Have things really changed all that much? Nude photos of boys are found on a priest’s computer. An investigation is started and referred to local, state, and federal law enforcement. Law enforcement declines to press charges. The priest, still unidentified, is sent to an unnamed mental health facility. He returns and is placed in a parish where he could be monitored until they see if criminal charges will be filed. He is allowed to celebrate Mass and perform other pastoral duties before the criminal investigation is complete.
The parishioners are never told.
Not a single word about sin or about a vow of celibacy. If the guy was/is a pervert, the children of the parish were placed in jeopardy. The diocese says that, because of the possibility of innocence, they couldn’t ruin the guy’s reputation. Okay, so send him to a retreat house or something until the investigation is complete.
The chairman of the diocesan Lay Advisory Board says the mental health facility said the priest posed no risk (haven’t we heard that before) and that there was no victim. (Ahem, except for the boys in the photos, right?) No one seems to think that possessing homosexual pornography, even if it wasn’t legal, was a very serious lapse by a priest, at least no one’s saying that in the article.
As usual, parishioners who express concern at being kept in the dark about all this are made out to be unforgiving and uncharitable.
After three years of the Scandal, has anything changed?
