The stories about the heinous conduct of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy to protect predatory priests and cover up the rampant sexual abuse of children and minors just keep unfolding. As the Chicago Tribune is reporting, the deposition of a former Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Chicago reveals over two dozen predator priest who were knowingly protected by the archdiocese with apparently little or no regard for the minors being molested by these priests. Rather, it was all about protecting the Church's reputation and to Hell with the laws against molesting minors and aiding and abetting crimes. I suspect the deposition is a microcosm of what happened in diocese all around the world - and may still be happening despite the Church's disingenuous promises that it has put its house in order. Meanwhile, those who covered up abuse and enabled predatory priests have never been held to account under either Church law or the civil laws. Here are some story highlights:*
The archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay $3.9 million to settle six sexual abuse cases and on Tuesday released a bishop's deposition that detailed the church's failure to report the crimes and attempts to keep them secret.
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The 180-page deposition provides a rare glimpse of "how clerical culture operated in the past," said Jeffrey R. Anderson, an attorney for the victims. Retired Auxiliary Bishop Raymond Goedert, the second-highest-ranking bishop in the Chicago archdiocese, testified that most of the priests he confronted with sexual abuse charges admitted them.
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"I knew the civil law considered it a crime," Goedert said in his deposition, adding that he felt church law required him to treat matters confidentially. "I simply would not talk about [the cases] to anyone except those who had a right to know because of their position in the diocese."
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"What emerges here is that the interests of the institution come first, then the man, the perpetrator of crime," Pearlman said. "And somewhere in the distance [are] the victims of the crime. Their priorities are in the wrong order."
The deposition shows how "deeply ingrained secrecy" is in this archdiocese, Barbara Dorris, the outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement. . . . "That confidentiality allowed the archdiocese to move serial predators from parish to parish without congregations' knowledge about child-abuse allegations," she said.
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago paid more than $15.8 million in legal settlements related to sexual abuse last year, amounting to $80.2 million in claims from June 2001 to June 2008.
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I continue to believe that a married clergy would not have so coldly and uncaringly ignored the interests of the minors being abused. Few parents would not feel compelled to stop such abuse but for a group of celibate men without families, the institution mattered more than the children. Benedict XVI and others in the hierarchy still do not get it - and never will.
