PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change
Guest blog by Gerald T. Slevin, retired lawyer.
After 16 years of Catholic schools, followed by Harvard Law School, where he worked as a law student for Archibald Cox, the Watergate prosecutor, Gerald Slevin practiced law for over three decades at the Wall Street law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
Barely twelve months ago, the Philadelphia Archdiocese’s Cardinal Rigali emphatically, but artfully, denied he had any active priest with “admitted or established ” allegations of child sexual abuse. This misleading statement was in the face of (1) the second devastating Philadelphia grand jury report on his watch describing a widespread priest pedophile conspiracy, and (2) the multiple criminal indictment of the former top priest personnel chief for the Archdiocese.
By Spring, Cardinal Rigali, under intense public scrutiny, reversed himself by suspending 21 priests on suspicion of abuse. Their fates still remain mainly unknown.
By Summer, the Cardinal’s Child Abuse Review Board lay chairwoman was accusing him of materially misleading her about priests suspected of child abuse.
By Fall, the pope apparently declined to give Rigali more time in Philadelphia by accepting his resignation and replacing him with Archbishop Chaput. Archbishop Chaput promptly threw a private party for Philadelphia priests, where he led the cheers for the indicted priest personnel chief and several of the suspended priests present at the party.
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