Archbishop Flynn speaks on sex abuse

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Mar 31, 2003

AP reports:

Flynn, speaking Saturday at Siena College, his alma mater in upstate New York, said critics still are talking about bishops who shuffled priests from parish to parish.

"This is not an accurate or fair characterization of the bishops' actions in the last decade," Flynn said.

Even if it's true that American bishops haven't shuffled abusive priests around "in the last decade"-- a questionable claim-- it remains absolutely clear that such shuffling took place in the past, and equally clear that to this day bishops are hiding the evidence of that shuffling. Why shouldn't people still talk about it?

Not all cases have been handled well, he said.

"Apparently, we may have assumed too much, to judge by people's reactions to finding that some abusers were still in ministry, even if they had been treated, their abuse now seemed firmly in the past, and they were offering effective service," he said.

So the problem is that bishops didn't properly anticipate "people's reactions."

Archbishop Flynn, by the way, chaired the committee that drafted the new nationwide policy for the American bishops. You know: the policy that was designed to address that "problem."

They still don't get it....