“Survivors who have actively faced their healing are some of the most lively, spunky, brave, fun, wonderful people I know. There’s something about diving into the deepest pain in life and coming out whole, that leads us to enjoy each precious moment in life, because we know it’s all we’ve got. Instead of responding to the pain of the past, survivors learn to appreciate the wild beauty of the present.”
English: Conceptual diagram showing relationship between adult sexual interest in children, pedophilia, and child sexual abuse. These distinct concepts overlap, but academics and clinicians consider them separate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
After the files became known to prosecutors and plaintiff‘s lawyers, the American justice system has pried open the doors to an archive long kept sealed. Thousands of additional pages are set to become public in coming months, as more than a dozen Catholic orders — Salesians, Claretians, Vincentians and others — prepare to bare their own secrets pursuant to agreements with victims. L.A. County Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias could set the date for their release at a hearing Tuesday.
For some, the revelations were damning. For others, they offered validation for dark, private memories.
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The files were never meant to go beyond church walls.
The earliest mention of the secret archives in church history dates to the 1700s, in an edict on marriage issued by Pope Benedict XIV. The archives were to bear witness to “marriages of conscience” — unions that may be banned under civil law or otherwise scandalous, but celebrated by a priest in secrecy.
In the 20th century, when church law regulating the archives were written, Canon 489 prescribed that there was to be “a safe or cabinet, completely closed and locked, which cannot be removed” to which only the bishop would hold the key.
Safeguarding the files was not taken lightly. One scholar suggested in 1954 that files could be kept in “modern safes” that could “withstand concentrated burglarious attacks by drills, sledge hammers, wedges and mechanical tools.”
Over time, the files came to hold information about priests’ alcohol problems, squabbles over parish funds, clerics who had impregnated parishioners. By the 1970s and ’80s, church leaders found themselves increasingly documenting in the files whispers of a more disturbing sort: sexual abuse of children at the hands of priests.
MONTGOMERY, N.Y. — Town of Montgomery Police arrest a man who police said raped two 14-year-old girls.
Rhett Russo, 40, is accused of having sexual relations with the two victims after he pursued them through social media sites, texts and picture messages.
Russo is now charged with rape, criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, and endangering the welfare of a child.
He was arraigned and is being held in Orange County Jail on bail.
Police say there may be more victims and are asking anyone with information to call the Town of Montgomery Police Department at (845) 457-9211.
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