Abandoned Altars

In the aftermath of the guilty verdict handed down in the Robinson murder trial, there has been much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

There are the usual pleas for forgiveness and healing from the Church authorities, utter disbelief expressed by the sheeple in the pews, and law enforcement is denying it had any part in the decades-long cover-up. In other words, the usual reaction to priestly crime.

At least the prosecutor has finally explained why he claimed in court that it was not a satanic crime.

Mr. Mandros said he “did not want to go in that direction” of trying to prove that the crime was a satanic slaying.

“There was a tremendous amount of evidence that would have allowed you to make that argument,” he said. “We had professionals with expertise in the occult say, ‘Yes, this is a classic textbook satanic cult killing’ - more than any case they’d ever seen.”

But prosecutors felt it was better to try the 68-year-old priest on a straight murder charge. That legal strategy proved successful for prosecutors Thursday morning when a Lucas County Common Pleas Court jury convicted Robinson of murder. Judge Thomas Osowik immediately sentenced the retired priest to 15 years to life in prison, with eligibility for parole in 10 1/2 years…

Mr. Mandros said that if the state had filed charges against Robinson alleging it was a satanic-cult murder, it would have increased the burden of proof on prosecutors.

(Toledo Blade) (Emphasis added)

This is rather curious. Jurors would be more skeptical, but I’m not sure how would satanic claims would have increased the burden of proof. I was not aware that the law had a special category of devilish crime. Perhaps his hesitation was involved with ascribing a believable motive, which might delve into dark matters far beyond the dead woman on the sacristy floor.

In all events, it is doubtful we’ll ever find out anything more from Fr. Robinson. If he was involved in a cult, even if he keeps his mouth shut, his life expectancy in prison will probably be long as John Geoghan’s was.

However, this story is not over yet. The shock has led to questions of how such a thing could be covered up so long.

That the diocese had a role in it is not surprising. Despite the diocese promising to release all information in their possession, after only getting a folder with 3 sheets of paper in it, the cops ultimately had to raid the diocesan offices:

At issue are the 145 pages of documents that investigators seized from the diocese’s downtown headquarters in 2004 after marching into the building unannounced with a search order. Court documents unsealed last year showed that during the unprecedented police search, investigators said they were looking for evidence of “obstructing justice” in their search for “secret files” that might lead to information about Robinson…

Dave Davison, one of the Toledo police officers on the scene at the 1980 murder, said yesterday he would like to see an investigation into the diocese and the department he’s now retired from.

“This is long overdue and a big surprise,” Mr. Davison said of the verdict. “I’ve lost a lot of faith in people, and I thought sure as hell that at least one juror would hold out; so I was in shock. For 26 years, I’ve been telling people the diocese and my department covered this up.

“If you look at what convicted him, it was what they had for 26 years,” he said. “I hope somebody looks into this and they don’t let it go.” He said he asked the police to look into the case again after he retired in 1990 as a result of a disability. Mr. Davison said supplemental reports he filed, which included witness statements, were among the missing paperwork that came into question at trial.

(Toledo Blade)

So the missing paperwork is not just the Church’s problem. Retired Deputy Chief Ray Vetter, who led the original investigation, and was accused of interfering, testified that there was no cover up. “An absolute lie,” he called it.

But police and prosecutors, or at least some among them, must have been in on it too, though that does not necessarily imply there are satanists among them. Maybe just good Catholics.

Tom Ross, one of the cold case investigators who said he believed that if the technology available now had been available in the 1980s the case would have been quickly solved, unwittingly gave a motive.

Mr. Ross said his biggest concern is that the verdict against Robinson may cause more Catholics, already disillusioned by sex-abuse allegations, to abandon their religion.“I hope this case doesn’t shake the faith of millions of followers out there in the Catholic church. I hope they stay behind their church,” he said.

“This is just one bad person who was within the church.”

(Toledo Blade)(Emphasis added.)

There you have it; the policeman’s tender regard for the souls of his community says it all.

So how could a priest get away with an unspeakable murder for a quarter of a century? Easily, it seems, when the guardians of the law are more concerned about the appearances of the Church than justice for an elderly woman.

And nobody’s even talked about what the real motive was, or what kind of assistance the killer priest had, if any, or how this relates to the other charges and dark rumors circulating in Ohio.

The big questions have not even been asked yet.

An article detailing the background accusations, including that of cross-dressing priests, can be found here.