Atheist Experience
Virginia woman sues over alleged sexual abuse during exorcism
TW: Description of forced sexual contact/penetration/sexual assault in 7th paragraph.
A Virginia woman who claims a priest sexually abused her while performing an exorcism is suing a Catholic diocese and an anti-abortion group for $5.3 million in damages.
The woman claims the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer abused her between April 2008 and September 2010, according to the suit filed in Virginia's Arlington County Circuit Court.
The suit names as defendants the Catholic Diocese of Arlington and its bishop, Paul Loverde, as well as the anti-abortion group Human Life International and HLI Endowment Inc.
Euteneuer had been transferred from the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, to serve as president of Human Life International and HLI Endowment in 2000. He resigned in August 2010.
The woman, identified in the suit as Jane Doe, said she signed an "agreement for spiritual help" with Euteneuer in February 2008 because "she believed she was in desperate need of the rite of exorcism," the suit said.
Euteneuer repeatedly hugged, kissed and groped the woman, and said he was "blowing the Holy Spirit into her," according to the suit, which was filed on June 19.
Euteneuer told the woman to undress on about six occasions, touched and kissed her body, and put his finger in her vagina, court documents said.
The suit alleges that Loverde and the Diocese of Arlington knew Euteneuer would perform an exorcism on the woman.
Asked about the suit, the Diocese of Arlington said Euteneuer had never been its employee. He worked for Human Life International, an independent company, subject to his bishop in Palm Beach, it said.
"Rev. Euteneuer was not authorized to perform an exorcism on the plaintiff," it said in a statement, adding that the diocese had its own exorcist.
The woman's attorney, Demetrios Pikrallidas, said Euteneuer was not named as a defendant because he had reached a private settlement with her.
Dianne Laubert, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Palm Beach, said Euteneuer had been recalled when the allegations surfaced. His "priestly faculties" were withdrawn and he can no longer celebrate Mass or administer sacraments, she said.
The woman is seeking $5 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.
Euteneuer's behavior "was never within the scope of his employment with" Human Life International, the anti-abortion group said in a statement. "We intend to vigorously defend HLI from the false accusations made against it."
One day, we as a human race, are actually going finally collectively have enough of Catholicism's bullshit and believers will stop giving their money to the Church.
~Mooglets
The Catholic Church is upset because they feel like the government is trying to impose its will on them? Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for over 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has been imposing its will on peoples, governments and civilization in general.
Dagmar Bergan, The Commercial Appeal
Last week the BBC showed a harrowing documentary about how priests and nuns in Spain took newborn infants away from their mothers, often telling them the infant had died at birth, and sold them into adoption for profit.
The previous week, RTE transmitted a documentary about babies and young children in Catholic run care homes in Ireland used as guinea pigs for vaccination trials, again without parental consent and again for profit.
This week, the Vatican has been shamed into ordering an inquiry into child sex abuse at schools in Ealing while the former Abbot of one of the schools, wanted for child sex offences, does a runner when he learns he is to be arrested and charged with abuse offences.
Just another month in the global abuse scandal engulfing the Catholic Church.
And yet the Bishop of Motherwell appears to believe the Catholic Church has something to offer Scotland on the subject of morality, and has the right to interfere in the basic human rights of gay people. Worse still, he thinks we will listen to him and do as he says. You have to admire his impertinence
NSS newsletter
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The family that prays together stays together.
Personally, I don’t see how praying together helps strengthen the bond of the family. Praying is so unlike other family activities, like picnics or board games or a nighttime storytelling session at the living room, where the family members talk and joke and laugh together… and actually strengthen family bonds.
When you’re praying, you’re talking primarily to your deity. And if the prayer is a holy mass or a rosary, you’re not supposed to talk to other people.
Sure, you may be with your family, physically; but you might as well be alone.
“Hey, mom, look at this drawing I made for you. I love you.” “Shut the fuck up, Billy, I’m listening to the priest! And if you don’t behave, I’ll fucking ground you!”
Having been born to a Catholic family, I’ve seen so many parents slap and admonish their children in church for the simple crime of acting like kids. Talk about building family bonds.
Source: Flickr / dennis_raymondm31
Vatican recalls ambassador after Irish PM's comments on sex abuse row
Archbishop Guiseppe Leanza, papal nuncio to Dublin, returns to Rome following Enda Kenny's attack on Vatican role in cover-up
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Relations between the Irish government and the Roman Catholic church reached a historic nadir on Monday when the Vatican recalled its ambassador to Dublin, claiming "excessive reactions" in the Republic to the clerical child sex abuse crisis.
The Vatican confirmed that papal nuncio, archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, was returning to Rome for discussions over a damning report published earlier this month that had accused the Catholic hierarchy of undermining the Irish church's own policy of reporting child abuse to the authorities.
His recall followed an unprecedented and blistering attack by the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, on the Vatican's role in the alleged cover-up of abuse in the County Cork diocese of Cloyne.
Vatican watchers claim that a recall is diplomatic speak for "showing displeasure" with some act of the host state and indicates a cooling in relations.
Since a historic denunciation of the Vatican in the Irish parliament last week, Kenny has become something of a hero-figure across the Republic. He received a standing ovation at a writers' summer school in County Donegal on Sunday when he said he had been "astounded" over the number of messages of support he had been given.
The Taoiseach's withering criticism of the Vatican is all the more historic given that his party, Fine Gael, has been traditionally the stoutest defender of the church's power and privilege in the Republic.
Kenny is a Catholic whose political base is rooted in Ireland's conservative, rural west.
Seeking to play down the diplomatic row between Dublin and the Vatican City on Monday night, the vice-director of the Vatican press office, Father Ciro Benedettini, said that the recall "should be interpreted as an expression of the desire of the Holy See for serious and effective collaboration with the Irish government".
But he added: "It denotes the seriousness of the situation and the Holy See's desire to face it objectively and determinately. Nor does it exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions."
Breaking with decades of deference to the Catholic hierarchy both at home and in Rome, Kenny told the Dáil last week that "the rape and torture of children were downplayed or 'managed' to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, in power, standing and reputation".
He stuck to his critical stance over the Vatican and the Cloyne report at the event on Sunday.
He said that it reflected the way Irish people felt about the Catholic Church's role in the clerical abuse scandal.
The deputy editor of the Irish Catholic claimed on Monday night that most Catholics in the Republic would back Kenny rather than the Vatican in this controversy.
Michael Kelly said: "I would expect that the diplomats in the Vatican's secretariat of state will have been extremely surprised by the tone of Enda Kenny's speech in the Dáil, but also by the widespread and positive public reaction to the speech."
He added: "Mr Kenny was, I believe, articulating the sense of exasperation that a lot of Irish people, not least Irish Catholics, have felt for too long about the church's disastrous inability to come to terms with this crisis."
Although Ireland's foreign minister and deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, said the recall of the papal nuncio was a matter for the Vatican alone, one of his cabinet colleagues described the move as "appropriate".
Joan Burton, the minister for social protection, said that it was very welcome if there was going to be "deep reflection in the Vatican" into the Cloyne and indeed other reports that found the church hierarchy both in Ireland and in Rome culpable of covering up abuse scandals.
The Vatican has always looked upon Ireland as being one of its most loyal nations that always toed the Holy See's line on moral and social issues.
When Joseph Walshe was appointed Irish ambassador to the Vatican in 1946, the future Pope Paul VI told him that "you are the most Catholic country in the world".
But although abortion on demand remains illegal and most citizens still describe themselves as Catholic, the Republic's population is more secular minded than at any time in Irish history with divorce legal, contraception widely available and church attendance numbers falling.
Kenny's once unthinkable assault on the Vatican's role in Ireland was prompted by the Cloyne report's conclusion that the Vatican stymied Irish church policy of informing the Garda Siochana about sex abuse allegations levelled at its priests.
Yvonne Murphy, the judge who headed the Cloyne investigation, hit out at the Vatican's description of 1996 guidelines for reporting abuse allegations as "merely a study document".
She said that this led to the Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, feeling he could deviate from measures other bishops had established to protect children.
From The Guardian
I'm sure I feel so sorry for the Catholics right now.
~Mooglets
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Judgment May Deny Clerical Sex Abuse Victims the Right to Sue Catholic Church
Victims of sexual abuse by priests will no longer be able to sue the Catholic church for damages if a landmark judgment rules that priests should not be considered as employees.
In a little publicised case heard this month at the high court, the church claimed that it is not “vicariously liable” for priests’ actions. The church has employed the argument in the past but this was the first time it had been used in open court and a ruling in the church’s favour would set a legal precedent.
The use of the defence raises further questions about the church’s willingness to accept culpability for abuse. It follows a damning report into abuse at the diocese of Cloyne in Ireland which prompted the Irish president, Mary McAleese, to call on leaders of the church “to urgently reflect on how, by coherent and effective action, it can restore public trust and confidence in its stated objective of putting children first”.
Those planning to bring claims in relation to the high court case expressed dismay. “As children, we weren’t given an innocent, carefree and safe environment,” said one. “We weren’t given a peaceful structure in which to grow and develop normally. By some miracle, some of us are still here to voice the words of so many who can’t. Only a small number of victims ever come forward. The full potential of who we could have been as adults has been stolen.”
The church’s defence has been condemned by lawyers. “I think the Catholic church’s attempt to avoid responsibility for the abhorrent actions of one of its priests is nothing short of scandalous,” said Richard Scorer of the law firm Pannone, which specialises in abuse cases. “The Catholic church would be better served by facing up to its responsibilities rather than trying to hide behind spurious employment law arguments.”
The Catholic Church, reaching for record moral lows.
Source: Guardian