Oh my… I asked Kathy Shaidle blogger extraordinare of relapsedcatholic.com two questions and she’s linked to me.
I am confused, saddened and angry by all of this. Bottom line – the people responsible should be in jail. And a policy should be in place to make sure nothing like this ever occurs again.
That raises two basic questions:
1. If people went straight to the police and not the Church – wouldn’t there never be a chance for coverup?
2. If the church simply deferred people to the police to report the crime – and it *is* a crime – wouldn’t there never be a chance for coverup?
This is a criminal matter. These are horrific crimes. Don’t those two questions cut to the core? They are bugging me. Maybe I am oversimplifing.
Update I’m definately oversimplfying. I apologize. Please read my comments for alice-d’s post.
I’ll answer your questions as best as I can. I had Paul Shanley as a parish priest when I was 12 and I knew back then he and other priest in the parish were engaging in inappropriate conduct. But we were kids living in a time when our strict Catholic parents hadn’t told us anything about sex. I was over 16 years old and dating before I found out what sex was. The level of innocence of kids back then was an incredible weapon that could be used against them by predators. Plus these guys were working together. If one priest did something to a kid and told the kid it was OK, and the kid went to another parish priest that priest would back the first up. (White and Shanley were both in my parish at the same time, White was a lifelong friend of Shanley and owned the gay B&B with him. Porter was also invited to stay at the parish for about a year at the same time.) So first the kids were too afraid to tell their parents. Second some parents didn’t beilieve their kids (some mothers refuse to believe it when fathers are the molesters.) Third some people went to the archdiocese and got no where (and probably thought that the archdiocese officials had told the police, that’s a logical assumption.) Finally there are some and I suspect many cases where the people went to the police and the police did nothing. The police probably just took the priest’s word for it. The Boston area at the time was a one party state(democrats) and a one religion dominated state (Catholic).
I’m sorry for oversimplifing. I grew up during a different time, in a different place, in a non-Catholic upbringing household.
The Philadelphia Inquirer published a report last month allegeing that the cops (under Mayor Frank Rizzo, friend of John Cardinal Krol) were told to look the other way i.e. cop stops a street pickup and finds out it is Fr. Soandso, cop sends him back to the rectory without filing a report; a call may have been made to the chancery however. Most older cops deny this policy.
I missed that article.
What about now however? Now that this is more and more in the open?