Boston Archdicese: Drop all sexual law suits.

IMO, they are covering their own butts. Separation of church and state is NOT the same as diplomatic immunity. I think that they should be ashamed of bringing up that red herring, which absolutely does not apply here. Criminal behavior is criminal behavior, no matter who commits the crime!

Legal experts said that the First Amendment approach had little chance of success but that the archdiocese might well have jeopardized its insurance coverage had it failed to pursue any available arguments.

I'm sure they needed to explore every possible avenue. After all, their attorneys have to provide zealous representation. Do I think this defense has a chance of helping them out at all? Hell, no!

Consider this: let us assume that the archdiocese is a standard employer. Normally, employers are not responsible for the criminal activities of their employees. However, here we have the criminal acts very probably committed either on the grounds of the employer's work place or during working hours while employees were working offsite (e. g. priests went with youth groups to ballgames or perhaps they attended ill parishioners in their homes and the abuse may have taken place in either of these locales). And, we have the company's hierarchy actively obstructing justice by not contacting the police and, instead, continuing to make it possible for the employees to engage in criminal behaviour and, in a way, encouraging said behaviour by not disciplining their employees. If you remove the church-like aspects of the case, there is nothing at all related to state action in what remains.

Is the church involved? Absolutely. But is the state involved? Huh? I don't get that part of the argument one bit. Where it that the church is acting as an arm of the state. After all, couldn't we argue that the church was acting in polar opposition to the state's wants/needs/requirements?

jespah, Here's a little bit of a stretch, but with the nonprofit status of churches, and the tax exempt status, the state is actually 'supporting' the church. c.i.

But if that's the case, then the state would be responsible for acts on the part of other nonprofits (like the American Cancer Society, for example). But if an ACS employee brings the organization into trouble, the state doesn't take the fall.

Now that the issue has become "insurance" and not "morals," I find this attempt to win somewhat disgusting, esepcially after it's been revealed that the church continued to protect those criminals to begin with. What happened to the "moral high ground?" The church values money more than the children that were abused? c.i.

Of course it's money. Morals, they are non existant. The Catholic church seems to have lost them somewhere along the way.

The "church" seems to have lost their morals somewhere along the way. Why does the church exist, if they can't live by what they preach? There are 'devoted' catholics who continue to support the church. On what grounds? c.i.

cicerone imposter
I don't believe it is support of the church as much as a support for the tenents of their religion.

When I practiced law, I worked in insurance. Basically, you provide as good a defense as possible. It's a kind of a fine line ethically - e. g. you need to protect the insured (they are, after all, your client), but you're also in constant communication with the claims adjuster(s) and so you are, to a certain extent, also protecting the insurance company by trying to pay out as little as possible.

The client (e. g. the church in this case) has to approve the defense you mount; plus, they have to approve any settlement(s). So, while it may be the insurance carrier and its attorneys who put forth this theory of defense, it was the church which condoned it, and wanted it.

I live fairly close to a seminary and I do wonder, on occasion, what happens there or has happened there. Sad, truly sad and incredibly disturbing.

au, As Mencken supposedly have said, "what good has any religion done?" They continue to claim it's the sin of man that is sinful, and not the teachings of any religion. I wonder if our world would be worse off without any religion? c.i.

As they say no me culpa. It is always someone else's fault. As to the need for religion and whether we would be better off without it. Yes, and no. Man has always needed religion or a deity to look to in order that he may explain the inexplicable.
The problem with religion is not the belief in a supreme being but the many religions that man has made in his/her [must be politically correct] worship. Each claiming they are the one and the only way to salvation.
It would have been much better if out of the fertile and devious minds of men had come the concept that prayer to the supreme being is personal and not organizational.
As it is now religion is an irritant and the cause of much of the strife visited on mankind through the ages.

But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence, this change, inasmuch as it does away with illusion, is an absolute annihilation, or at least a reckless profanation; for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness

Feuerbach
Essence of Christianity

The latest on sexual crimes of the catholic church evidently involves most of the diocese. Makes one wonder, doesn't it? Has the church done more good than bad? c.i.

c.i.
The problem is by no means limited to the Boston archdiocese but exists throughout the catholic world. It will never be solved until the rules are changed and priests are allowed to marry and able to live a normal life. Celibacy is not a natural condition.

au, I agree that celibacy is not natural, and trying to buck nature is bound to fail. c.i.

It's a legal method used to preserve Church property.

I thought the plan was to ban gay men from the seminaries. Isn't this discrimination?

New Haven



Who would be left?