Every fourth pedophilia suspect in Poland is a priest,
state commission reveals
27 Jul, 2021 11:32
FILE PHOTO: People carry a banner, reading “Bishop, hiding pedophilia is a crime,”
during a protest in Warsaw. © Reuters / Jacek Marczewski
Nearly 30% of all sexual offences against minors in Poland are linked to representatives of the clergy, the State Commission on Pedophilia revealed in its first report.
The commission, which was established by the government in 2019, shared the results of its work on Monday in a 250-page paper.
The experts examined 349 pedophilia cases during this period, with priests being suspects in around 100 of them. More than 50 of these cases have been forwarded to the Prosecutor’s Office, the report said.
The commission also criticized the Polish Catholic Church for its unwillingness to cooperate with the government on the controversial issue.
“In countries like Australia and the US, the church leaders have long understood that tackling pedophilia and working together with the authorities in this area is a matter of elementary credibility of their institutions,” but this wasn’t the case in Poland, the paper stated.
The materials contained in the report were “frightening,” but they only proved that the fight against these “heinous crimes” must continue, Blazej Kmieciak, the commission’s chairman, said.
But not only priests and strangers were accused of molesting children, with some offences attributed to family members, including parents, in 35% of the cases, the report read. The majority were men (94%), it added.
Most of the victims were aged between 11 and 15, but there were also many between 3 and 10. The youngest child to suffer sexual abuse among the cases viewed by the commission was just one year old.
The report emphasized the severe psychological trauma suffered by sexually abused children. It urged the cases against pedophiles to be prioritized by prosecutors and recommended that a special position of ‘child advocate’ be introduced to deal with them.
Poland is a mainly Catholic country, and the church has been plagued by accusations of sexual abuse against minors for year. In 2019, public pressure forced it to release a report saying it had recorded almost 400 cases of priests molesting 625 children since 1990. However, the names of the offenders remained undisclosed.
A documentary which came out the same year claimed that the pedophile priests were never punished for their sins, but were only transferred to another parish where they could continue their criminal behavior.
I'm pretty sure priests don't make up a quarter of the population of men in Poland, so they are vastly over-represented in Paedophile ranks. Is this only in Poland, or is it like that in other mainly Catholic countries?
Priest gagged for saying Canada residential-school victims lied about
abuse for ‘extra money’ & joke about shooting church vandals
29 Jul, 2021 15:36
© Getty Images / Pascal Deloche / Godong
A Catholic priest has been barred from speaking publicly by a Canadian archdiocese, after accusing residential-school survivors of lying about sexual abuse to get more money, and of speaking about wanting to shoot church vandals.
The inflammatory statements, made over a number of weeks by Father Rhéal Forest at St. Emile Roman Catholic Church in Winnipeg, were even shared on the church’s Facebook page, but have since been taken down.
During a mass on July 10, Forest said the survivors lied about being sexually abused in a ploy to receive more money in the settlement process with the federal government. He blamed “evil” media for raking up the “fake news” issue of abuse in residential schools.
“If they wanted extra money, from the money that was given to them, they had to lie sometimes – lie that they were abused sexually and another $50,000,” he said, adding: “It’s kind of hard if you’re poor not to lie.”
It might be the kind of thing that he would do in that position, but most child sex abuse survivors are not after money but acknowledgment. I expect this does happen in all countries where the Catholic Church is making reparations for its inconceivable sins, but I believe it to be very rare. Forest has a naive view of his brother priests.
In the same sermon, he said that most of the indigenous people he knew from spending 22 years working “up north” had good experiences at residential schools. He noted that there may have been some instances of abuse like “in any institution” but said this was not at the hands of the priests and nuns, but “lay workers.”
Then, at a mass on July 18, Forest spoke of having “thoughts of anger” as he passed by a local church that had been vandalized with the words “Save the children”. This has been a phrase used by indigenous groups during protests relating to residential schools.
“If I had a shotgun at night and I’d see them, I’d go, ‘Boom!’ just to scare them and if they don’t run away, I’ll shoot them,” Forest said and laughed.
However, he quickly backtracked and said “this would not help.”
“It’s bad to do that. I’d go have a chat with them,” said Forest, who was temporarily placed at the church while the regular pastor was on vacation.
His anger should be directed at the priests and Catholic lay workers who created that atmosphere that resulted in the defacement and burning of Catholic churches.
Daniel Bahuaud, a spokesperson for the archdiocese, told CBC news that Archbishop Albert LeGatt had “completely disavow(ed)” Forest’s comments and banned him from public speaking.
“We very much regret the pain they may have caused to many people, not least of course indigenous people and, more specifically, survivors of the residential school system,” said Bahuaud, who added that Archbishop LeGatt would decide if any further punishment was necessary.
In recent months, several churches across the country have been targeted in arson and vandalism attacks, as public anger grew following the discovery of more than 1,000 unmarked graves at former residential school sites.
Catholic church spent millions meant for Canada residential school
victims on lawyers & expenses – court documents seen by media
29 Jul, 2021 14:27
in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, on June 3, 2021. © Cole BURSTON / AFP
Millions of dollars that were supposed to go to Canadian residential school survivors as part of a 2005 settlement were reportedly spent by the Catholic Church on lawyers, fundraising, administration costs and unapproved loans.
At least 150,000 indigenous children were forced to attend some 140 residential schools across the country, which were funded by the federal government and run by churches. The children had been forcibly taken from their families in order to strip them of their cultural identity.
Under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) between the Canadian federal government, indigenous representatives and the various church bodies that operated the schools, more than Can$3 billion (US$2.4 billion) has been paid to compensate survivors, as of March 2021.
While the other churches have apparently paid their amounts-due in full, the Catholic Church has failed to meet its quota. Besides being required to make a lump cash payment of Can$29 million (US$23.2 million) and provide Can$25 million (US$ 20 million) of “in-kind services,” the church was to give its “best efforts” to raise Can$25 million (US$20 million) for survivors.
The church had claimed to have paid most of the cash amount and fulfilled its “in-kind services” commitment. In 2015, it invoked the “best efforts” clause in court where a judge absolved it of the legal obligation to pay the remaining unpaid sum of $21 million (US$16.8 million) from that fundraising campaign.
In recent weeks, it has emerged that the church was able to raise around $300 million (US$240 million) for construction and renovation projects during the same time period that it claimed it could only raise a total of $3.9 million (US$3.1 million) for residential school survivors.
Now, court documents accessed by CBC news reportedly contradict the church’s claims. A federal government “factum” document that summarized the evidence from the 2015 court case pointed to “a large number of serious accounting discrepancies that are alarming to Canada.”
The church had also not filed its mandatory annual financial statements to the government until 2012 – five years after IRSSA went into effect in 2007, according to the documents seen by the CBC.
From the Can$29-million cash payment, some $2.7 million (US$2.1 million) was reportedly paid to lawyers and an additional $2.3 million (US$1.84 million) was spent on administration expenses – something no other church group claimed.
As well, Can$1.6 million (US$1.28 million) was claimed as donations made to projects related to indigenous issues. These projects were not covered in the approval process and no explanation or invoices have reportedly been provided to back these claims.
The church’s accountant testified that it had provided the Can$25 million of “in-kind services” but he had admitted that he relied only on “minutes of meetings” supplied by church officials.
As for the Can$25-million fundraising campaign that eventually only raised $3.9 million, the accountant told the court that many donations came with a “string attached” that instructed him on where to put the money. This was, again, apparently contrary to the agreement.
Federal government lawyers had also asked the judge to declare the church had not fulfilled its obligations and order an independent review of the expenses, among other recommendations.
However, ahead of the 2015 hearing on the case, the judge approved a controversial $1.2 million (US$962,418) church buyout proposal and the case was closed without it having to justify any expenditure.
Court officials recently declined to make that 2015 court document public. The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents First Nations communities in Saskatchewan province, claimed this refusal was an example of “systemic racism.”
A Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) official told CBC news that it is “committed to continue engaging and listening” but declined to comment on the issue.
In recent months, more than 1,000 unmarked graves believed to belong to indigenous children have been found at former residential school sites across the country. The discoveries have prompted public anger over the failure of government and church bodies to properly address what has been termed as a “cultural genocide.”
How could it be anything else when the motto was to 'destroy the Indian in the child'? The Catholic response to the settlement agreement revealed a complete lack of repentance and a culture that more resembles the Mafia than a God-fearing church.
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