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| 03:27 AM | ||
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BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world | |
| THE SECRET User ID: 934818  United States04/05/2010 08:51 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | |
| Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 934818 United States04/05/2010 08:55 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world Homosexuals on Vatican Staff Removed after Prostitution Ring Revelations By Lifesite Hilary White March 8, 2010 [link to www.lifesitenews.com] ROME, March 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two Vatican staffers have been removed after revelations that they were involved in a homosexual prostitution ring. Angelo Balducci, a Papal Gentiluomini (“Gentleman” usher who helps greet dignitaries), and Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29 year-old Nigerian and professional chorister with the Giulia Choir, which performs at St Peter's Basilica, were working together to provide Mr. Balducci with homosexual prostitutes. The discovery was made by Italian police wiretaps during an investigation into Balducci’s involvement in political corruption over public works contracts and published in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday. The BBC news magazine Panorama quoted Ehiem saying, “He [Balducci] asked me if I could procure other men for him. He told me he was married and that I had to do it in great secrecy.” “He asked and I executed. He would give me 50 or 100 Euros ($70 or $140 Cdn), never more than 1,000 or 1,500 Euros ($1,400 or $2,100 Cdn) a year,” said Ehiem. The Guardian newspaper acquired transcripts of conversations between Ehiem and Balducci that reveal at least one of the men procured was a seminarian, in addition to a former male model and a rugby player. The transcripts reveal that over a period of five or six months in 2008, Ehiem procured for Balducci at least 10 contacts with men, garnered from the “Pianeta Escort” (Planet Escort) website. The role of the Papal Gentiluomini is largely ceremonial and Balducci’s main occupation is as an engineer and board member of Italy's public works department. Italian police, investigating on behalf of prosecutors in Florence, have stated, “In order to organise casual encounters of a sexual nature, he availed himself of the intercession of two individuals who, it is maintained, may form part of an organised network, especially active in [Rome], of exploiters or at least facilitators of male prostitution.” Ehiem has been fired from the Giulia choir and Balducci, who also serves as a senior adviser to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, is under arrest. American priest and frequent media commentator, Father Thomas Williams told CBS News, “We're just scratching the surface here. There's definitely more to come.” “We only know of these two men connected with the Vatican in some way, but obviously, they're talking about a ring, and a ring means definitely more people involved.” |
| Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 934818 United States04/05/2010 08:55 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world Germany Says Church Covered up Abuse The Irish Times March 8, 2010 [link to www.irishtimes.com] Germany's justice minister accused the Vatican today of covering up severe sexual abuse in the Church after fresh reports surfaced at three Catholic schools in Bavaria. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called the developments "frightening" after the cathedral choir in Regensburg, the Benedictine monastery school at Ettal and a Capucian school in Burghausen revealed new cases of sexual and physical abuse. The revelations followed reports last month that Catholic priests had sexually abused over 100 children at Jesuit schools around Germany, which led to a public apology from Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops Conference. "In many schools there was a wall of silence allowing for abuse and violence," Ms Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a secular liberal politician who has been the government's leading critic of the Church, told Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio. "Even the most severe cases of abuse are subject only to papal secrecy and should not be disclosed outside the Church," she said, citing a 2001 Catholic congregation directive. Church officials rejected her charges. Bishop Stephan Ackermann, who speaks for the Church on abuse matters, called the minister's comments "absurd". "Our guidelines insist that we involve state prosecutors," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. Pope Benedict, himself a German, summoned Irish bishops to he Vatican last month for a reprimand over a paedophilia scandal after the Murphy report said Church leaders had covered up widespread abuse of children by priests for 30 years. Dozens of Catholics in the Netherlands have since come forward to report alleged sexual abuses by priests, often decades ago, after media coverage of the Irish and German cases. The Vatican has said it fully supports the diocese of Regensburg's decision last week to openly investigate its abuse cases, according to Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Ms Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger does not advocate lengthening the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes, now 20 years. Leading conservatives have all called for a longer period. A government spokesman said today that it was important to continue the discussion over statute limitations. The justice minister also urged the Church to take part in a public discussion with political leaders and victims on the issue that could potentially include compensation, a call she has made previously. Bishop Ackermann backed the idea of such a round-table discussion on April 23rd, as suggested by family minister Kristina Schroeder. "The minister's invitation is an important step towards the common goal of addressing the problem quickly," he said. Archbishop Zollitsch had previously rejected the idea, and accused the justice minister of bashing the Church. He is due to travel to the Vatican on Friday to discuss the abuse scandal. |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 934830 United States04/05/2010 08:56 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world The Associated Press March 8, 2010 [link to www.google.com] BERLIN — Germany's justice minister said Monday that a Vatican secrecy rule has played a role in a "wall of silence" surrounding sexual abuse of children. The Vatican says it wouldn't comment on the criticism from Germany, the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI. Later Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the German church's effort to respond to a spate of abuse allegations. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger cited a 2001 Vatican directive requiring even the most serious abuse cases to be first investigated internally. Scandals over sexual abuse by Catholic clergy of minors and cover-ups by church hierarchy have exploded worldwide in the last two decades, including in recent weeks in Germany and the Netherlands. Benedict has a meeting scheduled this week with the head of Germany's bishops conference. Recent events in Germany have shown "that there was a wall of silence here in many schools and facilities" that prevented information on abuse and violence getting through to judicial authorities, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Deutschlandfunk radio. In the case of abuse at Catholic schools, one factor is the 2001 directive from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "that even such serious abuse cases are first subject to papal confidentiality and are not supposed to be divulged outside the church," the minister said. That directive was promulgated by the late John Paul II, whose papacy was overshadowed by allegations Vatican officials failed to confront the abuse aggressively. The German minister was critical that the directive calls for initial internal investigations and doesn't make clear prosecutors should be brought in "as soon as possible." For years, the minister has also been honorary chairman of an association fighting sexual abuse of children and providing victims with support. The Vatican has said it backs German diocesan efforts to look into the "painful question" of sexual abuse "in a decisive and open way." Merkel told foreign reporters that the German church has taken "very, very important steps which indicate that the Catholic Church is confronting this problem very seriously." She cited an apology last month by Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the head of the German Bishops Conference, and the church's readiness to rework its guidelines on abuse. Merkel's ministers for education and families said they plan "round table" meetings involving school, church and other representatives to work on ways of detecting, preventing and dealing with future abuse. The first meeting is set for April 23. Abuse cases have also surfaced recently in at least one non-church school in Germany. In the Netherlands, Rotterdam Bishop Ad van Luyn has apologized to victims and called for an independent investigation into the sexual abuse of children by priests after 200 alleged victims contacted help services last week. What started as allegations of repeated incidents within a single cloister last month has quickly spread. |
| Anonymous Coward User ID: 934830 United States04/05/2010 08:57 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world Former Regensburg Choirboys Talk of "Naked Beatings" Der Spiegel March 8, 2010 [link to www.spiegel.de] [The boarding school of the Regensburg Domspatzen choir. ] The boarding school of the Regensburg Domspatzen choir. Former choirboys of the Regensburger Domspatzen have told SPIEGEL about sexual and physical abuse at two boarding schools attached to the famous Catholic choir. One former choirboy says it's "inexplicable" that the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, a former head of the choir, didn't know about it. The abuse scandal at the Regensburger Domspatzen choir is bigger than had been thought so far. Therapists in and around Munich treated several former choirboys who were traumatized by sexual and other physical abuse. One man affected told SPIEGEL about cruel rituals in the Etterzhausen boarding school, a preparatory school for younger pupils from which the choir draws its recruits. He said that at the end of the 1950s the headmaster of the school, a Catholic priest, had dealt out hard physical punishments. He had often practiced what was called "naked beatings" in his private rooms, where boys aged eight or nine had to undress and were beaten by hand. In some cases, the victim said, penetration took place. 'Sexual Lust' The director and composer Franz Wittenbrink, who lived in the Regensburg boarding school of the choir until 1967, said the school had an "elaborate system of sadistic punishments combined with sexual lust." He said the headmaster at the time "would choose two or three of us boys in the dormitories in the evenings and take them to his flat." He said there had been red wine, and that the priest had masturbated with the pupils. "Everyone knew about it," said Wittenbrink. "I find it inexplicable that the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, who had been cathedral bandmaster since 1964, apparently knew nothing about it." One fellow pupil had committed suicide shortly before taking his high-school exams, Wittenbrink said. Despite many indications, the Regensburg Diocese did not make abuse cases public until contacted by SPIEGEL last Thursday. Now the chair has pledged to investigate everything rigorously and to present an interim report at the end of March. The allegations against former teachers are the latest to come to light in a scandal over sexual abuse at Catholic schools in Germany. Pope's Brother Says Knew Nothing Georg Ratzinger, the brother of Pope Benedict XVI, told an Italian newspaper he was willing to testify in the sex scandal but knows nothing about the alleged abuse of boys in the Regensburg choir. In an interview published Sunday, Ratzinger was quoted as saying by the Rome daily La Repubblica that there was "discipline and rigor" but no terror during his 30 years as head of the Regensburg choir from 1964 until 1994. The pope's brother also said the abuse accusations also reflected "a certain animosity toward the church." The Vatican had said on Saturday that two cases of sexual abuse linked to the Regensburg choir did not coincide with the 30-year period it was led by Georg Ratzinger. 'Great Deal of Anger' The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano printed a statement on Saturday by the Bishop of Regensburg, Gerhard Ludwig Muller, saying that one case of abuse by the deputy director of a primary school linked to the choir was detected in 1958. In addition, the paper called for action to be taken against those responsible. Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, told the paper that perpetrators need to be brought to court and victims compensated for their suffering. He said he has followed the ever growing scandal in Germany with "deep disappointment, pain and a great deal of anger." There is "no justification, no tolerance," he continued. At issue is a "despicable crime that must be pursued with absolute resolve." |
| Anonymous Coward (OP) User ID: 934818 United States04/05/2010 09:05 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world BREAKING NEWS -CATHOLIC CHURCH THROW BABIES INTO FURNACES - CATHOLIC CHURCH BURY NEW BORN BABIES UNDER FLOOR BOARDS Thread: BREAKING NEWS -CATHOLIC CHURCH THROW BABIES INTO FURNACES - CATHOLIC CHURCH BURY NEW BORN BABIES UNDER FLOOR BOARDS |
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| Anonymous Coward User ID: 904454 United States04/11/2010 06:59 AM Report Abusive Post Report Copyright Violation | Re: BREAKING NEWS ** Pope 'led cover-up of child abuse by priests' The secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world When we come into our kingdom it will be undesirable for us that there should exist any other religion than ours of the One God with whom our destiny is bound up by our position as the Chosen People and through whom our same destiny is united with the destinies of the world. We must therefore sweep away all other forms of belief. |
