ST. LOUIS (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave
Kevin O’Brien
Most of us, I imagine, read our emails backwards. That is to say that when a bunch of emails pile up in our inboxes, they are usually arranged from most recent to least recent. This is like reading Chapter Ten of a novel, then reading Chapter Nine, and so forth.
The Riverfront Times has an article on Archbishop Carlson and his history of handling claims of abuse. One of the very helpful things the RFT does is to embed on their website the original documents related to the issues they are reporting. And so you can bypass any possible lax reporting or media spin by going to the source. This was particularly helpful in the Bishop Finn case. I still have readers, for example, who are quite rightly concerned about how the media tarnishes the Catholic Church by reporting half-truths, but who don’t realize that in this internet age, and especially in the Bishop Finn case, original source documents are available (i.e., the Graves Report and the Stipulation of Testimony). And apparently the Pope has recently stirred up concern with an interview that few people are bothering to read, relying instead on media reports. But its full English translation can be read at America Magazine.
So it’s more possible now to go to the source than it ever has been.
And the source the RFT provides (which I’ve embedded below) is really rather stunning. For the effect of reading them from page one to page five – which is chronologically backwards – is jaw dropping.
These documents aren’t really a reflection on Robert Carlson personally as much as they are on the unbelievably stupid and careless way the Church in the U.S. has been handling abuse. Yes, there’s the really awful fact that Carlson focuses on the potential bad publicity this case might bring the archdiocese, while exhibiting a more tepid concern over the suffering of the victim. Still, Carlson’s most recent memo is written in an attempt to remove the perpetrator (Fr. Tom Adamson) from ministry – which is indeed what ended up happening. But there’s something worse than that revealed in these three documents.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.