Catholic Herald: Victims’ group apologises to priest after abuse claims dropped

(Getty image)

Fr Joseph Jiang sued the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests after abuse claims against him were dismissed

[Catholic Herald] The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has issued an apology to the Archdiocese of St Louis and two of its priests, Father Joseph Jiang and the late Mgr Joseph D. Pins, admitting allegations against them were false.

“The SNAP defendants never want to see anyone falsely accused of a crime. Admittedly, false reports of clergy sexual abuse do occur,” the group said.

“The SNAP defendants have no personal knowledge as to the complaints against Father Joseph Jiang and acknowledge that all matters and claims against Father Jiang have either been dismissed or adjudicated in favor of Father Jiang,” it said.

“SNAP acknowledges that false claims of clergy sexual abuse injure those clerics falsely accused and the Roman Catholic Church,” the apology added.

The apology was issued as part of a settlement with SNAP in a defamation lawsuit filed by Father Jiang in 2015, according to the archdiocese.

Mgr Pins died of cancer June 17, 2015. Ordained in 1970, he had been rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St Louis for 13 years at the time of his death.

The priest had been mentioned in a civil lawsuit that accused the archdiocese and St Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson of supposedly covering up for a priest accused in 2012, wrongly as it turned out, of molesting a teenage girl. The suit claimed the archbishop and Mgr Pins ignored requests to reassign the priest.

Father Jiang was associate pastor at the cathedral basilica when allegations arose that he had molested a 15-year-old girl who attended Mass there with her family.

A judge dismissed the criminal case against Fr Jiang in 2013 because prosecutors could not show the priest was ever alone with the girl at her home, where the alleged abuse supposedly took place. In 2014, Father Jiang was arrested and charged with molesting a young boy, but a year later, that charge also was dropped.

To clear his name, Fr Jiang filed a defamation lawsuit in 2015 against the boy’s parents and SNAP, “contending that the boy had been coached to falsely accuse an innocent man,” according to court records. The lawsuit also accused SNAP of carrying out a “shameless smear campaign” that “destroyed the life of a promising young man and priest.”

As part of the settlement of the suit, SNAP issued the apology.

“SNAP apologizes,” it said, “for any false or inaccurate statements related to the complaints against Father Joseph Jiang that it or its representatives made which in any way disparaged Fr Joseph Jiang, Archbishop Robert Carlson, Mgr Joseph D. Pins and the Archdiocese of St Louis.”

SA TUNAY NA BUHAY NG ISANG DATING KATOLIKO!

May isang kwento akong natanggap mula sa aming kapitbahay...

Dumalaw ang isang ginang sa kanyang asawang nakakulong dahil sa panggagahasa sa sariling anak.

Lalaki: Buti naman at dumalaw ka. May ibabalita ako sa iyo. Nagbago na ako ng relihiyon. IGLESIA NI CRISTO® na ako. 'Di na ako Katoliko. Kaya gusto ko, paglabas ko rito ay magbago ka na rin ng relihiyon.

Babae: Hoy Rolly! Huwag mong ipagmalaki sa akin ang bagong relihiyon mo. Magbago ka ng ugali hindi ang paniniwala!

Mas Talamak ang Sexual Abuse sa Iglesia Protestante kaysa sa Iglesia Katolika!

Malimit na pinangangalandakan ng mga KUMAKAAWAY sa TUNAY na IGLESIA na ang suliranin daw sa Sexual Abuse ay talamak 'LAMANG" sa Iglesia Katolika ayon na rin sa isang blog na pagmamay-ari ng isang kaanib ng INC™ 1914 na tatag ni Felix Manalo.

Ngunit ano nga ba TALAGA ang KATOTOHANAN sa likod ng problema tungkol sa sexual abuse sa mga iglesia Protestante sa buong mundo? 

There is More Sexual Abuse in The Protestant Churches Than Catholic
By Shoebat Foundation on May 6, 2014

"Tchividjian had become convinced that the Protestant world is teetering on the edge of a sex-abuse scandal similar to the one that had rocked the Catholic Church. He is careful to say that there’s not enough data to compare the prevalence of child sex abuse in Protestant and Catholic institutions, but he’s convinced the problem has reached a crisis point. He’s not alone in that belief. In 2012, Christian radio host Janet Mefferd declared, “This is an epidemic going on in churches. … When are evangelicals going to wake up and say we have a massive problem in our own churches?” For years, Protestants have assumed they were immune to the abuses perpetrated by celibate Catholic priests. But Tchividjian believes that Protestant churches, groups, and schools have been worse than Catholics in their response. Mission fields, he says, are “magnets” for would-be molesters; ministries and schools do not understand the dynamics of abuse; and “good ol’ boy” networks routinely cover up victims’ stories to protect their reputations. He fears it is only a matter of time before it all blows up in their faces and threatens the survival of powerful Protestant institutions."

The report by Kathryn Joyce, Article from Prospect.org is an eye opener to the extend of the sexual abuse epidemic in many Protestant Churches and schools. By this article, we do not want to undermine Catholic abuses by Catholic priests whom we feel should also be burned at the stake, but its time to fess up, and before we pull the plank out of the eye in our Catholic brothers, Protestants should first see the plank in their eye. The following is the full report:

In November 2012, Bob Jones University, the longtime flagship institution of fundamentalism, announced it had hired GRACE (short for Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), an independent group of evangelical lawyers, pastors, and psychologists, to investigate the university’s handling of sexual-abuse and -harassment reports. Bob Jones officials said they were taking the step after watching the pedophilia scandal unfold at Pennsylvania State University the previous year. They vowed to ask forgiveness of any students they may have “underserved.”

In truth, the origins of the investigation were closer to home. In 2011, an abuse scandal from years before had become national news with a 20/20 report. Tina Anderson, a 15-year-old who lived in New Hampshire, was raped and impregnated in 1997 by one of her church’s deacons, then in his late thirties, while she was a babysitter for his family. When Anderson and her mother told their pastor, Bob Jones graduate Chuck Phelps, what had happened, Phelps had Anderson stand before the congregation while he read a confession of her pregnancy. She was then sent to a family in Colorado until the baby was born and given up for adoption.

Anderson’s rapist, a registered sex offender, was made to confess as well—but to adultery, not rape—and he remained at the church for years. Phelps, who’d gone on to be president of the fundamentalist Maranatha Baptist Bible College in Wisconsin, maintained close ties to Bob Jones, serving on its board of trustees as well as on its missionary and youth-camp boards.

Felix Manalo: 'Un hombre de baja moral' -- taong may mababang moralidad!

Sa tuwing may balitang lumalabas sa pahayagan patungkol sa di umanoy pagmamalabis ng mga paring Katoliko sa kanilang gampanin bilang mga alagad ng Diyos ay siya namang pagsasaya ng mga kaanib ng samahan ni Felix Manalo ang Iglesia Ni Cristo® (kasalungat ng Iglesia ni Cristo-- ang Iglesia Katolika). 

Bakit kaya hindi nila batid na mas malala ang problema ng sexual misconduct sa mga iglesia Protestante? At hindi rin nila maikakaila na mismong ang kanilang "Huling Sugo" (raw) na si FELIX Y. MANALO ay isang “un hombre de baja moral" o taong mababa ang moralidad ayon sa korte! (Citing the case of People versus Trillanes, published in the Official Gazette, Volume I, No. 1, July 1954, p. 394, docketed as Case No. 8180, April 21, 1942.)

Narito ang aking nahagilap mula sa Reformation.com

Welcome to a collection of news reports of ministers sexually abusing children: ALL Protestant denominations - 838 Ministers 147 Baptist Ministers 251 "Bible" Church Ministers (fundamentalist/evangelical) 140 Anglican/Episcopalian Ministers 38 Lutheran Ministers 46 Methodist Ministers 19 Presbyterian Ministers 197 various Church Ministers

"We would be naïve and dishonest were we to say this is a Roman Catholic problem and has nothing to do with us because we have married and female priests in our church. Sin and abusive behavior know no ecclesial or other boundaries." Rt. Rev. William Persell, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, Good Friday Sermon, 2002.