Thread: TUSCON BISHOP EXPECTS POPE FRANCIS TO ‘PROD’ CONGRESS ON AMNESTY BILL

PAst time for the Catholic Church to start paying taxes. If the Catholic Church wants to support illegals they can take them all to the Vatican and support them. JMO
TUSCON BISHOP EXPECTS POPE FRANCIS TO ‘PROD’ CONGRESS ON AMNESTY BILL

26

Reuters

by TONY LEE12 Feb 2015166

The former vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops believes that Pope Francis will try to “prod” lawmakers to pass comprehensive amnesty legislation when he address Congress in September.

Tuscon Bishop Gerald Kicanas told the House Judiciary Subcommittee Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security on Wednesday that immigration is an issue that is “dear to his heart” and mentioned that Pope Francis has already criticized the European Union for not being as welcoming to North African and Middle Eastern immigrants. He noted that Pope Francis’s first pastoral visit was to a Mediterranean island to pray for migrants who have drowned while trying to get to Europe.

When Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) asked Kicanas what he thought Pope Francis will say on immigration when he addresses Congress in September, Kicanas said he did not know for certain. But Kicanas said he believes Pope Francis “will prod the Congress to move forward with courage and conviction” with a “comprehensive” amnesty bill that includes a “pathway to citizenship,” border security, “more legal ways for people to come here,” provisions for “reuniting families” and “helping these sending countries” so migrants who do not want to leave their home country can remain.

Though Pope Francis will not have time to visit Mexico this year, he has said that, “to enter the United States from the border with Mexico would be a beautiful gesture of brotherhood and support for immigrants.”

During last summer’s border crisis, Pope Francis said the flood of illegal immigrant juveniles should be “welcomed and protected” and called for an end of “racist and xenophobic” attitudes.

As Breitbart News has reported, “Blase Cupich, the Chicago Archibishop who is described as Pope Francis’s ‘American messenger,’ also praised Obama’s executive amnesty last year.”

Pope Francis is scheduled to address Congress on September 24.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...-amnesty-bill/

NONE of the Pope's business. Just because he is who he is does not entitle him to come over here to our governing body and try to influence them to do what HE thinks is right. If the Catholic church would like to feed, house, educate, medicate, etc all illegal immigrants such that they take no jobs and do not cost the American people one thin dime, then it can go right ahead with that, but don't tell us we "should" do it just because the Catholic church thinks we should!

Since a large majority of the illegals from Mexico,and Central America are catholic, the coffers are filling up ihn the states. They were pretty skimpy after all of the child molestation issues and law suits.

This man should never enter the US Capitol for any purpose other than as a tourist in the gallery. To allow him to speak to our Congress in our Capitol is simply wrong. No foreign person should ever address our Congress in our Capitol. Period.

Still going on.

In Spanish Abuse Scandal, a More Open Vatican

By RAPHAEL MINDERFEB. 14, 2015


Photo

Granada’s archbishop, Francisco Javier Martínez Fernández, met with Pope Francis in Rome last month and was told to face up to the problems within his diocese.CreditMiguel Angel Molina/European Pressphoto Agency

GRANADA, Spain — David Ramírez Castillo first met his parish priest, the Rev. Román Martínez, as a 7-year-old catechism student. Later, he became one of his altar boys. Step by step, Mr. Ramírez says, the priest convinced him that to deepen his faith he should spend more time with him and the other clergy members.

What started as afternoon visits after Mass turned into overnight stays and weekends away in a shared bed, including at the Summit, a private hilltop villa complete with a swimming pool, he says.

There, Mr. Ramírez, now 25 and still a Catholic, says he was repeatedly abused by Father Martínez or made to watch him and others, including several priests, have sex over three years, starting in 2004 when he was 14. The priests deny the accusations, and a lawyer representing them called the charges “invented.”

Nevertheless, the case, which includes allegations of a sex ring and a cover-up involving as many as 10 priests — accusations supported by one other plaintiff as well as by several witnesses — has become one of the most serious sexual abuse scandals to emerge under Pope Francis.

It has also become a prime example of the more open and assertive approach to the issue of clergy sexual abuse that Pope Francis has taken, as he shifts the tone in a Vatican long criticized for neglecting decades of abuses by priests in parishes around the world.

Though the Vatican’s record remains mixed in following up on the numerous sexual abuse cases that precede this one, Mr. Ramírez wrote the pope about his claims last August, he said. Just days later, the pope called him, encouraging him to pursue his complaints, and then personally ordered an investigation into the case, demanding complete transparency.

“I told him, ‘Go to the bishop tomorrow,’ and then I wrote to the bishop and told him to start an investigation,” the pope told a Spanish reporter in November on his plane from Strasbourg, France, where he had addressed the European Parliament.

“I received this news with great pain, very great pain,” the pope said, “but the truth is the truth and we should not hide it.”
Last month, transparency is what this conservative southern Spanish city of 237,000 got, as an investigating judge, Antonio Moreno, released a summary of the accusations. In the judge’s full report, which was seen by The New York Times, Mr. Ramírez, the main plaintiff, gave a detailed account of the priests’ sexual practices, including a bedside flask of rosemary oil he said Father Martínez used while receiving full body massages from fellow clerics or other guests. Mr. Ramírez’s description goes as far as detailing a birthmark on Father Martínez’s penis.

In the summer months, Father Martínez and other priests mostly stayed in their hilltop villa, turning it into a party zone, according to witness statements from the court report. The priests would cool off in the pool and then shower naked in front of their teenage guests. The group would then sometimes watch gay pornography videos while touching one another, the report says.

The priests’ lawyer, Javier Muriel, said the case should be dropped because it was based on lies and “there is an absolute lack of proof.” He added, “I hope that one day we find out why anybody invented such accusations.”

After the pope’s intervention, Granada’s diocese suspended Father Martínez and the other main suspects from their public duties as priests. In late November, four people were briefly detained as part of the judge’s inquiry, including Father Martínez, who was released after posting bail of about $11,000.

So far, 12 people, including 10 priests, have been indicted on charges of abusing Mr. Ramírez or covering up for Father Martínez, who the accusers say was at the center of the group.

Parallel to the criminal investigation by the authorities in Granada, the church has started its own investigation into the claims. The inquiry is led by the Vatican rather than the Diocese of Granada, which was already under scrutiny over unrelated claims of financial mismanagement after a spending spree by its archbishop.

“This story would never have come to light if the pope hadn’t intervened,” said Amina Nasser, a journalist who has been investigating the case for Andaluces Diario, a regional publication.

Still, the Vatican has long had a decidedly mixed record on clerical abuse. John Paul II, pope from 1978 until his death in 2005, has been strongly criticized by victims and their families for neglecting the issue.

Benedict, whose resignation in 2013 led to the election of Francis, was for years a part of that same unresponsive Vatican bureaucracy. But he eventually instituted a process for dealing with abuse allegations and later, as pope, spoke out on the issue and met several times with abuse victims.

Francis also has not always been as responsive as some had hoped. As archbishop in Argentina, he repeatedly refused to meet with victims or their families.

Since becoming pope, he has brought a new sense of personal contact and public outrage to the issue and appointed a commission to examine the church’s policies on sexual abuse. But even now, victims in many countries are still waiting impatiently for concrete results. The Vatican also has yet to hold a long-promised criminal trial of its former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who has been accused of sexual abuse there.

Still, this month, the pope sent a letter to bishops worldwide, urging them to cooperate with the commission. In the message, the pope insisted, “There is absolutely no place in ministry for those who abuse minors.”

Photo

Pinos de Genil, the village where the abuse is alleged to have occurred.CreditLaura Leon for The New York Times

It is a measure of the problem Francis inherited that his pleas for cooperation from bishops must still be forcefully delivered, even after successive rounds of sexual abuse scandals have shamed parishes worldwide for decades. At the time Father Martínez and the other priests are alleged to have conducted their abuses, in 2004, the church was already reeling in the aftermath of prominent sexual abuse scandals that had shocked parishioners in Boston and elsewhere in the United States and rocketed around the globe.

Whatever the outcome of this latest case, scandal has now left its mark on Granada, where, after the pope’s intervention, the archbishop, Francisco Javier Martínez Fernández, and a group of priests prostrated themselves during a service in front of the cathedral’s altar. “We will cry for a few minutes in silence to God to ask his forgiveness for all the church’s crimes, for all the scandals there have been and for those that may have taken place among us and anywhere in the world,” Reuters quoted the archbishop as saying at the ceremony.

The Vatican has made no comment on its investigation. Last month, Granada’s archbishop met Pope Francis in Rome, prompting speculation that he would be asked to resign.

But Paqui Pallarés, a spokeswoman for the Granada diocese, said that the pope had instead urged the archbishop to “come down from the cross” and face up to problems within his diocese.

So far, in addition to Mr. Ramírez, one other plaintiff has added his name to the case, another former altar boy, Josue Heredia. A few others have come forward as witnesses.

One of them, who asked not to be named, explained in an interview how his relationship with Father Martínez evolved from attending Mass to going regularly to his home to “play cards, chess or watch television.” He broke off relations with Father Martínez in June 1991, he said, when he went to the priest’s apartment after sports and took a shower there. When he stepped out of the shower, Father Martínez tried to touch his genitals, he said.

Mr. Ramírez, the prime accuser in the case, far from cutting loose from the church, is now a member of Opus Dei, a Catholic movement that has significant influence in Spain, where it was founded in 1928.

His lawyer, Jorge Aguilera, suggested that his client had felt unable to report the abuse while in Granada but had found it “easier from a thousand kilometers away,” after deciding to move last year to Pamplona, in northern Spain, to complete a doctorate in psychology at the University of Navarra, which has close ties to Opus Dei.

The Granada judge leading the sexual abuse investigation must soon decide whether to maintain the charges against those who have been indicted. “The main problem we face is the delay in filing the complaint,” Mr. Aguilera said. Because of the lapse in time, he said, the judge might clear six of the priests accused of cooperating in sexual abuse, rather than performing it, because such lighter crimes fall within Spain’s statute of limitations.

No matter how the case is settled, however, for the parishioners here the stain of the accusations will not be removed as easily as the graffiti insulting pedophiles that was recently whitewashed from the outside wall of the church of San Juan María Vianney, where Father Martínez had celebrated Mass.

Nearby, some parents, who were picking up their children from a school run by nuns, said they were struggling to come to terms with the scandal.

“I don’t understand how anybody religious could hurt somebody, let alone a child,” said Úrsula Muñoz, as she held her 4-year-old daughter, Martina. She said she still intended to take her daughter to her First Communion. But she added, “I certainly plan on doing it at her school rather than in a church.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/world/europe/in-spanish-abuse-scandal-a-more-open-vatican.html

Roman Catholic sex abuse cases by country

United States[edit]

Main article: Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States

Archdiocese of Anchorage See also: Sexual abuse scandal in the Society of Jesus
In 2007, the Society of Jesus made a $50 million payout to over 100 Inuit who alleged that they had been sexually abused. The settlement did not require them to admit molesting Inuit children, but accusations involved 13 or 14 priests who allegedly molested these children for 30 years.^[71] In 2008, the Diocese of Fairbanks, a co-defendant in the case, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, claiming inability to pay the 140 plaintiffs filing claims against the diocese for alleged sexual abuse by priests or church workers during this period.^[72][73][74]

Archdiocese of Boston Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston
Allegations of sexual misconduct by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston, and following revelations of a cover-up by the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, became known in 2004, causing Roman Catholics in other dioceses of the United States to investigate similar situations. Cardinal Law's actions prompted public scrutiny of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the steps taken in response to past and current allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. The events in the Archdiocese of Boston became a national scandal.

Archdiocese of Chicago Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago
Daniel McCormack, a self-confessed sexually abusive priest was sentenced to five years in prison for abusing five boys (8–12 years) in 2001.^[75]

Diocese of Crookston Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was charged with molesting two teenage girls at a Catholic church in Greenbush, Minnesota, a small rural town near the Canadianborder. The abuse occurred in 2004, and charges were filed in 2006 and amended in 2007.^[76] Without facing legal punishment, Jevapaul returned to his home diocese in Ootacamund, India, where today he works in the church’s diocesan office. A Roseau County, Minnesota attorney is seeking to extradite the priest from India in a criminal case involving one of the girls.^[77] The Archbishop of Madras, India (Madras is now called “Chennai”) has asked Jeyapaul to return to the US to face the charges.^[78] Jevapaul has said that he will not fight extradition if the US seeks it.^[79]

Diocese of Davenport Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Davenport diocese
On October 10, 2006, the Diocese of Davenport filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.^[80]

Archdiocese of Denver In July 2008 the Archdiocese of Denver paid a settlement of $5.5 million to 18 claims of alleged sexual abuse perpetrated by two clerics between the years of 1954 and 1981.^[81]

Archdiocese of Dubuque Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Dubuque archdiocese
In 2006 the Archdiocese settled a number of claims of sexual abuse, and the Archbishop offered a personal apology.^[82]

Diocese of Fall River Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Fall River diocese
Father James Porter was a Roman Catholic priest who was convicted of molesting 28 children;^[83] He admitted sexually abusing at least 100 of both sexes over a period of 30 years, starting in the 1960s.^[84] Bishop Sean O'Malley settled 101 abuse claims and initiated a zero-tolerance policy against sexual abuse. He also instituted one of the first comprehensive sexual abuse policies in the Roman Catholic Church.^[85]

Diocese of Honolulu Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Honolulu diocese
Reverend Joseph Bukoski, III, SS.CC., Honolulu, Hawaii, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was canonically removed in 2003 as the pastor of Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo for allegations relating to sexual improprieties some 30 years earlier. Fr. Bukoski issued a written public apology to his victim on November 12, 2005.
Reverend Mr. James "Ron" Gonsalves, Wailuku, Hawaii, Gonsalves the administrator of Saint Ann Roman Catholic Church in Waihee, Maui, pleaded guilty on May 17, 2006 to several counts of sexual assault on a 12-year-old male. Bishop Clarence Richard Silva has permanently withdrawn his faculties and has initiated laicization proceedings against Deacon Gonsalves with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Archdiocese of Los Angeles Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay out 60 million dollars to settle 45 lawsuits it still faces over 450 other pending cases. According to the Associated Press, 22 priests were involved in the settlement with cases going back as far as the 1930s.^[86] 20 million dollars of this was paid by the insurers of the archdiocese. The main administrative office of the archdiocese is due to be sold to cover the cost of these and future lawsuits. The archdiocese will settle about 500 cases for about $600 million.^[87]

Diocese of Memphis The Diocese of Memphis reached a $2 million settlement with a man who was abused as a boy by Father Juan Carlos Duran, a priest with a history of sexual misconduct with juveniles in St. Louis, Panama, and Bolivia.^[88]

Archdiocese of Miami Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Miami archdiocese
Since 1966, the Archdiocese of Miami Insurance Programs have paid $26.1 million in settlement, legal, and counseling costs associated with sexual misconduct allegations made by minors involving priests, laity and religious brothers and sisters.^[89]

Archdiocese of Milwaukee Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Catholic archdiocese of Milwaukee
A 2003 report on the sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee revealed that allegations of sexually assaulting minors had been made against 58 ordained men.^{[citation needed]} By early 2009, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee had spent approximately $26.5 million in attorney fees and settlements. Under Archbishop Timothy Dolan the archdiocese was able to avoid bankruptcy from lawsuits.^[90]
A Wisconsin priest, the Rev. Lawrence C Murphy, who taught at the former St. John School for the Deaf in the Milwaukee suburb of St. Francis, Wisconsin from 1950 to 1974, allegedly molested more than 200 deaf boys. Several U.S. bishops warned the Vatican that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church. Murphy was moved by then Milwaukee Archbishop William E Cousins to Superior, Wisconsin, a small city near Lake Superior, where he spent his final 24 years working with children in parishes, schools and a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998. As of March 2010, there were four outstanding lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in the case.^[91][92]

Diocese of Oakland In 1981, the former Rev. Stephen Kiesle was convicted for tying up and molesting two boys in a California church rectory.^[93] From 1981 to 1985, Bishop John Stephen Cummins, who oversaw Kiesle, contacted the Vatican about defrocking him. Then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, responded by letter that the case needed more time, as it was "necessary to consider the good of the Universal Church" and "the detriment that granting the dispensation" could provoke among the faithful. In 1987, the Vatican defrocked Kiesle. The letter was widely regarded as evidence of Ratzinger's role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests.^[94][95] Vatican officials responded that that interpretation rested on a misreading of the letter, in which the issue was not whether Kiesle should be defrocked but whether he should be granted the dispensation he had requested from the obligation of chastity. By refusing to grant such a dispensation right away in the Kiesle case, Ratzinger was actually being tough with an abuser, not lax.^[96][97]

Archdiocese of Omaha During his tenure as the Bishop of Helena, Montana, Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss chose to reassign a priest who had been accused of pedophilia in 1959, later admitting that he had not properly examined the church's personnel file on the individual concerned. Curtiss faced similar criticism in 2001 in regard to a priest accused of accessing child pornography. Curtiss, it was alleged, had failed to bring the case to the attention of the authorities, and had chosen to send the priest for counseling and to reassign the priest, removing him from his high-school teaching position but reassigning him to a middle-school.^[98]

Diocese of Orange, CaliforniaMain article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Orange
On January 3, 2005 Bishop Tod Brown of the Diocese of Orange apologized to 87 alleged victims of sexual abuse and announced a settlement of $100 million following two years of mediation.

Diocese of Palm BeachMain article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Palm Beach
Joseph Keith Symons resigned as ordinary in 1998 after admitting he molested five boys while he was a pastor.^[99]

Diocese of Peoria Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Peoria diocese
Coadjutor Bishop John J. Myers of Peoria was among the two-thirds of sitting bishops and acting diocese administrators that the Dallas Morning News found had allowed priests accused of sexual abuse to continue working.^[100]
In 2005, Rev. Francis Engels pleaded guilty to molesting a Peoria altar boy on trips to Milwaukee in the early 1980s.^[101]

Archdiocese of Philadelphia Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Philadelphia
According to a 2005 investigation, while serving as assistant vicar for administration in 1996, Bishop Cistone was involved with silencing a nun who tried to alert parishioners at St. Gabriel parish about abuse by a priest. According to the report, there were several other instances of priest sexual abuse that Cistone was complicit in covering up.^[102] In February 2011, Monsignor William Lynn, former secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, was charged with child endangerment, marking the first time that a high-ranking official has been charged since the eruption of sex abuse scandals nearly ten years prior.^[103] Lynn was found by a grand jury to have placed pedophiles in posts involving contact with children, which led directly to the sexual assault of two boys. Three priests and one teacher face rape charges.

Diocese of Phoenix Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Phoenix diocese
On November 21, 2005, Monsignor Dale Fushek of the Diocese of Phoenix was arrested and charged with 10 criminal misdemeanor counts related to alleged inappropriate sexual contact with teens and young adults.^[104]

Archdiocese of Portland Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Portland archdiocese
The Archdiocese of Portland filed for Chapter 11 reorganization on July 6, 2004, hours before two abuse trials were set to begin.^{[citation needed]} Portland became the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy. An open letter to the archdiocese's parishioners explained the archbishop's motivation.

Archdiocese of San Antonio John Salazar was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting an 18-year-old parishioner.^[105]

Diocese of San Diego Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in San Diego diocese
On February 27, 2007, the Diocese of San Diego filed for Chapter 11 protection, hours before the first of about 150 lawsuits was due to be heard.^{[citation needed]}

Diocese of Savannah Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Savannah
In October, 2009, the diocese of Savannah paid $4.24 million to settle a lawsuit which alleged that Lessard allowed a priest named Wayland Brown to work in the diocese when Lessard knew that Brown was a serial child molester who posed a danger to children.^[106]

Diocese of Spokane Under Bishop William S. Skylstad the Diocese of Spokane declared bankruptcy in December 2004. As part of its bankruptcy, the diocese has agreed to pay at least $48 million as compensation. This payout has to be agreed to by the victims and a judge before it will be made. According to federal bankruptcy judge, Gregg W. Zive, money for the settlement would come from insurance companies, the sale of church property, contributions from Catholic groups and from the diocese's parishes.^[107]

Diocese of Stockton Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Stockton diocese
Fr. Oliver O'Grady molested multiple children in Stockton.^[108] The 2006 documentary Deliver Us from Evil is based on accusations that Bishop Roger Mahony knew that Oliver O'Grady was an active pedophile.^[109]

Diocese of Tucson The Diocese of Tucson filed for bankruptcy in September, 2004. It reached an agreement with plaintiffs, which the bankruptcy judge approved on June 11, 2005, specifying terms that included allowing the diocese reorganization to continue in return for a $22.2 million settlement.^[110]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_C...ses_by_country

Yeah. Boehner really really needs to cancel the circus and withdraw the invitation for the Pope to address our Congress in our Capitol. It's so wrong, just as wrong as the Netanyahu circus coming up next month. What was he thinking? Was this something that awful person, Becky Tallent came up with? Oh wait, we're not supposed to know about Becky Tallent. Ooops, story's out and she's hopefully on her way to Jeb's House. Which is good, great in fact, because now Republicans can silence both of them in the Primaries next summer.