WASHINGTON (DC)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, July 14, 2005
By Maeve Reston, Post-GazetteAbuse Tracker Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry lambasted Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum yesterday for writing that the Catholic Church's pedophile scandal was centered in Boston in part because of the city's morally permissive culture.
The Massachusetts Democrats demanded an apology from their Republican colleague for a column he wrote in 2002 for the Web site Catholics Online, which has gained new life in recent weeks after resurfacing on Web blogs and in a Monday Boston Globe column.
Santorum argued that while he was sickened and repulsed by the priest abuse scandal, it could create an opportunity to purge America's Catholic seminaries of the "cultural liberalism" that had infected them and to emphasize fidelity to the church's teachings.
"Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture," Santorum wrote in the passage that Kennedy denounced yesterday. "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."