A Catholic Priest Pleads Guiltygreenspun.com : LUSENET : Catholic : One Thread |
CLEVELAND - A retired priest pleaded guilty Thursday to promoting prostitution involving a boy in the only criminal case involving a priest to come out of an investigation of sex abuse allegations in the Cleveland diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. He was accused of soliciting sex with a minor during April 2002. Prosecutors say McBride went to a tavern in Cleveland to meet the boy and arranged to pay the youth to travel to a condominium McBride kept in Chautauqua, N.Y., for sex. Prosecutors shut the bar down in June, saying it housed a prostitution ring of boys. The tavern's owner, Lynn Ernsberger, 61, pleaded guilty May 8 to 14 charges, including compelling prostitution. Two other men connected to prostitution at the tavern pleaded guilty May 5. Another man was awaiting trial.The Cleveland diocese has 235 parishes with more than 800,000 Catholics and about 340 priests in eight counties.
The Catholic church has been dealing with sex abuse scandals nationwide since a prominent case in Boston in which more than 100 people said a former priest molested them. At least 325 of the country's 46,000 priests have resigned or been removed from their posts because of the scandals.
-- Who cares (Me@me.com), May 15, 2003
What no one will make a comment on this.. I am actually very suprised. How many more do you think will finally fall and admit that GOD has let the work of the Devil into his church.. ??
-- Who cares.. (Me@me.com), May 15, 2003.
The scandal is sad indeed. But, men have freewill. Men sin.But I believe in God's infinite love.
God may be allowing this to happen, to purge his Church.
My optimistic opinion is that when this ends, the Church and the faith of all of us, will be stronger.
May God Bless you.
-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), May 15, 2003.
Ok .. I was just reading through these and came across this.. You have confused me.. I can be wrong and just not completely understand your statement. But from the way I understand that is "Boys will be Boys" and that As long as these Priests say Sorry and ask GOD "forgive me" that is it ok.. Why is that.. Like I said I could be wrong.. if I am please help me understand.. Why would GOD allow this evil in the Church? Why would he want some one to lead us that can't even follow the Church Laws himself..
-- Dawn (dejavue282002@yahoo.com), May 15, 2003.
Dawn, I think what John was saying is that we are "all" sinners. Even Priests struggle with sin, just as you or I.
-- Leon (vol@weblink2000.net), May 15, 2003.
God must allow evil in the Church. He has chosen to create human beings with free will. Therefore if human beings freely choose to bring evil into the Church, He cannot intervene and prevent it. Otherwise the free will He has given to humans would be meaningless. Evil has been in the Church from the very beginning. One of the original priests of the Church, hand-picked by Jesus Himself, turned out to be a traitor. However, Jesus has guaranteed that evil will never prevail over the Church. That we can count on.
-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), May 15, 2003.
Thank you .. I understand a little bit more.. Its sad thing but understandable.
-- Dawn (dejavue282002@yahoo.com), May 16, 2003.
It is just like Paul said. If we go back a little further, we can see that the most powerful and faithful of all the angels was the origin of all evil. If someone like that living in heaven would be the representation of evil, do we need to think about we, the human beings with so many faults? consider the vast amount of catholics and priests, and consider who is bad among these. No matter what happens, God will always be here to protect his church. He gave us the free will, and just like always, too much freedom is worse than too little.
-- Abraham T (lijothengil@yahoo.com), May 16, 2003.
Dawn, I'm truly sorry if I was not clear.Men sin.
The scandal may purge the Church of the priests that should not have been there in the first place.
The scandal may help create better checks and balances and untimately help make the Church stronger and better.
God Bless,
-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), May 16, 2003.
"Who Cares"Kindly point us to the Church in which no one sins.
-- Anna <>< (Flower@youknow.com), May 19, 2003.
Paul has 20/20 Spiritual Vision on this topic and Abraham even connected more of the dots ! I am Roman Catholic and have a new question..."What if Mary had said NO ! " Benedictus
-- Gregory Benedict (flyingmonk2002@yahoo.com), July 16, 2003.
Mary had complete freedom to accept or reject God's request. It was her "yes" - "Let it be done unto me according to your word" - that enabled God to carry out His plan of salvation. Obviously no-one can say with certainty what would have happened if Mary had said "no". But I personally think God would have asked another woman - maybe twenty years later, maybe a thousand years later. Maybe five thousand years later, in which case we would all be either pagan or Jewish. I realize that the matter of the Immaculate Conception does complicate this simplistic answer. However, all we can do in response to your question is speculate. There is no way of actually knowing what would have happened. The Church has not made any official statement to that effect, that I am aware of.
-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), July 16, 2003.