Does Church Fund Kamala Harris? And Her Other Shady Shenanigans
During her decade-and-a-half tenure as a chief prosecutor, Harris would fail to prosecute a single case of priest abuse and her office would strangely hide vital records on abuses that had occurred despite the protests of victims groups. PETER SCHWEIZER
She somehow served as San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011, and then as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, and never brought a single documented case forward against an abusive priest. PETER SCHWEIZER
According to San Francisco election financial disclosures, high-dollar donations to Harris’s campaign began to roll in from those connected to the Catholic Church institutional hierarchy.” PETER SCHEIZER
“However, I would like to encourage my fellow Democrats to approach Senator Harris with a healthy dose of skepticism. As a prosecutor and California State Attorney General, Harris has engaged in blatantly unethical behavior for her profession and embraced positions that actively hurt her constituents.” JESSER HOROWITZ
Harris has often been described as a "politician on the make," someone who will do whatever is expedient. Writing for RealClearPolitics, Debra Saunders calls Harris a "progressive opportunist." Yves Smith, looking through her less than progressive record as California prosecutor, would alter that to "opportunist to the core." JEFFREY FOLKS
The best-case scenario is that she’s a progressive who repeatedly violated her own principles so that she could promote her career. In the worst-case scenario, she’s just another corrupt, rotten, regressive prosecutor. JESSER HOROWITZ
How come you wouldn’t prosecute Catholic priests for sexual and child abuse? Where was your empathy? JACK HELLNER
THE HOUSE OF PEDOPHILES S.F. CATHOLIC ARCHDIOCESE HAS BEEN VERY GENEROU$ WITH KAMALA HARRS. HERE’S WHY:
VIDEO:
AS SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY, KAMALA HARRIS’S OFFICE STOPPED COOPERATING WITH VICTIMS OF CATHOLIC CHURCH CHILD ABUSE
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/kamala-harris-san-francisco-catholic-church-child-abuse/
Thanks to Kamala Harris’s predecessor, the San Francisco DA’s office had files on clergy sex abusers. But Harris refused to share them with victims.
June 9 2019, 6:00 a.m.
Video by Leighton Akio Woodhouse
KAMALA HARRIS, SURROUNDED by thousands of cheering supporters, kicked off her presidential campaign in Oakland earlier this year, declaring that she has always fought “on behalf of survivors of sexual assault, a fight not just against predators but a fight against silence and stigma.”
Fighting on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, particularly children, has been central to Harris’s political identity for the better part of three decades. Harris specialized in prosecuting sex crimes and child exploitation as a young prosecutor just out of law school. She later touted her record on child sexual abuse cases and prosecuting pedophiles in television advertisements, splashy profiles, and on the trail as she campaigned for public office.
But when it came to taking on the Catholic Church, survivors of clergy sexual abuse say that Harris turned a blind eye, refusing to take action against clergy members accused of sexually abusing children when it meant confronting one of the city’s most powerful political institutions.
Why is Kamala Harris getting the kid-glove press treatment?
By Jack Hellner
The media endlessly attacked Sarah Palin when she was a much-talked about female vice presidential candidate in 2008, but they treat Kamala Harris with kid gloves.
How come you wouldn’t prosecute Catholic priests for sexual and child abuse? Where was your empathy?
As most people know, prior to her being a Senator, she served as the chief prosecutor for the city of San Francisco. Now, complaints are coming forward that she flat out refused to pursue criminal cases against Catholic priests who allegedly sexually battered children.
People who say they were victims of childhood sexual abuse call out Harris for not doing all that she could to prosecute their cases.
Joey Piscitelli, who himself is a survivor of sex abuse, says that the DA before Harris, Terence Hallinan, worked hard at getting he and his fellow victims justice.
However, after Harris beat Hallinan in the election, the progress they were making to prosecute the cases seemed to stop altogether.
KAMALA HARRIS, ETHICALLY SQUALID LAWYER
Who's the Real Joe Biden?
Is there any such thing as "the real Joe Biden" in the sense of an actual, breathing human being with enduring loyalties and principles? His long political record and recent behavior provide some idea.
The choice of Kamala Harris as running mate is one indication. Harris has often been described as a "politician on the make," someone who will do whatever is expedient. Writing for RealClearPolitics, Debra Saunders calls Harris a "progressive opportunist." Yves Smith, looking through her less than progressive record as California prosecutor, would alter that to "opportunist to the core."
KAMALA HARRIS, ETHICALLY SQUALID LAWYER
Unethical conduct plagues legal career of Kamala Harris
“However, I would like to encourage my fellow Democrats to approach Senator Harris with a healthy dose of skepticism. As a prosecutor and California State Attorney General, Harris has engaged in blatantly unethical behavior for her profession and embraced positions that actively hurt her constituents.” JESSER HOROWITZ
The best-case scenario is that she’s a progressive who repeatedly violated her own principles so that she could promote her career. In the worst-case scenario, she’s just another corrupt, rotten, regressive prosecutor. JESSER HOROWITZ
On Jan. 2019, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris declared her candidacy for President of the United States of America to great fanfare.
She earned quick praise and frequent comparison to former President Barack Obama. A recent Democratic Party straw poll by the Daily Kos ranked her in the top tier of Presidential candidates, with 27 percent of respondents voicing their support for her candidacy. So far, she has pitched herself to the American people as a strong progressive with a particular passion for criminal justice reform.
Harris has a reasonable chance at winning the Democratic Party nomination. She’s charismatic, smart and very likely to bridge the growing divide within the party between the progressive left and the centrists. If she wins the nomination, she might even defeat Donald Trump in the general election. I understand why some voters in the party have decided to rally around her: She’s a promising alternative for Democrats who want someone progressive like Bernie Sanders but better than he is at speaking to identity politics.
However, I would like to encourage my fellow Democrats to approach Senator Harris with a healthy dose of skepticism. As a prosecutor and California State Attorney General, Harris has engaged in blatantly unethical behavior for her profession and embraced positions that actively hurt her constituents. While this does not necessarily have to be a red line for everyone—and it certainly will not prevent me from voting for her should she win the Democratic nomination—our party should hold Harris’ feet to the fire here. Even more concerning than her past positions is that she refuses to own up to them, portraying herself as a long-time, progressive criminal justice reform activist.
I want to clarify that I have no inherent issues with a prosecutor being elected to the presidency. We need prosecutors; we need people who serve the public good rather than represent the interests of paying clients. However, if your job requires you to make decisions that could potentially ruin people’s lives, the ethical standards should be higher, not lower. If you, like Kamala Harris, decide you want to run for President of the United States, it becomes imperative that the public thoroughly and mercilessly scrutinizes every facet of your political career.
In 2015, law enforcement caught Robert Murray, a prosecutor in Kern County, committing one of the most egregious offenses a prosecutor could perpetrate. Specifically, he falsified a confession transcript that connected the defendant with a far worse crime than that with what he had actually been charged. When the defense demanded a copy of the original tape recording, Murray admitted to his crime but said that it was merely a harmless joke. The judge disagreed. He stated that the court refuses to tolerate such outrageous conduct and dismissed the indictment on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct (Observer, “California Prosecutor Falsified Transcript of Confession,” 03.04.2015).
How does this incident involve Senator Harris? At the time, she was the Attorney General of California. In that capacity, she appealed the indictment. According to Sidney Powell of The Observer, this was the third time she had appealed a prosecutorial misconduct dismissal in less than three months. As of March 2015, Murray was still allowed to work as a prosecutor (Observer, “California Prosecutor Falsified Transcript of Confession,” 03.04.2015).
As Attorney General, Harris has a history of fighting to keep men she knew were innocent in prison and of hiding cases of significant illegal activity conducted by law enforcement. In 1999, Daniel Larsen was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison for possession of a concealed weapon. There had been nine witnesses who could testify that Larsen was not guilty, but the court called none of them at the trial because of his incompetent and now disbarred attorney. With the help of the Innocence Project, he was able to prove his innocence, and the court overturned his conviction in 2009.
How does this involve Senator Harris? She challenged his release not because she believed he was guilty—she did not dispute his innocence—but because he hadn’t presented proof of his innocence quickly enough. And so, she fought to keep a man she definitely knew was innocent behind bars for life (NBCLosAngeles, “After 13 Years in Prison, Man Found Innocent of Crime Freed,” 3.20.2013).
In another incident, law enforcement discovered that Deborah Madden had purposely sabotaged the drug results of multiple cases as a technician at a San Francisco crime lab. But even though the highest levels of the district attorney’s office knew about Madden’s unreliability as a drug expert, Kamala Harris and her office hid this information from defense attorneys. Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo ultimately ruled that Harris’ office had violated defendants’ rights through this act of prosecutorial misconduct, calling into question the convictions of nearly 40 defendants (SFGate, “Judge rips Harris’ office for hiding problems,” 05.21.2010).
However, perhaps Harris’ most egregious example of immoral conduct happened in 2014. A federal judge ordered that all non-violent second-strike offenders be eligible for parole in California in an action against constitutional prison crowding. Kamala Harris, then the Attorney General of California, disagreed with the decision. She argued in court that by releasing these inmates early, prisons would lose “an important labor pool” (Los Angeles Times, “Federal judges order California to expand prison releases,” 11.14.2014). Despite pitching herself as a lifelong champion for criminal justice reform, Harris had advocated that the need to keep nonviolent offenders as slaves outweighs their constitutional rights. How would the Democratic Party call itself progressive if members threw their support behind someone with such an atrocious record on civil rights issues?
Even worse, Harris has yet to apologize for her actions and in fact has refused to even acknowledge them (Reason.com, “Kamala Harris Hopes You’ll Forget Her Record as a Drug Warrior and Draconian Prosecutor,” 01.31.2019). At a town hall, she responded to a question calling her out on her past actions by answering “I’ve been consistent my whole career,” and then explained how the record supports her claim that she has been progressive on prison reform (CNN Twitter, “I’ve been consistent my whole career,” 01.28.2019).
I won’t delve into her argument because, in my view, it’s irrelevant. When you actively cover up police misconduct, try to keep a man who you know is innocent in prison and refuse to release nonviolent offenders because you need their involuntary labor, you don’t get to reframe your narrative.
Kamala Harris is not owed an audience. She is not entitled to one simply because she wants to be president. We should not give her the benefit of the doubt, because she refuses to even acknowledge her wrongdoings. We don’t have the right to forgive her; that right belongs to all the people she’s wronged over the course of her long career.
For that reason, I ask you not to vote for Kamala Harris in the primary, no matter how attractive a candidate she is or how well she explains away her inconsistent career. It’s possible that her past really won’t have much of an impact on how she’ll be as president, but why should we wait and see? The best-case scenario is that she’s a progressive who repeatedly violated her own principles so that she could promote her career. In the worst-case scenario, she’s just another corrupt, rotten, regressive prosecutor.
KAMALA HARRIS, ETHICALLY SQUALID LAWYER
Does Church Fund Kamala Harris? And Her Other Shady Shenanigans
During her decade-and-a-half tenure as a chief prosecutor, Harris would fail to prosecute a single case of priest abuse and her office would strangely hide vital records on abuses that had occurred despite the protests of victims groups. PETER SCHWEIZER
Who Is Willie Brown And What’s The Connection?
“In 1994, she met Willie Brown, who at the time was the second-most-powerful man in California politics. As Speaker of the State Assembly, Brown was a legend in Sacramento and around the state.
Brown was under investigation several times,by the State Bar of California, Fair Political Practices Commission,the FBI.
In 1986 …as California Assembly Speaker, he “received at least $124,000 in income & gifts…from special interests that had biz before the Legislature.”
Now this is neither here nor there for me, except for the political angle:
“Brown was sixty at the time he began dating Kamala, who was twenty-nine. Brown was actually two years older than her father. Their affair was the talk of San Francisco in 1994.
Kamala’s mother defends her daughter’s decision – and offered choice comments about Brown. “Why shouldn’t she have gone out with Willie Brown? He was a player. And what could Willie Brown expect from her in the future? He has not much life left.
He (Willie Brown) put Kamala on the State Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later the California Medical Assistance Commission. The MAC paid $99k a year in 2002.. UIAB ~$114k. Both posts were part-time. At the time, she was working as a county employee making ~$100k”
During his tenure, Brown came under FBI investigation twice for corruption involving lucrative contracts flowing from the city to his political friends.
I thought it was only in Third World countries that people were forced to pay bribes to get services they’re entitled to from their government,” said U.S. district judge Charles Legge about the rampant corruption under Brown. “But we find it right here in San Francisco.
In January 2003, shortly after announcing her campaign, (Kamala) Harris had signed a form saying that she would stick to the city’s $211,000 voluntary spending cap for the campaign (for the San Francisco district attorney election).
Harris signed the pledge-and then blew right past the spending limit. By the end of Nov, she had raised $621,000…
The San Francisco Ethics Commission vote to fine Harris was unanimous. Her campaign had to pay a $34,000 fine, a record in city elections.
Moving On To The Next, And By Far The Most Disturbing Aspect: Church Sex Abuse Scandal
Harris often recounts her background as a sex crimes prosecutor earlier in her career to attack others for their legal failings in this area.
During her decade-and-a-half tenure as a chief prosecutor, Harris would fail to prosecute a single case of priest abuse and her office would strangely hide vital records on abuses that had occurred despite the protests of victims groups.
Harris’s predecessor as San Francisco district attorney, Terence Hallinan, was aware of and had prosecuted numerous Catholic priests on sexual misconduct involving children. And he had been gathering case files for even more.
Hallinan’s office had launched an investigation and quickly discovered that the San Francisco Archdiocese had extensive internal records concerning complaints going back some seventy-five years.
In spring of 2002, Hallinan demanded the church turn them over to his office. A month later, the archdiocese reluctantly complied.
The secret documents were explosive and reportedly contained the names of about forty current and former priests in the San Francisco area who had been identified in sexual abuse complaints.
Hallinan used the information from the files to begin pursuing legal cases against them. In nearby San Mateo and Marin County, prosecutors obtained the same church records and those in Marin charged Father Gregory Ingels in 2003
But by June 2003, Hallinan and other prosecutors had hit a roadblock: the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California’s law extending the statute of limitations for priest abuse cases was unconstitutional.
The records that Hallinan had in his possession touched on well-connected institutions at the heart of California’s power structure. St. Ignatius College Preparatory School, in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, counted California governor Jerry Brown … as alumni.”
Now Comes Church Sexual Abuse And The Kamala Connection
According to San Francisco election financial disclosures, high-dollar donations to Harris’s campaign began to roll in from those connected to the Catholic Church institutional hierarchy.”
For some reason, she did not want the documents released in any form.
Harris’s office claimed that the cover-up was about protecting the victims of abuse.
Victims’ groups wanted the documents released and Harris was stopping it.
They’re full of shit,” said Joey Piscitelli, the northwest regional director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the largest and most active victims’ group. “You can quote me on that. They’re not protecting the victims.
With the outcry of victims groups, Harris’s office then attempted to shift blame, claiming that the idea of burying the evidence had been first suggested by her predecessor, Hallinan.
But he [Hallinan] responded angrily to her claims. “I told Jack Hammel [the archdiocese’s legal counsel] in no uncertain terms that I wouldn’t go along with anything like that.
James Jenkins..the founding chairman of the archdiocese’s Independent Review Board… resigned from the board… Jenkins argued that Harris’s deal with the archdiocese not only denied the rights of known victims, it also prevented other possible cases from coming forward.
In April 2010, a journalist with the San Francisco Weekly asked for the records through California’s Public Records Act. Harris’s office denied the request, offering conflicting explanations as to why they could not provide them.
In 2019, I requested those records through a California attorney. The San Francisco district attorney’s office responded that they no longer had them in their possession. Were they destroyed? Were they moved somewhere else? It remains a disturbing mystery.
She somehow served as San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011, and then as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, and never brought a single documented case forward against an abusive priest.
To put this lack of action in perspective, at least fifty other cities charged priests in sexual abuse cases during her tenure as San Francisco district attorney. San Francisco is conspicuous by its absence.
Next One: Construction And Conflicts Of Interest
Ricardo Ramirez ran a cement and concrete company called Pacific Cement. As of 2003, a full one-third of the public works projects in San Francisco used Pacific. … Those contributions often went to the Willie Brown machine and were not always legal.”
39/51″In 1997, state officials found that Ramirez had illegally contributed $2,000 to Brown’s 1995 mayoral campaign.
…
Ramirez never faced charges for delivering substandard concrete. Instead, Harris’s office settled for a plea deal involving a single environmental count, illegally storing waste oil at one of his production facilities.
Harris & her office refused to offer an explanation as to why they were going so light on Willie Brown’s friend & donor. “Harris’ office had no explanation for why it dropped the concrete case,” – the Chronicle.””Kamala Harris’s signature program as San Francisco district attorney was called Back on Track-a program designed to give first-time drug offenders an opportunity to avoid a criminal record.
Those (in the program) included were not just nonviolent, first-time offenders who had committed a single drug offense. Some were illegal immigrants and violent criminals such as Alexander Izaguirre.
Amanda Kiefer was walking down the street when Izaguirre snatched her purse and jumped into a waiting SUV. Rather than drive off, the SUV sped toward Kiefer to run her down. Kiefer jumped on the hood and saw Izaguirre and the driver laughing.
The driver slammed on the brakes throwing Kiefer to the ground. The impact fractured her skull.
…
Harris did not offer an explanation. Instead, she simply explained that enforcing federal immigration law was not her job.
These excerpts are from @peterschweizer‘s 2020 #1 bestseller, “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite. A pity this book’s not received the coverage it deserves in India.
amzn.to/3iCKPt9 Feature Image Credit – Breitbart
Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, by Peter Schweizer
Disclaimer: views expressed are personal.
KAMALA HARRIS, ETHICALLY SQUALID LAWYER
Vatican Foreign Minister Calls for ‘Fiscal Redistribution’ to Fight Inequality
ROME, Italy — Vatican foreign minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher has called for increased redistribution as a necessary means of overcoming economic inequality, the Catholic News Service reported Wednesday.
In his address before a high-level U.N. meeting on inequality and prosperity, Archbishop Gallagher asserted that “fighting rampant inequality cannot be achieved without fiscal redistribution and increasing the progressiveness of income taxation schedules.”
“Better taxation can redistribute a portion of the rents accruing to big corporations and help build up tax bases, especially in developing countries,” he declared.
The archbishop also noted how the global coronavirus pandemic has slowed humanity’s progressive elimination of extreme poverty.
The World Bank, for instance, has estimated the pandemic “drove an additional 97 million people into extreme poverty in 2020.”
“As wages have decreased, millions of individuals have been plunged into poverty, and this has set back poverty reduction targets by nearly a decade,” Gallagher said, adding that those already in vulnerable situations “were disproportionately affected by its fallout.”
Our World in Data (OWD) has noted that in the past, the immense majority of mankind lived in what would be described today as “extreme poverty,” a situation that has been steadily improving over the past two centuries thanks to industrialization and rising productivity.
“This is surely one of the most remarkable achievements of humankind,” OWD declared.
Moreover, the average person on the planet is now 4.4 times richer than an average person in 1950, an astonishing example of ongoing wealth creation.
In his address, the archbishop underscored the need for “climate stabilization and climate justice,” which includes the “decarbonization of our economies.”
In an October 7 essay in the Wall Street Journal, however, Bjorn Lomborg — president of the Copenhagen Consensus — offers a different perspective on the question.
Working to end global warming “could hurt the poor more than help,” Lomborg states, because of its negative impact on economic development.
Malnutrition deaths “have declined dramatically over the past three decades and will continue to drop rapidly over the next three,” Lomborg notes, a phenomenon overwhelmingly driven by economic growth.
“This puts the impact of global warming in context: For nutrition, climate change isn’t a disaster, but something that slightly slows down progress,” he adds.
“Growth policies can avoid 1.7 million annual deaths,” Lomborg concludes. “That is far more than any climate measures could provide.”
Mexican Immigrant Jose Gomez, New Leader of America’s Catholic Bishops, Has a Top Priority. It’s Not Sacking Pervert Priests.
By Eugene Gant
VDare.com
https://vdare.com/articles/mexican-immigrant-jose-gomez-new-leader-of-america-s-catholic-bishops-has-a-top-priority-it-s-not-sacking-pervert-priests
Clergy: An uncompromising film about the hypocrisy and corruption of the Catholic Church in Poland
Clergy, the new film from director Wojciech Smarzowski, reaffirms his place as one of Poland’s leading directors. His 2016 film Hatred (Wolyn), dealing with a traumatic event in Polish-Ukrainian history, stirred up controversy and attracted a wide audience in Poland.
Clergy
Smarzowski’s latest offering, Clergy, was released in Poland in the autumn of 2018 and broke several box office records. Nearly a million people viewed the film on its opening weekend, the best result for a Polish film in Poland in three decades. To date over five million people have seen the work, which depicts in uncompromising fashion the hypocrisy and corruption of the Catholic Church in contemporary Poland.
At a recent festival of Polish films held in Berlin, the individual introducing Clergy noted that Smarzowski had been denied permission to film his movie in any Polish church. Instead he had to move production to the neighbouring Czech Republic to complete the film. It was also pointed out that the target of Smarzowski’s film was the institution of the Catholic Church and not individual believers.
Clergy opens with a drinking session involving the film’s three main protagonists—the priests Leszek Lisowski (Jacek Braciak), Tadeusz Trybus (Robert Wieckiewicz) and Andrzej Kukuła (Arkadiusz Jakubik). Between shots of vodka, Trybus is quizzed on passages from the Bible, all of which he knows by heart. At the end of their drinking orgy, the three priests set up their own obstacle race through the rooms of the house. Every successful round is rewarded with yet another shot.
It turns out all three have secrets to hide. Trybus shares his house with a woman whom he makes pregnant. When confronted with the news, the shocked priest asks his lover, “But … how … didn’t you take any precautions?” “My faith didn’t allow me,” she replies. The priest is adamant. To avoid a scandal, “You must get rid of it.”
The second priest, Lisowski, is higher up the clerical ladder and acts as adjutant to the thoroughly crooked and foul-mouthed Archbishop Mordowicz (Janusz Gajos), who is up to his neck in sordid deals with criminal gangs and politicians. When crossed, the archbishop is quite ready to blame “Jewish” so-and-sos for the consequences of his own misdeeds.
Mordowicz drives around in a brand new Bentley with chauffeur and dispatches servile priests to an anteroom in his palace to fetch huge sacks of money to pay off bribes to building firms and politicians. In one scene, we see the collection plate being passed around in a church where ordinary Poles donate what they can afford. The funds from such collections, swelled by numerous generous donations from the Polish state, provide the mounds of money needed to finance the archbishop’s lavish life style, as well as the drinking bouts of ordinary priests.
Jacek Braciak, Arkadiusz Jakubik and Robert Wieckiewicz in Clergy
In another scene, we witness the archbishop urging a leading politician to insert one of the Polish Catholic Church’s main demands, a “total ban on abortion,” into the government’s program. The politician starts to speak, but is promptly put in his place. “With all due respect, dear MP, now I’m talking,” declares the archbishop in the manner of an autocrat.
Lisowski has the job of carrying out and covering up for his master’s dirty work. He dreams of a transfer to the Vatican and is prepared to go to any lengths to achieve it, including blackmailing his boss.
Through the figure of the third priest Kukuła, Smarzowski addresses the issue of the clerical abuse of young boys and girls. Kukula is accused of abusing a boy from a broken family and is promptly shunned by his congregation. The archbishop’s office immediately goes into damage control mode. The accused priest is transferred to a monastery that functions as a sort of clinic for the recuperation and rehabilitation of clerics with all sorts of problems and crimes on their conscience. The young victim of the priest is paid to keep quiet with a television and video game console.
In the course of a series of flashbacks, we realise that Kukula himself was the subject of brutal abuse as a young boy in a home run by a sadistically cruel nun. The perpetrator Kukula is himself the victim of the Catholic Church’s inhuman policy of celibacy for its priests—a vicious circle destined to perpetuate physical and mental abuse.
Smarzowski’s target is the organised Church, not its individual representatives. The figures in the film are not caricatures, not least due to the outstanding performances by the cast of actors. Two of the priests, Trybus and Kukula, recognise their wrongdoings and seek to make some amends. The archbishop’s plans to suppress details of Kukula’s pedophilia come unstuck when the latter decides to go public and reveal the true extent of child abuse by members of the clergy. Once again the archbishop’s team go into action to ensure that Kukula’s revelations are smothered. The next morning they are able to report: Mission accomplished. There is barely a word in the press about the priest’s misdeeds.
Kukula is ditched by the Church. The priest is unstable (“For some time, his behaviour revealed that he suffered from some kind of mental health problems”), Archbishop Mordowicz tells the media, which is quite prepared to print his version of events.
In addition to its portrayal of a Church official who controls a financial empire, the media and leading politicians, Clergy includes one scene in which a fascist group practice their racist chants from within the secure walls of a church building.
The reaction to Smarzowski’s film in Poland by the Church and the government was predictably prompt and ferocious. It was dismissed by Church officials as “vulgar clergyphobia.” Some towns, under the influence of the Church, sought to prevent showings of the film.
Senior members of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which relies heavily on the Church for electoral support, called for the film to be banned. The deputy culture minister in the PiS government, Jaroslaw Sellin, accused Clergy of fostering “negative stereotypes,” while Paweł Soloch, head of the National Security Bureau in Poland, compared the film to Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.
Poland’s leading news program, which is closely aligned with the PiS, described Clergy as “yet another attack on the Catholic Church, brutal and untrue.” The right-wing newspaper, Gazeta Polska, responded by whipping up anti-communism and reproduced the film’s poster on billboards across Poland using the image of a priest who was a victim of the Stalinist security services. The text to the poster read: “The clergy: our treasure in the fight against Nazism, communism, LGBT and Islamists.”
Janusz Gajos in Clergy
In fact, the criminal activities addressed in the film realistically reflect the deeply reactionary role of the Catholic Church in Poland.
Smarzowski spoke with victims of clerical abuse before making his film, which includes statements from such victims read by actors. Some are too traumatised by what had taken place to properly speak out. Since the film’s release, the number of victims reporting mistreatment has increased ten-fold.
In regard to the abortion issue, it is no secret that the Catholic Church is the driving force behind the campaign to ban all medical assistance to pregnant women. A bill to ban abortion was introduced by the far-right Catholic organization, Ordo Iuris [Legal Order], in 2016 and agreed by parliament. The bill would have provided for a complete ban on abortions, including for minors and victims of sexual assault. It was only dropped after massive protests swept the country.
Smarzowski’s film also realistically portrays the links existing between ultra-right and fascist groups, the media and the organised Church.
The ultra-conservative priest Tadeusz Rydzyk runs a Catholic media empire, including the pro-government Radio Maryja station, a television station and a daily newspaper, which all pump out anti-Semitic, homophobic and Islamophobic content. Rydzyk was fined for illegal fundraising in 2011, but his business empire continues to receive government grants and contracts worth millions of euros.
In 2016, the Islamophobic and anti-Semitic priest Jacek Międlar held a mass at Bialystok cathedral for members of the neo-Nazi group National Radical Camp (ONR). Another far-right group, All Polish Youth, campaigns against abortion and gay marriage under the slogan of “Great Catholic Poland.”
Smarzowski is a courageous filmmaker. Clergy deserves a wide international audience.
PRIESTS COULD HAVE SEX UNDER AUSTRALIAN PROPOSAL TO END CHURCH CHILD ABUSE
BY GRACE GUARNIERI ON 12/15/17 AT 9:26 AM
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WORLDCATHOLIC CHURCHAUSTRALIACHILD ABUSE
A five-year investigation of thousands of child abuse victims in Australia has led to one stunning recommendation: that the Catholic Church should allow priests to have sex in order to curb child abuse.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse reviewed more than 8,000 cases since 2013, and found that schoolteachers and religious ministers accounted for the most child abuse complaints. Catholic priests accounted for 61.4 percent of the alleged religious perpetrators.
With that stat in mind, the final report released Friday offered hundreds of recommendations, including an end to the Catholic Church's centuries-old policy for compulsory celibacy, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
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The report said celibacy was "not a direct cause of child sexual abuse" but certainly "contributed to the occurrence of child sexual abuse, especially when combined with other risk factors."
Pope Francis deemed child sex abuse by Catholic priests a "monstrosity" last year and promised to crack down on priests who violated the compulsory celibacy rule.
“We will counter those priests who betrayed their calling with the most strenuous measures. This also applies to the bishops and cardinals who protected these priests—as happened repeatedly in the past,” Pope Francis wrote.
It is unclear how well the anti-celibacy proposal will go over. Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney immediately sought to widen the discussion beyond pedophilia by priests, saying that child abuse is "an issue for everyone, celibate or not." The commission also recommended that priests should have to report child abuse cases that they hear in confessionals to authorities, asking bishops to appeal the secrecy law to the Vatican. But that also may be a nonstarter.
"The seal of the confessional, or the relationship with God that's carried through the priest and with the person, is inviolable," said Australian Archbishop Denis Hart.
In any event, changes are coming. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Trumbull said the report "exposed a national tragedy" and called for a task force to start acting on the recommendations as early as next month.
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Jesuit Pope Francis is Coming Out; Backsliding on Pedophile Crackdown, Catholic Official Says
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03/14/2017
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Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, has rescinded his policies regarding the crack down on pedophilia, Catholic officials claim. In fact, the last abuse survivor of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors recently left the commission, citing resistance coming from Vatican offices against implementing recommendations.
It is not clear exactly where the opposition is coming from within the Catholic Church, claimed the last abuse survivor Marie Collins, on the Pontifical Commission. However, she resigned as a direct result of the Catholic Church’s inability to implement recommendations that could curb sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.
In Australia, the cases of abuse are quite prevalent, and according to the chief executive of the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan; “You have to seriously wonder whether this isn’t the Pope backsliding on what has been a strong and determined crackdown on offending priests and the circumstances that allowed abuse to take place,”
According to Sullivan, it is a very dangerous time, he cites both the resignation of Marie Collins, and the resistance from the Church to curb pedophilia. “Together these two developments paint a picture of the Vatican establishment, its bureaucrats, and courtiers, doing all they can to either undermine the Pope or driving an agenda that is about maintaining the status quo and protecting the institution.”
Sullivan also said; “If the church in Australia doesn’t see continuous, concerted change from our leaders driven and backed by an active and demanding Catholic community, then our church as a religion will become a marginalized rump, stripped of credibility and relevance, left to preach to an ever aging congregation with eyes on an ever dimming hereafter.”
Resistance to stop pedophilia within the Catholic Church stretches all the way throughout the Vatican bureaucracy, and it is evident that Pope Francis is aware of the scandals and is continually attempting to cover them up, hush them up, and push them aside.
The Jesuit is coming out.
Before Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, he was potentially involved in at least five abuse cases. The following comes from Bishop-Accountability:
1Fr. Julio César Grassi
· Grassi was convicted in 2009 of molesting a boy who had lived in a home for street children that Grassi founded. After Grassi’s conviction, Bergoglio commissioned a secret study to persuade Supreme Court judges of Grassi’s innocence. Bergoglio’s intervention is believed to be at least part of the reason that Grassi remained free for more than four years following his conviction. He finally was sent to jail in September 2013. See our detailed summary of the Grassi case with links to articles.
2Fr. Rubén Pardo
· In 2003, a priest with AIDS who had admitted to his bishop that he had sexually assaulted a boy was discovered to be hiding from law enforcement in a vicarage in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires, then headed by Bergoglio. Pardo also was reportedly hearing children’s confessions and teaching in a nearby school. One of Bergoglio’s auxiliary bishops, with whom he met every two weeks, appears to have lived at the vicarage at the same time. Typically, an ordinary must give permission for a priest to live and work in his diocese. It is unlikely that Pardo lived and ministered in Buenos Aires without Bergoglio’s approval. See our detailed summary of the Pardo case.
3Brother Fernando Enrique Picciochi, S.M.
· After a victim discovered that his abuser had fled Argentina to the US, eluding law enforcement, the victim sought Bergoglio’s help in getting released from the confidentiality order imposed by the cleric’s religious order. He conveyed his request in meetings with Bergoglio’s private secretary and with the auxiliary bishop, current archbishop Mario Poli. The archdiocese would not help. See our detailed summary of the Picciochi case.
4Rev. Mario Napoleon Sasso
· In 2001, following a diagnosis as a pedophile at a church-run treatment center, Sasso was made pastor of a very poor parish with a community soup kitchen in the Zárate-Campana diocese. In 2002-2003, he sexually assaulted at least five little girls in his bedroom off the soup kitchen. In 2006, with Sasso in jail but not yet convicted, the parents of the little girls reportedly sought Bergoglio’s help. Bergoglio was then president of the Argentine bishops’ conference, and the soup kitchen was just 25 miles from the Buenos Aires archdiocese. Bergoglio would not meet with them. See our detailed summary of the Sasso case.
5Rev. Carlos Maria Gauna
· Gauna was an archdiocesan priest under Bergoglio’s direct supervision. In 2001, two girls at a school filed a criminal complaint saying Gauna had touched them inappropriately. Bergoglio reportedly was going to look into it. Gauna still works in the Buenos Aires archdiocese. Notably, he’s now a deacon and a hospital chaplain – possible indicators that Bergoglio considered the allegations credible but decided to demote him rather than remove him from ministry. See our detailed summary of the Gauna case.
It is no wonder that Pope Francis is ‘backsliding’ on pedophilia because he himself could be involved in some of the scandals listed above. Marie Collins further states;
“It is devastating in 2017 to see that these men still can put other concerns before the safety of children and vulnerable adults,” she said in an editorial published online March 1 by the National Catholic Reporter.
“However, despite the Holy Father approving all the recommendations made to him by the commission, there have been constant setbacks,” Collins said in a statement published on her website, mariecollins.net.
“This has been directly due to the resistance by some members of the Vatican Curia to the work of the commission. The lack of cooperation, particularly by the dicastery most closely involved in dealing with cases of abuse, has been shameful,” she said.
She said the “last straw” that led to her handing in her letter of resignation was when she learned that the same dicastery that refused to cooperate on the safeguarding guidelines had also refused “to implement one of the simplest recommendations the commission has put forward to date.”
The recommendation, which the pope instructed that all Vatican departments follow, asked that every Vatican office “ensure all correspondence from victims/survivors receives a response. I learned in a letter from this particular dicastery last month that they are refusing to do so,” she said.
“I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!”
“It is a reflection of how this whole abuse crisis in the church has been handled: with fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors,” she said.
The Vatican is against protecting children and the Pope is against defending children. Sexual abuse cases surrounding the Catholic Church are stacking higher and higher. Which is why according to Kristina Keneally, in Australia, “Catholicism has done more harm to Australia than Islam.” What say you reader?
Must See Video: The Bodies and Atrocities are Piling up at The Vaticans Door
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6Works Cited
Australian Associated Press. “Pope may be backsliding on paedophile crackdown, Catholic official says.” The Guardian. . (2017): . .
Kristina Keneally . “Catholicism has done more harm to Australia than Islam. Where's the outrage?” The Guardian. . (2017): . .
Carol Galtz. “Abuse survivor quits papal body, citing Vatican resistance to safeguarding.” Catholic News Service. . (2017): . .
BishopAccountability.org. “Pope Francis and Clergy Sexual Abuse in Argentina.” BishopAccountability.org. . (NA): . .
One in 50 priests is a paedophile: Pope Francis says child abuse is 'leprosy' infecting the Catholic Church
· Pope Francis quoted as saying figure included bishops and cardinals
· He condemned child sex abuse as 'leprosy in the church', in interview
· Vatican has said quotations 'didn't correspond to what pope actually said'
PUBLISHED: 11:54 EST, 13 July 2014 | UPDATED: 05:39 EST, 15 July 2014
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Pope Francis has revealed that around one in every 50 Catholic priests is a paedophile.
Condemning the issue as a ‘leprosy’ which infects the Church, the Pontiff was yesterday reported as claiming that even bishops and cardinals are among the ‘2 per cent’ carrying out child abuse.
He also said that many more in the Church are guilty of covering it up, adding: ‘This state of affairs is intolerable.’
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Pope Francis has revealed that one in every fifty Catholic priests is a paedophile, it has been reported
Damning reports by the UN this year have accused the Vatican of ‘systematically’ adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest thousands of children over decades, failing to report allegations to the authorities and transferring offenders to new dioceses where they could abuse again.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica yesterday, Francis denounced the corruption of children as ‘the most terrible and unclean thing imaginable’ and vowed to ‘confront it with the seriousness it demands’.
The Pope’s comments come as Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby warned that fresh child abuse would be uncovered in the Church of England.
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Asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday whether more cases would emerge, he said: ‘I would love to say there weren’t but I expect there are.
‘There are in almost every institution in this land.’
He added that the Church needed to apologise and explain how ‘utterly devastated’ it was about its history child abuse.
He said: ‘It is becoming clearer and clearer that for many, many years things were not dealt with as they should have been dealt with. We must show justice to survivors of abuse.’
While Pope Francis has carried out sweeping reforms to the Vatican, he has been accused of not doing enough to tackle the child abuse crisis.
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The Pope reportedly told Italian newspaper la Repubblica that abuse of children was like 'leprosy' infecting the Church
In his interview, Francis was quoted as saying: ‘The Church is fighting for the eradication of the habit and for education that rehabilitates.
'But this leprosy is also present in our house. Many of my colleagues who are working against it tell me that paedophilia inside the Church is at the level of 2 per cent.’
He said that the figures supplied by Church officials were supposed to reassure him, but added: ‘But I have to say that they do not reassure me by any means.
‘On the contrary, I find them deeply concerning. Among the 2 per cent who are paedophiles are even bishops and cardinals.’
Last night Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the newspaper’s report had ‘captured the spirit’ of the conversation, but denied that Francis had said there are some cardinals who are paedophiles.
In his interview, the Pope acknowledged that paedophilia was common and widespread in the Catholic Church, and reportedly called the requirement for celibacy among priests ‘a problem’ for which he is ‘finding the solution’ – although the Vatican also denied that he said this.
Last week Pope Francis issued his strongest words on paedophile priests so far as he held a historic three-hour meeting with six abuse victims, including two from Britain and two from Ireland.
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The Vatican has since denied that Francis had said that there were some cardinals who were paedophiles
In a mass before the meeting, he begged abuse survivors for forgiveness for the ‘sacrilegious’ crimes committed by ‘the sons and daughters of the Church who have betrayed their mission’.
British abuse victim Peter Saunders, 57, who was molested for more than five years by two priests, a teacher and a member of his family from the age of eight, described the experience as ‘life-changing’.
The first cases of abuse at the hands of priests came to light in the US and Canada in the 1980s. In the 1990s, revelations began to emerge of widespread abuse in Ireland, before cases were exposed in more than a dozen countries in the last decade.
In 2009, two damning reports into allegations of paedophilia in Ireland revealed the extent of cover-ups spanned decades and involved thousands of victims.
Last week the Pope said the Catholic Church had been guilty of ‘complicity’ in covering up what he called ‘despicable actions’ and ‘grave sins’.
He said members of the Catholic Church should ‘weep before the execrable acts of abuse which have left life-long scars’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2690575/Pope-Francis-admits-two-cent-Roman-Catholic-priests-paedophiles-interview-Italian-newspaper.html#ixzz51S0q4nak
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El Salvador continues crackdown on pedophile priests
By Eana Maniebo | 1st December 2015 | @eanamaniebo
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A Catholic priest at mass in the main square in Pisco, Peru. Photo: AP Photo/Martin Mejia
El Salvador’s Roman Catholic Church revealed that it suspended another priest for sexual abuse after a preliminary investigation.
The Archbishop of San Salvador Jose Luis Escobar announced on Sunday that Juan Francisco Galvez, a parish priest in the town of Rosario de Mora, was relieved of ecclesiastical duties after the conclusion of a preliminary investigation carried out in October 2015. Escobar said that Galvez victimized several people, but declined to give details on the victims’ identities.
Galvez denied the charges.
“I invite all those who have experienced sexual abuse from priests to come forward and directly approach me, Bishop Gregorio Chavez, or Monsignor Rafael Urrutia,” Escobar said.
He also reiterated the Catholic church’s zero tolerance towards sexual abuse.
Galvez’ case comes less than a week after the announcement of a high-profile priest’s suspension on charges of rape.
Even a “well-loved” priest is not exempted
Monsignor Rafael Urrutia, head of external affairs for the archdiocese of San Salvador, told reporters on Thursday that Jesus Delgado was suspended on November 15 for raping a minor multiple times.
“Monsignor Jesus Delgado has been suspended from all priestly, pastoral and administrative roles because of a complaint of sexual abuse of minors,” said Urrutia.
A 42-year-old woman told authorities that Delgado, now 77, raped her when she was eight years old. The abuse continued for nine years until the victim turned 17. The accused priest said that he’s willing to meet the victim and apologize.
It is unclear if charges will be pressed against Delgado as the alleged crime took place more than 20 years ago. According to Urrutia, the victim only wants the priest to leave the priesthood and apologize.
“We deeply regret these facts, we apologize to the victim, society and ask the Lord to call us to conversion. Our archdiocese will not cover up any cases of abuse. We will always be in favor of justice and truth, and will defend the children,” Urrutia added.
Bishop Delgado is a notable priest in the country. He served as the biographer and personal secretary of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a Salvadoran priest who was shot in 1980 while giving mass. Archbishop Romero was recently beatified by Pope Francis in Vatican.
Vanda Pignato, secretary of the country’s social inclusion ministry, expressed her outrage on Delgado’s inclusion to the delegation of El Salvadoran priests who traveled to Rome to thank the Pope for Romero’s beatification. According to her, the Catholic Church already know of the victim’s affidavit when they let Delgado attend the ceremony in Vatican.
“Not only is he included in the delegation, but he was also sitting at the front row,” Pignato said in an interview.
Accused priests take refuge in Latin America
A year-long study by GlobalPost titled Fugitive Fathers revealed many priests who were accused with sexual abuse relocating to poorer countries in Latin America. The report was published early this year.
GlobalPost found out that the Catholic Church only transferred accused priests, mostly from the United States, to less-developed countries instead of turning them over to the authorities. The priests were able to start new lives, far from the reach of the media and investigators until eventually, their cases are forgotten. Some are even leading mass or hold high ranks in their local church.
“As developed countries find it tougher to keep predator priests on the job, bishops are increasingly moving them to the developing world where there are less vigorous law enforcement, less independent media, and a greater power differential between priests and parishioners,” said David Clohessy, spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
The report also told the stories of several victims who are still carrying the traumas and scars from the actions of the abusive priests.
One priest preaching in the a small Peruvian village even admitted to GlobalPost that he had molested a 13-year-old boy when he was with the diocese of Jackson, Mississippi. He has since moved to Peru because he is now barred from working in the U.S.
Since the publication of GlobalPost’s report, two priests have been suspended. Namely, Jan Van Dael from Brazil, and Federico Baeza from Colombia.
According to the GlobalPost, official representatives of the Roman Catholic Church declined to speak with them or give a statement.
Read more at http://latincorrespondent.com/2015/12/el-salvador-continues-crackdown-on-pedophile-priests/#DWGqOHPbogmvmJSs.99
Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of church sex abuse scandal, dead at 86
By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
Updated 6:58 PM ET, Wed December 20, 2017
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Former Archbishop Bernard Law dies at 86 02:21
Story highlights
· Law's funeral will be Thursday at St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican says
· He resigned as Boston's archbishop in 2002 amid scandal
(CNN)Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal, has died, the Vatican confirmed. He was 86.
Law died early Wednesday in Rome following a long illness, the Vatican said. Law moved to Italy to serve as archpriest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major after he was forced to resign in 2002 as archbishop of Boston.
Law's name became emblematic of the scandal that continues to trouble the church and its followers after a Boston Globe investigation revealed that he and other bishops covered up child abuse by priests in the Boston Archdiocese.
Law at the time apologized to victims of John Geoghan, a priest who had been moved from parish to parish, despite Law's knowledge of his abuse of young boys. Geoghan was convicted in 2002 of indecent assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy.
Cardinal Bernard Francis Law looks on as Pope Francis celebrates Mass in 2016 in Vatican City.
Law never faced criminal sanctions for his role in allowing abusive priests to remain in parishes. The scandal reverberated through the church, exposing similar allegations worldwide that compromised its moral authority and led to years of multimillion-dollar settlements.
Law will get a full cardinal's funeral at the Vatican's St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday afternoon, with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, presiding. Pope Francis will give a "final commendation," or blessing, as he has for cardinals' funerals previously.
Survivors recount betrayal
To his detractors, Law's second career at the Vatican was a slap in the face to victims of clergy sex abuse, one that further undermined the church's legitimacy.
"Survivors of child sexual assault in Boston, who were first betrayed by Law's cover-up of sex crimes and then doubly betrayed by his subsequent promotion to Rome, were those most hurt," according to a statement after his death from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "No words can convey the pain these survivors and their loved ones suffered."
Pope open to married men becoming priests 04:17
The group advised the Vatican to keep the abuse survivors in mind when planning Law's funeral.
"Every single Catholic should ask Pope Francis and the Vatican why," the survivors' group said. "Why Law's life was so celebrated when Boston's clergy sex abuse survivors suffered so greatly? Why was Law promoted when Boston's Catholic children were sexually abused, ignored, and pushed aside time and time again?"
Widespread child abuse by the Catholic clergy in the Boston Archdiocese was uncovered by The Boston Globe's Spotlight investigative reporting team, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its efforts. A big-screen dramatization of the team's investigation in the 2015 movie, "Spotlight," won the 2016 Best Picture Academy Award, bringing the story to a much wider audience.
TIMELINE: A look at the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals
Law's successor as Boston's archbishop, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, reacted to Law's death in part by apologizing to victims of sex abuse by clergy.
"I recognize that Cardinal Law's passing brings forth a wide range of emotions on the part of many people. I am particularly cognizant of all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones," O'Malley said.
"Cardinal Law served at a time when the church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities. I deeply regret that reality and its consequences," O'Malley said.
However, he called it a "sad reality" that the scandal has come to define Law's legacy, overshadowing his work in the civil rights era and leadership in the interfaith movement following the Second Vatican Council.
"I think all of us are more than one dimensional and I think, to be realistic, we have to recognize that there was more to this man than his mistakes," he said in a news conference on Wednesday.
Rise of Boston's spiritual leader
Law was born in Torreon, Mexico, on November 4, 1931, to Helen and Bernard Law, an Air Force colonel. He completed his postgraduate studies at St. Joseph's Seminary in Louisiana and at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. He was ordained as a priest on May 21, 1961, in the diocese of Natchez-Jackson, Mississippi, and became vicar general of that diocese in 1971.
In 1973, he was appointed bishop of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese in southern Missouri. He served as chairman of the Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interracial Affairs, and in 1976, he was named to the Vatican Commission on Religious Relations with Jews.
The posts were stepping stones to his becoming the spiritual leader of Boston's large and influential Catholic community. In 1984, Pope John Paul II appointed Law to be the archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese, with its 362 parishes serving 2.1 million members. That same year, Law received a letter from a bishop expressing concerns about then-Rev. Geoghan. Law assigned Geoghan to another parish despite the allegations.
In 1985, Pope John Paul II elevated Law to cardinal, one of just 13 Americans holding that office at the time.
A Catholic Church cover-up? 03:16
Calls for resignation
Law attempted to resign as archbishop of Boston in April 2002, but Pope John Paul II rejected his request. In 2002, a judge presiding over the child rape case of the Rev. Paul Shanley ordered Cardinal Law to be deposed by lawyers of one of Shanley's victims.
Law testified about his supervision of Geoghan in 2002, saying he relied on his assistants to investigate charges of abuse. In May 2002, he apologized for his role in the clergy abuse scandal in a letter distributed throughout the archdiocese. But he denied knowledge of sexual abuse allegations against Shanley until 1993.
In August 2002, Law appeared in court to testify about a settlement reached between the archdiocese of Boston and victims of clergy abuse. The archdiocese rescinded the monetary offer shortly afterward.
That December, as calls grew for him to resign, Law was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury investigating "possible criminal violations by church officials who supervised priests accused of sexually abusing children." Days later, he resigned as chairman of the board of trustees of the Catholic University of America, followed by his resignation as archbishop of Boston.
Catholic Church abuses under scrutiny
The breakdown of trust in the Catholic Church continues to reverberate around the world.
Archbishop: 'This is a shameful past' 01:03
This month, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse delivered, after five years of work, 189 recommendations to address what it described as a "serious failure" by Australia's institutions to protect its most vulnerable citizens.
The country's senior Catholic leaders, however, rejected recommendations by the wide-reaching investigation, declining to end mandatory celibacy for priests and break the secrecy of confession.
Of survivors who reported abuse in a religious institution, more than 60% said it occurred in a Catholic organization, the report found.
When asked if he forgave Law, O'Malley said that forgiveness is what Christianity is all about. But he acknowledged that in Law's case, forgiveness did not come easy.
"Hopefully, out of this, it will help to remind all of our Catholics that this is not something that has been solved," he said Wednesday. "The healing is still necessary and we must all be vigilant, particularly for prevention of child abuse."
He surmised, though, that the church would handle such transgressions differently today.
"I think there's a much greater understanding and sensitivity to the situation," he said. "There's been enough growth and consciousness of this problem in the Holy See that that would not happen.
CNN's Delia Gallagher, Hada Messia and Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report.
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