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isabella R

Interview - Bishop Donald Kettler | The Silence | FRONTLINE | PBS - 0 views

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    Since 2002 he has served as bishop under the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks. As part of the diocese's legal settlement with sexual abuse survivors, Kettler traveled to the villages of St. Michael and Stebbins in December 2010 to apologize on behalf of the church. This is the edited transcript of two interviews;
isabella R

New Catholic Times :: News Articles :: Two from Daniel Maguire - 0 views

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    Most Catholic Bishops are "Moral Heretics" and When Religion is a Refuge for Scoundrels: 'Ryan Budget' Edition In simple truth, most of the American "Catholic" bishops are in schism.They are moral heretics. Because of their undisguised embrace of the Republican cause and their opposition to President Obama's modest health care plan, they are not "good news for the poor" (Luke 4:18) as Jesus defined his mission, not "good news" especially for poor children, not "good news" for those whom God has made gay, not "good news" for the sick and the elderly, not "good news" for that trinity of persons that the Hebrew Bible (Jesus' Bible) had an obsessive concern for, "the orphans, widows, and immigrants," and not "good news" for the "peacemakers" whom Jesus called "God's children." (Matt. 5:9)
isabella R

Bilgrimage: From the Blogs: Bishops' "Religious Liberty" War, Attack on Nuns, and More - 0 views

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    The bishops claim liberty for themselves, and for the large institutions they control, while also fighting to restrict the liberty of others with respect to abortion, emergency contraception, and same-sex relationships.
isabella R

Catholic bishops -- religious liberty, religion's shame | StarTribune.com - 0 views

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    Instead of being viewed as weak, they're flexing their ecclesiastical muscles politically in hopes of being seen as strong. Don't buy it. This summer, when bishops are claiming to be victims of a political system that has trampled on their religious rights, take a moment to remember that they had to be publicly humiliated 10 years ago into taking action to protect children from predaory clergy.
isabella R

Bishop Accountability - 0 views

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    Cardinal Roger Mahony's projected himself as leading a charge to clean up the Roman Catholic sex scandal. Now, like Boston's beleaguered Cardinal Bernard Law, his dismal record of protecting predator priests has come back to haunt him.
isabella R

Bilgrimage: Shepherds, Sheep, Listening, Caring: More on the Santa Clara Conference on ... - 0 views

  • About the serious damage they did to me, to Steve, to my mother.  About my heart and soul. Bishop Curlin did not even respond to those repeated requests.  Not until I sent him a letter telling him that I doubted he would treat a rich and powerful man as he was treating me.  Then and only then, I received a communication from his young priest-secretary telling me I had been disrespectful to say such a thing to a bishop.
isabella R

Enlightened Catholicism: Bishop Morlino Threatens A Wisconsin Parish With Interdict - 0 views

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    It's hard to believe the desire for altar girls and lay Eucharistic ministers and some lay input into decisions effecting the parish is enough to bring on the threat of interdict.  This is all about the use of naked power and who has it and who doesn't.  As now as it ever was, forever and ever. Amen.
isabella R

Father Geoff Farrow: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." - 0 views

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    "In the writings and speeches of Catholic bishops and evangelical leaders in recent months, "religious freedom" has come to mean something close to its opposite. It now stands for "religious privilege". It is a coded way for them to state their demand that religious institutions should be allowed special powers that exempt them from the laws of the land.
isabella R

Victims say bishop hinders prosecution - SNAP - 0 views

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    Bishop turns in Priest for abuse but does everything to make him look falsely accused;RESULT -At earlier court hearings, dozens of Ojeda's supporters filled the courtroom, said they disbelieved the charges and released helium balloons to "celebrate" the admitted predator's release on bail. WHILE VICTIMS "LEARN" THE "LESSON"...A TOTALLY NEW STRATEGY---UNBELIEVABLE
isabella R

America Magazine Fixing the System That Put Monsignor Lynn in Jail - 0 views

  • In this elite environment there are few priests who are willing to oppose the   bishop’s wishes for fear of falling out of favor
  • “You keep the rules and the rules will keep you.”
  • A great sign of success for a priest is to be invited to join the Diocesan   Curia, the bishop’s circle of collaborators in the administration of the diocese. The position of Vicar for the Clergy, the post held by Lynn from1990 – 2002, is just such a sinecure.
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  • “You keep the rules and the rules will keep you.”
    • isabella R
       
      "You keep the rules and the rules will keep you."
  • Camaraderie is strongly impressed upon priests. We often refer to our fellow priests as our brothers. The fact is that we do have a real dependency on each other since we do not have an immediate family of our own.
    • isabella R
       
      THIS is the sticking point of what the celibate culture creates....it has nothing to do with sex....it has everything to do with being so cut off from the whole community--its kind of a Stockholm Syndrome....you end up believing you have no choice but to go along with what you are told or you will be out in the cold with nothing, no one, homeless, friendless......and that is the harm of celibacy. "Camaraderie is strongly impressed upon priests. We often refer to our fellow priests as our brothers. The fact is that we do have a real dependency on each other since we do not have an immediate family of our own. "
  • Priests rely on each other for acceptance, for sharing the work load and even living arrangements. If a priest deems any of these to be inadequate or unjust he may be, rightly or wrongly, labeled a malcontent or a problem. This perception can follow   him throughout his priesthood.
  • Very often a priest, may have some very serious concerns, yet simply “Go   Along to Get Along.”
  • Because a priest’s circle is often limited to fellow priests his vision may   also be limited. Therefore, if there is a problem, in certain cases, the advice he receives from them does not always come from fresh or unbiased eyes. Defense mechanisms can also easily set in; denial, rationalization and silence for self preservation.   As one wizened old priest said about speaking up or speaking out, “Who needs the aggravation?
    • isabella R
       
      So many parallels to the cycle that results in families that are imprisoned by domestic violence....how could he do what he did?  If you can answer that you will have the answer to the age-old question "why do women stay with men who clearly will end up killing them." "Because a priest's circle is often limited to fellow priests his vision may   also be limited. Therefore, if there is a problem, in certain cases, the advice he receives from them does not always come from fresh or unbiased eyes. Defense mechanisms can also easily set in; denial, rationalization and silence for self preservation.   As one wizened old priest said about speaking up or speaking out, "Who needs the aggravation?"
  • Therefore, I make the following suggestions:
    • isabella R
       
      NOTherefore, I make the following suggestions: First, that Diocesan Pastoral Councils be given greater prominence in dioceses. This group is comprised of clergy, consecrated religious and laity elected by the people of the diocese. Second, that Diocesan Boards of Consulters (BOC), a canonically established group of priests who advise the bishop on administrative matters, include men and women religious and laity. Presently the BOC is comprised of a representation of   priests chosen by the bishop who are elected by their peers to serve on the Diocesan Presbyteral Council (Priests' Council). Third, that the priests and lay people of the diocese have recourse to the BOC in areas of   concern.... NO, NO, NO, AND NO.....IT IS ALREADY BEEN PROVED OVER AND OVER AGAIN THAT IT CANNOT BE HANDLED IN HOUSE.....YOU DON'T SEND THE PATIENTS WITH A LITTLE EXTRA "MORAL SUPPORT"EXPECTING THEM TO SUDDENLY BECOME A COHESIVE, EFFECTIVE TEAM OF DOCTORS....IT'S NOT MAGIC. ROOT OUT THE WHOLE INFECTION...ANTI-BIOTIC....NOTE THE ANTI-TOTALLY OTHER....EVEN VACCINES ARE MADE FROM A DEAD VIRUS
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    "You keep the rules and the rules will keep you."
isabella R

Ugandan Bishops Push Notorious Anti-Gay Bill | Religion Dispatches - 0 views

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    The Uganda Joint Christian Council, which includes Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox bishops, has called on parliament to move the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill forward. According to the Ugandan newspaper The Daily Monitor:
isabella R

Bilgrimage: About Those "Non-Partisan" Stand Up Rallies Yesterday: One Reporter's Analysis - 0 views

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    It was a political event. A Republican politician was a featured speaker. Republican political operatives were on hand and sent out photos, such as the one above. Republicans called the roll on which Republicans were in attendance and Democrats who were not. Obamacare and abortion were much on the minds of the attendees. Catholic Bishop Anthony Taylor got a noticeably cool response when he mentioned the government's ill treatment of immigrants. Taylor, whose advocacy for immigrants was once a foundational interest, has become more engaged in sexual politics of late, and not just the all-out fight against contraception. He also recently punished a vital Latino assistance group because of its tangential relationship to an out-of-state organization that believed help to immigrant families should include those headed by same-sex parents.  In short: Friday's rally was primarily about people who want to defeat President Obama's health care policies and defeat Obama in the fall. A non-existent attack on religion was the bloody shirt.
isabella R

Cover story -- Philadelphia: Shining light on a cover-up - 0 views

  • “They needed someone with my talent for drudgery.”
  • Molloy met victims in a small office on the 12th floor of the archdiocese’s Center City headquarters, which was located across the hall from the cardinal’s large office and a few doors down from the “Secret Archive” records room. The secretary for clergy, Msgr. Bill Lynn, was also present. One of the men would take notes while the other conducted the interview. To avoid giving the impression that the accused priest might be guilty, Molloy said he and Lynn were instructed not to treat complainants with excessive sympathy or compassion.
  • We were functionaries, auditors,” said Molloy. “Our job was to interview the victim and the accused priest, then write up a report for the archbishop. We didn’t have marching orders to do anything other than that.”
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  • One of the earlier cases Molloy handled was that of Fr. Nicholas Cudemo.
  • Cudemo already had numerous allegations and subsequent reassignments on his record. Molloy told the latest victim that although he still had to talk with Cudemo, he had “no reason not” to believe her. He assured the victim the cardinal would suspend Cudemo if he contacted her family. Upon learning of his remarks, Molloy said, Cullen verbally reprimanded him for “overreaching.
  • The Cudemo case was when I truly realized that I couldn’t be sure that I could trust my superiors to do the right thing,” said Molloy. “So I decided to operate in a manner that would eliminate the need to trust anybody.” Molloy said he then went into “hyper-documentation” mode, taking great pains to make his files to Bevilacqua and Cullen as detailed as possible. At the time, he said, it was the best contribution he felt he could make to the situation, to history. If it all blew up one day -- and he was pretty confident it would -- he wanted as detailed a record as possible to exist. If his superiors were making the correct decisions in handling the abusers, they would be happy to have his reports. If his superiors were making the incorrect decisions, then his reports would help explain what went wrong.
  • “I wanted my memos to be there,” he said, “if the archdiocese’s decisions were eventually put on the judicial scales.” He was also motivated by self-protection.
  • Molloy said he never contemplated calling the press, alerting parishioners or contacting the authorities.
  • “The archbishop was still the archbishop,” he said. “He deserved the benefit of the doubt.”
  • Two of Gana’s victims informed the archdiocese of their abuse in the early 1990s.
  • In filing his report to Bevilacqua, Molloy strayed from his usual recitation of the facts and injected his own bit of advice, suggesting to the cardinal that a “forensic psychiatrist” examine Gana. In Molloy’s eyes, offering this common sense suggestion was some type of bold, defiant course of action. He was, he said, a “frustrated messenger.”
  • The secrecy surrounding the complaints had become too much for him. “It had gotten to the point where I felt like I was working for the CIA instead of the church,” he said.
    • isabella R
       
      Spade sat at the prosecutor's table, listening as another attorney asked Lynn to identify for the grand jury a batch of documents detailing the transfers of dozens of abusive priests. It was as if the courtroom had become an arena for the unimaginable. Fr. Nilos Martins, who in the mid-1980s was the assistant pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord in North Philadelphia, invited a 12-year-old boy, Daniel, up to his rectory room one Saturday afternoon to watch television. The priest ordered the child to undress and then anally raped him. Spade listened as Daniel, now a Philadelphia police officer, testified that as he cried out in pain, the priest kept insisting, "Tell me that you like it." When the priest was done, he gave Daniel a puzzle as a present and told the boy to get dressed and leave.A few days later, Daniel returned to the church to serve Mass as an altar boy. The pastor, Fr. John Shelley, had learned of the attack from a teacher Daniel confided in. He informed Daniel that he was no longer welcome as an altar boy. Word of the attack then spread through the parish school. According to his testimony, one of Daniel's teachers, a Sr. Mary Loyola, began to refer to him as Daniella, prompting laughter from the rest of the class. When Daniel begged his teacher to stop, she gave him a demerit."I can't be sitting here listening to this," thought Spade. "I must be imagining what I'm hearing." The names of the victim and Sr. Mary Loyola were changed for the report.
  • “I washed my hands of the place,”
  • There is John Delaney, who explained how the priest who began raping him when he was 10 years old made him believe that his own mother consented to the abuse.
  • “I’ve harbored this feeling toward my mom for going on 20 years,” Delaney testified, “only to come to find out the other night that it wasn’t true. She had no idea. She had absolutely no idea. I’ve been hating her for 20 years for no reason whatsoever, and that’s not right. That’s my mom.”
  • ome of the testimony is so shocking Allen wishes she could forget it as quickly as she heard it. “These were just babies, 9 or 10 years old,” said Allen. “And to think they had to live with the fear of this happening day after day and not knowing if it would ever end. It was heartbreaking.
  • Allen was shocked that the archdiocese didn’t conduct more serious investigations when allegations arose. Most times, if the accused priest denied what happened, that was good enough for the archdiocese. “They were feeding these kids to the wolves,” she said.
  • Lynn explained, was not only having sex with children. He was also sleeping with women, abusing alcohol and stealing church property. “You see,” said Lynn, “he was not a pure pedophile. Otherwise he would have been removed.”
  • “It must have fallen through the cracks.” “We all just gasped at that,” remembered Allen. “It was sickening.”
  • Bevilacqua as “arrogant and cocky”
  • “He would ignore every question and answer with the same refrain of ‘Our main concern was the safety of the children.’ It was angering because it was obvious that his main concern was protecting his priests and the church.”
  • Bevilacqua testified in front of the grand jury a total of 11 times. “You could tell how annoyed he was at having to be there,” said Allen. “His tone, his mannerisms, they never changed. He was always cold. And every time it was the same thing of ‘I’m the cardinal and I’m telling you our main concern was for the children.’ ” Allen wondered how someone could be in a position of power all those years and never do anything to stop the evil being committed against those children. “In the end,” she said with a sigh, “I guess he knew that regardless of what he did he’d always have people supporting him.”
  • In his final act as assistant vicar for administration, Molloy requested the alarm code to the records room be reprogrammed and that all the locks and combinations to the filing cabinets and safes be changed. He wanted to make sure no one could ever accuse him of coming back to steal or alter the reports he had written.
  • Fr. Nilos Martins, who in the mid-1980s was the assistant pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord in North Philadelphia, invited a 12-year-old boy, Daniel, up to his rectory room one Saturday afternoon to watch television. The priest ordered the child to undress and then anally raped him. Spade listened as Daniel, now a Philadelphia police officer, testified that as he cried out in pain, the priest kept insisting, “Tell me that you like it.” When the priest was done, he gave Daniel a puzzle as a present and told the boy to get dressed and leave.
  • A few days later, Daniel returned to the church to serve Mass as an altar boy. The pastor, Fr. John Shelley, had learned of the attack from a teacher Daniel confided in. He informed Daniel that he was no longer welcome as an altar boy.
    • isabella R
       
      This was never an anti-Catholic project. It was just something that needed to be done."
  • According to his testimony, one of Daniel’s teachers, a Sr. Mary Loyola, began to refer to him as Daniella, prompting laughter from the rest of the class. When Daniel begged his teacher to stop, she gave him a demerit.
  • He found himself becoming overprotective and paranoid about his own children’s safety. “I was dealing with all these cases where kids were betrayed by those they were taught to trust the most,” he said. “I was like, ‘My God, you can’t trust your children with your friends, teachers, or even other family members.’ I don’t think it’s healthy to be like that.” From the very beginning of the investigation, public relations spokespersons connected to the archdiocese condemned the probe as an anti-Catholic witch-hunt. The Catholic-bashing talk became a running joke among investigators. Three of the five frontline investigators were Catholic. “I was raised Catholic,” said former prosecutor Maureen McCartney. “I had 12 years of Catholic school. My family is very Catholic. It is a big part of my life. This was never an anti-Catholic project. It was just something that needed to be done.”
  • The investigation allowed Spade an opportunity to meet the noted Jesuit canon lawyer Ladislas Orsy
  • Over lunch, the Jesuit delivered a long discourse on how the general attitude of the Vatican, as well as the local hierarchy in Philadelphia, was to save the “institution” from scandal while the biblical precept to protect children went largely ignored.
  • “I was learning about canon law and the rituals and history and tenets of the Catholic faith,” he said. “And I found myself being drawn to it.” He began attending Mass. Spade would discuss his feelings with his wife, Karen, a lapsed Catholic. “I would tell her how I really liked the faith and she would say, ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re seeing what this institution has done to these kids and you’re saying you like it?’ And I’d say, ‘No, I don’t like the institution but I like the faith, I like the intellectual and spiritual part of it.’ “It’s funny,” he continues. “We were all being bashed as being anti-Catholic and here I was defending the church to my own wife, who was Catholic.
  • Once, while going over old documents, Spade had asked him, “Father, you’re such a nice guy, how could you have been a part of this? I mean you had to know what you were doing was wrong.” “He didn’t have any real answer,” recalls Spade, “other that it was his job and that he was trained to be obedient to his cardinal.” When it is all done, when the report is finally released, a single sentence on Page 41 will distinguish Molloy from others who participated in the handling of the complaints. It reads, “Molloy displayed glimpses of compassion for victims.”
  • He believes the scathing tone of the report was due to the investigators’ anger over the archdiocesan attorney’s “hardball tactics.”
  • “I look back and say what happened was insufficiently protective of the welfare of children,” Molloy said. “But I don’t want to say there was a lot of badly motivated men trying to conspire to achieve a cover-up.” As for his own regrets, he said, he wished he had shown more compassion, offered more assistance to the victims he encountered. “I regret that very much,” he said. “More than anything.” He said he sat down numerous times to write letters offering assistance to John Salveson, the president of the Philadelphia Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP. He said he wanted Salveson to know he would meet with the victims with whom he had had contact “to try to answer any questions they had about the way things had developed in the diocese with their cases.” But he never finished the letters.
  • I had to hesitate in the end because there is the possibility of lawsuits being filed down the road, and I did not want to create a situation which would be construed as an attempt to manipulate people’s opinion.”
  • At the time of the interviews with this writer, which occurred during the final three months of Molloy’s life, he said attendance at St. Agnes was strong and collections were increasing. “People have been supportive and understanding.” “After all,” he said. “I wasn’t the one making the decisions. I was just a frustrated messenger.” Would he have done anything differently? “I suppose that I would like to think that there could have been more insistence on my part that some of these perps could have been dealt with more severely.” Or maybe, he said, “I would find some polite way of convincing the archbishop that it would not be good for me to accept appointment to a position in such an office of the central administration.” But in the end, he said, “My job now is the same as it was then. To do the assignments I get from my bishop to the best of my ability.”
  • No mention was made of Molloy’s cooperation with the grand jury investigators. “I’m disappointed nothing was said about it,” Spade said after the funeral. “After talking with Molloy for a long time, I believe he was a good and decent man who was a product of the church he had committed his life to. I think he realized mistakes had been made and would have liked people to know that he helped get the truth out.”
  • “I’m beginning to believe it [the investigation] will amount to nothing more than just a scathing report which will set out in detail the way the archdiocese through Krol and Bevilacqua allowed child abusers to continually abuse children without removing them from their ministries.” “Prophetic, huh?” he asks now.
  • There was also another major obstacle to prosecution. Because of the way the archdiocese is set up legally, as an “unincorporated association” rather than a corporation, investigators realized that a loophole in Pennsylvania law most likely protected church officials from being prosecuted for crimes such as endangering the welfare of children, intimidation of victims and witnesses, and obstruction of justice. In short, Pennsylvania law did not seem to hold Bevilacqua or other church officials responsible for “the supervision of children.” Only the individual priests who committed the abuse could be prosecuted, but they were almost all protected under the statutes of limitations.
  • ivision developed within the district attorney’s office on how to proceed. Some believed the office should indict Bevilacqua and other church officials in the hope of creating new precedent. Others within the office viewed indictments as irresponsible and unlikely to succeed, given the narrowly defined laws. They feared failed indictments would tie the investigation up for years, which would delay them from releasing a detailed report, create sympathy for church officials, and open the office up to even more accusations of Catholic-bashing than the archdiocese was already hurling at them. “That’s where we had arguments,” said Spade. “On whether or not we should try and push the envelope.” Spade was among the most vocal calling for indictments.
  • “When someone is harmed, there should be retribution,” he said. “I thought that’s why we have a legal system.”
  • He still occasionally attends Catholic Mass and he and his wife have decided to send their children to a Catholic grade school in the Philadelphia suburbs run by the Sisters of Mercy but not directly associated with the archdiocese. “That was important to us,” said Spade. “We liked the ideal of service and charity that the sisters instill in the children, but we did not want any school that was actually run by archdiocese officials.
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    Fr. Nicholas Cudemo.
isabella R

Bishops Play Church Queens as Pawns - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York recently told The Wall Street Journal that only "a tiny minority" of priests were tainted by the sex abuse scandal. But it's a global shame spiral. The church leadership never recoiled in horror from pedophilia, yet it recoils in horror from outspoken nuns
isabella R

Taking on Bishop Morlino - Isthmus | The Daily Page - 0 views

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    It's hard to believe the desire for altar girls and lay Eucharistic ministers and some lay input into decisions effecting the parish is enough to bring on the threat of interdict.  This is all about the use of naked power and who has it and who doesn't.
isabella R

Following is the text of the settlement agreement between Paul J. Marcoux, Archbishop R... - 0 views

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    http://www.misconductinlatrobe.com/the-prophet/ This was in November 1992, long before a scandal over such abuse would erupt nationally, yet Weakland felt too much attention had been paid to the issue. He declared that sexual abuse by priests had "become almost a preoccupation in our society" and that "priests need to be reassured by the entire Catholic community that they are loved and supported." Only one sentence in the 800-word column acknowledged the victims: "My heart goes out to all victims and I am sincere in saying that the Catholic community wishes to do what is right in helping those so affected to regain full and productive lives." The column hit Isely hard. Brought up as a devout Catholic, Isely seemed destined to join the clergy. Isely had attended St. Lawrence, a seminary prep high school where he was sexually abused. Although he ultimately abandoned his dream of the priesthood, he was still a practicing Catholic who attended Mass weekly. He had tried to put the abuse behind him and consciously avoided stories on the subject. "I turned away when something was reported on television," Isely says. "I wanted to put it all behind me." But after reading Weakland's piece, Isely went immediately to his computer and wrote a response. "In a moment, I knew what I had to do," Isely recalls. "I hoped I could prod Weakland to take the lead in the church" and take on the clergy abuse issue. Journal Editor Sig Gissler received the response from Isely and decided the newspaper would run it the following Sunday, again on Page One. "We checked his credentials," Gissler recalls. "He was a psychotherapist and had a divinity degree from Harvard." And his "open letter to Weakland" was compelling. Isely called on Weakland and the church to not only banish the abusers but confront the culture that allowed the abuse to occur. "Root out the priest sex offender, yes; but also root out, when necessary, any attitude
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