NEW YORK, NEW YORK, March 17, 2002: The New York Times continues with nearly an article every edition on the pedophile scandal within the Catholic Church. Some excerpts from today’s long article. “In a financial settlement reached earlier this year, the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland agreed to pay the equivalent of $110 million to compensate thousands of victims of molestation in church-run schools and child care centers over most of the last century.” … “The sexual abuse scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church, far from being nearly over, has only begun. Across the country, in an effort to restore credibility, many dioceses after another is volunteering to turn over its records to prosecutors. The news media daily are exposing new cases of priests accused as pedophiles and new reports of cover-ups. Already, the scandal has traumatized the church’s faithful, demoralized the clergy and threatened the hard-won moral authority of its bishops. It has brought down a bishop, removed dozens of priests and tarnished the nation’s preeminent prelate, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston. But the real extent of the impact on the church’s life, status and future is only now becoming clear. In a startling step, the official Catholic newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston, said in an editorial on Friday that the Catholic Church must now confront questions and commission studies about whether the celibate, unmarried, all-male priesthood should be continued.” … “Distrust of the church hierarchy could drive some to abandon the church. Peggy Morales, who lives in East Harlem, sends her children to parochial school and attends Mass on Sunday, said she was having second thoughts about a weekly habit engrained since childhood. ‘I always said going to church was setting the right example for my kids,’ she said. ‘Now I am just so glad my son has never been an altar boy.'” … “Church lawyers settled what plaintiffs’ lawyers estimate were as many as 1,000 lawsuits, paying victims anywhere from a few thousand dollars to millions each.” … “Within weeks [of the Boston case], bishops across the country began purging their dioceses of priests who had been serving despite accusations of child abuse. Since January, at least 55 priests in 17 dioceses have been removed, suspended, put on administrative leave or forced to resign or retire. They include at least 6 priests in Philadelphia, 7 in Manchester, N.H., 2 in St. Louis, 2 in Maine, 1 in Fargo, N.D., and as many as 12 in Los Angeles. Thus far, the 17 dioceses that have publicly announced the ouster of priests represent a small percentage of the nation’s 194 Catholic dioceses.”
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