Catholic Church Spent Millions Providing For Pedophile Priests

[stromboli]

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/catholic-church-spent-millions-providing-for-paedophile-priests-20160109-gm2f4z.html

The Catholic Church has spent millions of dollars providing pensions, housing, and private medical insurance to convicted paedophile priests despite branding them "evil" and having most defrocked.

The Melbourne archdiocese alone is still financially supporting six former priests who have been convicted for committing sex crimes against children.

Parishioners have unwittingly been partly funding the assistance through their donations into church collection plates, which they believed went towards the local church or  fundraising for retired priests.

Church records show two of the paedophiles, priests Wilfred Baker and David Daniel, received hundreds of thousands of dollars alone in annual pensions and entitlements. 

Their victims received one-off payments of $31,000 to $37,000 under the church's Melbourne Response redress scheme.
The decision to continue financially supporting disgraced priests was made by senior church figures in Melbourne and the top advisory council at the Vatican, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

A spokesman for the archdiocese of Melbourne said the church is currently providing support to six priests with criminal convictions for child sex crimes, including four who have been "laicised" or defrocked.

Nine other priests have received pensions, housing stipends or private health insurance after their convictions and until their deaths. Many of them had also been defrocked.

"We want to stress that the process as it was through the 1990s and into the 2000s has been changing significantly to a point where now the support is of extremely modest nature," said Shane Healy, director of media and communications for the archdiocese.

The church is obligated under canon law to support all priests in retirement and old age, but the assistance provided to convicted priests was now "very low", according to the spokesman.

Among those who received lifetime assistance was Father Wilfred "Bill" Baker, who molested at least 21 children.
The church had received complaints about him as early as 1978. He pleaded guilty to to 16 counts of indecent assault and 1 count of gross indecency in 1999.

The year before, Baker had been allowed to "retire",  a euphemism the church regularly used for priests who were stood down over sex abuse allegations.

The Priests Retirement Foundation paid Baker a pension and housing stipend worth $21,000 a year, as well as covered the costs of his car payments, registration and medical and automotive insurance. The church believes Baker was only priest to ever receive any financial assistance for car.

Adjusting for inflation, the pension and stipend payments would be worth about $33,000 a year now.
In 2010, the assistance was made conditional on Baker obeying an agreement that forbade him to leave his accommodation without permission, approach children or adolescents, celebrate mass in public, or "draw attention to himself".
He died in 2014 ahead of facing new charges.

In contrast, Baker's victims received an average one-off compensation payment of just $31,000 under the Melbourne Response.
Not all priests were treated the same, but the church's commitment to them was lifelong. No financial support was ever provided while they were in prison.

Father Desmond Gannon was convicted of sex crimes on five separate occasions over the past two decades â€" in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2009 â€" and the church cared for him up until his death.

At various times the support has included a pension, rental allowance and private health insurance.
In 2002, the archdiocese slashed his payments in recognition that the level of support being provided was "no longer appropriate" or consistent with the "Church's response to issues relating to abuse of power and trust".
Another convicted priest, David Daniel, was told the same year his stipend would be reduced to $12,000 a year.
But cutting them off completely was never considered an option.

In 2011, Archbishop Denis Hart petitioned to have Gannon defrocked by the Vatican because he had "perpetrated so much evil" and his continued presence in the church was a "cause of scandal to the faithful".

"I do believe dismissal is imperative yet we will not neglect to care for him in his older age," Archbishop Hart wrote.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith refused the request, twice, due to concerns about his "advanced age and his feebleness".

Gannon died in April 2015 at an aged-care facility that cost up to $21,700 a year.
By comparison, the priest's 22 known victims received an average one-off payment of just $33,000 under the Melbourne Response.

The church also continued to support Michael Glennon for nearly four decades in between prison stints from his first of five convictions in 1978, being defrocked in 1999 and his death two years ago.
The contrast in treatment between abuse victims and perpetrators has outraged Anthony Foster, the father of two of Father Kevin O'Donnell's 49 victims.

The church offered $50,000 compensation for the trauma suffered by one of his daughters.
O'Donnell, on the other hand, was eligible for a pension and housing stipend between his "retirement" as an honoured pastor emeritus in 1992, conviction in 1995 and death in 1997.

The designation entitled a retired priest to additional remuneration and allowances because of its prestige.
"It's horrific to think they offered Emma only $50,000 as way to move forward over the rest of her life, yet the church was willing to support a priest they knew was convicted and deserved nothing else than to have to go out into society and fend for himself once he was out of prison," Mr Foster told The Sunday Age.

O'Donnell's victims received an average one-off compensation payment of $31,000 each under the Melbourne Response.
Documents tendered to the royal commission also detail how past and current church leaders â€" including now Cardinal George Pell â€" took an active role in creating the support system.

In September 1996, then Archbishop of Melbourne Pell chaired a discussion about how three jailed priests â€" Desmond Gannon, Kevin O'Donnell and Michael Glennon â€" "can be helped" after their release.

"Possibility of a place (self-contained flat) in Box Hill. Father McMahon mentioned the need for treatment and was invited by the Archbishop to propose what is needed to assist them," the minutes said.

The royal commission would later find that Gannon's financial arrangements were orchestrated in such a way that the "support would not be likely to become public".

Then Archbishop Pell also personally ordered that Wilfred Baker be provided with the top-line pension of a pastor emeritus in 1998 despite being aware of his offending.

That same year, he also sanctioned payments to suspected paedophile Peter Searson, telling him he was entitled to the same benefits as "priests in circumstances similar to yours".

The Priests Retirement Fund, which is largely funded by contributions from parishioners, was the entity used to support disgraced priests until recently.  The archdiocese of Melbourne says it now pays for their upkeep.

"Every bishop has a requirement to provide a minimum living support for all priests, regardless of who they are," Archbishop Hart testified before the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse in 2013.

The church has declined to comment on the total cost of supporting the 15 priests that have been convicted of child sex crimes or 15 other priests who have been identified as abusers but were never convicted in a criminal court.
The figure is likely to be at least several million dollars in total based on known payments to a number of the priests.
A representative of the archdiocese said the level support provided to convicted priests was determined on a case by case basis but was now "minor".

"Private medical insurance is maintained to ensure these priests are not a burden on the taxpayer, and each priest's financial circumstance is reviewed and decisions made according to their capacity to care for themselves. In some circumstances the archdiocese would provide rental accommodation at a modest level," Mr Healy said.
"No one who is incarcerated ever gets any assistance or benefits while in prison."

The logic to anyone not involved would seem to be that divesting themselves of pedophiles and punishing them harshly would send a better message to parishioners and to the world that the church was honestly and aggressively going after these people.

That they don't and move these people to out of the way places and support them financially is an indicator that their attitude is more to protect each other than their parishioners.

That the Catholic church in this day and age still denounces birth control, the use of condoms and has no aggressive approach to the treatment of AIDS and other sexually related disease issues ought to also be an indicator that they are more concerned about furthering a religious agenda over that of the health and welfare of their members.

IOW protect the brotherhood and the institution before you protect the members. Nice people.

[Randy Carson]

Alternatively, they can do EXACTLY what they are doing because the pedophile priests are still human beings who need basic things like health care.

Isn't caring for the sick, the elderly, and the poor what Jesus taught?

Isn't forgiving those who have sinned what Jesus was all about?

So, if the Catholic Church turned its back on these priests, you'd be thrilled, but that isn't what Christianity preaches, is it?

Then you'd be crowing about how the Church wasn't practicing what it preaches to others.

[Baruch]

Alternatively, they can do EXACTLY what they are doing because the pedophile priests are still human beings who need basic things like health care.

Isn't caring for the sick, the elderly, and the poor what Jesus taught?

Isn't forgiving those who have sinned what Jesus was all about?

So, if the Catholic Church turned its back on these priests, you'd be thrilled, but that isn't what Christianity preaches, is it?

Then you'd be crowing about how the Church wasn't practicing what it preaches to others.

Tricky.  Depends on if you believe in cheap grace, or if you think that the offending priests haven't repented enough.  Not enough to confess this in secret in a funny booth with another priest on the other side of the screen.  People who repent should get grace.

[Randy Carson]

Tricky.  Depends on if you believe in cheap grace, or if you think that the offending priests haven't repented enough.  Not enough to confess this in secret in a funny booth with another priest on the other side of the screen.  People who repent should get grace.

Cheap grace?

Wow. You've read Bonhoeffer? I'll be impressed.

[stromboli]

A priest who has knowingly performed acts as a pedophile while having authority in a diocese has committed a crime. To make the assumption that god will deal with it, while very Catholic, and then sending the pedophile to another location where he can ostensibly perform those acts again, is not punishment. The perpetrator's age or health is a side issue.

By comparison, if a beloved uncle is found to have raped or sexually abused relatives and friends of relatives and the church is not involved, does this imply that the health and well being of the perpetrator is greater than the victims? Is the state going to remove the perpetrator from the neighborhood to another state or country and provide health care and living expenses to the pedophile? The logical outcome should be punishment to fit the crime. Too bad uncle is old and having health issues. If we subvert a standard of law and punishment based on conditional application, pretty much obviates the point of the law to begin with.

The Catholic church by their actions have placed themselves above local law and moral authority. I don't care how old your religion is, laws of the state and the well being of the victim trumps any rights, implied or otherwise, of the perpetrator.

[Randy Carson]

A priest who has knowingly performed acts as a pedophile while having authority in a diocese has committed a crime.

Agreed. And the perpetrator of that crime should be prosecuted and punished.

To make the assumption that god will deal with it, while very Catholic, and then sending the pedophile to another location where he can ostensibly perform those acts again, is not punishment. The perpetrator's age or health is a side issue.

While I disagree with the motives of the bishops who made those decisions in the 60's and 70's, I have the benefit of hindsight. I think EVERYONE sees the error now.

By comparison, if a beloved uncle is found to have raped or sexually abused relatives and friends of relatives and the church is not involved, does this imply that the health and well being of the perpetrator is greater than the victims? Is the state going to remove the perpetrator from the neighborhood to another state or country and provide health care and living expenses to the pedophile? The logical outcome should be punishment to fit the crime. Too bad uncle is old and having health issues. If we subvert a standard of law and punishment based on conditional application, pretty much obviates the point of the law to begin with.

Again, who can argue with what you say? I'll simply point out that the public schools have been guilty of doing the same thing and in even greater numbers. But the Catholic Church is still everyone's favorite whipping boy.

The Catholic church by their actions have placed themselves above local law and moral authority. I don't care how old your religion is, laws of the state and the well being of the victim trumps any rights, implied or otherwise, of the perpetrator.

Well, it was by God's actions, but I understand your point.

[Baruch]

Common and unpunished sexual assault of children in US public schools?  I have heard of inappropriate underage relationships with teachers who should know better.  Statutory pedophilia.  Are school district officials covering up and reassigning guilty teachers to other school districts?  Only if they were parochial schools ;-(  And no, the "whipping boy" title was earned by the length and breadth of the abuses, and the deliberate coverup ... which is not occurring in the public schools to my knowledge.  This didn't happen in Protestant churches to my knowledge either.  Though some pastors have been guilty of hypocrisy regarding fornication and gay behavior with other adults.

[Randy Carson]

Common and unpunished sexual assault of children in US public schools?  I have heard of inappropriate underage relationships with teachers who should know better.  Statutory pedophilia.  Are school district officials covering up and reassigning guilty teachers to other school districts?  Only if they were parochial schools ;-(  And no, the "whipping boy" title was earned by the length and breadth of the abuses, and the deliberate coverup ... which is not occurring go the public schools to my knowledge.  This didn't happen in Protestant churches to my knowledge either.  Though some pastors have been guilty of hypocrisy regarding fornication and gay behavior with other adults.

Yes. Covering it up and reassigning teachers.

You can Google this. I think the Washington Post ran a story some time back. The Huffington Post (no relation) ran this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/06/16-new-york-teacher-accus_n_1409184.html

Remember, these are just the cases that we know of. There are probably many more instances of teachers being quietly reassigned to avoid lawsuits, etc.

The school systems (and Protestant churches, btw) have a higher rate of sexual misconduct than the Catholic Church.

[Mr.Obvious]

Perhaps we should nominate them for the 'Not-as-big-of-a-Jerk-as-you-could-have-been' award, if that's the case.

[Randy Carson]

Perhaps we should nominate them for the 'Not-as-big-of-a-Jerk-as-you-could-have-been' award, if that's the case.

My own theory is this:

We can probably agree that countries like the United States and the Soviet Union have spies that operate within each other's borders. And when possible, they would try to plant moles or operatives that are buried deep within the other sides' institutions and capable of providing information or even influencing the other sides' decision-making process. With me so far?

If there is a God and if His adversary, the fallen angel, Satan, really exists, then it is not inconceivable that Satan, too, would try plant his operatives within the Catholic Church in order to discredit God's work on earth.

[stromboli]

My own theory is this:

We can probably agree that countries like the United States and the Soviet Union have spies that operate within each other's borders. And when possible, they would try to plant moles or operatives that are buried deep within the other sides' institutions and capable of providing information or even influencing the other sides' decision-making process. With me so far?

If there is a God and if His adversary, the fallen angel, Satan, really exists, then it is not inconceivable that Satan, too, would try plant his operatives within the Catholic Church in order to discredit God's work on earth.

Or it could be the more likely scenario that human beings in an institutionalized and embedded organization that has gotten away with murder, genocide and pedophilia for centuries is doing everything to shove the garbage under the rug rather than to deal with it, because they don't want the outside world to know they are all aware of it and for that reason all tacitly involved. Latest and greatest was that Pope Benedict's brother, George Ratzinger, was either knowledgeable of or complicit in child abuse

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/11/children_abused_in_choir_led_by_ex_pope_s_brother_investigator_says.html

An investigator commissioned by a famous German boys' choir says that more than 200 children in the choir were abused physically and sexually between 1953 and 1992, many by the director of an affiliated school; the choir itself was led between 1964 and 1994 by Georg Ratzinger, a priest whose brother Joseph served as Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 through 2013, and the investigator says he "must assume" that Georg Ratzinger had at least some knowledge of the abuse. Ratzinger is not accused of committing any of the alleged crimes.

And were back to that "knowledge of, therefore tacitly involved in" thing.  No wait, let's put the blame on the kiddies for tempting the brethren with their pert little behinds or blame it on a (not provable) being called Satan, because these good brethren are all the spokespeople for the (not provable) god of all.

Looks like the information age and closer scrutiny have outed the bad people. So if you want to be an apologist for these monsters go right ahead, but the preponderance of evidence that is continually mounting is making that Catholic rug kind of lumpy, if you know what I mean.

[Randy Carson]

Or it could be the more likely scenario that human beings in an institutionalized and embedded organization that has gotten away with murder, genocide and pedophilia for centuries is doing everything to shove the garbage under the rug rather than to deal with it, because they don't want the outside world to know they are all aware of it and for that reason all tacitly involved. Latest and greatest was that Pope Benedict's brother, George Ratzinger, was either knowledgeable of or complicit in child abuse

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/11/children_abused_in_choir_led_by_ex_pope_s_brother_investigator_says.html

And were back to that "knowledge of, therefore tacitly involved in" thing.  No wait, let's put the blame on the kiddies for tempting the brethren with their pert little behinds or blame it on a (not provable) being called Satan, because these good brethren are all the spokespeople for the (not provable) god of all.

Looks like the information age and closer scrutiny have outed the bad people. So if you want to be an apologist for these monsters go right ahead, but the preponderance of evidence that is continually mounting is making that Catholic rug kind of lumpy, if you know what I mean.

I don't recall attempting to deny that these things occurred.

I simply offered a theory as they WHY they happened.

I can't help but note that some people seem genuinely annoyed to learn that the Catholic Church has actually had fewer problems with matters like this than other common institutions.

[stromboli]

And I can't help but note that any number of religious organizations have perpetrated these kind of atrocities. Religious people are supposed to be the moral examples to the world, correct? It isn't just Catholicism. Mormon leader in the Boy Scouts, the Duggars, Protestant clerics and so on. The point being that there are any number of acts of pedophilia and child abuse and worse from institutions that insist on holding themselves as authoritarian without any real evidence other than claimed beliefs, and then work to hide the truth when it comes to the surface.

Surprising that individuals who claim to be the mouthpiece of god in any capacity can find it in themselves to do these things? Not to me. Religious institutions are responsible for violent and monstrous actions for centuries, not just recently. Religion is nothing but an excuse for bad behavior and the means to justify it afterwards.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

News flash!  Churches corrupt!  In other news the world's foremost scientists discover the abundance of wetness to water, but the wetness deniers are running congress.

[Mr.Obvious]

My own theory is this:

We can probably agree that countries like the United States and the Soviet Union have spies that operate within each other's borders. And when possible, they would try to plant moles or operatives that are buried deep within the other sides' institutions and capable of providing information or even influencing the other sides' decision-making process. With me so far?

Lol, no. The concept of international espionage is completely foreign to me. :p
No, yeah sure.

If there is a God and if His adversary, the fallen angel, Satan, really exists, then it is not inconceivable that Satan, too, would try plant his operatives within the Catholic Church in order to discredit God's work on earth.

Big if. And not only that but if there is a Catholic God, as I understood him growing up, being all-powerful and all-knowing, any operatives within the majestic institution that glorifies his earthian mouthpiece  would be there of his own will and design.

I can't help but note that some people seem genuinely annoyed to learn that the Catholic Church has actually had fewer problems with matters like this than other common institutions.

Not sure if I'm one of those people you assume to be genuinely annoyed, but if so, let me assure you it's not the case.
Sure, there is a problem I take with comparing these institutions in a simplified manner. As stating one has done more than the other is not something one could do without a proper study and taking the relative size of the comparable groups into consideration.  As well as other factors.
For instance: There were, according to this one source about 3.5 million full-time-equivalent elementary and secondary teachers in classrooms in the USA in 2013, 3.1 million of which teached in public schools. (Source: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28) And to put that in perspective, in 2014 there were apparently 38.275 thousand catholic priests in the USA. And world-wide just 414.313 priests. (Source: http://cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html) Now, I'll admit I just googled these results and don't claim them to be infallible or completely accurate, but they only need to serve the purpose here to show that the groups vastly differ in size and thus the observed phenomenon must be eyed with that factor in mind. That's just basics in sociological research. Othe factors that must be taken into account are how many young ones they reach and... Interesting stuff from a researcher's point of view, honestly.
What I AM genuinely annoyed about, however, is the insinuation I seemingly, and admittedly subjectively, notice in which 'A' is claimed to be not that bad because 'B' is supposedly even worse.
You want to complain about the catholic church being the whipping boy? I promise I'll stop when they stop protecting boy-whippers. Until then, they'll have no sympathy from me and they deserve all the shit they get, and then some.
You want to complain about abuse in schools being swept under the rug; be my guest. I'm fairly certain most of us will agree all possible steps against that must be taken. All guilty partners must be punished. All hiding of it must cease. I'm fairly certain it could be an interesting thread. But go ahead and make it it's own thread rather than putting it here as a lightning-rod for the RCC.