ST. LOUIS (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
CBS St. Louis reports that Archbishop Carlson has been accused of “tampering with evidence” in a civil suit related to a criminal case. The criminal case involves Fr. Joseph Jiang, who has been charged with endangering the welfare of a minor by means of fondling a teen-aged girl – after the girl’s family had given him long and intimate access as a “friend of the family” who would sometimes sleep over.
Here in St. Louis there are many supporters of Fr. Jiang, who is a young orthodox priest and who served at the Cathedral Basilica. Note, for example, the vehemence of the comments at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website.
Of course no one knows if Fr. Jiang is indeed guilty. But orthodoxy does not equal innocence, as anyone familiar with Fr. Maciel or Bishop Finn knows.
My only observation here is that what Archbishop Carlson is accused of is almost exactly what Kansas City Bishop Finn did, when he saw to it that evidence was destroyed in a similar case a while back. Bishop Finn saw to it that a computer with child pornography on it was destroyed, so as to protect one of his priests. And now Archbishop Carlson is alleged to have attempted to take possession of a $20,000 check Fr. Jiang wrote to the parents of the alleged victim; a check Fr. Jiang wrote to persuade the parents not to go to the police with the criminal facts that the parents say Jiang admitted to – both to them and to Carlson.
Instead of handing over the check to Carlson, the family gave the check as evidence to police. Jiang was then charged with sexual misconduct and witness tampering.
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