Los Angeles Archdiocese kept sexual abuse in the shadows

Dogpatch

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_22457658/los-angeles-archdiocese-kept-sexual-abuse-shadows

Los Angeles Archdiocese kept sexual abuse in the shadows

Church protected priests accused of child molesting Posted: 01/26/2013 02:50:17 PM PST Updated: 01/26/2013 10:42:31 PM PST

A parishoner makes his way to an early mass at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Van Nuys, Ca January 24, 2013. (Andy Holzman/Los Angeles Daily News)

Join Los Angeles News Group City Editor Harrison Sheppard and reporters Susan Abram and Tracy Manzer in a live chat Monday at 11 a.m. to discuss this report.

Jump to:
Cardinal Roger Michael Mahony
The Catholic Church
Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera
Father Michael Baker
Father Michael Wempe
Father James M. Ford Father Matthew Michael Sprouffske
Father Michael Daniel Buckley
Father Santiago Tamayo
Monsignor Benjamin Hawkes
Father Lynn R. Caffoe Father Eleutorio Ramos
Monsignor Peter E. Garcia
Father Cristobal Garcia
Father Fidencio Silva
Father Larry Lovell

Thousands of pages of court documents show how the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for decades knowingly shielded more than a dozen priests suspected of child sex abuse.

A Los Angeles News Group special report offers an in-depth look into how and when the church knew about the abuse and chose instead to move accused priests from parish to parish, even allowing the most abusive to move out of the country.

Church officials in some cases tried to get priests into therapy, but at the same time took steps to keep the horrific accusations from ever surfacing or being reported to authorities. Victims and their families pleaded for justice, only to fall on deaf ears. This report details the depth of secrecy and covert actions taken by top church officials to keep the accusations in the shadows.

In the decades since, archdioceses everywhere have taken steps to recognize and stop such abuse from happening again.

In the meantime, victims feel the weight and still live in the shadow of abuse.

Cardinal Roger Mahony squarely at the center of the sex-abuse scandal

"We as his disciples must realize the Gospel must speak to actual, current situations."

For Mahony, those situations would include complaints that scores of his priests were abusing children - altar boys, students in parochial schools, sons and daughters of their parishioners.

Church emerges with widespread reforms

In this last decade, church leaders and members say, they have had to come to terms with feelings of anger, confusion and shame over the dark history of child molestation and the cover-up.

Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera: Accused of molesting 13 youngsters in nine-month term in L.A.

A 35-year-old man who says he was molested by the priest as a youth claims church leaders knew Aguilar Rivera was a pedophile when they assigned him to the two local parishes and that they knowingly concealed his misdeeds.

Father Michael Baker was accused of molesting 23 youngsters

An energetic priest who was popular with the young people in his congregations, Baker confided to Mahony during a spiritual retreat in late December 1986 that he'd molested two young boys from 1978-85.

Father Michael Wempe: Tears at his own trial

But files released last week reveal his efforts and those of church officials to shield Wempe from the law.

Father James M. Ford: In 45 years with the church, alleged abuse dates back to 1968

Father James M. Ford's career in the Los Angeles Archdiocese didn't end until 2005, though he faced questions back to the early 1980s about inappropriate contact with male students and was known to have had an affair with a former seminary student who died of AIDS, according to his personnel files.

Father Matthew Michael Sprouffske: History of abuse began before his ordination

It was 1986 when the woman penned two eloquent and powerful missives, one to Sprouffske and one to Monsignor John Rawden, an archdiocese official, and she spoke plainly about the abuse she suffered from the age of about 4 until 16.

Father Michael Daniel Buckley: Suspended nearly 30 years after the first allegations

That was the year parents of children at Immaculate Conception Church in Monrovia sent two letters to then-Bishop Timothy Manning demanding Buckley's removal due to "grave moral reasons" and threatening to picket if their demands were not met.

Father Santiago Tamayo one of a group of priests that assaulted teen girl

Appropriately enough, the tales of how Tamayo, Cruces and five other priests sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl were fodder for the tabloids in the 1980s, which dubbed it "Snow White and the Seven Priests."

Monsignor Benjamin Hawkes: Too powerful to cross

Hawkes would do this during Sunday Mass, just before serving Holy Communion.

Father Lynn R. Caffoe: Church took 30 years to dismiss him after first allegations

"(Father) Caffoe has not truly resolved his inner anger and sexual tension, so that he remains a real threat to minors. This is confirmed by his subsequent behavior," Mahony wrote to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Eleutorio Ramos: Transferred 15 times in two decades because of reports of sexual abuse

Father Eleutorio Ramos admitted to police in Orange County that he had molested at least 25 boys over the span of a decade. It was, according to published reports, the largest single admission of child abuse in the history of the Orange County diocese

Monsignor Peter E. Garcia: Preyed on illegal immigrant boys

Garcia's victims - he confessed at one point to having 20 - were primarily young undocumented immigrants, a quality that made their families less likely to prosecute.

Father Cristobal Garcia: Priest fled to the Philippines and rose in the Church

He just didn't know how big.

Father Fidencio Silva: Twenty-nine altar boys claimed he molested them

He was apparently also far too chummy with some of the 60 altar boys in his charge. He would eventually be accused of molesting more than two dozen of them.

Father Larry Lovell: Serving a prison sentence

The defrocked Claretian priest, convicted of sexually molesting boys at two Arizona parishes in the 1970s and '80s, is now serving a 26-year combined prison sentence.

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Wait until the creepy Ratzhole gets his reward in heaven! POPE my ASS... HE'S A CONSPIRATOR IN THIS AWFUL STUFF.

Randy

HTTP://FREEMINDS2.ORG

HTTP://FREEMINDS.ORG

Dogpatch

i'VE VISITED HIS CHURCH. It's right near where my former homicide attorney roommate had an office as a public defender.

SUCH A NICE GUY.

NEVER give a lot of attention to outward social graces. Feel the animal inside.

Randy

http://freeminds.org

http://freeminds2.org (NEW)

Dogpatch

Poland

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/05/poland-0

A dark side of the Catholic Church

May 24th 2013, 15:41 by G.C. | WARSAW

POLISH media are notoriously wary of confronting the powerful Catholic Church. Until recently, at least. On May 23rd TVN24, a news channel, ran a half-hour programme about child abuse by priests. It was the second in just a few weeks.

The show featured three case studies in which only one victim showed his face—and he was speaking from Canada. The reports illustrated the hostility and disbelief victims face in Poland when they tell their stories. They highlighted the Church’s stubborn refusal to take any responsibility as an institution and, worse, the individual priests’ apparent sense of impunity.

One of the three items also featured my own experience whilst trying to investigate a case for France 24 television. We had spoken to a man who told us he had been abused in the late 1970s by someone who was now rector of a parish in Szczecin. We travelled to the parish and found the cleric in question (who cannot be named for legal reasons) leading mass. Afterwards, I asked him whether he had any comment to make on the allegations, and got an astonishing reaction. Accusing us of filming illegally, the priest led both me and the cameraman into the rectory… and locked us in.

After a few minutes we tried to escape, and were violently blocked by the cleric. Fortunately, in the scuffle that ensued he dropped his keys and we were able to get out. Our detention had lasted less than ten minutes and nobody was hurt. But since we had managed to film the whole thing on two cameras, we gave some of the footage to local journalists.The story made the national news the following day, prompting a degree of fuss, though not exactly an uproar.

What is remarkable is the reaction from the Church. For two days neither parish nor diocese would comment at all. Then came a statement from the diocese spokesman to the effect that they were looking into the possibility of charging us with trespassing and slander. According to prosecutors no such complaint has yet been lodged. We had already reported the incident to the police.

The spokesman also told TVN he had no knowledge of paedophilia charges against the priest in question. The very same spokesman’s signature is on documents relating to the formal complaint the victim lodged with the diocese more than two years ago.

Back then, the bishop promised to investigate the matter, and both victim and priest were questioned. But as far as the victim is aware, there was no conclusion.The priest continued to work with minors, in clear breach of the Polish Church’s own rules, which state that a priest suspected of abuse must be distanced from working with children, pending investigation.

According to the Szczecin diocese, this particular rector continues to work even after the latest incident. TVN’s reporter, however, found no-one in the town who could confirm this. In fact, no one had seen him since our adventure. Clerics accused of abuse often vanish in this way, only to resurface in some faraway parish a little later.

Over the past decade media have regularly denounced such practices in America, Ireland and other countries. Huge scandals have erupted, forcing the Church to take responsibility and enhance safeguards. Not so in Poland, which has the highest proportion of practising Catholics in Europe (bar Malta). Cases do emerge, and priests are occasionally found guilty in the courts. But the Church has not paid any compensation to victims, and the true extent of abuse remains largely unknown.

Victims’ testimonies, gathered in a book published earlier this year by Ekke Overbeek, a Dutch journalist, would suggest that abuse in Poland is widespread and well-hidden. But though the dioceses must have, at the very least, information on the numbers of formal complaints they receive, the Church publishes no statistics.

Recently a radio station, TOK FM, sent a written request for information to Poland’s dioceses. None of the replies so far have been very helpful; one simply states, in capital letters, “It is none of your business”.

TOK FM’s initiative is another sign that this year, pressure from the media is slowly mounting. Mr Overbeek’s book led several publications to report on the phenomenon, though he remains sceptical of Polish editors’ willingness to really follow things up. Fear of Church power is one problem; another is fear of losing viewers and readers by broaching an unpopular topic.

Mr Overbeek has helped to inspire victims of sexual abuse to create a support organisation. They formally registered it earlier this month, and named it “Be Not Afraid” in a somewhat ironic quotation of the revered Polish Pope, John Paul II. The message is intended to encourage victims to speak out. It could equally be directed at journalists.

Hortensia

Old Mahoney was so respected in LA - at least the newspapers and TV news kissed his ass for years. But he knew what was going on and hid it -- pedophile protector

Los Angeles Archdiocese kept sexual abuse in the shadows