SPRINGFIELD (IL)
The State Journal-Register
November 3, 2018
An attorney filed a lawsuit claiming Catholic clergy sexual abuse against every Catholic diocese in Illinois to “force each diocese to make public the names of all priests, living and dead, accused of child molestation.” It accuses two dead priests who can neither admit guilt nor claim innocence.
Catholic spokespersons refuted the suit’s claims with legal records and websites.
The suit appears based on a presumption of guilt until proven innocent of a never-ending series of charges, a strategy used by progressives to discredit conservatives. The real goal appears to be to silence pro-life Catholic voices like Bishop Thomas Paprocki locally and Pastor Frank Pavone of Priests for Life at the national level. In 1994 Pastor Pavone met with Mother Teresa, who subsequently wrote “I hope that many priests and deacons will join the Priests for Life.”
The attorney falsely claimed Bishop Paprocki “ascribed survivors coming forward to be devils.” The bishop said the “force behind (sex-abuse lawsuits) is … the devil” for burdening whole congregations and charitable organizations. The bishop attacked the suits’ motivation, not the survivors.
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