Feb 26 2014: Catholic Agency for Overseas Development Condemns anti-LGBT Law in Uganda

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) has condemned a new law approved on Monday in Uganda,  which will allow those convicted of homosexuality to be imprisoned for life.

In a statement today (Feb 26, 14) CAFOD said:

“Every human person has a fundamental dignity, as created by God, and each person is precious in God’s eyes. CAFOD therefore opposes all forms of discrimination, whether based on race, religion, gender or sexuality.

"As was made clear by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in their 1986 letter to Bishops all over the world:

‘It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law.’.”

A spokesperson said parts of Ugandan society was already very hostile to homosexuality and she feared the new law will lead to increased violent attacks on people who are gay, or even suspected of being gay.

Gratuitous attacks on LGBT Ugandans are beginning, already. In a screaming front page headline, with photos alongside, a Ugandan tabloid shouted:

"EXPOSED! Uganda's 200 Top Homos Named"

Can physical attacks be far behind?

Governments and NGO's with ties to Ugandan counterparts and rapport with Ugandan government representatives are urged to tell everyone: the new, inhumane law must be rescinded.

Source:

CAFOD condemns Uganda's anti-homsexuality law - ICN, Feb 26 2014

Ugandan tabloid prints list of 'homosexuals' - CNN Feb 25 14

Newspaper Outs 200 ‘Top’ Gays in Uganda After law enacted outlawing homosexuality | TIME WORLD 2/15/2014

HERESY, SCHISM, PEDOPHILIA, THE ORDINATION OF WOMEN - ALL GRAVE OFFENSES

On July 16, 2010, the Vatican announced new rules directing how dioceses around the world are to respond to priestly sex abuse of children. The statute of limitations of the Catholic Church was extended from 10 to 20 years, from the 18th birthday of the victim. 


Possession of child pornography and the abuse of disabled adults were added to the list of offenses that could get a priest reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.


At the same time,  an attempt to ordain a woman to the priesthood was elevated in seriousness to the same category as heresy, schism, pedophilia - a most grave crime.

The new rules do not hold bishops accountable for pedophilia among priests under their charge, nor do the revised rules require reporting of sex abuse accusations to civil authorities. 

Here is a link to the new internal rules:

 http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_norme_en.html

Here is a link to an organization that tracks sex abuse cases by priests, worldwide.

Bishopaccountability.org 

BishopAccountability.org is not impressed with the revisions in the Church's rules, stating that the rules “amount to administrative tinkering of a secretive internal process.” 


Pope Benedict, the group said, "could direct bishops to report every allegation of child sexual abuse to the police, regardless of whether civil law requires them to do so. He could threaten punishment of any bishop or church official who enables or fails to stop a child-molesting priest.” 


“It’s disturbing that the new rules merely will extend the statutes of limitations rather than eliminate them altogether.” 


(See New York Times, Vatican Sets New Rules on Responding to Sex Abuse by Rachel Donadio, July 15 2010)

"After consulting the pope, I wrote a letter to the bishop, congratulating him as a model of a father who does not turn in his children."

So said Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos (Colombia), 

explaining why he had sent a 2001 letter to French Bishop 
Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux. Bishop Pican had just 
received a suspended prison sentence for his failure to 
report to French authorities the criminal conduct of a priest, 
otherwise discovered, who had been tried and condemned 
as a pedophile. (The priest, Rene Bissey, was sentenced 
to 18 years in jail in 2000  for sexually abusing 11 boys.) 

In his letter, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, then head of the 
Vatican office charged with worldwide supervision of priests,
wrote to Bishop Pican, "I congratulate you for not 
denouncing a priest to the civil administration." You 
have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague
in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of 
all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to 
denouncing his son and priest."

Now that the Cardinal's letter has received publicity, 
the 81 year old prelate has said that the Bishop could 
not have reported the priest, as the sexual activity 
with young boys had come to light in the Confessional. 
But then, why emphasize in a letter publicized by the 
Vatican itself on the internet, that the Bishop that 
correctly protected, not a penitent in the confessional 
but rather "his son and priest." 

Vatican officialdumb wishes to tell us how to think 
but is scandalously unable to think through to a 
correct conclusion, how to protect children from 
those entrusted with their care, but who are known 
by their clerical supervisors to become sexually 
aroused by adolescent kids.

(Quotations taken from "Cardinal Justifies Praise 
for French Bishop's Silence Over Abuses Priest." 
AFP, April 18 2010) 

Pope Benedict XVI: "Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen."

Confronting a sex abuse scandal spreading across Europe,  Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday apologized directly to victims and their families in Ireland, expressing “shame and remorse” and saying “your trust had been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.  . . .  Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen." . . . 

In 2001 the Vatican issued a directive by Benedict, then a cardinal, reiterating a strict requirement for secrecy in handling abuse cases. The directive also gave the authority in handling such cases to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Benedict was prefect of the congregation from 1982 until becoming pope in 2005.

NY TIMES, March 20, 2010
by Rachel Donadio and Alan Cowell