Archbishop Carlson & Strategic Amnesia

By Rod Dreher
American Conservative
June 11, 2014

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/archbishop-carlson-strategic-amnesia-philip-lawler/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=archbishop-carlson-strategic-amnesia-philip-lawler

Catholic journalist Phil Lawler is disgusted by Archbishop Robert Carlson’s cowardly, butt-covering testimony in a child abuse deposition. Carlson said, under oath, that in the 1980s, when he was serving as an auxiliary bishop in Minnesota, he wasn’t sure that adults having sex with kids was a crime. Excerpt from Lawler’s column:

Is the reputation of the Catholic Church improved by the fact that, yet again, an archbishop has been quoted as saying things that most people find impossible to believe? How could things have been worse, if you had simply told the unvarnished truth to the best of your ability, and admitted what everyone already knows?

For nearly 15 years now, we beleaguered lay Catholics have been subjected to the painful spectacle of watching our Church leaders make implausible statements, feign ignorance, deny responsibility, and fight to prevent disclosure of damaging testimony. That strategy has always failed.

Enough! The paltry defenses, the dog-ate-the-homework excuses are an embarrassment to the Church. Stop it! If you don’t know the truth, if you aren’t prepared to testify to the truth, then you aren’t fit to be a Catholic bishop. If you can’t be a credible witness, resign!

Phil’s not going to like this clip from the same deposition. In it, the lawyer reads from the 1986 deposition of a then-Bishop Watters, who testified that Bishop Carlson had advised him in advance of the deposition on a clerical child sex abuse case that “the best thing you can say is ‘I don’t remember.’” Carlson, now an archbishop, said he doesn’t remember if he ever said that, but he doubts he did: