JERSEY CITY (NJ)
Jersey Journal
March 7, 2019
The Catholic church’s release of the names of 188 New Jersey priests with credible accusations of child sexual abuse against them, the defrocking of former Cardinal McCarrick and the summit at the Vatican on a range of sex abuse scandals should give us comfort that the church is heading in a good direction.
But, it’s not. Instead, we’re left feeling hollow and jaded.
Maybe it’s because every day we could go to the Hudson County courts and see biological fathers, uncles, family friends, former teachers and others in prison jumpsuits, handcuffs and shackles being sentenced for the most vile of crimes against the innocents in their care. Yet, it is excruciatingly rare to see a priest in that position.
The New Jersey list – like the Pennsylvania one before it and the Brooklyn one after it — only confirms suspicions that the church has long dealt with what should have been civil matters in-house, and it did so poorly at that.
Beyond that, telling us that scores of dead men were predators is no comfort. And telling us about living predators for whom the statute of limitations on many crimes has run out is cruel. Not telling us about other predator priests because they are involved in active litigation cuts the most deep.
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