South Miami Police Department Officer Joe Mendez was an award-winning cop. Twice named Officer of the Month in his department, Mendez was also a finalist for his community policing efforts as the coordinator of the Miami Police Explorers Program.
Except Mendez also had a child pornography fetish, regularly gave alcohol to teenage girls in his program, and attempted to fondle and kiss them whenever he had the chance.
After receiving complaints from another officer and the underage female cadets, an investigation was launched in June 2014. During that investigation, multiple young girls complained of his repeated grooming behaviors, his insistence that they drink alcohol, and let him touch them sexually. When his phone was seized, dozens of images of underage girls were found, including sexually explicit child pornography.
Authorities said a complaint of misconduct from a fellow officer in June 2014 triggered an investigation into allegations he had inappropriate interactions with a number of female cadets in the program and that the interactions may have been sexual in nature. He is also accused of buying alcohol for the girls.His arrest affidavit said on more than one occasion with a minor female he would play a game of truth or dare or a game of chair-air. According to the affidavit, he would ask them to flash him (show their breasts). If they did not, he would tell them to drink and hand them alcohol. It allegedly didn’t stop there.
FDLE Special Agent Donald Cannon said agents searched Mendez’s home and they took several electronic devices.
“We found what we know to be child pornography on there,” Cannon told CBS 4 News.
More charges are pending.
State agents believe there may be more alleged victims. They are urging anyone with information to call FDLE Miami Regional Operations Center at (800) 226-3023.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-10-04 03:39:142015-10-04 03:39:14Shaun King, Top Miami cop running police youth program arrested for child pornography and misconduct with minors, Daily Kos
Francis, who met with survivors of abuse on Sunday, his last day in Philadelphia, expressed his regret that trusted church officials had violated the innocence of children and had failed to protect them.
Francis consoled them by saying God heard their cries and believes them, and vowed to hold accountable the people who committed and covered up the crimes.
The overture was welcomed by some as a step in the right direction. For those who still struggle with the ravages of the years of abuse at the hands of a trusted priest, the pontiff’s gesture was little more than lip service.
More than 10 years after the clergy sex abuse scandal rocked the church in the U.S., the issue has forged little resolution between church officials and victims.
“I kind of wanted to like the pope until I saw what he was doing,” said John Delaney, who as a student at St. Cecilia Church in Philadelphia, was molested by a priest for more than 10 years. “He is not doing anything for me. He was applauding the bishops. It was a smack in my face. I was very hurt.”
Delaney was “Sean” in the 2005 grand jury report that detailed widespread clergy abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The 2005 report, alleged how the The Rev. James Brzyski subjected Delaney and at least 16 other boys to “unrelenting abuse, including fondling, oral sex, and anal rape” while working as an assistant pastor at two churches in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Delaney who now lives in Tennessee, continues to deal with the ravages of his abuse and the knowledge that the priest he says abused him for the better part of 12 years is a free man living in Texas.
“He is still out there molesting kids. He gets a pension from the church.” – John Delaney
“He is still out there molesting kids,” Delaney said. “He gets a pension from the church.”
The archdiocese defrocked the former priest, who was in charge of the altar boys when Delaney was an altar boy himself at St. Cecilia’s. Delaney said he is more than certain that at least 13 of the altar boys at the time were abused by the priest.
In 2011, another grand jury report out of Philadelphia detailed widespread sexual abuse of minors at the hands of priests. Philadelphia was one among dozens of cities across the U.S. – and eventually the world – where Catholic priests were credibly accused of molesting children.
In the wake of those reports, victims and their advocates have continually butted heads with the Philadelphia Archdiocese and the church.
Archdiocese spokesman Kenneth A. Gavin, responding to a PennLive report on the pope’s visit and abuse victims, said the archdiocese had gone above and beyond to reach out to victims and rectify the concerns detailed in the two grand jury reports.
Gavin said claims in that report by victims that the diocese continued to shield priests with credible allegations against them were false.
“There are currently no known allegations against a member of the clergy who is in active ministry in the (archdiocese),” Gavin said in an email. “If any new allegations were made, it would be immediately reported to law enforcement.”
Gavin pointed out that since being assigned to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 2011, Archbishop Charles Chaput has been committed to “taking immediate action when an accusation is made against any clergy, lay employees and volunteers who engage in misconduct with children. He has also reinforced the Archdiocese’s commitment to educating all those who work with children, as well as children in our schools and education programs on how to recognize improper contact and be comfortable enough to report a problem, whether it be at church, home, school or extracurricular activity.”
The archdiocese has spent millions of dollars in recent years to provide therapy, treatment and care for victims of abuse.
The archdiocese, Gavin said, has worked “tirelessly” to address the concerns of the grand jury reports and implement changes, including separating the Office of Investigation from the Office of Victim Assistance and referring all complaints against clergy involving minors directly to law enforcement and the Archdiocesan Review Board. To ensure that any past allegations were properly reported, Chaput tasked the Office of Investigations with the review of files, and commissioned an independent review.
“Many people don’t realize that for years the child protection policies of the archdiocese have exceed what Pennsylvania law previously required,” Gavin said. “Many of the recommendations of the Task Force for Child Protection that are now law actually reflected (archdiocese) policies including: requiring background checks for all people working with children, including volunteers; requiring Safe Environment training and mandated reporter training; and requiring all employees and volunteers with regular contact with children to report suspicions of child abuse.”
Victims and their advocates, however, insist that until the state’s statute of limitation is suspended and reformed, victims will not be able to fully heal.
They call on Chaput and his powerful lobbying arm, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, to get out of the way of legislation that would give victims, past and present, more time to file civil and criminal cases against abusers.
Delaney said the changes in the archdiocese that have been implemented in the wake of the grand jury reports help minors today, but they do little to allow him to prosecute is predator.
“What they are saying and what they are doing are two different things,” said Delaney, who has battled drug addiction and incarceration as a result of his abuse. “I ‘m not asking for financial support. If someone would come out and say ‘We are sorry. We screwed up… what can we do”‘ I’d be apt to not be so harsh, but there is nobody doing that.”
Chaput, who argues that the current statute is adequate, has taken issue with negative portrayal of his archdiocese.
“We deeply regret the past,” he said Monday, at the closing of the week-long World Meeting of Families event “We commit ourselves to a better future. People are angry. They want to say we’re not doing anything but symbolic things. I understand their anger. I don’t know how to get through that, except that we keep trying.”
State Rep. Mark Rozzi stands by his claim that the archdiocese and the church are not doing enough.
“The fact remains that we know there’s still predatory priests out there,” said Rozzi, a survivor of clergy sex abuse. “I hope they are doing a better job. I’m sure the numbers have to be down but at the end of the day, they are not doing enough. As long as they continue to block changes to the statute of limitations, it doesn’t matter. We are dealing with victims from grand jury reports 1 and 2 and at the end of the day, they are still blocking the healing of victims.”
Rozzi said that the Task Force put in place processes and procedures for responding to child abuse but left out the review of current laws with regards to statute of limitations.
“For the church to make that statement that is a hypocritical lie,” Rozzi said. “They are trying to distort the truth and make it look like it’s good in their position. They need to start telling the truth. The sooner the victims can have voices heard and have healing, the church will start healing.”
Gavin said that while the church’s history had been long and complicated, its focus now was on helping victims heal.
“We recognize and understand that the pain felt by survivors of abuse is very real, which is why we continue to provide counseling, medication, travel and childcare assistance, and other forms of support for survivors and their families,” he said. “We also recognize that each survivor’s path to healing is different.”
For Delaney, the pope’s visit may have given him a momentary blip on the church’s radar, but it has now faded.
“The reality of what they say and what they do is so contradictory,” he said. “They don’t do anything.. They do if a kid now gets molested. I don’t know that they could shuffle that under the rug like they did to me 30, 40 years ago. Maybe they do now, but I ain’t buying because they are doing nothing for a guy like me.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-10-04 03:35:542015-10-04 03:35:54Amanda Berg, On clergy abuse Pope Francis vows accountability, but church victims find little common ground, Penn Live
On his tour of the United States, Pope Francis has forcefully reminded the world about the importance of looking after the planet and the perils of climate change. His criticisms of the world economic system and the plight of the poor are timely and welcome. There is very little that Pope Francis can personally do about either of these things except to do what he has done — warn and exhort.
But there is one thing that he can personally do about child sexual abuse, and that is to change canon law by abolishing the pontifical secret over allegations of the sexual abuse of children by clergy and religious.
“The crimes and sins of sexual abuse of minors cannot be kept secret any longer. I commit myself to the zealous watchfulness of the church to protect minors, and I promise that all those responsible will be held accountable.”
The maintenance of secrecy for these crimes is imposed by Article 25 of Pope John Paul II’s motu proprio,Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela of 2001 and by Article 30 of its revision by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, which impose the pontifical secret on all allegations and proceedings relating to child sexual abuse by clerics. The footnotes to Article 25 and Article 30 apply Article 1(4) of Pope Paul VI’s instruction, Secreta Continere, which defines the pontifical secret as the church’s highest form of secrecy, and like the secret of the confessional, is a permanent silence. Since becoming pope two and a half years ago, Pope Francis has made no attempt to change this maintenance of secrecy, the very thing he condemned in Philadelphia.
Like Pope Benedict XVI in his 2010 pastoral letter to the people of Ireland, Pope Francis ignored the role of canon law in the cover up, and said, “I deeply regret that some bishops failed in their responsibility to protect children.” There was not a word about the fact that in most cases such bishops were complying with the pontifical secret under canon law, and its requirement to try and cure the priest before any attempt was made to dismiss him.
A dispensation to allow reporting to the police where the civil law requires it was granted by the Holy See to the United States in 2002 and to the rest of the world in 2010, but where there are no such civil laws, the pontifical secret still applies. Very few countries have comprehensive reporting laws.
Francis is the Bishop of Rome, but his own Italian Bishops Conference, of which he is the primate, announced in 2014 that Italian bishops would not be reporting these crimes to the police because Italian civil law under the 1929 Lateran Treaty with the dictator, Mussolini, did not require them to do so.
On Jan. 31, 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child requested the Holy See to abolish the pontifical secret over allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy and to impose mandatory reporting. On May 22, 2014, the United Nations Committee against Torture requested the same thing.
On Sept. 26, 2014, The Vatican responded and rejected these requests, stating that mandatory reporting under canon law would interfere with the sovereignty of independent nations. If that were true, the church should not even have a canon law that applies to Catholics all over the world. Canon law only interferes with such sovereignty when it requires Catholics to disobey the civil law. Where there is no conflict between canon and civil law, canon law has no more effect on a nation’s sovereignty than the rules of golf. Mandatory reporting under canon law would only interfere with national sovereignty if the civil law of a country prohibited the reporting of child sexual abuse by clergy. No such country exists.
On March 19, 2014, Pope Francis said that Pope Benedict had supported “zero tolerance” for clergy who sexually abused children. On May 26, 2014, he pledged to apply the same “zero tolerance” standard. But the figures produced by the Holy See’s representative at the United Nations, Archbishop Tomasi, show that the Holy See’s tolerance is not zero but 66 percent. Less than one third of all priests against whom credible allegations of sexual abuse of children have been made have been dismissed.
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI dismissed Fr. Mauro Inzoli, who was accused of abusing dozens of children over a 10-year period. In 2014, Pope Francis reinstated him and required him to live a life of “prayer and penance”, the same punishment that Pope Benedict XVI handed out to the notorious Fr. Marcial Maciel. When Italian Magistrates asked the Vatican to have access to the evidence submitted to Inzoli’s canonical trial, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith refused, stating, “The procedures of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are of a canonical nature and, as such, are not an object for the exchange of information with civil magistrates.” Pope Francis himself maintains the secrecy that this week he condemned.
In matters of child sexual abuse, Pope Francis has no constitution, no Congress, no Senate and no Supreme Court that could restrain him from changing canon law. He has no obligation even to consult anyone. He is the last of the absolute monarchs.
He can take out his pen at breakfast, and write on his napkin an instruction to abolish the pontifical secret in cases of child sexual abuse and to order mandatory reporting everywhere. He can instruct it to be translated into Latin and to have it published on the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. It then becomes canon law.
On Jan. 21, 2014, after the United Nations hearings, Thomas C. Fox, the publisher of this paper, wrote that Pope Francis “does not understand the full magnitude of the related sex abuse issues, or, if he does, is yet unwilling or incapable of responding to it.”
One can only hope that Pope Francis means what he says in his address in Philadelphia, but up to the present time, there is a strange disconnect between what he says and what he, personally, has done. Cardinal Francis George wrote in an article in 2003 that if you want to change a damaging culture, you first have to change the laws which embody it. The buck for maintaining secrecy over the sexual abuse of children within the church truly stops with Pope Francis.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-10-03 16:27:002015-10-03 16:27:00Kieran Tapsell, The strange disconnect between Pope Francis' words and actions about sex abuse, National Catholic Reporter
Addressing reports that Pope Francis met privately with controversial Kentucky clerk Kim Davis during his U.S. visit, the Vatican acknowledges that the meeting took place. Davis, who has refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, says she met the pope at the Vatican Embassy in Washington.
“I cannot not deny the meeting took place but I have no comments to add,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in Italian Wednesday.
Previously, the Vatican said it would neither confirm nor deny the meeting happened; we’ve updated this post with the more direct response.
“I never thought I would meet the Pope,” Davis said via her legal team. “Who am I to have this rare opportunity? I am just a County Clerk who loves Jesus and desires with all my heart to serve him.”
The meeting was brief — less than 15 minutes, Davis’ attorneys tell NPR — and occurred last Thursday, the same day Francis addressed Congress. Davis was in Washington for another purpose: She received a Cost of Discipleship award at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit on Friday night.
Davis’ lawyers tell All Things Considered that the encounter was “a cordial very warm meeting.”
Update at 7:45 a.m. ET: Meeting ‘Kind Of Validates Everything,’ Davis Says
“Just knowing the pope is on track with what we’re doing, and agreeing, you know, kind of validates everything,” Davis tells ABC News Wednesday morning, speaking about her meeting with Pope Francis and the stand she has taken against same-sex marriage.
She adds, “I’ve weighed the cost, and I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.”
Davis says it was “very humbling” to meet Francis. Describing the session, she says, “I put my hand out, and he grabbed it, and I hugged him, and he hugged me.”
The Vatican reached out to Davis several weeks ago to arrange the meeting, ABC reports.
Our original post continues:
From Rome, NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli reports:
“News of the 15-minute-long meeting was first reported by the conservative magazine Inside the Vatican. Kim Davis told the editor Pope Francis thanked her for her courage, hugged her and told her, ‘Stay strong.’
“Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi did not deny the meeting took place but would not comment further.
“Throughout his visit to the United States, Francis carefully skirted hot-button issues polarizing American society.
“On his flight back to Rome, the pope was asked during a press conference if he would support government officials who say they cannot in good conscience discharge their duties — for example, issuing same sex marriage licenses.
“Without referring to Kim Davis, the pope said conscientious objection is a right
that is part of every human right.”
Davis, whose religious identity as an Apostolic Christian falls under the Pentecostal denomination, met Pope Francis along with her husband, according to a statement from Liberty Counsel, the group that has been representing Davis in her legal battles in Rowan County, Ky.
The pope gave two rosaries to the Davises, according to Liberty Counsel, which adds that they plan to give them to Kim Davis’ parents, who are Catholic.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-10-02 03:54:272015-10-02 03:54:27Gary Cameron, Kim Davis And Pope Francis Had A Private Meeting In D.C., Reuters
For the first time, two children of Warren Jeffs have alleged that the imprisoned leader of the polygamous Mormon sect sexually abused them as children.
Becky and Roy Jeffs, both adults, made the revelations to Lisa Ling on her upcoming CNN show “This is Life,” which premieres Wednesday night. They both recently left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS.
Becky told Ling that she first told one of her sisters, after her sister revealed she was abused as a child.
“I thought, I’m not the only one molested, he’s done it to her it must be something that was in his nature,” Becky Jeffs says on the show. “Where does it end? If he had this in him, how can I trust him? How is he really our prophet?”
CNN reached out to Warren Jeffs’ attorney who did not have an immediate response from his client.
Becky and Roy are among four of Jeffs’ children who have left the FLDS, which is based in the twin cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, where recent floods devastated the community.
Warren Jeffs fathered some 60 children with some of his estimated 78 wives. The elder Jeffs is serving a life sentence, plus 20 years, after he was convicted in 2011 of the aggravated sexual assaults of a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl who Jeffs claimed were his “spiritual wives.”
Despite his imprisonment, Jeffs is still firmly in control of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The FLDS is a breakaway Mormon sect that openly practices polygamy, something the mainstream Mormon church renounced more than a century ago.
Victims: “Chaput must honor Francis’ new commitments”
Pope’s promise to “end secrecy” means Chaput must act, group says
SNAP: Pontiff’s ‘accountability’ pledge means “enablers” must be punished
Self-help organization wants three recent local abuse cases to be “re-examined”
What:
Holding signs and childhood photos, after Pope Francis has ended his historic US visit, clergy sex abuse victims will urge Philly area Catholics and their church officials to honor and act on the promises he made. Specifically, the victims will urge Archbishop Charles Chaput to
— discipline even a few priests who hid or ignored child sex crimes, and
— disclose more about and “re-visit” three recent clergy sex abuse cases.
When: Monday, Sept. 28 at 1:30 p.m.
Where:
Outside the Philadelphia Catholic archdiocesan headquarters, 222 North 17th Street (corner of Race) in Philadelphia,
Who:
Three-four members of an international support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Missouri woman who is the organization’s long time outreach director
Why: On Sunday, Pope Francis made strong promises, including that “abuse cannot be kept secret any longer,” “all responsible will be held accountable,” and that church officials will provide “careful oversight to ensure that youth are protected.”
In light of these pledges and others, SNAP is challenging Philly church officials and members to “take tangible steps” to act on these “noble sentiments”.
Regarding secrecy, the group wants Archbishop Charles Chaput to “disclose more about those who concealed – not just those who committed – clergy sex crimes.”
Regarding accountability, the group wants Chaput to “punish priests who protected Philly’s 136 publicly accused predator priests.”
“With almost 140 child molesting clerics, and three detailed grand jury reports, Chaput knows which church staff have hidden or ignored clergy sex crimes, but he won’t punish them,” said SNAP’s Karen Polesir of Ambler.
“He’s breaking the pope’s repeated accountability promises. So Chaput should publicly demote at least one church staffer now.”
SNAP also wants Chaput to revisit and reveal more about three recent “troubling” local abuse cases.
–A year ago, with little explanation, Chaput put Msgr. Joseph Logrip back on the job in a parish. Catholic officials admit he faced allegations of sexually violating “minors.” (Notice the plural.) He is also accused, according to the Philly Inquirer, of knowing of an “attack” on a child by a priest but doing “nothing.” http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2011/03_04/2011_03_10_OReilly_Namesof.pdf (Regarding the abuse charges, Chaput only says they are “unsubstantiated.”)
–Last year, Chaput also kept secret for months about child sex abuse reports involving Fr. John P. Paul. Fr. Paul resigned claiming he was “considering a serious road trip for ‘renewal’ purposes.” Chaput let this lie go unchallenged. When Chaput finally did announce that abuse complaints led to Fr. Paul’s suspension, he notified only one parish. (Eventually, Philly church officials told the public and the rest of their flock.)
–In 2012, Chaput “recklessly” put Fr. Joseph DiGregorio back on the job even though the priest “violated behavioral standards.” Chaput justified his decision by claiming that a “clinical evaluation” supposedly says the priest is no threat to children and because “no other complaints were reported.” The church’s 2002 national abuse policy, however, says nothing about a priest being kept in a parish if a therapist says he’s no threat. (Before 2002, dozens of bishops used this same rationale when, with disastrous results, they put hundreds of accused predators back around kids.)
Given Francis’ professed commitment to end secrecy and “always be vigilant to protect children,” SNAP wants Chaput and his abuse review board to “look again at these cases, be more forthcoming and err on the side of caution.
“At best, Chaput does the absolute bare minimum required of him under the church’s vague, weak, decade-old abuse policy. Surely, he’ll do more in light of Francis’ latest promises,” said David Clohessy, director of SNAP. “At worst, Chaput violates that policy by putting accused predators back on the job, by letting suspended predators live unsupervised, and by being secretive in ways that continue to put kids at risk. That too, we’d expect to change, given the pontiff’s clear pledges.”
Shaun King, Top Miami cop running police youth program arrested for child pornography and misconduct with minors, Daily Kos
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformSouth Miami Police Department Officer Joe Mendez was an award-winning cop. Twice named Officer of the Month in his department, Mendez was also a finalist for his community policing efforts as the coordinator of the Miami Police Explorers Program.
Except Mendez also had a child pornography fetish, regularly gave alcohol to teenage girls in his program, and attempted to fondle and kiss them whenever he had the chance.
After receiving complaints from another officer and the underage female cadets, an investigation was launched in June 2014. During that investigation, multiple young girls complained of his repeated grooming behaviors, his insistence that they drink alcohol, and let him touch them sexually. When his phone was seized, dozens of images of underage girls were found, including sexually explicit child pornography.
More charges are pending.
Amanda Berg, On clergy abuse Pope Francis vows accountability, but church victims find little common ground, Penn Live
/in Pennsylvania /by SOL ReformOne of the most widely covered events during the Pope Francis visit to the U.S. was his meeting with victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Francis, who met with survivors of abuse on Sunday, his last day in Philadelphia, expressed his regret that trusted church officials had violated the innocence of children and had failed to protect them.
Francis consoled them by saying God heard their cries and believes them, and vowed to hold accountable the people who committed and covered up the crimes.
The overture was welcomed by some as a step in the right direction. For those who still struggle with the ravages of the years of abuse at the hands of a trusted priest, the pontiff’s gesture was little more than lip service.
More than 10 years after the clergy sex abuse scandal rocked the church in the U.S., the issue has forged little resolution between church officials and victims.
“I kind of wanted to like the pope until I saw what he was doing,” said John Delaney, who as a student at St. Cecilia Church in Philadelphia, was molested by a priest for more than 10 years. “He is not doing anything for me. He was applauding the bishops. It was a smack in my face. I was very hurt.”
Delaney was “Sean” in the 2005 grand jury report that detailed widespread clergy abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The 2005 report, alleged how the The Rev. James Brzyski subjected Delaney and at least 16 other boys to “unrelenting abuse, including fondling, oral sex, and anal rape” while working as an assistant pastor at two churches in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Delaney who now lives in Tennessee, continues to deal with the ravages of his abuse and the knowledge that the priest he says abused him for the better part of 12 years is a free man living in Texas.
“He is still out there molesting kids,” Delaney said. “He gets a pension from the church.”
The archdiocese defrocked the former priest, who was in charge of the altar boys when Delaney was an altar boy himself at St. Cecilia’s. Delaney said he is more than certain that at least 13 of the altar boys at the time were abused by the priest.
In 2011, another grand jury report out of Philadelphia detailed widespread sexual abuse of minors at the hands of priests. Philadelphia was one among dozens of cities across the U.S. – and eventually the world – where Catholic priests were credibly accused of molesting children.
In the wake of those reports, victims and their advocates have continually butted heads with the Philadelphia Archdiocese and the church.
Archdiocese spokesman Kenneth A. Gavin, responding to a PennLive report on the pope’s visit and abuse victims, said the archdiocese had gone above and beyond to reach out to victims and rectify the concerns detailed in the two grand jury reports.
Gavin said claims in that report by victims that the diocese continued to shield priests with credible allegations against them were false.
“There are currently no known allegations against a member of the clergy who is in active ministry in the (archdiocese),” Gavin said in an email. “If any new allegations were made, it would be immediately reported to law enforcement.”
Gavin pointed out that since being assigned to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 2011, Archbishop Charles Chaput has been committed to “taking immediate action when an accusation is made against any clergy, lay employees and volunteers who engage in misconduct with children. He has also reinforced the Archdiocese’s commitment to educating all those who work with children, as well as children in our schools and education programs on how to recognize improper contact and be comfortable enough to report a problem, whether it be at church, home, school or extracurricular activity.”
The archdiocese has spent millions of dollars in recent years to provide therapy, treatment and care for victims of abuse.
The archdiocese, Gavin said, has worked “tirelessly” to address the concerns of the grand jury reports and implement changes, including separating the Office of Investigation from the Office of Victim Assistance and referring all complaints against clergy involving minors directly to law enforcement and the Archdiocesan Review Board. To ensure that any past allegations were properly reported, Chaput tasked the Office of Investigations with the review of files, and commissioned an independent review.
“Many people don’t realize that for years the child protection policies of the archdiocese have exceed what Pennsylvania law previously required,” Gavin said. “Many of the recommendations of the Task Force for Child Protection that are now law actually reflected (archdiocese) policies including: requiring background checks for all people working with children, including volunteers; requiring Safe Environment training and mandated reporter training; and requiring all employees and volunteers with regular contact with children to report suspicions of child abuse.”
Victims and their advocates, however, insist that until the state’s statute of limitation is suspended and reformed, victims will not be able to fully heal.
They call on Chaput and his powerful lobbying arm, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, to get out of the way of legislation that would give victims, past and present, more time to file civil and criminal cases against abusers.
Delaney said the changes in the archdiocese that have been implemented in the wake of the grand jury reports help minors today, but they do little to allow him to prosecute is predator.
“What they are saying and what they are doing are two different things,” said Delaney, who has battled drug addiction and incarceration as a result of his abuse. “I ‘m not asking for financial support. If someone would come out and say ‘We are sorry. We screwed up… what can we do”‘ I’d be apt to not be so harsh, but there is nobody doing that.”
Chaput, who argues that the current statute is adequate, has taken issue with negative portrayal of his archdiocese.
“We deeply regret the past,” he said Monday, at the closing of the week-long World Meeting of Families event “We commit ourselves to a better future. People are angry. They want to say we’re not doing anything but symbolic things. I understand their anger. I don’t know how to get through that, except that we keep trying.”
State Rep. Mark Rozzi stands by his claim that the archdiocese and the church are not doing enough.
“The fact remains that we know there’s still predatory priests out there,” said Rozzi, a survivor of clergy sex abuse. “I hope they are doing a better job. I’m sure the numbers have to be down but at the end of the day, they are not doing enough. As long as they continue to block changes to the statute of limitations, it doesn’t matter. We are dealing with victims from grand jury reports 1 and 2 and at the end of the day, they are still blocking the healing of victims.”
Rozzi said that the Task Force put in place processes and procedures for responding to child abuse but left out the review of current laws with regards to statute of limitations.
“For the church to make that statement that is a hypocritical lie,” Rozzi said. “They are trying to distort the truth and make it look like it’s good in their position. They need to start telling the truth. The sooner the victims can have voices heard and have healing, the church will start healing.”
Rozzi last year filmed a documentary on victims; Delaney was one of the victims interviewed for that piece.
Gavin said that while the church’s history had been long and complicated, its focus now was on helping victims heal.
“We recognize and understand that the pain felt by survivors of abuse is very real, which is why we continue to provide counseling, medication, travel and childcare assistance, and other forms of support for survivors and their families,” he said. “We also recognize that each survivor’s path to healing is different.”
For Delaney, the pope’s visit may have given him a momentary blip on the church’s radar, but it has now faded.
“The reality of what they say and what they do is so contradictory,” he said. “They don’t do anything.. They do if a kid now gets molested. I don’t know that they could shuffle that under the rug like they did to me 30, 40 years ago. Maybe they do now, but I ain’t buying because they are doing nothing for a guy like me.”
On clergy abuse Pope Francis vows accountability, but church and victims find little common ground _ PennLive
Kieran Tapsell, The strange disconnect between Pope Francis’ words and actions about sex abuse, National Catholic Reporter
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformOn his tour of the United States, Pope Francis has forcefully reminded the world about the importance of looking after the planet and the perils of climate change. His criticisms of the world economic system and the plight of the poor are timely and welcome. There is very little that Pope Francis can personally do about either of these things except to do what he has done — warn and exhort.
But there is one thing that he can personally do about child sexual abuse, and that is to change canon law by abolishing the pontifical secret over allegations of the sexual abuse of children by clergy and religious.
In an address to bishops in Philadelphia, Pope Francis said:
“The crimes and sins of sexual abuse of minors cannot be kept secret any longer. I commit myself to the zealous watchfulness of the church to protect minors, and I promise that all those responsible will be held accountable.”
The maintenance of secrecy for these crimes is imposed by Article 25 of Pope John Paul II’s motu proprio, Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela of 2001 and by Article 30 of its revision by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, which impose the pontifical secret on all allegations and proceedings relating to child sexual abuse by clerics. The footnotes to Article 25 and Article 30 apply Article 1(4) of Pope Paul VI’s instruction, Secreta Continere, which defines the pontifical secret as the church’s highest form of secrecy, and like the secret of the confessional, is a permanent silence. Since becoming pope two and a half years ago, Pope Francis has made no attempt to change this maintenance of secrecy, the very thing he condemned in Philadelphia.
Like Pope Benedict XVI in his 2010 pastoral letter to the people of Ireland, Pope Francis ignored the role of canon law in the cover up, and said, “I deeply regret that some bishops failed in their responsibility to protect children.” There was not a word about the fact that in most cases such bishops were complying with the pontifical secret under canon law, and its requirement to try and cure the priest before any attempt was made to dismiss him.
A dispensation to allow reporting to the police where the civil law requires it was granted by the Holy See to the United States in 2002 and to the rest of the world in 2010, but where there are no such civil laws, the pontifical secret still applies. Very few countries have comprehensive reporting laws.
Francis is the Bishop of Rome, but his own Italian Bishops Conference, of which he is the primate, announced in 2014 that Italian bishops would not be reporting these crimes to the police because Italian civil law under the 1929 Lateran Treaty with the dictator, Mussolini, did not require them to do so.
On Jan. 31, 2014, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child requested the Holy See to abolish the pontifical secret over allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy and to impose mandatory reporting. On May 22, 2014, the United Nations Committee against Torture requested the same thing.
On Sept. 26, 2014, The Vatican responded and rejected these requests, stating that mandatory reporting under canon law would interfere with the sovereignty of independent nations. If that were true, the church should not even have a canon law that applies to Catholics all over the world. Canon law only interferes with such sovereignty when it requires Catholics to disobey the civil law. Where there is no conflict between canon and civil law, canon law has no more effect on a nation’s sovereignty than the rules of golf. Mandatory reporting under canon law would only interfere with national sovereignty if the civil law of a country prohibited the reporting of child sexual abuse by clergy. No such country exists.
On March 19, 2014, Pope Francis said that Pope Benedict had supported “zero tolerance” for clergy who sexually abused children. On May 26, 2014, he pledged to apply the same “zero tolerance” standard. But the figures produced by the Holy See’s representative at the United Nations, Archbishop Tomasi, show that the Holy See’s tolerance is not zero but 66 percent. Less than one third of all priests against whom credible allegations of sexual abuse of children have been made have been dismissed.
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI dismissed Fr. Mauro Inzoli, who was accused of abusing dozens of children over a 10-year period. In 2014, Pope Francis reinstated him and required him to live a life of “prayer and penance”, the same punishment that Pope Benedict XVI handed out to the notorious Fr. Marcial Maciel. When Italian Magistrates asked the Vatican to have access to the evidence submitted to Inzoli’s canonical trial, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith refused, stating, “The procedures of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are of a canonical nature and, as such, are not an object for the exchange of information with civil magistrates.” Pope Francis himself maintains the secrecy that this week he condemned.
In matters of child sexual abuse, Pope Francis has no constitution, no Congress, no Senate and no Supreme Court that could restrain him from changing canon law. He has no obligation even to consult anyone. He is the last of the absolute monarchs.
He can take out his pen at breakfast, and write on his napkin an instruction to abolish the pontifical secret in cases of child sexual abuse and to order mandatory reporting everywhere. He can instruct it to be translated into Latin and to have it published on the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. It then becomes canon law.
On Jan. 21, 2014, after the United Nations hearings, Thomas C. Fox, the publisher of this paper, wrote that Pope Francis “does not understand the full magnitude of the related sex abuse issues, or, if he does, is yet unwilling or incapable of responding to it.”
One can only hope that Pope Francis means what he says in his address in Philadelphia, but up to the present time, there is a strange disconnect between what he says and what he, personally, has done. Cardinal Francis George wrote in an article in 2003 that if you want to change a damaging culture, you first have to change the laws which embody it. The buck for maintaining secrecy over the sexual abuse of children within the church truly stops with Pope Francis.
The strange disconnect between Pope Francis’ words and actions about sex abuse _ National Catholic Reporter
Gary Cameron, Kim Davis And Pope Francis Had A Private Meeting In D.C., Reuters
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformTricia Escobedo, Warren Jeffs’ son, daughter allege sexual abuse, CNN
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformFor the first time, two children of Warren Jeffs have alleged that the imprisoned leader of the polygamous Mormon sect sexually abused them as children.
Becky and Roy Jeffs, both adults, made the revelations to Lisa Ling on her upcoming CNN show “This is Life,” which premieres Wednesday night. They both recently left the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS.
Becky told Ling that she first told one of her sisters, after her sister revealed she was abused as a child.
“I thought, I’m not the only one molested, he’s done it to her it must be something that was in his nature,” Becky Jeffs says on the show. “Where does it end? If he had this in him, how can I trust him? How is he really our prophet?”
CNN reached out to Warren Jeffs’ attorney who did not have an immediate response from his client.
Becky and Roy are among four of Jeffs’ children who have left the FLDS, which is based in the twin cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, where recent floods devastated the community.
Warren Jeffs fathered some 60 children with some of his estimated 78 wives. The elder Jeffs is serving a life sentence, plus 20 years, after he was convicted in 2011 of the aggravated sexual assaults of a 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl who Jeffs claimed were his “spiritual wives.”
Despite his imprisonment, Jeffs is still firmly in control of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The FLDS is a breakaway Mormon sect that openly practices polygamy, something the mainstream Mormon church renounced more than a century ago.
Warren Jeffs’ son, daughter allege sexual abuse – CNN
Phila Action Alert: 9/28, 1:30 pm, 222 N. 17th St
/in Pennsylvania, Uncategorized /by SOL Reform