550 sexual abuse claims filed against Milwaukee

josevolution

Totally pathetic how long has this been happening like 5zillion yrs i gave up religion way back ....

chadwick

i find it appalling there are no Buddhist gathering centers here in iowa, or at least there are none to my knowledge in my area, perhaps the entire state is Buddhist free. makes sense as this is the heartland and smallminded midwestern bible belt bullshit is quite profound.

SweetChildofMine

You must understand sexual abuse is done by predators. They will find away to stalk and be with children, reguardless, unless proper safeguards are put into place. Shuffling around members of the clergy and being in denial about it makes it only worse. (In which case we have seen this happen) It doesn't only exist in the confines Catholic Church. One in four women is sexually abused as a child (thats only what is reported). Off the top of my head I don't know what the statistics are for male children probably most likely the same numbers. This is a grotesque abuse of power and position.

Sawyer

81 wrote:

the only institution that can rival the catholic church in terms of sex offenders......

the public school system....

we must meet.....

81

Sawyer wrote:

81 wrote:

the only institution that can rival the catholic church in terms of sex offenders......

the public school system....

we must meet.....

I must admit...i can't fathom why

Constant Recoil...

Sawyer wrote:

as a Catholic a lot of you are really ignorant people

I used to have this fight school all the time! Kids making fun of me and a few others because we are catholic. I have two priests as family friends and I can tell you they get sick when they here this stuff as well. I have friends and a lot of family that went to catholic schools and were not abused at all. I just don't understand hated the whole religion because of the disgusting things a few people did.

SweetChildofMine

Hey! Im saying the Lordes Novena for the next eight days to petition to free all mankind from suffering. Its a big order, I know. But your suffering is my suffering. Besides the Vatican supports OWS I owe them that.

pandora

DOWNbytheRiver wrote:

Archdiocese

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46236534/ns ... yrcuVwS0n0

MILWAUKEE — About 550 people are asking for restitution for alleged sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee — more than in any of the other U.S. dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection, according to a lawyer involveThe Milwaukee Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection last year, saying pending sex-abuse lawsuits could leave it with debts it couldn't afford.
The archdiocese has paid more than $30 million in settlements and other court costs related to allegations of clergy abuse and more than a dozen suits against it have been halted because of the bankruptcy proceedings. One priest alone is accused of abusing some 200 boys at a suburban school for deaf students from 1950 to 1974.
James Stang, a bankruptcy lawyer who represents creditors in the Wisconsin case, estimated that about 550 claims had been filed by the Wednesday afternoon deadline set by the bankruptcy court.
Those who filed claims will end up splitting a settlement amount that will be determined by the creditors' committee, archdiocese and its insurance company. The archdiocese had only $4.6 million in assets to be applied to claims in 2010.
A victims' advocacy group called the number of filings "extraordinarily tragic," but said that represented only a small portion of people abused by clergy.
The other seven Catholic dioceses in the U.S. that have filed for bankruptcy since the clergy abuse scandal erupted in 2002 in Boston are in Davenport, Iowa; Fairbanks, Alaska; Portland, Ore.; San Diego; Spokane, Wash.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Wilmington, Del. Two other religious orders have also filed for bankruptcy.
Of the seven other dioceses that also filed for bankruptcy, the number of claims ranged from about 40 to 250, Stang said. About 535 claimants had come forward against the Oregon Province of the Jesuits, he said.
Archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf and attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents clergy abuse victims, including some in the Milwaukee case, said it's hard to compare cases. Anderson said each diocese represents a different number of people, and Wolf said some dioceses are incorporated differently.
Payouts in the other bankruptcy cases have varied based on the severity of the abuse and the quality of the diocese's insurance coverage, according to Stang. For example, cases in Southern California yielded an average of about $1.2 million per claimant, he said, while the amount was far less in Fairbanks, Alaska, where less money was available.
Attorney: Payouts 'have not been survivor-friendly'
Stang predicted the payouts wouldn't be on the generous side in Wisconsin. The creditors committee, archdiocese and its insurance company will negotiate a dollar amount. After that, those who filed claims will negotiate between themselves on how to divide the money.
"Insurance-coverage issues in Milwaukee cases haven't been very good for survivors," he said. "The rulings by courts there have not been survivor-friendly."
Stang acknowledged some people file claims even though they weren't abused but said that was "extremely rare."
"Most people are not willing to come out and publicly say they were masturbated by someone," Stang said.
Anderson and the archdiocese both said they advertised the deadline both locally and nationally. Anderson said his firm paid for TV and newspaper advertisements because he didn't think the archdiocese's efforts made the victims feel safe coming forward.
Wolf disputed that. "We've just been focused on getting this message out far and wide to as many people as we could in order to make sure everybody who had a claim was able to submit it before this deadline occurred," she said.
A Feb. 9 court hearing is set for a judge to consider a request from the archdiocese to throw out some claims by people on grounds they were filed beyond the statute of limitations, they involved someone who was not an archdiocese employee or a victim who received a prior settlement.


holy fucking hell

Wonder how much proof you must have against a man to file and get 1.2 million dollars ....

There are many who have been abused by a man and will not receive anything ...
not even justice

pjhawks

Constant Recoil... wrote:

Sawyer wrote:

as a Catholic a lot of you are really ignorant people

I used to have this fight school all the time! Kids making fun of me and a few others because we are catholic. I have two priests as family friends and I can tell you they get sick when they here this stuff as well. I have friends and a lot of family that went to catholic schools and were not abused at all. I just don't understand hated the whole religion because of the disgusting things a few people did.

way more than a 'few'

yet we had a 50 page thread of people ripping Joe Paterno for harboring one child molester, yet practicing catholics find us 'ignorant' for calling out an organization that harbors thousands of child molesters.

and as said before raised catholic and 9 years of catholic school here. not molested...i guess i wasn't good enough for them

polaris_x

it's pretty obvious that not all catholics are evil people and not all catholic priests are child molesters but it comes down to this with me as it relates to the catholic church:

* the mass cover ups and the KNOWN willingness of the upper tier authorities in the church to allow molesters to continue to rape boys is unforgivable and to this date have not been addressed - this isn't about a few rogue priests - it's about the sacrifice of these children in order to protect the name of the catholic church

* the continual oppressive position the catholic church has on the rest of society ... it's one thing to practice your religion as you see fit ... have no problem with that ... but the catholic church's insistence in interfering with other people's lives is abusive ... see gay marriage and pro choice and birth control ...

* the unwillingness of people of catholic faith to hold their leaders accountable to their actions ... only catholic people can fix the catholic church ... so, while most continue to want to believe that these sex abuse cases are isolated incidents and hope they will go away ... all we are going to get is more and more people suffering ...

81

polaris_x wrote:

it's pretty obvious that not all catholics are evil people and not all catholic priests are child molesters but it comes down to this with me as it relates to the catholic church:

* the mass cover ups and the KNOWN willingness of the upper tier authorities in the church to allow molesters to continue to rape boys is unforgivable and to this date have not been addressed - this isn't about a few rogue priests - it's about the sacrifice of these children in order to protect the name of the catholic church

* the continual oppressive position the catholic church has on the rest of society ... it's one thing to practice your religion as you see fit ... have no problem with that ... but the catholic church's insistence in interfering with other people's lives is abusive ... see gay marriage and pro choice and birth control ...

* the unwillingness of people of catholic faith to hold their leaders accountable to their actions ... only catholic people can fix the catholic church ... so, while most continue to want to believe that these sex abuse cases are isolated incidents and hope they will go away ... all we are going to get is more and more people suffering ...

what...you touched some kid...fine fine...we'll ship a couple states over....they'll never know...now don't do it again.


it happens over and over and over in the catholic church. multiple BK's for it.

81

pjhawks wrote:

way more than a 'few'

yet we had a 50 page thread of people ripping Joe Paterno for harboring one child molester, yet practicing catholics find us 'ignorant' for calling out an organization that harbors thousands of child molesters.

it's the funny thing...you have one person and yes a coverup...and people are all over school and a person that wasn't involved, and sent it to his superiors....

yet, here we have an institution with litteraly thousands of cases....and we barely hear a peep....and we don't hear anything from the most vehement denoucers of the PSU case.

Mamasan23

81 wrote:

it's the funny thing...you have one person and yes a coverup...and people are all over school and a person that wasn't involved, and sent it to his superiors....

yet, here we have an institution with litteraly thousands of cases....and we barely hear a peep....and we don't hear anything from the most vehement denoucers of the PSU case.

They can't say anything bad about the Catholic church, are you kidding? If they do, they're going to hell!!!

Alright maybe that's a bit juvenile but great point. At what point are people going to get upset enough to finally put a stop to this behavior? No, not all churches are bad and not every priest is guilty of this. But the ones that are are not being stopped. The church keeps sweeping everything under the rug and is not being held accountable. I've got many other personal reasons as to why I broke with the Catholic church...and I'm not condemning people that are followers...but they've gotta start opening up their eyes.

Kat

chadwick wrote:

christianity is straight up dangerous. i know of no other reason for why millions have been executed, tortured, molested, and terrorized. this grand scheme is only in the name of power and money.

"Hyperboles are exaggerations to create emphasis or effect. As a literary device, hyperbole is often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. An example of hyperbole is: "The bag weighed a ton."[2] Hyperbole helps to make the point that the bag was very heavy, although it is not probable that it would actually weigh a ton." Source: Wiki

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Everyone, if you want to have a discussion about this issue, please do so with reasoned debate and stick to the topic. It could be interesting or it could get locked. Thank you.

Jason P

oh shit! where did this thread come from?

I guess AET needs to be shown how to really ef' things up and get a thread shut down.

let it begin!!!

SweetChildofMine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY

A lot of people feel this way lost in this manner, besides paradoxically Jesus was a heretic.

How to Fight The Man
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: February 2, 2012


A few weeks ago, a 22-year-old man named Jefferson Bethke produced a video called “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” The video shows Bethke standing in a courtyard rhyming about the purity of the teachings of Jesus and the hypocrisy of the church. Jesus preaches healing, surrender and love, he argues, but religion is rigid, phony and stale. “Jesus came to abolish religion,” Bethke insists. “Religion puts you in bondage, but Jesus sets you free.”
The video went viral. As of Thursday, it had acquired more than 18 million hits on YouTube. It speaks for many young believers who feel close to God but not to the church. It represents the passionate voice of those who think their institutions lack integrity — not just the religious ones, but the political and corporate ones, too.

Right away, many older theologians began critiquing Bethke’s statements. A blogger named Kevin DeYoung pointed out, for example, that it is biblically inaccurate to say that Jesus hated religion. In fact, Jesus preached a religious doctrine, prescribed rituals and worshiped in a temple.

Bethke responded in a way that was humble, earnest and gracious, and that generally spoke well of his character. He also basically folded.

“I wanted to say I really appreciate your article man,” Bethke wrote to DeYoung in an online exchange. “It hit me hard. I’ll even be honest and say I agree 100 percent.”

Bethke watched a panel discussion in which some theologians lamented young people’s disdain of organized religion. “Right when I heard that,” he told The Christian Post, “it just convicted me, and God used it as one of those Spirit moments where it’s just, ‘Man, he’s right.’ I realized a lot of my views and treatments of the church were not Scripture-based; they were very experience based.”

Bethke’s passionate polemic and subsequent retreat are symptomatic of a lot of the protest cries we hear these days. This seems to be a moment when many people — in religion, economics and politics — are disgusted by current institutions, but then they are vague about what sorts of institutions should replace them.

This seems to be a moment of fervent protest movements that are ultimately vague and ineffectual.

We can all theorize why the intense desire for change has so far produced relatively few coherent recipes for change. Maybe people today are simply too deferential. Raised to get college recommendations, maybe they lack the oppositional mentality necessary for revolt. Maybe people are too distracted.

My own theory revolves around a single bad idea. For generations people have been told: Think for yourself; come up with your own independent worldview. Unless your name is Nietzsche, that’s probably a bad idea. Very few people have the genius or time to come up with a comprehensive and rigorous worldview.

If you go out there armed only with your own observations and sentiments, you will surely find yourself on very weak ground. You’ll lack the arguments, convictions and the coherent view of reality that you’ll need when challenged by a self-confident opposition. This is more or less what happened to Jefferson Bethke.

The paradox of reform movements is that, if you want to defy authority, you probably shouldn’t think entirely for yourself. You should attach yourself to a counter-tradition and school of thought that has been developed over the centuries and that seems true.

The old leftists had dialectical materialism and the Marxist view of history. Libertarians have Hayek and von Mises. Various spiritual movements have drawn from Transcendentalism, Stoicism, Gnosticism, Thomism, Augustine, Tolstoy, or the Catholic social teaching that inspired Dorothy Day.

These belief systems helped people envision alternate realities. They helped people explain why the things society values are not the things that should be valued. They gave movements a set of organizing principles. Joining a tradition doesn’t mean suppressing your individuality. Applying an ancient tradition to a new situation is a creative, stimulating and empowering act. Without a tradition, everything is impermanence and flux.

Most professors would like their students to be more rebellious and argumentative. But rebellion without a rigorous alternative vision is just a feeble spasm.

If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see. Give yourself a label. If your college hasn’t provided you with a good knowledge of countercultural viewpoints — ranging from Thoreau to Maritain — then your college has failed you and you should try to remedy that ignorance.

Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.

davidtrios

:evil:

SweetChildofMine

Im just stressing the fact that many people feel spiritual without a religion. Seeing shit like this in the news does not help people who want to find a place who either need guidance or wish to lead with their spirituality.

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Then put in the fact with the Catholic Church its archaic views on women's rights which is terribly ironical since it worships Mary and has no female leaders in the Church. Martin Luther was onto something. :P However, him too, denying the Divine Feminine is wrong. Even a church that worships and promotes the Divine Mother still does not give her equal credit that she can exist also as the Trinity. Anyway... rant... these are some of my problems with Christian religions.


Damn right, you heard me, equality.

pandora

SweetChildofMine wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IAhDGYlpqY

A lot of people feel this way lost in this manner, besides paradoxically Jesus was a heretic.

How to Fight The Man
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: February 2, 2012

this guy is great! I thank the person who started the original thread a couple maybe few weeks ago
it was locked and mentioned this video was an advertisement, I believe that was what was decided.

SweetChildofMine

I think its great Pandora. I started to get exactly that ^^^ type of feeling about that after reading the comments in the thread. People shun religious institutions for exactly what we see in the papers about ill properly managed for years acts child abuse. Or the GOP pushing some wierd bachmannish agenda. Or some kind of extremish nut job gone into hyper spiritual righteousness mode. Whatever. These are not good leaders/shepherds of the their congregations... they are frightening those away from their spiritual experiences they are not being empathetic to their needs. Their righteousness getting so much in the way it has become oppression not freedom. Or they might be missing out on good leaders to enlighten their followers. I love when people say, "where was your God when You were in need..." people have become so cynical its really terrible. Not that they need to believe, but for most people there is a connection to "something" music, the earth, whatever... instead of a deity. Which is fine but that still needs to be nurtured... we are still all connected. You may not feel the need to have responsibility to a God but you still need to have responsibility for yourselves, people and the earth we all live upon.

People are turning away from these institutions which I completely understand.

I believe in the "co-exist" mentality think that not any one religion is absolutely correct its just the guide of your spiritual cultural paths for that lifetime til you reach your highest being/enlightenment. Anyway, I thought that was interesting considering the responses had turned into running away from the religions they grew up with as kids. One must remember and separate. There is a difference from spirituality and religion. One does not have to be a member of a church to believe the things he has experienced to feel spiritual nor do they need to feel that they have to have a religion to explain it to them.