Mississippi

By Fr. Wilson ( articles ) | Jun 05, 2003

It is good to get away from the dreary subjects of Boston and Dallas and Phoenix. Let us turn our gaze to the proud pearl of the South, Mississippi, which I refer to as "the Nietzsche State" only because every time I have to spell it I have to look it up. We get to Mississippi and we find-- oh, well. Bernard Law.

In this little chestnut, we find that church attorneys mistakenly sent to alleged victims' attorneys documents they were not required to disclose. Victims' attorneys read these documents and sent up a howl, claiming that they reveal that allegations of sexual abuse have been leveled against three times the number of clergy the Diocese had admitted. They also claim to read in these documents that Bernard Law knew back in the 1960s -- far earlier than he had admitted -- of the epidemic of clergy sexual abuse.

Church attorneys, getting to the heart of the issue, react quite properly. They want the documents back, saying, "You're not allowed to have those."

Perhaps it was a mistake to meander to Mississippi. Tomorrow, we might try sauntering to Savannah or waltzing to Walla Walla, WA. It doesn't sound as though anything untoward could be going on in Walla Walla.

We'll avoid, just on principle, the Diocese of Gaylord...