UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary
Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 9, 2016
On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune ran a page-one piece about the case of Fr. Bruce Wellems, a Chicago priest who admitted to luring a seven-year-old boy from basketball games and then sexually abusing him multiple times during the course of a year.
Wellems was an older teenager at the time. Did the Claretians (the religious order to which Wellems belongs) adhere to their promises of transparency and tell Catholics about Wellems? No … in fact, Claretian officials ordered their priests to destroy emails about Wellems and his crimes.
In 2014, did the Archdiocese of Los Angeles adhere to their promises of transparency and give parishioners in San Gabriel the correct information about Wellems? Did they post information about Wellems’ admission on their website, the parish website, or attempt to reach out to other potential victims?
No. They made one announcement from the pulpit, and then kept parishioners in the dark about the allegations. In fact, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Archbishop Jose Gomez allowed parishioners to believe that the allegations and admissions stemmed from a “consensual dating relationship.”
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