www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Catholic School Religion Educator Arrested

Out of Milwaukee a Catholic school religious educator was arrested over the weekend according the the Milwaukee Journal, in an Internet child sex sting. The 40'ish man arrested (I will not give his name) was Milwaukee Archdiocese top liaison to the local Boy Scouts.

He was arrested in the County of Racine at a restuarant were he expected to meet a 14 year old boy for sex, according to the Milwaukee Journal.

***

Some have aked in their own way what my beef is with the Church and/or it's monastaries. I think this case, *if true*, demonstrates to a high degree where a place of my fustration lays.

As I see it the Church (Latin Catholic) has in many ways compremised i't's self, one of it's main missions given to it by Christ, not *fully*, but it in my opinion grows closer year by year to *fully* untterly compremising it's self regarding it's mission to *convert* person to Christ and help make them the men and women of the City of God that God and the Virgin Mary would have them to be.

It is the objective of secular instituions to surround themselves with persons of *acceptable* backgrounds and those that give the material image that looks so good to those of the material world.

I have told this to younger people then myself in my own personal life and I have told this to younger persons then myself on this forum: most of us are not who we seem to be.

Just because a person does not have a criminal record does not mean he is not a criminal. Those Marines and sailor that raped that little Japanese girl got into their respective branch of service because they did not have any felonies. I would like to remind everyone of one of the world's greatest military outfits ever known - the French Foreign Legion. The Legion was made up of many people who wanted to leave their past identity behind, many of them were criminals coming to the Legion. The Legion true to their mission would transform their selfishness into sacrifice, honor, and duty - love of their fellow bretheren. I saw on the history channel (I believe it was) about the history of the Legion, a note or letter written and left behind by a Legionair killed in battle, who knew that he would die the next day in battle because of the odds they faced, I can't qoute it, but it went something to the effect like this: I have a randevue with death tommorow, and true to my pledge, I shall not miss that randevue.

Failure in Catholic evangilical efforts in the last 40 years as I see it. Is the Church Coca Cola brand of evangilical effots i.e. taking the nails out of Christs hands and feet and raising His arms above the Cross (attraction to Protestants who claim they turn the Cross backward because Christ is risen), and monastaries who taking a que from American Sports team enterprises are building new additions on to their monastery in an attractive fasion, with money they don't have, so as to lure new prospects into the monastery, and the stripping down of art in our Churches to apease Protestant would be converts, and this off-the-book theology of "our best" - attractin our best - when it should be a theology of converting those into our best.

At anyrate yes the Church needs to be pratical and criminal records and so forth are important things to look at. But at the same time could the Church once again also consider converting those in their daily lives that want to make daily conversion in their lives, and make love to those that make love to the Church, give fidelity to those that would give fidelity to the Church. Or most we remain in Corporate attraction mode, and hire on would-be good reprasenatives of the Church - so far we know from their background.

Of course Christ built his Church out of the lepereds and and women annointing His feet with penetint tears and oil.

Of course this is just my opinion and everyone is free to their own.


Justin

Maximus wrote "Just because a person does not have a criminal record does not mean he is not a criminal." This is certainly true, particularly when the criminal offense is sexual abuse of a minor! I call it a "equal opportunity crime" in that ALL segments of society, educational background, income level etc. etc. are equally capable of (and in fact do) producing criminal offenders. As stated in a earlier post, the very "respectability" of the offender is used as a tool of intimidation against the victim by telling the victim that "no one will believe you because of you are: poor, uneducated, young, a liar, scorned by society etc. etc." This insidious practice is very common (particularly where clergy (any religion) are the perpetrators as the victims family wants to believe clergy and may find it easier to think that their child or loved one lied rather than the clergy offender - not infrequently parent's will "sacrifice" their child even though they believe he/she has been victimized in order to spare the church problems)and what tops it off is when the offender seeks to use "letters of commendation, awards, etc." showing what a respectable and good person he is as a defense in the case! Of course, such accolades are totally irrelevant to the question of whether the person committed the crime or not - they can be relevant for sentencing purposes if the person is convicted, showing that despite having committed heinous crime the person has favorably impressed his community/employers et al. Bottom line, as I quoted before, "put not your trust in princes, in son's of men etc." that is not to say that we cannot love others, including priest's, celibate or not, and truly admire them, but it does mean that a person should not be oblivious to unsupervised contact between children and adults (or older adolescents). Moshe Zorea

MosheZorea,

Apperantly according to today's Milwaukee Journal (Thursday, April 25, 02) a suspended Public school elementary teacher of Milwaukee has been found guilty sexually assaulting 8 students on school grounds.

The father of two was convicted of the sexual assaults that are supposed to have taken place between September 98' - December 00'.

The Journal says of the assault on the boys ages 9 - 11 that "after isolating them in classrooms, lavatories and corridors, then creating situations that enabled him to idecently view and fondle them".

I guess MosheZorea that this phenomina is in every occupation and educational level as you've stated already. May the Virgin Mary offer Her prayers and comfort to all effected in this school tragedy - the guilty teacher included, along with his children.