UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 14, 2012
When Vatican officials selected a bishop head the effort to go after the American nuns of the LCWR and accuse them of wrongdoing, you might guess they’d be very careful to pick a prelate to who is clearly beyond reproach.
Guess again. The church hierarchy – taking the suggestion, some insiders say, by disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law – tapped Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain to head up the “investigation” into the largest group representing Catholic sisters, the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR).
But it’s Sartain, not the nuns, who should be investigated.
Let’s focus on two clergy sex abuse and cover-up cases Sartain handled back when he was the bishop of Joliet Diocese. But before you assume I’m digging up ancient history, please notice that each of these cases took place within the last three years (long after America’s bishops pledged they’d have “zero tolerance” for clergy sex offenders and “openness and transparency” in clergy sex cases).
Case #1
In the spring of 2009, a Joliet diocesan seminarian named Alejandro Flores was caught with porn, prosecutors say. (According to one news account, “Though the website posted a disclaimer saying the people involved in the sex acts were not minors, a prosecutor said Catholic officials were concerned some of the images appeared to be those of young boys.”)
Months later, in June of 2009, Sartain ordained Flores anyway.
And six months after, in January 2010, Flores was arraigned on charges of molesting a boy twice earlier that month.
In September 2010, Flores pled guilty.
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