UNITED STATES
Why I Am Catholic
May 21, 2013 By Frank Weathers
You may recall the recent goings on in the Archdiocese of Newark related to the scandal of sexual abuse of minors. Well, a number of priests and religious have banded together to form a posse of sorts, and they call their little band of brethren the Catholic Whistleblowers. Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times shares the story up about them.
They call themselves Catholic Whistleblowers, a newly formed cadre of priests and nuns who say the Roman Catholic Church is still protecting sexual predators.
Although they know they could face repercussions, they have banded together to push the new pope to clean house and the American bishops to enforce the zero-tolerance policies they adopted more than a decade ago.
The group began organizing quietly nine months ago without the knowledge of their superiors or their peers, and plan to make their campaign public this week. Most in the steering group of 12 have blown the whistle on abusers in the past, and three are canon lawyers who once handled abuse cases on the church’s behalf. Four say they were sexually abused as children. …
I don’t really know if the actions taken by Archbishop Myers tripped the switch on these folks deciding to band together. The impetus to do something had probably been building for a while. But if it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so be it.
Back when Fr. Michael Fugee resigned his priesthood, I explained that everyone loses when these tragic events occur. And the damages are exacerbated when they are covered up.
Guess what? As of yesterday, the leadership failures in the Archdiocese of Newark have resulted in the arrest of Fr. Fugee for violation of the protection orders he promised to abide by a few years ago, and was allowed to ignore.
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