UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
David Clohessy | Jun. 4, 2015 Examining the Crisis
In a disclosure that’s eerily reminiscent of several recent predator priest cases, an ex-police officer says that a reality TV show star lied about the extent of his son’s child sex crimes. This isn’t an isolated incident. And there’s a crucial lesson in this case for all of us.
Jim Bob Duggar is an arch-conservative former politician whose 15 minutes of fame comes from the program “19 Kids and Counting,” centered on his huge family and conservative values. As a 2002 U.S. Senate candidate in Arkansas, Jim Bob argued that “rape and incest represent heinous crimes and as such should be treated as capital crimes.”
Jim Bob and his family are making headlines these days because of disclosures that his son Josh had been investigated for “forcibly fondling” at least five girls. A police report indicates that Josh admitted his wrongdoing in 2002, and the following year, Jim Bob told the elders of his Baptist church about the crimes. Those elders decided to handle the situation quietly and “in house.”
So no one told the police.
Months later, Jim Bob and several church elders sat Josh down with an Arkansas state trooper who gave the young man a “very stern talk.” No official course of action was launched.
The now-ex-trooper said last week that both men told him that that Josh had molested only one girl.
This set of facts should sound familiar to NCR readers. It’s almost exactly what Kansas City Catholic officials did with the sexual images of children on a cleric’s computer: minimized how much wrongdoing the predator did and misled a police officer about it.
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