Robert Seeberger wrote:
> And of course a group of parents (including mine) forced the church to move
> this priest far away.
>
> But they did the wrong thing. The matter should have been brought to the
> police. But in the 60s that was more or less unthinkable.
> Maybe it still is today.
I don't think it's unthinkable today. I think that given the publicity
surrounding the problem, many parents would now go to the police first
and the bishop second. If a priest molested my child, the order of
events would be, 1) break his nose if he were within punching distance
when I found out (or at least bruise it badly, or part of his face, my
aim could be off, but you get the idea), 2) call the police, 3) notify
the bishop.
> But priests are not seperate from the rest of society. The church is not
> seperate from society. And those who hold positions of leadership, even
> more, those who hold positions in which they are given a responsibility to
> care for the wellbeing of numbers of people, must be held to the highest
> standard one can be held to. And violations of such high standards should
> require stringent punishment like any other criminal act.
Exactly, and more people are seeing that, and that's why I think it is
more likely that the police would be called in a case like this now.
I'm also cheered some by stuff I've seen in the newspaper, where the
bishop overseeing churches in Austin is trying to get the full records
of *everyone* nominally under his leadership, even people in orders
where it's the orders that keep the records (and some orders are
reluctant to provide this information). It's really rotten what's
already happened, but I think it's less likely to happen now because of
the scrutiny.
(And I'm extremely unhappy with Cardinal Law. I was living not all that
far from Boston when he attained his current position, and it was a
really big deal then, and I feel more of a sense of betrayal about him
than I do about any of the other cardinals involved with covering things
up.)
Julia
