For almost a year now we’ve been hearing that the Church protected pervert priests and shuffled them around. And that is true. But what we don’t hear outrage about is the complicity of others in the coverups. According to this Boston Globe article, the Archdiocese of Boston had help covering up the arrest and court case of a priest arrested on Cape Cod in 1985 for “performing a sex act with another man.” It doesn’t say, but there must have been some illegality involved such as sex in public or prostitution or something.
In handwritten notes and a typed memo, Bishop Daniel A. Hart reported that the Hyannis police chaplain told church officials ‘‘to keep away. ... Police have assured him.’’ In a second note, Hart wrote, ‘‘We can keep it from public. ... Prosecutor has pulled papers.’’ And in a third note: ‘‘Assured [hearing] will be in judge’s chambers and nothing will be done in public.’’
The chaplain, Hart wrote, ‘‘indicated that as a result of `connections’ and the cooperation of the clerk, there was no publicity about the hearing this week.’’ The church records show the case was continued without a finding and that McMahon later left the priesthood. In 1991, the archdiocese received complaints that he had molested three boys in one family during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So here we have at least the police, a prosecutor, a judge, and clerk of the court conspiring to keep the incident quiet. And later on this same guy was accused of having molested kids. Where’s the outrage? Where are the pickets outside the courthouse and the police station? Where is the Globe Spotlight Report on the “Crisis in the Justice System?” Or is only the Church worthy of such house cleaning?
I don’t deny that the Church desparately needed to have the stables cleaned out, but it seems there’s a double standard at work here.
