Blind Leadership of the U.S. Catholic Church

Blind leadership of
the U.S. Catholic Church

U. S. Catholic Bishops accused of sexual misconduct:

Bishop Anthony O'Connell of Palm Beach, Fla., quit after admitting he repeatedly abused a student at a Missouri seminary he led. (See detailed account below:)
Bishop Dupré of Springfield, Mass. (See detailed account below:)

Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland asked the Vatican to speed up his retirement after it was learned that the archdiocese paid a $450,000 settlement to a man who said Weakland sexually assaulted him.
Auxiliary Bishop James McCarthy of New York, who stepped down after admitting to affairs with women.
Bishop J. Kendrick Williams of Lexington, Ky., resigned after he was accused of abusing two minors decades ago - allegations he denied. Rembert Weakland (Milwaukee WI) and James McCarthy (Archdiocese of NY) essentially admitted having 'affairs' with adult Catholics.
Bishop Patrick Zieman (Santa Rosa CA),
Bishop Lawrence Soens (Sioux City IA),
Bishop Keith Symons (Palm Springs FL)
Bishop Joseph Hart (Cheyenne WY). During 2007, three other bishops who have NOT been accused of molesting kids themselves, faced the threat of possible contempt charges (in civil court) because of their deceitful conduct regarding abuse cases. They are Robert Brom of San Diego, Daniel Walsh of Santa Rosa and Tod Brown of Orange County. The abuse victims have been pleading in vain for the Vatican to pressure the bishops to face up their responsibilities to cooperate with the authorities rather than with the criminals.

Because of Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell's and other bishops in this case, the Catholic Church may be sued for "Racketeering" :

"What began as a trickle of accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests a few years ago has now escalated into a flood of new information revealing that the abuse is more widespread than anyone could have previously imagined. But it reached epidemic proportions ( in 2002) when a Minnesota lawyer filed a lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is a federal law first passed to fight organized crime in otherwise legitimate businesses. The suit claims that former Bishop Anthony J. O�Connell began molesting a St. Louis man when the man was a 15-year-old seminary student in the early 1980s. The encounters allegedly continued while the student was in college. Afterward, according to the complaint, O�Connell paid his victim to keep quiet about the encounters. And perhaps most importantly for RICO, the suit alleges that other bishops knew of O�Connell�s problem and did nothing to stop him. Thus, all three dioceses where O�Connell "served" are included as defendants.. .
What makes this case exceptional�and what makes RICO possibly on point�is that the other bishops in the Catholic Church allegedly knew about their abusive colleague and continued to allow him to serve. This, in essence, allowed what may have been a few isolated incidents to develop into a pattern of abusive activity, along with the subsequent efforts to cover it up. It�s this pattern and what could be seen as the conspiracy of the bishops behind it that may set this case apart from others.
Rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=161 .

As for Bishop Thomas Dupré
The Associated Press
Updated: Sept. 27, 2004
Springfield, Mass. -

"Bishop Thomas Dupré, the former head of the Roman Catholic church's Springfield Diocese, was indicted on child rape charges, accused of molesting two boys in the 1970s
Dupré, 70, resigned Feb. 11 after nine years as head of the diocese, one day after The Republican newspaper of Springfield confronted him with allegations he abused two boys while he was a parish priest. Dupré cited health reasons for his departure. He retains the title of bishop. . .

There have been at least a dozen grand jury investigations involving how bishops dealt with abuse claims, and four other U.S. bishops have resigned after being accused of sexual misconduct. (e.g. "Patrick Ziemann, the Bishop of Santa Rosa, Calif. had a two-year sexual relationship with one of his priests and had to resign after accusations of assault made the immoral relationship public." http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0106-bethell )
Dupré's alleged victims, who also are suing the cleric and the diocese, have said Dupré sexually abused them for years and asked them to keep quiet about the abuse when he was made auxiliary bishop in 1990. He became bishop in 1995. . .
One of the men, who immigrated to America in 1975, said the abuse began when he was 12 after his family was befriended by Dupré. Dupré allegedly took him on out-of-state trips and to Canada, and bought pornography with the boy in Connecticut. The man claimed the abuse lasted until he began dating a girl in high school.
Dupré is then accused of starting to abuse the other boy. The second victim says he was abused until he was about 20. . . (This client), who is gay, came forward with his claims after hearing Dupré speak out against the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Police to Priests: Thou Shall Not Steal (for sexual gratification among other things)
[ http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/police_to_pries.html ]
September 29, 2006, by Vic Walter and Krista Kjellman Report:
"Secret bank accounts, gambling trips, cars, condos and paramours were all part of what police say was a multi-million dollar theft of church funds by two priests.
Detectives of the Delray Beach Police Department have charged two retired priests with stealing $8.6 million of church money during the time they served as pastors at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Delray Beach, Florida.
According to a probable cause affidavit, over the course of decades, both priests hid money from the offertory collections and deposited the stolen cash into at least three separate slush fund accounts. . .
The two spent the stolen cash lavishly on personal expenses. For Father Guinan, that meant he allegedly spent the cash on gambling getaways to Las Vegas and the Bahamas and thousands of dollars in high school tuition payments for his girlfriend's son. For Father Skehan, he allegedly owned a condominium with an appraised value of almost half a million dollars and a pub in Kilkenny, Ireland.

Two decades after the woman first told of seven clerics having sex with her, and
of one fathering her child, she receives $500,000 from the L.A. Archdiocese.
Los Angeles Times, December 5, 2007
"Rita Milla�s story rocked the Archdiocese of Los Angeles when she first told it 23 years ago. Seven Roman Catholic priests, she said, had sexually abused her when she was a teenager, with one eventually fathering her child. The devout young woman who had once hoped to become a nun instead gave birth in secret in the Philippines."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-milla5dec05,1,3869267.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

The Rite of Sodomy � Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church,
a book about a long history of homosexuality within the hierarchy,
published in 2006 by Randy Engel

�What I do claim,� says Engel, �is that the Homosexual Collective to date has successfully infiltrated, colonized and metastasized the Catholic priesthood and religious orders in the United States as well as the Catholic hierarchy.� �Indeed, the main focus of my 1312-page book is the identification of homosexual prelates in AmChurch starting at the turn of the 20th century with William Cardinal O'Connell and Francis Cardinal Spellman and ending with Cardinal Bernardin and other American prelates,� Engel explains.
According to Engel, �The ongoing sex abuse scandal in AmChurch, that includes the systematic cover-up by members of the American hierarchy of criminal acts of Catholic priests and religious who prey on young boys, takes on new meaning when viewed within the context of a long-existing network of homosexual bishops and cardinals in AmChurch.�

When it serves his political ambitions, Rudolph Giuliani talks about his upbringing as a devout Catholic, his thoroughly Catholic education, including a short stint in a seminary, until he entered a secular law school. But ever since he started shedding wives, he has been rather alienated from his church. His principal connection seems to be through his close friend, Monsignor Alan Placa, who was best man at his first wedding to his second cousin, officiated at his second church wedding and baptized Giuliani's son and daughter. Placa was barred from the ministry after he was accused of sexual abuse, but he received special permission to preside at the funeral of Giuilani's mother, Helen, in 2002. Placa has been working for Giuliani's consulting business, Giuliani Partners, despite the urging of abuse victims that he be terminated. ( Source : boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/ articles/2007/08/10/giuliani_evokes_catholic_upbringing_on_campaign_trail/?page=1)

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