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| Imposing Chaos by Lara Ehrlich |
From the Winona Daily News 11/19/18 - Diocese of Winona to File for Bankupty:
Matthew Willkom, communications director for the Diocese, said the decision is being made in cooperation with legal counsel representing the survivors of sexual abuse.
“Bishop (John) Quinn believes this is the best path forward to bring healing and justice to survivors of past child sexual abuse by clergy in our Diocese,” Willkom said in an email.
Quinn wrote a letter announcing the decision that was included in the bulletins at Sunday Mass across the Diocese.
The bankruptcy will not impact the day-to-day operations of the Diocese, parishes and schools, Willkom said.
There are 17 men who served as priests in the Diocese of Winona, which changed its name to the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in March 2018, accused of sexual abuse.
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Many of the claims came after 2013, when the Minnesota state Legislature passed the Minnesota Child Victims Act. The law lifted the statute of limitations, giving past victims of child sexual abuse three years to sue abusers and the organizations that employed them or directed their volunteer activities.Washington D.C., Nov 16, 2018 / 06:56 pm (CNA) -- Cupich and Wuerl Collaborate:
There were 115 claims of sexual abuse brought against the diocese during this time.
Cupich and Wuerl collaborated on alternative sex abuse proposal
By Ed Condon
Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington collaborated extensively on a recently proposed policy for handling abuse allegations against bishops, CNA has learned.
Cupich submitted the plan Tuesday to leaders of the U.S. bishops’ conference, proffering it as an alternative to a proposal that had been devised by conference officials and staffers.
The conference’s proposed plan would have established an independent lay-led commission to investigate allegations against bishops. The Cupich-Wuerl plan would instead send allegations against bishops to be investigated by their metropolitan archbishops, along with archdiocesan review boards. Metropolitans themselves would be investigated by their senior suffragan bishops.
Sources in Rome and Washington, DC told CNA that Wuerl and Cupich worked together on their alternative plan for weeks, and presented it to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops before the U.S. bishops’ conference assembly in Baltimore. Cupich and Wuerl are both members of the Congregation for Bishops.From Yourerie.com 11/19/18 -- Bishop Lawrence Persico reacts to Former Bishop Donald W. Trautman's remarks in Baltimore:
Over the last week the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops convened in Baltimore. Among them was former Erie Bishop Donald W. Trautman.
As Bishops exchanged ideas about ending child abuse, Trautman questioned reports like the one released by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and the media.
"We should not be so Naive as to accept every government report every attorney general report as being totally accurate or honest and I wouldn't cite the Philadelphia Inquirer or Boston Globe as sources of confident information," said Trautman.
The Pennsylvania Attorney General August grand jury report on clergy abuse found that Trautman failed to remove an abusive priest. Current bishop Lawrence Persico has publicly been supportive of survivors and victims of sexual abuse. He was in the room when Trautman made his comments.
"People have to understand who the Bishop of Erie is Bishop Trautman has retired he doesn't represent the Diocese so what he's doing is giving his opinion," said Persico.
Survivor of priest sexual abuse Jim Vansickle was upset after he read Trautman's Remarks. "David Poulson being my predator admitted to him that he had sexual interests in young boys and Trautman put him back in his Parish," said Vansickle.
Nicole Crites Updated Nov 17, 2018 | Posted on Nov 15, 2018 azfamily.com Arizona priest says he was forced to choose between his religion, law: [Editor's Comment - WATCH THE VIDEOS!]
Joe Ladensack….his calling to become a priest came when he survived a slaughter in Vietnam, one of 68 men shot in a hillside ambush.
“I got shot in the leg. I got shot in the arm and I got shot in the back of my head," Ladensack said.
He saw a bright light.
Retired Bishop O'Brien died in August at the age of 82.
"And Jesus said, 'It's not your time, you have to go back because I have things for you to do,'” Ladensack said.
"I got out of the Army and went into the seminary," Ladensack said.
He says that military foundation gave him the backbone to disobey his bishop's order.
And after helping a dozen other families file police reports, he says he was given an ultimatum.
"The bishop called me in one day and said, ‘The next time you do this, you're out of here!' So, I said, ‘Fine, you might as well get me out of here right now, because every time a case comes, I'm going straight to the police,"' Ladensack said.
He says that’s when Bishop O’Brien told him, "I remove your faculties," stripping him of ministry in the Phoenix Diocese.
Baltimore Bombshell: Vatican Vetoes USCCB’s Planned Abuse-Prevention Reforms by Joan Frawley Desmond, National Catholic Register 1/15/18:
Five months after Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s suspension from public ministry sparked an unprecedented crisis that has alarmed, angered and demoralized lay Catholics and clergy alike, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual fall assembly in Baltimore Nov. 12-14 was supposed to signal a sweeping course correction with new reforms designed to prevent future cover-ups.
Atop the agenda were two proposals that would be put to a vote during the three-day meeting: a draft “Standards of Conduct” for bishops and creation of an investigative commission that would receive accusations made against bishops and include lay specialists.
But that plan was upended as Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, the president of the USCCB, dropped a bombshell on the first day of the gathering.And finally, as reported by Catholic Culture.org 11/20/18:
Facing an auditorium packed with hundreds of bishops, he announced that an eleventh-hour directive from the Holy See barred the assembly from voting on the critical proposals.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales tweeted, “Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance and we pray for all people who are ill at ease with their gender, seek to change it, suffer for it and have been persecuted, and also killed. All people are loved by God and valued in their inherent God-given dignity. #TDOR”Nabi Sayeth: What a mess there is in the administration of our beloved Catholic Church!
-Another diocese files for bankruptcy protection, the fourth diocese in the state of Minnesota to do so.There truly is a “Good Ole Boys” club among the hierarchy. The “fix” runs from the bottom to the top…. all the way to Rome. And until the bishops humbly admit that they are helpless and acknowledge the true root of the problem...MORTAL SIN...then we can only expect more of the same from them. Einstein’s famous dictum certainly applies here: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. When will they wake up and realize that Spiritual problems require Spiritual answers?
-Cardinal Donald Wuerl, a recently removed archbishop from Washington, D.C., “collaborates” with another Cardinal Blasé Cupich, WELL IN ADVANCE of the scheduled bishop’s fall meeting to compose an “accountability” strategy that essentially permits bishops to investigate themselves. In other words, their plan is to allow the wolves to continue guarding the hen coup...and with Vatican approval!
-A disgraced RETIRED bishop of Erie, PA publicly criticizes the findings of the PA Grand Jury report, the same report which revealed his mishandling and cover-up of sexual abuse during his tenure as bishop of Erie.
-A Phoenix priest removed from priestly ministry for being a whistleblower.
-And just when the bishops had hoped to develop a game-plan for dealing with their sex abuse scandal….the Vatican intervenes and shuts them down.
-The administration of the Catholic Church in England and Wales “celebrates” transgender day of remembrance even though “transgenderism” conflicts with Catholic teaching on sexual morality.
I still don't understand. What am I missing? If Joe Blow abuses a child, he is immediately arrested, judged, and jailed. If a priest or bishop does the same, he is protected by the church. Is this an example of the 'separation' of the two? Is this why Bransfield has not been arrested?
ReplyDeleteOne wonders how much of that Church money goes to grease the palms of politicians, lawyers and law enforcement.
ReplyDeleteI can't understand why a victim would TAKE what is basically hush money when they are bound to know the clergy will continue to get away with abuse and more and more $$$ will be removed from the possibility of paying parish debt, feeding the poor and educating Catholic youth in our schools.
ReplyDeleteI read recently NJ has paid out $50 million to victims. What did that solve? Not a damn thing.
I sympathize with the victims whether they are 6 or 16 or 26, but prosecution is the only solution and anyone who takes money from the Church to nurse their wounds is not helping the situation, they are taking advantage of it.
It is like a rape victim taking money from a rapist for their silence and leaving the rapist free to prey on the next victim.