Sex abuse priest beaten to death (CBS)

[Endangered Specie]

(AP) A retired Roman Catholic priest who admitted molesting three altar boys in 1995 was found beaten to death at his home, police said Saturday.

Joseph Pilger, 78, was found dead in his home Friday night. An autopsy Saturday found the cause of death to be multiple blunt force injuries, according to the Fayette County coroner. The death is being investigated as a homicide.
...


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/07/national/main587218.shtml

Lord works in mysterious ways?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. So are you saying the Lord ordered up his beating death?

[aquart]

3. You saying He didn't?

[joeybee12]

7. Are you saying you know either way????

[hang a left]

40. "Thou shall not kill".......God

Period, end of story.

[SemperEadem]

54. Funny--- and The Inquisition and its relationship with murder?

[TexasMexican]

58. ...

which really means "thou shall not murder."

[Endangered Specie]

5. Just something that came to mind

Ive heard Catholics suggest that death can be 'ordered' (to use your term) or condoned by God.

(Also, now that I think about it, reminds me of a L&O episode where a priest says he was ordered by god to kill a drug dealer)

Poetic justice, some would say.

Notice the question mark I used

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. I noticed...so are you suggesting this man's brutal murder

was poetic justice or not?

I daily notice DU'er complaining that the constitution has been hijacked but recontextualizing where convenient.

I never noticed the item you contribute to Catholics, i.e. of death being ordered so I can't comment.

[Endangered Specie]

12. "some would say"

I don't condone capital punishment, but I also believe that what goes around can sometimes come around; doesn't make it right; but it happens either way.

The 'catholics' I am talking about are from personal experience.

[TexasMexican]

15. I dont know about that, but...

the Catholic Church did give the go ahead for the Crusades so I guess there could be something to that.

Additionally, it isnt killing that is a sin, its murder. The "thou shall not kill" in the ten comandments is supposidly a mistranslantion that originally said "thou shall not murder."

Also you have the fact that if you think God came down and personally told you do to something for him wouldnt you do it? Yeah sure everyone else will think you are crazy or something (maybe you really are), but if you honestly believe that God asked you to do something for him would you tell him no?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

24. Like that mom in Texas who drowned her kids because God

told her to?

[TexasMexican]

25. could be

maybe god did tell her to kill them, or maybe she was crazy.

Either way god didnt tell the rest of us that it was okay for her to do that, so if she hasnt been already, I think she should be put to death.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

29. SO then you admit you are all over the place on this one and that

most people who would say God told them to do it are totally fucking nuts. Thank you.

[AndyTiedye]

32. They Have Places with Men in White Coats For People Like Her

Execution is barbaric.
Executing the mentally ill is even more so.

[Cheswick2.0]

49. you are in favor of putting crazy people to death?

how very right of you

[stevedeshazer]

26. !

:thumbsup:

[SemperEadem]

57. Not to mention the Papal Bull issued in the 16th century

"Regnans in Excelsis" by Pope Pius V absolved the subjects of Queen Elizabeth I of any sin if they undertook her murder to remove "the heretic" from the throne of England, return it back to the Catholic Church and place Mary Stuart of Scotland on it in its place. That's called, in present day terms, a contract hit. Put out by the church.

Regarding the 8,000 French protestant Huguenots who were massacred by Catholics: When the first rumours of the massacre reached the Vatican in Rome on 2 September 1572, pope Gregory XIII was jubilant and wanted bonfires to be lit in Rome. He was persuaded to wait for the official communication; the very morning of the day that he received the confirmed news, the pope held a consistory and announced that "God had been pleased to be merciful". Then with all the cardinals he repaired to the Church of St. Mark for the Te Deum, and prayed and ordered prayers that the Most Christian King might rid and purge his entire kingdom (of France) of the Huguenot plague.

On 8 September 1572 a procession of thanksgiving took place in Rome, and the pope, in a prayer after mass, thanked God for having "granted the Catholic people a glorious triumph over a perfidious race".


Murder/killing is a concept that is not lost on the Catholic Church. "in 'thou shalt not kill', the thou means you, not us.."

[Hobarticus]

60. George thinks God "chose him to be President"...

...and we know how we all feel about that.

[MoonAndSun]

2. Not the "Lord", but karma......

in a sense, "what you put out into the world will come back to you tenfold".

I do not condone revenge killing.

[joeybee12]

6. I don't buy that, but I hope you're right cuz then Dumbo is sure to get

a severe ass-thumping one of these days!

[joeybee12]

4. No, criminals work in mysterious ways

I can't imagine anyone could be happy over this.

Violence begets violence begets violence...oh, hell, you know the rest.

[TexasMexican]

17. not necessarily...

if two people kill each other then thier violence ends.

Althought I definatley wouldnt suggest that for the human race as a whole.

[JoFerret]

21. ...and they don't have families, connections, causes, countries?

Would it were that simple. We could have gladiators back to settle all disputes.

[catzies]

50. If that's so, then how do you explain the Middle East, Ireland et. al.?

Or, to put it another way with a quote from a great movie:

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

:wtf:

[hlthe2b]

9. I guess this makes two... since Geoghan murdered in prison...

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/24/geoghan/

[TexasMexican]

13. ...

yeah thats the guy I was thinking about, I didnt read all the posts before I posted.

[TexasMexican]

10. sometimes...

some vigilantism is good.

Who was that other guy who was in jail and going to go on trial, but they "supposidly" put him in a cell with someone who turned out to be a guy that the priest had molested years earlier.

That guy killed the priest in the cell.

I can honestly say I dont feel much remorse for the "victim" in these kinds of murder cases.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. Wow. That is a pretty sick interpretation of crime and punishment

Mob rule?

[TexasMexican]

14. sometimes it works.

Just because something is bad when it is done for all cases, doesnt mean that it cant be useful in some cases.

back in the day Mussolini got what he deserved at the hands of an angry mob, its ashame that Hitler or Milosevich didnt get similar treatment.

[sistersofmercy]

16. But as much as I detest child molestation and would in no way endorse

the beating to death of an elderly man. If it's the "an eye for an eye" reference, well, that is certainly not befitting here.

[Minstrel Boy]

28. sometimes I wonder

if I've wandered into freerepublic.

Beating him to death is justice?

[alfredo]

35. Maybe to the victims of the priest.

That beating death happened in my town. Under the genteel horse country, big money, veneer, there are a lot of dirty secrets.

I do not condone the beating death of the priest, but he knew full well that when he buggered those kids, he was putting his life at risk.

[JoFerret]

22. I doubt that

vigilantism is never a good. The law may be compromised but it is the best we have. just like deomcract itself. it may be flawed but try the other kind. Or education. Beating up elderly men can NEVER be a good thing. Nor is molesting children. One does not erase the other.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

30. Thankyou. I completely agree.

[0007]

33. Some vigilantism is good?

Give me a fucking break, will ya? Are you drunk?

[FreakinDJ]

18. I don't know

I was educated all the way through high school in catholic schools. I never heard of any killings to be condoned by God.

I have however seen all through history many kill in his name.

and please don't poliferate the many anti-catholic stories circulating out there. There are so many. I always beleived them to be part of the WASP thinking.

We all know there are problems currently in the catholic church. Its just that catholics are not bad folk and their belief in God is not evil either

[Catherine Vincent]

19. This was not the Lord's way.

This is really sad.

[JoFerret]

20. That is a disgraceful and unworthy remark

.

[Malva Zebrina]

23. the bible has many tales of justified killings

Indeed it is full of stories about the killings by the god, himself. It is part and parcel of the Lord's way, indeed, if you read the bible. The largest example being the tale of the flood perpetrated on his own creation out of his petulant anger.

Killing was also quite justifiable in early Christianity:-the burning and killing of a million women over time who were accused of witchcraft. The killing of Jews and others in ruthless inquisitions,and the killing of pagans and the destruction of their places of worship and libraries after Constantine made Christianity the state religion. Lots of killings done in the name of the god and deemed justified under that god.

One very outstanding example is the killing of a beautiful woman, the brilliant female mathemetician and philosopher-teacher, Hypatia--who was attacked and murdered by a mob of Christians in 5CE--beaten and dragged through the streets of Alexandria and literally killed by being carved up and dismembered with "tiles" or sharp tiled instruments. She was deemed a heretic--and it was OK under the bible and OK with the god to kill her, for committing the sin of heresy.

No, killing has been a part and parcel of the bible stories and consequently Christianity since it's beginnings. Sorry to throw a damper on anyone's faith and belief, but it is out there in black and white. The person who killed this retired pedophile priest , could have been a devout Christian and found a passage in the bible that condones this murder absolutely. It's in there somewhere, I have no doubt--the abortion doctor sniper killer and bombers found it with little trouble.

I just wonder why he was not imprisoned for his crimes after admitting to them in 1995. Or was he?

[foo_bar]

42. Hypatia Lee

Hypatia--who was attacked and murdered by a mob of Christians in 5CE

Wasn't Christ a little kid in 5CE?

[Malva Zebrina]

46. My very bad

thanks for pointing that out. I have discovered the real date of her torture and murder-- the date of Hypatia's murder was actually 415CE - 5th centuryCE Have I made any other errors?

Hypatia's prominence was accentuated by the fact that she was both female and pagan in an increasingly Christian environment. Shortly before her death, Cyril was made the Christian bishop of Alexandria, and a conflict arose between Cyril and the prefect Orestes. Orestes was disliked by some Christians and was a friend of Hypatia, and rumors started that Hypatia was to blame for the conflict. In the spring of 415 C.E., the situation reached a tragic conclusion when a band of Christian monks seized Hypatia on the street, beat her, and dragged her body to a church where they mutilated her flesh with sharp tiles and burned her remains.

Her works include:


A Commentary on the Arithmetica of Diophantus
A Commentary on the Conics of Apollonious
She edited the third book of her father's Commentary on the Almagest of Ptolemy

THERE WAS a woman at Alexandria named Hypatia, daughter of the philosopher Theon, who made such attainments in literature and science, as to far surpass all the philosophers of her own time. Having succeeded to the school of Plato and Plotinus, she explained the principles of philosophy to her auditors, many of whom came from a distance to receive her instructions. On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in going to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them, therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles.* After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. This happened in the month of March during Lent, in the fourth year of Cyril's episcopate, under the tenth consulate of Honorius, and the sixth of Theodosius.

http://cosmopolis.com/alexandria/hypatia-bio-socrates.html

[Dhalgren]

44. Hypatia was murdered in

the 5th century C.E. Otherwise, your comments are dead on. But let's get away from imagining what some mythical being might do or not do. We need to concentrate on what is right or wrong for us to do - individually and as a group. Murder is never a good thing, even when situationally unavoidable.

[oldcoot]

51. No, he was not imprisoned

According to the article, "Pilger received five years' probation beginning in January 1995" after his plea bargain. I would also like to know why he was not imprisoned for his crimes. Did the prosecutors really think that this was the best deal they could make? I also found it disturbing to read that a teenager started living with Pliger.

[mikehiggins]

27. According to the New Testament

even voting Republican wouldn't get Jesus as po'd as messing with kids. Something about being better off having a rock tied around your neck and being thrown into the ocean.

He seemed pretty hot on the topic, sort of like Dean of the topic of Shrub.

[LiviaOlivia]

31. Cycle of ruined lives

"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring
them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."

Ephesians 6:4

[Ellen Forradalom]

34. Tragic, all around.

A sordid end to a sordid life.

[Djinn]

36. as i don't believe in the "final justice"

I'm glad the scumbag got some on earth

[frank frankly]

37. this, to me, is justice, although I respect/understand the other posts

Pedophiles are the SCUM of the earth.

Save your compassion for their victims, who are CHILDREN.

Imagine it, a grown adult raping a child. What in the world could be worse? What is more fucked up? What else is more insane and destructive?

Also, to me, for the record, this has nothing to do with Catholicism. The fact this man was a priest is irrelevant. Yes, the Catholic Church has a rotten history up to the present regarding this, but that to me is not an indictment on the religion or Catholics.

If anybody should be removed from society, it is serial pedophiles, who are rarely convicted and if convicted given small sentences. And since we don't punish them legally or even acknowledge the scope of their influence and pathology, maybe this will scare a few of them and stop them. Or maybe it will get people like us at DU more aware of this serious, serious problem.

As someone who helped my girlfried put her stepfather in jail for child-rape, and someone who worked years in child pysch, I can say the justice system is wildly fucked up when it comes to this. We spent 2 years putting together a lock-solid case with the Assistant DA and various detectives, and he was convicted, and he went to jail for 18 months. He's been out for 10 years and is back working with children.

And this case is very uncommon because he went to jail at all. None of the monsters who abused the children I worked with went to jail. None.

I read a book about pedophiles once, it's timely now and a great read to boot:

http://www.incrediblythin.com/books_bookofspiral.php

[mobuto]

38. He wasn't murdered, he was executed.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

39. mysterious ways?

what's mysterious about it?
Someone thought the molester deserved to die a violent death.

Interesting but not mysterious when people take the law into their own hands.

How mysterious will it be when the the killer gets free room and board in the local pen?

Murderers fit in our society about as well as molesters do.

Someone just joined the low life club...
kinda like Bush did.
Judge Jury and Executioner.
that's mysterious alright!

mysterious how so many people in our so called "modern" advanced civilization are still cave men.

Let the evolution begin.

[Malva Zebrina]

41. pre-emptive attacks

and the Straussian notions embraced by a little man, George Bush, do tend to filter down and invade the collective national personality. I believe that--Bush is a bully--those who would cheer for him, those who would shout kick their ass, get their gas, and whose primitive, reptillian brain centers have been stimulated by their adored leader, may very well think that taking the law into their own hands is perfectly acceptable if they deem that person is a threat to anyone in the future.

[bvar22]

43. An Eye for an Eye...

...until the whole World is BLIND.

Are we a nation of Laws? Richard pearle has said that the Invasion of Iraq was against the LAW; but in this case they were right to break the LAW. I guess Richard Pearle sees himself and the bush* administration as Justified Vigilantes.

Most, if not all, of the people involved in the Night Raids and Lynchings of the KKK knew they were operating outside the LAW, but felt that it was a Good Thing!

Those advocating for Vigilantism here are in good company!

Hitler and Mousilinni should have been arrested and tried before an Intenational Criminal Court....as should bush*, cheney, rumsfield, Rice, wolfie, pearle, saddam, osama, faux news, and limbaugh.

[Just Me]

45. This thread is disturbing,...

,...I thought people erred on the side of the rule of law rather than some "divine" or "poetic" justice which opens a horrendous Pandora's Box,...in my humble view.

[hang a left]

48. just because the death penalty is lawful, does not make it right.

[Just Me]

56. How can you tie my opposition to this murder,...

,...to a position concerning the veracity of the death penalty (which I oppose, by the way)?

I simply don't believe anyone should take it upon themselves to be the prosecutor/judge/jury/executioner of another individual in any matter,...even this one. I cannot view this situation as something divine or poetic when someone took it upon him/herself to unilaterally impose a death penalty.

[Cheswick2.0]

47. no the Lord doesn't work in that way

interesting and tragic article. Deeply offensive comment by you.

[KansDem]

52. Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

There hasn't been much reported on the trials of priests accused of child molestation. And there hasn't been much reported on the convictions and sentencing of such offenders.

Given the news accounts regarding the scope of such behavior, I'm surprised. I would have thought there would have been more coverage of the trials of priests accused of this crime and the bishops who covered up such behavior.

Could it be that such violent acts like the one described in this article are in response to someone's frustration and perception that "nothing" is being done to punish those responsible?

[librechik]

53. Isn't this the second "jailed priest" death? Seems I recall something

from a few months back. Can't remember if it was murder or suicide though...

[KansDem]

55. I believe so...(see post #9)

Considering news accounts that this scandal involves hundreds(?) of priests (and church officials who knew about such abuse), it perplexes me why so few have been prosecuted...

I don't think the Chruch is doing itself a favor if it is covering up these abuses and allegations (considering the subject of the article).

[HEyHEY]

59. get's more and more disgusting

These things just spiral in tradgedy don't they?

[Nihil]

61. Not just in the US

Police in the UK are also encountering a "lack of cooperation" from
the public while investigating the murder of a paedophile in Redcar.
The man had been convicted, served some of his sentence and released
early (due to good behaviour) back into the community. It appears
that the community did not appreciate his presence very much.
A few people from the area stated that they were ashamed that almost
no-one was coming forward with information but the majority appear to
view it as "good riddance" and "understand the feelings of the people
involved". "Well, the police don't do anything about it do they?"

(Sorry no link - heard this on the radio on the way in this morning.)

Mixed feelings on this: I have no particular problem with child
abusers getting rough justice (leading to death or not) but am very
concerned about vigilante action that might involve an innocent party,
mistaken identity, victim of malicious gossip or whatever.

My choice would be not to beat the creature up but to move him to a
place that is both safe for him (or her) and for the people with whom
him would come into contact - i.e., not just those living next to him
but also those who he would meet at the shops, on the way into town, etc..

I would not be surprised to find someone flaming me on this but the
only people who are *entitled* to do so are those with young children
(i.e., potential victims) who are completely and honestly prepared to
have a known abuser living next to them. If you have no children, you
are unlikely to feel the same abhorrence and protective emotions.
If you are not prepared to tolerate such a person near you, you should
not be so hypocritical to force your pseudo-morality upon others.

Nihil