UNITED STATES
Spirit Daily
There were quite a few reactions on both sides of the debate when it came to our recent concern that at least some of the abuse claims against Catholic priests may be false. We hold this concern at a time when the devil is very active (and certainly likely to target priests before anyone).
This would be in keeping with persecution. And if only five or ten percent of the abuse charges are false (or exaggerated), it's certainly worth bringing to light. Can you imagine being a priest for fifty years and then having someone come out of the blue to say that you abused him or her three decades before -- and you didn't?
It certainly is enough to keep men out of the seminary.
But that's hardly to downplay the crisis. Not since the Middle Ages (or the Russian Orthodox Church during Communist rule) has the Church seen such a demonic infiltration. That's the other way the devil has worked -- infiltration -- and for five years now, we have carried as many stories about such abuse charges as nearly any major Catholic news site. We have not tried to hide it.
For it has been nothing short of a disaster. And it keeps rolling on. Just last month, 44 priests were implicated in the Philadelphia area (of events since the 1950s) and this month Oakland had to shell out $56 million in claims -- about half what some dioceses elsewhere have had to pay.