Netherlands: Lost — parishioners. 50 Euros reward!

Preferably alive, but if he’s dead, just prop him up at the back

A Roman Catholic priest in the Netherlands is to put on display the names and photographs of parish members trying to leave the church in a bid to get them to stay.

“This is a large parish, and I don’t known everyone: by putting up the photos I thought someone might recognise someone they know who they could try to make stay in the church,” priest Harm Schilder told AFP on Tuesday…

Those wishing to leave must send a letter to the priest along with a photocopy of identity papers.

This is where Schilder gets the photos that will be displayed in the entrance hallway of the church in Tilburg in the south of the country.

SMH

Apart from being mega-daft, surely this is also an illegal invasion of privacy?

My advice to parishioners? Stay out of Harm’s way!

Netherlands: Can the Catholic Church sink any lower?

You bet it can!

Underage sexual abuse victims were castrated in Dutch Roman Catholic psychiatric wards in the 1950s, according to the Rotterdam-based newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

Castration was performed on young men who were thought to be homosexual, but also as a means of punishing those who blew the whistle on abusers, the paper quotes sources as saying.

NRC discovered proof of the forced castration of one young man and strong evidence that at least ten other abuse victims were subjected to the removal of their testicles. The proof includes court documents, medical records, letters from lawyers and private correspondence.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Power tends to corrupt. Divine power corrupts demonically.

Netherlands: Catholic church covers up ‘tens of thousands’ of child abuse cases

 National Post

Tens of thousands of children have been victims of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands since 1945, an independent commission said on Friday, criticizing what it called the church’s cover-up and culture of silence…

The commission estimated that 10,000 to 20,000 minors were sexually abused in Catholic orphanages, boarding schools and seminaries between 1945 and 1981, with offences ranging from very mild to serious, including rape.

Netherlands: Catholic priest in pro-pedophile group? Not a problem, says Superior

JONATHAN TURLEY.

The Dutch Catholic Church and the Salesian order are under fire this week after it was disclosed that a priest not only served on the board of a pro-pedophilia organization but defended adult-child sex. To make matters worse, high ranking officials were apparently aware of the 73-year-old priest’s activities. The priest is known only as “Father Van B.” Moreover, Superior Jos Claes says that he does not believe that such activities would present a serious problem for the priest.

Why should they? They haven’t been a problem for most of the others.

Germany: Pope charged with crimes against humanity

The Irish Times

TWO GERMAN lawyers have initiated charges against Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court, alleging crimes against humanity.

Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, based at Marktheidenfeld in the Pope’s home state of Bavaria, last week submitted a 16,500-word document to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the Hague, Dr Luis Moreno Ocampo.

Their charges concern “three worldwide crimes which until now have not been denounced . . . (as) the traditional reverence toward ‘ecclesiastical authority’ has clouded the sense of right and wrong”.

It sounds more like a grandstand play than a serious case, but it could encourage others…

Netherlands: Reports that Cardinal protected child rapist

NYTimes.com.

The reports on Thursday, by Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the NRC Handelsblad newspaper and the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur, said the cardinal was told by the then-bishop of Rotterdam, Philippe Bär, that a priest had sexually abused boys in his parish in Zoetermeer. Archbishop Simonis later arranged for the man to be moved to a parish in Amersfoort.

Netherlands: US general blames gay Dutch soldiers for Balkan defeat

Times Online.

Roger Van de Wetering, from the Dutch Defence Ministry added: “For us it is unbelievable that a man of this rank is stating this nonsense, because that is what it is.”

Unbelievable, Roger? You should get out more.

Netherlands: Catholic Church faces child sex abuse scandal

Radio Netherlands Worldwide.