The news is full of lament, grief, and relief over the release of documents detailing the Archdbishop cover up of abuse and the Archdiocese hiding of the abuse. I call Bullshit. The documents were ordered to be released by court. It was not volunteered. The internal action by the church occurred over duties to be performed after retirement. The church waited until retirement and court action to suddenly feel repentant. The issue before was the abusive priest was so loved by his flock that when his wrongdoing  was proven, even many of his flock did not believe it and wanted him to continue his duties. Such is the horror of indoctrination, inculcation, loyalty, and bias against admitting wrong.

The only thing over which the church feels repentant is they couldn’t handle the issue themselves, which would have meant more secrecy, more cover up, more rotation of abusive priests, and more isolation from justice. I suspect the claim would be he was just obeying orders, following the culture of his work environment. Then put the church in jail including him.

“Unprecedented” ? No one has been charged with wrongdoing. Yeah, that is status quo. The church threw a bone and the public treats it like a seven-course meal with whine, uhh wine.

Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of the Los Angeles Archdiocese disciplined his predecessor, the now retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, after a California judge forced the archdiocese to release about 12,000 pages of church documents revealing how it handled allegations of abuse.

There were 192 priests and bishops named in litigation, the archdiocese said.

“The cases span decades,” Gomez said in a statement Thursday.Some go back to the 1930s. The documents were released on the archdiocese’s website.

“But that does not make them less serious. I find these files to be brutal and painful reading,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the newly-released set of documents, spokeswoman Jane Robison said. No member of the Los Angeles church hierarchy has been charged with any wrongdoing, she said.

Throw them all in jail! Put them all on the sexual offenders lists published on the Internet. Make them serve countless hours of community service. Don’t let them vote like any other common federal criminal. That would be unprecedented!

Jim Newman, bright and well

www.frontiersofreason.com