Catholic Priest in Osaka Arrested for Allegedly Molesting Follower

Fr. Hirotsugu Inoue

article source

OSAKA, Feb. 5 (AP) – (Kyodo)—A 74-year-old Japanese Catholic priest was arrested Thursday on suspicion of repeatedly molesting a female parishioner at a church in Osaka Prefecture despite her rejections.

Hirotsugu Inoue, a priest at a church in the city of Ibaraki, has admitted to forcibly kissing and hugging the 43-year-old woman about 70 times between October to December last year, but denied his acts amounted to indecency, according to police.

“There is no doubt that I did this, but it was not an act of indecent assault,” he was quoted as telling the police.

According to investigations, Inoue approached the woman in a church kitchen, whispering “I love you” on one occasion, and proceeded to hug her despite her rejections.

The police also suspect that Inoue kissed the woman’s daughter.

They have also received several phone calls from people saying, “I was molested by Inoue” and plan to investigate these cases as well.

The Catholic Osaka Archdiocese, which oversees churches in Osaka and other nearby prefectures, has launched its own investigation into the case and is considering taking disciplinary steps against the priest.

This article in Japanese  says he started working at the church in Ibaraki in 2002.  Before that he was teaching at various universities.  I hope he was not teaching ethics!  One place he taught at was Kobe Kaisei College website a women`s university.  Another is St Thomas University a co-ed school website

If he is guilty lock him up for good  not that he has much of a life left but whats left of it can be spent behind bars.  I am tired of scandals caused by priests and care more about quality than quantity and think seminaries should see it the same way.    Besides if justice is not served in this life it will be in the next.

Bishop Sheen on Temptation

If you have never heard of Bishop Fulton Sheen, or have heard of him but never watched any of his talks that is about to change.  I encourage you to watch the three part series on temptation as a start.  I will post the first video then if you double click on it it will take you to you tube and on the right hand side of the page you can click to watch parts 2&3.  Hopefully you will want to watch more videos of his talks just keep in mind don’t judge the video by the title.  You may think the title sounds boring  that its about something you aren’t really interested in but try watching it anyway because he talks about much more than just what the title may say.  His cause for sainthood is before the
Vatican as well so it might interest you to watch someone who might be declared a saint

Setsubun

Today February 3 is setsubun more  here where people throw roasted soybeans while saying oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi or demons out luck in.  I don’t do that I just eat the soybeans I bought at the grocery store as a healthy snack but I wonder how many people actually think they can actually get rid of demons by throwing soybeans?  I wonder if anyone has ever taken a poll?  Maybe I should call the Pope and tell his Holiness that we`ve been doing it wrong all this time with the holy water throwing and power of Christ compels you shouting when we ought to have been throwing soybeans and saying oni wa soto.  Yes I am being silly and no I dont have the Pope`s phone number and even if I did have his number I dont think I would have the guts to phone him

Euthanasia a ‘false solution’ to suffering, Pope says

And an article that says basically the same thing but elaborates a bit more.