Priests abused ten thousands of Dutch children

This 3 February 2016 video from England says about itself:

Catholic priests’ victim: ‘The abuse was so common it became normal’

Leslie Turner, a retired primary head teacher, was paid £17,000 in compensation by the Irish Christian Brothers, after claiming two priests from the Catholic Order sexually abused him at school in Sunderland in the 1960s.

The church has not accepted liability for the alleged abuse. Turner, now 66, has waived his anonymity in a film for the Guardian to allege he was molested from the age of 12 by two Irish Christian Brother teachers at St Aidan’s Roman Catholic Grammar School in Sunderland between 1961 and 1967. Both priests are long dead, but he sued after being diagnosed with delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of what he said he suffered.

A video from the Philippines used to say about itself:

28 September 2012

A Catholic priest linked to ivory smuggling was suspended on orders of the Vatican earlier this year over charges that he sexually abused an altar boy while he was serving as a priest in Los Angeles over 20 years ago.

The charges of abuse against Monsignor Cristobal Garcia are currently being investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, CatholicCulture.org reported.

“Msgr. Garcia was suspended from ministry in the Archdiocese of Cebu because of separate accusations of sexual abuse,” it added.

A separate report on dzBB radio early Thursday quoted Cebu Archdiocese spokesman Msgr. Achilles Dakay as saying Garcia was suspended and stripped of his positions as early as June.

Garcia is not allowed to say Mass in public and hear confessions. The report said he is currently confined at a private hospital in Manila.

A 2005 report by Brooks Egerton in the Dallas Morning News said Garcia admitted to having sex with an altar boy, who has obtained a financial settlement.

Garcia was expelled by the Dominican religious order after a nun told police that an altar boy had been found in his bed in a Los Angeles rectory, said the report, which was posted on the Bishop Accountability website.

The report said Garcia fled to his hometown Cebu Archdiocese, where an unnamed source claimed the priest “is nearly untouchable because his family is one of the richest in the Philippines.”

Egerton, who also republished his 2005 report on the Dallas News website, wrote that Garcia was one of over 200 Catholic clergymen found to have crossed international borders to escape justice and stay in ministry.

Ivory smuggling

Garcia was linked to alleged ivory smuggling after National Geographic magazine featured his collection of religious figurines carved from ivory.

Read more here. And here.

Translated from Dutch news agency ANP:

“Child abuse will cost Roman Catholic Church 30 million euro”

23.02.13, 08:55

The scandal of child abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands will cost the church almost 30 million euro. NRC Handelsblad has found this out, the newspaper reports this Saturday. Of this amount 19.2 million is compensation for the victims. The church will have to pay a further 10.5 million on the commission for complaints and the Deetman committee, which investigated the abuse.

According to the committee since 1945 ‘tens of thousands’ of children were abused by Catholic clergy. About 1,800 people reported to Deetman, and of those people 1156 a lodged a complaint with the organization for Reporting Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Of these complaints it is expected that 30 percent will be rejected, because there is not enough evidence.

That does not mean that the complainants whose complaints will be rejected have not been abused, chairman Wiel Stevens of the complaints committee said to the newspaper. “I have no doubt about that. But the rules do not allow recognition of their complaints”, said Stevens. In the Netherlands, the rules to be eligible for compensation are rather strict, unlike in countries such as Ireland. There, compensation is paid sooner and involves larger amounts.

Response to abuse has been slow, stymied by Vatican: here.

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