Former Police Detective: Department Had ‘Marching Orders’ Not to Arrest Catholic Priests

BUFFALO (NY)
Law and Crime

May 20, 2019

By Jerry Lambe

A general view of a mass for a canonization ceremony of Pope Paul VI and the martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican, on October 14, 2018.

A police department received “marching orders” not to arrest Catholic priests but to instead alert the bishop’s office to any potentially illegal activities involving the priests, according to former a Buffalo Police Detective. This policy “only extended to Catholic priests.” “If we caught clergy from other religions, we arrested them,” he said.

Former vice squad Detective Martin Harrington and other retired Buffalo PD officers revealed this an explosive story published Sunday by Buffalo News. The interviews come just months after the Buffalo Diocese publicly identified 80 priests whom it determined were credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a minor, a number that would soon inflate to over 100.

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