TRAVERSE CITY (MI)
Record Eagle
This week the Catholic Diocese of Gaylord named 10 priests in our area who faced “credible and substantiated” allegations of sexually abusing children.
The list carries names and current clerical status. Further details — like where the men served — were not available.
Eight of the 10 men on the list are dead.
None of the names have a prison record or were prosecuted in court. None of the names were ever on the sex offender registry. All of them were involved in at least one “credible incident of sexual abuse with a minor.”
Publishing and maintaining a list “may be helpful to the healing process of victims-survivors” and to the continued effort for increased transparency, a diocese statement reads.
That may be true but it’s also true that this comes after a search warrant was served two months ago by the Attorney General’s office investigating “alleged sexual abuse and assault of children and others by Catholic priests from 1950 to the present for all seven Catholic dioceses in Michigan.”
Like lists are being dropped by dioceses across the country. Like, careful wording. Like state investigations (at least a dozen, including our own) into the Catholic Church. Like headlines following.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.