Scandal involving pedophile priests in the USA is gathering steam

Paulo Evaristo Arns, one of the senior priests of the Catholic Church in Brazil, gave his opinion regarding the cancellation of celibacy of the clergy. Arns believes that it is up to the priest to make such a decision, which is not supposed to be obligatory for all Catholic priests.

The Bible does not point out or mention anything about celibacy; this rule was introduced by the Roman Catholic Church. Let’s assume that the first Pope was married. So why can't he be an example for others who devoted their lives to serving Jesus Christ? Arns believes that simply a set of measures against those priests who were found guilty of this horrid sin is not sufficient for the Catholic Church: one should consider the entire complex set of problems connected with celibacy.

This statement was released against the background of a huge international scandal, which involves American pedophile priests. We have previously reported that there were some 400 lawsuits filed against priests in Boston, which is the center of the scandal. Incidents the abuse of power abuse on the part of Catholic priests against children have been reported in Brazil as well.

Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns is not married, by the way; he can completely devote himself to serving God, but as he says, not all people can do this. Furthermore, Arns is considered to be a bigger liberal than his colleagues. Arns realizes that it is impossible to reform the functioning rules at the present moment. The Brazilian Catholic church does not share Arns’s point of view. As the representatives of the Brazilian church have said, this is his personal position regarding the issue.

The latest news is that 176 American priests have already been dismissed from service in 28 states due to accusations of sexual abuse. About 550 people have been victims of pedophilia in California and Massachusetts, and the number of lawsuits is growing in America. However, the church institutions of 18 other states do not want to fire their priests; they are still trying to find another way out of the situation. There are only four American states that have managed to avoid this scandal: Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming. We have to add here that the abused children do not actually say anything about what happened to them. The scandal was raised by those people who grew up and found the energy to tell the story of their sad past.

John Paul II had a meeting with American cardinals last week. The communiqué, which has been recently exposed, does not say anything about tough measures against those priests who are caught with their pedophile tendencies for the first time. This detail caused a lot of indignation of the society, and of the parents of the abused children as well. The father of a raped child said that he was very outraged about the fact that the resolution of the Vatican declaration does not mention anything about the victims of the perversion: “We could not sleep last night, realizing that Rome has done almost nothing for those who have suffered.” Francis Kissling of the organization Catholics for a Free Choice claimed that he was shocked with the fact that the leaders of the American Catholic Church are not willing to fire the priests who were found guilty of pedophile only once.

Yevgeny Piskunov, a Russian journalist from the RTR television network (RTR correspondent in the USA) prepared a TV report that aired on the Russian television last night. As Piskunov said, the scandal in Massachusetts started with the confession of a 24-year-old man named Greg Ford, who said that, when he was six years of age, he was raped by priest Paul Shanley. Ford said that Shanley had raped hundreds of boys during his years of spiritual tutorship: “I hope that he will burn in hell,” – said Ford. Ford’s father believes that the cardinal of Massachusetts must also be judged, because he has been covering up the priests’ crimes for so long. The cardinal, who has been recently claimed as the Pope’s successor, even admitted the fact that Paul Shanley openly advocated the idea of men and boys living together.

RTR journalists were forbidden to film in Catholic schools in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, as the church has been paying a lot of money for silence. The New York Times wrote that a priest raped a boy in New Jersey, and the church paid over 800 thousand dollars for his “resignation.”

Sergey Stefanov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov