Father Shawn
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
A Roman Catholic priest in Missouri has been indicted on federal child pornography charges.
The indictment…charges the Rev. Shawn Francis Ratigan still took sexually suggestive photographs months after church officials removed him from a parish position and ordered him to stay away from children, The Kansas City Star reported. At the time, Easter Sunday this year, officials had not yet reported Ratigan to police.
“When a person who has been placed in a position of trust exploits and victimizes children, he victimizes the entire community,” U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips said. “The indictment today sends a strong message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”
Ratigan was ordained in 2004. The indictment charges that a year later he took lewd photographs of a 6-year-old girl at St. Joseph Church in Easton, Mo.
Late last year, Ratigan was removed from parish work and transferred to the Vincentian Mission House in Independence, Mo. but his alleged activities were not reported to police until May. The official in the Kansas City diocese in charge of dealing with allegations of clerical abuse was removed in June largely because of his [non] handling of the case.
Time and again the Catholic Church figures they know better than the law of the land – they need not answer to secular civil law.
#34, Alphie,
Sorry armpit, but nope. You claimed it. I don’t remember your exact words but that was the jist of it.
Did you forget how you also claimed Obama was a drug dealer? Ya, you finally admitted you made it up and then went right back to saying it again and again.
Get a job, buy your own meds, and quit your effen whining.
#11, The Catholic Church hasn’t learned a damned thing. Time for some higher ups to be charged with conspiracy.
Agreed (Yes, the temperature here in Texas is approaching freezing now).
THEN take away their tax exempt status.
As soon as you start taxing churches, you are automatically favoring some over others. The tax system in the US is designed around social engineering (buy a house, get married, have kids, buy this car, donate to this charity, employer-provided health insurance, sin taxes, etc.).
Do you really want the government using the churches in this country to further its own agenda (abortion and anti-abortion, gay and anti-gay)? This may sound appealing if your party of choice is in power, but what happens when your party is NOT in power?
I shudder at the thought of the government funneling billions of dollars to a church to brainwash its followers into thinking “the right way.”
Taxed enough – You come on like a constant ad for Republican, maddog partisan, death to the nation but long live my party politics. Everybody knows Obama is a total failure, it doesn’t need to be repeated. The Constitution is buried, our money is worthless, many Americans will never have another job and the Republicans share equal blame with the Democrats for fucking up our country. Get over casting blame and suggest a solution, or better yet get off your fat, lazy, proselytizing ass and do something about it.
Or are you just one of the government’s new, computer generated, “virtual people” who spread government misinformation wherever truth rears its ugly head.
“Time and again the Catholic Church figures they know better than the law of the land – they need not answer to secular civil law.”
Well not just the Catholic Church. I think you’ll find many a major religion, and certain many a cult, that protects its officers from the civil laws. And in American we give them, not only tax exempt status. But also a “stay out of jail” card for many offenses. And financial record inspections are a joke. No wonder political parties (the GOP?) are allied themselves with these religions. They have all the off-the-books money and property.
>> Taxed Enough Already Dude said,
>> All progressives are the same, they have nothing to support their statism, so they spin…they lie…they cheat..
You gotta link to support your claim?
# 26 Taxed Enough Already Dude said,
>> its always from the same liberal perspective, anti-country; anti-God; anti-free market; anti-Americanism….
I’ll put my pro-God, pro-America, pro-free market views up against yours, any day.
Keep in mind this is all of secondary importance. Primary is Americans driving SUVs, living in big houses on big private yards and emitting carbon. Urban sprawl is directly proportional to quality of life. City dwellers are evil parasites unless they at least consume a lot of resourses.
I’m still waiting for the anti-religious zealots who post on DvorakdotOrgslashBlog to start posting articles picking on Islam… just saying is all.
Corporations sexualize children not because of any sort of endemic perversion, but because it is a method of creating consumers out of them.
You can’t get a 9 year old to buy thong underwear unless you teach them that they should advertise their body to willing suitors.