http://www.guampdn.com/article/20141011/OPINION02/310110016/Pastor-should-ve-been-removed-earlier
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I live in N.Y. and I was interested by the discussion in Guam about a priest who was removed from his parish. When the events related to this story happened, they did not get coverage on the mainland, but they did on the Pacific Daily News and I had friends serving in Guam who told me the story.
Those were months of terror in Tumon Beach. In February 1981, a woman jogging had been attacked but managed to escape. On March 6, a 33-year old pilot was raped on the same beach. Then, on March 13, 1981, Christine Barbara Rudnicki, a 25-year-old steward for Pan Am from New York was beaten, half drowned, raped and finally suffocated.
On April 5, 1981, another woman, Kathryn Lee Crawford, was attacked by two men while swimming. They kept her underwater. The assailants didn't realize that her husband was close -- he managed to scare them off and resuscitate his wife. The husband was able to identify (one of) the assailants as Joseph Babauta Lastimoza.
Lastimoza had (been connected) other sexual crimes before: on July 17, 1980, he was indicted for forcing his way into a house to sexually assault a woman. On Aug. 27, 1980, Lastimoza was arrested (on allegations of) obscene acts at the Dallas Lounge in Tamuning.
Selection of jurors was difficult because many had family relationships or knowledge of the (man) -- more than 100 people were interviewed. Lastimoza received a life sentence in prison for rape but, since he confessed, was sentenced not for murder but for manslaughter (and was) eligible for parole after 15 years.
In 2008, Father Gofigan hired Lastimoza, who worked at his parish in Dededo. In 2011, because of complaints, Gofigan dismissed Lastimoza from the payroll but continued to give him responsibilities, such as Confirmation class activities, allowing him to charge expenses in the name of the parish, and giving him access to the keys of the parish, ... and giving him several gifts. Complaints alerted the archdiocese about the presence of a sexual offender in the parish.
Gofigan was warned in 2011 by the vicar general and the archdiocesan legal counsel that Lastimoza could not volunteer around the parish compound. However, he continued to have him around through 2012. This prompted the archbishop, under advice of the archdiocesan legal counsel in 2013, to remove Gofigan.
It was a tragic story for Christine, a young beautiful woman, who disappeared, and no one seemed to shed a tear on her destiny. She lived alone, she died alone and she was completely absent from the discussion.
But it's a tragic story also for the perpetrator, who served his time and may have rehabilitated. More than 30 years passed and motives of mercy abound for the time elapsed and the young age.
However, other elements are here in play. Civil law disqualifies anyone who has committed such crimes to work "in any agency or instrumentality of the government of Guam" (Guam law, 4 GCA 4203.3). For the same reasons, they cannot work or be close to any building or offices where vulnerable people may be -- "Sex offenders ... may be supervised in the community under strict rules designed to protect their victims, vulnerable people, the general public and the offender."
The gravity of the crimes, their grisly nature and their repeated occurrence disqualify a murderer and serial sexual predator to be around any parish rectory or government building for any amount of time. Forgiveness must surely be invoked, but forgiveness does not cancel the consequences of misdoings.
In any U.S. parish, a simple and obligatory background check would have immediately disqualified Lastimoza from any kind of role in a parish.
So I am very surprised and I do not understand how it can be objected. I do not know if there were some canonical details not observed in the notification of the removal. I do not know who was responsible for the final decision of the archbishop or if he was influenced by someone.
If there is something to be said about it, it is that the removal of this pastor should have been made before.
David Mills is a resident of Queens Village, New York
This man is an act of God defending the archbishop. He has kept silent throughout this storm and God will defend him further showing the lies of all his enemies for what they are.
ReplyDeleteWhat???
ReplyDeleteWhat would Jesus do?
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous at 4:02 pm,
DeleteThe Catholic Church teaches that there is a difference between "forgiveness of sins" and "punishment of sins". Purgatory is not only for the purification of sins, but also for the punishment of sins that are already forgiven.
Who are we to judge?
DeleteDiana - So you're saying that even if God has already forgiven, God will still punish?
DeleteDear Anonymous at 10:04 pm,
DeleteIt is not me saying it.....it has always been the teaching of the Catholic Church. Below is the Vatican website about it:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P4G.HTM
Sometimes, the Vatican website is not easy to understand, so I also will provide you with the EWTN website that explains it better. According to EWTN:
Principle 3: Temporal penalties may remain when a sin is forgiven.
When someone repents, God removes his guilt ("though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" [Is. 1:18]) and any eternal punishment ("Since . . . we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God" [Rom. 5:9]), but temporal penalties may remain. One passage demonstrating this is 2 Samuel 12, in which Nathan the prophet confronts David over his adultery: "Then David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the Lord.'
"Nathan answered David: 'The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin; you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die'" (2 Sam. 12:13-14). God forgave David, to the point of sparing his life, but David still had to suffer the loss of his son as well as other temporal punishments.[8] In Numbers we read, "But Moses said to the Lord . . . 'Now if thou dost kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard thy fame will say, "Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to give to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness"' . . . Then the Lord said, 'I have pardoned, according to your word; but truly, as I live . . . none of the men who . . . have not hearkened to my voice, shall see the land which I swore to give to their fathers" (Num. 14:13-23). God states that, although he pardoned the people, he would impose a temporal penalty by keeping them from the promised land.
Later Moses, who is clearly one of the saved (see Matt 17: 1-5), is told he will suffer a temporal penalty: "And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them'" (Num. 20:12; cf. 27:12-14).
Protestants often deny that temporal penalties remain after forgiveness of sin, but they acknowledge it in practice—for instance, when they insist on people returning things they have stolen. Thieves may obtain forgiveness, but they also must engage in restitution.
Protestants realize that, while Jesus paid the price for our sins before God, he did not relieve our obligation to repair what we have done. They fully acknowledge that if you steal someone's car, you have to give it back; it isn't enough just to repent. God's forgiveness (and man's!) does not include letting you keep the stolen car.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/PRIMINDU.htm
There is no question of forgiveness here. Surely, God wants that every sinner receive his forgiveness and we also ought to forgive. This article however, ads another piece to the question: how can someone believe that the NCW played any part in Gofigan's removal, just because an obviously angry man says so in a self published "book" and on a blog? Well, I am not convinced by him.
ReplyDeleteWell said 11:12, exactly!
DeleteAnonymous October 11, 2014 at 10:04 PM
ReplyDeleteEvery second of our lives is accountable anonymous. Every tear that our sins cause another person to shed is accountable. Day of judgment that no one will escape and there is only one judge;