When is a priest not a priest? When he's molesting a child

Ooh, ouch!

Yep, the truly blatant fact that he was reassigned as a priest (not turned over to authorities) when knowledge of a threat existed in this case is really an important fact. It’s also a really bad thing that he was left well within reach of his victims, where he could continue to emotionally manipulate them for years!

Any church (which represents itself as a place of safety) has a duty to protect those it serves - which is not its priests, but its parishioners. (They can argue that they serve God, but they serve the parishioners in the name of God.) This church failed in that basic duty which is a part of why they hold their nfp status, and that’s why @IMB made the argument waaaaay at the top of the page that this church (little “c”) “should owe some serious back taxes”.

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This church failed in that basic duty which is a part of why they hold their nfp status, and that’s why @IMB made the argument waaaaay at the top of the page that this church (little “c”) “should owe some serious back taxes”.

Sorry, the IRS isn’t touching that one with a ten foot pole.

I posted this as an edit, but it deserves its own post as it shows what the church allowed in Ireland, where I grew up. Obviously films like the Magdalene Sisters and Philomena have been made about these ‘homes’, but this paints a pretty stark picture of how important the sanctity of human life was to these people:

This home and others like it were run with the support of the church AND the state, and had close links to Catholic adoption agencies in America. Children don’t just disappear and there’s no plausible deniability like there would be with sexual abuse - this was long term and willful abuse on every level.

Special kinds of neglect and abuse were reserved for the Home Babies, as locals call them. Many in surrounding communities remember them. They remember how they were segregated to the fringes of classrooms, and how the local nuns accentuated the differences between them and the others. They remember how, as one local told the Irish Central, they were “usually gone by school age — either adopted or dead.”
According to Irish Central, a 1944 local health board report described the children living at the Home as “emaciated,” “pot-bellied,” “fragile” and with “flesh hanging loosely on limbs.”

Everyone knew. The state, the church, presumably any American adoptive parents, the American Catholic organisations working with their Irish counterparts, the people from the neighborhood, the families who sent their daughters to the other side of Ireland for the crime of being raped, everyone.

It wasn’t just one organisation in ‘Holy Ireland’; as a child I knew an adult lady who would come to my mother for counseling quite often. She had attended a [Sisters of “Mercy”][1] school as a child and was still recovering from the abuse years later. They would beat her until she was hysterical, then beat her more for “laughing at them”.

Oh yes, the Home was run by Sisters of Bon Secours (good help). How do they come up with these names?
[1]: Abuse scandal in the Sisters of Mercy - Wikipedia

Whenever I think “church” and “safety” I recall the story of Samuel Becket

Oh yes, the Home was run by Sisters of Bon Secours (good help). How do they come up with these names?

“L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontĂ©s et dĂ©sirs”-- Bernard de Fontaine, abbĂ© de Clairvaux

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:slight_smile: (Sorry a bout the delay in response, I was off at a graduation.)

Most likely not, but it does give them clear reason to do so, and there aren’t many that would be followed through on. Notice that both @IMB and I referred to this case exclusively in terms of “church” (little “c”), so we’re not suggesting that this case should open floodgates for the IRS to wantonly attack religious organizations that do follow nfp standards. If IMB meant the same I did, then we both meant that this specific diocese, with full knowledge, acted in opposition of the law, and should not be allowed to operate with nfp status (as well as paying back taxes), because that’s how the 501©(3) laws are written.

Self-absolution remedies all sins.
“First you get down on your knees
Fiddle with your Rosaries
”

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