German petition urges Catholic Church to stop blocking abuse claims
More than 100,000 people have signed a petition launched in Germany calling on the Catholic Church not to invoke the statute of limitations in compensation cases brought by victims of abuse.
In response to revelations of widespread abuse of children and young people by priests, especially in the early post-war decades, the Catholic Church set up a system of voluntary so-called recognition payments.
There is broad criticism that the amounts paid are insufficient, and in individual cases, higher six-figure sums were won in court.
However, many lawsuits never even get off the ground because the Church invokes the statute of limitations.
According to victims' initiatives, this is particularly unfair because the Church by its own admission often covered up the crimes for many years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/germ...25247.html
More than 100,000 people have signed a petition launched in Germany calling on the Catholic Church not to invoke the statute of limitations in compensation cases brought by victims of abuse.
In response to revelations of widespread abuse of children and young people by priests, especially in the early post-war decades, the Catholic Church set up a system of voluntary so-called recognition payments.
There is broad criticism that the amounts paid are insufficient, and in individual cases, higher six-figure sums were won in court.
However, many lawsuits never even get off the ground because the Church invokes the statute of limitations.
According to victims' initiatives, this is particularly unfair because the Church by its own admission often covered up the crimes for many years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/germ...25247.html
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
