3 abused by priests file suits claiming illegal GOP meeting

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1143884319209190.xml&coll=2

Saturday, April 01, 2006
Ted Wendling
Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus - Victims of sexual abuse by priests have filed two lawsuits accusing Speaker Jon Husted and seven other House Republicans of holding an illegal meeting before a House committee passed a hotly contested sex-offender bill this week.

In an ironic twist to a story that has made national headlines, one of the suits has been assigned to a Franklin County judge whom Husted and other GOP officials have sought to impeach for his sentencing of a child molester.

The suit was filed Thursday in Columbus by Dan Frondorf and Christy Miller, members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests. It was assigned by blind draw to Judge John Connor, a Democrat. A second suit was filed by SNAP member Claudia Vercellotti in Toledo.

Connor has been the target of withering criticism by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, who has called for the judge's impeachment. O'Reilly continued his crusade Thursday evening by inviting Ohio Sen. Steve Austria onto his show and asking the suburban Dayton Republican for "a personal favor" - that Austria "watch back" of a woman in Columbus who is working to remove Connor from the bench...



Church sex abuse: 783 new claims in '05
Friday, March 31, 2006
Rachel Zoll
Associated Press

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1143806114301820.xml&coll=2

Washington- New figures released Thursday by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops show the unrelenting toll of the clergy sex abuse crisis: 783 new credible claims last year, most of which date back decades, and costs of nearly $467 million.

While researchers who analyzed 50 years of data on molestation claims concluded the number of new cases is declining, the church is still paying a heavy price for predatory clergy.

The abuse problem was already known to have cost dioceses more than $1 billion since 1950, including some expenses paid last year.


Still, Teresa Kettelkamp, direc tor of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said the total abuse-related expenses shelled out in 2005 were likely the largest ever for a single year...

[0007]

1. This has a little bit of everything in the show. What a cast!

SNAP members are unhappy that the House removed a one-year "look-back" provision from the bill that would have allowed victims to file civil lawsuits for abuse that occurred up to 35 years ago.

In doing so, the House insulated the Catholic Church from having to defend hundreds of lawsuits from boys and girls who were molested by Ohio priests, Frondorf said.

But he said the lawsuits were about the process, not the vote.

"It makes me angry because I'm a citizen and taxpayer, and there was a majority of those members behind closed doors, meeting and discussing something before the committee," he said. "By statute, that's supposed to be an open meeting, and I don't like the fact that they violated the law and then passed a version of the bill that I didn't like."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

[e-mail], 1-800-228-8272

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. reality is far, far stranger than fiction.

[jwirr]

10. Can't we get those closed door hearings documentation through

the freedom of information act? I want to know who the GOP people were and I want to know what they said. Bastards.

[Ian David]

3. K&R! n/t

[goforit]

4. The GOP protects pedofiles as well? How far do these bastards go?

:puke:

[Dunvegan]

5. As far a the American people let them.

[stillcool]

6. GOP= Pedophiles.....hmmmmm

Grand Old Pedophiles?

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. They're all a bunch of sexually repressed perverts

that's what happens when you don't allow priests to marry and you follow the teachings of Paul of Tarsus rather then Jesus of Nazareth.

[AngryOldDem]

8. This bill passed the Ohio Senate virtually intact

It would have allowed a much longer statute of limitations for the filing of lawsuits. But when it got to the House vote, it was gutted so as to make it meaningless. Many see Husted as the person who took the knife to it, and we won't forget come election time.

That, plus the bishops' lobby kowtowed Husted, et. al., as well.

On the positive side (if you can call it that) one more priest in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati was defrocked this week, bringing the total to at least four over the past month. For a Church bureaucracy that moves at a glacial pace, this is significant. If the law can't get these bastards, then it is up to the Church to begin cleaning its own house. That must be the message the Church gets. It won this round but it still has a LOT of shit to clean up.

[Blue_Tires]

9. GOP using secret, back-room underhanded dealings?

and sidestepping the legislative process?

who knew?