UNITES STATES
Raw Story
By Nancy Goldstein | RAW STORY COLUMNIST
In a sign of the rich cultural interchange wrought by our global economy, this month’s Chutzpah Award goes to…the Catholic Church.
A report from the Philadelphia grand jury released earlier this month is just the latest of 11 investigations into dioceses in the last three years. Like those that have come before, it finds that leaders at the highest levels of the church concealed the sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests for decades. Rather than expose themselves to expensive lawsuits or negative publicity, they kept abusive priests active, often moving them from parish to parish, and hid their crimes from the public, parishioners, and the police.
In addition to documenting assaults by more than 60 priests, the Philadelphia report alleges a cover-up by the late Cardinal John Krol, the former archbishop of Philadelphia, and his successor, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqu, who “retired” in 2003.
A series of technicalities makes it impossible for the perpetrators of these crimes or those who covered up for them liable. No charges can be brought against a diocese because it is “an unincorporated association rather than a corporation.” In other cases, statutes of limitations have lapsed.