Here’s a (okay, it’s Wiki, but there are other sources) amplification on the earlier post (much earlier) that Lahey had been reported as having illicit porn years ago and no one acted on it:
Meanwhile, in the Joe Paterno thread, we have a couple of people persistently (I think it’s mainly hubris-driven unwillingness to admit defeat, but still creepy enough) claiming that when Paterno heard about “extreme sexual contact with a boy that was way over the line,” he could legitimately have been scratching his head about just what that meant, so there was no moral need to go to the cops. In a vacuum, that might be some technically defensible Jesuitical (hah) argument (no it’s not, because there’s no form of sexual contact with a kid, or child pornography, that is questionably legal).
But the even more important fact is that we’re not in a vacuum. We live in a connected world where every responsible adult should know that time and again those in authority have heard reports of sketchy to potentially or definitely illegal interactions of authority figures with children, and have discounted, dawdled, delayed, ignored, covered them up, with horrible results. We know enough to know that for some reason, this is a universal human weak spot/tendency. It’s just like we need stringent protection for whistleblowers, because it’s human nature to blame the victim.
Both the authorities and the institutions need to send unambiguous messages that this bad conduct won’t be tolerated and that even marginally credible reports of sex abuse will be chased down vigorously. The Canadian government (in both its initial investigations and in Lahey’s sentencing/release) failed on that score, IMHO, and of course the RCC institutionally failed badly, badly, as it has on other occasions (I say this as someone who wants to be favorably inclined to the Church, too).
I must say it is possible that if your porn stash is large and indiscriminate enough, there would be pictures that could count as child porn - Traci Lords photos, for instance, where those are considered such - without it being deliberate. 588 photos and 33 vids is not such a circumstance.
Oh, well, as long as “catholicculture.org” can blame the fact that the largest Church on the world is rotten from top to bottom with child rapists on “gay activists” I guess you can sleep at night. Jolly good, you irredeemable piece of human garbage.
It doesn’t seem that it was a matter of mistaken age. Looks more like he was turned on by torture-sex with religious overtones of young males approaching puberty. I wonder what he may have been up to in south-east Asia?
Am I the only one a bit weirded out by the fact that the cite on pedophilia mentioned by Bricker in this thread more than two years ago was written by a professor from…Penn State? That’s almost Twilight Zone creepy.
It’s all such crap. I’m sick to death of hearing everybody whine about the Catholic church and Penn State. Take a look at your local court system. Find out what happens when someone goes down to your local police station to report a child sex offense. Ask a local GAL (Guardian ad Litem) how hard it is to protect children from sexually abusive parents.
It’s almost impossible, across the US to bring one of these guys to justice. In the very few cases where the charges can be proven to the satisfaction of a court, the penalties imposed are ridiculously light.
Protective parents are forced to bring their children to the prison for regular visits with the parents criminally convicted of abusing them. In cases where one parent reports the other for sexual abuse, the reporter is twice as likely as the reportee to end up in jail. (Usually for refusing to deliver the child for court-ordered visitation.)
Do your governmental representatives know how you want them to respond? Are your local Child Protection Services fully (or even reasonably) funded? Are your local police allowed to act if CPS can’t afford to do so? You may be enormously surprised by the answers.
I know someone serving many years in prison for one CD of images, only some of which involved children, that he copied off the Internet as a teenager (possibly not even a sexual thing, as he was competing in general “I can do things on the Internet you can’t” dumbassery with a friend).
The prosecution recommended one year, but he’s been in for 5-6 so far.
ACtually, if I remember right, Cardinal Ratzinger, appointed by Pope John Paul II, as head of…_______? (can’t remember his other title at the time) forwarded a letter to all RC clergy worldwide in 2001 reminding them of their law frm 1962 with the excommunication threat for co-operating with police.
Can the priest even tell someone higher up about what was said, to at least have the priest removed from duty if he doesn’t get absolution? Can the perpetrator just go around priest shopping until he gets his absolution? Is there even teeth in this idea?
Because, as far as I understand, priests aren’t infallible, and it’s possible to believe one has absolution even when a priest tells you you do not. If so, lack of absolution has no teeth even to the devoutly religious. Because, believe me, people with pedophilia can and will justify anything.
I bet right now the subject of this thread has convinced himself that he didn’t do anything wrong since he just looked at child porn that already exists, and doesn’t hurt other kids. At least he’s not an actual molester…
In other news, another Canadian Roman Catholic bishopinvolved in a civil matter over an alleged lack of action while one of his priests buggered children has been located by a private investigation agency, and served.