Religion - a respectful discussion, for those interested

How about Lucifer? He's good for an argument or two isn't he? I could even throw in Muhammed if you want shock value given the present political climate.

 

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-catholic-secret-archive-20160312-story.html

Catholic church's secret archives key to exposing sex abuse scandal

Huddled in a law office on Hamilton Street, the district attorneys of the five counties in the Allentown Catholic Diocese spent days poring over files that detailed nearly two dozen allegations that priests had sexually abused children over several decades.

That unprecedented step came in May 2002 after sex-abuse allegations exploded in the Boston Archdiocese, prompting Allentown Bishop Edward P. Cullen to grant the five prosecutors, including Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, a rare glimpse into the diocese's secret archives.

In the wake of the Boston revelations, attorneys and prosecutors across the nation have used lawsuits and criminal investigations to open those secret files to the public. Now victim advocates in Pennsylvania, where the statutes of limitations are short, are calling for legislators to give them that power too, by removing the deadlines that have kept people from suing the Catholic Church.

But some legal experts and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, which represents dioceses and bishops statewide, say it would open a Pandora's box of decades-old allegations that age, fading memories and death would render nearly impossible for the accused to defend against.

epresents dioceses and bishops statewide, say it would open a Pandora's box of decades-old allegations that age, fading memories and death would render nearly impossible for the accused to defend against.
Pennsylvania Catholic diocese covered up decades worth of child abuse, grand jury says
It's a debate that figures to play out in the Pennsylvania Legislature in the coming months. Abuse survivors have scheduled a Monday rally at the Capitol to demand changes in the laws.

"It's not as easy as it may sound. Obviously we need to protect children and the statutes of limitations for those crimes should be much longer," said Morganelli, who is running for state attorney general. "But statutes of limitations are there to protect against bringing cases so old that a person can't defend themselves. It's really a very complex issue."

The Catholic Church's history of protecting child abusers re-emerged in the public's consciousness last month as the film "Spotlight," detailing the Boston Globe's investigation of the cover-up, received an Academy Award for best picture.

And the release of a new grand jury report that accuses two bishops in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese of concealing decades of abuse by as many as 50 priests now has victim advocates calling for those secret archives to be opened for all to see — or at least to victims trying to get justice.
PA child sex abuse statute of limitations must change
Attorney General Kathleen Kane's grand jury report echoes that call, urging lawmakers to lift the statutes of limitations on sex crimes against children.

As long as the statutes are in place, lawyers have no key to unlock the diocesan archives.

"You need either criminal prosecution or civil litigation to force those documents into the public, and without them, there's no leverage whatsoever," said Marci Hamilton, a Bucks County attorney and professor at the Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in New York who pushes for statutes of limitations reform.

Under canon law — the rules that govern the church's operations — every Catholic diocese since the fourth century has been required to have a secret archive where documents detailing investigations into accusations of criminal behavior or "moral matters" are kept under lock and key.

For the Allentown Diocese, that archive, which is still on paper, is at the chancery on West Tilghman Street, where Bishop John O. Barres keeps his office. Though canon law allows the archives to be destroyed after the "guilty parties" have died or 10 years after they've been sentenced, the Allentown Diocese's archives remain intact and stored in locked file cabinets, diocese spokesman Matt Kerr said.
Lawmakers call for statewide child sex-abuse probes of Catholic dioceses
"They're basically treated the way any company would treat its personnel files," he said.

Only the bishop has the key to the secret archive and only the bishop can authorize opening of the archive, according to canon law.

Cullen, now retired, made that move in 2002, when he ordered select contents of that archive taken from the chancery in South Whitehall Township, where they remain today, to the law offices of diocese counsel Thomas Traud for the district attorneys to review. No criminal cases came from that exercise because the district attorneys found no allegations within the statute of limitations, which was up when a person turned 23.

Since then, the statute has been expanded, giving abuse victims until age 30 to file criminal charges and those born after Aug. 27, 2002, until the age of 50 to file. But even with that expansion, time had run out for victims in the Altoona-Johnstown files, Kane said. Those allegations mirror the real-life plot line of "Spotlight," which details the Boston Archdiocese's cover-up and how it was overlooked by police, prosecutors and the media. The Globe's revelations led to a worldwide push to force the Vatican to acknowledge the cases that for decades had been kept secret.
Altoona priest abuse scandal renews calls for end to statutes of limitations
The Catholic church has paid more than $3 billion in out-of-court settlements since 2002 to more than 5,600 victims alleging abuse by Catholic clergy, according toBishopAccountability.org, which tracks Catholic clergy abuse worldwide. Those victims are only about a third of the nearly 16,000 who have alleged abuse, and many cases are pending.

"The reason we know most of what we do … is litigation that drove disclosure," said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org.

Under Pennsylvania law, victims of childhood sexual abuse also have only until age 30 to file civil lawsuits against those who molested them or institutions that concealed allegations against the accused.

Hamilton said the median age of survivors of sexual abuse by clergy who come forward is 41. The state's statute of limitations bars claims by the many who waited to report their abuse because of the shame, self-doubt and fear of blame that often follows sexual-abuse survivors for the rest of their lives.
Clergy abuse hotline overwhelmed with calls after AG report
"I personally know survivors in [the Allentown Diocese], and if a window were to be opened, they might come forward, but the vast majority are shut out," Hamilton said.

Kerr said 15 civil lawsuits have been filed against the Allentown Diocese since 2002, but all were dismissed by the court for being beyond the statute of limitations.

The diocese also settled a case in which a former Allentown priest molested a 15-year-old Texas boy, though no civil action was filed in that matter, Kerr said.

Many states have reformed their statutes, lifting limitations entirely for civil claims or opening a temporary window — of usually two or three years — to allow victims of past crimes to file suits. But the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked such provisions for the prosecution of past crimes after the limitations period has expired.

Ten years after California removed its criminal statute of limitations to allow the prosecution of any child sex abuse no matter how old, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the law. In 2003, it sided with a man whose daughters accused him of raping them decades earlier, finding that the law violated the Constitution, which bars changes in punishment for past crimes.

As a result, the 39 states that have eliminated criminal statutes of limitations for child sex abuse did so not retroactively but from the time the new laws were passed. That's a view shared by Martin, who said he would have no objection to an unlimited time period to prosecute sexual-abuse allegations.

"It's an atrocious crime and it doesn't matter who commits it," he said.
(Warning: Graphic Content) Full grand jury report on alleged child abuse in Altoona-Johnstown Diocese
Legislators in Minnesota and seven other states found a compromise, opening temporary windows for civil lawsuits on child sex-abuse cases that had exceeded the statute of limitation. So, while victims still had no power to have their abusers jailed for crimes committed decades ago, they did have a new avenue to get their stories heard, and ultimately get the church to pay for helping cover up abuse.

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Those archive were photoshopped and planted by the Jesus-hating media.

 

the catholic church is no different than walmart , coca cola, or any other corporation who simply writes checks when they get caught.
never any consequences, just pay them off.

 

Rita Antoinette Rizzo (Mother Angelica)

 

What? You never saw Phyllis Diller?

 

Mother Angelica looks like she munched a few carpets in her time. I bet she has a full-on butch cut under that habit.

 

It is more blessed to give than to receive

 

i think this pope is pretty cool. not a kid fucker, at least thats my impression. if he can get all the uppity white catholics and christians and new borners and the rest of the fucking crazies to stop hating everyone and bamboozling each other it would be impressive.

and now i am stuck in the abyss of this thread.

 

yawn

 

Lol

 

If there was a god who created everything, that means he created Muslims. What a fuck!

 

One of Jesus' retard internet apostles once taught me that the media was biased and can't be trusted.

 

let's have all of our thinking already done for us, its much easier that way