Perish the thought...
< / sarcasm >
"Later in his career, Fiore observed the tactics of one Monsignor Edward Egan, who once served as an assistant to John Cardinal Cody in Chicago.
Egan, currently Cardinal Archbishop of New York, is surrounded by accusations of clerical abuse against a number of priests. While now expressing willingness to cooperate with authorities, as archbishop of Bridgeport, Conn., Egan, according to a report in the Hartford Courant, sought to deflect responsibility for homosexual activity of certain priests by claiming they were "independent contractors."
Under Cody in Chicago, Egan had been informally known as the Cardinal's "hatchet man," Fiore said. When parents of victims charged molestation and threatened to sue, Egan would warn the parents that the archdiocese was ready to fight them in court.
Fiore also said that he personally knew of many instances where families collapsed due to the strain from such tactics, and family members left the Church in disgust".
Note that he says alleged perpetrators. Some of them are real child molestors, but as with the case of the great day-care scandal, many of these charges are probably false, and many more will certainly be false as the tort lawyers start feeding on the increasing publicity. Even in Boston, many of these cases may have been settled because the lawyers working for the Church said that it would be cheaper than contesting them. As the Cardinal says, innocent priests will be probably be sullied along with the guilty ones.
And, although he has no choice but to report all cases to the civil authorities, Freepers should realize that this risks giving the state much more power over religious organizations. It used to be that religious organizations took care of their own, and punished their own. One result of this whole sad mess is that confidentiality of the clergy is likely to be compromised--for Protestants and Jews as well as Catholics. The balance of power will tilt even further away from Chistians and their churches to the state. But there's really no choice after the bishops failed so dismally to do their jobs.