Will Pope Francis stick to his guns or to pillows?

The New York Times commented that after decades of vatican indifference and evasion, Pope Francis has created a commission to study the rape and intimidation of schoolchildren by priests. The new commission, “long overdue”, says the Times, will come up with specific recommendations for firmer safeguarding of schoolchildren and better training of catholic priests.  Francis had to do something after vatican officials refused to answer the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on how the church handled the scandal – the church of course had blamed the bishops and local criminal justice authorities.

The vatican has created commissions before to look at child abuse by clergy, but so far they have only tried to cover up or protect their criminals.  One study panel created more than a decade ago reported on the abuse of schoolchildren in the U.S., a scandal in which 700 priests had to be dismissed in a three-year period. Although they recommend that "there must be consequences" for church leaders who shielded offending priests there was no way decided on how to make powerful diocesan offenders accountable so only a few leaders faced criminal investigation.

This latest attempt offers no assurance to parents that Francis will order greater accountability from those who covered up criminal abuse of children. It is also missing the rest of the iceberg:  the abuse that took or takes place in catholic “homes” for orphaned and  neglected children – most of it done by nuns. And they did more than just rape and beat children.  The Dominican nuns at St. Agnes Home in Sparkill, NY smothered me and put me in a coma. Gilbert Bonneau was also smothered (with a witness) with a pillow like I was -- by a nun at St. Colman’s home in Watervliet, NY. He was in a coma and died. See post of July 30, 2013: Catholic nuns do more than abuse children: they murder them. But I lived.

The reason I lived is to share this information with you and with everyone. Gilbert’s family is still fighting.  His brother Bill recently said to me: “Keep up the fight (George) you are doing a great job exposing the Evil Catholic Church and their phony Priest, Nuns, Brothers Etc. People are catching on. They did a job on you and the Nuns killed my brother, I will keep on fighting until my last breath to get justice for Gilbert. Sooner or later the truth will come out. Hang in there. Bill”   Like Bill, we need to keep revealing the truth to the world so they won’t forget Gilbert and the thousands like him who died in silence.

Christmas card from Dominican Nuns to their victims: what the Pope doesn’t want you to know.

I received a card of Christmas Blessings: the Dominican nuns at Sparkill, NY are praying for children who lived at the St. Agnes Home.  They say living at the home deepened our faith in God.  I lived at the home when I was 3 and a half years old. They beat me every day and when I was too damaged to respond, one of them smothered me with a pillow. I was in a coma for almost a year.  Yes, living there deepened my faith in God because I lived. The power of God was stronger than their murderous hands.  

Let them pray for their sins and the sins of the pope and the rest of his henchmen who allowed and covered up widespread child abuse by nuns and clergy.  Do they send the cards to remind us of what they did? Do they think we will donate to support their evil habits? We can better use our resources to stop the church’s continued abuse of children around the world.  We can work together to stop them.  We need a reckoning.

Pope Francis in good company with Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev and the Ayatollah Khomeini

So Pope Francis made the cover of Time magazine.  As Jeff Schweitzer says in his Huffington Post article (see link), so did Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin twice (1939 and 1942), Nikita Khrushchev (1957), and Ayatollah Khomeini (1979).  It is time that everyone realizes what Mr. Schweitzer is saying –that Pope Francis has been giving us circuses (without the bread) and cares more for his image than the lives of people who suffer worldwide.  His continued support of pedophile priests rubs salt into the wounds of those of us, like myself, who were victims of rapist priests and abusive nuns.  I try my best to get the message to you the readers of my blog.  As survivors, we need journalists like Mr. Schweitzer to open the eyes of those blinded by photo ops and magazine covers.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-schweitzer/not-anywhere-close-to-per_b_4429185.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Vatican eats cake and dodges United Nations Child Sex Abuse Questions

With so much practice dodging questions about who in the catholic church is responsible for sexually abusing children it was easy for the vatican to do it again. On Tuesday the vatican dodged questions from a United Nations committee on clerical sexual abuse. The Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield who has followed vatican escapades in the past said that this time the Holy See claimed that it doesn’t control the actions of every Catholic in the world, and every Catholic priest, parish or school. They said that local bishops are ultimately responsible for keeping children safe from pedophile priests.

But the vatican flip flops:  whichever statement fits the purpose of the day is what you hear. In 2001, the vatican took over handling of abuse cases because it said that bishops were failing to do their jobs. Now they are back to insisting that the ultimate responsibility still lies with the bishops. But if the vatican doesn’t control them why does it fire bishops – at least some bishops: In July 2012 (Winfield, AP), the previous pope fired a Slovak bishop for mismanaging his diocese and other bishops in Australia the Congo and Italy who wanted the church to ordain women and married men. But would he fire bishops who covered up for sexually abusive priests asked Winfield?  We don’t see that happening.

Even while defending itself against lawsuits and accusations that it was church policies and a culture of secrecy that allowed thousands of children to be abused by priests over decades the vatican is still claiming that they were not to blame.

We can see how much they are not concerned about protecting children: the UN in 1989 implemented the Convention of the Rights of the Child, the main UN treaty guaranteeing a full range of human rights for children.  It wasn’t until 1990 that the Holy See endorsed the convention and they waited until 1994 to submit their first report on what they were doing to comply with the treaty. Then for almost a decade there were no reports. Finally, after media pressure due to the 2010 explosion of child sex abuse cases in Europe and around the world they waited until last year and submitted one report.

So while children were continuing to be sexually abused, the vatican took its time. They actually said that the only country they are responsible for is the vatican state in the center of Rome where a total of 31 children under age 18 currently live. Given their lack of responsibility and history of child abuse there should be a law that no child should live that close to them.

David Clohessy of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) said that the vatican wants "to have their cake and eat it too" by changing their definition of the church, sometimes saying it was run from the top-down  and other times stating that only local dioceses have control over their employees.

"It's a shame that, once again, top Catholic officials successfully exploit legal technicalities to keep clergy sex crimes and cover ups covered up," Clohessy said. "The truth is that the Vatican oversees the church worldwide, insisting on secrecy in child sex cases and stopping or delaying the defrocking of pedophile priests."

Pope Francis: stop giving the faithful bread and circuses – give the children justice!