UNITED STATES
Renew America
By Matt C. Abbott
Father Andrew Greeley has died at the age of 85.
I’ve mentioned him a number of times in this column over the last several years. I was no fan of his, to say the least. He even sent me a cryptic email a while back.
Out of Christian charity, we should pray for his soul. But I do want to remind readers of the following excerpts in Father Greeley’s non-fiction book Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest – something he never (to my knowledge) revealed while living:
[Next comes a passage from the book discussing a “ring of predators” among clergy in Chicago.]
From Catholic World News (May 29):
The chairman of the National Review Board, a lay body that advises the U.S. bishops in combating clerical sexual abuse, has disputed a 2011 John Jay College of Criminal Justice study that found no link between homosexuality and clerical abuse.
A journalist said to Al Notzon III, who is ending his term as chairman in June: ‘While the majority of clergy sex-abuse victims are post-pubescent boys, the researchers who completed the second John Jay Report concluded that same-sex attraction was not a significant factor in the crisis.’
Notzon replied: ‘The majority of victims are still post-pubescent males … When you hire an independent researcher [group], they reach their own conclusions. I don’t agree with their conclusion in this instance – when 83% of cases are male on male.’
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.