BishopAccountability.org
	Church Abuse, Gay Marriage, Dominated Mass. By Mark Pratt Nashua Telegraph December 26, 2009 http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/statenewengland/499895-227/church-abuse-gay-marriage-dominated-mass.-news.html BC-MA — Decade’s Top Stories-Mass, ADV26,0922 Church abuse, gay marriage, dominated Mass. news Eds: This item moved previously as an advance and is now available for use. With BC-MA — Decade’s Top Stories-Mass-Glance BOSTON (AP) — As a local story it was shocking enough — a Roman Catholic priest suspected of molesting children had been shuttled from parish to parish by church officials rather than reported to law enforcement. The news in January 2002 that John Geoghan hadn’t been brought to justice following hundreds of allegations that he abused children was simply the start of a story that developed into a national and international scandal that sent tremors all the way to the Vatican. The clergy sex abuse scandal, like many of the top news stories of the decade in Massachusetts, had repercussions felt well beyond the borders of the state, and in some cases, are being felt to this day. In the past 10 years, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and the first state to pass a law mandating that everyone have medical insurance. Massachusetts was the launching point for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York, sparking two wars still being fought. The specter of terrorism reared its head again in 2002 when a British citizen, Richard Reid, who later claimed to be a follower of Osama bin Laden, was arrested in Boston after trying to ignite explosives in his shoes on a Paris-to-Miami flight. He was subdued by crew and passengers and sentenced to life in prison. Earlier this year, the arrest of a world renowned black Harvard University scholar in his home for disorderly conduct by a white police sergeant responding to a possible break-in sparked a nationwide debate on race relations that went all the way to the White House. The state also lost the patriarch of the most storied families in American political history, when U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer in August. Still, for Boston College historian Thomas O’Connor, the church sex-abuse scandal had the most impact of the state’s stories this decade. Following the first revelations about Geoghan, thousands of people stepped forward in the next few years to accuse hundreds of priests of sex abuse, costing American dioceses millions of dollars in legal settlements and disgracing high-ranking church officials, including two Massachusetts bishops. For decades, mostly Catholic government leaders had dared not question the church. That then changed, as they started to be more concerned with constitutional law than canon law. “With civil rights and sexual equality, that was slowly building up, but the explosion came with the release of the information regarding sexual molestation,” O’Connor said. The seismic change in that dynamic was in evidence when Massachusetts became the first state to approve same-sex marriage. Many Catholics, including top state leaders, supported gay marriage in direct opposition to the church’s position on homosexuality. The state Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry, and after contentious debate and legal challenges, the first gay marriages were performed in May 2004. In the years since, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont have started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and New Hampshire joins them as of Jan. 1. Some other states, however, passed constitutional amendments defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. Among the decade’s other top stories, Boston’s massive $15 billion Big Dig highway project was for years rife with accusations of cost overruns, graft, shoddy construction, and seemingly interminable traffic headaches. The problems came to a head one summer’s night in 2006 when ceiling panels in an underground ramp fell onto a car, killing the passenger. Milena Del Valle’s death changed what for some had become a running joke into a public safety panic. Then Gov. Mitt Romney ordered a “stem to stern” review of the project’s tunnels that uncovered more problems. What ensued was a series of lawsuits and successful attempts to recover millions of dollars from the project’s contractors. The decade also saw two Massachusetts politicians run for, and fall short, in their bids for the presidency. Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry won his party’s nomination, but lost to the 2004 election to incumbent George W. Bush. Republican Gov. Romney fell short in his quest for the GOP nomination eventually won by Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2008. The state also saw its share of horrendous crime in the decade. Michael McDermott, an employee of a high-tech company, was convicted of gunning down seven co-workers on the day after Christmas in 2000 because he was angry his wages were being garnished to pay back taxes. Earlier this year, prosecutors alleged that Philip Markoff, a clean cut medical student from New York, was actually a predator, suspected of killing a masseur in a Boston hotel room he had contacted through the Craigslist Web site and assaulting two others. Massachusetts also elected its first black governor, Deval Patrick, while two consecutive state House Speakers, Thomas Finneran, and Salvatore DiMasi, resigned amid federal corruption charges. The first decade of the millennium was also a period of unprecedented success for the region’s pro sports teams. The New England Patriots won three Super Bowls; the Boston Red Sox ended an 86-year championship drought by winning the World Series in 2004, then did it again in 2007; and the Boston Celtics won their first title in 22 years. Not all the sports news was good. Former Red Sox great Ted Williams, perhaps the greatest hitter in the history of baseball, died in 2002.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.