There has been much criticism of the USCCB for the collective handling of the sodomite abuse crisis. But according to a recent report the US government may be coming after many of them with a new legal case as part of a class-action lawsuit charging RICO violations according to a report:
The U.S. bishops’ conference and the Holy See face a class action lawsuit filed by six men who claim they were sexually abused by Catholic clergy during their childhoods. They are seeking financial damages as well as public contrition and reparation from the Church.
The 80-page suit filed Nov. 13 claims that the Vatican and the bishops knew about – and covered up for – the “endemic, systemic, rampant, and pervasive rape and sexual abuse” of the plaintiffs and others at the hands of active members of the clergy, religious orders, and other Church representatives.
The suit opens by invoking two passages of Scripture: “(B)ut people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed,” and: “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather, expose them.”
Rather than protect the plaintiffs, the lawsuit says Church leaders protected and – “incredibly” – promoted the offenders.
These kinds of “wrongful actions, inaction, omissions, cover-up, deception, and concealment” create a “conspiracy of silence to their financial and reputational benefit and to Plaintiffs’ and Class Members’ personal, mental, psychological, and financial detriment.” These actions are “ongoing and continuous” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. by four attorneys representing six individuals who lived in six different states at the time the abuse occurred – Iowa, California, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. It does not specifically detail the cases of abuse reportedly suffered by the individuals.
The attorneys who filed the suit are Mitchell Toups, Richard Coffman, Joe Whatley Jr., and Henry Quillen, who have previous experience with similar lawsuits on behalf of victims of clerical sex abuse.
Coffman, one of two attorneys on the case from Beaumont, Texas, told the Beaumont Enterprise that he has been watching the unfolding of the recent sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and felt the “time was right” to file this lawsuit.
“(S)omething needs to be done about this problem,” he told the Enterprise.
“There’s just a louder and louder outcry going on across the United States for the Catholic church to do something about this situation,” Coffman added.
The lawsuit was filed during the autumn plenary assembly of the USCCB in Baltimore, during which the bishops voted down a proposal that would have “encouraged” the Vatican to “release soon” all documents related to the allegations of misconduct against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, whose case has been at the center of the abuse scandals in the Church in the U.S. that have unfolded over the past five months.
At the beginning of the meeting, president of the conference Cardinal Daniel DiNardo also announced a Vatican order that the bishops not vote on any proposed solutions to the abuse crisis until a meeting in Rome in February with other bishops’ conferences, a move that the lawsuit said was merely “kicking the can down the road again.”
Several U.S. bishops expressed their disappointment with the order, and the sex abuse crisis still featured as a prominent point of discussion at the meeting, though no action was taken.
The suit also claims that the bishops and the Vatican violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, aimed at organized crime, because the bishops engaged in federal mail fraud and wire fraud in the cover-up of abuse. The Catholic Church in the U.S. is an “unincorporated association” and therefore qualifies as an organization that can be held to RICO standards, it states.
The plaintiffs are seeking “compensatory damages, economic damages, punitive damages, RICO treble damages, medical monitoring, pre- and post-judgment interest, and attorneys’ fees, litigation expenses, and court costs.”
They also seek relief that would compel the Vatican and the bishops to “comply with various state statutes requiring them to report the abusive Clergy to law enforcement or other responsible authorities, terminate the abusive Clergy, identify the abusive Clergy to the general public so that parents may protect their children going forward, release documents evidencing such Clergy abuse to achieve transparency, and such other relief the Court deems just and proper.”
Spokespersons for the USCCB have told several media outlets that the conference will not comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation. (source, source)
What has happened with the bishops is wrong and despicable. As it has been well documented, there has been a historically unprecedented penetration of the sodomites into the ranks of the clergy up to the highest levels. It is a scandal, it needs to be cleaned out, and in spite of many efforts by the laity, the only result has been for the leadership to resist and obstruct without a desire to change. Indeed, at this point legal avenues have to be pursued because it is clear that many want to cover up or defend said crimes that cannot be defended.
Sacred Scripture makes clear that the gates of Hell will not prevail over the Church. The Church is not going to go anywhere, and this is certainly not “the end of the Church.” Rather, it is a warning for all who can hear and see of difficult times ahead, and that if the Church cannot be cleaned by the laity, then God will clean it, and as I suspect, it may come at the tip of a khazouk while soldiers nearby dance the Schuhplattler.
This is for a European context. The US, being that her origins are in the British Isles, may experience a situation similar to that of King Henry VIII, where the Church was stripped of her lands by the government, thus economically starving her as a part of her war on the Faith. This always has been a real potential for not just the Church, but all Christians in the US because of the tax-exempt status that churches regardless of denomination follow, often times by necessity, in order to perform their ministries. Without the tax exempt status, it would be nearly impossible for the churches to keep their very buildings, let alone operate the charities they do.
Years ago, I spoke with a friend and Catholic priest. He noted that the greatest threat to all churches in the US is this tax-exempt status, and he said he believed it was a matter of time until it was revoked. He cited the actions of homosexuals in the hierarchy as a catalyst for it, and he said that if the Church’s status is revoked, then all Christians are in danger because the Catholic Church is the single largest consistent bloc of Christians in the US, and if they can be forced out of their status over this issue, then any church can, and that it will be a matter of time before other churches are forced to either change what they preach or stop preaching about certain matters, such as homosexuality, or be forced into a position of financial destitution.
Many people are cheering the actions being taken against the bishops, of which many of them are guilty of accessory to terrible sins. That said, the focus on the abuse is irrelevant as far as the government is concerned because it is a known fact that over 80% of the abuse was done by sodomites.
This is why the insistence is on “sexual abuse” and not “sodomy”, because it imparts a different connotation. The government has legally enshrined support of sodomy into many aspects of federal law, over 63% of the total population and 75%+ of all people 35 and under support sodomite marriage, and given the statistics it is likely that 90%+ of Americans support sodomite behavior.
America has become Sodom by her behavior, yet it is the behavior of the citizens of Sodom- the sodomites -that caused the abuse.
Why not address this issue?
Because the issue is not about stopping sodomite abuse at all, but about stripping the Church of her power.
Something that is not discussed often in the legal “profession” is that the whole thing is a show based on popularity devoid from objective truth and even legal precedent. That is to say, the law in the nation is as only as good as the will of its “ministers” to assert it, and since popularity among lawyers results in cases, victories, and is a barometer of “success,” it is in the interest of a lawyer’s career and financial stability to pursue the status quo and not to question it. Even lawyers who stand for “Christian causes” will rarely touch certain issues, and if they do it will be in an indirect manner, because of fear of “ruining” their reputation.
The Catholic Church has never been liked in the US, going back to the earliest Anglo-Protestant settlements. Likewise, homosexuality is now considered a “recognized” part of society, and it is in the popular view a veritable act of treason to oppose homosexuality.
From a lawyer’s perspective, and in his own interest, it is to his advantage to oppose the Church and press for charges while also supporting the LGBT, thus emphasizing “sexual abuse” and ignoring the homosexuality of said members of the clergy. The result will be a perpetuation of the said status with no real changes except for the Church to be further isolated and even possibly suppressed.
The RICO laws were designed with good intentions to take down organized crime rings common during the early and mid-20th century. This is not to say that they do not have application here in the case with the Bishops. However, RICO charges are very serious, and given the per-state basis and massive spread of sodomite abuse cases, the danger is not that the charges will be faked (although that is a concern and has been demonstrated before in many other cases, such as the infamous story of Fr. Gordon MacRae), but it is that it will be used to bring about in combination with other lawsuits the revocation of her tax-exempt status, because that is the real end.
Without the tax-exempt status, the Church in the USA will have her buildings seized under the current property tax scheme (emphasis on scheme, not schema) in the same way that King Henry VIII seized the churches and monasteries of England for himself and their monies. It will be a repeat of the English Revolution but in the USA.
As I noted above, this is not to say that legal avenues should not be pursued, for the obstinacy of the bishops have forced the hand of the law in this matter. What I am saying is that there are consequences that WILL reverberate beyond just the Catholic Church and directly affect other Christians as well as the state of government-religion relations in the USA, and that the potential ramifications of these consequences are so dire that one must act with prudent caution in what one supports or opposes lest one unintentionally support something terrible, for as it is well known, many of the worst mistakes begin with the best of intentions.
The Church will survive, but be reduced to a shell of her former self, and many of her ministries will be forced to close. Some will celebrate this, but if she goes down, then it is a matter of time before another “sexual abuse” ring will be discovered in another denomination, or a church is accused of being against the LGBT, and then the same end will ensue.
It is good to be against the abuse and the corruption. This is morally necessary. It is NOT to be so blindly against it to support destroying the institution herself through a “legal” means, which is what the end is. In this sense, it is similar to the “counter-jihad” movement fraud that we have written about. Being against Islam is morally necessary because Islam is evil due to its theology. However, the “counter-jihad” fraud is to oppose Islam in order to counter it with nationalism, which is but a precursor to murder and eugenics. One must oppose and even at times fight Islam with physical force, but mass murder and genocide is never an option as it is a sin.
There is much that has to be accounted for with regards to the actions of the bishops. However, the issue here is not just abuse, but potentially the future of church-state relations for all Christians and churches. One must not attempt to dislodge one evil by replacing it with another, because as it is too often shown by experience, the one that replaces might be worse than the previous.