UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register
by JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND 06/05/2014
Twelve years have passed, but Father Roger Landry, a Fall River, Mass., priest, vividly remembers then-Bishop Seán O’Malley weeping during a meeting with his priests as he recalled the stories of victims of clergy abuse.
At the time, Bishop O’Malley was preparing for the 2002 Dallas meeting that would approve a landmark “zero tolerance” policy for priests credibly abused of child sexual abuse. Bishop O’Malley had come to Fall River in 1992, in the wake of a scandal involving a serial clerical predator, James Porter.
“As he was recalling what some of the victims of Father Porter had told him, he started to weep so profusely that he needed to excuse himself for several minutes,” Father Landry told the Register.
“The sexual abuse of minors in the Church was never an ‘issue’ for him that he could approach in a detached way. It had a human face — in fact, many human faces — and affected him viscerally,” Father Landry added.
“He approached the sexual-abuse crisis in the Diocese of Fall River as a spiritual father and human being, not litigiously,” Father Landry said.
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