Disgraced religious order tried to get abuse victim to lie

[muriel_volestrangler]

Her son had been sexually abused by a priest of the Legion of Christ, a disgraced religious order. And now she was calling Cardinal Valasio De Paolis -- the Vatican official appointed by the pope to lead the Legion and to clean it up -- to report the settlement the group was offering, and to express her outrage.

The terms: Martínez’s family would receive 15,000 euros ($16,300) from the order. But in return, her son would have to recant the testimony he gave to Milan prosecutors that the priest had repeatedly assaulted him when he was a 12-year-old student at the order’s youth seminary in northern Italy. He would have to lie.
...
Instead, he chuckled. He said she shouldn’t sign the deal, but should try to work out another agreement without attorneys: “Lawyers complicate things. Even Scripture says that among Christians we should find agreement.”

The conversation between the aggrieved mother and Pope Benedict XVI’s personal envoy was wiretapped. The tape — as well as the six-page settlement proposal — are key pieces of evidence in a criminal trial opening next month in Milan. Prosecutors allege that Legion lawyers and priests tried to obstruct justice, and extort Martínez’s family by offering them money to recant testimony to prosecutors in hopes of quashing a criminal investigation into the abusive priest, Vladimir Reséndiz Gutiérrez.

https://apnews.com/8d0cb3ef1cfa0be61378b949811d8c17

For a church that puts so much emphasis on confession, it seems remarkably unwilling to make confessions itself - but happy to have people perjure themselves (under religious oath?) if it keeps a priest out of prison.

[keithbvadu2]

1. This is how the priests and cardinals 'witness' for Christ.

This is how the priests and cardinals 'witness' for Christ.

Part of why there are so many lapsed Catholics.

[Major Nikon]

2. The RCC is all for confession

Just so long as it's done in front of a peer with total anonymity and zero accountability. And while child welfare experts and criminal prosecutors agree this simply guarantees more children will get raped without mandatory reporting that's required of virtually every other group that deals with children, there's at least one DUer who is still "undecided" about it because evidently the venerated hocus pocus rituals of the RCC are more important than children not getting raped.