Hey BetterThanI, good to see you. Have you had an opportunity to review your posts in the thread about speaking English?
This is true, but more importantly: any lawyer will tell you the statement is clearly drafted by a lawyer to avoid legal repercussions.
Got Pope? _____ Notorious priest at center of $10-million church abuse payout The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay nearly $10 million to four men who say they were molested by one of the region’s most notorious pedophile priests. The agreement brings to an end four lawsuits against the archdiocese involving Michael Baker, a charismatic parish priest accused of molesting at least 23 boys over three decades. The church has settled numerous cases brought by Baker’s victims in the past, but the $9.9-million settlement announced Tuesday is the first settlement since the January release of 12,000 pages of internal archdiocese records about abuse. Many of those documents detailed Cardinal Roger Mahony’s dealings with Baker. The priest admitted his abuse of two boys to the then-archbishop during a 1986 retreat. Mahony sent Baker to a New Mexico treatment center but later returned him to the ministry, and Baker molested again. In 2007, he was convicted of abusing two boys and sent to prison. Two of the civil cases settled were set for trial next month. Vince Finaldi, a lawyer for the alleged victims, said he believed the file release “played heavily” into the archdiocese’s decision to settle the cases. “Once we got the files it confirmed everything we had argued for years and years,” Finaldi said. “Cardinal Mahony’s fingerprints were all over the case.” A lawyer for the archdiocese said the church was committed to compensating people hurt by Baker, and the negotiations were “just a matter of reaching a reasonable number.” “We’ve taken responsibility for Michael Baker, whatever he did and for whomever he did it to,” said attorney J. Michael Hennigan. A lawyer for Baker, who was defrocked in 2000, did not respond to messages seeking comment. Baker was released from prison in 2011 and lives in Costa Mesa. Baker is not required to pay anything under the terms of the settlement, Finaldi said. The men who settled the suits range in age from 24 to 54. Two are brothers of a third man whom Baker was convicted of molesting. He previously received a $2-million settlement. Under a distribution agreement determined by a judge, his brothers will receive $4 million each for abuse that they said they suffered in the mid-1990s. A man who alleged that Baker abused him in 1974 and another who said the priest victimized him in the mid-1980s each received nearly $1 million. link
Australian Cardinal and Aide to Pope Is Charged With Sexual Assault Australia’s senior Roman Catholic prelate, and one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, has been charged with sexual assault, the police in the Australian state of Victoria said on Thursday. The prelate, Cardinal George Pell, became the highest-ranking Vatican official in recent years to face criminal charges involving accusations of sexual offenses. The case will test the credibility of Francis’ initiatives to foster greater accountability after abuse scandals that have shaken the church around the world. “Cardinal Pell has been charged on summons, and he is required to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court” on July 18, Shane Patton, the deputy police commissioner, said at a news conference. The charges were served on the cardinal’s legal representatives in Melbourne. Commissioner Patton said there were multiple complainants but refused to provide further details about them, including their ages. “The process and procedures that are being followed in the charging of Cardinal Pell have been the same that have been applied in a whole range of historical sex offenses, whenever we investigate them,” Commissioner Patton added. “Cardinal Pell has been treated the same as anyone else.” Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s de facto finance chief, had been accused in hearings before Australia’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse of mishandling misconduct cases against clergy members while he served as the leader of the Archdioceses of Melbourne and Sydney. Then allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused minors himself beginning early in his priesthood and continuing until he became archbishop of Melbourne. He has repeatedly denied the accusations. “I’d just like to restate my innocence,” the cardinal, 76, said in Rome last month after the police in Australia confirmed that they were considering charges against him. “I stand by everything I’ve said at the Royal Commission and in other places.” In a statement Thursday morning, the Archdiocese of Sydney said that the cardinal had been informed of the charges and that “he has again strenuously denied all allegations.” “Cardinal Pell will return to Australia, as soon as possible, to clear his name following advice and approval by his doctors who will also advise on his travel arrangements,” the statement said, adding, “He said he is looking forward to his day in court and will defend the charges vigorously.” In recent decades, more than 50 Roman Catholic bishops worldwide have been accused of sexually abusing children, according to BishopAccountability.org, an advocacy group in Massachusetts that documents sexual abuse in the church. Few, however, have faced criminal charges. It is rare for a cardinal, a prince of the church, to be accused of sexual abuse, though one of the most notorious cases involved Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna, who resigned in 1995 over accusations that were deemed credible by his successor. After Francis became pope in 2013, he brought Cardinal Pell to the Vatican to oversee changes to a mismanaged and antiquated financial system. Francis also appointed the cardinal, who has a reputation as a theological conservative, to a nine-member advisory council group. Francis rebuffed calls to remove Cardinal Pell after the cardinal faced criticism over the way the church responded to abuse cases and after the cardinal came under scrutiny himself, saying he was awaiting the commission’s conclusions. Last year, detectives from the state of Victoria flew to Rome to interview Cardinal Pell over sexual abuse accusations, the police said. The detectives were part of a task force charged with investigating allegations of abuse that arose from a parliamentary inquiry in Victoria into the abuse of children, as well as the Royal Commission’s hearings. Vivian Waller, a lawyer who has represented abuse victims, said her firm had been approached by a small number of people who had made allegations involving Cardinal Pell. “Either those people have already gone to police, or we’ve referred them to police,” Ms. Waller said. Cardinal Pell testified via video from a Rome hotel in 2016 to the commission about the church’s handling of the sexual abuse cases. “I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” he said, calling the abuses a “catastrophe” for the church. News reports that the Australian police were weighing abuse charges against the cardinal came on May 17, days after the release of a book, “Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell,” by Louise Milligan. Ms. Milligan, a reporter for Australia’s ABC network, spent more than two years covering the Royal Commission. In a statement, the cardinal’s office called the book “an exercise in character assassination,” the news media reported. Ms. Milligan said that she had interviewed the cardinal’s accusers for more than a year and that the accusations covered several decades. Some episodes were said to have occurred at a pool in Ballarat, a city in Victoria where the cardinal was born and where he returned after being ordained as a priest in Rome. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/world/australia/cardinal-george-pell-charged-sexual-abuse.html
Everyone knew. _______ Report: Pennsylvania priests abused over 1,000 children http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/15/report-pennsylvania-priests-abused-over-1000-children.amp.html
I'm surprised this story didn't have better traction -- it's a big, big deal, and this is the highest ranking member of the global church to face such explicit and direct charges. This isn't a "he knew" thing. It's a "he molested" thing, and Pope Francis put him in a top Church post. Yikes.
And yet still shocking. Horrible. This is just one state. Should have this investigation in all 50 states.
Just realized this scandal has been going on longer than the global warming debate. The things we look past when it comes to religion....
Catholic League On Predatory Priests: It’s Not Rape If The Child Isn’t Penetrated http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progre...ts-its-not-rape-if-the-child-isnt-penetrated/
