Monday, October 20, 2008
NOT THE TYPICAL CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE STORY
I've read some horror stories of clergy sexual abuse. None of them have even come close to the story in Matt Abbott's column today. If I didn't know Abbott's work from other reports he has made, I'd say he had been duped. He says the story is a report to the New Jersey Archdiocesan review board, but he doesn't say how he got it from them. The priest's name and the places where this story are said to have occurred have been removed even though the priest is no longer living. That doesn't help to make it convincing.
But who could make up a story like this one? Tragically, after the revelations of recent years, I can believe that it's true; and it makes me wonder just what kind of men we may still have in the priesthood; and what they were thinking over there in Rome when these sorts of stories came in to them and they did nothing to stop it. Surely it could never get any worse than this one?
I read the story with the knowledge fresh in my mind that the Archbishop of San Francisco is the featured speaker at this week's priest convocation in my diocese.
