Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Just Bricks In The Wall

Semi-recently I was listening to a radio program via Podcast that airs out of California called Catholic Answers Live. In this episode one of the guest priests speaking said that his diocese makes it a point to hand out pamphlets on "How Catholics Should Vote" prior to elections. The pamphlet does not specify names or parties, but rather tells the parishioner how they should vote on issues as a compliant Catholic ought to.

The church does not want parishioners to think for themselves. Like little kids given instructions on how to brush their teeth, Catholics will never gain the position of trust to allow their consciences to guide them. They will never graduate to that level. They will always be told to put their trust in a church "higher-up" ...and that higher-up is not God.

[Vote this way and God will put a gold star next to your name, vote the other way and you risk eternal torment!]

How blurred the political line becomes and with it comes such a disturbing ease with which the Church applies propaganda to cookie cut people's thoughts in order to manipulate government in their favor. Individuality does not exist in this dojo. It makes me think of that one assembly line scene out of Pink Floyd's The Wall. Scary. How is it that so many people turn into droids and surrender all their rights of free thought to a villainous institution.

The following article details how one Chicago area priest abused several boys in the span of his entire unholy career. Many pedophile priests will attempt to justify sex with boys as not breaking their vow of celibacy because the technical definition of sex is vaginal intercourse with a woman, not sodomy with a boy-child. What makes this so bad is that children of the parish are the most vulnerable, are still mentally forming and turn to clergy as a source even more trustworthy than their parents, because a child confesses those things to a priest that s/he is unlikely to tell their parents.

So sick how the numbers keep growing...and it makes you wonder how many MORE incidents in parishes all over the world are being covered up - until they are outted and then the parishioners foot the bill for lawsuits to defend these priests. One is spiritually better off giving their money to food pantries and women's shelters.

New sex-abuse allegations against convicted priest
2 brothers allege abuse in lawsuit


By Manya A. Brachear - Tribune religion reporter - October 24, 2007

A renowned Jesuit priest convicted in 2006 in Wisconsin of molesting two Loyola Academy students during the 1960s was accused Tuesday of abusing two brothers as recently as 2002. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Cook County, a 20-year-old college student and his 28-year-old brother, originally from Arizona, contend Rev. Donald McGuire molested them between 1988 and 2002 when the priest appeared at retreats in Arizona organized by the boys' father and during a trip to Chicago. This year McGuire, 77, was allowed to return to Illinois pending an appeal of his conviction because the authorities did not consider him a risk to children. He has been living on probation and celebrating mass in a private home in Oak Lawn. A judge declined to revoke the probation after another lawsuit was filed in August alleging further abuse had occurred in recent years. The parents of the plaintiffs in the latest suit met the priest in 1983 on a spiritual pilgrimage to shrines in Europe. In Lourdes, France, McGuire inspired the mother to convert to Catholicism and asked the father to organize spiritual retreats in Arizona, the plaintiffs' father said during a news conference Tuesday. McGuire allegedly abused the older brother, John Doe 117, inside the confessional during those retreats. McGuire later baptized the younger brother, named in the suit as John Doe 118, and presided over the marriage ceremony of John Doe 117. He allegedly abused John Doe 118 at a fundraiser thrown by the family the same weekend as his older brother's wedding. Accusations against McGuire date to the 1960s, when he taught at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. In 1969, a 16-year-old reported McGuire had physically and sexually abused him repeatedly at school and on field trips beginning his freshman year. After a meeting with three school administrators, the accuser, now a 53-year-old Arizona man, said the school forced him to transfer. McGuire remained at Loyola Academy until 1970, then traveled the world as the spiritual director for Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity. The Arizona man and another plaintiff, Victor Bender, sued in 2003 and notified civil authorities. Though McGuire allegedly molested them in Wilmette, those allegations fell outside Illinois' criminal statute of limitations, which runs out 20 years after a victim of child sex abuse turns 18. The Wisconsin statute of limitations does not apply to out-of-state residents, and McGuire was prosecuted and convicted in that state of molesting the students during several trips to the resort area near Lake Geneva between 1966 and 1968. He was sentenced to two concurrent seven-year prison terms and three concurrent 20-year probation terms. The prison sentence was postponed pending his appeal but probation started immediately. Prosecutors in Maricopa County, Ariz., and Cook County have been notified of the allegations in Tuesday's lawsuit.

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