Damned Pervert Priests - and other assorted Holy Scumbags

[Fake Messiah]

Trump's former Catholic priest adviser hit with sex misconduct accusations

Donald Trump's former Catholic priest religious adviser and head of anti-abortion group Priests for Life has been hit with multiple sexual misconduct accusations, according to reports by the Catholic media outlet The Pillar and the Daily Beast.

Vehement anti-abortionist Frank Pavone was ousted from the priesthood — defrocked — by the Vatican in December after he repeatedly disobeyed orders from his bishop to stop posting unspecified "blasphemous" messages on social media. He often posted incendiary political messages, and posted videos of an aborted fetus on an altar.

Now at least four women have reportedly accused Pavone of sexual misconduct.

The complaints concern "inappropriate workplace" behavior, dating from 1999 to 2018, and allegedly included non-consensual touching, lewd suggestions and unwanted sexual advance, according to The Pillar and the Beast. One of the women who accused Pavone of inappropriate behavior is a freelance writer for the Daily Beast who once worked for the priest when she was 22.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-catholic-...isconduct/

[Fake Messiah]

Abuse scandal: “SZ”: Search warrant against Munich Archdiocese

It is an unprecedented process: In the abuse scandal of the Catholic Church, the public prosecutor’s office obtains a search warrant against the Munich Archdiocese. An action with symbolic power.

It was “the first and long overdue search by a public prosecutor’s office with a judicial search warrant,” said canon lawyer Thomas Schüller of the dpa and spoke of a “turning point in the relationship between state judiciary and the churches”. Schüller: “Finally the constitutional state is showing its teeth to the Catholic Church and thus also to the Protestant Church.”

Since the publication of a sensational report on sexual violence in the Archdiocese more than a year ago, the Munich I public prosecutor’s office has been investigating. After the presentation of the study in January 2022, the authority announced that it would examine more than 40 cases of alleged misconduct by church leaders in dealing with abusers.

“They only concern ecclesiastical leaders who are still alive and were transmitted in a highly anonymous form,” it said at the time. The study assumes at least 497 victims and 235 alleged perpetrators – and a much larger number of unreported cases.

https://24hoursworlds.com/politics/372269/

[Fake Messiah]

Catholic church uses paedophile’s death to try to block NSW survivor’s lawsuit

The Catholic church is attempting to use the death of a paedophile, who had been jailed for the abuse of 17 children, to shield itself from further civil claims from his survivors.

In recent months, the church has adopted an increasingly aggressive approach to survivors in cases where paedophile clergy have died. It has sought to capitalise on a recent decision in New South Wales’s highest court that ruled a priest’s death meant the church could not receive a fair trial in a claim brought by a woman known as GLJ.

The landmark ruling, which is being appealed in the high court, has prompted the church to seek permanent stays in a string of cases where clergy have died.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/m...rs-lawsuit

[Fake Messiah]

Sexual abuse in Carmelite College Moate: ‘We knew something wasn’t right’

Former pupils allege regular sexual abuse by priest and decorated GAA coach Fr Michael Cremin

As a football coach, Fr Michael Cremin brought glory to the small Co Westmeath town of Moate, guiding the Carmelite College school team to three All-Ireland GAA titles in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Originally from Co Cork, the priest taught maths in the boys boarding school and coached the football team, as well as later becoming principal.

Now amid ongoing revelations of past abuse in schools, multiple former Moate students who spoke to The Irish Times allege suffering or witnessing sexual abuse by Fr Cremin, who died in 2019.

the man claimed he was sexually assaulted during classes, where the priest would sit beside students and grope them. “Everybody else put the head down so they’d avoid the attention. I still haven’t forgotten it,” he said.

The former student reported witnessing the priest allegedly sexually abusing classmates during lessons, something echoed by several other past pupils.

“He was abusing them in front of us. This was regular, happening for years,” the man said. “This was going on in front of everybody. If he was doing this openly, what was he doing in the dorms?” he asked.

Another student who was taught by Fr Cremin in the early 1980s claimed he witnessed the priest “molest people” during classes.

“He would slip into the desk beside a pupil. He’d put his arms around them, kiss them on the cheek, tell them he loved them, run his hands up their shirt. He would put his hand down the back of their trousers. It was striking and weird. It just became part of every day,” he said.

James Flanagan, a former barrister who was in the school from the late 1970s, said he recalled witnessing Fr Cremin grope a student openly in the corridor.

“This kid was up against the radiator and Fr Cremin was leaning up against him, feeling up inside his jumper,” he said. The priest’s inappropriate touching of students was a “known thing” in the school, he said.

Another former student confirmed he also witnessed inappropriate behaviour from the priest, which included him kissing or touching pupils during class, under the guise of joking around.

A number of past pupils stated the priest would commonly grope students during maths classes in the school’s study hall.

Several recalled a common modus operandi, where the priest would squeeze into a desk beside a student or lean over it, while touching the pupil.

The Carmelite order, who also run Terenure College in Dublin, said 41 allegations of child sexual abuse had been reported against 12 priests who had worked in its schools.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/...snt-right/

[Fake Messiah]

In her documentary, Manufacturing the Clerical Predator, director-activist Sarah Pearson puts the spotlight on Southeast Wisconsin, especially through the experience of Kevin Wester. Although he was molested repeatedly at age 12 by a Roman Catholic priest, he took the vows himself and served in the ministry for more than 10 years before being released from the priesthood in 2007. His account of the abuse he endured is harrowing, his fear of speaking up (it happened during the ‘70s in a small Catholic town) is revealing, and his eagerness to pursue the vocation a testimony to blinding power of faith.

The evidence of widespread clerical abuse points to a problem that has metastasized throughout the church’s system. Apparently, it’s not just a few rotten apples. Is the entire barrel wormy?

Manufacturing the Clerical Predator will be screened 3 p.m. Sunday, March 19 at the Oriental Theatre. A panel discussion will follow.
https://shepherdexpress.com/film/reviews...n-wiscons/

[Fake Messiah]

Archbishop claims $1.9m abuse payout to altar boy was excessive

Melbourne’s Catholic archbishop has asked a court to reduce a former altar boy’s almost $2 million sexual abuse payout as some injuries were caused outside of a paedophile priest’s horrific assaults.

Gannon sexually assaulted the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, three times between 1968 and 1970 while the victim was an altar boy and pupil at a Catholic primary school in regional Victoria.

The victim said he felt the priest had “murdered” him, and the little boy he used to be was gone forever.

On one occasion, Gannon drove the boy out to a remote area where he molested and raped him. He was terrified Gannon would get a shovel, kill him and bury him. The former priest was sentenced for the abuse in 2009 and died in 2015.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victo...5cscs.html

[Fake Messiah]

Albany Diocese, facing flood of lawsuits, files for bankruptcy

The Albany Diocese, like others in the state, is dealing with a deluge of lawsuits dating to when New York temporarily suspended the statute of limitations to give victims of childhood abuse the ability to pursue even decades-old allegations against clergy members, teachers, Boy Scout leaders and others.

Some attorneys representing plaintiffs against the Albany diocese accused it of using bankruptcy as a legal tactic.

"We urge everyone to see the Diocese's strategy for what it is: chicanery designed to perpetuate a $600 million corporation's pattern of decadence, deception, and denial," said attorney Jeff Anderson in a statement.

New York temporarily set aside its usual time limit on civil lawsuits for victims of childhood sexual abuse for a two-year period ending in August 2021. More than 9,000 lawsuits were filed against churches, hospitals, schools, camps, scout groups and other institutions.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/albany-di...bankruptcy

[Fake Messiah]

Why is San Francisco’s top Catholic shielding pedophile priests?

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone — who earned a reputation as a right-wing hero by attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her support for abortion rights — remains steadfast in his commitment to protect the identities of the pedophiles who preyed on children in the church.

On Sept. 29, a group of Catholic abuse survivors affiliated with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released their own list of sexual abusers from the San Francisco archdiocese. SNAP members stood in front of the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption on Gough Street to unveil a list of 312 men who allegedly engaged in rape, sexual assault, oral sex and sodomy in a spree of abuse spanning more than 100 years.

“The Diocese of San Francisco, like a lot of other dioceses, was involved in protecting and enabling shuffling and protecting predators for decades,” said Joey Piscitelli, who was raped and abused by a San Francisco priest and now serves as Northern California director for SNAP. “The diocese is reluctant to give out the names and wants to protect these people because they have liability.”

In 2018, Cordileone said the archdiocese had paid out at least $87 million in settlements to the victims of San Francisco priests. Sex abuse survivors have until the end of this year to file new claims, thanks to a 2019 state law that extended the deadline. Piscitelli sees Cordileone’s resistance as part of a strategy to keep more victims from coming forward.

When Piscitelli filed his lawsuit in 2003, he said his abuser was still working in a local school. Church officials told him that, after conducting a private investigation of their own, they had decided that his accusations against Whelan lacked credibility.

“They have a policy that, when people call and say that were molested or raped as children, the church does their ‘quote unquote’ independent investigation,” said Piscitelli. “And they nearly always find in favor of the accused priests. So right now, that I know of, there are three to four priests who have been accused and sued that are currently in ministry in San Francisco.”

Cordileone has cast his lot with the pedophiles and is using his power to suppress a full and transparent accounting of the truth. He’s trying to run out the clock on the church’s many sexual abuse victims, hoping they will remain silent about the plague of sexual abuse.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/why-is-s...0cc69.html

[Fake Messiah]

The Diocese of Oakland just announced it is strongly considering filing for bankruptcy in the face of more than 300 child sex abuse lawsuits.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...844451.php

[Fake Messiah]

To understand how abuse and cover ups are handled now in the Catholic church, read this.

Catholic watchdog names bishops tied to sex abuse and urges pope to act

Prominent researchers of accountability for clergy sexual abuse called on Pope Francis on Wednesday to release the names of bishops investigated by the Vatican since the implementation of 2019 rules that overhauled how the church responds to abuse accusations.

“The pope has repeatedly said he wants transparency, yet he is leaving the faithful in the dark,” Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the watchdog group, BishopAccountability.org, told reporters Wednesday. “Survivors and Catholics in the pews not only need this information; they have a right to it.”

In a letter to Francis, the organization urged him to answer “the faithful’s yearning for accountability” by releasing a detailed list of church officials investigated for alleged abuse or for mishandling abuse claims that were brought to them. The rules, implemented in June 2019, devised a way for bishops to help police their own ranks, among other changes, and were the first significant step toward formalizing a process for investigating abuse allegations in the church.

U.S. advocates have pushed for decades for more transparency around sex abuse cases, contending that the church’s steps toward accountability — creating lists of accused clerics, spending millions to implement new child-protection protocols and toughening the Vatican’s punishments for abuse — have not gone far enough.

Advocates have particularly criticized a lack of robust accountability for bishops, who typically oversee dioceses. Of the 40 bishops on Bishop Accountability’s list of accused clerics, the group said fewer than half have been disciplined.

“How many complicit bishops are still leading dioceses?” she asked. “How many religious orders are run by credibly accused predators?”

Even when U.S. bishops have been penalized, Barrett Doyle said, the consequences have been too light. Binzer resigned in 2020 after failing to report misconduct allegations against a priest in his diocese, but he later became the pastor at two parishes. Hoeppner stepped down in 2021, after an investigation into allegations that he mishandled abuse cases, but was allowed to say a send-off Mass. Neither he nor Binzer lost their titles as bishops.

Francis, perceived as an outsider, inspired tremendous hope for change after assuming the papacy in 2013. A decade later, he has a mixed record on responding to abuse and has at times perpetuated a pattern of secrecy around the topic. His signature anti-abuse measure, the 2019 law, has failed to have a significant impact.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/...ay0tx-8RF8