The following article is a brief write up of a horrific BBC Panorama programme concerning the endemic problem of paedophilia in the Catholic church in Ireland and the subsequent cover-ups, directed and orchestrated from Rome, under orders of the Joseph Ratzinger.

1. A “Father” Sean Fortune raped a boy in his care between two masses and then calmly invited his young victim to sit down with him and enjoy their early morning breakfast. (Fortune died in “mysterious circumstances” a day before his trial was due to commence.)

Such abuse as this was known in his diocese for six years, before his bishop, the charismatic Brendan Comiskey, moved him to yet another parish.

In 2002, Panorama door-stepped Comiskey (he had refused all requests for an interview) and when he got out of his car, he could be heard arrogantly singing, “We will survive.”

(Comiskey was later forced to publicly resign, with the hope that this low-level bishop in Ireland would be a suitable scapegoat which might deflect some of the press interest into this harrowing and ever-growing story. To date Comiskey has practically vanished off the face of the earth.)

“The Ferns Report,” which came out after this event and others, concluded that some 26 priests in Ireland had abused over 100 boys and girls.

2. CRIMEN SOLICITATIONIS was a secret document that the Vatican had issued as far back as 1962, which outlined how bishops globally were to deal with all types of sexual abuses within their dioceses. So secret is this document, which was vigorously enforced by the then Cardinal Ratzinger for 20 years, that it had to be locked in the churches safes!

This infamous document threatened excommunication to the victims of child abuse, should they decide to come out and blow the whistle. Fear and punishment were also used to scare people away from speaking out.

One of the shrewdest moves the Vatican has ever done was to make sure that all documents on paedophile priests would not be sent to local police forces, but rather to the Nuncio, who could then wave his diplomatic immunity badge, so as to stall law enforcement agencies when seeking to retrieve such information. Once the Nuncio had these papers, he could send them directly to the Vatican in the Diplomatic Bag, knowing that Customs had no legal authority to open such material.

3. Patrick Wall, a former American Benedictine Monk, told Panorama how his department for the year of 1996 enjoyed a budget (slush fund) of $7 million. During his time there, he was responsible for paying off victims and ensuring that they never broke their silence. However, after numerous other children came forward with the same grievances, he became so disillusioned and disgusted with his churches lies and deceit, that he left the Church and went to work for the legal teams who were fighting very hard for the victims of such abuse, whom the Church simply didn’t care less about.

Wall said that over 4000 known priests in the US were involved in this whole sordid business. One can only conclude this figure to be a very conservative one because Wall said that many people had been paid off long before this and other reports broke on the news wires.

4. “Father” Oliver O’Grady, an Irish priest who had long served in California, admitted to sodomising one boy over 100 times; 30 victims in total suffered under him, from 1976 till 1996, in which the church knew about such acts yet Cardinal Mahoney, his superior, never once did anything about it.

O’ Grady served 7 years in US custody and has since been deported back to Ireland, where he is quite at liberty to go and do as he chooses, for there are no laws in place in Ireland at present when it comes to people sentenced overseas for sex crimes again children.

5. Frank Keating, former Oklahoma Governor and a lay Catholic himself, was so infuriated at the lack of accountability and honestly during a Catholic inquiry into such endemic child abuse, that he was forced to resign from his post, just one year in, with the following stinging rebuke: “To resist Grand Jury Subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics…That is the model of A CRIMINAL ORGANISATION, not my Church” (emphasis mine.)

This deliberate obstruction was also echoed by Rick Romley, a former Phoenix District Attorney, who told the BBC that they acted just like the Mafia with their secrecy and that “they fought us every step of the way.”

He also told that in all his years as a DA, he had never experienced such deception, indifference and downright contempt for the law of the land.

Specially recorded letters where send to the Vatican, care of the then Secretary of State, Angelo Sodano, yet not only did he refuse to assist Romley in his criminal inquiry but his letters were returned to him unopened!

(7 priests from the US, at the time of airing the Panorama programme, are currently hiding in Rome. One priest has since fled from the Vatican apartments, and is laying low somewhere else in Italy, as he tries to avoid an international arrest warrant for him.)

Romley was successful however in forcing a US bishop to sign a declaration admitting that he had knowingly hidden and moved paedophile priests.

6. Reporter Paul Kenyon, when arriving in Brazil to meet the grandmother of another victim, broke down and wept. This poor young boy, according to his ageing and lifelong Catholic grandmother, just wanted to die. People in the street would shout out to him how he was the “priests little wife.” No compensation and no apology has ever been given to the family of this boy. The grandmother told Mr. Kenyon how the church had tried to silence her and how locals now avoid her. She feels like the perpetrator, not the victim. This priest was later sentenced to 15 years in prison.

7. “Father” Tom Doyle, an expert in Canon Law was repeatedly scathing of the Vatican’s treatment of such cases and said how the church has no child protection in place. They only appear to be interested in protecting their criminal priests.

Conclusion

This article is primarily written to expose the vicious cover-ups from the hierarchy and their miserable failings to help support victims and their families. It is a very rare thing to excommunicate a priest and withdraw his licence. Damage limitation was something that was repeatedly mentioned in the Panorama programme and this is something that goes on to this day. One would also be quite right to call for popes, cardinals, archbishops and bishops to be held fully accountable for their misinformation and deliberate perjury. Such men, according to the legal term, have perpetually aided and abetted these priests!

If anybody ever wondered why Rome lies to those outside of her church, the following will answer such a question:

“So that a false statement knowingly made to one who has not a right to the truth will not be a lie” (Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol. IX, pg. 471.)

If this isn’t breathtaking enough, the following is quite repulsive when citing Jesus and His words, to help justify their despicable lies:

“He said again that He knew not the day of the judgment, implying that he was not at liberty to disclose it” (Mark XIII, 32) (Question Box, 167.)

Please pray today for all these victims that they would find healing and comfort from the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray also that the Catholic church would find repentance from God too.

 

 

JGB

2nd October 2006

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