2/29/16

'Spotlight' exposes underbelly of Roman church

South Dakota's legislature is hiding clergy crimes while Minnesota is prosecuting predator priests.

Boston's disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law lives amidst splendor in Rome after resigning his office.
The upcoming release of a movie detailing the Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of clergy abuse may bring up “horrific memories” for New Mexico victims of sex abuse, Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester said. In a recent letter to Archdiocese of Santa Fe priests and parishioners last week, Wester said that the movie “Spotlight” is a chance for the faithful to pray for abuse victims. New Mexico was at the center of similar scandals years before the Boston stories. The Diocese of Gallup, which serves a large part of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and Arizona, filed for bankruptcy in 2013 as lawsuits mounted over claims of clergy sex abuse. [Albuquerque Journal]
Like a dozen other US Roman churches have done the Helena, Montana chapter of the sect faced 362 claims of sexual abuse and filed for bankruptcy.

After a cassock with ties to the Sioux Falls diocese resigned amid clergy crimes, jaws are dropping.
A day after the deadline for filing clergy abuse claims against the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese, interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda described the number of victims who stepped forward as “staggering.” With the full list of creditors now in sight, the archdiocese will begin working in bankruptcy court with the victims’ committee, insurance companies and others to review the claims. Hebda argued that a speedy end to the bankruptcy proceedings is good for everyone. [StarTribune]
A Sioux Falls cleric is closely tied to Archbishop John Nienstedt, a defendant in the case.
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi on Friday criminally charged the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for its "role in failing to protect children and contribution to the unspeakable harm" done to three sexual abuse victims of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer. Wehmeyer said he asked the archbishop a couple of times, 'Are you aware of my past? Are you aware of my record?' Wehmeyer said that Nienstedt brushed it off and replied, 'I don't have time to look into that stuff.'" [Minnesota Public Radio News]
Nienstedt is Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the University of St. Thomas where Sioux Falls Bishop Paul Swain serves on the Institutional Advancement Committee. They are standing together in the front row in this photo.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed Paul J. Swain as the eighth bishop of Sioux Falls on August 31, 2006 and he was consecrated as Bishop of Sioux Falls on October 26, 2006. Bishop Swain previously served as a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People.--bio, Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls.
When Bob Carlson was bishop of the Sioux Falls chapter of the Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers he testified for the defense at Bill Janklow's manslaughter trial.
"Girl Scouts is exhibiting a troubling pattern of behavior and it is clear to me that as they move in the ways of the world it is becoming increasingly incompatible with our Catholic values," Carlson wrote in a letter dated Thursday. "We must stop and ask ourselves — is Girl Scouts concerned with the total well-being of our young women? Does it do a good job forming the spiritual, emotional, and personal well-being of Catholic girls?"
Read the rest here.

The leader of the Roman Church is slowly cleaning house of pederastic predators but is taking heat from Republicans for his stance on curbing human-induced climate change and from progressives for his intent to canonize a colonizer accused of raping children.

South Dakota's Ku Klux Klan "opposed Roman Catholicism because it feared Catholic involvement in politics."

Both South Dakota dioceses are up to their areolae in debt to the white christianic ruling class for covering up crimes committed by pederastic priests where Catholic congregations and the state's legislature have engaged in obstruction of justice for decades. In South Dakota the Roman church has been behind the seizures of hundreds of American Indian children in violation of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

As lawsuits and the US Department of Justice swamp the Roman church the future of the religious cult isn't looking very rosy.

According to one sect bean counter, attendance at Mass in the parishes in the Sioux City, Iowa diocese has dropped by 27 percent since 2008.
Officials with the Catholic Diocese of Sioux City have unveiled a restructuring plan that would greatly reduce the number of parishes across its 24-county region in northwest Iowa. There are currently 108 parishes in the Sioux City Diocese and, under the draft proposal, 41 parishes would be closed or merged by 2025. The 67 parishes that remain would be grouped into 31 “clusters[.]”
Read or listen to the justice news at WNAX.

For decades survivors of abuse from Roman Catholic clergy have been silenced by a sweeping conspiracy in the hierarchy.
...Phil Saviano, who was abused by a priest when he was 11. He is one of the film’s heroes, played by actor Neal Huff. Saviano said he was also thinking of those who did not survive, like Patrick McSorley, who was 12 years old when a priest named John Geoghan began molesting him. [Boston Globe]
And:
"This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican," said producer Michael Sugar. "Pope Francis, it's time to protect the children and restore the faith."
Read it all here.
Australian Cardinal George Pell said on Sunday the Catholic Church made "enormous mistakes" and dismissed cases of sexual abuse of children in "scandalous circumstances", as he became the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on Church abuse. The Australian inquiry into sexual abuse cases which occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about accountability of Church leaders because of Pell's high position in the Vatican, where he now serves as finance minister.
Read more here.

Although nothing untoward ever happened to me as an altar boy at Our Lady of Good Counsel my girlfriend in high school told me their family attended Mass elsewhere because Father Louis J. Miller had done something bad and was transferred to the Elkton parish under Sioux Falls, South Dakota cleric, Lambert Hoch who was born in Elkton.

Louis Miller was elevated to monsignor then was decapitated in an automobile accident near Pierre in 1968.

No comments: