Catholic Church spent $10 million on lobbyists in fight to stymie priest sex abuse suits

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...on-lobbyists-fight-stymie-priest-sex-n1013776

The U.S. Catholic Church spent $10.6 million on lobbyists to prevent victims of clerical sex abuse from suing for damages.

According to a new report, the money was doled out from 2011 through 2018 in eight northeastern states where bills to reform statute of limitations laws were either in the works or being considered.

“This report lays out what we have known all along — that the Catholic Church refuses to take responsibility for the decades of abuse that took place knowingly under its watch,” said attorney Stephen Weiss, who works for one of the law firms that commissioned the study.


So the church is openly protecting child molestation utilizing funds donated by its congregation, using tax free religious funds to participate in the legislative process.

Do any of our religious friends have an issue with this?

Is it time to remove tax exemptions for religious institutions as they have shown they refuse to follow the rules? When are these people going to jail?

 

It's time for the FBI to go into every diocese in the USA and subpoena records under the RICO act, and then put bishops in prison where it is justified under the law.

And it's not just the Catholic church.

 

Strange how a teenage boy dressing up in drag gets conservatives so upset they scream it’s the beginning of the end — but actual child rape *shrug* doesn’t seem to be on the agenda.

 

Just plain disgusting. They turn women into baby factories and demonise gay people, and all the time they're screwing children and covering it up. The scum of the earth, fit for nothing.

 

Could you have imagined if a gay organization was actively lobbying the government to reduce penalties and statuette of limitations periods?

But it’s almost expected out of churches so I guess no big deal.

 

What's happened within the Catholic church, and the things that have gone unpunished, definitely one of the most egregious situations I know of.

I'd love nothing more than to see each and everyone of them suffer the full extent of the law according to their actions and involvement.

The level of child abuse that's been swept under the rug, ignored, denied... it's unreal, it's reprehensible.

 

Since your article refuses to link to the report I can't read it to verify it.

The report was done by representatives of people suing the Church however so it's already suspect in that regard.

One member in charge of finance within the Catholic Church however said that nobody even contacted him for access to figures of how much they spent or on what exactly.

You really need to be careful with articles talking about some report and then refuse to show that report to their readers.

 

As per the article, “All of our lobbying activity is reported as required by law to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics and has always been publicly available.” The Church is not denying the facts here — why would they need to contact them on amounts spent to publicly available information? — and each state lobbied has sources for the amount spent on the article.

Edit:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ptebn4hr4r4vekb/ChurchInfluencingStateCatholic.pdf?dl=0
Here is a portion of pdf from the report

And some more information
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com...ts-millions-to-block-more-sex-abuse-lawsuits/

 

Because all we see is an amount they gave to certain groups, now what those groups were tasked with doing as this mysterious report claims.

Maybe these groups received funding to lobby an entirely different area of the law.

As the Church guy in charge of one of these groups says, nobody contacted him to see what they were using that money from the Church for.

I'm not saying it's incorrect but I would like to verify their proof in this report we keep hearing about but I can't find it.

And I'm sorry but if a bunch of lawyers suing the Church get together to release a report you don't think there is a chance it might be slightly biased?

lol

Even the Church said that their opposition to the Childs Victim Law was dropped once one part of the bill was amended over some concern they had.

This entire thing just seems very, very fishy.

Some guy says something and you take it as gospel without fact checking it, a common mistake those on the left make.

 

I posted more information at the bottom of the post you quoted, I must have been editing while you were replying

 

This is not an official report of any kind, it's a copy and pastes of figures anybody could yank off Google in ten minutes or less.

It's an advertisement.

Take this first line from the first paragraph.

How do they know what this number is?

They don't tell us who they talked to or what research they did to come to this conclusion, for all we know the author just made it up.

All major businesses lobby for their cause and the Catholic Church is no exception.

 

It’s sad their cause is raping children.

How can anyone support such an organization?

I am glad that, as a religious person, you are able to admit they function more like businesses than instructions representing a higher power.

Time to tax them accordingly, agree?

 

As a practicing Catholic this stuff just gets under my skin.

 

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

 

I am more than disgusted at the abuse that has been caused by the Catholic Church.

Children should be untouchable and they violated that and then covered it up in many cases....of that there is no denying.

But there are a billion Catholics in the world who most are not guilty of what occurred there and are equally disgusted and I am not about to punish them for the crimes of a few.

If there is any proof of molestation or abuse from someone donning those robes I will throw him into Hell myself...make no mistake about that but I will not transition this crime onto innocent people.

They should remain tax exempt as all religious organizations should be, simply because of their charity work.

We must maintain this standard because history shows us that when there is disaster or times of great peril that it is the Christians who often play a leading role in relief.

I would say that rather than punish religious institutions that we increase our laws to make those found guilty of crimes, especially against children, to never see the light of day again and that we vigorously purse those allegations to any conclusion.

 

I prefer to not look at this through the prism of a particular religion or group, otherwise I would pull the old faithful liberal argument that illegals and Muslims also do it, but I won't.

Instead I'll say that no person in this country should be treated any better, worse or differently than any other person, i.e. no special rights for anyone and I MEAN ANYONE - libs, did you catch that? As such, if a person committed a crime, then regardless of religion, gender, legal status, race, height, weight or even being a Dallas Cowboy fan, that person should be held accountable as required by our laws.

 

I have seen you paint several groups with a broad brush because the actions of a few — especially homosexuals — why such leniency here? I most Catholics are absolutely sickened by this — it’s literally their money they are spending to first assault a child, then defend the rapist, then lobby the government for lesser fines. It’s a perversion of all things good.

I can agree with this with one exception, tax exempt groups should not be allowed to lobby or insert themselves into politics — once they do they automatically lose tax exempt status for 2 years. Deal?

 

I will agree with that when politics no longer affect tax exempt groups.


The two items are completely separate issues.

They get a tax exemption because of the charitable work they provide and which still holds true today.

The Catholic Church alone gives over 4 billion a year to charity.

Think about that figure for a moment and how many people it helps. That is why people still give to it, not because they spend all their money lobbying for pedophiles.

Although we don't have exact figures the Vatican is rumored to be the richest entity on Earth and there is much good they do with that money.

The only two charities that provide more than the catholic church are United Way and the Salvation Army.

Like it or not, the Catholic Church provides much of the safety net in not only the US but around the world. So not only should they be tax exempt but they are on the front lines and know what reforms to lobby for to help the poor.

You think all of their politicizing is just to protect themselves but that is only a tiny fraction of what they do. They fight for justice changes also and is what the majority of their lobbying encompasses.

Which is why this report, if you can call it a report, is suspect.

All these guys did was take government provided figures which are required by law and assume they were using it to defend child molesters when they have no clue what that money was being used for.

It's inaccurate reporting at best.

Why didn't they give us a breakdown of what these lobby groups are actually spending their money on?

Oh yeah, because lobby groups don't have to report that to the government so there is no way they could know what the lobby groups were funding without directly interviewing the lobby groups which they never bothered to do.

 

I don't blame them. If they can be held liable in a civil suit, for crimes that they themselves did not commit, then I think it is, in a way, justifiable to send lobbyists to try to make the problem go away.

You can blame the unfair precedent set in civil liability for that.

The Church was just trying to spend money to stop a wrong from happening.

The Church shouldn't have to spend a dime of their own money. The Church itself wasn't the one who committed the crime.

$10 million is small price to stop hundreds of millions in lawsuits.

Personally I think anyone who would sue the Church for millions of dollars probably deserves to have been molested. They're just being greedy.

There's a mentality among Liberals that they deserve money if they were wronged, from someone who has it, even if the person/organization who has it wasn't the one who actually committed the wrong against them.

 

Funny yet righties on this very forum don't come to the same conclusion when it comes to Muslims.

There are already laws, but the churches have been covering up the crimes for decades.

 

The churches are complicit in the cover ups. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

LOL...say what??

They are not paying. Their congregation will be the one's to pay.

I bet their congregation won't think the way you do.

Pretty much a pathetic conclusion.

Illogical conclusion, but then that is to be expected.

 

And yet they're practically being held liable for the original sexual act, judging by how outrageous some of these civil suit compensation amounts are.

I don't see how you can hold the church legally liable. If a victim had a complaint against an offender, why didn't he/she go to the civil authorities (i.e. police) ?
Why put all the blame on the church?

 

Covering up the crimes is much worse than the act committed. I believe such a church should be closed and/or their non profit status be removed.

 

Then put the offenders in prison, don't make the Church pay money.

 

You can't seriously believe this.

And how would the church "cover up" the crimes? Are they somehow stopping the victims from going to the police?