NATCHEZ (MISSISSIPPI)
Natchez Democrat
March 24, 2019
By Kevin Cooper
Mississippi Catholics finally did something they’ve been asking parishioners to do for centuries — a full confession.
Last week the Jackson Diocese released a list of 37 priests and others affiliated with the church in Mississippi that had been credibly accused of sexual abuse against children.
Of those 37, 30 were accused of abuse during their time in Mississippi and seven were accused of committing abuse elsewhere.
Six names on the list had served in the Natchez community in the past. Nearly all of the alleged abuse had occurred decades ago, some as long as 80 years ago.
The church deemed a reported abuse as credible only after an internal, independent review board had completed an investigation.
After literally decades of denial that a problem with sexual abuse at the hands of priests existed at all, the Catholic Church has come a long way to opening up, letting some light be shed on the problem and beginning the healing process.
In making things public the church did the right thing. Further, they went above and beyond by providing the complete history of abusers dating back so many years.
Beyond that, though, the church did something churches typically don’t like to do — it apologized.
In what likely came as surprise to many, Bishop Joseph Kopacz, who leads the Jackson Diocese, publicly apologized for the church’s secretive way of handling these things in the past.
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