UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
“The Milwaukee situation is the most insidious and openly destructive one I have seen in 31 years…”, said Dominican Fr. Thomas P. Doyle recently. Tom Doyle gives the reasons for his concern and outrage in his recent full remarks below. There he addresses the horrendous and ongoing mistreatment, indeed “re-abuse”, by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee of local survivors of priest sexual abuse, including some of the more than 200 deaf boys who were abused a single priest. See the related HBO Emmy and Peabody Awards’ winning documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God , and here .
This abusive Milwaukee priest was protected for decades by unaccountable cardinals and bishops, including ex-Pope Benedict and his Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone. For years, these defenseless deaf boys tried to tell of their priest abuse in Milwaukee, to little avail.
This Catholic hierarchical cover up of a “one-priest” sexual abuse tsunami and of the related “re-abuse” of survivors are outrageously not unique, as is evident from the recent grilling by the Australian Royal Commission of Fr. Gerald Ridsdale, who was protected by his close ties to Cardinal George Pell, whom Pope Francis nevertheless promoted to a top Vatican position.
Most of the Risdale allegations had been well established and publicized before Pell’s promotion. Almost 75,000 people in just a few days have signed a Change.org petition calling for Pell — the Vatican’s financial chief and former Archbishop of Sydney — to answer questions under oath in Australia, despite Pell’s initial efforts to duck giving testimony there on new matters. Pell, in effect, under oath earlier also admitted to “re-abusing” abuse survivors with cruel and punitive legal tactics, for example, in the so-called Ellis case, like the Milwaukee Archbishop and Cardinal Timothy Dolan also apparently have similarly done.
A Vatican confidante reportedly spoken to by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Australia confirmed Pope Francis was personally aware of the allegations against Cardinal Pell, but was treating them as just that — unconfirmed allegations. Unconfirmed beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, perhaps. But in my experience over three decades as an adviser to top leaders of multinational organizations and corporations, not one of them would ever have promoted Pell like the pope did in light of the well known, widespread, multiple and plausible allegations against Pell. Indeed, Pell admitted before moving to the Vatican under oath to, in effect, using ruthless legal tactics to punitively “re-abuse” abuse survivor, John Ellis.
Of course, Rupert Murdoch appears to be very close to the Vatican and Pell, and also apparently to a top Pell supporter, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and to the indicted Adelaide Archbishop, the first Catholic archbishop ever criminally charged in a priest child sexual abuse cover up case . And the pope and Murdoch also appear to be partnering to elect a “low tax” Republican as US president next year, possibly Jeb Bush with Big Oil backing.
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