MIAMI (FL)
Miami Herald
By Ana Menendezamenendez@MiamiHerald.com
The headquarters of the Archdiocese of Miami enjoys the kind of security that would shame a medieval fortress. Thursday, Ann Brentwood tried and failed to breach the ramparts.
Brentwood, a member of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, was trying to deliver a message to Archbishop John Favalora: Stop blaming the victim.
''It is really down and dirty and unfair and reprehensible,'' she said.
When a Catholic priest was arrested and charged with raping a boy, the Archdiocese initially responded with prayers. But the comfort of faith seems to go only so far in a soulless, litigious society. So a few days later, church leaders unveiled their legal strategy: The boy, who was 10 at the time, could be accountable for ``his own negligence.''
Is irony one of the deadly sins? The Catholic Church that so efficiently blessed millions of schoolchildren with everlasting guilt now hesitates before its own mea culpa.