Bishop Accountability
 
  Unanswered Questions Sent to Bishop Grahmann*

[Note from the staff at BishopAccountability.org: These text below was written by We Are the Church, a group of morally driven Dallas Catholics who saw the suffering of the children who were raped by Rudy Kos – rapes that could have been prevented had the diocese stopped Kos when they were first warned about him. Valuable documents about the crisis in Dallas can be found on their Web site, www.wearethechurch.org.]

The five questions below were sent to the Dallas Diocese on 9/10/2003. They are questions asked by many local Catholics with increasing frequency in recent years. As of 10/29/2003 there has been no response either from Bishop Grahmann, or from any spokesperson representing him, that we have been given permission to publish here. (Receipt of the questions by the diocese has been acknowledged.) It has been suggested to Bishop Grahmann that answers to these and other questions may be placed on the Diocesan web site at www.cathdal.org/thetruth.htm. That web site is dedicated "to provide the true facts for Catholics and others ... concerning the Diocese of Dallas." We certainly hope and pray that goal may be achieved. To that end these questions are being asked of Bishop Grahmann:

Q. During the Rudy Kos Liability Trial you admitted that you said to Fr. Rudy Kos in July 1992:"Don't have little boys overnight ... I'll move you if you do" (from page 7616, lines 16-19 of Bishop Grahmann’s testimony during the 1997 Rudy Kos Liability Trail.) Such a statement leads a concerned person who knows the history that led up to the Rudy Kos Liability Trial to ask: "What proof is there, Bishop Grahmann, that you would not have moved Fr. Rudy Kos into another parish if the first 'John Doe' had never stepped forward to file a lawsuit to stop Rudy Kos? Absent any lawsuit would molestations have continued?" More specifically we must ask: "Bishop Grahmann, was any proof that you would have stopped the molestations on your own, without lawsuits, presented in defense during the Rudy Kos Liability Trial? If not, why not?" (Note: slightly over 3,000 pages from the 9,000 pages of Kos Liability Trail testimony are now online at www.wearethechurch.org/kos.)

Q. Is it correct, Bishop Grahmann, that after the Rudy Kos abuse was revealed you were invited to meet with some of the parishes that were victimized by Rudy Kos and you did not accept those invitations? Why did you not accept such invitations? Please correct this information if you did meet with these parishes, and/or with other victims of the abuse by Kos, and personally work toward the healing needed due to the abuse Kos inflicted during your time as Bishop.

Q. Bishop Grahmann, why have you not obeyed the apparent wish of the Pope that you resign?

Q. If you do not consider his wish to be clear, what is the most common interpretation of the assignment of a coadjutor bishop when such an assignment was not requested and the 75th birthday of the setting bishop is over 5 years away? When has such a situation happened before in recent Roman Catholic Church history?

Q. Bishop Grahmann, would you be willing to answer other questions people in our Diocese may have?

*Additional questions for Bishop Grahmann are welcome. Please email them to questions@wearethechurch.org.

 
 

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