TOLEDO (OH)
The Intelligencer
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of reports that Toledo police helped the Catholic Church cover up allegations of sexual abuse by priests is the appearance that, for many years, the nauseating practice had widespread acceptance.
From the 1950s through at least 1984, police helped the Catholic Diocese of Toledo cover up sexual abuse of boys by a few priests, the Toledo Blade reported. In at least five situations, police refused to even investigate complaints that priests were abusing children.
Toledo police officials and the diocese say that priests no longer receive any preferential treatment. That's good - but it is long, long overdue. No one who molests children should escape punishment.
According to the Blade's investigation, Anthony Bosch, who served as Toledo police chief from 1956 to 1970, had an "unwritten rule" that priests would not be arrested. But failure to protect young victims appears in some ways to have been part of the police department's basic culture for many years. One officer who arrested a priest for sexually abusing a boy in 1984 said that, after breaking the "unwritten rule," he received harrassing telephone calls from other officers.