UNITED STATES
Hamilton and Griffin on Rights
Look at how they distance themselves.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I can’t help it: Sometimes, I feel sorry for the public relations professionals who advise church officials on how to deal with clergy sex crimes and cover ups.
How do you defend the indefensible? You may be the smartest PR person in town. But how do you “spin” widely-documented and clearly devastating decades of deliberate deceit? Decades of callousness and recklessness that have caused horrific harm to more than 100,000 children (according to estimates by Catholic “experts” themselves)?
Well, these PR folks have settled on a standard formula they’re convinced works. It can be summed up as “Deny, duck, dodge and distance yourself.”
And it’s pretty clearly that church officials LOVE this approach.
It’s evident in how quickly bishops shout “He’s not our guy!” when a Franciscan or Marianist is caught molesting in their diocese. It’s evident in how quickly Jesuit staff say “He’s not one of us!” when a diocesan priest is arrested for abusing a child at a Jesuit facility.
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