USA Today
September 29, 2009
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2009/09/roman-polanski-sexual-abuse-priests-catholic-church/1
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In January 2002, The Boston Globe ripped the lid off decades of hidden sexual abuse of minors by priests with its coverage of egregious offenders who were protected by their bishops. Across the country, thousand of victims and predatory priests were revealed. Some priests went to jail, many others were drummed out of ministry.
Which bring us to Roman Polanski, luminary of the film world.
If he were a priest, not an Academy Award winner, who admitted having intercourse with a 13-year-old girl and then skipped the country to avoid prison, there would be howls of outrage on every editorial page, says Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center, in his column for On Faith.
Reese runs through the arguments by Polanski's defenders:
They say the girl was willing and sexually experienced and she has forgiven him (after receiving a settlement). They even cite his tragic childhood and life as an excuse. And besides, it is ancient history.
Such arguments from pedophile priests would be laughed out of court and lambasted by everyone, and rightly so ... It is the role of the court, not the victim, to decide who goes to jail and for how long.
DO YOU ... agree with Reese? Is there a double standard? What about those bishops, Catholic celebrities, who sheltered abusive priests? Should they have been prosecuted?
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