I expect simple behaviours here. Friendship, and love. Any advice should be from the perspective of the person asking, not the person giving! We have had to make new membership moderated to combat the huge number of spammers who register
Location: US/Canada
Registered: September 2009
Messages: 733
By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Mar 18 | "Connection Reporter," a weekly programme of reports, research and major investigative pieces in Brazil anchored by veteran journalist Roberto Cabrini, on the Brazilian SBT Television Network, has uncovered another disturbing sex scandal involving Catholic priests, this time in Brazil. About 74 per cent of Brazil's 140 million people identify as Catholics.
The programme last week aired video from a hidden camera showing father Marques Barbosa, 82, having sex with a 19-year-old boy in the northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas. After the act, the priest's face is identified as he looks toward the camera and says "Who's there?" "Who is it?" The report on the program Conexao Reporter also included charges by three former altar boys that they too had been sexually abused by local priests.
In the broadcast segment, Cabrini reports: [ Translated from Portuguese ]
"Our investigation begins when we have access to a video delivered by a resident of a city of Alagoas. Scenes that reveal a dark side of faith. Basically, the altar of a house built with money from the faithful. In bed, a priest. The priest in sexual act with a young man. In the end, the priest is shocked to realize that everything was being recorded.
Arapiraca, with two hundred thousand inhabitants, is the second largest city in the state of Alagoas. As in so many parts of the country, the Church exerts enormous influence in the state & community. This Catholic priest this is one of the best-known in the region. Although retired from of the Parish of San Jose, he continues celebrating Masses and weddings for the local populace. His popularity is such that T-shirts were sold to raise money to build a retirement house for him. The faithful of the parish of Arapiraca see him as a true saint.
Behind the Sacristy, the secret. A disturbing image. Sex, intrigue and power in the Catholic Church. The altar and the crucifix as witnesses. Minds traumatized. Memories that remain? Endless nightmares. Teaching sacred, gospel and character formation of young people. Was this an excuse to get close to boys? Did the priest think that an altar boy was the shortest way to God? The true path of Calvary. Innocence denied. Prohibited. Raped.
The alleged victim a former altar boy who appears on video having sex with a Monsignor Arapiraca. Today he says he is aware of the evil that haunted him for eight years. But faith, unshakable so far, was being gradually replaced by another feeling. Revolt. The person who shot the footage? This is another former altar boy who said he was also a victim of the priest, for twelve years.Today, twenty-one years old, he says he decided to call the abuse to a halt. The former altar boy who took the video found the gate of the house was ajar and with a handheld camera recorded the afternoon of revelry and lust. The images suggest a consensual relationship, but the former altar boy says that the abuse began when he was just a boy."
After the show aired, Alagoas Archbishop Valerio Breda ordered the removal from church work of Arapiraca as well as three other priests Luiz Marques Barbosa, Edilson Duarte and Raimundo Gomes. The three had also been accused of sexual improprieties in the dioceses.
"One was removed from his parish and faces charges in the civil justice system," Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said, adding that the other two had been suspended from their duties pending an investigation.
Graphic video of Marques Barbosa's abuse last year with a victim identified as Fabiano is being sold on the streets of the town of Arapiraca, website Alagoas 24 horas reported.
Elsewhere in Latin America, a Spanish religious instructor was reported to have been jailed in Chile for possession of pornographic images of children. A prosecutor said the priest, Jose Arregui, 53, would be tried for child pornography possession on March 24, the newspaper La Tercera's website reported.
Paedophile priest scandals have rocked the Catholic leadership & Church in Europe since the Irish government released two explosive reports in November of 2009, detailing horrific reports of sexual and physical abuse by priests & nuns spanning a nearly six decade time period.
Revelations soon followed in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria and in Germany - the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI. Both the pope and his older brother Georg Ratzinger have been caught up in the spiralling scandal in Germany. The pope's former diocese in Munich confirmed a report that, as Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger in 1980, he had approved housing so that a known paedophile priest could seek therapy, while Georg directed a boys choir whose members later suffered abuse.
Senior Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi had charged this past Sunday, that there has been a "dogged focus" on the Ratzinger brothers by European Media organisations in an apparent bid "to personally implicate the Holy Father in questions of abuse. It is clear that these efforts have failed," he added.
Roberto Cabrini began his career as a journalist for 16 years as a reporter for a small radio in Piracicaba, in São Paulo, Brazil. As a foreign war correspondent, he covered in six conflicts (Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Cambodia, Haiti and Kashmir) and has accumulated several prestigious awards. In his 28 year career, Cabrini took part in five Olympics and five World Cups, was an overseas correspondent for eight years - four of them in London and four in New York - as well as news coverage in over 50 countries.
Hailed as an investigative reporter, Cabrini has tracked fugitives from justice, that the Brazilian police could not find.
Now, at the SBT network, he heads the "Connection Reporter, a weekly program of reports, research and major reports. With a specialised team, formed by experienced professionals and young talents, Roberto Cabrini reports the news, with a differentiated approach.
Roberto Cabrini Photo By SBT Television Network Brazil
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
Tell me why the CEO of an organisation is not responsible for acts by his staff?
And tell me also how a CEO who has, certainly in the past, ordered that other staff cover up the illegal acts of staff is not an accessory to those acts, and has not himself committed a crime?
Ah yes. The Vatican is a nation, of sorts. He has diplomatic immunity.
Maybe it's time to bring back The Spanish Inquisition, and I do not mean Monty Python's version. It's time to bring back the rack and burning at the stake.
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630
It's not so much of a shock to hear of a priest molesting boys, it is a shock to see it recorded. I feel sorry for the boy, molested all those years and then outed like this.
All the talk one hears about the Church and the celebate state of it's employees (for that is what they are) is out the window. It makes me wonder if the vow of celebacy attracts men like this or if the vow itself creates the actions.
Just a few weeks ago we were presnted with a story about boy wedding singers and the backroom entertainment they provided for a fee. This in a country wrapped in a strict religious mantle where sex with a woman outside of marriage is a death sentence. That openly encourages pedophilia, or as the sailors say: any port in a storm.
So here we have a religion, one that's very, very old, filled with men who are expected not to engage in nature's most natural urge. Did anyone really think that any human male could resist fiddling around with the altar boys? It's been going on for centuries and we know it.
I have mentioned before that my Confraternity of Catholic Doctorine (CCD) religion teacher tried to put his hands down my pants when I was 14. I would not serve the altar at mass. I knew there was a priest at that church who heard the boy's "confessions" in private. Most of us knew there was fondling, the occasional oral sex. Hell, I was a gay boy and not getting as much as that priest.
Did I tell anyone? No, who would I tell? Did anyone tell their parents about their first gay encounters? I doubt it. At least I had the Boy Scouts, the church could go F*** off.
[Updated on: Fri, 19 March 2010 12:20]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Location: New Zealand
Registered: August 2009
Messages: 317
Thanks for posting that Brody. We all know that it goes on and has been forever, but to actually see the reality of it is different - and a disgusting abuse of power.
I'm sending that to my father-in-law who is a life-long, faithful & bigoted catholic. Two of his own sons were abused by priests, but he refuses to believe it. It probably won't, but it'd be good if it opened his eyes.
cheers
Commas matter - 'Party on Dudes' is not the same as 'Party on, Dudes'
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
It's not that it goes on. We know it goes on. It's not even that it's disgusting or disgraceful.
It's that The Pope gave instructions that this be covered with a view of silence, and that police were not to be involved in any priestly abuse of children, boys or girls.
As CEO of the organisation he is to blame. I don't care which man inhabits the role, the CEO is to blame. And, as a head of state, he is immune from prosecution in any court in the world.
This church preaches about sin and sins hugely itself. It is time to sell the Vatican and feed the world.
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
Some of the pope's own words, this time from a letter of May 2001 to every bishop in the catholic church.
Charges of child abuse were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication."
Incidentally, none of the abusers have been excommunicated; it seems it's not the child rape and torture that's the crime, it's the failure to cover it up
] 
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Brody's Notes... Sex, Intrigue & Power In Roman Catholic 
