From Catholic World Report:
What could or should the Pennsylvania bishops have said in advance? Firstly, that the whole report should not be treated as news but should be run on the History Channel. Why? Because there is nothing new in the report; all that is there has been treated before, especially in 2002. Secondly, over half the priests accused are dead, with one man actually having been born in 1896 and accusations going back seventy years! Thirdly, we are dealing here with “accusations,” not convictions. Were some of the accusations valid? Unfortunately, yes, but many could never be substantiated in a court of law. Do any of you want to live in a country or Church where someone’s mere accusation convicts you? Amazingly, only two of the accusations are even able to be prosecuted! If you want real news, it is that out of over 40,000 priests in this country, last year there were only six allegations (with four of them against the same priest), again, I stress “accusations.” The New York City public school system gets that many accusations against its personnel in a month. If you want to read an independent, non-Church critique of the Pennsylvania report, check out the work of David Pierre at Media Watch.
On the McCarrick front, we are dealing with a very convoluted situation. “Everyone knew” about his strange sleeping arrangements with seminarians. So, why wasn’t something done about it? Years ago, I was questioned about this matter by a cardinal in Rome. I told him exactly what I knew – from some of the very seminarians affected, namely, that the Archbishop had invited them into his bed but – never touched them. The biggest difficulty was that no one was willing to testify against him for a variety of reasons. We shall come back to that issue as we move into the “testimony” of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.
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Pray always for purity and love
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