WASHINGTON (DC)
Statter911
October 16, 2018
By Dave Statter
After 70 years, dark secrets of Washington’s Archdiocese are finally seeing the light of day. The church officially outed 31 pedophiles Monday who were members of the clergy, writing that each was “credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors”. Scanning the list, a name immediately caught my eye. R. Joseph Dooley.
Father–and later Monsignor–Dooley was the chaplain for the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington and the District of Columbia Fire Department from the 1960s through at least the mid-1980s. He also founded the International Conference of Police Chaplains in 1973 (more here) and was the chaplain for other police departments, including the United States Park Police.
Upon reading Dooley’s history it’s hard not to think of the Netflix documentary series “The Keepers”. That story centers on a Baltimore pedophile priest and the cover-up surrounding the unsolved murder of a young nun. To be very clear, there are no murder and intrigue claims like that with Msgr. Dooley, but some parallels are interesting.
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