Pedophile Priests and Subsequent Coverups Cause Sales of Church Property

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/13/new-jersey-beachfront-villa-for-philly-priests-being-auctioned/

A beachfront home is New Jersey that is owned by the Philadelphia Archdiocese is up for sale.

The Reason?

Too much money is owed due to lawsuits resulting from Predator-Priests and the ghastly systemic covering up for these monsters by their Bishops.

As usual in cases concerning the Catholic Church, I have to state that I am a practicing Catholic and that my decisions to remain so as an adult was due to many years of rigorous study of not only the Scriptures but also the history of Christianity itself. I dedicated the same amount of time and effort in studying the arguments of Evangelical, Reformed, and other non-Catholic Christian groups.

None of that, though, restricts me from calling it like it is.

The Church brought this upon herself. Like the Penn State scandal illustrated, reporting a crime to your boss is not reporting the crime, period. Leaders of organizations are too tempted to take measures to protect fellow employees and the reputation of the organization itself. A person that becomes aware of a crime must report what he witnessed or heard to the cops. The pure evil of letting even one crime go unpunished, let alone further attacks that will inevitably follow the protecting of a criminal, is beyond shameful. The sheer stupidity of, in the shortest-sighted manner possible, trying to hide the allegations naturally resulted in the complete wrecking of the Church's reputation.

Dioceses found themselves in a quandary. The Catholic Church is very clear that all Church property (Aside from the few Parishes that were founded before the US had any Catholic Bishops) belongs to the Bishop of the respective Diocese. I will avoid an historical summary of how and why that is the case. With the massive dollar amounts that were owed due to the lawsuits, the Bishops began in some cases to back-peddle claiming that they could not sell off certain Church-owned buildings because they were owned by Parishioners,etc. The courts didn't buy these arguments and ordered that the sales go through.

For the record, I will have to note that Priestly celibacy never had a single thing to do with this scandal. married men with children commit these crimes all the time, and non-criminal men who go without intimacy for any length of time don't commit sexual crimes against anyone, especially children. These monsters did not show up at the Seminary as normal men and then morph into pedophiles. Pedophiles will always try their darnedest to find jobs/positions that get them access to children. The Seminaries were more concerned with expelling or forcing out Orthodox and masculine Seminarians than they were with weeding out potential child abusers. (See the book Goodbye, Good Men on this topic -below).

http://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Good-Men-Liberals-Corruption/dp/0895261448

Anyway, a prime piece of beachfront property with a really nice villa that was used as a vacation home for retired Priests is up for sale. Well, too bad for them. Sometimes, people only learn by prison sentences , loss of massive amounts of money, or both.

The thought of all those victims whose innocence was lost the advantage that was taken of their trust is enough to turn one's stomach.

-From the Fox News article linked at top:

"The Archdiocese of Philadelphia is auctioning off a $6 million New Jersey beachfront villa to help close a $17 million deficit amid a criminal trial and related lawsuits regarding clergy abuse cases.

The archdiocese announced an auction on Monday for the 11-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot property in Ventnor, N.J. Constructed in 1905, Villa St. Joseph has served as a summer vacation home for retired priests near Atlantic City since 1963. Taxes for the property, however, are nearly $115,000 per year. Further details for the Sept. 15 auction will be announced Tuesday.

“To address the cash flow challenges caused by deficits, the Church is faced with hard decisions,” Archbishop Charles Chaput said in a statement. “It’s similar to what families have to do when their expenses are greater than income. We just can’t afford to maintain and hold assets like Villa Saint Joseph by the Sea and my residence. Holding on to these properties at this time would be inconsistent with the mission of our Church.”.............."




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