MASSACHUSETTS
Huffington Post
Dr. Anne Hendershott
Professor, Franciscan University of Steubenville
While the moral panic of Salem’s witches may be over, an equally pernicious panic continues to haunt Massachusetts — that of the pedophile priest embedded in a complicit Catholic Church determined to protect him. This narrative recently resurfaced in the Boston suburb of Revere, where a male janitor at the Immaculate Conception elementary school used a bathroom that had long been used by adults as well as students — and a student saw the janitor using the urinal. When the parent of that student complained that her child had seen the janitor in the bathroom, the hysteria began. And, although the police and Suffolk prosecutors quickly cleared the janitor of criminal wrongdoing, the Immaculate Conception School’s parish priest was removed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, and the school’s principal and second grade teacher were forced to resign.
The lawsuits have already begun. Recently, Alison Kelly, the former principal of Immaculate Conception School, filed a million dollar lawsuit against the Archdiocese. According to the Boston Globe, Kelly claims the church forced her to resign in January even though she had immediately reported the parent’s complaints to the pastor in charge of the school. Alleging that her firing was a “cold, calculated attempt by the Church to do some face-saving at the expense of innocent people,” Kelly’s attorney told reporters that the Archdiocese did not bother with a full investigation into the recent episode because “it served their own aims to appear to be taking quick and decisive action against its employees.” An attorney for the fired teacher plans to file her own lawsuit within the next weeks.
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