Bishop said to delay reporting sex abuse

[brooklynite]

SAN FRANCISCO - A priest who admitted sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy fled to Mexico after his bishop failed to immediately report the confession to authorities, a law enforcement official said.

The Rev. Xavier Ochoa was suspended April 28 after admitting to the abuse to the Roman Catholic bishop of Santa Rosa. Bishop Daniel Walsh didn't notify law enforcement until three days later, giving Ochoa time to flee, according to church and law enforcement officials.

The Sonoma County district attorney's office on Thursday filed multiple misdemeanor and felony charges against Ochoa related to three boys he allegedly abused. Besides the altar boy, he also was charged with molesting two teenage boys more than 10 years ago when he lived in Cotati.

...snip...

Ochoa is the 17th priest from the diocese to be accused of molesting a total of 62 children. In all, the diocese has paid or promised to pay dozens of people nearly $20 million since 1990.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060623/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_1

You'd think that after the first sixteen incidents, they'd get it into their heads that maybe notifying the authorities would be a priority.

[Ohio Joe]

1. The Bishop...

Should be given a nice trial and a nice prison cell.

[saigon68]

10. Is probably sodomizing young boys himself

The Catholic Church harbors and shelters Pedophile child rapists

[AndyTiedye]

2. Would RICO Apply Here?

[KansDem]

3. Interesting thought...

Get the whole church (pedophile priests and the supervisors who looked the other way) on racketeering charges.

Works for me! :D

[AndyTiedye]

4. We Are Clealy Seeing a Pattern of Protecting Criminal Behavior

by the institution and its officials.

If it were any other organization, the DOJ would be all over them.

[MichiganVote]

5. Why anyone trusts their kids to this institution is beyond me.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. I have always thought that it would. but it would take a prosecutor

with balls to to bring an indictment.

16 +1? I wonder how many more skeletons they have in their vestry?

[Southsideirish]

6. I'm ashamed to say that they have the same "code of silence" that cops

have. They protect one another - even when they know they "did bad." I guess the black suit unites them all - the good and the bad in a sick, sick way.

[VegasWolf]

7. Shame the church's bonfire days are over, they could simply brand the kids

as heretics and have bonfire Fridays again.

[fasttense]

8. Sounds like a cult to me.

Like the repuke cult, the Catholic cult protects their own (not their congregation of course, just their leaders) no matter how heinous the crime. When I first heard about all these pedophiles in the priesthood and how the church protected them, I left. I was raised Catholic but will never step inside a Catholic church again.

[truedelphi]

11. Raised Catholic

And find the whole environment so sick
Went to Mass for the first time in twenty years about a year ago
My God. Every other sentence is "Forgive me Lord for I have sinned."

And so paternalistic in attitude...