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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Same old thing: Priest accused of sexual abuse

One thing before starting: I have nothing special against the Catholic Church. I dislike all churches in the same way. If I’m writing a lot about Catholics it’s just coincidence. Or divine intervention if you want.

I wasn’t sure about writing about this kind of news given how frequent is to find a the formula “priest + boy = rape”. But as long as I have the time and resources, I’ll continue.


Priest set to be arraigned today on child-abuse charges

A retired priest with a history of abuse allegations is behind bars today on new charges that he molested a young boy in the rectory and sacristy of a Costa Mesa church in the 1990s.

Denis Lyons, 75, of Seal Beach is being held on $100,000 bail at Orange County Jail and is expected to be arraigned today on charges of molesting the victim when he was in second and third grade from January 1992 and December 1995 at St. John the Baptist Catholic School, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office.


I wonder how can these guys, who say have committed their life to god, to keep his commandments, can give a mass looking at so many people who trusts them, after having raped a kid? Or just how can they look at an image of Jesus? When I was a believer and felt guilty about something, I couldn’t look at an image of Christ without feeling my face burn with shame. But this kind of people seem to have lost shame completely.

On the other hand, Lyons has just been accused, and in Uncle Sam’s land, land of free and the brave, etc, etc, a person is inocent until proven guilty. However, Lyons must be used to these situations.

In 2003, he was charged with molesting another male youth between 1978 and 1981 at St. John the Baptist. Prosecutors also accused him of assaulting two other male victims to corroborate that case.

But those charges had to be dismissed because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated prosecutions of some older sex crimes.

This means that, even though he wasn’t found guilty, it’s because he couldn’t be tried. This doesn’t mean that crime wasn’t committed. And I could think that there was no crime if there were just one accusation, but being so many, it’s hard to think that this one is false.

Sincerely, I hope that priest is found guilty and spend the rest of his days in prison. And I think every believer would agree, by knowing all the harm this kind of priests do to their institution

The priest has been a financial liability to diocese, which has paid out more than $4 million in settlements of sex-abuse claims since 2001.

There goes the offering money. If you thought that it was going to help some hungry kids in Africa, think again. Probably that money is going to be paid to a rape victim

2 comments:

  1. The legal term for not being able to prosecute old cases is "statute of limitations." I was always morbidly fascinated why in this country there is this perception that if a priest commits a sex crime it must be against a boy. Is there something in the air here? Is it that when it happens in countries like ours is better kept under wraps?

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  2. I think there are many factors for this, some of them being the predominance of catholicism in our countries and the attribution of guilt when a girl is abused. I think I'll write about that in a future post. Thanks for the idea.

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