The
McCormack Conundrum
Bp.
McCormack is taking the precaution of
catering to pro-homosexual media and academic
opinion
as a means of assuring that the Globe won't put out a contract on him .
It's
very simple.
The
picture that is emerging of the situation in Manchester is one of a
breakdown
in episcopal governance as serious as in Boston, albeit on a
Manchester
scale.
Interstingly
enough, the Boston Globe reports today on McCormack as follows:
QUOTE
1994
and the Boston Archdiocese was being deluged with complaints that
scores
of its priests had sexually molested hundreds of children.
But
the Rev. John B. McCormack, then the top church official handling the
complaints
for Cardinal Bernard F. Law, insisted on shielding the identities
of
accused priests from unsuspecting parishioners - despite the repeated
pleas
of his top aide who fielded complaints about more than 100 priests.
In
five days of pretrial testimony released yesterday, McCormack said that
he
and a small group of church officials, including the chief legal counsel
for
the archdiocese, decided to keep the names of accused priests secret
''to
avoid scandalizing people about the sexual abuse committed by clergy.''
McCormack,
now bishop of the Manchester, N.H., diocese, said he knew the
decision
ran counter to a recommendation by the National Conference of
Catholic
Bishops that the church be forthright with parishioners. He also
said
the decision was made after Sister Catherine E. Mulkerrin, his top aide
and
the church official who had the most contact with victims, told him he
should
inform parishioners about accused priests - parishioners who might
have
children in harm's way.
McCormack,
who was in charge of drafting Law's 1993 policy for managing
complaints
of clergy abuse of minors, conceded in deposition testimony that
the
decision he and other church officials made to keep the identities of
accused
priests secret ran counter to guidelines of the bishops' confrence,
which
urged officials to ''deal as openly as possible with the members of
the
community.''
Asked
if he had ever discussed with Law the decision to keep the identities
of
accused priests secret, McCormack said, ''Not that I recall; I don't
think
so.'' McCormack also said that in the years he served as Law's
secretary
for ministerial personnel, from 1984 to 1994, the protection of
children
was never defined as a ''first priority'' but was ''a matter of
concern.''
Law,
in his own deposition testimony, has repeatedly described the
protection
of children as a top concern.
UNQUOTE
Was
Bernard Law crucified by the Globe for the sins of John McCormack?
Did
Cardinal Law take the fall out of a misdirected sense of honor and
clerical
omerta?
Can
McCormack's handling of his own local pedophile problem in Manchester be
seen
as a continuity of how he handled the pedophilia problem in Boston as
Law's
deputy?
Where
are the Orthodox Catholic Woodward/Bernsteins, now, that we need them ?
But
there is key difference.
Law
made enemies over the years (the Globe, the Unitarians, etc). Bp. McCormack
is
taking the precaution of catering
to pro-homosexual media and academic
opinion
as a means of assuring that the Globe won't put out a contract on
him
too. You
people may well have a mini-Law on your hands, but McCormack
will
get a free pass, with a little help from his new friends.
Stand
your ground and keep up the good work.
Regards,
Fenwik
Mail
will be FWD to Fenwik through the mail link below :