George Just Another Enabler

Letter to the Editor
By Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Chicago Sun-Times
August 15, 2008

http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/letters/1108970,CST-EDT-vox15.article

[See links to Sun-Times and other articles about the settlement.]

From Boston to Los Angeles, billions of dollars have been spent in attempts to avoid public revelation of files and records of known sexual predators and depositions of the some of the highest U.S. Catholic Church leaders.

Now we are able to read the deposition of Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, who remains the archbishop of Chicago as well as the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and it is damning beyond belief.

Our church leaders protected and enabled known rapists and child molesters for much of their clerical careers while giving no thought to the trail of broken bodies and souls these sociopaths left in their wake.

Can one believe the excuses and rationalizations that would indicate an incompetence beyond belief or is George yet another archetypal figure representing a clerical system corrupted beyond imagination?

Should anyone accept George's words when he says, "I apologize again today to the survivors and their families and to the whole Catholic community?"

No, not until he submits his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI. Until then those words remain hollow.

He is just another enabler.

Sister Maureen Paul Turlish, victims' advocate,
New Castle, Del.