He was a former Marine, and when he got a few reports that a younger priest (who we all suspected was queer) had some questionable approaches or comments to some young men, after investigating, he approached the priest privately and told him: “If I hear one more report like this, I will come after you and personally beat the sh** out of you.”
The priest in question later left the priesthood and indeed came out as as a homosexual. Also, there have been no public complaints or lawsuits against any of the schools in the diocese - for many years, especially in the worst years of these revelations against the Church.
Handled properly? Handled too roughly?
I think (personally) this was handled just fine.
In our own diocese, growing up, we had a priest who was very affectionate with us kids and we looked forward to his visits in our Saturday CCD class. I never knew of any bad behavior on his part. I inquired about his whereabouts years later, and was told (soberly) by the person I asked that "he retired."
There were a couple of boys, maybe even three of them, in my CCD class, who were later said to have taken their own lives. They were pretty young when they did this. One was still in his teens.
I still wonder about that priest. Maybe he wasn't involved in their deaths. Maybe it was someone else.
Still, I wonder about all that.
The negative impacts are terrible. No doubt about it.
I can’t imagine a kid in those situations and not thinking what was happening to them wasn’t something very wrong/terrible.
The personal behavior of the founder of Islam destroys his own standing with that 9 year old wife of his.
Good grief.