MICHIGAN
Battle Creek Enquirer
SAMANTHA PEARL, GUEST COMMENTARY January 16, 2016
Editor’s note: Samantha Pearl, a Battle Creek resident, parishioner at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church with children attending Battle Creek Area Catholic Schools, wrote this in reponse to a letter from Monsignor Michael Osborn, vicar general at the Diocese of Kalamazoo. It is posted here with her permission.
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With all due respect, this letter is an outrageous response to an already inflammatory situation.
Let us look at the information available to us: the Kalamazoo Gazette article, the Battle Creek Enquirer article, the investigative article published by the Minnesota Public Radio. This man has been accused of improprieties by almost a dozen seminarians and two fellow priests.
He has been accused of protecting and relocating Curtis Wehmeyer, the priest who confessed and was convicted of raping two young boys. He has been accused of failing to report sex crimes, giving extra payments to priests who admitted abusing children, keeping some abusers in the ministry, and choosing not to warn the public or the parishioners most directly affected.
Investigators have provided sworn statements that he withheld information and impeded the investigation into the Diocesan handling of sex abuse cases in his Diocese. His Diocese settled three cases with victims of child sex abuse at the hands of priests under his watch. His Diocese is the first in the United States to be indicted for its role in covering up sex abuse scandals.
Two auxiliary Bishops in his own Diocese traveled to Washington to bring the situation to the attention of the Pope’s ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, and to ask for an intervention.
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.