Blog Song

Friday, August 16, 2019

More Will Come

Last year, I wrote about the Boston sex scandal, which began in 2002.  However, despite the sex abuse policies that were implemented after 2002, the Archdiocese of Boston continues to get allegations of sex abuse.  According to the Boston Globe dated January 5, 2017, hundreds of alleged victims from around the world still continue to come forward claiming they were sexually abused in the State of Massachusetts.  Even after 15 years, the sexual allegations continue to come.  The only difference is that these new wave of sexual allegations are coming from younger people in their 20s and 30s.  

August 15, 2019 was the deadline for filing any sexual abuse against the Archdiocese.  Some people are probably breathing a sigh of relief that the deadline is over.  According to the Pacific Daily News, there are 272 claims of sexual abuse filed against the Archdiocese by the August 15th deadline.  However, that is not the end.  According to the Pacific Daily News:
Judge Bordallo during Friday's hearing, said since the statute of limitations was lifted, lawsuits could still be filed despite the Aug. 15 deadline, which he and Tydingco-Gatewood said applies only to the archdiocese's bankruptcy case and not to the other defendents. 
Clergy sex abuse claims can still be filed against the archdiocese, but new cases won't be included in the settlement that the church is currently working on, attorneys said. 
Any NEW cases will not involve the settlement that is currently in the process.  Will it involve future settlements?  I would assume that there would be new settlements for any new cases otherwise why even bother filing a lawsuit against the Archdiocese to begin with.  

As I said since the beginning, the lifting of the statutes of limitations is an unjust law.  It only creates new victims....in this case the Catholic faithful who have to pay for these lawsuits.  This law does not allow for the investigations of the child sex abuse allegations; therefore, we cannot know for certain whether the allegations are truthful or false.  Many of these allegations are also against dead priests, who cannot defend themselves.  There are people out there who are out to defraud the Catholic Church despite that it is a mortal sin.  After all, we now live in times when some people have no shame in stealing from the Church (See story here).   

Also, remember that it was the Junglewatch Nation, Laity Forward Movement, CCOG and Silent No More who supported and worked for the passage of this unjust law.      

3 comments:

  1. In time, some of the parishes will be sold. I haven't heard anything from Byrnes about selling the parishes, but it happened in the U.S. and it'll happen here too. I hope Byrnes prepares the people for it cuz it's gonna be one huge mess.

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    1. Dear Anonymous at 2:54 pm,

      In the future, the Church may also have to face the possibility of selling its assets to scammers and tarnishing the names and reputations of some innocent dead priests as they support all the allegations without any investigation. In an affidavit, Father Brouillard stated that he abused boys. There were no mention of girls, but women have come out and accused him of sexually abusing them. According to the AP news:

      After survivors began coming forward in 2016, Brouillard signed a sworn statement admitting to sexually abusing at least 20 children, including Tudela. The elderly priest said during his decades on Guam, he had repeatedly confessed what he was doing to his superiors, including Guam’s then bishop, and was just advised to pray for God’s guidance and absolution.

      “At that time, I did believe that the boys enjoyed the sexual contact and I also had gratification as well,” Brouillard said in his affidavit. “I pray for all the boys I may have harmed and ask for their forgiveness and for forgiveness from God.”

      https://apnews.com/b8442f05def44d1ea79b9e6805da4e0c

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  2. What I posted above has finally come true. On August 19th (past the August 15th deadline), a lawsuit was filed, and the alleged victim is seeking $5 million. See the story in the Guam Daily Post below:

    https://www.postguam.com/news/local/sex-abuse-lawsuit-seeks-million/article_be9aa9f6-c25d-11e9-a4e0-23641249617b.html

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