Outrageous sexual abuse by priests in PA

[cyclonefence]

Examples from the grand jury report (and all but two of these crimes are exempt from prosecution because of expiration of statute of limitations):

One priest tied up a victim with rope in the confessional in a "praying position." When the victim refused to perform sex, the angered priest used a 7-inch crucifix to sexually assault him.

Another victim said a priest used a metal cross to beat him.

At a parish rectory, four priests made a boy strip and pose as Jesus on the cross while they took photos.

"He stated that all of them giggled and stated that the pictures would be used as a reference for new religious statues for the parishes," the grand jury wrote. Two of those priests later did jail time for sexually assaulting two altar boys.

Another was quoted as telling altar boys they should serve naked beneath their cassocks "because God did not want any man-made clothes to be worn next to their skin during Mass," the jury wrote.

Priests told children they would "go to hell" if they told anyone what happened and "nobody would believe a lying child over a man of God's word."

In one church, a priest told a boy who confided he had been gang-raped as a 7-year-old that he had to provide sex to get to heaven. He would then be molested for three years before the priest was transferred.

Several priests used hypnosis during counseling sessions to manipulate their victims.

Helping a priest grade papers in his rectory somehow became a session of nude weightlifting.

I have posted only a partial list; read the whole story at http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/20180816_ap_8d0245fd14924dbdb1c2d28366efb896.html.

[TEB]

1. Sick

I feel for the victims

[Girard442]

2. I can't see any reason why the Catholic Church should continue to exist.

If people need the religious experience that it provided, then let them form a new religion, but the institution as it exists is so filled with evil that it needs to die.

[Doreen]

3. So they would rather have male priests who sexually abuse than

have women be priests. You do not hear about the nuns doing this crap and if you do it is not very many at all. I have never heard about the nuns doing this. I guess they were just mean. The Catholics need to step back and look at what they are doing wrong because they are defiantly doing something wrong. I thought that in order to become a priest you have to go through a mental examination and background check. If they don't THEY SHOULD!!! I feel for those many people who lives they have messed up.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Burn it all down. It's an inherently harmful system.

Inherently harmful systems don't necessarily harm everyone; people can have good experiences with the Catholic Church. But its design and processes default to harm, and it deserves no support.

[DesertRat]

5. Sickening and evil

[spanone]

6. the catholic church appears to be a conduit for sex starved priests

[ReformedGOPer]

10. I actually disagree. I believe the church became a conduit for mostly male pedophiles who had a

preference for young boys. What better place to find your victims under the wing of the powerful church? I came into contact with 4 of the priests mentioned in the report. The church looked at them as men of God who had some psychological problems that could be cured in a treatment facility. In reality, they were pedophiles, criminals, looking for a safe place to practice their crimes.

[Hortensis]

7. Chillingly evil, but remember this basically ended a decade ago.

And it ended because the American people finally, after well over 100 years of institutionalized despicable negligence, started enforcing American criminal law against the Catholic church. In so doing, it empowered people for whom calling the police or asking their DA to bring charges had previously been futile.

[Calculating]

8. Might be time to start letting married men, and women into the priesthood

I mean what do they possibly expect? You have a job which prevents people from having normal intimate relationships, and then get all shocked when it attracts a bunch of weirdos/pervs/pedos.

[ReformedGOPer]

9. I was not a victim of any of the priests mentioned in the report,

but I am a former Catholic school teacher and had contact with 4 of the priests named. The lay people who saw this behavior reported it to our principals. I once reported another lay teacher for similar-type actions to my principal who said he would look into it. I guess I felt that I had done my duty as a mandated reporter (I had paper copies of my involvement) Needless to say I never heard anything else. The lay teacher continued to teach for 3 more years before getting fired for a similar offense.

The 4 priests that I came into contact with were all regarded by school employees as suspicious. Everyone thought there were problems. But the laity wasn't listened to in our school. BTW, Our school and many many others were closed in the late 2000's. We were told it was because of declining enrollment. While that was a factor, we realized later that the diocese had paid out millions to abuse survivors because they (the diocese) were self-insured.