ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune
David Rutter
In 2005, this was a snippet of Bishop Joseph Imesch’s then-sealed sworn deposition detailing two decades of child sexual abuse by Joliet Diocese clerics under his management:
Imesch: “As far as I can remember, I think (priest) Gary (Berthiaume) admitted to me that he had done it before the conviction.”
Lawyer for abuse plaintiffs: “If he had told you that he had committed the offense against the child, isn’t that evidence of the crime?”
Imesch: “That’s a job for the police. I’m not going to get involved in that. That’s not my responsibility. … I’m not going to say, ‘Hey, police, go check on my priest.’ ”
This is a terrible sin’s haunting indifference, which, despite settlements under duress, the Catholic Church still can’t expunge from its ecclesiastical collar. The blood of innocents does not wash off so easily.
Imesch is dead two weeks now. The church found no way to bury his deeds, except to ignore them.
Imesch fought for a decade to shield his secrets, as he had protected known abusers, and decried the court’s bad manners for ultimately revealing them.
So many children. So many hideous wrongs left unpunished.
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