BishopAccountability.org
	California Bishops, Law Professor Clash By Matt C. Abbott Renew America [California] October 19, 2006 http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott/061019 As reported by the Catholic News Agency, the Catholic bishops of California have publicly criticized America magazine and attorney/law professor Marci Hamilton for a "recent article on clergy abuse in the United States." According to the CNA story, "the bishops describe Hamilton as 'one of the most vociferous and bitter critics of the Catholic Church' and state that America magazine just provided her with 'a forum to publish a new plaintiffs' brief.'" The bishops assert that Hamilton's article "is skewed and not based on evidence." In response the bishops' statement, Hamilton sent the following (slightly edited) letter to America: To the editor: There is little need to respond to Bishop Chaput's or Fr. Blaire's responses to my article, 'What the Clergy Abuse Crisis Has Taught Us' (Sept. 25), because their specious objections to child abuse legislative reform were anticipated and rebutted in the article. Suffice it to say that the Church continues to be the primary obstacle to legislative reform to protect children from childhood sexual abuse. I would, however, invite Fr. Blaire to be more specific when he says that my book, God vs. the Gavel, 'makes extravagant claims . . . that are not sustained by the evidence.' I welcome hard evidence that might prove my claims wrong, because my primary goal here is the truth. The truth is that the Church's primary goal in litigation across the country has been to suppress public disclosure of the ugly secrets in its files. He should know this since the battle has been waging for years in California. If he has evidence that he would like to share publicly that would rebut any aspect of my argument, let him show it. If all he has is the John Jay Report, and empty claims that it's all better now, then he is just perpetuating the obfuscation that has been the Church's primary weapon in the public square. If everything is all better now, perhaps he could explain how a child could be abused in Chicago in late 2005 by a predator already known to the hierarchy; or in Miami at the same time; or how a bishop in southern California could fail to report a known predator to the police. As I said in my first www.findlaw.com column after the Boston Globe revealed the hierarchy's cover-up in 2002, the Church has only one way to redeem itself, and that is to get behind legislative reform for children. Sadly, the hierarchy and its lobbying arm, the Catholic conferences, seem utterly incapable of making children, and not the institution, their single-minded focus.
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