The "Reverend" John M. Fiala, 52, of Dallas, Texas is currently being held in the Dallas County Jail with bail set at $700,000. The Catholic clergyman and member of the religious order, the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, is charged with sexually molesting and raping a 16 year old boy in 2008 at gun-point. The priest molested the victim once or twice a month and threatened to kill him, his family and his girlfriend if he told anyone about being raped by the priest. Fiala also told the boy he would kill his victim and then kill himself and they would go to heaven together.
The victim and the priest met in 2007 when Fiala was the administrator of Sacred Heart of Mary in Rocksprings, Texas. The victim's suit claims the Catholic Church covered up the pedophile priest's past crimes committed prior to arriving at Sacred Heart of Mary.
Last week a neighbor of the priest said he was approached by the priest and offered $5,000.00 to kill his victim. The neighbor then notified police who sent an undercover officer to the priest. Father Fiala is caught on video and audio offering the undercover officer $5,000.00 to murder his sex victim. This is not the first time a sexually deviant Catholic priest has been caught by an undercover officer. One example is in St. Paul, Minnesota where earlier this month a Catholic priest was arrested for exposing himself to an undercover police officer. And this horrific problem of Catholic clergy crimes against children is not limited to the United States. In September evidence was found of widespread pedophile priests in Belgium harming innocent children and the Catholic Church covering it up. The leader of the Catholic Church in Belgium, Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, said, "We want to learn the errors of the lessons of the past." Why do they have to "learn" that sexually molesting innocent children and covering the crimes up is not the right thing to do?
The new archbishop of San Antonio, one of the places the victim was raped by the priest, Gustavo Garcia Siller said, "Just to think about it is sad. It will be one of my more [heart] felt intentions today as I pray in the Mass." This is a solid indication the archbishop does not take this horrendous problem seriously. The only way to correct the problem is to take action, not pray. Just as when the Catholic Church is sued for these crimes against children, they don't pray about it, they hire lawyers.
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests; God gave us reason, not religion
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Comments
As a Christian, it seems to me that the Catholic Church's lack of an indignant and common-sense response (let alone a biblical one) to this long and on-going problem has really hurt the reputation of Christ's church in general. Many people I talk with regarding their anger at Christianity, when questioned further, are angry with the Catholic Church, which they think represents all of Christianity. There are other other "christians" (within protestant churches) who have been found to be abusive, but the Catholic Church is a large representative institution, and their response has been equal to institutional cover-up of what people know is evil. After hearing so many people deny Christ because of immorality done in His name, I think Christ's followers need to be more vocal in expressing their outrage over things such as this. We need to show that we care for persons and victims rather than institutions.
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