What is happening? I sent an email to ArchBishop Flynn's office yesterday. No response (of course). AB Flynn will be 73 in a few weeks. God bless Fr. Altier. I think he would be an excellent bishop.
In digging through his cached files, I found this post from Feb. 12. Do you suppose this is the smoking gun?
Some people have reacted harshly to my posting criticizing Fr. Bob Hoatson.
The common claim is that, by criticizing Fr. Hoatson, I am tacking side with corrupt bishops, the abusive priests and a system that pretends to “perpetuate” the abuses and keep the Church in “business as usual” despite the drama of the sex scandal.
I have nothing to say to those who have already an agenda like SNAP, for whom you either support everything they say or you are in favor of abuse, cover up, and so forth… if you are not a child abuser yourself.
But let me set the record straight one more time. There are MANY, not just “good” and “bad” guys in this complex issue. As far as I can see:
Regarding the latest, read what Forbes Magazine said in a long, extremely revealing report on the economic and legal side of the scandal:
“Plaintiff lawyer Roderick MacLeish Jr. and other litigators have parlayed the priest crisis into a billion-dollar money machine, fueled by lethal legal tactics, shrewd use of the media and public outrage so fierce that almost any claim, no matter how bizarre or dated, offers a shot at a windfall.
The lawyers are lobbying states to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, letting them dredge up complaints that date back decades. Last year California, responding to the outcry over the rash of priest cases, suspended its statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes for one year, opening the way for a deluge of new claims. A dozen other states are being pushed to loosen their laws.
“There is an absolute explosion of sexual abuse litigation, and there will continue to be. This is going to be a huge business,” MacLeish, age 50, says. A Boston-based partner of the Miami law firm of Greenberg Traurig (2002 billings: $465 million), he has won upwards of $30 million in settlements for more than a hundred plaintiffs in lawsuits in the past decade. With a hit man’s style and a gift for TV sound bites, he has played a key role in unearthing (and exploiting) the priest scandals of the past two years, prompting a nationwide cascade of similar reports.
In the resulting wave of lawsuits the majority of cases are legitimate, even officials of the Catholic Church concur. Dioceses will pay dearly for covering up the most abominable crimes and failing to prevent future offenses.
Overdue justice. But it could lead to a legal morass marked by extortion as much as fairness, in which a small cast of liars cashes in on the real suffering of victims. “Just think how this ripples out: day care, babysitters, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, summer camps, study-abroad programs. You start thinking about it, and it boggles the mind,” says Patrick Schiltz, associate dean of the law school at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, Minn. “There is impact in the tens of billions of dollars.”
Want to know a little bit more about this guy MacLeish and the likes?
Read this, also from Forbes:
“This lawyer relishes juicy cases. In 1995 he successfully defended Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Mack, who was threatened with losing his tenure after he published a book arguing that alien abductions were real. He successfully defended Lars Bildman, disgraced chief executive of drugmaker Astra USA, against sexual harassment complaints. He also defended a Cape Cod high school teacher who got fired for making porno films in his spare time and he generated headlines when he sued the elderly wife of an alleged pedophile, collecting on her homeowner’s policy.”
I think this is quite ilustrative. And this brings to my point:  I don’t think Catholics should seat and take the pounding for something that has become an industry that may cripple our communities. Making justice within the Catholic Church is not the same as lynching the Catholic Church.
"Coincidentally, this week, Alejandro Bermudez from Catholic News Agency, suddendly shut down his blog -
Catholic Outsider. He said his goodbyes, departed and the blog has been completely removed."
"What is happening?"
Welcome to the underground Catholic Church!