HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
February 7, 2019
Regarding “What you need to ask about Catholic scandals” (Outlook, Sunday): Not much frustrates me more than lines such as this one in the opinion piece: “The world has been aware of systemic sexual abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church since 2002, when the Boston Globe […] exposed the breadth of this crime epidemic.”
No! Read Jason Berry’s “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” for details on the early 1970s abuse scandal in Lafayette, La., with charges continuing into the early 1980s, and look at the mid-1980s for Father Tom Doyle’s comprehensive report on priests’ sexual abuse, the early 1990s for abuse charges in Providence, Fall River and Boston, and the late 1990s for abuse lawsuits in Dallas, and then 2001 in Tucson — all before the powerful Boston Globe reporting. Note that this list is not comprehensive, and it includes only cases within the United States.
Catholics and their church must stop wringing their hands and pretending that this is a new aberration that they were somehow unaware of before 2002. That damaging illusion simply continues the abuse.
Sarah Jenkins, The Woodlands
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