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Wednesday, 26 July 2006

911 Part 3
Mood:  on fire
<embed src="http://www.gofish.com:80/player/goFishVideoPlayer.swf?f=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gofish.com%3a80%2fgetGFX.gfp%3fgfid%3d30-1035706%26getAd%3dfalse%26blog%3dtrue&blog=true&autoPlay=false&ct=true" quality="high" width="344" height="290" name="goFishVideoPlayer" wmode="transparent" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" ></embed>


Posted by springbrooke at 2:00 AM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, 26 July 2006 2:01 AM PDT

Friday, 21 July 2006

Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis
Open letter to the Catholic Church, all other religious organizations, citizens and Governments of the world, parents and victims of sexual abuse. I am writing this letter with the intent to resolve and heal all parties to the structured, ritualized and pervasive practice of inappropriate sexualization and initiation of our children.
To that end, I propose and urge adoption of the following steps in that process:
1. All current exploitative actions and conventions that allow these actions are to be stopped. All unsupervised interaction between clergy (or authority figures) and children is to be stopped permanently. All clergy not in compliance with their vows based on peer and community evaluation are to have their credentials suspended pending investigation and exoneration of any unresolved charges. Any clergy that is exonerated from charges of abusive action shall be permitted to apply for reeducation. Any clergy member unwilling to accept the requirements of their status shall resign. Clergy members found to not be in compliance will be suspended from their positions and prosecuted.
2. Abusers are often abused as children. Therefore, enforcement of current criminal law and penalties are to be suspended pending a complete evaluation of the efficacy of punishment for what appears to an almost "universal" situation, in an effort to avoid punishing victims. We have been punishing the previously abused, guaranteeing that the cycle will be perpetuated, in the penal system if no where else.
3. A new and accurate "community standard" of sexual conduct is to be established and made a part of the new social contract. New guidelines based on realistic anthropological and behavioral data shall be adopted to change our actions and attitudes relative to the sexualization of children and other unprotected individuals. The new guidelines shall not include current standards of criminalization and will include a compassionate humane therapeutic response for victims

I am an abuse survivor....I am not in opposition or contradiction to the position of "catch and punish" the perpetrators of acts of sexualizing children. We are entitled to "an eye for an eye". Criminal "Injustice", however, does not provide any benefit to the abused. It is not primarily the prisoner who is harmed by the acts of sexual brutality routinely employed by staff and other inmates; it is all of us who now have "peace officers" who use sexual abuse as reward and punishment. So when an otherwise law-abiding citizen is jailed for a traffic offense or a victimless crime, it can (and has) become a death sentence.
And after the term is served and our perpetrator (if he survives, now infected with virulent diseases that make his sexual attention lethal) is released, complete with the knowledge that his style of crime is "the law of the land". He has received no therapy, he has not had any testing or evaluation, and he has "paid for his crimes" and learned how to indulge his pathology without coming to the attention of authorities.
I am not speaking about "caring" for abusers as much as I am urging all survivors and others to respond in a way that will STOP the opportunity, the occurrence and finally the results of inappropriate sexual initiation. How can we do that without caring, for the abuser as well as the abused.
If your sources are dusty, you had best renew your quest. Abused children almost ALWAYS act out their abuse and guess what, you get to (have to) play both parts. Where do you think sex abusers come from? We live what we experience; we are capable of little else...


Posted by springbrooke at 7:39 AM PDT
Updated: Saturday, 22 July 2006 6:20 AM PDT

Monday, 29 May 2006

Life After the Oil Crash
Mood:  sad
Now Playing: Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You
Topic: Energy
"What Can I do to Prepare?"

What you can or will do to prepare for this situation will depend on your age, health, marital status, geographic location, financial situation and other factors too numerous to mention. The best advice I can offer that applies to the widest number of people is to do the following to the best of your ability:

1. Relocate to an area as least vulnerable to these issues as possible.

2. Reallocate your financial assets so that you are as best positioned to handle these issues as you can realistically hope to be.

3. Relocalize your lifestyle as much as possible so that you are as least dependent on far-flung, petroleum-powered transportation and distribution networks as possible.

3. Strengthen your body so that you are as least dependent on our petroleum-dependent system of health care as possible.

4. Solidify any skills and/or social networks you have that might prove valuable in light of these changes.

5. If you're in shock and what to interact with others about these issues, check out "Running on Empty 3". Understand that being in shock is pretty much "par-for-the course" when it comes to learning about these issues. Trust me when I say it subsides after a while.

6. If you want to discuss personal preparation with others, check out "Running on Empty 2" and the Planning for the Future Forum on PeakOil.com

7. If you feel the need to tell friends or family, be forewarned that most people don't take too kindly to this information. Your best bet, in my opinion, is either send them an email with a link to this site and some of the other excellent Peak Oil websites or give them a copy of the documentary End of Suburbia. Note: I sell End of Suburbia on this site so I do stand to profit from my recommendation. I am, however, far from the only person who recommends the film as a tool for introducing others to Peak Oil.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html


Posted by springbrooke at 12:48 AM PDT

Wednesday, 22 February 2006



Posted by springbrooke at 1:18 PM PST

Thursday, 12 January 2006

Cost of Bush's War

Cost of the War in Iraq
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Posted by springbrooke at 4:46 PM PST

Sunday, 16 October 2005

Marijuana Prohibition has Failed
Topic: War on Drugs (and kids)
Three Nobel Laureates, American Enterprise Institute, others call for a new approach Six recent reports -- from the American Enterprise Institute, Citizens Against Government Waste, Taxpayers for Common Sense, The Sentencing Project, a Harvard University economics professor, and the U.S. Department of Justice -- point out the failures and steep costs of marijuana prohibition and call for a new approach. Ending Marijuana Prohibition Would Save $10-14 Billion Annually ... Report Endorsed by Milton Friedman and More Than 500 Economists In "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition" (released June 2, 2005), Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University, estimates that replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year. More than 500 distinguished economists -- led by Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Milton Friedman and two additional Nobel Laureates -- endorsed the report and signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods." Using data from a variety of federal and state government sources, Miron concludes: Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement -- $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels. Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco. The full report and its full list of endorsers are available here. Citizens Against Government Waste: Government Anti-Drug Programs Don't Work The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP's) expensive drug control programs have failed to produce any meaningful results after 17 years, finds a May 12, 2005, report from Citizens Against Government Waste, a national organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. "Up in Smoke: ONDCP's Wasted Efforts in the War on Drugs" shows how ONDCP wastes millions of dollars annually on media advertising and combating state-level legislation. The report's findings include: ONDCP "has morphed into a federal wasteland, throwing taxpayer money toward numerous high-priced drug control programs that have failed to show results ... Instead of curbing America’s drug problem, ONDCP has wasted $4.2 billion since fiscal 1997 on media advertising, fighting state legislation, and deficient anti-drug trafficking programs." Since Arizona and California passed medical marijuana laws in November 1996, ONDCP began campaigning against state medical marijuana ballot initiatives, which is "an infringement upon states' rights, a blatant misuse of tax dollars, and in contravention of ONDCP’s original mission. The White House’s drug office should use its resources to root out major drug operations in the U.S. instead of creating propaganda-filled news videos and flying across the country on the taxpayers' dime." "ONDCP burns through tax dollars by funding wasteful and unnecessary projects. Partly to thwart state efforts to regulate marijuana, the drug czar created a $2 billion national anti-drug campaign, produced expensive propaganda ads that failed to reduce drug use among America’s youth, and in the process, violated federal law. Furthermore, the office wastes federal resources by opposing any legalization of marijuana, including medicinal use, which has nothing to do with the war on drugs." The full report is available here. War on Drugs has Become War on Low-Level Marijuana Users During the 1990s, the “war on drugs” was transformed to a “war on marijuana,” with law enforcement officials shifting their focus to arresting increasing numbers of low-level marijuana offenders, finds a Sentencing Project report released on May 3, 2005. "The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s" finds that between 1990 and 2002, 82% of the national increase in drug arrests were for marijuana offenses, and nearly all of this increase was arrests for possession. Marijuana arrests now constitute 45% of the 1.5 million drug arrests annually. As a result, significant policing resources have been dedicated to low-level offenses, with only 6% of marijuana arrests resulting in a felony conviction. One-quarter of people in prison for a marijuana offense are low-level offenders. Despite the billions of dollars being spent annually on marijuana law enforcement, use and availability have not declined, while cost has dropped. The full report is available here. American Enterprise Institute: Prison is not an effective drug policy American drug policy should focus on expanding treatment options and not on prison, says a new book from the American Enterprise Institute, one of the country's most respected conservative think tanks. In An Analytic Assessment of U.S. Drug Policy (published in February 2005), Peter Reuter, a professor at the University of Maryland and a senior economist in the Drug Policy Research Center at RAND, and independent consultant David Boyum use a market framework to assess the effectiveness of anti-drug efforts ... and conclude that they have failed. The authors note that while there is little evidence that tougher law enforcement reduces drug use, drug policy has become increasingly punitive -- the number of drug offenders in jail and prison grew tenfold between 1980 and 2003. They recommend the following changes: Law enforcement should focus on reducing drug-related problems, such as violence associated with drug markets, rather than on locking up large numbers of low-level dealers. Treatment services for heavy users need more money and fewer regulations, and programs that coerce convicted drug addicts to enter treatment and maintain abstinence as a condition of continued freedom should be expanded. The full report is available here. Taxpayers for Common Sense: Effectiveness of billions spent to stop marijuana use remains unknown Despite the federal government spending tens of billions to combat marijuana use over the last three decades, use and perception of the drug has barely changed, according to an economic study released by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national budget watchdog organization that targets wasteful and ineffective federal spending. "Federal Marijuana Policy: A Preliminary Assessment," released June 28, 2005, finds that efforts to reduce marijuana use and supply cost federal taxpayers billions, despite no evidence that the programs actual work. "Despite sky-high deficits, taxpayers continue to watch their money go up in smoke funding expensive but ineffective government programs intended to reduce marijuana use," said a Taxpayers for Common Sense spokesman. The report assesses the cost of the nation's anti-marijuana efforts and the effect those efforts have had on marijuana use and finds the program to have been a failure, noting that increased federal spending on marijuana has accompanied increased use. The report singles out as particularly wasteful and ineffective marijuana arrests (which have not stemmed marijuana usage rates), the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's youth anti-drug media campaign, and student drug testing programs. "The ultimate measure of the drug war's worth is its impact on drug usage," concludes the report. "By this standard, the federal marijuana program has fared poorly. Rather than continue to spend billions of dollars on the problem, it would be better for the U.S. government to get out of the marijuana business entirely." The full report, which the MPP grants program helped to fund, is available here. U.S. Department of Justice: Top cops say drug war is on the wrong track The Justice Department's 2005 "National Drug Threat Assessment" concludes that not only is the war on marijuana a failure, but police officers overwhelmingly see methamphetamine as a much greater threat than marijuana. Asked to identify the greatest drug threat in their communities, only 12 percent of local law enforcement agencies named marijuana -- a figure that has been declining for years. In contrast, 36 percent named cocaine and 40 percent cited methamphetamine as the greatest threat -- despite the fact that marijuana use is massively more common and despite what the report describes as "marijuana's widespread and ready availability in the United States." The report explains, "Such data indicate that, despite the volume of marijuana trafficked and used in this country, for many in law enforcement marijuana is much less an immediate problem than methamphetamine, for example, which is associated with more tangible risks such as violent users and toxic production sites." (Despite this, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has focused heavily on marijuana. In November 2002, ONDCP sent a letter to the nation's prosecutors declaring flatly, "Nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana.") The report also finds "no reports of a trend toward decreased availability" anywhere in the country ... Indeed, reporting from some areas has suggested that marijuana is easier for youths to obtain than alcohol or cigarettes."


Posted by springbrooke at 11:29 PM PDT
Updated: Sunday, 16 October 2005 11:34 PM PDT

Saturday, 15 October 2005

couldnt have said it better
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Clergy Abuse
The Catholic Church is at it again
By Riggs Fulmer
October 14, 2005

On Wednesday, the New York Times ran a front page article detailing the release of yet another garish laundry list of 75 years of deception, obfuscation, buggery and rape, this time in Los Angeles. Again we see a systematic cover-up of predatory sexual abuse, hidden behind semen-stained velvet curtains and sententious demands for forgiveness. It's the same sick, old story.

As I read the article I grew angrier and angrier. Many of my friends, teachers and co-workers are Catholics and are intelligent, honest people. Unlike their church "leaders," real Catholics use their faith as a base, a moral guide, a community with which to unite and celebrate the Divine. The Catholic Church as a temporal entity, on the other hand, uses its "faith" as a loophole, an abutment to crouch behind, a justification for the worst, lowest types of violence and dishonesty. To call this hypocrisy borders on euphemism. It's long past time that the Vatican live up to the ideals they promote.

Now that these acts and their concealment by Church administrators have been exposed, the same priests, bishops, and cardinals who turned a blind eye to the chronic rape of defenseless children, at the hands of those whom they should have been most able to trust, now ask us to do the same. Utterly and disgustingly unconcerned with the physical well-being of the least among their flocks over decades of sexual coercion, they now rush to guard the coffer doors when these selfsame victims rightfully demand that things be made right.

Understand that my anger is in no way directed towards Catholics, or even against Catholicism, although many of the tenets of that faith are, to me, insupportable. I'm angry with the Pope and his lackeys in the Vatican. The leaders of a religion whose deity said, quite explicitly, "It is easier for a camel (or rope, according to the Peshitta text) to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," are living in wealth so opulent that it would make Paris Hilton blush, and their flock is supposed to accept it. After waiting almost half a century to apologize for their refusal to stand up and condemn the Holocaust, they turn around and elect an ex-Nazi as pontiff. And while AIDS and starvation move like a brush fire through the ranks of the poorest, these "celibate" aristocrats refuse to condone the use of condoms. Friends, come on now, is it really more sinful to fuck your wife while wearing a rubber than to rape little boys in a palace?

All right, I'll calm down. I have no doubt in God's capacity for infinite forgiveness, and it might surprise you, given this article, to find that I pray many times every day. However, I'd suggest that in this case, we leave the forgiveness to God, and take care of the accountability our own damn selves. There's a Sufi axiom to which we should take heed: Trust God, but tie up your camel. God gave you hands and an asshole; don't expect him to hand you the TP as well.

I'd propose two radical reforms to help alleviate this situation: allow priests to marry and allow women to be priests.

The first addresses a number of points. One huge impact would be on the role of priest as counselor in matters involving marriage and sexuality. It's ludicrous to think that a person who's been celibate for thirty years could substantively comment on such matters. But of equal importance would be the release of testosterone, and I'm not kidding here. An intense focus on sexuality while denying its release even through masturbation? Who could ever think this a healthy situation? We might as well appoint 13-year-old boys to guard the girls' locker-room showers!

And allowing women into the priesthood would not only rectify 2000 years of baseless sexism (maybe we can thank the first Letter to Timothy, 2:9-15 for that bullshit), but it would put those vastly less likely to succumb to impulses of pederasty and rape at the reins.

God is good, God is great, but her representatives at the Vatican and its subsidiaries are often neither. It's time the world's Catholics demand that their church look more to the spiritual and physical health of its congregation, and less to slavish obedience to archaic, bass-ackwards dogma or the turning of an indulgent blind eye when grotesque crimes are committed again and again.

When the Catholic Church honestly focuses on righteousness rather than self-righteousness, it will at last become the immense force for good, which has always been its potential.


Posted by springbrooke at 9:50 PM PDT

Saturday, 14 May 2005

Take the Bishop Michael Driscoll Pedo-Quiz!
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Why isnt this guy in jail?
Topic: Clergy Abuse
by GUSTAVO ARELLANO (O.C.Weekly)

Driscoll

On May 6, Diocese of Boise Bishop Michael Driscoll apologized for his role in Orange County’s Roman Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal. Driscoll—who was in charge of priest personnel affairs for the Diocese of Orange from its 1976 inception until leaving for Idaho in 1999—made the stunning admission in a letter printed in the Idaho Catholic Register, stating he was “deeply sorry that the way we handled cases [in Orange County] allowed children to be victimized by permitting some priests to remain in ministry, for not disclosing their behavior to those who might be at risk, and for not monitoring their actions more closely.”

What’s with the mea culpa? Two words: damage control. On May 17, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge will issue a ruling determining which priest personnel files will become public as part of the record-breaking $100 million settlement reached earlier this year between the Orange diocese and sex-abuse victims. Church sources say Driscoll’s name is all over the documents, which molestation survivors claim will show the various cover-ups Orange diocesan officials executed while Driscoll served as chancellor and auxiliary bishop.

But why wait until May 17? Take the following quiz and discover for yourself Driscoll’s role in the rape of innocents!

1. Of the 21 priests the Orange diocese classifies as having “credible” molestation allegations, how many worked under Driscoll’s watch?

a. Half
b. Eight
c. All but one
d. 13


2. How many molestation lawsuits did the Orange diocese settle during Driscoll’s term?

a. None
b. Six
c. 30
d. Unknown


3. What famous county pedophile once testified that Driscoll asked him to stop molesting girls?

a. Gerardo Tanilong
b. John Lenihan
c. The president of the local NAMBLA chapter
d. Ted Llanos


4. After the diocese settled a 1991 lawsuit filed against John Lenihan, what disciplinary actions did Driscoll take?

a. Made Lenihan go to psychological counseling
b. Transferred him out of St. Boniface in Anaheim to another parish
c. Nothing
d. Defrocked Lenihan


5. When Siegfried Widera transferred to Orange County from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in 1976, Milwaukee Bishop William Cousins told Driscoll that Widera once had “a moral problem with a boy.” What was the moral problem?

a. Just a mix-up, sir—the boy’s shorts accidentally fell to his ankles
b. Showed him pornography and gave him alcohol
c. Was arrested on a molestation charge
d. Told him the Freemasons and Jews kept Pope Paul VI in a Vatican basement


6. In a 1991 deposition for a civil trial against Eleuterio Ramos, Driscoll claimed he had only heard secondhand complaints about Ramos molesting boys. During that trial, who testified under oath that they went directly to Driscoll with their concerns about Ramos?

a. A priest
b. A church librarian
c. A parochial teacher
d. All of the above


7. When a parent revealed to Driscoll in the mid-1980s that Father Robert Foley had molested her boy on a Boy Scout trip, Driscoll:

a. Sent Foley to an Indian reservation as he did three other pedo-priests
b. Sent him to Liverpool, England, along with a letter to church leaders across the pond that the parent “has threatened to go to the police” and Foley “is in jeopardy of arrest and possible imprisonment if he remains here.”
c. Sent him away on vacation until things cooled down as he did Andrew Christian Andersen
d. Sent him to Tijuana as he did Ramos


8. After Boise diocesan officials found child pornography images on a priest’s computer in 2002, Driscoll:

a. Suspended the priest
b. Transferred him to a clinic
c. Sent him to Orange County
d. Upgraded his connection to DSL

Answers: 1. c, 2. d—six are known, but the Orange diocese has a habit of settling suits sub rosa, 3. b, 4. c, 5. c, 6. d, 7. b, 8. c




Posted by springbrooke at 12:53 AM PDT

counter


Posted by springbrooke at 12:43 AM PDT

Monday, 21 February 2005

Foxes make good henhouse guards and reporters!
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: Good news! less than a thousand new abuse cases this year (reported!)
Topic: Clergy Abuse
More than 1,000 people reported to civil or church authorities in 2004 that they had been sexually abused as children by Roman Catholic priests, the second-largest number of allegations for any year on record, the U.S. bishops' conference said yesterday.
During 2004, the church spent $157 million on legal settlements and other costs related to sex abuse. It received allegations against 756 priests and deacons, half of whom had previously been named in similar accusations. It temporarily removed more than 300 clergy members and permanently defrocked 148, church officials said.
Kathleen L. McChesney, head of the Catholic Church's child protection office, and Bishop William S. Skylstad present a report on sexual abuse cases. (Adele Starr -- AP)
The new statistics, which appeared in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' second annual report on the sexual abuse crisis in the church, showed the heavy toll that the four-year-old crisis continues to take on the church's finances, its clergy and the trust of its laity.
The figures released yesterday bring the total number of alleged victims since 1950 to 11,750, the number of accused priests to 5,148, and the church's expenses to more than $840 million. Three dioceses have declared bankruptcy.
But the 2004 figures do not fundamentally alter the patterns found last year in a major study of sexual abuse in the church from 1950 to 2002. As in the past, about 80 percent of the 1,083 victims who came forward in 2004 are male, and the majority said they were between the ages of 10 and 14 when the abuse began. Most of the alleged incidents took place in the 1960s and '70s.
Also as they have in the past, victims' advocates and church officials disagreed on how to interpret the figures. Kathleen L. McChesney, a former FBI official who is leaving this month as head of the church's Office of Child and Youth Protection, said at a news conference that 22 incidents, or 2 percent of all the allegations reported last year, were fresh cases involving abuse of minors that occurred in the previous 12 months. She hailed that as evidence that the number of new cases "is declining."
David Clohessy of St. Louis, national director of the support group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told reporters outside the church's news conference that 22 fresh incidents is hardly "cause for joy." In fact, he said, it is probably just a small fraction of the true number, because last year's major study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that child victims typically suffer in silence for 20 to 30 years before reporting clergy abuse.
Interpretation of the statistics was also complicated by a lack of data for 2003. That is because the John Jay study compiled statistics for each year from 1950 to 2002. Then the bishops voted to update the study annually beginning in 2004.
The peak number of allegations reported in any prior year on record was in 2001, when the abuse scandal erupted in Boston. More than 3,300 alleged victims came forward that year. In 2002, the number of allegations dropped to about 750, about the same number that was reported annually in the mid-1990s.
McChesney also said yesterday that 96 percent of the 195 U.S. dioceses were found in a second annual round of audits to be fully in compliance with the sex abuse policy, known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and adopted by the bishops in Dallas three years ago. The archdioceses of Washington and Baltimore and the dioceses of Richmond and Arlington were among those in compliance.
McChesney said the church spent $20 million in 2004 on efforts to prevent sex abuse, including police background checks on 32,073 priests and more than 750,000 lay people who work with children in Catholic schools and parishes.
Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of the Survivors Network, said that the audits are largely irrelevant because they focus on whether each diocese has strict policies in place, rather than determining how well the policies are carried out.
"Every diocese in America last year was cited, even praised, by auditors for three examples of ineffective steps: employee codes of conduct, formal communication plans and having a point person to take incoming abuse allegations," Blaine said. "Is there one priest who molested one girl because he'd never read an employee code of conduct telling him child rape is wrong?"
Blaine and other advocates said the most effective step bishops could take would be to release the names of all priests who face credible allegations, which has been done in fewer than a dozen dioceses.
They also accuse some bishops of trying to evade the core promise in the Dallas Charter, which required permanent removal of any priest who has committed sexual abuse involving a minor. According to the report, at least 42 priests "remain in active ministry pending a preliminary investigation" of abuse charges.
McChesney acknowledged that the church has no policy on how long a preliminary investigation should take or how it should proceed. "Many victims/survivors, accused clergy, review board members, and the laity remain confused about the exact procedures that are to be followed," the report said.
The president of the U.S. bishops' conference, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., said he would not "second-guess the decisions of individual bishops" but that, in his opinion, "if there is a credible allegation of abuse, the priests [should be] immediately removed."
The figures on abuse allegations released yesterday included no breakdowns by diocese and no names of priests or victims. More than 90 percent of all U.S. dioceses voluntarily reported their abuse statistics for 2004, but 71 percent of the 158 Catholic religious orders in the country, such as Jesuits and Franciscans, provided their data.


Posted by springbrooke at 12:04 AM PST

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