‘trust Us,’ Said the Bishop

By Rod Dreher
American Conservative
August 4, 2014

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trust-us-said-the-bishop/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trust-us-said-the-bishop

A Catholic reader in south Louisiana sent me over the weekend this story about how Bishop Michael Jarrell of Lafayette, La., is refusing to release the names of abusive priests that the diocese settled lawsuits against. In particular, Jarrell won’t release to the local newspaper, the Daily Advertiser, investigation on a diocesan priest who had been accused in the 1990s of sexual abuse, but who was recently discovered by Minnesota Public Radio, in a powerful report about the connection the grotesque 1980s abuse case in Lafayette has to Minneapolis’s current agony, to be pastoring a Lafayette parish. Excerpt:

Jarrell told The Advertiser on Wednesday the allegations against the priest still serving were investigated and found to be unsubstantiated.

The Advertiser asked Jarrell to release the Diocese’s investigation file or report on the priest still serving in order to clear his name and show the public the allegations were investigated properly.

Jarrell responded through [diocesan spokesman Msgr Robert] Greene that retired Bishop Harry Flynn conducted the investigation in 1992 and the police were not involved.

There’s no record that Flynn or any other investigators met with the alleged victim, Greene wrote. There’s very little in the file and no report, he said.

Abbeville attorney Anthony Fontana Jr., who represented some priest abuse victims, told The Advertiser this week that Flynn told him the priest had gone away for treatment and been “cured.” The priest had been accused of sexually abusing a boy and making advances toward adult males.

Greene said in response to our questions that medical information about personnel is confidential, but that the priest “has never been sent by the Diocese for treatment for pedophilia.”

The connection to Minneapolis is that the Vatican sent in Bishop Harry Flynn to clean up the mess in Lafayette. He launched his episcopal career on the reputation he built for taking care of business in Lafayette. He later became archbishop of Minneapolis. According to the MPR report, Flynn’s reputation was a sham, built largely on public relations.

The Catholics of Lafayette have no reason to trust their diocese’s word in this matter. In particular, the MPR report shows why there is absolutely no reason to trust the integrity and truthfulness of Archbishop Harry J. Flynn in the Lafayette matter. More institutional cover-up means an even greater loss of trust. As an outsider, all of this is a fascinating, if troubling, example of how men who run bureaucracies serve to deconstruct their authority, both personal and institutional. It is simply bizarre to me to thing that in 2014, bishops think this kind of thing is going to succeed. But who knows? The reader who sent the item wrote:

I am seeing all the voices of Catholic orthodoxy in Lafayette rally behind Bishop Jarrell, and perhaps there is credible reason to believe in the innocence of the singular priest prompting the Advertiser’s report. Still, this policy of the diocese is indicative of a culture of abuse.

Is there anybody who can make a credible case for why the diocese is acting appropriately in this case? I’m not trolling; I’d really like to hear the best argument for the bishop keeping this information secret. It looks like he doesn’t want the laity to know that the diocese has been saying one thing in public, but doing something different in private. I have no way of knowing if that’s true, but in context, the optics are terrible. If I’m wrong here, please help me understand why I’m wrong.