Latest Priest Molestation Judgement

Another priest molestation settlement was announced to day. The reason I mention this one (there seems to be one everyplace where people have the right to sue) is that the incidents happened right here in the Oregon and Washington area. is Under terms of the agreement, the province will pay $48.1 million and its insurer will pay $118 million. Not surprisingly, the lawyers will be the big winner in the case of child molestation's here because 40 percent of the settlement will go toward attorneys' fees. In the world of litigation the lawyers are the biggest molesters of all.

There are also other clergy molestation's (most were sexual, but a few were allegations of beatings and other physical abuse) cases not covered by this suit that will further make the church ask the flock to pay for their priests deviant behavior.

Along with agreement for making the the payment to the accusers the church tried to cover it's behind with a statement saying it was not really at fault because only some priests can't keep their pants on when around their smallest church members show up for spiritual guidance. "We reach out to the Jesuits who have been innocent through all of this. Those who were the abusers clearly need to be sanctioned, but the majority of religious, Jesuits and others, are not charged or in any way involved."

Nothing like denial to cover any possibility of the church feeling any of the guilt that it passes on to its members within the catholic liturgy and practices the church demands of members. I think one thing Catholics are still wondering about is why their church does not come clean and admit guilt and systemic complicity in covering up abuse by their clergy. In the vast majority of cases of these allegations world wide, the church simply transferred those priests accused of the charges and did not report them to local police for investigation of their alleged criminal behavior, (the "if I am a priest I am immune from prosecution" policy). As a result, church membership and donations to the church by members have fallen dramatically in recent years.

So far more than $500,000,000 in priest abuse claims have been paid by the Catholic Church and the figure could reach 1 billion in total. What is glaring about this entire problem is that the Catholic Church had no specific policy for dealing with abusive priests, more often it simply pretended the abuse did not exist. There is a pattern because even today it still practices the avoidance policy, admitting to the abuses only when forced to do so by public allegation, litigation or physical evidence.

In a sense the Church just wants the allegations to just "go away". Yet as they continue to stonewall and evade about the molestation's, the only disappearing act is in the number of adherents sitting in church pews. Fewer and fewer are continuing their affiliation with Catholicism.