The Ottawa Citizen
July 15, 2010 9:06 AM
The international wave of forgiveness that washes over Roman Polanski, film director and sexual predator, raises an intriguing question: What if Polanski had been a Roman Catholic priest?
Not so many years ago, pedophile priests, too, were spared from imprisonment, and even from going to trial, because a powerful, well-connected group of elites watched over them — not the cultural elite, who have been advocating for Polanski, but the church elite, who once wielded substantial social influence. Priestly abusers would undergo a period of mock-repentance and rehabilitation, but in the end they often went on to other parishes and other victims.
Thankfully, that has now changed. Consider this week’s news that an 80-year-old Ottawa priest, Rev. William Joseph Allen, has been charged with several acco