NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
A prominent Catholic canon lawyer who once headed the American Catholic bishops’ top sex abuse panel is harshly criticizing, in a rare and stunningly candid manner, Newark Archbishop John Myers.
Nicholas Cafardi is a civil and canon lawyer and Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law. He is the former chair of the National Review Board, a lay panel created by America’s bishops in 2002 to oversee how the prelates deal with clergy sex crimes.
In a new, 2400 word article in the Catholic magazine Commonweal, Cafardi writes that Myers, in the Fr. Michael Fugee case,
— “was less than forthcoming.”
–“has yet to take any personal responsibility for the failures of his own archdiocese.”
“If Myers failed to ask” for “updates (about Fr. Fugee), he is grossly negligent,” Cafardi says. “If he did and knew about Fugee’s violations of the agreement, then he is complicit.”
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