Cardinal Law is determined to destroy the Church along with himself. WHAT EVIL!!!
St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us.
1. As I read it, the plural term "plaintffs" are who were negligent. Thus the victim was never named as negligent, rather it was the parents who were obviously considered negligent.
2. This court document was filed awhile ago - before the media circus reached global proportions. Thus the incredulity of everyone is a little over the top. If Law's attorney had filed this 3 days ago I would be incredulous - as it is, I am simply sad and frustrated.
Lest I be misunderstood, I much prefer the adversarial legal system of the United States with all of its flaws to the therapeutic model of the old USSR which is the only feasible alternative. In the USSR, if the government charged you with misbehavior, you must be guilty because the state is always right. Thus the real question was why were you guilty and will you cooperate in rehabilitation if applicable.
Many Americans are tempted to raise militant ignorance of legal standards to an art form, as in the reaction to the OJ verdict in the criminal matter when the fact was that the state did NOT prove him guilty in the contemplation of our law. Not having learned its lesso, the same police department in LA has already claimed that the murder weapon in the Robert Blake case was retrieved from a dumpster next to the car where she was shot and today admitted that the gun was, in fact retrieved from a landfill, the department has previously claimed that Blake wore rubber gloves and today claims that his hands were covered with powder residue from the firing of the gun. If we think we KNOW what happened, we may be tempted to demand "justice" regardless of the facts and regardless of the law. Blake may well be guilty but California has to PROVE him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and that effort is not assisted by the LA PD arguing with itself in public and making utterly inconsistent evidentiary claims which can lead to "reasonable doubt" and acquittal.
In any event, the answer to the AmChurch problem of liberals posing as Catholics, liberals who are comfy and cozy with al social revolutions such as lavender lifestyles among the clergy, liberals who continually substitute their non'judgmental Kumbaya for the hammer of justice within the Church is evident no matter how much smoke is blown by those who love the liberals.
Start with a total purge of the lavenders. That they are protesting outside churches is reason enough but virtually all events complained of result from the love that formerly dared not speak its name and now will not shut up. One of the really great things about Catholicism (the real thing not the AmChurch kind) is that due process can be dispensed with when necessary. Thus, hang 'em high!
Second, shut down every seminary in America and lay off their entire staffs. Create four regional seminaries overseen by an archbishop with all necessary authority, no other responsibilities and total power to conduct ongoing purges. Seminaries are no place for ANY sort of female authority and no place for the atheistic presumptions of psychology and psychiatry. Put men's men of orthodox persuasion and performance in charge of everything from administration to janitorial service. Anyone who must then be discharged for misbehavior should be held fully and publicly accountable with oceans of publicity.
There is a move in the Boston archdiocese to create a network of parish councils to stick generally uninformed lay opinions (often liberal) in the faces of the clergy. Abolish the parish councils there and do likewise anywhere else that this particular form of inappropriate "democratic" busibodiness raises its head.
Speaking of which, it would also be a good time to abolish the National Bishopps' organizayions here and elsewhere since they are forever behaving as though morality were determined by a democratic vote of bishops posing for secular cameras. Let each bishop take responsibility for his own diocese and face punishment, including firing, for dereliction of duty.
For those who note the reluctance of the Roman Catholic Church to submit to knuckle under to soi-disant "authority" in the form of transitory governments, you are right. Pope Pius XII warned the Church during the 1940s that knucling under to the government as though it were a higher power will, inevitably, lead to the loss of the freedoms necessary to those nations and their people. The likes of Fr. Shanley have violated criminal laws whose validity is not contested by the Church. The state serves the Church's interest and many other good interests if it puts Shanley behind bars for as long as possible, along with every similar abuser and every bishop or religious superior who has tolerated the pattern of abuse by negligence or worse.
That does not mean that the state may substitute its judgment as to Church matters or demand that bishops or others act as their henchmen in politically popular prosecutions. In our country, it was the state and not the Church that demanded separation of Church and state or whatever is represented by the First Amendment right of freedom of worship and non-establishment clause. The Roman Catholic Church is far more permanent than any government including ours. To the extent that the state can temporarily succeed in attacking the Church structure, make no mistake about it: EVERY Church is thereby threatened.