UNITED STATES
Firedoglake
Last year I wrote a couple of posts about the Pedophile Enablers (aka the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts respectively.) Well there I was this morning, looking through the news sites as I do, when I saw this article at the Lexington Herald-Leader about a priest who had been removed because of sex abuse allegations yet was basically allowed to remain in place with no one actually monitoring him or his actions:
Five years after church officials ordered Carroll Howlin to stop functioning as a missionary priest in southeastern Kentucky, leaders of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., received a letter from a suburban pastor that illuminated just how little the diocese had done to enforce its own protective measures amid a crippling sex abuse scandal.
Howlin, an avuncular-looking priest who moved here more than 30 years ago, had been suspended in 2002 after he was accused of molesting a teenage boy — the second of four such allegations he would face in his career. The Joliet diocese later substantiated claims involving two other victims, including one who committed suicide at 17.
Church officials removed Howlin from public ministry, but otherwise left him alone in Kentucky with a $1,100-a-month pension. He was allowed to continue living in this community where he once helped run the Good Shepherd Catholic Chapel, providing food, clothing and other social services.
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