Editorial: Cover-Up! Navy Must Not Let Shame Threaten Security, The Examiner, December 14, 2007

Editorial: Cover-Up! Navy Must Not Let Shame Threaten Security

The Examiner
December 14, 2007

http://www.examiner.com/a-1104712~Editorial__Cover_up__Navy_must_not_let_shame_threaten_security.html

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - If an enemy agent secretly infected our military personnel with a deadly disease, we would investigate, prosecute and punish him to the maximum. We would spare nothing to help the victims. And we would examine whatever flaws in our defense system allowed the attack.

Why is that not happening in the case of Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, 42, officer since 1988, priest since 1993, chaplain since 1996 and Naval Academy chaplain 2003-06?

He admitted to endangering an unknown number of servicemen through often predatory sexual contact when he knew he was infected with the HIV virus. He plea-bargained a potential life sentence and actual 12-year sentence for forcible sodomy and aggravated assault down to 19 months by promising to reveal as much as he knows about the identities of partners.

Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, 42,seen under a jacket, is escorted in shackles from his general court martial Thursday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va. The HIV-positive Navy chaplain from Virginia has been sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to forcible sodomy and other charges.
Photo by Jacquelyn Martin

Since when does a criminal get to hold hostage our servicemen to cut a deal?

Lee joined the Navy, became an officer and a chaplain — and apparently had numerous sexual contacts — during a time when the armed forces imposed strict prohibitions against homosexuality and sexual exploitation of any kind.

Obviously, those policies failed. He became a chaplain and was one of only about 1,000 under the 10-year command of Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, now archbishop of Baltimore. Yet O'Brien claims he knew nothing about Lee until June when the Navy filed charges against him, even though Lee tested HIV-positive in 2003.

The official Navy position is that no accusations against Lee existed prior to the June investigation.

Both statements are hard to believe. But if true, they prove a threat far greater than one aberrant officer.

Lee flagrantly violated his oath for almost two decades in what may be thousands of sexual encounters during a time when the military and Roman Catholic Church claimed to impose the strictest scrutiny of and discipline against such behavior.

Yet he remained an officer and priest in good standing. The Navy and O'Brien awarded him the U.S. Naval Academy chaplaincy — not only the most prestigious post, but most likely to provide him vulnerable prey.

How did this happen? Why did the system fail?

We the People deserve answers from our Navy. Catholics deserve answers from their church.

Families who send sons and daughters into harm's way must be assured they are not betrayed.

A deadly deceiver slipped through security. Had he been an enemy agent, he would face extreme interrogation and a firing squad. Yet he gets a cover-up and a plea deal.

Open investigation and full disclosure is what we need for national security as well as honor.