David Clohessy & Barbara Dorris: Springfield’s New Bishop Must Reach out to Clergy Abuse Victims

By David Clohessy
Daily Hampshire Gazette
June 23, 2014

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We take strong issue with comments on abuse made last week by the new head of the Springfield diocese.

For several years, Bishop Thomas Rozanski, previously an auxiliary bishop with the the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland, has served on the Committee on the Protection of Children and Youth overseen by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

That body has been virtually worthless. It has done little or nothing about the absolute bare minimum and has focused far more on public relations than abuse prevention.

Last week, as media in the Valley reported, Bishop Rozanski claimed that being on the panel “has taught me first of all about the importance of reaching out to victims and survivors acknowledging their pain.”

This is disingenuous. Bishops keep pretending that they didn’t “understand” abuse until recently and that their carefully crafted cover-ups were somehow well-intentioned “mistakes” when they were, we believe, deliberate decisions to protect church officials instead of innocent children.