More Accusations Of Child Sex Abuse By Priests In Illinois Uncovered In Report
Accusations of child sex abuse against at least 500 Roman Catholic priests and clergy members in Illinois have never been made public, a preliminary investigation by the state's attorney general has found.
That brings the total number of members in the Illinois dioceses who have been accused of sexually abusing minors to about 690, according to the report released Wednesday. The church previously had made public the names of only 185 accused priests, 45 of whom were added after Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office started investigating in August.
Madigan started her investigation into the Catholic Church after a sweeping grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania uncovered more than 300 "predator priests" statewide who committed "criminal and/or morally reprehensible conduct."
The report out of Pennsylvania was scathing:
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called it a "systematic cover-up" and a "failure of law enforcement," NPR previously reported. Additionally, the grand jury investigation named the accused priests, something the Illinois attorney general's report did not.
Madigan wanted to see if the same thing was happening in her state. Her office said in a statement that it reviewed thousands of pages of documents voluntarily turned over by each of Illinois' six dioceses and set up a hotline where people could report allegations of sexual abuse by priests.
As Susie An reported for NPR's Morning Edition, Madigan said "one of the things we've seen is that the church really took any opportunity it thought it could not to investigate."
Madigan's office found dozens of examples where the Illinois dioceses "failed to adequately investigate an allegation of clergy sexual abuse it received from a survivor," according to the report.
The investigation revealed that, of the allegations the Illinois dioceses have received, they only "deemed twenty-six percent as 'credible' allegations, meaning seventy-four percent of the allegations were either not investigated, or were investigated but not substantiated."
The reasons the dioceses didn't investigate accusations varied, according to the report. Sometimes the accuser wished to remain anonymous, or the accused priest had left the country, but the most common reason was that the accused had either died or resigned.
The dioceses often discounted allegations that came from just one accuser and "sought to discredit a survivor's allegations based upon the survivor's personal life," according to the investigation.
The archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, responded to Madigan's initial findings in a statement:
Cupich said it was "difficult to discern" which of the report's findings apply to the Archdiocese of Chicago but defended its efforts to mitigate sexual abuse, claiming to have been at the "forefront of dealing with the issue of clergy sexual abuse for nearly three decades."
He also said in the statement that all reports of sexual abuse are investigated, whether the accused priest is alive or dead, and that, starting in 2002, they have reported all allegations of child sexual abuse to civil authorities, including "historical allegations."
The Diocese of Joliet also responded to the attorney general's report, saying in a statement that the investigation doesn't distinguish between dioceses and that they have received "no formal or informal indication from the Attorney General that we failed to adequately investigate any allegation of abuse and/or report it to authorities."
The attorney general said in a statement that the investigation isn't finished and that her office has asked the state's dioceses for additional information.
But some sexual abuse survivors don't think the preliminary investigation goes far enough, according to An, who was reporting for NPR.
"I don't know what to believe out of the Catholic Church. I really don't, because everything's been so secretive and hidden," Larry Antonsen, a leader with the Chicago branch of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told NPR.
Decades ago, Antonsen reported a priest who had sexually abused him as a child, but he says he's still waiting for the church to publicly list the man's name. He said he hopes Illinois will launch its own grand jury investigation.
HOUSE OF PEDOPHILES: 2,000 years of Catholic oppression and hypocrisy!
Should the
Catholic Church be banned???
Vatican ‘No Comment’ About Hundreds of Predator Priests Abusing 1,000
Children
Pope Francis Commissioned Report to Attack Sex Abuse Victims While Archbishop of Buenos Aires
Pope Francis commissioned a four-book study in 2010 as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires attacking sexual abuse victims and defending a priest convicted of molesting a teenage boy.
Francis, who was then known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, asked a lawyer and jurist by the name of Marcelo Sancinetti to carry out a more than 2,600-page study encompassing four volumes for the Argentinian Episcopal Conference to discredit the alleged victims of Father Julio César Grassi.
The volumes described the victims as “false accusers” and claimed their accusations were just ways of projecting their own sexual desires on Grassi, who was convicted of sexually abusing a boy at his Happy Children Foundation — an organization dedicated to rescuing homeless children — and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Grassi was a national celebrity who established relationships with wealthy and powerful figures in Argentine society, while his victims were poor, teenage residents of his homeless shelters under the Happy Children Foundation (Fundación Felices los Niños) — which generated millions of dollars in donations each year.
Juan Pablo Gallego, who represented Grassi’s teen victims, told the local Spanish-language media outlet Infobae that as archbishop and head of the Argentinian Episcopal Conference, Francis commissioned the series titled “Studies on the Grassi Case” to reportedly influence judges on Argentina’s Supreme Court to maintain Grassi’s innocence.
“The books arrived to the judges of the [Supreme] Court, presumably delivered by supposed emissaries of Francis,” Gallego told Infobae. “What is certain is that we determined that they were received by every judge that had to decide on the Grassi case. They weren’t only delivered to the Supreme Court, where they are held, for example, by Ricardo Lorenzetti; they were also delivered to the judges of the provincial appeals court.”
“I am certain that the judges of the Supreme Court have these books and that they came to them in the name of the Church,” Gallego said.
The volumes were never released to the public, but the final book in the series published in 2013 had a passage stating who was behind the study, El Pais reported.
“With this [volume], these ‘Studies on the Grassi case’ are concluded, and the labor assigned by the Argentinean Episcopal Conference, in particular by Cardinal Bergoglio, then its president and today His Holiness Francis,” the text reportedly read on the first page.
People who defended the study claimed the volumes were solely intended for the bishops sitting on the Argentinean Episcopal Conference, but multiple news outlets confirmed that the volumes had been sent to the country’s Supreme Court.
Infobae confirmed in 2016 with sources in the Argentinian Supreme Court that court members had received the volumes.
Carlos Mahiques, one of the judges on the court, told the French television news program Cash Investigation in March 2017 that he personally received the four-volume study.
“You received this counter-inquiry?” the Cash Investigation reporter asked.
“Yes, I did,” responded Mahiques.
Mahiques added that the study Bergoglio commissioned was meant “to exert a subtle form of pressure on the judges” in Grassi’s favor.
“I think it’s partial in some areas, and extremely partial in others. It’s clearly in favor of Father Grassi,” Mahiques said. “They were trying to exert a subtle form of pressure on the judges.”
Even with these reports of sexual abuse in Francis’s diocese, the pope claimed in his 2010 book On Heaven and Earth that instances of sexual abuse by clergy members “never occurred in my diocese” and “in the diocese, it never happened to me.”
But despite Francis’s denial of any instances of sexual abuse taking place under his watch, many victims stepped forward and wrote letters to Francis while he was archbishop detailing the abuses they suffered.
Francis would not meet with these victims of sexual abuse within his archdiocese and did not even answer their letters. The pope has also refused to remove Grassi from the priesthood. Grassi was still listed as a practicing priest in the Diocese of Morón — the diocese under the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires — as of August 2017.
The Diocese of Morón, however, stated that it was not their responsibility to remove Grassi and that it was up to the Vatican to remove him from the priesthood.
Although a source “close to Francis” claimed the diocese is responsible for Grassi’s case, the diocese released a statement in March 2017 revealing that the Vatican ordered the Diocese of Morón to submit a report on Grassi’s case.
The Vatican, however, had not acted on the report — leaving Grassi a priest with all his privileges despite his status as a convicted sex offender.
One witness at Grassi’s trial told Cash Investigation that the sex abuser priest repeatedly said during the trial that Francis stood by him.
“I’ll never forget what Father Grassi kept repeating at his trial: “Bergoglio never let go of my hand.” Now, Bergoglio is Pope Francis, but he has never gone against Grassi’s words. So I’m certain that he never did let go of Grassi’s hand!”
Grassi reportedly used the same language in a 2009 interview with Infobae.
“[Bergoglio] never let go of my hand. He is at my side as always,” Grassi reportedly said.
Even as the Catholic Church is reeling from the sexual abuse scandals by its clergymen, Francis doubled down against those who accuse clergymen of sexual abuse during a homily Thursday morning, saying that those who accuse bishops of sexual abuse are like Satan, “the Great Accuser.”
HOUSE OF
PEDOPHILES: 2,000 years of
Catholic oppression and hypocrisy!
Should the
Catholic Church be banned???
Vatican ‘No Comment’ About Hundreds of Predator Priests Abusing 1,000
Children
Argentine Sex Abuse Victim: Pope ‘Opens His Door’ to Celebs Like DiCaprio but Won’t Even Write Us a Note
An Argentine woman who says she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a cleric in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires — where Pope Francis once served as the cardinal archbishop — said the pope ignored victims of sexual abuse while welcoming celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio with open arms.
“He receives all the celebrities, like Leonardo DiCaprio, and opens his door to them. And for us, not even a quick letter to say he was sorry,” one of the victims told an interviewer with the French news program Cash Investigation in 2017.
The woman was one of six individuals who said they suffered sexual abuse at the hands of clergy members in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and had written letters to Pope Francis — who was then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio — when he was head of the archdiocese to inform him of the abuses.
However, many of the victims said Bergoglio never responded to their complaints.
“I don’t expect anything from him; I don’t believe in him,” another female victim said.
“I suffered a lot and I’m very disappointed … Because the Pope did nothing when he was archbishop here. Everyone told me: ‘Write to him, he’s bound to reply.’ But nothing. I suffered, and now I’m very disappointed,” a third female victim said.
Even with these reports of sexual abuse in Francis’s diocese, the pope claimed in his 2010 book On Heaven and Earth that instances of sexual abuse by clergy members “never occurred in my diocese” and “in the diocese, it never happened to me.”
Around the same time the then-archbishop published his book, he commissioned a study calling victims of sexual abuse “false accusers,” claiming their accusations were just ways of projecting their own sexual desires onto accused priests.
As pope, Francis has not changed his views on victims of sexual abuse. The pope doubleddown against those who accuse clergymen of sexual abuse during a homily Thursday morning, saying that those who accuse bishops of sexual abuse are like Satan, “the Great Accuser.”
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