The Archdiocese of Cincinnati pleaded guilty yesterday. Actually the archdiocese pleaded no contest to charges of failure to report child sexual abuse by priests, resulting in a criminal conviction.
That’s right, I said archdiocese, not archbishop. And who is the archdiocese? Not the archbishop alone, or even the priests, but all Catholic faithful of Cincinnati. They’re all guilty according to the plea.
It is the first criminal conviction of a diocese in this country and it shouldn’t have happened. The men responsible for the crimes should have been convicted not the whole diocese. Who is responsible? Well, who was it that told the lawyers to plead no contest, thus saving his own butt? The SNAP representative quoted in the story gets it right, “Without individuals (admitting guilt), there is no accountability.”
And aside from the shame and the black eye, the archdiocese pays a $10,000 fine and must set up a $3 million fund to compensate victims, although the victims must then agree not to sue the diocese.
