Saturday, April 01, 2006
EPISCOPAL CREDIBILITY ACCORDING TO FFRF
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has been monitoring "black collar crimes" since the late 1980s, is calling on Bishop William Skylstad to step down as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and as bishop of Spokane, Wash.
The call was prompted after remarks by Bishop Skylstad, prefacing the disclosure late this week of the church's 2005 "self-audit" on sexual abuse cases. Skylstad said he had both "a sense of progress" and a "great sense of the continuing impact of the sexual abuse crisis," because his own diocese is in bankruptcy over sex crimes, and he himself has been accused of molesting a teenage girl in the 1960s. Skylstad denies the allegation.
"If these circumstances provide you with a 'sense of progress,' " asks Annie Laurie Gaylor, Foundation co-president in a letter to the bishop, "what would give you a sense of failure?"
Gaylor said the U.S. Conference of Bishops "lacks all credibility when its head is accused of being a child molester himself."
Continue reading...
While I tend to agree with the analysis, what gives a spokeswoman from the Freedom From Religion Foundation a voice in the discussion? Would they allow a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Church to meddle in their affairs? Her "letter to the bishop" should have found a home in the round file!
