Author Jason Berry Says Vatican Needs to Establish Independent Investigative Unit

By Rob Masson
WVUE TV
November 16, 2018

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/=https://bit.ly/2TlZpJJ

A local author who helped bring church sex abuse in Louisiana to light believes it’s time for the church to do more to police itself.

Jason Berry said the future of the church could hinge on change if the Justice Department launches a nationwide investigation.

The harm is immeasurable.

Twenty-six years after author Jason Berry first wrote about Catholic Church sex abuse in the Lafayette diocese, victims are still coming forward.

“I was the canary in the coal mine before people realized there was a coal mine,” said Berry, who wrote, “Lead Us Not Into Temptation.”

With the church paying out billions in settlements worldwide, church leaders grapple with reform. Berry said bishops may have made a mistake this week when they delayed - at the request of the Vatican - a vote on setting up a bishop oversight commission.

“The optics are not good for the Vatican, at the last minute, to intervene,” Berry said.