Pennsylvania grand jury report on Catholic priests' alleged sexual abuses. (2 Viewers)

[Optimus Prime]

Guess this can go here
=================
Having been elected with no opposition despite prior charges of child molestation, the chief medical examiner of a south-east Louisianacommunity with more than a quarter-million residents took office on Monday, poised to deliver on a pledge to eliminate an agency program that has helped collect key evidence in cases of sexual assault.

Dr Christopher Tape, 53, is expected to ultimately face an effort from voters to subject him to a recall election and force him from office, the top local government official in St Tammany parish has told the outlet, which exposed the new coroner’s criminal history.

But that drive to remove Tape must clear a relatively high procedural threshold now that he’s in place at the parish – or county, in Louisiana parlance – coroner’s office.


Tape was indicted in New Mexico in 2002 on charges that he sexually assaulted his then girlfriend’s daughter, who was seven at the time, as local TV station WWL Louisiana first reported in February.

A court in that state later found prosecutors took too long between arresting and indicting Tape – who was a medical school student at the time – and tossed the charges, saying his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been unduly compromised…..

Then, on 11 February, WWL Louisiana investigative reporter David Hammer not only revealed that a technicality had spared Tape from being tried on six charges of child sexual assault in New Mexico, WWL also uncovered how Tape in 2022 had struck an out-of-court settlement with a 26-year-old employee at his private forensic pathology practice who alleged that he made unwanted sexual advances toward her.


All of St Tammany’s top elected officials subsequently demanded that Tape resign without beginning his four-year term, which began at midnight on Monday. But he made it clear he had no intention of satisfying those demands.

In fact, four days before his term kicked off, Tape announced that – after he took over – the coroner’s office would no longer provide its sexual assault nurse examiner (Sane) program. He said local hospitals instead would be responsible for the service, which involved collecting evidence that was vital for the prosecution of sexual assault crimes, as Nola.com reported.

Tape’s policy shift ignited a fresh outcry. The office’s Sane program worked with sexual assault survivors in a region that included four parishes other than St Tammany. Louisiana state lawmakers told Nola.com that the hospitals affected by Tape’s change were “not prepared to do this right off the bat”, especially ones in certain rural parts.……

Louisiana coroner accused of child abuse cuts sexual assault exam program

Christopher Tape, indicted in 2022 before charges were dismissed, says office will stop giving exam that helps collect key evidence

www.theguardian.com

 

[Nisey55]

Guess this can go here
=================
Having been elected with no opposition despite prior charges of child molestation, the chief medical examiner of a south-east Louisianacommunity with more than a quarter-million residents took office on Monday, poised to deliver on a pledge to eliminate an agency program that has helped collect key evidence in cases of sexual assault.

Dr Christopher Tape, 53, is expected to ultimately face an effort from voters to subject him to a recall election and force him from office, the top local government official in St Tammany parish has told the outlet, which exposed the new coroner’s criminal history.

But that drive to remove Tape must clear a relatively high procedural threshold now that he’s in place at the parish – or county, in Louisiana parlance – coroner’s office.


Tape was indicted in New Mexico in 2002 on charges that he sexually assaulted his then girlfriend’s daughter, who was seven at the time, as local TV station WWL Louisiana first reported in February.

A court in that state later found prosecutors took too long between arresting and indicting Tape – who was a medical school student at the time – and tossed the charges, saying his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been unduly compromised…..

Then, on 11 February, WWL Louisiana investigative reporter David Hammer not only revealed that a technicality had spared Tape from being tried on six charges of child sexual assault in New Mexico, WWL also uncovered how Tape in 2022 had struck an out-of-court settlement with a 26-year-old employee at his private forensic pathology practice who alleged that he made unwanted sexual advances toward her.


All of St Tammany’s top elected officials subsequently demanded that Tape resign without beginning his four-year term, which began at midnight on Monday. But he made it clear he had no intention of satisfying those demands.

In fact, four days before his term kicked off, Tape announced that – after he took over – the coroner’s office would no longer provide its sexual assault nurse examiner (Sane) program. He said local hospitals instead would be responsible for the service, which involved collecting evidence that was vital for the prosecution of sexual assault crimes, as Nola.com reported.

Tape’s policy shift ignited a fresh outcry. The office’s Sane program worked with sexual assault survivors in a region that included four parishes other than St Tammany. Louisiana state lawmakers told Nola.com that the hospitals affected by Tape’s change were “not prepared to do this right off the bat”, especially ones in certain rural parts.……

Louisiana coroner accused of child abuse cuts sexual assault exam program

Christopher Tape, indicted in 2022 before charges were dismissed, says office will stop giving exam that helps collect key evidence

www.theguardian.com

I don't even know what to say. I heard the the report on wwl, I guess I thought "surely this piece of trash won't get in"
How naive of me.

 

[Tapxe]

I don't even know what to say. I heard the the report on wwl, I guess I thought "surely this piece of trash won't get in"
How naive of me.

He was unopposed so there wasn't really an election. There are still consequences tho.

 

[Brennan77]

Guess this can go here
=================

A Louisiana man who resigned as a Roman Catholic deacon after a priest at whose side he served sexually molested his son has been excommunicated from the church by his local diocese, a remarkably harsh punishment that his child’s abuser does not appear to have faced.

Scott Peyton’s excommunication from the Catholic church at the hands of bishop J Douglas Deshotel comes as the latter’s Lafayette diocesehas asked Louisiana’s supreme court to strike down a law that retroactively and temporarily eliminated filing deadlines for lawsuits demanding damages for childhood sexual abuse from years ago.

The law which lawyers for the Lafayette diocese targeted wasn’t exclusively for clergy abuse victims, but it prompted many new cases of that nature against Louisiana’s Catholic institutions and clerics who worked for them.


Peyton called Deshotel’s actions against him “very malicious”, adding that he has seen no indication the diocese ever sought to excommunicate any of the more than 40 priests and deacons whom it has included on the organization’s list of credibly accused child molesters. Among those on that roster is Gilbert Gauthe, who pleaded guilty to abusing numerous boys before being sent to prison in the mid-1980s in a case that is widely considered to be “patient zero” of the US Catholic church’s ongoing clerical molestation scandal.

“It’s totally unnecessary,” Peyton said of his excommunication, which was first reported by the Lafayette news outlet KADN. “And I’m afraid it will make abuse victims and their families afraid to come out.”…….

Ex-Louisiana deacon whose son was sexually abused by a priest is excommunicated from church

Bishop J Douglas Deshotel issued the order after Scott Peyton had resigned from his post, but the abusive priest was not censured

www.theguardian.com

I had typed out some thoughts when you first posted this but was uncomfortable with the lack of information, so I didn't submit it to the thread. There were key elements obviously missing that one might expect when reading about an excommunication. I'm not sure if it was intentional or simply ignorance from the guardian writers as to the nature of an excommunication. My initial guess at what was missing was that the deacon made actions to leave and separate himself from the Church. If done in a way that might cause confusion given the public nature of the horrible scandal and his public position as an ordained minister, an official pronouncement of his excommunication would not be surprising at all. That turned out to be the case.

Why a Louisiana excommunication is a canonical ‘hard case’

The excommunication of Deacon Scott Peyton has garnered national attention. Here's why

www.pillarcatholic.com

The decree has attracted widespread attention, with many Catholics asking why a cleric can be excommunicated for joining an Anglican church, but not for abusing a minor.

Indeed, it is not the case that sexual abuse carries the penalty of excommunication in canon law — largely because excommunication is usually reserved for situations of an ongoing nature, and meant to prompt a conversion or a change of situation, whereas the penalties associated with child abuse are considered “expiatory” in nature — that is, they are meant, quite simply to punish.

There are exceptions to that general schema, and some argue that abuse should be among them.

But regardless of the legal praxis, popular perception about the purpose of excommunication usually misses the mark: while the penalty is often regarded as the gravest penal sanction the Church can impose — as a kind of official ecclesiastical shunning, or even a condemnation to damnation. But excommunication is not meant that way — especially because it is ordinarily revoked as soon as an excommunicated person expresses contrition, and changes the offending situation.

Expiatory penalties, like laicization, don’t work like that — they’re meant to be a lasting penalty, not just to provoke contrition, but to restore justice and repair scandal.

This article is excellent and does a good job of explaining terms and examining the difficult canonical situation this story presents. I'm not sure the bishop did the right thing in his formal pronouncement. But a recognition of the deacon's removal of himself from communion with the Church is not unexpected. He's an ordained minister and left with his family to an Anglican community. Without appropriate communication between himself and the bishop and subsequently the faithful, confusion can and apparently did result. Maybe there was communication and the bishop botched it. I don't know.

I would like to see the bishop go further in his discipline of the abusive priest. He's already permanently removed from public ministry. But I believe justice demands the formal and public laicization (and humiliation) of criminals like this, in addition to removal from ministry and submission to temporal secular justice systems.

 

[Taurus]

I had typed out some thoughts when you first posted this but was uncomfortable with the lack of information, so I didn't submit it to the thread. There were key elements obviously missing that one might expect when reading about an excommunication. I'm not sure if it was intentional or simply ignorance from the guardian writers as to the nature of an excommunication. My initial guess at what was missing was that the deacon made actions to leave and separate himself from the Church. If done in a way that might cause confusion given the public nature of the horrible scandal and his public position as an ordained minister, an official pronouncement of his excommunication would not be surprising at all. That turned out to be the case.

Why a Louisiana excommunication is a canonical ‘hard case’

The excommunication of Deacon Scott Peyton has garnered national attention. Here's why

www.pillarcatholic.com

This article is excellent and does a good job of explaining terms and examining the difficult canonical situation this story presents. I'm not sure the bishop did the right thing in his formal pronouncement. But a recognition of the deacon's removal of himself from communion with the Church is not unexpected. He's an ordained minister and left with his family to an Anglican community. Without appropriate communication between himself and the bishop and subsequently the faithful, confusion can and apparently did result. Maybe there was communication and the bishop botched it. I don't know.

I would like to see the bishop go further in his discipline of the abusive priest. He's already permanently removed from public ministry. But I believe justice demands the formal and public laicization (and humiliation) of criminals like this, in addition to removal from ministry and submission to temporal secular justice systems.

Those last six words are key.

 

[Brennan77]

Those last six words are key.

The priest in this case was sentenced to prison in 2019.

 

[Boy_of_wonder75]

I had typed out some thoughts when you first posted this but was uncomfortable with the lack of information, so I didn't submit it to the thread. There were key elements obviously missing that one might expect when reading about an excommunication. I'm not sure if it was intentional or simply ignorance from the guardian writers as to the nature of an excommunication. My initial guess at what was missing was that the deacon made actions to leave and separate himself from the Church. If done in a way that might cause confusion given the public nature of the horrible scandal and his public position as an ordained minister, an official pronouncement of his excommunication would not be surprising at all. That turned out to be the case.

Why a Louisiana excommunication is a canonical ‘hard case’

The excommunication of Deacon Scott Peyton has garnered national attention. Here's why

www.pillarcatholic.com

This article is excellent and does a good job of explaining terms and examining the difficult canonical situation this story presents. I'm not sure the bishop did the right thing in his formal pronouncement. But a recognition of the deacon's removal of himself from communion with the Church is not unexpected. He's an ordained minister and left with his family to an Anglican community. Without appropriate communication between himself and the bishop and subsequently the faithful, confusion can and apparently did result. Maybe there was communication and the bishop botched it. I don't know.

I would like to see the bishop go further in his discipline of the abusive priest. He's already permanently removed from public ministry. But I believe justice demands the formal and public laicization (and humiliation) of criminals like this, in addition to removal from ministry and submission to temporal secular justice systems.

The Bishop had an opportunity to be pastoral and reacted as an administrator instead. There is never a situation so bad that the Church hierarchy can't make it worse.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The criminal investigation into child sexual abuse in New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese has entered a major new phase, after a judge ordered the church to turn over records to Louisiana state police showing how it responded to abuse allegations over the last several decades.

The order signed on Monday seeks files that would identify every priest and deacon accused of abusing children while working in the US’s second-oldest archdiocese; when those complaints were first made; and whether the church turned those cases over to police, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Significantly, police are also demanding copies of all communications among New Orleans’ current archbishop, Gregory Aymond, his aides and their superiors at the Vatican, those sources said.


Asked for comment on Wednesday, an archdiocese spokesperson said: “As always, the archdiocese will continue to cooperate in all law enforcement investigations.”

It appears to be the first time that authorities investigating the New Orleans archdiocese’s role in the decades-old, worldwide Catholic clerical child abuse scandal have sought the full set of abuse-related documents in the local church’s possession.

In the rare cases where New Orleans-area clergymen have been convicted of – or even prosecuted for – child rape or molestation, investigators have generally focused on documents related to the individual defendants and their direct superiors.

Now, by essentially seeking the entire paper trail generated by the scandal, investigators could also learn what top church officials in Rome knew of the breadth of abuse at the local level in New Orleans.

It also introduces the possibility that authorities could one day produce a watershed report about the extent of Catholic clergy abuse in New Orleans as detailed as those published by prosecutors in states such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland.……..

Exclusive: US archdiocese must submit clergy-abuse documents to police

In criminal investigation, New Orleans judge demands paper trail from archbishop Gregory Aymond all the way to the Vatican

www.theguardian.com

 

[kcirdor]

interesting some users don't have a history of usernames. Ole Brown is now You, and it doesn't have "used to be known as" anywhere