Bishops Likely to Keep Sex Abuse Policy

[dArKeR]

U.S. Roman Catholic bishops, in a national meeting, are expected to preserve the core policy they adopted at the peak of the sex abuse crisis — permanently barring offenders from church work — despite concern that the punishment is too severe.

A bishops' panel spent months soliciting comment from fellow church leaders and concluded that prelates should maintain the rule.

"Overall there was definite expression that the `one-strike' policy needs to be retained for now," the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse wrote in recommendations to be presented at an opening session Thursday. A vote is likely on Friday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050616/ap_on_re_us/catholic_bishops;_ylt=Aq6oRxlsMSIKDhQxPr6JpMRH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MjBwMWtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

Can someone enlighten me on how this is NOT NUTS? Wouldn't the church, a priest, be the first place a person would go for help? Wouldn't all that good in church rub off and help a person stop doing bad things? How would a person hurt someone when they attended mass or went to speak with a priest? If the church was hiring someone for a church position they could do a background check.

Maybe the Pope should be so swift and strict with the thouands of cases of priest sex molesters!

Nazi Pope: http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

Pope Tells Journalists To Search For 'Truth'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/23/AR2005042301372.html?nav=rss_world/europe

The Vatican has sought the intervention of the U.S. State Department to declare Pope Benedict XVI immune from a sexual abuse lawsuit filed here, according to court documents.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3201751

Vatican said Monday there was no investigation under way of allegations that the Mexican founder of a conservative religious order sexually abused seminarians
http://www.winktv.com/x466.xml?URL=http://localhost/APWIREFEED/d8a8vi600.xml

Vatican Reportedly Clears Priest
Vaca, a former priest, is one of at least eight men in Mexico and the United States who have accused the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado of molesting them when they were teenage seminary students in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200966.html?nav=rss_world/europe

Despite the horrific drumbeat of child molestation revelations, however, sensible Catholics hoping for a more transparent and less sexually repressed church shouldn't hold their breath. The new pope is not only a longtime leader of vicious church attacks on "evil" gays, he also has shamefully blamed the molestation scandal on the media.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/thenation/20050524/cm_thenation/20050606scheer0524_1

Vatican Accused of Child Molestation Cover-Up
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/098516.htm

Survivors Network says the overwhelming majority of its members have never sued and are too traumatized to do so. They say they adopted their tactics after bishops promised for years to take action against guilty clergy, then never did.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7463011/page/2

Pope's Nazi past
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7576505 /

[Boomer]

1. The mind boggles

>> ...despite concern that the punishment is too severe. <<

Stoning a child abuser is too severe. Beating him to death is too severe. Castrating him with a dull knife is to severe.

Barring him from church work falls more in the "rap on the knuckles" category of punishment.

[trotsky]

5. Exactly what I thought.

"Too severe"??

I dunno, when it comes to raping a child, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a punishment that in my opinion was "too severe."

And if it had ever beem *my* child, I'd have to be physically restrained from doling out the punishment MYSELF.

[beam me up scottie]

2. What are you talking about?

You are suggesting that priests guilty of sex offenses be allowed to remain in the church ?

"Bishops overseeing a review of the three-year-old policy have recommended that dioceses continue permanently barring guilty clergy from all church work. Some Catholic leaders have been concerned that the punishment is too severe."

That kind of betrayal should never be given more than one strike, IMO.

[dArKeR]

3. I took this as nothing to do with priests. I thought it's for a person

who might go to the church for counseling, confession, attending mass and praying for Jesus/God to help them stop/be healed. I sped read and missed that, thanks!

[beam me up scottie]

4. Oh, phew !

I was hoping that might be it!

Thanks for those links, I'm bookmarking them.