This is ridiculous:
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced this afternoon that it was putting on administrative leave 21 priests alleged to have behaved inappropriately with minors.
The archdiocese said it was acting in response to a Feb. 10 Philadelphia grand jury report that found that 37 priests, accused or suspected of misbehavior with children, were serving in ministry.
The archdiocese did not idenitfy the priests by name.
Days after that report, the archdiocese hired attorney Gina Maisto Smith, a former sex crimes prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, to review the personnel files of all the priests named in the grand jury’s report.
“I know that for many people their trust in the Church has been shaken,” Cardinal Justin Rigali said in a statement. “I pray that the efforts of the Archdiocese to address these cases of concern and to re-evaluate our way of handling allegations will help rebuild that trust in truth and justice.”
The archdiocese’s statement did not immediately explain what administrative leave entails.
How many priests are serving in the Philadelphia Archdiocese? I’m thinking thirty-seven perverts is a pretty decent percentage of them. And, by all means, don’t give us any of their names or tell us what “administrative leave” entails. Why should we know any of that pertinent information? I’m glad that the archdiocese is cooperating with the grand jury, but that’s about the lowest common denominator possible for cooperation. What’s the alternative?
The grand jury said it had learned directly from the archdiocese that least 37 priests remained in ministry despite what the jury called “substantial evidence of abuse,” but said it had seen the files of only about 20.
Of those files it reviewed, it asserted the archdiocese had dismissed credible abuse allegations on flimsy pretexts, such as a victims misremembering the layout of a rectory, or the year in which the priest served.
“We understand that accusations are not proof,” the grand jury wrote, “but we just cannot understand the Archdiocese’s apparent absence of any sense of urgency.”
I can’t say I quite understand the whole sad spectacle of rampant pedophilia in the Catholic Church, but it’s established enough that urgency is never witnessed in these cases. Here’s the worst part:
On the day the grand jury report was released, Cardinal Justin Rigali issued a brief response saying that “there are no archdiocesan priests in ministry today who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.”
Yet, a month later he suspended 21 of them.
I don’t like to mix religion with politics, but to say that the Catholic Church is a disappointment to its adherents is a vast understatement. Just a few days ago the New York Times ran a news article that was rather blunt on this point.
The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — “on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,” as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago.
You’d think the bishops would have cleaned up their mess before now.
The situation in Philadelphia is “Boston reborn,” said David J. O’Brien, who teaches Catholic history at the University of Dayton. The Boston Archdiocese was engulfed in a scandal starting in 2002 involving widespread sexual abuse by priests and an extensive cover-up that reached as high as the cardinal…
…Philadelphia is unusual in that the archdiocese has been the subject of not one but two grand jury reports. The first, in 2005, found credible accusations of abuse by 63 priests, whose activities had been covered up by the church. But there were no indictments, mainly because the statute of limitations had expired.
Does anyone want to discuss why this happens in country after country and diocese after diocese? Who needs NAMBLA?
Would you send your child to a NAMBLA meeting?
This is my community.
