BishopAccountability.org
	Questioning Cullen's Philadelphia Role Unfair By John F. Lushis Morning Call March 14, 2011 http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourview/mc-bishop-cullen-lushis-yv-0315-20110314,0,1883150.story Recently, The Morning Call and, specifically, reporter Matt Assad, painted a picture that was critical of retired Allentown Diocese Bishop Edward Cullen for purportedly "shielding" a priest while Cullen served in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The criticism was based on the findings outlined in a Jan. 21 grand jury report by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Regrettably, in their haste to render judgment, The Morning Call and Assad failed to report essential information. This failure was exacerbated by the cowardly efforts of the current Allentown Diocese hierarchy to distance itself from Cullen. The acts of the priests, as graphically detailed in the grand jury report, are horrific and the cover-up by church officials was reprehensible. These officials must be held fully accountable. This includes Cullen if he was guilty of any criminal wrongdoing, but he was not. The reader, however, would not know this from The Morning Call's Feb. 19 story. In the 124-page grand jury report, Cullen's name appears four times within the space of one page concerning a memo he wrote in 1993 stating that a congregation should be told a priest resigned for health reasons rather than molesting a minor. What Assad failed to emphasize is that Cullen was not involved in reassigning any of the accused priests nor did he lie to law enforcement officials or otherwise obstruct justice. The headline that Cullen "shielded" a priest created a false impression. To the contrary, the grand jury report states that "it is clear that the secretary for clergy was acutely interested in shielding abuse clergy." Cullen was not the secretary of clergy. Cullen's "offense" was instructing a parish priest to carry out an announcement policy established by Cardinal Bevilacqua, who Assad failed to state is a civil lawyer licensed to practice in Pennsylvania and on whose input Cullen could justifiably rely. What Cullen did is not a crime. The real reason — for example, alcoholism or sexual misconduct — someone has been dismissed from a position is often not disclosed. Assad and the grand jury further fail to discuss the impact of publicly announcing to a congregation of adults and children at a Mass that a parish priest resigned because he molested a minor. Assad's Feb. 19 story quotes Tasha Jamerson of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. Assad claims Jamerson stated the reason charges would not be leveled against Cullen is because the statute of limitations has expired. This clearly implies Cullen committed a prosecutable offense. But while the last section of the grand jury report recommends that individuals be prosecuted, Cullen is not mentioned and the report does not even suggest that Cullen should be prosecuted if the statute had not expired. Clearly, the grand jury determined he committed no criminal wrong. Jamerson is not an attorney but is a former news reporter who was rewarded with the director of communications job for the DA's office after helping Seth Williams win election to that office. Whether Jamerson even read the grand jury report is unclear, and in e-mail communications I sent to her, she has not yet acknowledged that she did. In a Feb. 26 story, Assad and fellow reporter Peter Hall discuss Bishop Cullen's comments at a recent confirmation ceremony in Bethlehem and in a story that again critically portrayed Cullen. They even quoted a disgruntled attendee. Yet, they failed to report — as I've been told — that Cullen received a standing ovation from the congregation for his remarks. (Editor's note: The Morning Call's sources said there was applause for the children, not for Cullen's remarks.) Over the past several years, the media have leveled an incredible amount of justifiable criticism against the church for clergy abuse and subsequent cover-ups. At the same time, however, the media have virtually ignored the numerous cases of abuse by non-Catholics even though documented. The media also have virtually ignored the abuse by others, most notably the abuse of children by public school teachers and employees, as documented by the U.S. Department of Education, even though substantially more extensive than clergy abuse. The reason is that much of the media find abhorrent the church's non-politically correct positions on issues such as abortion. In its efforts to continue these attacks on the church, The Morning Call made Bishop Cullen, an excellent bishop who dealt head-on with clergy abuse in the Allentown Diocese, a "victim." He deserved better.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.