TX: Diocese unsealed records: 7 priests w/ 2 decades of sex abuse complaints

[rainbow4321]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/112906dnmetfwdiocese.32fc4e92.html

Ft Worth Catholic Diocese leaders systematically helped predator priests stay in ministry for two decades by concealing information from parishioners, police and the public, court records unsealed Tuesday show.

The records, which The Dallas Morning News and Fort Worth Star-Telegram obtained after a 19-month legal battle, contain more than 700 pages from the personnel files of seven priests that the diocese had fought to keep secret.

Nearly half of the records deal with numerous sexual abuse complaints against the Rev. Philip Magaldi, who said Tuesday night that he remains in ministry despite diocesan statements to the contrary. The priest was an old friend of the late Bishop Joseph Delaney, who supervised all seven clergymen and appeared in the documents to have been motivated at times by fear of bad publicity.

"There is no way that – that I can defend myself before God or before the people of the diocese or before the world if ... , for instance, tomorrow morning, published all of this," Bishop Delaney told Father Magaldi during one confrontation over an abuse complaint, according to the records. "There would be no defense."

[silverweb]

1. Of course.

And these are the same crusty old bachelors who feel that they're within their rights to tell other adults how to conduct their personal sexual lives, even within marriage.

I am so done with the Catholic church!

[Vexatious Ape]

2. We're just able to speak up about this now.

And that's because of the liberalization of our media--our cultural dialogue is more open. Think about all the priest's throughout history buggering children and getting away with it, all because anyone who spoke up got shit hammered for talking bad about a man of "god".

[Hardrada]

3. There is a considerable literature through the centuries

about randy priests but most of the material dealt with priests seducing female parishioners. And then, of course, there were the Borgia etc. popes of the Renaissance and their bastard children! This was common knowledge but the main buggery that got notice was that of Anglican clerics buggering the choir boys. It took awhile for RC priests to be suspected of that too EXCEPT there were some old jokes about "Father Murphy" who one time was absent from his confessional when a woman came in to confess a sexual peccadillo. In the priest's absence, she asked, referring to what penance she would have to make, "What does he give for a blowjob?"
The altar boy she was addressing said, "Usually 25 cents and a Snickers bar."

[PDittie]

4. Can't we just

get rid of Texas? (That should solve all of these problems, after all.)

[BlooInBloo]

7. Better to jettison Christianity.

[rainbow4321]

8. Dallas Diosese had one of the first priest scandals..

w/ Rudy Kos that was in the news in the late 80's/early 90's. Later when more and more case were showing up in the national news, Dallas Diosese "bragged" that they already had tougher standards/background checks in place since they had been one of the first to have pedophile priest issues. Of course, they left out that that meant they were one of the first to get caught covering up the behavior.

http://www.priestsofdarkness.com/kos.html

The Diocese of Dallas has agreed to pay $23 million to eight former alter boys who were sexually abused for years by ex-priest Rudolph "Rudy" Kos.

The agreement closes one of the most sordid, difficult chapters in the clergy sexual abuse crisis. One of the victims committed suicide, the perpetrator is behind bars and stripped of his clerical dignity, and the Diocese now has no choice but to sell many of its assets to finance the settlement.

<snip>


The abuse occurred between 1977 and 1992 starting while Kos was a seminarian and continued through his assignment to 3 separate Dallas churches. He seduced boys as young as 9, using candy, video games, alcohol, sedatives and marijuana. Plaintiffs and some of their parents testified that young boys were often invited to spend the night in the rectory with Kos, who sometimes raped them after they passed out drunk. Many of them wound up with drug and alcohol problems of their own, failed relationships and ruined lives.

[porphyrian]

5. How many people could they have fucked up in just twenty years?

:eyes:

[SpiralHawk]

6. Pope Ratzinger: "D'oh"

eom