MINNESOTA
MinnPost
Judy Jones, Marthasville, Mo.
A Minnesota Catholic university professor’s quote in a MinnPost article left me shaking my head in disbelief (“Could Archbishop Nienstedt face charges or lose his job?”).
Professor Charles Reid compared the plight of Boston’s disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law with that of embattled Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt, and tried to excuse Law’s horrific, longstanding complicity in clergy sex crimes by claiming he was “not operating in a time when we had clear standards.”
Really? Professor Reid should do his homework.
Since the 1980s, most U.S. Catholic dioceses have had abuse policies. In 1985, three experts sent a 200-page report on clergy sexual abuse to every prelate in America. In the early 1990s, the U.S. bishops set up a national panel on abuse that wrote up guidelines.
So while Law was protecting predators and endangering kids, he had plenty of “standards” to follow, carefully crafted by his own colleagues and predecessors.
And secular law provided Law with some “standards,” too, like not hiding or destroying evidence of crimes.
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