Thread by @doctorow

A new instalment in @Propublica's outstanding coverage of the Catholic Church's complicity in sexual abuse by priests shows that dozens of American priests who raped children were relocated to Mexico, where they continued to rape children

propublica.org/article/dozens…

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These priests found new postings thanks to glowing letters of recommendation from church officials who knew that they had been accused - or, in some cases convicted - of raping children in their parishes. Some fled to Mexico to avoid prison, resisting extradition for years.

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Not just Mexico: Propublica found 51 "credibly accused" US priests who are currently working in Mexico, Ireland, Nigeria, and the Philippines. Some of them continued to draw pay from their US parishes while they settled in abroad.

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Parishoners' donations paid for the predators who victimized their children to escape justice.

One priest, Jose Antonio Pinal wrote letters to Church officials blaming the boy he raped, saying, "that he is not innocent of the situation he wants to blame me for completely."

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Pinal is still ministering in Cuernavaca. He claims his longrunning rapes of a 15-year-old were consensual, but "he was a minor; so, legally, I am screwed."

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When he moved to Mexico, Sacramento church officials wrote to him promising to support him, so long as the new diocese promised to "protect the diocese of Sacramento against any financial liability for any acts committed by you while working in that diocese."

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Some of these priests are listed as "inactive" in Church websites, but are still ministering in Mexico. Rev. Jeffrey David Newell, admitted to sexually abusing another 15 year old, and called it a "mistake." He currently serves in Tijuana.

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Newell says it was a single slip up. Other survivors of his abuse have filed lawsuits against his old US archdiocese. Newell calls their claims "totally absurd." His name has been removed from Church lists of "credibly accused" sexual predators in the clergy.

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These predators' survivors are alive and deeply traumatized. And thanks to the inaction, complicity and even encouragement of US Catholic church officials, these predators are ruining the lives of new children all over the world.

/eof