When the Catholic Church is caught in another pedophile and sexual abuse scandal, you can count on the usual "sorrow and shame" expressions from the hierarchy, coupled with some denials of knowledge and gestures. You can also count on the sinister and ultra-right wing "Catholic League" (not affiliated with the church) to mount a counter attack against the victims of the abuse.
The multi-decade sexual assault scandal among the Catholic clergy that unfolded in Pennsylvania -- thanks to a courageous state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and an ethical grand jury -- is further damning evidence that the Church has protected hundreds of rapist priests over decades, usually allowing them to move on to other parishes and victims. But don't tell that to the disgraceful, dishonest head of the aggressively reactionary "Catholic League," Republican hack "Sweaty" Bill Donohue, who issued a ridiculous "rebuttal" to the detailed, 18 month-long grand jury's findings, claiming that it was full of "errors." We can imagine his "evidence" was the result of his pain-staking investigation over many, many....minutes.
In a separate broadside, Donohue defended Washington's Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who was Archbishop of Pittsburgh during many of the scandals, for his role in reassigning criminal priests but not reporting them to the civil authorities. Wuerl, who has served as a willing prop for photo-ops to con man and hedonist Donald "Rump" Trump, is regarded as belonging to the traditionalist, conservative wing of the Catholic Church hierarchy, as many of his positions would indicate:
"In 2009, the Council of the District of Columbia passed a same-sex marriage bill. In November 2009, Wuerl signed an ecumenical statement, known as the Manhattan Declaration, calling on evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage, and other practices that go against their religious consciences. [snip] In the debate on the D.C. same-sex marriage bill, the Archdiocese of Washington advocated for religious liberty [Ed., i.e. discrimination] provisions that would protect the Church's ability to provide social services (e.g. adoption) in accordance with Catholic teaching on marriage. After the Washington Post characterized the archdiocese as giving an "ultimatum" to the city and the New York Times called it a 'threat', Wuerl wrote a letter to the Post stating there was 'no threat or ultimatum to end services, just a simple recognition that the new requirements by the city for religious organizations to recognize same-sex marriages in their policies could restrict our ability to provide the same level of services as we do now.'" (our emphasis)This obscene, recurring criminal activity within the Catholic Church won't go away until there is a massive exodus from the Church, and until the abusers and their enablers are brought to justice.
