UK Guardian: 'Everywhere I turned, I ran into sexual abuse'

[Taxloss]

Patrick Wall, or Brother Wall as he used to be known, is feeling a little jetlagged. He has just arrived in London on the red-eye from Los Angeles and has two hours before he has to catch a train to Cardiff - in pursuit of a special sort of criminal.

"I can't tell you much about the perpetrator until I get to Wales and sue his ass," he says, fixing me with a look that could stop the Vatican bells. "Let's just say that there are in excess of 20 victims - boys and girls - and that the alleged abuse dates back to the late 1970s."

Wall is a former Benedictine monk turned international clerical sleuth, and this is his 200th case since joining the LA law firm of Manly, McGuire & Stewart. His job is to hunt down Roman Catholic priests retired by the Vatican in the wake of the sexual abuse scandals that erupted in Boston and other north-American dioceses in 2002. Many of those priests have effectively gone to ground.

Wall's job is to find them, verify their identities, and then serve them with affidavits setting out their alleged involvement in abuse, as the first stage in bringing suits for damages on behalf of their victims in the US courts. It's a tricky job, one that requires a close familiarity with clergymen - and the cunning of Philip Marlowe.

Much more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1766922,00.html

Horrifying stuff. If what Wall says is true, there is rampant, unchecked abuse going on and the Catholic church's main concern is covering it up.

[fasttense]

1. I use to call myself a Catholic. But today I am ashamed that

I ever listened to these pedophiles.

[Grateful for Hope]

2. Good to hear

that someone from formerly within the Catholic Church is taking action that has needed to be taken for decades.

[xchrom]

3. the catholic churches main concern is to blame gay people.

''look over there -- it's the gays fault!''

[Zenlitened]

4. Despicable, isn't it? The way they've turned their own moral failure...

... to stop the molestations, into a golden opportunity to harass and demean gays and lesbians.

The institution itself is riddled with sickness.

"Let's just say that there are in excess of 20 victims - boys and girls..."

[xchrom]

5. expect the vatican to produce ''expert'' testimony

attacking gay and lesbian people as unfit parents and ''dangerous'' to children where ever.

they are serious about their attack on gay an lesbian people -- along with their nut job talibornagain brothers and sisters.

[hunter]

6. Blood on the ice. like a bad hockey game.

Or going to the races to see cars crash.

:popcorn: