Priest Abuse Records Unsealed (Texas)

[Ian David]

Priest Abuse Records Unsealed

Category: Church and State
Posted on: November 30, 2006 9:43 AM, by Ed Brayton

A Federal judge in Dallas unsealed the records concerning a series of cases of sexual abuse by priests in a single diocese in Texas. The Dallas Morning News reports on what was in these records and it's stunning. A couple of examples:

1. Rev. Philip Magaldi. Magaldi. In 1997, the church finds him guilty of paying an 18 year old to give him enemas (after buying him drinks). Bishop Joseph Delaney decides that his punishment is to do some volunteer work. He does remove him from working with altar boys, but he leaves him as chaplain of the church's boy scouts program. The next year a man in Massachusetts comes forward to say that this priest had abused him back in the 70s when he was a priest in Rhode Island, also with enemas. He was briefly suspended but returned to the ministry in 1999, when he was again accused of sexual misconduct. Even after that, he was still allowed to continue in the ministry at a retirement home until a new bishop finally removed him.

2. Rev. James Reilly. He molested three young boys in the 70s. Bishop Delaney says that he had heard other "allusions" to previous incidents like this involving this priest, yet he told the Philadelphia Diocese, where Reilly had been moved, that he didn't think he was any threat to anyone. The Philadelphia diocese let him stay until his death in 1999. Meanwhile, several more men have come out and accused him of having abused them when they were children.

And here's the kicker: not one of these cases, over the course of several decades, was reported to the police. If the principal of a school found out that a teacher under his authority was molesting children and just transferred them to another school without reporting it to the police, that principal would be in jail. So should Bishop Delaney. He is an accessory after the fact and complicit in covering up multiple felonies. He should be in prison. And the same thing goes for Cardinal Law and every other Catholic Church official involved in every single case. The moment they heard a report of such abuse by a priest, they should have called the police. The fact that they failed to do so in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cases goes beyond negligence and becomes nothing less than aiding and abetting.

More:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/11/priest_abuse_records_unsealed.php

[MichiganVote]

1. Just another way in which churches are allowed free reign in the US

Utterly disgusting....and what have federal or state governments done, not a goddamn thing. But let some brain dead woman become the focus of the "life" debate and you can get 24 hour legislation.

No screwed up priorities in our Congress...noooooo

[Liberal Lassie]

3. "BRAIN DEAD" ????

Cute. Is that anything like "dumb blonde" ????

[MichiganVote]

4. Could be. Why don't you open up your head and find out?

[beam me up scottie]

5. So what would you call Terri Schiavo?

Examination of Schiavo’s nervous system revealed extensive injury. The brain itself weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age, height, and weight. Microscopic examination revealed extensive damage to nearly all brain regions, including the cerebral cortex, the thalami, the basal ganglia, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the midbrain. The neuropathologic changes in her brain were precisely of the type seen in patients who enter a PVS following cardiac arrest. Throughout the cerebral cortex, the large pyramidal neurons that comprise some 70 percent of cortical cells—critical to the functioning of the cortex—were completely lost. The pattern of damage to the cortex, with injury tending to worsen from the front of the cortex to the back, is also typical. There was marked damage to important relay circuits deep in the brain (the thalami)—another common pathologic finding in cases of PVS. The damage was, in the words of Thogmartin, "irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/15/schiavo.autopsy/

I mean, besides an opportunity for ethically bankrupt politicians to showcase their http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_involvement_in_the_Terri_Schiavo_case">staggering hypocrisy?

[antigop]

2. Bishop Delaney can't go to prison -- he's dead

>>
So should Bishop Delaney. He is an accessory after the fact and complicit in covering up multiple felonies. He should be in prison.
>>

http://www.satodayscatholic.com/Archives/2005%20Archives/080505/delaney.htm

Bishop Joseph Patrick Delaney, head of the Diocese of Fort Worth for the last 24 years, died in his sleep July 12 at his Fort Worth home.