Naive how? Explain to me what real journalism is in the main stream media, if I am mistaken about what I saw not being the norm then I will happily retract my statement, but most of the journalist I saw made up interviews from confidential sources, mislabeled who made the statements, used pictures that had nothing to do with the actual subject of the article, and other wonderful journalist techniques. The only people I saw that were doing research where either old dudes or out of college journalist or the people who were on page eight of the paper.
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At my paper you would be fired for that. I don’t know what kind of organization you worked for but it was a shitty one. There’s a lot of them out there that suck, don’t get me wrong, but good ones do not do things like that.
And any journalist with the least bit of integrity would not do that either. Again, they’re out there, but I don’t often see them anywhere near as bad as you describe.
You couldn’t find the Catholic connection to newsbusters dude. It took three clicks of the mouse.
All I’m saying is that if you’re going to post stuff up on here, you’ve got to figure out at least some of the background before you pass this off like it’s a big fuckin conspiracy to cover it up.
I can’t seem to load the forums or all pages of this thread. Has this article been discussed?
Irish abuse victim: New letter proves Vatican cover-up
By NBC Newsâ?? Claudio Lavanga
A 1997 letter from a Vatican official advising Irish bishops not to report suspected child abuse cases to the police has sent shockwaves across the Catholic world.
To child abuse victims, itâ??s the â??smoking gunâ?? that proves what they have claimed all along: that the Vatican actively tried to prevent criminal investigations against sexually abusive priests by instructing bishops not to report them to the police.
But to the Vatican, itâ??s just another example of how past mistakes in handling abuse cases have since been corrected.
Damaging evidence
The letter, published by the Irish broadcaster RTE on Monday, revealed that Archbishop Luciano Storero, then the Vaticanâ??s apostolic nuncio to Ireland (the equivalent of a Vatican ambassador), told Irish bishops that the Vatican had doubts about their â??mandatory reportingâ?? policy for suspected abusers to civil authorities.
The new policy had been introduced by Irish bishops following revelations in the mid-1990s of the abuse of dozens of children. The scandal was so big at the time that it brought down the entire Irish government.
The Vatican letter instructed bishops that abuse allegations and punishments were to be handled within the church through canon law. It warned that bishops who tried to pursue charges outside of canon law could have their actions overturned on appeal in Rome.
The newly revealed document undermines what the Vatican has said for years â?? that it never instructed local bishops to withhold evidence of suspected crimes from the police. It could be used as crucial evidence in multi-billion dollar lawsuits against archdioceses in the United States and across the world.
Vatican dismisses letter
The Vatican has downplayed the importance of the letter, claiming that it represents an outdated approach to sexual abuse cases and that much has changed since 1997 in the way the Vatican deals with them.
â??The letter does not in any way suggest that national laws must not be followed. It rightly emphasises (sic.) the importance of always respecting canonical legislation, precisely in order to ensure that guilty parties do not have justified grounds for an appeal and thus producing a result contrary to the one desired,â?? Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a letter sent to msnbc.com and released on the Vatican Radio web site.
â??Finally, it must be stated that the letter was written prior to the norms of 2001 which unified responsibility in this field under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a move which has certainly led to clearer guidelines and more effective procedures.â??
Victim: letter shows cover-up
But Colm O’Gorman, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and founder of the Irish charity One-in-Four, said that itâ??s time the Catholic Church took responsibility for its mishandling of thousands of abuse cases.
â??Itâ??s just not credible to dismiss the letter because itâ??s 14 years old. It was 1997, not 1597, and nothing has changed since,â?? Oâ??Gorman told msnbc.com. â??This letter is important for a number of reasons: not only because it shows that the Vatican tried to cover-up abuse cases in Ireland, it also proves that Pope Benedict XVI was dishonest in his handling of the scandal.â??
In 2009 a major Irish investigation proved that abuse among clerics in Ireland had been â??endemicâ?? for decades. As a result of the landmark investigation, Benedict accepted the resignation of some bishops and ordered an investigation into seminars and dioceses.
Oâ??Gorman claims that the letter proves that the bishops werenâ??t to blame â?? but rather the Vatican.
â??The pope said that the Church of Ireland failed to do their duty, but it turns out it was the Vatican that prevented them from doing the right thing. The Vatican is a state, and the pope is its head. As such, he needs to take responsibility for the churchâ??s failures over the abuses,â?? said Oâ??Gorman.
Pope Benedict implicated?
The newly revealed letter once again calls in to question the role of Pope Benedict in the alleged cover-up of the sexual abuse scandal.
Before being elected pope in 2005, Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was in charge of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 24 years.
In 2001, he took over control of all investigations into claims of sexual abuse by the clergy. As a conservative theologian, he enforced the procedure set by canon law, which requires bishops to report all case of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the congregation.
While the Vatican has always maintained that Benedict introduced a more open and efficient system in the way the church deals with abuse cases, critics claim that many priests suspected of sexual abuse were simply moved to different parishes where they continued their abuse â?? even during his rule.
Geoffrey Robertson, a human rights lawyer based in London and author of "The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuseâ?? believes the letter proves Benedictâ??s complicity.
â??This letter reveals a policy that was decided by the Vatican when Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the office in charge of disciplining priests worldwide. He insisted that canon law was to prevail over civil authorities,â?? Robertson said in a phone interview Wednesday. â??The Vatican line of defense that this was an opinion of an archbishop like Storero, who was out of touch with the times, is nonsense. Ratzinger was head of the congregation since 1981, and all big decisions had to go through himâ??
Robertson believes the letter could be extremely damaging in a court of law. â??I think that in terms of suing the Vatican for negligence in cases where there is no remedy against the local church, this letter will be useful as evidence of the Vaticanâ??s policy. It might have been directed to Ireland but it applies throughout the world.â??
One way or the other, Oâ??Gorman still wants to see some justice for the victims of abuse.
â??They need to come to terms with what they have done,â?? Oâ??Gorman said. â??They need to understand the scale of their negligent behavior on countless lives. Itâ??s disingenuous and immoral.â??
“At my paper you would be fired for that. I don’t know what kind of organization you worked for but it was a shitty one. There’s a lot of them out there that suck, don’t get me wrong, but good ones do not do things like that.”
Well, I am glad. Maybe Arizona is still crooked as fork in the disposal. I didn’t say all of them did it, but the majority of those that had front page coverage did it.
I found the Catholic connection to L. Brent Bozell III (I already knew he was Catholic and have met him at a conference), and I see the connection to the website. Bozell being Catholic and his website reporting on Catholic matters doesn’t mean he is going to be automatically biased. Cobert is a conservative Catholic and the man critizes the Church all the time, I do the same. I dislike those that use religion for political and personal gain.
However, I don’t trust much of the media about anything beyond reporting the movements in the stock market and the results for the games the day before so I know what wagers to collect.
Title: New report confirms divisions in how Vatican officials were responding to clergy abuse cases in 1990s
By GREG ERLANDSON
New revelations tied to documents being reported on by the Irish media reiterate that in the 1990s many Vatican officials had no grasp of the scope of the clergy sexual abuse crisis and were insistent that bishops not proactively cooperate with civil authorities in cases of alleged abuse by their priests.
A newly revealed letter from the Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland to the Irish bishops in 1997, warning them not to adopt a policy of mandatory reporting of clerical sex abuse to police, confirms that there was no consensus at all on the part of the Vatican about how to respond to the scandal that was just then becoming more public.
The letter is the central document in a report, “Unspeakable crimes,” aired by Ireland’s RTE television.
For anyone who has been following the story of the Vatican’s responses to the crisis, much of this documentation, while new, is not a surprise. This is in large part because the Vatican official behind the letter, Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, then head of the Congregation for the Clergy, as recently as a year ago was still defending his leaked letter of praise to a French bishop for not reporting a case of clerical sex abuse â?? despite French law requiring it.
For Cardinal Castrillon, the relationship between a bishop and his priests is that of a father to his sons; he shouldn’t turn them over to the police no matter what they’ve done. This filial relationship is both theologically and canonically part of the Church’s long understanding of the bishop-priest relationship, and it is the sources of much of the resistance to efforts to publicize abuse allegations as well as turn over to authorities allegations of abuse.
It is easy, but unfair, to make Cardinal Castrillon a villain in this aspect of the story. He comes from Latin America, where there’s a strong clericalist culture â?? the same culture that emboldened him to dress as a milkman to get into the compound of druglord Pablo Escobar and demand, successfully, that he confess his sins. He believed it to be an internal Church matter that would be dealt with as such.
But as Pope Benedict XVI himself has made clear, this protective response when confronted with allegations is untenable, and has indeed brought great disgrace on the Church. The Vatican’s currently stated policy, which specifies that “civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed.”
It is also worth pointing out that it was precisely this sort of mixed message on clerical sex abuse crisis that drove Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger â?? now Pope Benedict â?? to successfully petition Pope John Paul II to grant in 2001 his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith jurisdiction over all cases of clerical sex abuse of minors. That decision began the process of unifying the Vaticanâ??s response and sidelined officials like Cardinal Castrillon who were pursuing divergent policies.
The director of the Vatican’s press office, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, told The New York Times the letter “refers to a situation that weâ??ve now moved beyond.”
â??That approach has been surpassed, including its ideas about collaborating with civil authorities,â?? he said.
That this is still a work in progress was made clear near the end of last year, when Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced that the Vatican was working on new guidelines to ensure â??coordinated and effective programâ?? for dealing with accusations and protecting children.
The leaking of the letter, which reportedly came from an Irish bishop, does suggest that there is still a great deal of resentment in the Irish Church that the Vatican has not assumed more responsibility for its own failings and own mixed messages during the early days of the crisis. Such critics argue that Vatican officials were slow to perceive the scope and scale of the crisis, did not support local churches grapplilng with the problem, and sometimes were more mindful of the rights of the accused priests than of the violations wreaked upon the victims. The letter from the papal nuncio is confirmation of this criticism, though it is unclear to what it extent it derailed efforts by the Irish bishops to address the crisis.
They keep getting something wrong it is not the “Vatican” it is “Vatican Officials” that is like saying America conspired to start a war in Iraq to take over the oil. When not everyone in America actually conspired to that. Example, not saying that anyone conspired to take over the oil.
I am sure just having the word Vatican in the title catches a lot of attention, but it would be helpful if they addressed who they were talking about in their article.
They keep getting something wrong it is not the “Vatican” it is “Vatican Officials” that is like saying America conspired to start a war in Iraq to take over the oil. When not everyone in America actually conspired to that. Example, not saying that anyone conspired to take over the oil.
I am sure just having the word Vatican in the title catches a lot of attention, but it would be helpful if they addressed who they were talking about in their article.[/quote]
Hold on. Wouldn’t “Vatican Officials” have to report directly to the Pope or the Vatican? Or do they “work from home,” so to speak, such that it’s hard or almost impossible for the Vatican to communicate its stances on various issues to it anyone “Vatican” related?
The analogy you used is not credible for me because, despite being American, paying taxes, living in the damn country and speaking English, I’m not so directly connected to the federal (hell, even state) government that I feel my actions/words have to exactly mirror the president’s/White House official press statements. Also, to get semantic on you, the White House is more like public sector and the Vatican like the private sector.
Seriously, a White House rep, a Verizon spokesperson, a Vatican Official…you are an extension of your employer, your actions/words are supposed to mirror the exact sentiments of your employer when regarding specific issues, especially ones that your employer has already voiced its opinion on or could be damaging PR for the employer’s image.
Please clarify how far removed Vatican Officials actually are from the Vatican. I ask because I’m not Catholic and have no idea about the Vatican Org Chat.
They keep getting something wrong it is not the “Vatican” it is “Vatican Officials” that is like saying America conspired to start a war in Iraq to take over the oil. When not everyone in America actually conspired to that. Example, not saying that anyone conspired to take over the oil.
I am sure just having the word Vatican in the title catches a lot of attention, but it would be helpful if they addressed who they were talking about in their article.[/quote]
Hold on. Wouldn’t “Vatican Officials” have to report directly to the Pope or the Vatican? Or do they “work from home,” so to speak, such that it’s hard or almost impossible for the Vatican to communicate its stances on various issues to it anyone “Vatican” related? [/quote]
No not all officials report directly to the Pope, the Vatican in its broadest meaning is the entire Catholic Church all 2.6 billion individuals of the Catholic Church, the next broadest is the Roman Curia or Court of Rome ( Roman Curia - Wikipedia ) which is what they would be talking about in the news when they say the “Vatican.” Communication is difficult in some situations, most of it is letters. And, by letters I mean physical letters, not e-mail. And, there are a lot of different parts to the Vatican (read the contents of the link I posted to see the parts of the Vatican) and no way all the officials could report directly to the Pope because of the fact that there is so many minutes in a day and so many things to do.
Okay, well let’s just take the entire Federal government, I would guess the Roman Curia (I am going for the second broadest definition of Vatican) is the same or larger than the Federal Government, maybe smaller I unno.
Either way, even though Catholic Church is a Theocratic Monarchy, the Pope doesn’t appoint everyone, sometimes his people appoint people, and sometimes the Pope appoints bad people and sometimes the Pope’s people appoint bad people, we’re the Catholic Church we’re known for appointing a bad apple or two through our history. And, as we have seen in recent times it happens quite a bit, and with communication so slow, sometimes it is difficult to see that they are bad apples.
Well, during JPII’s reign there were officials that tried to help these kids and rid the Church of these priests, example would be Pope B16, others tried to stifle that is like Bishop Storero.
And, yet there is dissenters all around. Bad apples happen, and the best we can do is try not to employee them, make up for their mistake the best we can, and get rid of them when we find them, and definitely not be one.
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Please clarify how far removed Vatican Officials actually are from the Vatican. I ask because I’m not Catholic and have no idea about the Vatican Org Chat.[/quote]
Well, just think of it like this, Obama, the Sovereign Monarch of the U.S. except he lives in the turn of the Twentieth Century so lack of communication is by letter mostly (I think two Bishops in contact with the Pope are reported to have e-mail, our Internet evangelical group didn’t even have an internet connection to their office.) And, instead of 300 million people to look over he has 2.4 billion to look over across the entire world. Communication to each individual of your court to look over the 2.4 billion isn’t really that easy.
However, I am not taking blame off of the Pope John Paul II, he definitely made a mistake with Bishop Storero, but blame should be on the person who did the action, did the Pope tell Bishop Storero to hide the crimes? No evidence so far, and no evidence that JPII knew what his appointee was doing, blame should be on Storero.