The National Catholic Reporter further deconstructs the Archdiocese of Los Angeles “myth-busting” myths about the nature of the Scandal. As I mentioned at the time, the archdiocese’s newspaper, The Tidings ran an unsigned editorial that offered the astounding claim that “the belief that bishops moved child abusers from parish to parish, allowing them to abuse over and over, may well be one of the greatest myths created by the press coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the church.” When we read that, we scratched our heads and wondered what they were smoking. Or what they thought we were smoking.
Among the “facts” they offered to support their claim, they cited the John Jay study commissioned by the US bishops, and more specifically this statement: “It is clear that transferring priests with allegations of child sexual abuse was not a general response to the problem, and was limited to a finite number of cases.” But the NCR looked deeper and saw that this quote was taken out of context. The John Jay researchers were referring to transfers of pervert-priests among dioceses, not among parishes within a diocese, as the Tidings article would have you believe.
This isn’t mere obfuscation by the LA archdiocese. This is a mendacity designed to trick unwary LA Catholics into believing Cardinal Mahony’s constructed reality of the Scandal.
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