Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused thousands of children over a 70-year period and silenced victims through “the weaponization of faith” and a systematic cover-up campaign by their bishops, the state attorney general said on Tuesday.

An 884-page report made public by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro after a two-year investigation contained graphic examples of children being groomed and sexually abused by clergymen. It was largely based on documents from secret archives kept by the dioceses, including handwritten confessions by priests, he said.

“It was child sexual abuse, including rape, committed by grown men – priests – against children,” Shapiro told a press conference.

Representatives of the six Pennsylvania dioceses included in the report could not be reached for comment.

The attorney general said it was the most comprehensive report on Catholic clergy sex abuse in American history, nearly two decades after an expose of widespread abuse and cover-up in Boston that rocked the Roman Catholic Church.

Several of the dioceses issued statements apologising to victims and saying they were taking steps to ensure any criminal behaviour was stopped. “The grand jury has challenged us as a Catholic diocese to put victims first and to continue to improve ways to protect children and youth,” Bishop Lawrence Persico of the Erie Diocese said in a statement.

As accusers wept behind him, Shapiro described alleged abuse by priests in six of the state’s eight dioceses, including a group of Pittsburgh clergymen accused of ordering an altar boy to strip naked and pose as Christ on the cross while they photographed him.

“The pattern was abuse, deny and cover up,” Shapiro said, adding that church officials sought to keep abuse allegations quiet long enough so they could no longer be prosecuted under Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations.

“Priests were raping little boys and girls,” Shapiro said. “They hid it all for decades.”

The report cited 301 priests, some of whom have died. Only two of the priests are still subject to prosecution.

A few of the clergymen accused in the report succeeded in having their names redacted, and Shapiro said he would argue at a Sept. 26 court hearing for making all the names public.

He said the grand jury identified about a thousand victims, but believed there may be many more.

Shapiro said that one priest had molested five sisters in one family, he said. The diocese settled with the family after requiring a confidentiality agreement, he said.

The attorney general said that Catholic bishops covered up child sexual abuse by priests and reassigned them repeatedly to different parishes. “They allowed priests to remain active for as long as 40 years,” he said.

Describing the “weaponisation of faith” to silence victims, Shapiro cited several examples including one priest who allegedly told children “how Mary had to lick Jesus clean after he was born” to groom them for oral sex.

“Children were taught that this abuse was not only normal but that it was holy,” Shapiro said.

Since the Boston abuse scandal erupted in the 1990s, accusations involving American clerics have sporadically surfaced.

Theodore McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, resigned as a cardinal last month after accusations resurfaced that he abused a 16-year-old boy decades ago.

In recent months, Pope Francis accepted a number of resignations from Chilean bishops in a sex abuse scandal that has rocked that country.

Britain First’s on-line tactics are concerning and reflective of the manipulative manner in which they attempt to build their on-line presence and ultimately, raise more money from the merchandising of their materials.

The use of pop-ups which ask a question with 2 simple responses, (‘yes’ or ‘no’), confront the reader and get them to engage with the site. Most questions that they ask attempt to play to the morality of ‘Middle England’, the same ‘Middle England’ that Britain First then rails against by suggesting that liberal values in this population belt of the country, are akin to ‘leftist influences’ and in some instances ‘Bolshevism’.

The political schizophrenia of Britain First it should be said, is based on political opportunism and nothing demonstrates this better than further pop-ups that bounce up on the screen within a minute of someone coming onto the Britain First site. One of the pop-ups is inflammatory and uses the grooming of over 1,400 girls in Rotherham in order for Britain First to promote it’s ideological focus on Muslims. The pop-up shows a young girl in a helpless position and the use of the graphic imagery and the way that it leads the viewer and directs them to give their details to the extremist group is worrying.

This is even more worrying given that Britain First are marching in Rotherham tomorrow and have been agitating for the last few weeks using their mail-shots. It seems that even after the killing of Mushin Ahmed, Britain First and its extremism rumble on with no care as to what their actions may possibly lead to.

The post ClickBait Tactics of Britain First Around Rotherham Are Deeply Inflammatory appeared first on TELL MAMA.

This leaflet was circulated today on social media by an anti-fascist campaigner who suggested that these leaflets are being circulated in the North Shields area of Newcastle.

The text reads – “Muslim paedophile gangs operate in this area. Are your children safe.”

This abhorrent leaflet is meant to stir up hatred and intimidate communities, whilst trying to drive a wedge between communities. This leaflet shows the nature of the vile English Defence League which seems to push against legal boundaries with no care about communities and the cohesion or future stability of our country. A parent who received that leaflet would no doubt be alarmed and worried and the last thing any parent should do is to contact this vile group.

We have seen how CSE (Child Sexual Exploitation) is used by extremist far right groups to whip up tensions and hatred. We have previously highlighted this in posts (see below) where far right groups use the revulsion that we all feel and attempt to tap into it and manipulate it in order to gain support for their vile extremist set-ups.

This was a previous posting from another far right extremist group – Liberty GB. Once again, the Rotherham grooming scandal is used though what is interesting are the anti-establishment and anti-police messages. They characterise the extremist far mentality of fear of existing Government structures, yet they promote the twisted narrative that they have solutions to tackle CSE. They simply do not. All they do is to try to light the fire of conflict.

The post ‘Grooming’ Leaflets Targeted at Stirring Community Divisions Circulated in North Shields, Newcastle appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Working Towards Bridging Divides Between Sikh and Muslim Communities

Confronting Regional Barriers and Divisions Between Sikh and Muslim Communities Through Conflict Resolution Programmes at Corymeela

This project was completed on the 2nd of September 2008 and full details of the project are listed in the introduction below. This was a particularly tough project that roused passions particularly within the young male Sikh participants and it brought to the forefront the kinds of areas of tension that exist. This project is the first national programme of it’s kind and attempted to look at the localised areas of tensions, which if not addressed, will link up and become national flashpoints. This is partly because the Internet provides the medium to spread these tensions which need to be contextualised.

The full report on this programme is attached here for your information and we hope that it may be used as a resource to develop cohesion and to look at divergent dialogues.

Introduction

The Cohesive Communities programme is primarily targeted towards Sikh and Muslim communities within the UK and will target a variety of groups such as students, religious and organisational leaders and individuals involved in the political life of this country.

Cohesive Communities will involve taking groups of 20 members of each faith community from each of the vocational groups outlined to Corymeela in Northern Ireland and which has been involved in conflict resolution over the last 40 years. Corymeela staff have helped to create spaces where people of diverse backgrounds can come and meet each other and where there is an atmosphere of trust and acceptance and where differences can be acknowledged, explored and accepted. It is a site to develop community cohesion through conflict resolution.

Corymeela has made a sustainable difference to community relations and reconciliation work over the last 40 years and many of the people involved in reconciliation at Corymeela are now active throughout Northern Ireland .

Background to Cohesive Communities

This project has come about due to previous and continuing tensions between members of the Muslim and Sikh communities. These tensions include:
• Breakdowns in community relations in areas like Derby between Sikh and Muslim communities

• Sikh community members feeling vulnerable to attack because they ‘look Muslim.’
• Continued tensions between the two communities and especially between young people
• Issues around the ‘Bezhti’ play and the impact that this had on community and race relations
• Attacks on Sikhs by people thought to be Muslims
• Lack of employment and progression opportunities for members of both communities
• Stories of alleged forced conversions.

Further information that has led to this project includes the fact that there have been serious incidences of youth violence between Sikh and Muslim communities starting in 1996 within the Slough area of London .

In Derby 2001, tensions between Sikhs and Muslims worsened following September 11, as rumours spread that Al-Muhajiroun members were active in the area distributing anti-Sikh leaflets. A hoax letter, which had been circulating on the internet for some years and aimed at fomenting Sikh-Muslim conflict, inflamed the Sikh community when it was allegedly distributed in Normanton Road , the heart of Derby ’s Asian community. There was talk of a boycott of Muslim shops and angry meetings were held at the Gurdwara. With many Sikhs having already moved out of the Normanton area to Derby ’s suburbs, those who remained felt vulnerable and outnumbered.

These are therefore some examples of underlying tensions between both communities and this project aims to tackle some of these by bringing groups of Muslims and Sikhs together within a comfortable and neutral environment which has decades of experience of working through community tensions and problems. It is also interesting to note that the tensions become more acute on national days like the Independence days of Pakistan and India and on the anniversary of the invasion of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in the early 1980’s.

Aim of Cohesive Communities

The aim of the project is to facilitate a platform through which much needed discussion and dialogue can take place between key British Muslim and Sikh community and organisational leaders, students, religious leaders and up and coming politicians.
Objectives

• To provide a platform in Corymeela through which dialogue and discussions can take place between key members of the Sikh and Muslim communities in the UK . There will be five key areas from which participants will be picked and these include London (Southall, Slough and Hillingdon), Derby , Coventry , Birmingham and Wolverhampton.
• To engage with students, organisational heads, community and religious leaders and up and coming politicians from both communities. The primary focus of the programme will be to engage with as many Muslim and Sikh youth and student groups as possible.
• To develop a work programme that enhances continued contact with both communities and which lays down the basis for a strategy to counter-act those that prey on divisions and on fomenting extremism within both communities. The strategy will also have a key section that includes youth and student groups and work that may be conducted on university campuses.
• To help to break down stereotypes and barriers that have built up over time between British Muslim and Sikh communities.
• To work towards the production of a tool kit that can be used to provide frameworks to reducing tensions between both communities. This will include sections on combating myths, national and local contacts etc
• To produce a web-site that specifically facilitates contact with members from both communities.
• To utilise other good practice being conducted between groups and to introduce that within the project.
• To create community cohesion champions between Muslim and Sikh communities throughout the UK.

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