Tree Climbers: New Documents Released – Catholic Church – Child Sexual Abuse – Coverup

From Daily Kos:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/23/1181375/-Tree-Climbers-New-Documents-Released-Catholic-Church-Child-Sexual-Abuse-Coverup

By RoxineFollow for TreeClimbers
Wed Jan 23, 2013

Documents released today reveal the extent to which catholic church leaders went to protect pedophile priests:

-  fought for years to keep the files secret
- desired to keep authorities from discovering children were being abused
- proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating (at least) three priests who
had admitted to church officials that they abused young boys
- prevented priests from seeing therapists for fear they might alert authorities
- reassigned priests to avoid criminal investigations

“[Bishop] Mahony and other top [Catholic] aides maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests and provide damage control for the [Catholic] church.Some of the documents provide the strongest evidence to date that Mahony and another key official worked to protect a priest who revealed in therapy sessions that he had raped an 11-year-old boy and abused up to 17 boys.

Monsignor Peter Garcia

Monsignor Peter Garcia told ther­ap­ists that he had mo­les­ted boys “on and off” since his or­din­a­tion in 1966. He sexu­ally ab­used up to 20 boys, in­clud­ing one he al­legedly tied up and raped, ac­cord­ing to church re­cords. Many of his vic­tims were un­doc­u­mented im­mig­rants from Mex­ico, and Gar­cia as­sured church of­fi­cials they would not go to the au­thor­it­ies. Gar­cia left the priest­hood in 1989. He died in 2009 without be­ing pro­sec­uted.

Let’s read that again.  A priest admitted to raping an 11-year-old-boy and abused up to 17 boys and they wanted to protect……………the Priest????

…the memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese’s chief advisor on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation’s largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders’ own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.

But now, they’re really, really sorry…

Continue reading at:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/23/1181375/-Tree-Climbers-New-Documents-Released-Catholic-Church-Child-Sexual-Abuse-Coverup