immune to the law of the land.

After exhaustive investigations revealed that priests often targeted vulnerable children in the church, authorities started to take action and more priests were made to pay for the crimes. This policy means that churches no longer welcome priests accused of molestation.

where do priests go1

So where do these priests go?

The Catholic Church, if it cannot protect its priests in developed countries, conveniently sends them to places where they will not have to face the consequences of their actions.

A recent report by GlobalPost sheds light on this chilling new trend of the Catholic Church sending accused priests to places like Peru and Brazil.

One such priest is the Rev. Jan Van Dael, 76, a Belgian living in Caucaia, Brazil, who is being investigated by the Brazilian and Belgian authorities on a plethora of child abuse allegations.

But in the northeastern Brazilian city where he lives, Van Dael enjoys a fairly relaxed life. There are no authorities ousting him from his position and taking him into custody, no TV channel hogging him all day.

Van Dael, under his charity, distributes soup to locals and is allowed to be in dangerous proximity to children. During the interview with GlobalPost, he reached out to touch a child’s hair, affectionately saying that he reminds him of a boy he had in his house in Rio de Janeiro. Van Dael’s room is lined with photos of children.

Father Van Dael in his room-Jimmy Chalk for Global Post

These are all the perks of the retirement plan offered by the Catholic Church to priests accused of rape and abuse. Spend a lifetime preying on children, before the church sends you off to a place where no one questions your morals.

The horrific thing is, the Catholic Church uses this as a tried and true method. This is how many abusive priests escaped prosecution or even public accusations in the U.S. At the first signs of suspected abuse, church authorities would simply transfer the priest in question. These constant transfers allowed many priests to go on a reign of molestation against the very children they were supposed to shepherd.

April 23, 2016April 23, 2016

Outspoken former Stoughton, Bridgewater priest defrocked

In the early days of the clergy sex abuse scandal, the Rev. Thomas Maguire said then-Cardinal Bernard Law should resign. Now Maguire, who served in Stoughton and Bridgewater among his eight posts, has been defrocked himself.

By Lane Lambert

Soon after the first criminal sex-abuse cases against Boston Archdiocese priests became public in 2002, the Rev. Thomas H. Maguire was among the first to say then-Cardinal Bernard Law should resign – and he said so from the pulpit of St. Helen Mother of Emperor Constantine Church in Norwell, where he was pastor.

Former Norwell pastor Thomas H. Maguire has been defrocked by the Vatican.

Now Maguire, who also served in Stoughton and Bridgewater among his eight posts, has been defrocked himself after the Archdiocese and the Vatican decided that Maguire did abuse a minor decades ago.

Archdiocese spokesman Terrence Donilon announced Thursday that the Vatican had dismissed Maguire “from the clerical state,” so he can no longer act “in any function as a priest.”

He’s the first priest with South Shore ties to be defrocked since 2011.

Maguire – who grew up in Dorchester and Milton – had been on voluntary administrative leave from St. Helen’s since October 2012, when he was accused of inappropriate sexual conduct in the presence of minors.

At that time Norwell Police Chief Ted Ross said the reported incident had occurred within the week before it was reported.

Donilon said police and the Archdiocese got a number of other accusations after Maguire’s leave was publicized. Those accusations were from the mid-1990s and earlier.

The statute of limitations has expired for criminal investigations in those cases, but Donilon said the church conducted its own investigation and found that Maguire was guilty in one case.

“We are grateful to the victims who had the strength to come forward,” Donilon said.

Maguire’s family lived in Dorchester and then Milton. He attended Boston College High and graduated from Boston College in 1971. He attended St. John’s Seminiary in Brighton and was ordained in 1976.

At St. John’s he became friends with future Bishop Richard Lennon, who was appointed as the Archdiocese administrator in the wake of Cardinal’s Law’s 2002 resignation. Bishop Lennon now leads the Cleveland diocese.

Maguire’s first parish assignment was assistant pastor at Sacred Heart in Quincy, until 1978. From then until 1998 he was assistant pastor in Dedham, Watertown, Stoughton, Westwood, Canton, Bridgewater and Needham.

Those assignments included the now-closed Our Lady Of Rosary in Stoughton and St. John the Evangelist in Canton.

He was pastor at the now-closed St. Jeremiah in Framingham from 1998 to 2001, and from there was assigned to St. Helen’s in Norwell, in September 2001. He was there until he went on voluntary administrative leave in 2012.

In 2002, reports surfaced that a previously unassigned priest, the Rev. Gerald Hickey, was working with Maguire at St. Helen’s, even though Hickey was barred from unsupervised contact with children. Maguire said he didn’t know of the Archdiocese restriction.

Hickey was removed from pastoral assignments in 1994 and had been at St. Helen’s since 1996.

In 2005 The Patriot Ledger asked Maguire how the clergy abuse scandal had affected Mass attendance at St. Helen’s, Maguire said it temporarily dipped but recovered.

“There’s a residue of anxiety and distrust towards the (church) hierarchy,“ Maguire said. Then he added, “I think in most parishes, the people remained loyal to the parish, the place where they practice their faith week in and week out.”

Complete Article HERE!

April 23, 2016April 23, 2016

Priest Jeyapaul’s victim Megan speaks to TNM: Church ignores sex crimes, or worse, hides them

Reinstating Jeyapaul back into priesthood is a disservice and a danger to children in India.’

By Geetika Mantri

megan and jeyapaul

On Tuesday, Megan Peterson, a US citizen and a victim of sexual assault at the hands of church priest Joseph Jeyapaul, filed a lawsuit against him at the Minnesota federal court. Jeyapaul was accused of rape and sexual assault, pleaded guilty and was sentenced for a jail term spanning a year and a day. He was then deported to India in July 2015. However, barely six months later, he was reinstated as the head of the diocese of the commission for education in Ootacamund with the Vatican’s approval.

Megan Peterson, her attorney Jeff Anderson and the organisation SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) have since been trying to draw attention to the case. “I felt abused and degraded and victimsed all over again. it felt like a slap in the face to myself and to the other survivors of clergy sex abuse across the globe,” she had said in a statement earlier, speaking about Jeyapaul being reinstated to the ministry.

In an exclusive and detailed interview to The News Minute, Megan tells us why this case needs more attention and asks that Jeyapaul not be reinstated.

Q: You have fought a long and hard legal and personal battle against Jeyapaul. What do you have to say about him being reinstated as a priest and head of the diocese of commission for education in India?

Megan: Reinstating Jeyapaul back into priesthood is a disservice and a danger to children in India. Children are put at risk by putting a convicted, admitted sex offender back into the ministry and at a position of authority. I don’t want another child to go through what I have been through.

Q: What is your message to Bishop Amalraj, who reinstated Jeyapaul to the ministry?

Megan: Reverse your decision, disclose who in the Vatican approved such a reckless move, put Fr. Jeyapaul in a remote, secure treatment center for sex offenders where he’ll be very closely monitored. Aggressively seek out others he has hurt and prod them to call police.

Q: Do you think there should be more dialogue in India about this case so as to set a precedent for the Indian Church as well?

Megan: Absolutely! Open dialogue, transparency and accountability of officials and offenders are key in moving forward and protecting others. By having these discussions, survivors in India may also feel safer, supported and therefore encouraged to come forward.

Q: You were very courageous in deciding to publically fight this case. What sort of response did you get from the Church and the authorities?

Megan: When I was a teen and was being violated by Joseph Jeyapaul, I reached out to the church officials. They hung up on me. It has been an uphill battle ever since, trying to get church officials to do the right thing and to protect children. Clearly, that is still the scenario. Despite my efforts for the past 12 years, they have made the decision to reinstate a convicted sex offender.

Q: Do you think religious values of piousness and purity also play a role in victim-shaming, preventing them from speaking up about abuse at the hands of a priest?

Megan: I can only speak for myself but personally it was very difficult to come forward and talk about abuse at the hands of the priest. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I believed it was my fault and that I had committed a grave sin. Many times after the abuse Fr. Jeyapaul would have me confess my sins to him and he would give me a penance to absolve me of my sins.

I believe that because of their position of authority as being a direct link to God in Catholicism makes it harder to come forward. People may not want to believe that a “holy person” could commit such a grave act of abuse.

Q: As children, parents and as a community, what can we do to look out for cases of such gross abuse and prevent them?

Megan: It is important to have discussions with the youth about good touch and bad touch. Open dialogue at an early age ensures that if something does occur, they would feel safe speaking to their parents or another trustworthy adult.

Also, sexual predators will groom their victims before the abuse. Watch out for the signs. When victims do come forward, community support helps. This would also encourage other survivors of sex abuse to do the same.

Q: The existence of an organisation like SNAP proves that this is not an isolated case. What do you think allows sexual predators like Jeyapaul to go unrecognized and unpunished?

Megan: Predators like Fr. Jeyapaul are usually shrewd and personable. They are often outgoing and charming; their supervisors and colleagues are more concerned with their own comfort, convenience and careers. So, they do what’s easiest and most tempting – they ignore child sex crimes, or worse, they hide them. This practice is what protects predators and endangers kids.

Complete Article HERE!

April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

The Catholic Church’s defiance and obstruction on child sex abuse

By Editorial Board

Pope Francis at the Vatican

IN THREE years at the helm of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has been a source of inspiration for millions of faithful around the world. In one critical respect, however, he has fallen short of his own promise: to come fully to terms with decades of child sex abuse by clergymen and the institutional cover granted to them by bishops and cardinals.

Francis has pledged “the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all.” Yet there has been scant accountability, particularly for bishops. Too often, the church’s stance has been defiance and obstruction.

In his trip to the United States in the fall, Francis told victims that “words cannot fully express my sorrow for the abuse you suffered.” Yet his initiative to establish a Vatican tribunal to judge bishops who enabled or ignored pedophile priests has come to naught. Not a single bishop has been called to account by the tribunal, which itself remains more notional than real.

Meanwhile, church officials have fought bills in state legislatures across the United States that would allow thousands of abuse victims to seek justice in court. The legislation would loosen deadlines limiting when survivors can bring lawsuits against abusers or their superiors who turned a blind eye. Many victims, emotionally damaged by the abuse they have suffered, do not speak until years after they were victimized; by then, in many states, it is too late for them to force priests and other abusers to account in court.

Eight states have lifted such deadlines, known as statutes of limitations, for victims who are sexually abused as minors. Seven states have gone further, enacting measures allowing past victims — not just current and future ones — to file lawsuits in a finite period of time, generally a two- or three-year window.

In many more states, however, the bishops and their staffs have successfully killed such bills, arguing that it would be unfair to subject the church to lawsuits in which memories and evidence are degraded by the passage of time. Quietly, they also say the church, which has suffered an estimated $3 billion hit in settlements and other costs related to clergy sex abuse scandals nationwide, can ill afford further financial exposure.

A typical case is Maryland, where bills to extend the statute of limitations until the alleged victim turns 38 have failed even to come to a vote, owing to opposition from House of Delegates Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Prince George’s) and the Catholic Church, among others.

In his trip to the United States, Pope Francis praised bishops for what he called their “generous commitment to bring healing to victims” and he expressed sympathy for “how much the pain of recent years has weighed upon you.” Yet by its actions, the church’s “commitment to bring healing” has seemed far from generous. And it seemed perverse to address the bishops’ “pain” when the real suffering has been borne by children.

Complete Article HERE!