Forgiving Monsters

George Conger:

One of the most notorious criminal cases in modern European history has returned to the public eye, dominating the front pages and leaders of Belgium’s newspapers. A judge has agreed to release Michelle Martin from prison on the condition she enter the Convent of the Les Soeurs Clarisses de Malonne (Poor Clares) and remain under police supervision.

The news of the parole has prompted an appeal by state prosecutors, public protests, outrage in the press — and the mayor of Namur has ordered police to guard the convent. Why such a fuss? The opening paragraphs of a solid AP story tells us why.

BRUSSELS — The ex-wife of a notorious pedophile who aided her husband’s horrific abuse and murder of young girls – and who let two children starve to death while her husband was in jail – was approved Tuesday for early release from prison, infuriating the victims’ parents and reopening a dark chapter in Belgian history.

Michelle Martin, who is now 52, received a 30-year prison term in 2004 for not freeing girls her then-husband Marc Dutroux held captive behind a secret door in their decrepit, dirty basement in Marcinelle, 40 miles south of Brussels.

Dutroux, 55, is serving a life term for kidnapping, torturing and abusing six girls in 1995 and 1996, and murdering four of them.

During those years, Dutroux also spent four months in jail for theft, leaving it to his wife to feed Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, a pair of friends imprisoned in the basement. Martin let the girls starve to death. They were 8 years old.

Bumbling police work and claims by Dutroux that he was part of a wider pedophile network that included politicians, judges and police officials prompted public protests in Belgium and nearly led to the fall of the government. King Albert intervened and ordered a reorganization of the criminal justice system. The Dutroux affair had a profound effect on Belgium’s national psyche, some have argued, damaging public trust in the country’s civil institutions. Sixteen years into her 30 year sentence, Michelle Martin may be leaving prison to enter a convent.

While this has been a gruesome true crime, political intrigue and corruption story, it has now become a religious liberty story with faith taking center stage in this drama. The AP article closes with these paragraphs:

Under the terms of her release, Martin will have to remain at the convent and be assigned a task daily. Moreau, Martin’s lawyer, said it took some time for the convent to agree to have her live there. But in the end they realized that no one else would take her in, he said.

“They accepted because their vocation is to welcome people nobody wants,” he said.

The convent’s decision to give refuge to Michelle Martin has not been warmly received by the Belgian press…

Objections to her release were founded upon a belief that Michelle Martin was the incarnation of absolute evil — “l’incarnation du mal absolu” — the conservative national daily La Libre Belgiquereported. But no person was beyond redemption, the newspaper argued, saying the law must not “deprive anyone, not even the most heinous criminal, of any hope of getting out of jail…

De Standaard printed a letter from the Abbess of Malonne, where the sisters explained their decision to give Michelle Martin a home. They stated they had agreed to take her in as she has no family and no half-way house or other institution would have her due to the notoriety of her crimes. They stated that while she would be residing at the convent under the supervision of the judicial authorities, she would not be a entering the order but would be the guest of the Poor Clares. And, they felt it was their Christian duty to act as they did.

Nous avons la profonde conviction qu’enfermer définitivement le déviant dans son passé délictueux et l’acculer à la désespérance ne serait utile à personne et serait au contraire une marche en arrière pour notre société. Michèle Martin est un être humain capable, comme nous tous, du pire comme du meilleur.

Ideology plays its part in the coverage of this story. Self-identified Catholic newspapers have stressed the theme of penitence and redemption. Some secular newspapers have objected to the intrusion of Catholic sensibilities into the parole of a “monster”, but others have advanced ethical theories of crime and punishment. No one newspaper encompasses all of these views, but collectively the debate over the parole of Michelle Martin is an example of the best of the European press.

Can Michelle Martin be forgiven? Is parole a form of forgiveness? Should the church be accorded a custodial role in a secular state? All great questions. What say you?

 

Irish Priests Say They Will Not Reveal Confession Secrets

Irish Central:

Irish Catholic priests have said that they will not reveal secrets given in confession even though new legislation by the Irish government will call for it.

The new legislation will be introduced after another child abuse scandal in Cloyne, a Cork diocese came to light. As late as 2008, clerics accused of child abuse were being protected by the diocese the Murphy Inquiry found.

The Irish government has now stated that a zero tolerance law will come into effect. However, the group that represents Ireland’s Catholic priests says the secrecy of the confession box must be retained.

This directly contradicts new Irish government legislation which will state that the confessional is not beyond the law.

“The point is, if there is a law in the land, it has to be followed by everybody. There are no exceptions, there are no exemptions,” said Irish Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

Father P.J. Madden, spokesman for the Association of Catholic Priests, however, insisted that the sacramental seal of confession is “above and beyond all else.”

“If I’m breaking the law then somebody has to find a way to address that for me … but in my own right as a priest what I understand is the seal of confession is above and beyond all else,” he said.

“The seal of confession is a very sacred seal for lots of different reasons way beyond this one single issue, however serious this one single issue is,” Father Madden insisted.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said on July 14 that canon law can not supersede state law.

Minister Fitzgerald said the government was firm on this point.

“This is about the law of the land. It’s about child protection. Are we saying … if a child is at risk of child sexual abuse that should not be reported? We cannot say that. The law of the land is clear and unambiguous,” she said.

Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore told the Catholic News Service that the it was “unreal to suggest that the seal of confession has prevented the reporting of the abuse of children.”

David Quinn, director of the think-tank the Iona Institute, said the government proposal was “unprecedented.”

“This would make us the one and only country in the Western world to have such a law. Even revolutionary France in the days of its worst violence against the church did not pass a law requiring the breaking of the seal of confession,” Quinn told the Catholic News Service.

He said the government “is clearly missing something that every other government can see, which is that, at a minimum, such a law is very unlikely to lead to a single conviction and, at a maximum, will be counterproductive and will make society less safe, rather than more safe.”

“No child abuser will go to a priest in confession knowing the priest is required to inform the police. But cutting off the avenue of confession to a child abuser makes it less likely that he will talk to someone who can persuade him to take the next step,” he stated…

Read on here.

‘Priest Prohibited’ Signs Enflame Austrian Passions

Austria — The signs depict a priest wearing a long cassock chasing a boy and a girl, framed by a bright red warning circle.

They’re dotted along a southern Austrian wilderness path that cuts through a swath of forest owned by Sepp Rothwangl, and warn priests against entering his land in the company of kids. It’s the wilderness camp owner’s way of dealing with what he says was his own abuse by a clergyman as a child.

The signs might be expected to be nothing more than a one-man protest in a backwoods region far from Austria’s centers of power. Yet they are attracting nationwide attention and threaten to reignite passions over pedophile clergy that Austria’s Catholic establishment had hoped to have put in the past.

The grizzled 60-year says his actions are meant to “express my protest as a simple citizen” — alleging the Roman Catholic church seems incapable of removing abusive priests from office a year after Austria was swept up in the worldwide sex abuse scandal.

He speaks of “anger boiling over” at what he says is the refusal of predator priests to personally apologize to victims.

“Child Protection Area,” declares a message in bold black writing beneath the sign. “Violations will be prosecuted. We are forced to take this action in the interests of unprotected children.”

The message says clergy are prohibited from entering the forest in the company of children unless they are accompanied by parents, guardians or other authorized adults.

Rothwangl’s signs in his 160 hectare (nearly 400 acre) forest in the hills of Styria province are causing friction in part because they are placed along one of the main trails leading to an ornate 16th century basilica that’s a place of pilgrimage for thousands of devout Catholics each year.

But they are generating a wider impact on a church struggling to revive its reputation…

Spokesman Georg Plank of the Archiocese of Graz, Styria’s provincial capital, describes the signs as “a bizarre act which is supposed to generate attention.” He says that while the majority of Austrians see church attempts to make amends positively, “there will always be a small group that is not satisfied.”

Still, he says the church plans to turn the other cheek, with no legal or other challenges planned…

The whole piece is here.

Bizarre.

Dutch Catholic Priest Pedophilia Endorsement Shocks Church

The Huffington Post has the repugnant details:

Amsterdam — The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are investigating revelations that a Salesian priest served on the board of a group that promotes pedophilia with the full knowledge of his boss.

The order’s top official in the Netherlands, Delegate Herman Spronck, confirmed in a statement that the priest – identified by RTL Nieuws as 73-year-old “Father Van B.” – served on the board of “Martijn,” a group that campaigns to end the Dutch ban on adult-child sex.

The group is widely reviled but not outlawed.

“Of course we reject this and distance ourselves from this personal initiative” on the part of the priest, Spronck said in a statement. “Membership in such organizations does not fit with the ethos of the Salesian order.”

However, Spronck’s own superior in Belgium said he will investigate both Spronck and Van B., after both men were quoted by RTL Nieuws as saying such relationships aren’t always harmful.

Superior Jos Claes told Belgian television on Saturday he “couldn’t imagine” that both men would not be disciplined, but said he must make sure of the facts first.

“Society thinks these relationships are harmful. I disagree,” RTL quoted Van B. as saying. He served on Martijn’s board from 2008 until 2010, when its founder was arrested for alleged possession of child pornography, a case that is ongoing.

Van B. told RTL he remains a member of Martijn and now lives in a retirement home in eastern Netherlands.

In a second interview, RTL quoted Spronck as saying he was aware of Van B.’s pedophilia and membership in Martijn, and even of two instances where the priest had been fined by police for exposing himself in public. But he said he didn’t think that was sufficient reason to ban him from the order.

Absolutely numbing.

How long will this evil go on?

Former Seminarian Arrested, Cited as Pimp for Accused Priest

The arrest of a former seminarian has opened a new window on the scandal surrounding an Italian priest who has been arrested on charges of sexual assault against young boys.

Father Riccardo Seppia was suspended by the Genoa archdiocese after his arrest last week. Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa—whose role as president of the Italian bishops’ conference adds to the public interest in the case—took the unusual step of traveling to Father Seppia’s parish last weekend to denounce the priest’s crimes.

Now authorities have arrested another man, Emanuele Alfano, a former seminary student who has reportedly said that he procured young men for Seppia.

The above was here.

When will it end?

The John Jay Study

Yesterday, the John Jay College research team released their report on the clerical sex-abuse scandal, titled “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.” First, hats off to the U.S. bishops for commissioning the report and outsourcing the investigation to the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, as indeed sexual abuse is a crime against the law, a grievous mortal sin in the Church, and an offense to God.

One myth that is dispelled in the report’s pages is that there are many pedophiles in the priesthood. Of nearly 6,000 priests accused of abuse over the past half-century (only 5 percent of the total number of priests during that period), less than 4 percent of those could be considered pedophiles — that is, men who prey on children. Any percentage is too high, but clearly pedophilia is statistically very rare in the Catholic priesthood. The researchers also note that celibacy is not the root of the problem, and that priests may be less likely to abuse than men in analogous professions.

However, there is still something strange here: The researchers found no statistical evidence that gay priests were more likely than straight priests to abuse minors. The disproportionate number of adolescent male victims was about opportunity, not preference or pathology, the report concluded. But a very high percentage of the abuse (excepting pedophilia) was of teenage boys, and not teenage girls. Is the report telling us that a majority of the abusers were heterosexual priests abusing teenage boys? This strains credulity. I sense an agenda for the homosexual priesthood is behind this conclusion…

Read on here.

CNN runs with: “No single ’cause’ of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests” was identified in a wide-ranging report released by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops released Wednesday. Read it here.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a Press Release concerning the report of the John Jay. It can be read here.

While the John Jay Study self can be downloaded in full here (pdf).

Amnesty International Cites Vatican for Human Rights’ Concerns

Vatican City – Amnesty International named the Vatican in its annual report on human rights’ concerns for not sufficiently complying with international mandates on protecting children from abuse.

It marked the first time the Vatican was named in the group’s Annual Report on the state of human rights around the world. The 2011 Annual Report covered human rights in 157 countries, looking particularly at rights abuses and restrictions and at failures to implement international rights’ agreements.

The report, released May 13, said, “The Holy See did not sufficiently comply with its international obligations relating to the protection of children,” specifically regarding sex abuse.

The Vatican is party to the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Article 19 of the convention says that states parties “shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse.”

The article also says measures should be implemented to aid in prevention, reporting and investigation of abuse as well as care for victims and, “as appropriate,” the involvement of the court system.

The Amnesty International report said, “Increasing evidence of widespread child sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy over the past decades, and of the enduring failure of the Catholic Church to address these crimes properly, continued to emerge in various countries.”

“Such failure included not removing alleged perpetrators from their posts pending proper investigations, not cooperating with judicial authorities to bring them to justice and not ensuring proper reparation to victims,” the report said…

NCR has more.

How discomforting.

UPDATE:  Amnesty International’s dig at Vatican called ‘preposterous’ here.

Canadian Bishop on Trial for Child Pornography

A Bishop?! Child Porn?!?

The trial of Bishop Raymond Lahey, who led the Diocese of Saint George’s (Newfoundland) from 1986 to 2003 and the Diocese of Antigonish (Nova Scotia) from 2003 until his 2009 resignation, begins on May 4 in Ottawa. The prelate is charged with possessing images of child pornography, including child sexual abuse, on his laptop computer, which was confiscated by authorities in an airport as he was returning from a foreign trip.

If true, the word disgusting would not even come close!

The Ottawa Citizen reports further sordid details:

The trial of a former Catholic bishop now accused of possessing and importing graphic images of child sexual abuse is set to begin in an Ottawa courtroom Wednesday.

Raymond Lahey, 70, was picked up at the Ottawa airport on Sept. 15, 2009 when border security agents said they found three images on his laptop computer of boys engaged in various sexual acts.

Documents supporting a search warrant indicated Lahey was referred for a secondary inspection because he had visited Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Spain and Germany since 2005, countries that are notorious sources of the illicit material.

The officer also noticed that Lahey was evasive with his answers, avoided eye contact and changed his tone of voice during specific questions, according to the document. Lahey told the officers the laptop belonged to him and that “he was attracted to males aged 20 to 21,” the document alleged.

A forensic examination of Lahey’s hard drive revealed at least five photos depicting mostly-nude boys between the ages of eight and 12 in various poses and engaged in sexual acts. One of the boys had a dark complexion, the other was blond.

Three months before he was charged, Lahey oversaw a historic apology and $15-million financial settlement for victims of sexual abuse committed by a priest in his diocese in Antigonish, N.S.

Lahey is scheduled for a three-day trial. Earlier court time set aside by Lahey’s lawyer Michael Edelson to argue that Lahey’s Charter rights had been violated was cancelled. Edelson indicated at the time that if he had any Charter arguments, they would be made during the trial.

In addition to the criminal charges, Lahey is also accused in a civil lawsuit of sexual abuse.

In a statement of claim filed in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, Todd Boland alleged former Bishop Raymond Lahey fondled him over his clothes, and that the abuse happened on numerous occasions over several years. The abuse is alleged to have happened in the mid-1980s when Boland was a resident at the infamous Mount Cashel orphanage.

UPDATE:   The wicked ex-Bishop has pleaded guilty.

Catholic Bishop Called a ‘Pedophile Pimp’

By an American politician:

New Hampshire’s House Republican leader has used Facebook to lash out at Bishop John McCormack, who opposed the state budget cut plan, calling him a “pedophile.”

The Roman Catholic cleric vocally opposed the budget plan on Thursday on the basis that it would hurt “the most vulnerable in our society.”

In a post on the social networking site on Friday, David J. Bettencourt asked whether McCormack would like to discuss his history of protecting the vulnerable, CNN reported.

“This man [McCormack] is a pedophile pimp who should have been led away from the State House in handcuffs with a rain coat over his head in disgrace. He has absolutely no moral credibility to lecture anyone,” Bettencourt said.

New Hampshire GOP Chairman Jack Kimball said in a Friday statement that he was disappointed with Bettencourt’s post and that he did not share the House Leader’s sentiments.

McCormack is the bishop of the Diocese of Manchester. The diocese came under criticism in 2003 when it was forced to settle over 170 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests in New Hampshire.

I’m afraid that Facebook has become a popular out let for some really completely unacceptable vitriolic attacks like the one above.