Aw c’mon Bricker, serial pedophiles were shuffled from diocese to diocese as each allegation came in. I could see giving Law a pass if after the first psych evaluation the offender went on to never offend again. But when preists like Geoghan are moved to SIX different diocese, shouldn’t a rationale person come to the conclusion that Law was beyond gullible, beyond ignorant, and possibly complicit? We know that he wasn’t an idiot, he couldn’t have risen that far if he was mentally defective. What other explanations could account for his actions? That to me says that he didn’t give a shit more than anything.
If Geoghan was immediately moved from one parish to another, without any attempt at therapy or “cure,” you’d have a point.
But if you were diagnosed with an infection, you went to the doc, and he said, “OK, let’s try 250 mg penicillin,” and the infection didn’t abate – are you an idiot for returning to the doctor and saying, “That didn’t work?”
No – nor are you an idiot for going back after 500 mg penicillin didn’t work, and after ampicillin ALSO didn’t work. In other words, when you’re sick, you go to the doctor, and you keep trying that approach even if the first attempts don’t cure you.
Now, I agree that at SOME point, you may reasonably say, “Wait a sec – maybe the problem is this doctor sucks,” but it’s not a point you reach easily.
Law relied on a very wrong and very foolish view of the power of therapy and prayer to “heal” predator pedophiles, but that doesn’t make him not care – to the contrary. He cared… he just wasn’t smart about it.
I guess we’ll have to agree that you have no proof for this assertion, and I have no proof for mine. I just find it much easier that a guy that proved himself so weasley in the trials and the cover ups showed himself to be the kind of person that cared for nothing but his own ass. I would dare to say his actions then prove my case more, in showing that when the consequences where heady, Law chose to cover his own ass instead of protecting his flock.
If the doctor prescribes different dosages of penicillin, and then ampicillin, then amoxicillin, then apmphoterycin (I have no idea how that’s spelled, but it really doesn’t matter), and nothing works, and you keep going back to him, then yes, you are an idiot. Go to a different damn doctor.
Excellent point. I was going to put a line in my post that said something like
I wish I had, since it would have addressed the point you’re making.
And six parish transfers doesn’t seem ridiculous to you?
Context is king.
Geoghan was ordained in 1962. He was at Parish 1 from 1962 through 1966, Parish 2 in 1967, Parish 3 from 1967 through 1974, Parish 4 from 1974 through 1980, Parish 5 from 1981 through 1984, and Parish 6 in 1984.
Bernard Law became Archibishop of Boston in 1984.
How do you impute to him the blame for parish moves 1-5?
I suppose we can agree that Bishop Medeiros (from 1970 to 1983) was the one that couldn’t care less then?
It’s not like these abusers’ histories were a complete secret to Law. Law shipped Shanley off to California, fully aware of his past a lied about it.
And guess what he did out there?
Well, he was the Bishop during only two of Geoghan’s moves. Why is HE the one that should have figured it out?
Um… how do you know Law was fully aware of his past and lied about it?
You keep offering links and making statements, and I keep reading the links only to find that they don’t really say what you claimed they say. So: what text in your link says that Law knew and lied about it?
It has been reported.
Do you think that someone as notorious as Shanley would have escaped Law’s attention? The NAMBLA stuff was out way before 1990.
Great – could you point me towards that report?
“Out” in what sense?
And I’m assuming you’re not relying on the statements made by lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the various lawsuits – right?
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ma-boston/archives/PatternAndPractice/doc-list-1.html
It would have been pretty tough for Law not to know about Shanley’s history.
These are documents from the church.
Bricker, there’s more than a foolish understanding of treatment going on. Suppose a priest had typhoid fever and half of the congregation caught the illness and died. If the doc says he’s cured but the next congregation catches typhoid fever and dies too, surely you would pull the guy out of circulation until your sure the treatment has worked. By the time five congregations have been largely wiped out by illness and each one has been covered up, saying “But we really thought he was better this time,” rings more than a little hollow. It’s a deliberate and reckless endangerment of innocent people however you spin it. It doesn’t matter how convinced you are that prayer and repentance are the best cure - if you know there’s a risk to other people, you don’t keep hiding it and allowing the risk to continue. There are other positions a priest can fill besides the secular pastorate.
I have a very simple answer for this: keeping women from dying. Since I am a woman, I consider this a rather good primary goal. If I believed making abortion illegal would reduce the number of women seeking out abortions by more than, say, half, I’d be much more likely to support it. Since the evidence I’ve seen indicates that the percentage of women who have abortions remains similar whether it’s legal or illegal, I cannot, in good conscience, support making it illegal.
Thank you. I must have misheard.
So, what was that guy on the radio talking about? Is there a distinction in the Catholic church’s position on abortion and capital punishment?
You may not have misheard. That’s something that gets repeated quite a bit.
The church holds that abortion is very wrong except under rare circumstances (rare in the US, that is). The church holds that capital punishment is wrong except under rare circumstances (again, rare in the US).
No, the Church holds that abortion is always intrinsically morally evil. It recognizes that there are some cases where saving the life of a pregnant woman will have the unwanted side effect of causing her baby to die.
The Church holds that the death penalty is unneccesary in modern civilized society, but not intrinsically morally evil.
Why did you start your reply with “No”? Nothing you said contradicted what I said.
Yes it did. you said that the Catholic Church considers abortion to be very wrong except under rare circumstances and that capital punishment is wrong except under rare circumstances. That, first of all, suggests that the Church considers the difference between abortion and capital punishment to just be a matter of degree (“very wrong” vs “wrong”), when in fact, the difference is a matter of kind…(“inherently evil” vs “not inherently evil”), and secondly, that the Church says there are circumstances where the Church says that abortion is not wrong (those “rare circumstances”). That’s also not true.
“Abortion” the way most of us use it (as in the termination of a pregnancy) is okay under certain rare circumstances, according to the church. The theological nitpicking probably isn’t necessary to answer j666’s question.