Godlike Productions - Discussion Forum
Users Online Now: 2,052 (Who's On?)Visitors Today: 813,249
Pageviews Today: 1,437,833Threads Today: 611Posts Today: 10,575
04:36 PM


Back to Forum
Back to Forum
Back to Thread
Back to Thread
REPORT COPYRIGHT VIOLATION IN REPLY
Message Subject Like Occam´s Razor; we now have Polly´s Quandry to consider...
Poster Handle lester
Post Content
Polly says today, 4-14-05 "I just can´t help myself"


How can Priests be Of-God, Abiding with-HIM, a repository for The Holy Spirit, and be Alcoholics and Pedophiles?

Unless God is a liar; they cannot!
===================================================

Here´s mud in your eye, Polly! from todays news:


Re: 15,800 "hits" on Google for "pedophile priest"

This Horror story just keeps going on.
The catholics think money will solve these peoples problems and they begrudge paying them for the ruin their Criminal Employees brought.

It is one thing to make a car or tire that has a defect; it is another completely to set upon children and young men like an animal.

How many have had their faith and lives ruined?
I Know these bastards begrudge even a dollar.




story here:


Jury awards $2 million in priest abuse
East Bay verdict for ex-altar boys closely watched as benchmark for SR, other molest cases
STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
In a case closely watched by Catholics in the Santa Rosa Diocese and throughout the state, an East Bay jury Wednesday awarded two victims of child sex abuse nearly $2 million, an amount far short of the $27 million they sought.

Guilt by the offending priest in the Oakland Diocese was never an issue in the case, making the penalty the key for jurors who have now provided a benchmark for attorneys for the church and those representing victims in more than 160 other Northern California cases.

Dan Galvin, attorney for Santa Rosa Bishop Daniel Walsh, said the $1.93 million award in the case of brothers Robert and Tom Thatcher "confirms that offers by our diocese were fair compensation to the victims."

Galvin, who was not a part of the Thatcher case, said he was bound by the terms of the confidential negotiations with plaintiffs´ lawyers not to disclose the amounts under discussion in the Santa Rosa Diocese´s 10 pending cases.

A large verdict in the Thatcher case might have pressured other dioceses to quickly settle out of court, attorneys said. But the Thatchers got far less than what their attorney, Rick Simons, had requested in closing arguments Tuesday.

Bob Thatcher, 34, was awarded $875,000 in compensatory damages and $875,000 in punitive damages by the Alameda County jury in Hayward. His brother, Tom, 33, was awarded $180,000 in compensatory damages. No punitive damages were sought in his case.

Galvin said he hoped Santa Rosa plaintiffs, in light of the Thatcher verdict, would "re-evaluate their extremely high demands."

Larry Drivon, the attorney for nine of the 10 Santa Rosa plaintiffs, couldn´t be reached for comment.

The Santa Rosa Diocese agreed to a $3 million settlement last year with one plaintiff, Roberta Saum, who alleged that she was molested by former priest Don Kimball from 1976 to 1982.

But the deal fell apart when the diocese was unable to fund the settlement, Galvin said. Saum´s case is set for trial May 16, and two more Santa Rosa cases are set for Sept. 12.

Galvin said Wednesday he hoped to resume mediation with the plaintiffs´ attorneys in all 10 cases "as soon as possible."

The Thatcher brothers´ case was the second of the 160 cases to go to a jury. In the first case, a San Francisco jury last month awarded $437,000 to Joseph Kavanaugh, 37, who said he was fondled by a San Jose priest in the 1970s.

A second case involving the same priest who abused Kavanaugh, the late Rev. Joseph Pritchard, is under way in San Francisco and could go to the jury today.

Galvin said the vast difference between the two Thatcher brothers´ awards shows that the facts of each case can make a difference to a jury.

"It´s hard to equate one verdict with another case that has a different set of facts," he said.

Simons, the Thatchers´ attorney, said he was pleased the jury ruled the Oakland Diocese acted with malice and awarded punitive damages, which are tacked on to a verdict to punish the guilty party.

"We exposed a lot of wrongdoing," Tom Thatcher said outside of court. "The church was called despicable on the record. They say they have changed their ways and I hope they have."

The plaintiffs argued that the church knew that a former Antioch priest, the Rev. Robert Ponciroli, was sexually abusing children but failed to stop him. Ponciroli, 68, has been removed from public ministry and now lives in Florida.

The Thatchers said they were molested when they were altar boys at age 9 or 10 at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Antioch by Ponciroli, who lured each upstairs to his bedroom after asking them to come to the rectory to pick weeds.

"It wasn´t about the money," Bob Thatcher said. "What the jury said today is the abuse that occurred to me and my brother shouldn´t have happened. It could have been prevented."

Church lawyers did not dispute that the abuse occurred, but they disagreed the diocese was responsible for anxiety, relationship and drug and alcohol problems the Thatchers later suffered.

Allen Ruby, the Oakland Diocese lawyer, suggested Tuesday that damages of $250,000 to $400,000 for each man would be appropriate.

The jury decided the diocese should pay for 60 percent of the compensatory damages and Ponciroli 40 percent. The Thatchers do not expect to receive any money from Ponciroli because he has no assets.

The diocese is responsible for the entire punitive damage award and insurance is not allowed to cover such awards. There was no immediate word on whether an appeal was planned.

In addition to the 160 Northern California cases, about 550 sex abuse claims are pending against the Los Angeles Archdiocese and none of those cases has gone to trial.
 
Please verify you're human:




Reason for copyright violation:







GLP