NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By Steve Adubato
on May 26, 2013
There was lots of feedback to my recent column about a texting dad who was not “in the moment” at his 8-year-old son’s baseball game, as well as to an earlier column on the much-publicized leadership failures of the Archdiocese of Newark in the case of the disgraced Rev. Michael Fugee. Here is a sampling: …
Finally, Fred Kanter of Mountain Lakes responded to my column on the Newark Archdiocese leadership failure in the case of the Rev. Michael Fugee, who was arrested and arraigned last week. The Rev. Fugee admitted to groping a young boy and was later in the presence of children, despite a signed agreement with prosecutors barring such behavior.
Said Kanter: “The business of any religion, according to them, is truth. This latest example is like episode 5,222 of a daytime soap opera, it’s just more of the same. Trust them (the leadership of the church) to do what’s right, and they deny any culpability while silently playing a game of musical chairs with serial pedophiles. So this time a big public display was made of an agreement just for show. Then they just stealthily continued the game and tell us they interpret the agreement differently. I find it morally depraved and disgusting, nothing less.”
The last thing the Catholic Church’s brand needed was a devastating hit to its reputation like this. Institutions, organizations and businesses are expected to demonstrate strong leadership and communicate in a clear, concise and credible fashion when a crisis occurs. The Archdiocese in Newark has failed miserably on both counts and to date has done nothing to turn this situation around.
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