Catholic Civil League for Religious and Civil Rights website
July 29, 2011
Catholic League president Bill Donohue sent the following letter today to Dr. Mary Jane Doherty, a Regis College professor who heads the Boston Review Board; a copy was also sent to Cardinal Sean O’Malley:
I read the letter you received from BishopAccountability urging you, in your capacity as Chairperson of the Boston Review Board, to disclose the names of accused priests in the Boston Archdiocese, all of whom are reportedly dead. I am urging you not to do so. This issue has nothing to do with “healing”; rather, it has to do with politics.
In recent years, the due process rights of Roman Catholic priests have been trashed with regularity, but this demand represents a new low. BishopAccountability is so thoroughly biased against the constitutional rights of priests that it has the audacity to point fingers at the Boston Review Board because it objects to the Board’s finding that 45 percent of the cases that were initially reviewed were found wanting. Had you found 100 percent of the cases meritorious, you would have been congratulated. This proves, beyond a doubt, that BishopAccountability has an agenda that reaches far beyond simply maintaining archives.
No other organization, secular or religious, posts the names of accused employees, much less ones that are dead. To state the obvious, they are not available for cross examination. Moreover, to have one standard for priests, and another for everyone else, is not only discriminatory, it is despicable.
Carry on your fine work, and rest assured that most Catholics believe in a uniform standard of justice.
Contact: staff@BishopAccountability.org
Wow! This is a bit of an over-reaction I’d say. I have linked the letter which has so riled Bill Donohue.
BishopAccountability has done inavaluable work creating a data base. And Bill Donohe comes out swinging? because – given the Cardinal’s past promise of transparency and in light of the mishandling of the findings of a grand jury in Philadelphia – they have asked the Boston Review Board to clarify the status of allegations in two civil complaints, specifically ” those that allege criminal behavior by a cleric whose name is still unknown to the public”?
In light of the messes and cover-ups, a reasonable request.
I assume the email address for bishopaccountability is tacked on at the bottom to encouarge people to give the BishopAccountability people a piece of their mind? I guess it could also be used to give them a word or two of support 🙂
.