Priest named in Pennsylvania church sex abuse probe jailed

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Priest named in Pennsylvania church sex abuse probe jailed

MARK SCOLFORO
,Associated Press•December 21, 2018

A Roman Catholic priest on Friday became the first person sentenced to prison as a result of a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation that found hundreds of clergy had abused children over seven decades.

The Rev. John Thomas Sweeney, 76, received 11½ months to five years in state prison and will have to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

He pleaded guilty in July to misdemeanor indecent assault on a minor after being accused of forcing a 10-year-old boy to perform oral sex on him while counseling the fourth-grader about misbehaving on a school bus.

"I want the public to know that he's profoundly remorseful for any pain, anguish and discomfort that the victim has suffered as a result of his actions," said Sweeney's lawyer, Fran Murrman, after the sentencing in Westmoreland County.

-snip-

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/priest-named-pennsylvania-church-sex-abuse-probe-jailed-191048301.html

[Voltaire2]

1. One down. Hundreds to go.

[MineralMan]

2. When they are all tried and jailed, if convicted,

I will applaud. Until then, not a chance. I'm glad that child sex abuser gets jail time. What about the rest of them? What about the hundreds of others. Will the Church now believe it has been punished enough for traumatizing children?

[mickswalkabout41]

3. The real pizza gate.

I read somewhere that initial number for a diocese in Chicago named 185. Now it’s closer to 700 priest who have been accused. This seems to be a bigger problem, ex specially when you start looking world wide. Is the Catholic Church a giant pedophile ring?
I’m starting to think so.

[MineralMan]

5. Here's the thing: The percentage of priests who are pedophiles is small.

There are pedophiles everywhere. The problem really is that the Roman Catholic Church officially and regularly covered up such crimes and failed to punish offending priests internally. Worse, they universally failed to report such incidents to the civil authorities.

Instead, priests who committed such grave offenses against children confessed their "sins" to other priests, who could not tell anyone else about it. Instead, the offenders were given some sort of penance to perform and were given absolution (forgiveness) for their actions.

What that means is that pedophile priests were able to continue to groom and abuse children again and again, seeking out new victims from those children they supervised, taught, or had in catechism classes or who served as altar boys.

That long, long history of child sexual abuse is the fault of the Church itself. Its practices and secrecy allowed countless thousands of children around the world to suffer at the hands of the Church's official representatives.

For me, that is the primary issue, and is a fault for which I cannot forgive the Roman Catholic Church. Not ever.

[thucythucy]

4. What an absolutely horrible thing for that ten-year-old.

I hope not only for jail time for the offenders, but also restitution and damages for the survivors.

Trauma like that could take more than a lifetime to heal.

[Major Nikon]

6. A misdemeanor for aggravated molestation of a child

How much do you want to bet he's still on the RCC payroll and they paid for his legal defense?