Essay The Horror of Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church.

Fr Fleming was employed as president of Sydney Catholic Liberal Arts Institute Campion College at the time the accusations were made public. An additional investigation has revealed that Cardinal George Pell had been made aware of the claims regarding at least one victim, before Fr Fleming was appointed to head the Catholic College in 2005.

The Catholic church shouldn’t have let it slide under the rug and move him to a different school, avoiding any controversy that may have come up. Shifting forward to Keough, Franz is positive that the Catholic church knew about his abuse from Maskell prior to 1992 when Jane Doe came forward. While the Archbishop denied this, they also said that “the initial allegation could not be corroborated and Father Maskell returned to active ministry in 1993 to 1994” (The Conclusion). With Franz’s account of what happened with Maskell prior to Keough, Jane Doe would have had the corroboration she needed to make the case against Maskell.

Michael Rezendes worked for the “Boston Globe” on the Spotlight team, which was small team of people who worked for months on a specific project to make a massive headline on the cover of the “Globe” about every other month. In 2001, Rezendes was working on a small story, one with some potential, alongside his team when they discovered a massive controversy hidden in the dusty files of law offices, parishes, and their own newspaper- the veiled crimes of the assaults on children by local Catholic priests, after which the priests were never convicted.

Mike Rezendes is a member of the Spotlight team and made it his obligation to inform the public about the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church with priests. Rezendes was raised as a Catholic, so to find out the priest were raping little children especially boys he wanted to know why these

“So it is important to ask: why has there been a decline in clerical child sex abuse since the 1980s...? To me there are eight reasons for the decline: the social visibility given to the issue since about 1983; the better child protection mechanisms that we have in place; the greater vigilance of Catholic parents

J.A. claims that rape and molestation took place at the Nino Perdido y Sagrada Familia Catholic Church in Asan, Guam, the lawsuit says.

Their coverage revelaed that Chicago was not exempt from these allegations. One priest, the Rev. William J. Cloutier, who was accused of abusing and threatening a 13 year old boy in Cook county quickly resigned before he was put up on trial. The victim who reamined ananoymous throught the preceeding of the trial was eventually silenced by a private plea, and ex Rev. William J. Cloutier was never senteced to any jail time. However, in other similar cases victims were not willing to take a plea and revecied some form of justice, like in the case of Rev. Norbert J. who was incarcerated after it was found that he was abusing children in various parishes around Chicago’s Southwest Side and suburbs.Recently Thousands of documents from the personnel files of the Archdiocese of Chicago were released and exposed the history of abuse by priests and responses from bishops. In each case, the priests were deceased or were ousted from ministry, and in most cases, the allegations were never proved in a criminal court. but what I would like to research is how victims were able to come forth and take a stand from an organization that wanted them to keep quiet ? And how the church tried to cover up the allegations as well as how they tried to cut deals with accused priests and bishops? All of this research will help my overall goal of seeing how victims were able to take a stand and how the Church’s power in Chicago was effected by

In 2002, on the wave of scandalous revelations and inaction, the Vatican issued guidelines specifying what to do with allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests. He urged that all cases be referred to Rome, but did not even mention the reports to local law enforcement agencies.

I have been in a country where this kind of sexual abuse, like sexually assaulting a child, is being kept away from media. Some authorities will not make any legal actions regarding this, instead, they will do their best to cover this up to protect the wrongdoers. In fact, there was a situation where “priests with pending court cases were acquitted and even quietly reinstated to pastoral duties.”

If one looks at lack of taking responsibility and deceitful behavior, then it is possible to distinguish a certain trend, that is, children are being blamed for things that outreach their existing mental capacity. Consequently, priests and bishops did not see their behavior as bad or inappropriate, hence there was no display of empathy toward victims and their families. The Catholic Church dates back for centuries, therefore its officials set

He wrote, “offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to ministry." He discussed the problem with Pope Paul VI (who’s papacy began in 1963 and ended on his death in 1978) and "in correspondence with several bishops" (Zoll, 2009). It was not until 2001, that offences were to be reported straight to the Rome hierarchy at the Vatican before that, it left management of the cases to local dioceses (Paulson,

“In the 60s, the Catholic Church in Massachusetts began hearing complaints that Father James Porter was sexually molesting children. Rather than relieving him of his duties, the ecclesiastical authorities simply moved him from one parish to another between 1960 and 1967, actually providing him with a fresh supply of unsuspecting families and innocent children to abuse” (Ericsson 162).

The starting confession emerges after a report by Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, exposed evidence that brutal and humiliating rituals took place at some Franciscan Sister of the Immaculate convents in Italy during the 1990's.

Cardinal Müller, as Katherine Gallagher explains in Repsonses are Still too Tepid and Slow, is “infamous for appointing a pastor with proven history of sexual abuse, and keeping that history hidden from the parishioners.” Gallageher goes on to explain that when a priest sexually assaults someone, someone is rarely ever held responsible. To make matter worse, the priest sexually assaulted several children in the new location. Resulting in Cardinal Müller denying all responsibility, then threatening legal actions against anyone who came forward and spoke out. Another major strike against Pope Francis came from the priest scandals in Twin Cities and Kansas city. Archbishop Nienstedt and Bishop Finn were both accused of covering up accusations against priests and allowing those same priests to stay within the church. Instead of being reprimanded and made examples of to show survivors that justice is real, The Pope stood quiet and allowed the Bishops to resign without punishment. Archbishop Nienstedt’s resignation was forced by his own auxiliary bishops who were disgusted by his accusations. Bishop Finn resignated immediately to avoid any further issues with his church followers. Katherine in her own words states “Franics did not take 'vigorous action' against the bishops in the Twin Cities and Kansas city who were implicated in covering up - and keeping in ministry-

When my classmates and I should have been at home watching Recess or Ed, Edd and Eddy while overdosing on sugar laced cereals such as Coco Pops or Cookie Crisp, we braced the bitter cold to line the never ending concrete steps of the Cathedral in full school uniform, quietly anticipating the arrival of the ‘saintly’ relic. I know the Catholic Church has long been associated with child abuse but this was abuse of a different sort. They robbed me of my Saturday morning and for that I cannot forgive.