WASHINGTON (DC)
The Express-Times
Sunday, July 17, 2005
The Express-Times
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Catholics in Pennsylvania, including priests and survivors of sex abuse by clergymen, this week rebuked U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum for claiming a "sick" and "infected" culture of liberalism had encouraged priests in Boston to sexually molest hundreds of children in Massachusetts.
Survivors of sex abuse and some Pennsylvania Catholics claimed Santorum, R-Pa., should not have blamed Boston's progressive climate for contributing to a priesthood sex scandal that prompted Cardinal Bernard Law to resign and forced the Archdiocese of Boston to strike an $85 million settlement with 541 victims. The nationwide scandal, sparked by newspaper investigations and lawsuits, ultimately cost the church more than $1 billion.
"I feel very sorry for the good people of Boston and so many others who have been hurt by the political ramblings of the junior senator from Pennsylvania," Father Tom Aleksa of St. John and St. Anthony Parish in Tidioute, Pa., wrote in an e-mail note.
"I am a Catholic priest ordained for over 30 years and I am a pro-life Democrat. The horrible actions of a few priests who made very bad choices were neither caused by a `liberal' gene nor a geographic proximity to Boston," he added.
Tammy Lerner of Allentown -- spokeswoman for the Lehigh Valley chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) -- is not Catholic. However, as a survivor of sex abuse in her family's church, a non-denominational parish, she described Santorum's attack upon the people of Boston as misguided.