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There he was, five decades later, the priest who had raped Joe Callander in Massachusetts. The photo in the Roman Catholic newsletter showed him with a smile across his wrinkled face, near-naked Amazon Indian children in his arms and at his feet. The Rev. Mario Pezzotti was working with children and supervising other priests in Brazil.
It’s not an isolated example.
In an investigation spanning 21 countries across six continents, The Associated Press found 30 cases of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad. Some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in another country, and some abused again.
– From the investigative piece “Predator priests shuffled around globe,” by AP’s Bradley Brooks and Alessandra Rizzo
I feel nauseous just reading that opening to this lengthy AP report that looked at 21 countries around the globe and found 30 cases of accused child-raping and molesting priests that were not taking out of “circulation” for defrocking, but given the infamous Vatican Shuffle where they could start up their sex crimes all over again, with a fresh set of kids.
“The pattern is if a priest gets into trouble and it’s close to becoming a scandal or if the law might get involved, they send them to the missions abroad,” said Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and critic of what he says is a practice of international transfers of accused and admitted priest child abusers. “Anything to avoid a scandal.”
What, my friends, about the children? Oh yes, the Catholic Church has taken the moral stand that it needs to protect the children from the terror of marriage equality. Priorities.
Pleast go read the rest of this article. It will enrage you and break your heart for the innocents who suffered over and over when adults, religious adults, did nothing to stop it. The man who was abused in Massachusetts, Joe Callander, was 14 when he was raped three times in 1959 at Xaverian Missionary Faith High School in Holliston, MA, which is no longer open. There was a settlement in1993 for $175K; at that time there were at least two other charges that Pezzoti had molested others. The same year, Pezzoti wrote a letter of apology to Callander, in which he said the priest “cured himself in the jungle.”
Yes, as he was serving in the jungle with the Kayapo Indians — and their children, and he did so from 1970-2003.
The article goes into other cases just like this. And what will the Pope do?
15 Comments
Unfair to the Catholic ChurchArticles like this are unfair to the Catholic Church. What many people fail to recognize is that the Church has spent years and no small amount of money in a groundbreaking study looking for a cure for sexual misconduct by priests.
The heretofore unheralded study postulates that location leads certain individuals down the dark path of pederasty. In other words an otherwise perfectly innocent man can be forced against his will and nature to commit crimes against children when he finds himself within certain geographical confines. When moved out of that geographical area such abhorrent behavior is no longer a problem.
What the Church didn’t expect, but showed up in their study, is just how much of the Earth’s surface is covered by these geographical anomalies. Despite the claims of the critics, the Church does take the matter of sexual molestation very seriously. In an effort to discover the geographical locations in which temptation does not exist, the Church has vowed to move offender priests around until every inch of our planet has been explored.
The fact that no such temptation free zones have yet to be found doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Those who have been “molested” by priests shouldn’t look at themselves as victims, but rather as holy participants in the Church’s groundbreaking scientific study.
The Catholic church gets no sympathy from meAnd their so called “studies” are usually done with their best interests in mind, not the benefit of anyone else. This article just continues to show that the Catholic church continues to be negligent towards those affected by the sexual violence of their sexual predators. Whatever egg they get on their face as a result of it, has been brought to them, by them.
I hope they like the cold.Because it won’t get any colder than the last circle of Hell.
That picture is terrifying.I mean, it’s heartbreaking for obvious reasons and for the creepiness that I can’t help but see in the priest’s face, but the second I saw it, I shrieked a little because all I could think of was this:
The resemblance is uncanny.
I can’t decideI can’t decide if you read only the headline and first paragraph of my snarky comment or if you have absolutely no sense of humor. In case it is the latter, let me point out that “the study” and my comments about it are all made up. I was making fun of all those who jump to the Church’s defense, from those who blame the crisis on rumor mongering to those who basically say that the priests aren’t at fault because in some cases the kids initiated the sexual contact.
My personal feelings are that the Church should be charged under the RICO statutes and all those who enabled a cover-up should be packed off to prison.
Pam, children are no longer embryonic tissue,and therefore are not “life” worthy of protection from higher beings, such as rapist priests.
sidebarA related story, dated Portland (AP), on a verdict in a molestation case, for once not involving the RCC but the Boy Scouts and the Mormons instead (RC and LDS churches often sponsor scout troops).
It’s an ugly story, and the punitive damages still have to be reckoned.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/s…
These Rapists Need to Be Indicted by the International Criminal Courtfor thier international crimes against humanity. Article 5 of the Rome Statute grants the court jurisdiction over four groups of crimes, which it refers to as the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole”: the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, “are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Murder; extermination; torture; rape and political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion.
SEEMS LIKE THESE CRIMES FIT IN PERFECTLY WITH THE DEFINITION
Hi Paul, Glad to hear that.I read your comment during my lunch break and I had to stop and think, He can’t be serous. Then I saw some of your other post here and determined it must have been a joke. Take care of yourself.
The Church escaped unscathed their involvement in genocidein Croatia and Rwanda, so why should they be worried about priests out for a little fun? After all, it is the laity’s fault, according to “His Holiness” Joe Ratzinger, PhD,who told the people of Ireland that it was their secularism and loss of faith that generated the priest scandal.(Meaning that they had the courage to go public against the church)
I have been to that little city state in the Tranteverte more times that I can count and the arrogance and self satisfied and self absorbed narcissism that I have to endure is unbelievable.
I think that as was done in Panama, the Vatican nation should be invaded to remove a criminal government. If they can do it for conspiracy in furtherance of drug trafficing, certainly it is legal to do it for conspiracy in furtherance of rape of children.
Are you taking the piss?Because given some of the statements of the last few weeks, I don’t feel confident assuming it.
Sorry, never mind.I read the rest of the comments.
Be careful, Paul.There are far too many people here who are literal-minded to the point of imbecility. Saying something in jest, no matter how exaggerated or completely over the top it might be, will invariably get an outraged response from people who insist that you must mean what you wrote literally. As I have observed in the past, literal-mindedness is not only an intellectual handicap. it is severely boring.
After all, The Catholic church does claim to be “universal.” I guess this is just one more demonstration of that.
Then AgainIt’s not about being literal, it’s about the Church already having made statements that were almost as deranged.