(Phila. archdiocese) Church lawyer: 'Somebody lied to me' about list of priests suspected of abuse
Source: CNN
A lawyer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia testified Monday that church officials lied to him about the whereabouts of a hidden list of 35 priests suspected of sexually abusing children.
"Everyone I spoke to said they didn't know where it was," Timothy Coyne, former director of legal services for the archdiocese, told jurors at the landmark child sexual abuse and conspiracy trial of two Philadelphia priests. "Somebody lied to me."
Jurors also heard from two priests and a paralegal from the law firm representing the archdiocese regarding items found in two separate locked safes.
One safe drilled open by a locksmith contained an accordion-style file folder that housed a memo ordering the shredding of the list of 35 Catholic priests accused or found guilty of sexual misconduct, the list of priests and other personnel documents.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/14/justice/pennsylvania-church-abuse-trial/index.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
As penance, you must now say 10 million 'Our Fathers' and 12 million 'Hail Mary's.' IN HELL. 
...nothing to see here that we haven't already seen. Over and over again.
- It's a good thing they're exposing those dastardly Girl Scouts and their delicious cookies though......
K&R
You have to understand the problem to address the problem, and most people do NOT understand the problem. The problem is NOT the illegal activity (Corruption and/or abuse of authority by Police Officers, abuse of children in the case of the Priests), but HOW the organization the people who are committing these act react to the accusation of such crimes by members of the organization.
One of the best ways to see this today is the talk of Politicians making "Hard Choices" when it comes to the budget, the Political elites view the "Hard Choice" as cutting social services, NOT cutting defense, do to the fact their friends (who tend to be hired as lobbyists) keep telling them that is the right decision, i.e." do NOT cut defense that will hurt me for they are my employer, but cut social services that will hurt people we do NOT know". The real hard choice is to an act that hurts people close to you, i.e. in the case of the budget hurt the lobbyists for you are cutting their employer's income drastically. It is NOT a hard choice to cut social services, given no one the politicians knows personally will be hurt by such cuts.
Priests and Police officers suffer the same problem, they will try to cover up for their co-workers. In this regard the Catholic Church has been better then the Police, they have defrocked many priests and have assigned others to places where there are no children. In this regard the Catholic Church has an advantage, it is a world wide organization and thus has places to put such people "away from temptation" if the person agrees to the assignment. Most police have few, if any, such places to put a corrupt officer.
On the other hand the Police has a huge advantage over the Catholic Church, sovereign immunity. A victim can sue the Diocese of the Catholic Church the Priest who did the crime belongs to, but can NOT sue the municipality who employs a police officer who does a similar or worse deed (Planting evidence, filing false charges etc). Thus most attorneys do NOT take cases against Police Officers, for Attorneys want paid, and it is hard to get paid if all you get is a judgement against an officer. On the other hand a Judgement against the Catholic Church is a lien on ALL of the assets of the Catholic Church and thus easy to collect even if the Catholic Church refuses to pay it.
My point is it is easy to go after people you do NOT know, be it people on Welfare, on Social Security (as in the case of Politicians), against criminals, against the poor (as in the case of the Police), and against people who makes accusation against fellow priests (As in the case of the Catholic Church). On the other hand it is HARD to go against people you know and interact with every day. This is true of Politicians (As can be seen in their definitions of "hard choices"
, Police (as can be seen in the various coverups of Police misconduct over the years) and Priests (in the case of the accusations against fellow priests).
My point is this is a product of human nature, that any organization has to accept will occur. Furthermore, the person who reports it will be considered a traitor to the group not only be the person he or she turns in, but also other members of the group who would prefer it to be kept "in house", For this reason the Catholic Church for centuries had rules that every priest had to follow, many of these rules were "dumb" on their face, but converted a hard to prove factual situation to an easy to prove factual situation.
One of these rules was that if a Priest had ANYONE in the private parts of his residence, he was subject to the same punishment as if he had sex with that person. On its face it was "dumb" in that any priest who permitted anyone into the private parts of his residence, even to get a book, was subject to the same punishment as if he had sex with that person. The reason the Catholic Church had this rule was it was easy to determine if someone was in the private parts of the priest's residence, by just asking him or her what was in those parts of the house. On the other hand how do you prove they had sex? Unless a child was born to the sex act, almost impossible. Thus the rule against people being in the private parts of the Priest's residence being a much easier to determine "crime" was used to punish Priests who may or may not have had sex with that person (Please note, this rule related people OTHER then representatives of the Diocese, thus even when this rule was in place inspections of such areas by the Diocese was permitted).
The rule as to keeping people out of the private areas of the priest's Residence tended to be dropped after Vatican II, but like the 1999 repeal of the Glass–Steagall Act, an appeal done without understanding that the rule seems to be ineffective, do to the fact it was so effective. It appears to be one of the reason for the increase in such incidents since the 1960s (it has been dropping since the 1990s do to increase enforcement of stricter internal rules as to accused priests, thus why we are hearing cases like this one, when the incident is from the early 1990s).
Yes, in many ways we are seeing a legal case based on what happened in the days of the first President Bush. In fact one of the Defendant, Lilly, is NOT accused of any illegal act EXCEPT for not reporting a finding that such acts occurred (His defense is that he did, he made his report to his superior whose job was to proceed with the accusation, but his superior, the Bishop of Philadelphia did nothing). I suspect the reason was the Bishop did NOT want to punish one of his fellow priests, on the grounds it is one of the hardest thing for anyone to do, i.e. pass judgement on a Friend and co-worker.
Now, as you can see this problem has been addressed, the American Bishops have adopted (starting in the 1990s) some strict rules on how to handle such accusations. Such rules were approved by the Vatican, despite Vatican concerns as to the lack of Due Process (i.e. burden is on the Priest to prove a negative, i.e. that the accusation is false, not on the accuser that the accusation is true,. i.e. you on guilty just based on an accusation, and the accused has to prove his innocence). Implementation of the rule has been uneven in the US, but it is the American rule at the present time and has lead to a huge drop in accusations do to the fact any Priest accused is removed from contact with children immediately even if no evidence exists to support the accusation. This was a reversal of the old rule which required an internal hearing (Which bishops were reluctant to set up) before any such removal.
Thus, we tend to be dealing with older cases. The new rule is strict and would be unconstitutional if applied to Police (i.e lack of Due Process) but seems to be working. Another factor is the bad publicity of such cases has force many bishops to accept the fact they can no longer cover such acts up without doing something publicly to show they are doing all they can to prevent such acts. Thus the publicity of lawsuits has also been a driving force to correct such problems (as bad publicity among police do to example of police abuse has lead to improvements in police as to police abuse). SNAP had been very good as making such abuse by priests public and thus forcing the hands of bishops to punish their friends who tend to be the priests under their supervision (I also think SNAP has at times gone over board on that subject, but that is normal for such radical groups that are born do to any type of abuse by authority).
As I keep pointing out, the Catholic Church has responded to its problems in regard to abuse, more do to the bad public image it has created then even the loss of money to compensate such victims. Hopefully the reforms of the 1990s have made the situation better, but it will take another 10-20 years for us to see one way or another. It appears to have worked, we are litigating cases from the 1990s not the 2000s but only time will tell.
