Today’s New York Times reported that the Roman Catholic bishop of Phoenix, Thomas J. O'Brien, “has signed an agreement admitting that he knew of accusations of sexual abuse by priests but transferred them without telling their new superiors or parishioners.” Further, “in exchange for his admission, the bishop will avoid prosecution” for failing to report the abuses over his 22-year tenure, according to Maricopa County prosecutor Richard M. Romley.
The NYT reported: “The bishop revealed late last year that at least 50 church leaders in the diocese has been accused of inappropriate sexual contact with minors. The bishop then vowed to play an active role in cleaning up the diocese in the face of the scandal. But Mr. Romley said yesterday that despite the bishop's promise of cooperation, his response to requests for information was slow and grudging. He said that though he had uncovered evidence of obstruction of justice... Mr. Romley said that he had evidence that Bishop O'Brien had counseled families who had contended abuse, and told them not to report their suspicions to the authorities. He had promised to deal with the accused clergy internally. That did not seem to happen, Mr. Romley said.”
Under the provisions of the agreement, the NYT said, an independent youth protection advocate “will oversee accusations of sexual misconduct past and present and report them to the appropriate civil authorities.”
I sent the following letter to the bishop, at communications@diocesephoenix.org.
Congratulations, Bishop O’Brien! As news reports today make plain, you have achieved a rare highpoint in Catholic hypocrisy. Your decision to hang on tightly to your bishopric, despite your admitted, disgraceful actions, speaks of levels of arrogance and corruption that have rarely been attained since Luther and his fellow reformers confronted the scamming, soul-selling satans then running the Christian church.
Fortunately for your freedom, but hardly for your soul, you have been able to conspire with a complicit legal system that considers it “not constructive” to seek prosecutions against your kind, and that is, as a result, content to allow people like you to cop pleas. You have -- no doubt, correctly -- calculated that the cultural accommodation of child sexual and physical abuse equally excuses church and state agencies, not to mention the self-blinkering parishioners who for decades turn their blind eyes to the oh-so-obvious, and who then sputter their short-term surprise and dismay.
No one, of course, wants to hear from the children. Yesterday, in self-indulgent self-exoneration, you stated: “Experts, including law enforcement, have changed their views about how to deal with the problem.” Oh, really? And what about raped children? Which of them, in 1980, 1970, or 285 BC, thanked trusted elders for shuffling pederasts around to facilitate their crimes and to maximize their numbers of victims?
Your actions speak of a great variety of hypocrisies, but one particularly striking one relates to your pastoral letter of February 27 of this year, read to all the credulous church-going masses in the diocese on March 18. There, you stated: “I believe cohabitation before marriage is immoral, sinful and scandalous.” It was “of grave moral and pastoral concern to me.” You decried the cultural mentality that “sexual relations outside of marriage seem acceptable.” You claimed that your views were biblically authorized. Leaving aside the ahistoricity of such an argument, one can focus on how at odds your letter’s piousness was with the moral relativism of your legal maneuvering this week. Unless, I suppose, one is to conclude that the words of Jesus that you quoted - “A man must leave father and mother, and cling to his wife and the two become one body” - have consistently been mistranslated, and that the original Greek said not “man....and...wife” but “man...and...defenseless minion”?
You say, Mr. O’Brien, “I serve at the pleasure of the Pope, and not the County Attorney.” Another evasion! The Pope and the County Attorney aside, does “I” have any moral autonomy and acceptance of responsibility? Your fretful flock may huddle and find ways to excuse you, but do you not, as a matter of conscience, wonder how Jesus Christ would view you?
Sincerely,
The NYT reported: “The bishop revealed late last year that at least 50 church leaders in the diocese has been accused of inappropriate sexual contact with minors. The bishop then vowed to play an active role in cleaning up the diocese in the face of the scandal. But Mr. Romley said yesterday that despite the bishop's promise of cooperation, his response to requests for information was slow and grudging. He said that though he had uncovered evidence of obstruction of justice... Mr. Romley said that he had evidence that Bishop O'Brien had counseled families who had contended abuse, and told them not to report their suspicions to the authorities. He had promised to deal with the accused clergy internally. That did not seem to happen, Mr. Romley said.”
Under the provisions of the agreement, the NYT said, an independent youth protection advocate “will oversee accusations of sexual misconduct past and present and report them to the appropriate civil authorities.”
I sent the following letter to the bishop, at communications@diocesephoenix.org.
Congratulations, Bishop O’Brien! As news reports today make plain, you have achieved a rare highpoint in Catholic hypocrisy. Your decision to hang on tightly to your bishopric, despite your admitted, disgraceful actions, speaks of levels of arrogance and corruption that have rarely been attained since Luther and his fellow reformers confronted the scamming, soul-selling satans then running the Christian church.
Fortunately for your freedom, but hardly for your soul, you have been able to conspire with a complicit legal system that considers it “not constructive” to seek prosecutions against your kind, and that is, as a result, content to allow people like you to cop pleas. You have -- no doubt, correctly -- calculated that the cultural accommodation of child sexual and physical abuse equally excuses church and state agencies, not to mention the self-blinkering parishioners who for decades turn their blind eyes to the oh-so-obvious, and who then sputter their short-term surprise and dismay.
No one, of course, wants to hear from the children. Yesterday, in self-indulgent self-exoneration, you stated: “Experts, including law enforcement, have changed their views about how to deal with the problem.” Oh, really? And what about raped children? Which of them, in 1980, 1970, or 285 BC, thanked trusted elders for shuffling pederasts around to facilitate their crimes and to maximize their numbers of victims?
Your actions speak of a great variety of hypocrisies, but one particularly striking one relates to your pastoral letter of February 27 of this year, read to all the credulous church-going masses in the diocese on March 18. There, you stated: “I believe cohabitation before marriage is immoral, sinful and scandalous.” It was “of grave moral and pastoral concern to me.” You decried the cultural mentality that “sexual relations outside of marriage seem acceptable.” You claimed that your views were biblically authorized. Leaving aside the ahistoricity of such an argument, one can focus on how at odds your letter’s piousness was with the moral relativism of your legal maneuvering this week. Unless, I suppose, one is to conclude that the words of Jesus that you quoted - “A man must leave father and mother, and cling to his wife and the two become one body” - have consistently been mistranslated, and that the original Greek said not “man....and...wife” but “man...and...defenseless minion”?
You say, Mr. O’Brien, “I serve at the pleasure of the Pope, and not the County Attorney.” Another evasion! The Pope and the County Attorney aside, does “I” have any moral autonomy and acceptance of responsibility? Your fretful flock may huddle and find ways to excuse you, but do you not, as a matter of conscience, wonder how Jesus Christ would view you?
Sincerely,
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