Shredding the Church's image

On Thursday night, PBS NEWSHOUR‘s Ray Suarez talked to Ray Boucher, lead attorney for the LA victims (the Archdiocese was “unavailable”) about what the document dump reveals. It was a fascinating interview, and Boucher was quite frank.

I’m just wondering from what he said if now there finally is enough for a class action suit, commission, something, anything to open the secret files up everywhere.

Forget about money: everybody who could get a settlement has by now. What is needed is to find out exactly what happened and take steps to prevent it from happening again. Maybe even something along the lines of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. If they can do it, so could we.

It is possible, folks. I’ve studied enough religious history to know that the line that clergy sexual abuse occurs in every denomination is simply NOT true. While human weakness is the same everywhere, there are religious sects that seem to be set up institutionally to do the right thing, believe it or not.

The Presbyterians, for example, come to mind. You’ve probably never heard of problems there because John Calvin set things up right from the start. When Calvinist preachers got caught everybody knew because they were publicly booted out, and the church had public lists to make sure they stayed out.

As for the Roman Catholics, for God’s sake, the conspiracy is proven! The stories of victims are the same around the world. There’s a clear chain shown that goes from the bishops and their vicars for clergy up everywhere through the Vatican to avoid justice, protect their reputations and revenues by doing everything in their power to hide priestly crimes.

This global cover-up is a crime far worse than all the  individual rapes and other crimes combined. Roman  Catholic clergy sexual abuse is nothing less than a holocaust of the spirit. It must not be allowed to continue.

Here’s what made my ears prick up:

RAY SUAREZ: So, when you say confirmed it, does this directly link abuse claims to the highest members of it the archdiocesan hierarchy and their full knowledge that there were priests who were accused who were then not removed from their job?

RAY BOUCHER: Without question.

These documents and files that go back five decades confirm that, in fact, the Vatican, the cardinals, the vicars of clergy here in Los Angeles were all intimately involved with the cover-up, providing sanctuary and immunity to priests and shifting them from parish to parish or state to state and sometimes country to country in order to protect them from being criminally prosecuted and in order to protect the image of the church. [Emphasis added.]

They go on to discuss how the archdiocese leaders were mandatory reporters, that it was a felony not to, and that the cops and DA were looking through the files to see if they could prosecute anyone, but in most cases the statute of limitations has run out. Which means that the conspiracy succeeded exactly as intended.

The cover-up of Catholic clergy sex abuse is a crime far worse than all the individual rapes and other crimes combined. Institutional Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse is nothing less than a holocaust of the spirit. It must not be allowed to continue.

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