John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army expands into Dutch Catholic Church

Please read our important posts in our sister weblog Benedict XVI-Ratzinger God's Rottweiler

Benedict XVI condemns abuse of children by priests 3 DECADES LATE…Cardinal Ratzinger Pope B16 is a pathological liar http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/benedict-xvi-condemns-abuse-of-children.html

Catholics can emulate Jews [who hunted down Nazi officers] by hunting down pedophile priests’ officers Benedict XVI & Bishops into the World Court http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/catholics-can-emulate-jews-who-hunted.html


What do we Catholics got to lose if Benedict XVI was brought to World Court for his crimes as the Hitler-Pope of pedophile priests? http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-do-we-catholics-got-to-lose-if.html



Compare the CRIMES and their VICTIMS in America

Victims - Attackers - Responsible Leaders

Pearl Harbor - 3,000 victims - 170 planes - Admiral Yamamoto

WTC & 9/11 attacks - 5,000 victims - 19 Muslims - Osama bin Laden

USA Priest Pedophilia - 12,000 victims - 6,000 priests - John Paul II,
Benedict XVI & Opus Dei (Vatican Trinity)

Dutch Catholic Church faces child sex abuse scandal

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-catholic-church-faces-child-sex-abuse-scandal

Published on : 26 February 2010 - 3:24pm | By Robert Chesal (Photo: St. Agatha, Erfgoedcentrum Nederlands Kloosterleven, Archief Salesianen van Don Bosco)


"There was a knock at the door. I tried to scream but I couldn’t utter a sound." Janne Geraets, now 57, suffered repeated sexual abuse from the age of 11 at the hands of a priest at the Roman Catholic school where he was a boarder.
Amid the high-profile child sexual abuse scandals in the United States and other European countries, the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands has remained unsullied. But a joint investigation by Radio Netherlands Worldwide and NRC Handelsblad reveals that this is unjustified.

Lured out of bed

Janne Geraets’ ordeal began in 1964, at the Don Rua monastery in the town of 's-Heerenberg in the east of the Netherlands. He was being trained by the Salesian Fathers of Don Bosco, in the hope of one day becoming a missionary. After a party, one of the priests lured Janne to the infirmary under the pretext of giving him medicine to ease his sore throat. "All of a sudden he was right up against me. He unzipped his trousers and forced my hand inside. I was in a state of utter confusion."

Absolution

After the incident, Janne returned to bed. But the next morning he was summoned by the same priest. "I remember how my heart was pounding as I knocked on the door. He opened it and said 'That should never have happened'. He gave me absolution; he pardoned my sin. That confused me even more."
Janne Geraets was summoned to that same room again and again. "He would lie on his couch and put me on top of him, riding back and forth. I remember a knock at the door on one occasion. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I wanted to yell 'this isn’t right, this isn’t allowed'. But there was no one to turn to. You’re too afraid to say anything. You think you are the dirty one and that they’ll throw you out of school."

Slideshow: images of Don Rua monastery. Story continues below.

Large-scale abuse

At the boarding school in ’s-Heerenberg, 80 to 100 boys between the ages of 12 and 18 slept in four large dormitories. "Sometimes you knew for sure: there’s something going on between that boy and that priest. And that other priest has a number of boys up in his room. It happened on a large scale. Several of the priests were involved.”

Janne Geraets thinks that not all of the contact was involuntary. “Some priests were more popular than others. You could tell because more boys visited them." The priest who abused Janne is now 98 years old. "Everything I held sacred turned out to be a façade," says Janne. "It was a huge blow to my self-confidence."

Too little, too late

Sexual abuse of children by priests has been brought to light in a number of countries, but the recent apologies from the Vatican are “too little too late”. At least, that is the opinion of Yvo van Kuijck, former chairman of the independent Assessment and Advisory Committee (Beoordelings- en Adviescommissie, BAC) which cooperates with Hulp & Recht, the Netherlands’ hotline for reporting sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Since it was set up in 1995, the hotline has received almost 300 reports of sexual abuse. “It has taken too long for the Church to apologise and take action. (…) The Dutch bishops adopted the same ‘wait and see’ approach. I didn’t get the impression that dealing with sexual abuse was a priority for them."

Committee resigns

Two years ago, dissatisfied with the attitude taken by the Dutch bishops, Yvo van Kuijck, now vice-president of the District Court in Arnhem, resigned along with the entire Assessment and Advisory Committee. Priests guilty of abuse in one parish were simply transferred to another parish where they were free to find new victims. "Not only is that unprofessional, it’s inconceivable."

Listen to a Newsline interview with the author, Robert Chesal

Girls as well as boys

Leonie Cramwinckel-Bloch was 15 years old and in her fourth year at secondary school in Doetinchem when she went on a school skiing trip. Her class was supervised by the English teacher, another Salesian father from the nearby monastery in 's-Heerenberg. It was December 1970. Leonie, who is now 54, says the priest sexually assaulted her, fondling her genitals on more than one occasion. She didn’t dare tell anyone.

"But I knew that he was wrong. Looking back, I was surprised by how easy and self-evident it was for him. That made me realise that it couldn’t have been the first time." Back at school, she steered clear of the priest and only told her parents a few years later. The priest in question has since died.

Sexual harassment
There were other cases of abuse outside the monastery. Another Salesian father, now 72, taught maths in ’s-Heerenberg during the 1960s. He later became the parish priest at Saint Martin’s in Hoogland near Amersfoort. But in 1994, the archbishop of Utrecht suspended him following accusations of sexual harassment involving a young boy.

No investigation

In a response, the priest says that there was little substance to the accusations. "We were in the sauna at a sports centre. The boy saw me naked. Nothing more. A man sitting next to me had an erection. But I didn’t touch the boy. It was a long time ago. I don’t think it’s right to stir all this up again." Wim Flapper, former provincial head of the Salesians of Don Bosco, admits that the order did not try to get to the bottom of this incident. He says of the priest in Hoogland “He received psychotherapy. We took care of that. But we did not investigate whether there were other victims.”

Cause for investigation

Now that three priests from the same institution have been subject to accusations, former chairman of the Assessment and Advisory Committee, Yvo van Kuijck, sees cause for further investigation. Although it is no longer his responsibility, he believes that it is in the interests of the church to look into the matter. "If it’s a structural problem at an institution, then there is every reason to take a good look at what’s going on. The victims can still report abuse to the Hulp & Recht hotline. Even cases where the culprit has died are investigated."

Regret
Johan Marsman, now 68, ran the farm for the Salesians in ’s-Heerenberg during the 1960s. He has written a book about the Don Rua monastery. He is aware that the priests had relationships with the boys. "Under the previous head Wim Flapper, nearly 15 years ago, a meeting was organised for former students and the abuse was discussed. He expressed his regret and conceded that mistakes had been made." Johan says most of the former students no longer want to talk about the incidents. He himself left the monastery in 1968.

When asked whether the priests at Don Rua had relationships with ‘favourite boys’, Johan Marsman nods. "Yes, I’ve heard that." He says the situation at Don Rua was not unique. "It happened everywhere, especially at the boarding schools. But it cannot be excused."

Trail to the top
In the period that Janne Geraets was abused at the Don Rua boarding school, the current Bishop of Rotterdam, Ad van Luyn, was working there as a teacher. In the 1970s, Bishop Van Luyn was provincial head of the Salesians. Since 2008 he has chaired the Netherlands Synod of Bishops.

Ad van Luyn declines to discuss "past issues". Through a spokesman, he explains that "matters relating to the congregation are the responsibility of the current father superior, even if they relate to previous governors."

Father Herman Spronck, currently the most senior Salesian in the Netherlands, denies all knowledge of abuse in ’s-Heerenberg, and refers all inquiries to his predecessors. He is not opposed to an investigation and is keen to emphasise that sexual abuse goes against the vow taken by the Fathers of Don Bosco. “At Don Bosco, the inviolable sanctity of youth is key to our system of education.”

John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army erupts in Berlin, Germany

Before Benedict XVI dies, priest-pedophilia which he perpetuated and covered-up will swarm his native country of Germany.

Priest-Pedophilia erupted first here in Boston in 2002 as John Paul II prepared for his last trip and last World Youth Day in North America. And now the epicenter is in Berlin: “A tremor is currently passing through the Catholic Church in Germany. It could be merely the beginning of an earthquake of proportions which have so far only been seen in the American and Irish Church. Tens of thousands of abuse cases were brought to light in both countries. Could Germany be next?”

Please read the most recent posts in our sister weblogs The John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Cardinal Bernard Law must resign following Irish Clergy Abuse report


Benedict XVI-Ratzinger, God's Rottweiler - February 11, 2010
Benedict XVI condemns abuse of children by priests 3 DECADES LATE…Cardinal Ratzinger Pope B16 is a pathological liar
http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/02/benedict-xvi-condemns-abuse-of-children.html



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http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,676497,00.html
02/08/2010

Inside Germany's Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal

The Catholic Church in Germany has been shaken in recent days by revelations of a series of sexual abuse cases. Close to 100 priests and members of the laity have been suspected of abuse in recent years. After years of suppression, the wall of silence appears to be crumbling. By SPIEGEL Staff.

This is what it looks like, the document of a conspiracy: 24 pages, with appendix, in Latin, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican. A "norma interna," or confidential set of guidelines for all bishops, who were required to keep it a secret for all eternity, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The guidelines, issued in the year of our Lord 1962, address a sensitive subject: sex in the confessional. The Vatican doesn't put it quite that directly, preferring to use more guarded terminology to describe what happens when a priest leads a member of his flock astray before, during or after the confession -- in other words, when he provokes a penitent "toward impure and obscene matters" through "words or signs or nods of the head (or) by touch."

PHOTO GALLERY
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Photo Gallery: The Dark Side of the Church

According to the instructions from Rome, the bishops were to deal very firmly with each individual case -- so firmly, in fact, that everything would remain within the confines of the Holy Church. After all, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- formerly known as the Inquisition -- has centuries of experience in conducting internal investigations. The Vatican has always filled all the positions in such investigations -- prosecutors, defendants, judges -- from within its own ranks, while the investigation files have been kept in the secret archives of the Roman Curia.

Claim to Moral Authority

On the surface, the Vatican's objective is to protect the sacrament of the confession. In reality, however, it is trying to uphold the Catholic Church's claim to being a superior moral authority.

Nothing can be allowed to besmirch this authority: not the sexual abuse of children and adolescents, committed by thousands of Catholic priests worldwide; not the secret relationships between pastor and their housekeepers; not the covering-up of priests' children; and not the love affairs between gay clerics. They are all cases of a double standard that arose because it is difficult for people -- even priests -- to subordinate their human desires to a papal encyclical.

This code of silence has been upheld for decades, in some cases informally and in some cases by virtue of Vatican directives like the 1962 guideline.

But now the wall of silence is coming down here in Germany. It started when Berlin's Canisius College, an elite Jesuit high school, recently disclosed the sordid past of a number of members of the order, who had abused students at the school in the 1970s and 1980s. After that, new victims began coming forward on a daily basis. By last Friday, at least 40 of them had accused three Jesuit priests of molesting children and adolescents, first in Berlin and later at the St. Ansgar School in Hamburg, the St. Blasien College in the Black Forest and in several parishes in the northern German state of Lower Saxony.

Tip of the Iceberg

As shocking as the revelations were, they are merely "the tip of the iceberg," says the current director of Canisius College, Father Klaus Mertes, who made public the sexual abuse of students.

For decades, German bishops tried to look the other way when their pastors engaged in sexual abuse, as well as to downplay the problem by characterizing it as isolated incidents. Now they are finally revealing their own figures, though hesitantly.

According to a SPIEGEL survey of Germany's 27 dioceses conducted last week, at least 94 priests and members of the laity in Germany are suspected or have been suspected of abusing countless children and adolescents since 1995. A total of 24 of the 27 dioceses responded to SPIEGEL's questions.

A group called the Round Table for Care in Children's Homes recently published an interim report which contains dramatic findings. The report deals with the wrongs committed since the 1950s against children and adolescents living in homes, almost half of which were run by the Catholic Church.

According to the report, more than 150 victims of sexual abuse have come forward with their stories in recent months. One of them is a woman who, as a 15-year-old girl, had to sit in the confessional and watch a priest masturbate. When she tried to get away from him, she was beaten by the nuns who ran the home. There has never been a systematic investigation into how many Catholic schools, homes and rectories were the scenes of abuse, even when there was evidence in the files. The Round Table group plans to present its final report at the end of the year.

Protecting Offenders, Ignoring Victims

A tremor is currently passing through the Catholic Church in Germany. It could be merely the beginning of an earthquake of proportions which have so far only been seen in the American and Irish Church. Tens of thousands of abuse cases were brought to light in both countries. Could Germany be next?

The scandal is just beginning, and yet it has already made a deep impression: on parents, who expect Catholic schools to provide their children with moral guidance; on the victims, who are now confronting their dark past after living with it half their lives; and on the faithful, who now regard their church with dismay. Their shock stems not only from the fact that there are pedophiles in the church, as there are elsewhere in society. It also comes from the fact that the church systematically protected the perpetrators and ignored the victims, and that it repressed and covered up sexual abuse in its own ranks for decades -- and in doing so enabled pedophile priests to leave behind a trail of emotional devastation throughout Germany.

To this day, the chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Archbishop of Freiburg Robert Zollitsch, has not offered any convincing words of apology or emphatic gestures of redress to the victims of the church's double standard. After vacillating for days, he finally decided not to grant SPIEGEL an interview. The official Church prefers not to allow the suffering of its victims to become a major issue, because it doesn't fit into the Church's hypocritical worldview.

The Bishops' Conference will not even address the sex scandals until Feb. 22. "The revelations show a dark side of the church that scares me," says the Jesuit Hans Langendörfer, secretary of the Bishops' Conference. "We expressly want an investigation."

Repressed Morality

Nevertheless, the clerics are still a long way from any sort of true self-criticism or far-reaching analysis, because it would require them to examine the Church's repressed sexual morality that is dictated from above. It would require an honest discussion about celibacy and its consequences, particularly when it comes to the Church's recruitment practices. In a church that is having trouble attracting men to the priesthood, particularly as a result of the ban on marriage, the number of good candidates has become so small that too many inappropriate candidates get admitted.

Does this mean that the church will continue to pursue its policy of hemming and hawing, and of avoiding the important questions, as it has already done so often? It will be difficult to carry on like that, now that the Jesuits' offensive has put the entire clergy under pressure. The order intends to systematically investigate abuse in its own ranks, as painful as that effort will be and even if the growing number of revelations by former students plunge it into what is likely to be the deepest crisis in Jesuit history. Father Stefan Dartmann, the head of the Jesuit order of Germany, says that an "immense tragedy is now becoming apparent."

His fears are justified, as more and more former students come forward. In addition to the Canisius College and the schools in St. Ansgar and St. Blasien, there have now been revelations of abuse at the Jesuits' Aloisius College in Bonn's Bad Godesberg neighborhood, where entire generations of children of politicians and diplomats went to school.
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• Part 1: Inside Germany's Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal
• Part 2: 'It Was Difficult for Us to Endure the Priests' Sexual Advances'
• Part 3: An Attractive Alterantive to Public Schools for Many Parents
• Part 4: 'One Can't Say that the Criminal Law Has Any Practical Significance'
• Part 5: A Church Pays Hush Money
• Part 6: Celibacy: A Senselessly Wasted Life or Gift of the Holy Spirit?


DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: Results of the SPIEGEL survey of German dioceses