Priest convicted for raping boy and church covered it up

Taken from here: news.bbc.co.uk...

'Street priest'

Police finally arrested Shanley in 2002 in California, where he had been living since leaving Massachusetts in 1990.

Public outrage at the abuses committed by Shanley and fellow Boston priest John Geoghan, a convicted paedophile who was killed in prison in 2003, was compounded by suspicions that Church leaders had sought to cover up their crimes by shuffling them from posting to posting.

Documents revealed at earlier hearings, including a detailed diary kept by Shanley himself, showed that he had suffered from sexually transmitted diseases.

He had been in contact with disadvantaged youths as far back as the 1970s when he worked as a "street priest", dealing with drug addicts, runaways and homosexuals.

According to his diary, he helped "kids shoot up properly".

There were also grounds for believing that Shanley had associated with advocates of paedophilia in the late 1970s.

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So he raped young boys, helped kids shoot drugs, and it is suspected that the church helped cover it up by moving him around to various posts. If the church knew about it and covered it up then they should be held accountable, no question. I think it should be looked further into, and higher up the chain than just Shanley.

What is even more scarry the worst of the worst may be missionaries in other countries. Check out the RICCO act and tell me why the Catholic Church should not be charged under it. I feel the act fits these crimes because with the number of people involved the payoffs the bribery and coverups John Gotti had nothing on them.

[edit on 7-2-2005 by factfinder38]

99% of all relgious are perfectly normal in their sexuality and have never touched a child or anyone in a sexual manner.

1% of the preist have abused the position, it's not them all. Being a person trying to decide a catholic life as a preist or brother I am deeply offended to hear comments like "Think about that you leave your kid at church" I know this hasn't been said in this thread but I want it known.

Originally posted by Mizar
99% of all relgious are perfectly normal in their sexuality and have never touched a child or anyone in a sexual manner.

1% of the preist have abused the position, it's not them all. Being a person trying to decide a catholic life as a preist or brother I am deeply offended to hear comments like "Think about that you leave your kid at church" I know this hasn't been said in this thread but I want it known.

Of course you can't judge a whole religion by one person's actions, and I hope this thread doesn't degenerate into a lot of name calling and mud slinging. I was simply trying to bring this news to people's attention. However, I do feel that if the Catholic Church did know something about it all then they should be held accountable, and that perhaps futher investigation into the matter should be undertaken.

All this aside, I wish you well in whatever path you chose, Mizar

One percent of ALL religious sects? Yes, I would agree. But the percentage is much higher in the Catholic church.

"Father Shandley" won't last two months in prison before he is whacked. Good.

My question is, would there be fewer incidents of abuse if priests were allowed to marry?

Actually, the percentage for the catholic church so far is at 4% and rising, not 1%.

There would be fewer incidents if people had self control. It will happen and ther e is not much to be done about it.

And to have a preist marry is absurd. The whole point of preist hood is to take the 3 vows of Poverty Chasity And Obedience. Which basicly meand you give up everything for God and the church. To have marrige in the preist hood would destroy it and the heart of preists would be changed. Any devout catholic would be preist. So that is out of question. The training and years it takes to become a preist sorts out almost all of the people who don't qualify.

I forget but 80% of the people who start out in a seminary dont make preists. Its verry rigiourous and thats why I say people need extream self control to lay off hands and thats also why its only 1%. Because through teh training they sort out and dismiss anyone who shows these traits. When it happens its generally because a preist just became overwhelmed with sexual desires and couldn't control it. Still its their fault for allowing the thought to grow. But the road to relgious is incredibly hard. Many don't realize it. It can take 10 years before you are ordained a preist because of all the training and profile/ personality development. Its not something anyone can do in the catholic church.

Thanks for the correction. Still thats not much.

It's a little over 25,000 preists when it should be ZERO! One is ten to many.

I still have to doubt that 25,000 have been convicted justly. I am not doubting your facts but I am doubting that 25000 are truly guilty. I can't see how that many could have goten through the system. and If so then I'm mad at the church for letting their gaurd down especailly considering the time all these preists would have been ordained, Veitnam. During that era many people flocked to seminaries just to avoid the draft, the church uped the antie with the procudres to make sure the true preist only made it.

I really do doubt that 25.000 have been justly convicted and been actually guilty. We have so many stupid lawsuits and people geting away with so much in law I really doubt that many have done wrong maybe half not all of them.

This is a church which declares that it has the divine inspiration of God behind it. A church which declares every single one of its edicts to be from God himself.

This is only one example of how that cannot be true.

It also reminds me of a thread discussing the oath taken by priests to secure the identity of the confessor, and begs the question; did this priest confess to a bishop over the course of 32 years? And if he had, then he was allowed to take advantage of and destroy innocent lives.

Whether it is is .0000001% or 1% makes no difference given how this church views itself.

I actually knew a priest who had been charged with this horrible stuff. I always thought he was kind of odd. When he moved to a different church its when it started. I feel bad. Satin was able take a hold of the priests and consume them with evil. I hope all this is soon forgotten and we can all go to talking about religion without ppl saying that priests rape kids. Its just really offensive and ignorant.

? What does satan have to do with it? Also, not 25,000 have been convicted, only what? 3-4 were actually convicted because the church gets special treatments. 25,000 have been accused/charged. Of course, who knows how many have not been accused/charged because they were sent to a different place.

Originally posted by James the Lesser
? What does satan have to do with it? Also, not 25,000 have been convicted, only what? 3-4 were actually convicted because the church gets special treatments. 25,000 have been accused/charged. Of course, who knows how many have not been accused/charged because they were sent to a different place.

He didn't say Satan, he said Satin. Apparently some nice feeling fabric led him astray

Seriously though, the Catholic Church does have a very bad image for their priests being paedophiles, and this has surfaced because of accusations from people who have been molested, not just out of thin air. It would be interesting to see the statistics of paedophiles in the church compared with other professions, such as teachers for example. I wonder if the Church gets it so hard because as Somewhereinbetween said, it declares its edicts to be the utmost holy men, setting itself up for huge public outcry when this infallable image gets tainted. Or is the percentage of paedophiles in the priesthood actually higher than other professions?

Originally posted by Mizar
Thanks for the correction. Still thats not much.

I'm wondering where you got your stats from? Are these only the convicted ones? I imagine convicting a priest of this crime would prove to be alot more challenging and complicated than a normal citizen.. they have the support of an entire organisation behind them and are already assumed to be moral. I doubt if they did a survey priests would answer honestly. Also.. bear in mind that a predator who is also a priest could easily have a hundred victims so that does not make it a small problem.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by riley]

I did find this info so far .....

According to a survey by the Washington Post, over the last four decades, less than 1.5 percent of the estimated 60,000 or more men who have served in the Catholic clergy have been accused of child sexual abuse. According to a survey by the New York Times, 1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 have been accused of child sexual abuse. Thomas Kane, author of Priests are People Too, estimates that between 1 and 1.5 percent of priests have had charges made against them. Of contemporary priests, the Associated Press found that approximately two-thirds of 1 percent of priests have charges pending against them.

And then I found this

Moving molesting teachers from school district to school district is a common phenomenon. And in only 1 percent of the cases do superintendents notify the new school district. According to Diana Jean Schemo, the term “passing the trash” is the preferred jargon among educators.

Shakeshaft has also determined that 15 percent of all students have experienced some kind of sexual misconduct by a teacher between kindergarten and 12th grade; the behaviors range from touching to forced penetration. She and Cohan also found that up to 5 percent of teachers sexually abuse children. Shakeshaft will soon be ready to release the findings of a vast study undertaken for the Planning and Evaluation Service Office of the Undersecretary, U.S. Department of Education, titled, “Educator Sexual Misconduct with Students: A Synthesis of Existing Literature on Prevalence in Connection with the Design of a National Analysis.”

The article also talks about how horrible this is in the family household and concludes with this statement...

The issue of child sexual molestation is deserving of serious scholarship. Too often, assumptions have been made that this problem is worse in the Catholic clergy than in other sectors of society. This report does not support this conclusion. Indeed, it shows that family members are the most likely to sexually molest a child. It also shows that the incidence of the sexual abuse of a minor is slightly higher among the Protestant clergy than among the Catholic clergy, and that it is significantly higher among public school teachers than among ministers and priests.

Source www.freerepublic.com...

According to a survey by the Washington Post,

How can people know whether or not this is a reliously biased newspaper [I'm in Australia so wouldn't know] ..and these are based on accusations and convictions. The number of rape victims who come forward is only 15%.. that is alot of crims and victims unaccounted for.. and I see no reason why the number would be different regarding priest rapists.
As for bringing school teachers into it.. it is not relevant to this forum and does not negate the fact that pedophelia is a major problem in the catholic church.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by riley]

I wasn't trying to negate it. Slick had asked for a comparasion of other professions to the church. Aslo so far I'm the only one to back up my info with a source except the origonal post. BUT what I was trying to get across is people always go "Think about that when you leave your kid with a preist!" well if the info in the articel I cited is correct then its much more rampart in schools. COnsidering how few preist there are by comparasion and how different the percentage is.

Of course this doesn't make the preist scandls any less major.

Originally posted by riley

As for bringing school teachers into it.. it is not relevant to this forum and does not negate the fact that pedophelia is a major problem in the catholic church.

[edit on 8-2-2005 by riley]

As for that. Just because it is not the total subject of the thread does not negate the fact that pedophelia is a major problem in the school system also.

Originally posted by Mizar
Aslo so far I'm the only one to back up my info with a source except the origonal post.

Fair enough.. but I still do not undertand how an accurate number can be reached when their basing the stats on accusations.. even for victims that actually come forward it could take years.

BUT what I was trying to get across is people always go "Think about that when you leave your kid with a preist!" well if the info in the articel I cited is correct then its much more rampart in schools.

If.. but of course there are many more teachers than priests.. and it used to be that no-one would ever suspect a priest which meant they were given even more power to abuse.

COnsidering how few preist there are by comparasion and how different the percentage is.

As I said earlier it's the number of victims that matters. Priests' morality never used to be put into question- they were revered much more than teachers and so had greater power. Nowadays school systems are more strict in filtering out threats.. they have police checks and I think some schools have psychological evalutations.. they do try take responsibilty [and are expected] to police their own institutions yet religions are much more 'in house'.