Explosive Report on Catholic Church Abuse, Protections for pedophile priests, Ritual Abuse Conference - Dr. Randy Noblitt and Neil Brick

 

-  Why the Explosive Report on Catholic Church Abuse Is Unlikely to Yield Criminal Charges

-  Tear down the protections for pedophile priests

-  The Credibility of Ritual Abuse Allegations

- Changes in Awareness of Severe Abuse and Child Abuse Crimes Over Twenty Five Years

-  Child and Ritual Abuse Conference Helps Educate Survivors and Their Helpers 

 

 

Why the Explosive Report on Catholic Church Abuse Is Unlikely to Yield Criminal Charges
By Dan Levin Aug. 15, 2018

 

The searing grand jury report issued Tuesday in Pennsylvania that accuses bishops and other Roman Catholic Church leaders in that state of covering up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests has prompted growing calls for justice, while leaving Americans wondering about the broader impact of the revelations on the church and other institutions.

 

But a web of legal barriers stands in the way of prosecuting most of the cases, and efforts to ease those barriers have repeatedly run into political opposition and fierce lobbying by the church and other groups. Pennsylvania lags behind many other states in coming to grips with the problem, despite a series of grand jury investigations stretching back 15 years....

The nearly 900-page grand jury report is unlikely to lead to any new criminal charges or civil lawsuits over the abuse that it catalogs, because the statute of limitations has expired on those cases. Current state law allows victims of abuse as children 12 years to sue after they come of age at 18, meaning they must do so by age 30. Criminal complaints must be filed by the time the victim is 50. Those rules leave the vast majority of abuse survivors, who came forward later in life — the grand jury said they include people as old as 83 — with no legal recourse. Only two of the cases in the report have so far led to criminal charges....
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/us/pennsylvania-sex-abuse-statute-of-limitations.html

 

 

Tear down the protections for pedophile priests
By Editorial Board August 20
IN AN extraordinary communique to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis on Monday acknowledged the “atrocities” committed by pedophile priests and the church hierarchy that systematically covered up their crimes, recognized the inadequacy of efforts “to beg pardon” and admitted that the victims’ “wounds never go away.” In so doing, the pontiff provided a powerful rationale for dropping the church’s long-standing opposition to allowing decades-old cases of rape and molestation by priests to be subject to prosecution and lawsuits.

 

At last, after years of half-measures and tone-deaf remarks, the pope seems to have woken up to the scale of abuse and corruption sanctioned by the church. The question now is whether he is willing or able to turn the tide of institutional resistance in the Vatican and dioceses worldwide that too often has blocked victims from seeking justice and recompense....

Many states have extended or dropped limits on the number of years within which prosecutors are able to charge child sexual abuse felonies. In other states, including Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, efforts to extend criminal statutes of limitations have failed. And the church has spent millions of dollars fighting changes in statutes of limitations to give victims, who often cannot speak for decades about the abuse they suffered as children, more time to bring civil lawsuits.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tear-down-the-protections-for-pedophile-priests/2018/08/20/f2d6376a-a4ab-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html

 

The Credibility of Ritual Abuse Allegations
Presenter: Randy Noblitt, PhD
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/the-credibility-of-ritual-abuse-allegations/

 

Changes in Awareness of Severe Abuse and Child Abuse Crimes Over Twenty Five Years Presenter: Neil Brick
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/changes-in-awareness-of-severe-abuse-and-child-abuse-crimes-over-twenty-five-years/

 

Child and Ritual Abuse Conference Helps Educate Survivors and Their Helpers; Speakers included Dr. Randy Noblitt and Neil Brick
https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=227656

Dutch Church Is Accused of Castrating Young Men, Sexual predators rarely committed

articles:
- Dutch Church Is Accused of Castrating Young Men
- Catholic church abuse: inspectors knew minors were castrated
- Sexual predators rarely committed under Justice program
- ‘Standing Silent’ follows uncovering of sexual abuse in Baltimore’s Orthodox Jewish community

Dutch Church Is Accused of Castrating Young Men
By STEPHEN CASTLE
March 20, 2012

BRUSSELS - A young man in the care of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands was surgically castrated decades ago after complaining about sexual abuse, according to new evidence that only adds to the scandal engulfing the church there.

The case, which dates from the 1950s, has increased pressure for a government-led inquiry into sexual abuse in the Dutch church, amid suspicions that as many as 10 young men may have suffered the same fate.

“This case is especially painful because it concerns a victim who was victimized for a second time,” said Peter Nissen, a professor of the history of religion at Radboud University in the Netherlands. “He had the courage to go to the police and was castrated.”

It is unclear, however, whether the reported castration was performed as a punishment for whistle-blowing or what was seen as a treatment for homosexuality.

In 2010, about 2,000 people complained of abuse by priests, church institutions or religious orders in the Netherlands after the Roman Catholic Church commissioned an inquiry. It finally concluded that the number of actual victims over several decades could be 10 times higher.

That committee, led by Wim Deetman, a former education minister, was presented with evidence of the castration case when it was contacted by a friend of the young man, who was castrated in 1956, two years before his death in a road accident....

The victim, Henk Heithuis, lived in Catholic institutions from infancy after being taken into care. When he complained about sexual abuse to the police, Mr. Heithuis, 20 at the time, was transferred to a Catholic psychiatric hospital before being admitted to the St. Joseph Hospital in Veghel, where he was castrated....

Mr. Dohmen, the investigative journalist who broke the news in the daily NRC Handelsblad, said that correspondence from the 1950s and Mr. Heithuis’s testimony to Mr. Rogge suggested that there could have been an additional nine cases....

Mr. Dohmen said that the man accused of abusing Mr. Heithuis was investigated but not prosecuted. He was transferred to Nova Scotia, where he started a home for boys.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/world/europe/dutch-church-accused-of-castrating-10-young-men.html


Catholic church abuse: inspectors knew minors were castrated
Monday 19 March 2012

Government inspectors were aware that minors were being castrated while being looked after in Catholic-run psychiatric institutions, local paper the Limburger reported on Monday.
The NRC reported on Saturday at least one boy under the age of 16 was castrated to 'help' his homosexual feelings while in Catholic church care in the 1950s.

Minutes of meetings held in the 1950s show inspectors were present when the castrations were openly discussed, the Limburger said. The minutes also showed directors of the institutions did not think parents needed to be involved in the decision-making process when minors were involved.

Report
But there are indications at least 10 other boys were also castrated, the NRC reported on Saturday. The claims were not included in the Deetman report on sexual abuse within the Catholic church which was published at the end of last year....

The Deetman committee was set up by the church itself in 2010 after the sexual abuse scandal broke. It reported in December having identified some 800 priests and monks who abused children in their care between 1945 and 1985.
In addition, church officials, bishops and lay people were aware of what was going on but failed to take action to protect children, the report said.

Politician
The NRC also said on Saturday the final Deetman report did not mention that a leading politician with the Catholic people's party KVP had tried to have prison sentences dropped against several priests accused of abusing children in 1958. Vic Marijnen, who went on to become prime minister in 1963, was chairman of the children's home where Henk Heithuis and dozens of other children were abused until 1959. http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2012/03/catholic_church_abuse_inspecto.php



Sexual predators rarely committed under Justice program
By Brad Heath, USA TODAY

3/20/12 BUTNER, N.C. – Inside the sprawling federal prison here is a place the government reserves for the worst of the worst — sexual predators too dangerous to be set free. Six years ago, the federal government set out to indefinitely detain some of the nation's most dangerous sex offenders, keeping them locked up even after their prison sentences had ended.

But despite years of effort, the government has so far won court approval for detaining just 15 men.

Far more often, men the U.S.Justice Department branded as "sexually dangerous" predators remained imprisoned here for years without a mandatory court hearing before the government was forced to let them go, a USA TODAY investigation has found. The Justice Department has either lost or dropped its cases against 61 of the 136 men it sought to detain. Some were imprisoned for more than four years without a trial before they were freed.

Dozens of others are still waiting for their day in court. They remain in a prison unit where authorities and former detainees said explicit drawings of children are commonplace, but where few of the men have received any treatment for the disorders that put them there.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-03-13/dangerous-sexual-predators-detained/53621210/1?loc=interstitialskip



USA Today: Sexual predators rarely committed under DOJ program
By James R. Marsh on March 20, 2012


USA Today has an excellent investigative article on the DOJ's federal civil commitment program for sexually dangerous sex offenders. Not surprisingly, many of those requiring indeterminate incarceration were convicted of child pornography crimes.

According to the article:

Six years ago, the federal government set out to indefinitely detain some of the nation's most dangerous sex offenders, keeping them locked up even after their prison sentences had ended.

But despite years of effort, the government has so far won court approval for detaining just 15 men.

The Justice Department has either lost or dropped its cases against 61 of the 136 men it sought to detain.

Dozens of others are still waiting for their day in court. They remain in a prison unit where authorities and former detainees said explicit drawings of children are commonplace, but where few of the men have received any treatment for the disorders that put them there.

Despite that, neither the Justice Department nor other watchdog agencies have offered any public assessment of how well the federal civil commitment law works.

We have repeatedly pointed out that individuals incarcerated for possession, receipt and distribution of child pornography are significantly more likely than not to have sexually abused a child via a hands-on act. http://www.childlaw.us/2012/03/usa-today-sexual-predators-rar.html


‘Standing Silent’ follows uncovering of sexual abuse in Baltimore’s Orthodox Jewish community By Emily Wax, March 19, 2012

One by one the victims stood and described their alleged molesters: the Torah teacher, the rabbi, the ice cream truck driver, the man at the mikvah.

That meeting, held nearly six years ago in a small room in a synagogue in Pikes­ville, just outside Baltimore, went on for four hours. Seated in a circle with the other victims was Phil Jacobs, a Baltimore Jewish Times journalist. He was not there as a reporter. He was there because he, too, had experienced sexual abuse.

But after the meeting, a young man who knew Jacobs was a journalist approached and asked to be interviewed, to have his story told. That was the beginning of Jacobs’s effort to document sexual abuse in Baltimore’s Orthodox Jewish community, bringing the harrowing experiences shared by the 18 victims in that room out into the open.

The first of his stories, “Today, Steve is 25” was published in February 2007, 10 months after the Pikes­ville meeting.

That process of reporting and writing has been made into a documentary film, “Standing Silent,” directed by Scott Rosenfelt and now being shown at film festivals across the country. Partially funded by a Sundance Institute grant, it details how Jacobs, an Orthodox Jew himself, has been credited with — and criticized for — uncovering a painful secret in Baltimore’s Orthodox community....

There are no hard numbers to document the extent of the problem, but Elaine Witman, director of the Shofar Coalition, a nonprofit agency that provides services for victims of sexual and other abuse in the Baltimore area’s Jewish community, says the center is seeing an increase in the number of Jews coming forward to report abuse. In 2010, 67 people requested help for childhood sexual abuse from the coalition. That number nearly doubled in 2011, to 132 people, said Witman, who attributes the increase to Jacobs’s articles and the coalition’s efforts toreduce the shame that has kept the issue quiet for so long.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/documentary-standing-silent-recounts-efforts-to-uncover-abuse-in-orthodox-community/2012/02/28/gIQAewi9NS_story.html