The priest could face up to 12 years imprisonment if found guilty
A member of the Vatican diplomatic corps serving in Washington has been recalled to the Vatican where he is involved in a criminal investigation involving child pornography, the Vatican said.
The Vatican press office said that it was notified on August 21 by the U.S. State Department “of a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See accredited to Washington.”
“The Holy See, following the practice of sovereign states, recalled the priest in question, who is currently in Vatican City,” the press office said.
The Associated Press reported that the State Department confirmed it had asked the Vatican to lift the official’s diplomatic immunity. It said that request was denied.
The Vatican said the priest’s identity and other details are covered by “investigative confidentiality” during the preliminary investigation stage. The Vatican yearbook lists the nuncio, Archbishop Christoph Pierre, and three priests as making up the diplomatic staff at the Washington nunciature.
After receiving the notification from the State Department, the Vatican said, “the Secretariat of State transmitted this information to the promoter of justice of the Vatican tribunal.” The promoter of justice is the Vatican’s chief prosecutor.
“The promoter of justice opened an investigation and has already commenced international collaboration to obtain elements relative to the case,” the Vatican said.
Greg Burke, director of the Vatican press office, said the investigation is concentrated on matters defined as “crimes against children” in the Vatican’s 2013 “Supplementary Norms on Criminal Law Matters.”
Specifically, he said, the investigation is referring to what the law defines as “child pornography,” which “means any representation, by whatever means, of a minor engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities as well as any representation of the sexual parts of a minor for primarily sexual purposes.”
Burke also referred reporters to section 10 of the supplementary norms, which discuss criminal penalties for a person found guilty of producing or selling and trading child pornography; in those cases Vatican law foresees a maximum of 12 years imprisonment and a fine of up to 250,000 euros ($299,000/£220,000).
PAT SAYS:
This happening at the Papal Nunciature in Washington is a sign that problem of child abuse in the Roman Catholic is a CURRENT PROBLEM as well as HISTORIC PROBLEM.
The causes of paedophilia are complex and mainly unknown.
In the case of Catholic priests, I think that the issue is further complicated by:
1. The Catholic negative and harmful approach to sexuality in general.
2. Obligatory celibacy.
In saying that only 4% of priests are known to have sexually abused children.
Some reports have suggested that priests abuse boys more than girls?
What I can't understand about this case is the Vatican refusing to lift this priests diplomatic immunity.
He was downloading child porn in the US.
He should have been handed over to the US authorities for prosecution and punishment.
It proves that the Vatican is still putting canon law above civil law.
The US nuncio should be expelled from the US and their so called "embassy closed down.
The Vatican is still protecting child abusers!
PAT SAYS:
This happening at the Papal Nunciature in Washington is a sign that problem of child abuse in the Roman Catholic is a CURRENT PROBLEM as well as HISTORIC PROBLEM.
The causes of paedophilia are complex and mainly unknown.
In the case of Catholic priests, I think that the issue is further complicated by:
1. The Catholic negative and harmful approach to sexuality in general.
2. Obligatory celibacy.
In saying that only 4% of priests are known to have sexually abused children.
Some reports have suggested that priests abuse boys more than girls?
What I can't understand about this case is the Vatican refusing to lift this priests diplomatic immunity.
He was downloading child porn in the US.
He should have been handed over to the US authorities for prosecution and punishment.
It proves that the Vatican is still putting canon law above civil law.
The US nuncio should be expelled from the US and their so called "embassy closed down.
The Vatican is still protecting child abusers!
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The Roman WHORE protects its evil own, because the Roman WHORE protects its intrinsically evil, expecting its brainless adherents to express loyalty to it rather than to Christ.
ReplyDeleteYes the Scarlet Woman protects her children. Come out into the freedom of the children of God.
DeleteI see the drunken and intrinsically vicious WHORE, Magna Carta, was up very late again last night! 02:43am!
Delete16:02, was there a point to your post? Or do you just enjoy boring others by stating the bleedin' obvious?
DeleteYes, 15:46, she protects sexual abusers, the financially and theologically corrupt, etc.
DeleteI fall into none of these categories, so I'll pass on your offer.
16.02: Adjectives don't exist to describe Magna but I think WHORE in the ugliness of its pronunciation is perfect! Sadly, as we are discovering, Magna's brain is damaged by drink. He should seek refuge at the Oratory or as said before - go back under his rock and wither away. He's become utterly obnoxious.
DeletePat, that Carta one is getting worse. He's like an obnoxious and loud drunk who sits in a bar abusing the customers.
DeleteWere your blog a reputable establishment, the management would have landed him out the door on his hole ages ago.
'...that Carta one...'. Oh, God! What a retrospectively domesticated turn of phrase!
DeleteIf I could, I'd 'bottle' you and place you on my mantlepiece, where I could look at you for hours daily and go (oh, I don't know!) all 'squidgy', I suppose.
It sounds like banging the old drum but where possible allegations of wrongdoing should be dealt with in the jurisdiction where they allegedly took place. The Vatican should not be a hiding place except where it is believed the outside jurisdiction may be corrupt. Even then it is important that justice is served in an appropriate and transparent way.
ReplyDeleteHappy Sunday Pat. Off subject a little but as Westminster Cathedral has featured a lot this week can any of your correspondents in London tell us whatever happened to Fr Michael Seed, the celebrated Vicar to the Stars?
ReplyDeleteDid Vin turf him out?
He's in America. He got in a bit of bother by falsely claiming that Tory MP Alan Clark had a deathbed conversion to the True Faith.
DeleteCanon Phipps mentioned in a blog yesterday is one to watch. He was banished by Cormac to Hertford, the outer extremities of Westminster. Another one banished was James Overton to Middlesex, former Rector of Allen Hall and former student of Cormac at the English College in Rome.
DeleteYes, Terence Phipps was highly favoured at one time. On the staff of Allen Hall, in Westminster cathedral and then parish priest of St James's, Spanish Place, one of the coveted postings in Westminster. Excellent command of French. Definitely not the marrying kind.
DeleteThe 'True Faith', 12:30? How delightfully quaint! (I love the past.)
DeleteYes, Magna, isn't the idea funny?
Delete'Not the marrying kind' eh 15:15? (Wink, wink; nudge, nudge)
DeleteI agree with Magna Carta, very quaint indeed.
Delete17:04, Jesus redeems us through faith in HIM, not in Roman Catholicism. (Sigh, sigh, sigh)
DeleteCan a Vatican prosecution under cannon law protect the priest from US prosecution under the guise of preventing double jeopardy?? Is this the intent if the Holy See...
ReplyDeleteIf true this is a very worrying development, that someone in the upper echelons of the Church Hierarchy, as a Vatican official with diplomatic status (First or Second Secretary, or Accessor) and who potentially would be on track after 20 years of service to become a Nuncio, would be accessing illegal images on line in the Vatican Embassy - well you just couldn't make it up. I suppose like all of us this priest is innocent until proven guilty and has to have the presumption of innocence. It could be a malicious set up by a foreign power hostile to the US and the Holy See using cyber crime? If he is guilty as charged then Pope Francis will through the book at him and he will spend a long time in jail and be stripped of the priesthood and be very publicly humiliated. As the US and the Holy See have no extradition treaty then he will not (and cannot be) returned to the US. There would be no point as if he accessed the images in the Nunciature, then that is Vatican territory and it would be the same as if he had accessed them in the Vatican itself. That would be common practice for any crime committed by any diplomat in a host country. These things have all been agreed many years ago in the Treaty of Vienna. Still an all it is a very worrying case.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely appalling if the priest is guilty. As you say, diplomats have immunity from prosecution by the host country. This applies to all sovereign states and countries very very rarely hand their diplomats over to the host country. The principle behind this is to prevent host countries from using trumped up charges against states with which they are in dispute. I'm not saying that the charges are bogus in this case, just making an observation about diplomatic immunity. If this priest is found guilty I hope that he gets a very long sentence indeed.
DeleteOh, if convicted, this priest will indeed receive a long sentence...on paper.
DeleteIt all will look good publicly, and the Vatican will be internationally praised for its (what's the media phrase?) 'tough stance' on sexual abuse by priests.
Pope Francis' smile will be broader than usual with all the plaudits. But just a few years on, er, 'compassion' will prompt the pope to pardon this priest.
Well, what are papas for?
Magna Carta is absolutely right. This is exactly what will happen to another pampered and protected protegé of the Whore of Babylon.
DeletePope Francis' record on these matters is poor. He is also implicated in his role in supporting the Argentinan junta, responsible for the torture and suffering of so many (the "dissappeared"). The Argentinian episcopal conference made a public apology in 1990 for its support for the regime. According to the Guardian, Bergolio twice refused to appear the courts who were investigating the diseappeared, including two Jesuits. When he finally testified in court the judge said that Bergolio was evasive. Just Google Pope Francis junta.
DeleteAs you say, they're for protecting their sons.
Delete18:00
DeleteYou don't like Pope Francis! J.M. Bergoglio was appointed an auxiliary bishop in B.A. in 1992 and archbishop of B.E. in 1998. The issue of the two Jesuits has long been settled.
He was Provincial of the SJs in Argentina in a lot of the junta period. By his own admission he was a poor Provincial. I'm always perplexed by, among his many insults, Bergolio blasts clericalism. I'd suggest he's done pretty well for himself.
DeleteWhi decided that it was all settled? The Pope?
The judge must have been a liar. Obvs.
DeletePat, have you seen today's Sunday Post? It's front page reveals that the Daughters of Charity have put the land round the orphanage in Lanark for sale, with a £6 million asking price. That's the place with the 400 unmarked graves. The newspaper also reveals that the nuns have £60 million in the bank, including £30 million invested in blue chip companies. Last year they made a profit of £8 million, including £5 million from care homes they run. Holy poverty indeed.
ReplyDeleteThe Scottish police is reopening their investigation of the orphanage and surviving former residents are trying to launch a private prosecution against the nuns.
DeleteI hope Fr Seed didn't bolt the course with one of the floosies from Stringfellows. He was a frequent visitor there. Another example of a priest with a vow of poverty who was forever on the exclusive social circuit in the affluent posh parts of London. He probably quaffed more champers in 5 years that the old queen mother did in her 100 years. Another piss taking clergyman
ReplyDeleteThe Friars of the Atonement, to which belongs, sold off most of their big friary behind Westminster cathedral to a posh architectural firm for a tidy sum. The friars kicked out the Catholic Central Library in the process. The books and the librarian were taken in by an Anglican church near Euston station, before eventually ending up in Farnborough abbey.
ReplyDeleteIs Ealing Abbey in West London still in existence. Wasnt their strange going ons their at one time. How is it Today ?.
ReplyDeleteStill open and still charging big fees at their public school, St Benedict's. Why do religious orders run fee-paying schools?
DeleteAnyway, Dom David Pearce, who had been head of the junior school, is now in prison, for the usual reasons. Abbot Soper went on the run and was extradited from Kosovo, and a male lay teacher, a Tory councillor no less, was convicted for possession of child images.
Ealing Abbey is beautifully furnished (in the monks private quarters; the bits the public see are austere). They employ domestic servants, called housemen, who used to be paid about £25 a week, though they got bed and board in an unbeautifully furnished house the monks own.
There are no monk teachers at the school nowadays.
And precious few monks. Imagine being a member of a community where the former abbot went on the run from the police and one of the few places the Vaticans done a visitation!
DeleteFr Michael Seed is one of the nicest people I've ever met. He had an incredibly tough start in life (see the Wikipedia and Guardian articles about him, for example). Even in a very busy place such as Westminster cathedral which thousands attend he was great at remembering names.
ReplyDeleteHe used to celebrate Mass in 10 Downing St for the Blairs even before Tony converted. He was sacked as Ecumenical Adviser to the Archbishop of Westminster when he indiscreetly and probably innocently let slip that Tony Blair intended to cross the Tiber when he left office. Tony did of course convert when he left office but it was considered bad form to disclose this while he was still in office. Although there is no constitutional bar to Catholics being Prime Minister, there is yet to be one, though there has been at least one atheist (Winston Churchill).
It's contested whether Churchill was an agnostic rather than an atheist. He never commented much on religious matters, though he did once describe himself as being like a flying buttress, supporting the church from the outside. He did of course receive an Anglican state funeral, humanist funerals being unheard of largely.
DeleteUp Mayo! Just saying.
ReplyDeleteJust ignoring.
DeleteMayo abu!
DeleteMust have been hard for Ginny Nichols to sit through the obsequies of a man for whom he had little liking. He must have known most folk were aware there was no live lost
ReplyDeleteAnyone any info on the goings on at the Meath Lourdes Pilgrimage. Three priests barred from the hotel bar in the Solitude Hotel for their "drunken behaviour" ?
ReplyDeleteAll Ginny cared about was getting on. I can really understand and applaud ambition in lay people. They have bills to pay, credit card debts. In some cases they have children so they want them clothed and fed, mortgage or rent deposits paid for them. That's responsible parenting, though if unemployment or illness intervenes parents have to manage as best they can. But why is a priest (eg Vincent, Sean, Cormac) ambitious? What do they get out of it?
ReplyDeleteTheir salary does not go up much. Is it the title, the mitre, the salute by the Swiss Guards when visiting Rome? The ability to move priests around? Why do they want it so much?
In the vacant See of Clogher several priests are competing now to be the next bishop: Peter O'Reilly, Joe McGuinness, and La Flynn. As they say about the UK and Argentina going to war over the Falklands it's like bald men fighting over a comb.
La Flynn? Best laugh I've had all week.......there's more chance of Sean Brady becoming pope than La Flynn being appointed bishop of Clogher. Hopefully it will be an outsider for Clogher because the diocese has been run by an old boys network for the last 40 years. Joe Duffy had his few cronies and Liam Mc Daid had also. In fact, Clogher is in a mess and most of the priests there feel that it will never be any different. Unless an outsider is appointed it's down the tubes for the See of Macartan.
DeleteYou forgot about Timo Bartlett!
DeleteIn fact Vinny grew quite fond of Cormac in recent years when he was no longer a power in the Vatican. Once he had to step down from the Congregation for Bishops at the age of 80, things eased. Vinny cannot tolerate any one stealing his lime light. Any yet where Murphy O Connor is tonight (in a cold vault in the cathedral) Vinny will be one day too.
ReplyDeleteI saw this regarding The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul... what are they like?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41299579
Hi Pat you were in my prayers today.
ReplyDeleteA thought came to mind. Close this Web page down and move into a time of prayer. Get rid of the title of Bishop, no need for titles and forgive them Pat for the hurt you've received by the hierarchy if the Church. If you notice, no tone of them ended up with a happy ending. Life is too short to be spending your time and ministry on this stuff.
Let it go Pat. I love you in Christ and pray that letting all this go you may find peace from them.
With every blessing
Xxx
Up the Dubs
ReplyDeleteI recall reading somewhere John Major was an atheist. He was also the first prime minister to have signed on the dole (Before he became an mp)
ReplyDeleteUseless information...
DeleteMargaret Thatcher was the last PM to wear a wedding ring until Mrs May came along. Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron didn't.
ReplyDelete