Catholics deserve better than the excuses offered by the archbishop

By Cal Pfeiffer
Courier-Journal
August 29, 2018

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2018/08/29/archbishop-kurtz-part-problem-sex-cases-catholic-church-scandal/1058562002/

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, of Louisville, Ky., president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks at a news conference during the USCCB's annual fall meeting in Baltimore, Monday, Nov. 14, 2016. Photo by Patrick Semansky

Archbishop Kurtz’s offensive and insensitive comments in a recent Sunday edition of the Courier Journal proves he is part if the problem of deceit and deception by bishops covering for pedophile priests.

As stated in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury’s Report, “It seemed as if there was a script. Through the end of the 20th century, the diocese developed consistent strategies for hiding child sex abuse. While the patterns were fairly apparent to us from the documents, we also had experts review them: special agents assigned to the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group: Behavioral Analysis Unit III – Crimes Against Children.

The agents identified seven factors that arose repeatedly in the diocesan response to child abuse complaints:

First – Use of euphemisms: Mischaracterizations of assaults and misleading designations for the removal of priests for a complaint of child sexual abuse. Violent criminal sexual acts, for example, were often described as “inappropriate” contact or “boundary issues.” The temporary or permanent removal of a priest from service was often coded as “sick leave” or “leave.”  

Kurtz was quoted as using words such as, “sins and omissions by Catholic priests and Catholic Bishops” and “those that have been hurt by these terrible situations” and “dealing with these issues.” Crimes were committed, children were raped and/or sodomized, lives have been lost, marriages broken and worst of all, faith in God destroyed.  

He also talks about fostering a safe environment when the Archdiocese of Louisville’s own training program fails to even include the word “priest” as a possible sexual offender.  He talks about reaching out to victims; they have been saying this since 1993 with little, if any, evidence.  Where is the effort to help victims/survivors heal, how about their families? Why are convicted priests still being financially supported? Why are there still people at the Archdiocese of Louisville that knew of the cover-up?  

Bottom line, Louisville Catholics deserve better, Kurtz needs to go and hopefully some other bishop can restore integrity.