NEW YORK
Voice from the Desert
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Executive Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)
Noted Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo (of “Whispers in the Loggia”) reports that Cardinal Tim Dolan is bringing disgraced Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to preach next Thursday.
Like he did last year with a New York teenager, Cardinal Dolan is callously and needlessly rubbing even more salt into already deep and still fresh wounds of hundreds of clergy sex abuse
Tens of thousands of Catholic clerics could preach in St. Pat’s next week. Almost any of them would be less upsetting and hurtful than Rigali.
Nine years after bishops promised to “reform,” Rigali, under pressure, was forced to suspend 21 accused Philly priests on one day in March of 2011. These suspensions took place exactly one month after Rigali wrote his flock assuring them that there were no credibly-accused priests remaining within the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. In 2005, Rigali kept silent as his lawyer blasted prosecutors as “anti-Catholic” in the wake of a second scathing report about widespread clergy sex crimes and cover ups in his archdiocese.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.