HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live
August 1, 2018
By Ivey DeJesus
Over the past decade, the Cardinal Keeler Conference Center, named after the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg, has been the site of youth council dinners, seminarian family picnics, World Youth Day events, even funerals.
Now the legacy of Cardinal William H. Keeler, who went on to become Archbishop of Baltimore, is coming to an abrupt end.
On Wednesday, Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer ordered the names of all bishops who preceeded him since 1947 be removed from all diocesan properties, saying they had failed to protect children from sexual predators.
“That is a gutsy move,” said Charles Zech, director of Villanova University’s Center for Church Management and Business Ethics. “I commend him for stepping forward and showing that the responsibility, the real problem lies with church leadership.
“This is unprecedented. You hear it here and there when someone has been found to not have lived the perfect life, but to remove all of the names is is unprecedented. I applaud him for recognizing that they all have been culpable.”
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