Local Perspective: Abuse Investigation Focuses Too Much on Catholic Priests | Chroniclers

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Almost 18% of the total of the 258 allegedly “founded” GA victims were based simply on a note in the Church file of a self-proclaimed estimate made by a single deceased priest … who suffered from Parkinson’s disease and probably a common related symptom of dementia. , and which, it is true, only reared up with college students. However, the GA put everything in the same bag.

Even a provable allegation of child sexual abuse brings heartbreaking sadness, and even lesser misconduct causes great discouragement. Most Catholics I know are happy that the Catholic Church was forced to clean the house. But this should not be limited to the Catholic Church.

The GA report reinforces the very false impression that this is only a Catholic problem. Not by far. Child sexual abuse is widespread in all institutions that deal with large numbers of children. But there is a deafening silence from the GA office on a full investigation into one of these other institutions.

The elephant in the room is that the AG’s investigation appears to be just another intentional public attack on the Catholic Church. If so, the conduct of the AG is grossly inappropriate for a law enforcement official: first, to pursue an already beaten target, and only one, with a huge expenditure of public funds; second, by writing a report that does little more than republish a worn out, mostly past scandal; third, to do both knowing in advance that there is no legitimate law enforcement objective.

Matt Heffron is an Omaha litigation attorney for the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based, national nonprofit law firm dedicated to the defense of religious freedom.

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