The Catholic Church is under fire following a newly released child abuse report involving more than 300 Pennsylvania priests that is beyond sickening!
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A shocking grand jury report released Tuesday concluded that 6 Catholic Church dioceses in Pennsylvania hid and protected upwards of 300 “predator priests” who sexually abused more than 1,000 children from as far back as 1947. Those priests were stationed in the dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Scranton.
“Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted,” the grand jury report said.
Grand jurors described the Catholic Church child abuse method as “a playbook for concealing the truth.”
As Catholic families entrusted their children to church priests, many of these so-called “men of the cloth” regularly violated their vows of celibacy by taking sexual advantage of their parishioners’ sons and daughters. If they were caught in the act, church leaders either turned a blind eye or simply reassigned the violator to a new diocese — where they’d have their pick of a new crop of little boys and/or girls and could continue right where they left off.
The church’s priority was not to help or protect children, but to avoid scandal and embarrassment.
According to the report, victims were frequently plied with alcohol then groped and/or molested. Others were orally, vaginally, or anally raped.
“But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all,” the grand jurors added. “We believe that the real number of children whose records were lost or who were afraid ever to come forward is in the thousands.”
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE
The Catholic Church abuse report was beyond horrid:
• In the Greensburg diocese, a priest impregnated a 17-year-old, forged a pastor’s signature on a marriage certificate, then divorced the girl months later. According to the grand jury, the priest was allowed to stay in ministry by finding a “benevolent bishop” willing to give him another chance.
• Another priest in Greensburg groomed middle-school students for sex by telling them that Mary had to “bite off the cord” and “lick” Jesus clean after the Nativity.
• In Scranton, a priest who served prison time for abusing children was found to have been HIV-positive for years.
• In Allentown, a priest who abused several boys was given a recommendation to work at Disney World.
“When you have the priest touching you every day, that’s a hard memory to have. The first erection that you have is at the hands of a priest,” a male victim said.
“There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale,” the grand jurors wrote in their report. “For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.”
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At a news conference announcing the report’s release, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called it the “largest, most comprehensive report into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church ever produced in the United States.”
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Bishop Timothy L. Doherty, chair of the bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, issued a collective statement following news of the widespread abuse.
“The report of the Pennsylvania grand jury again illustrates the pain of those who have been victims of the crime of sexual abuse by individual members of our clergy, and by those who shielded abusers and so facilitated an evil that continued for years or even decades,” the church leaders said. “As a body of bishops, we are shamed by and sorry for the sins and omissions by Catholic priests and Catholic bishops.”
Regrettably, this ‘apology’ is too little, too late. Children and babies were robbed of their innocence. Lives were ruined. Church leaders looked the other way and allowed colleagues to molest, rape, and abuse over and over again.
Perhaps it’s time to stop calling this a ‘church’ and call it what it really is: a breeding ground/hiding place/shopping mall for pedophiles!
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Perhaps it’s time to stop calling this a ‘church’ and call it what it really is: a breeding ground/hiding place/shopping mall for pedophiles! […] Hear-Hear!…DJ. You are absolutely right! And thank you for this post. Needless to say I am pleased that my home-state has released this report, which is indeed incredibly damning. Let’s begin with the obvious. For any church to try to force grown men (and women) – who are seeking positions of power and authority over others -to suppress their natural sexual impulses was..is..and always will be…pure madness!!! Quite naturally, the kinds of men (and women) who’d be attracted to that kind of church would be (mostly) gay male pedophiles and rapists. And let’s not even talk about the fact that so many children were victims of severe physical abuse at the hands of priests and nuns. What a H*llish environment for any child to be subjected… Read more »