There is a particularly disgusting story out of Houston involving that city's archbishop, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who is also serving as the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. As such, DiNardo is responsible for the Church's response to the sexual abuse scandal permeating the institution. But when it came to his deputy Monsignor Frank Rossi's sexual affair with a wealthy parishioner, DiNardo reassigned him to a different parish and stonewalled the victim and investigators. To add to the perverse behavior, the victim of the abuse, Laura Pontikes, was milked out of roughly $2 million in donations to the archdiocese while being abused by Rossi (Pontikes and her husband own a successful construction business in Houston). Rossi was also hearing Pontikes' confessions during their affair, something punishable by excommunication for the priest.
Three years ago when Pontikes brought her allegation directly to Cardinal DiNardo, the Cardinal feigned sympathy and revulsion and promised to remove Rossi from the priesthood. Instead, he shifted Rossi to an adjacent parish where he continues to perform his clerical duties. When confronted by the victim's husband, DiNardo vowed an aggressive legal defense that would hurt them and their business.
The ugly, but entirely predictable irony is that DiNardo will be leading a meeting of U.S. bishops next week in Baltimore:
"...DiNardo will lead a meeting next week in Baltimore to address the church’s credibility crisis over its failure to fully reckon with sexual abuse, 17 years after it committed to cleaning house. DiNardo is expected to present his brother bishops with new proposals to hold one another accountable for sexual misconduct or negligence in handling abuse cases." (emphasis added)The rot of sexual abuse and predatory clergy in the Catholic Church hasn't been dealt with swiftly and firmly, much less honestly. On the contrary, despite the lip service paid to seeking justice for the victims of abuse, the Church's modus operandi is to offer sympathy, to relocate the offender, to exhibit self-righteous defensiveness, and inaction.
(photo: Rossi at his new gig, possibly eyeing candidates for his "spiritual direction." AP photo by Wong Maye-E)
