BishopAccountability.org
	Sex Abuse Priest Not a Risk, Says Cardinal The Age April 5, 2010 http://www.theage.com.au/world/sex-abuse-priest-not-a-risk-says-cardinal-20100404-rll6.html UNITED STATES -- CARDINAL William Levada, a staunch defender of the Pope in the paedophile priests scandal, reassigned an American priest and alleged child molester in the 1990s without warning his parishioners, court documents show. In a sworn testimony in 2006 about his time as archbishop of Portland, Oregon from 1986 to 1995, Cardinal Levada said the offending priest had undergone sufficient therapy. "The abuse in question had happened 20 years before, or so," the cardinal testified. "The recommendation of the therapy was that he was not at risk for re-abusing and that it would be prudent to reassign him … and prudent also to put conditions that would make sure that he would not be over-stressed to do some inappropriate behaviour." A transcript of Cardinal Levada's testimony on his decision in the mid-1990s was made public by a lawyer of the victims of paedophile priests in Oregon. The cardinal now heads the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). He was chosen for the post by his predecessor, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who as Pope has now come under criticism for failing to act against priests accused of child abuse in his earlier post as chief Vatican enforcer of Catholic doctrine and morals. Much of the testimony presented at a Portland bankruptcy court came amid abuse accusations levelled against Catholic priests in the United States and around the world. The church in Oregon filed for bankruptcy "the day that the first trial was supposed to start, the first child abuse trial, that was in July 2004," said Erin Olson, a lawyer representing about 20 victims of child abuse seeking compensation.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.