Canada- Victims respond to criticism over Cardinal Ouellet

We sincerely apologize for offending anyone by using the phrase "dirty dozen."

We are a staff of three abuse victims working very hard to protect kids, help victims, expose wrongdoers and deter cover ups in a huge, powerful, global institutions. We simply are incapable of monitoring how a 40 year old movie title translates into multiple languages and slang expression.

We hope Catholics and citizens, in Canada and elsewhere, will focus on what we believe really matters:

--Accounts in credible mainstream media that Cardinal Ouellet refused to meet with victims in Canada.

--Cardinal Ouellet’s recent bragging about the church’s abuse response

--Cardinal Ouellet’s widely reported – and thus far un-refuted – brokering of a deal with a Scottish church official who retired a few weeks early after denying and then admitting sexual misconduct with several seminarians and young priests.  

Let’s address these one by one

1.     We don’t doubt that Ouellet met with Irish victims. Canadian press reports say he refused to meet with some Canadian victims. http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/canadian-cardinal-marc-ouellet-talks-papabile-and-change

2.     We believe Catholic officials should focus less on burnishing their images and more on protecting their flock. It’s hurtful when church officials overstate their belatedly and grudgingly adopted policies and procedures that may look good on paper but rarely translate into actual behavior. http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/03/05/ouellet-says-church-could-be-positive-example-on-handling-abuse-scandals/

3.     Cardinal Ouellet’s conduct with Cardinal O’Brien is more of what church officials have done for decades: acting slowly, tepidly and deceptively in sexual misconduct cases. Ouellet has known of the allegations for months. He kept them silent for months. He let an admitted wrongdoer devise his own light penalty. And perhaps most worrisome, he refused to be honest. He hasn’t said, in a clear way, “O’Brien abused his power and trust for selfish sexual ends and we deplore this and are disciplining him because of his hurtful misconduct.” He hasn’t urged anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered O’Brien’s misdeeds to call therapists or self help groups or police or prosecutors or other independent and trustworthy sources of support.

In short, in this high profile case, at this critical time, Ouellet took slow, secretive and slight steps that seem primarily designed to protect the reputation of the powerful instead of the safety of the vulnerable.

Read the story here,

http://o.canada.com/2013/03/07/church-spokesman-critical-of-dirty-dozen-list-of-papal-candidates/


Showing 5 comments

  • Carol Crocker
    commented 2013-03-09 04:44:52 -0600
    Only one “dirty dozen”? Why do the members of the church keep deflecting sexual, emotional, physical and spiritual abuse? They don’t seem to be capable of accepting total accountability for how these crimes were handled for so many decades and kept under wraps so that many were abused; some over and over again and generational. When all is said and done they are only men and have no exceptional powers except those that they make up for themselves. Making children “scared to death” is no way to raise children or adults either.
  • Patricia Sulecki
    commented 2013-03-08 13:30:14 -0600
    Every Victim; of Clergy Sex Abuse; I feel all of our voices have been silenced and our lives taken away in so many ways.From The Statute of Limitation; and from the Priest on up to the Pope; protects these Child Molesters (Priest) for decades as we very well Know "no one wants to accept accountiblity for the Priest sex acts on Children. Nobody in the public eye has seen these (Child Molesters) Priest ; sexualy abuse Children; and since they didn’t see the Priest molest anybody ; they can’t believe it happened ; it seems as though this is what happenes when everybody wants to turn a blind eye ( Vatican). It’s like I said every Priest who have raped,molested Children; their faces should be placed in every news paper in every State and they should be registered sex offenders;this could be somewhat of justice for the victims and also to help alert parents to protect their children from these Priest ( Child Molesters),the public should of been alerted many years ago about these Priest ;and in this case silence isn’t Golden, Children (victims) are hurting.
    Sincerely,this is must stop.
  • Sibyl Smith
    commented 2013-03-08 06:34:18 -0600
    This is a measured and reasonable response to which Ouellet and/or his official spokespersons should respond.
  • The Truth
    commented 2013-03-08 02:30:31 -0600
    First, Lemieux-Levebvre said he was proud of the way his ex-boss handled the problem, now he says that he had nothing to do with it. Clearly he has no clue about what happened and is only intent in defending the omerta. He thinks it is a debate, while everybody else knows it is criminal. Getting upset about words when you have such a dirty mind only shows his big fragile ego. I guess he can’t handle the truth.

    But really, it shows that it is the ones in the shadows that cover those things and foster the culture of abuse.
  • Kay Goodnow
    commented 2013-03-07 21:05:34 -0600
    Why apologize for speaking truth to power?

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