Cardinal Bevilacqua's Capabilities

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Feb 01, 2012

You've probably already read in our news story that Cardinal Bevilacqua died yesterday at the age of 88, literally days after a Pennsylvania judge ruled once again that he was perfectly capable of giving testimony in the Philadelphia sexual abuse investigation. Considering the state of his health and the fact that he suffered from dementia, this in itself was remarkable.

But something even more remarkable was reported by David Pierre, author of two excellent books on priests falsely accused of sexual abuse. Pierre runs the Catholic Media Report, which seeks to expose anti-Catholic bias in the media.

Anyway, in this case he noticed that in a media statement for the victim advocacy group SNAP, president David Clohessy strongly implied that Cardinal Bevilacqua was faking his illness and memory loss to avoid giving testimony.

Overkill, perhaps? Later the next day, the Cardinal was dead.