Common Sense Should Be Applied in Supervision on Sex Abuser Claims

By Mike Hayes
Googling God
March 15, 2012

http://googlinggod.com/2012/03/15/common-sense-should-be-applied-in-supervision-on-sex-abuser-claims/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=common-sense-should-be-applied-in-supervision-on-sex-abuser-claims

As a Catholic, I’m appalled by this defense tactic used by some in the Church to skirt their responsibility for supervising those who ended up abusing children.

From the NY Times:

However, courts in Missouri, Wisconsin and Utah have twisted the First Amendment into a shield for organizational liability for pedophile clergy. In an outrageous case, a Missouri appellate court summarily dismissed a negligence case brought against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by an individual who said he had been abused by a priest. His suit charged the archdiocese with negligent failure to supervise the priest, who had a past record of child sexual abuse. The court threw out the complaint, saying that Missouri law does not allow it because judging the supervision of the priest would require inquiry into religious doctrine, which it contends would violate the First Amendment.

This bizarre conclusion would grant churches a special exemption from neutral, generally applicable laws designed to protect children. The United States Supreme Court now has an opportunity to reverse this erroneous interpretation of the Constitution. The justices should grant the plaintiff’s petition for review, which they are scheduled to consider on Friday.

And consider it they should. Supervision does not have anything to do with religious practice in these instances. If it did, no non-Catholics could work for the church by definition.

It’s also a ridiculous claim. We can’t investigate into whether this person who works for us abused a child because the state can’t determine whether someone actually did that. Um, pardon me, but isn’t this obvious? Either the person did this or didn’t do this and unless they say that God told them to do it—which would be a horrifying thing to say—then their religious perspective is both flawed and irrelevant.

Should the state not investigate terrorists who make religious claims for their actions? Of course not. It’s ridiculous. I’d go further and say if they were inspired by a religious entity of any kind in moving forward with their plan, then that entity may also be complicit in the conspiracy.

There’s a few things that are universal truths that just about every religion can indeed get behind. This is one of them. Children should not be abused and if they are the state has the right to tell the church that they are liable for improperly supervising them.