your witness

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jul 20, 2005

From Cleveland this time. The story "that will never happen again," again.

At the heart of the lawsuit is a 1981 sexual assault by the Rev. F. James Mulica, pastor of the Chapel of the Divine Word in Kirtland, against a then-14-year-old boy named Christopher Kodger. The diocese paid the victim $45,000 and agreed to keep Mulica away from children. But within four years, Mulica was reassigned to St. Jude Church in Elyria, and later to Holy Redeemer Church in Cleveland -- both of which had schools. ...

The Kodgers' attorney William Crosby grilled [Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla] from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., with a one-hour break for lunch. Crosby accused Pilla of lying when he denied transferring priests accused of sex-abuse to other parishes, and when the bishop said he never read the statement released to the media regarding Mulica.

OK, maybe Pilla "dictated" the press release and never actually read it. Maybe he "re-assigned" priests accused of sex-abuse instead of transferring them. There might be some sense in which Crosby is wrong to accuse the pastor of Cleveland's Catholics of lying. But if so, that sense is far from obvious from the news stories, and it would expedite The Healing Process™ were the Diocese to explain, in cold public prose, how exactly Crosby is in error.

Update: It seems the attorney meant what he said.