Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Cardinal O'Connell was indirectly to blame for clerical pedophilia mess anyway



Weep not; it was merely the tomb of a bishop
who, by being a good administrator,
mysteriously and unintentionally abetted 
lying by other bishops
long after he himself was dead


       


Which means demolishing the chapel in which the Cardinal was buried was actually a fine thing

That's according to the Jesuits' "America" magazine.   Boston College, a Jesuit institution, did the demolishing.

"America" doesn't claim that Cardinal O'Connell  knew of, deliberately overlooked, engaged in, or in any way approved of clerical pedophilia, for the very good reason that there is no evidence for any of that.  Instead, "America" approvingly echoes the argument that it was the Cardinal's "tremendous success as an administrator" which led, in an unexplained way, "to the episcopal mendacity which has so eroded the archdiocese."  Sounds like, in "America" 's view, it wasn't so much the clerical pedophilia itself as the lying about it by bishops that caused all the problems.  And Cardinal O'Connell was such a good administrator he made it easy for bishops to lie about clerical pedophilia many decades after he was dead.  No, that doesn't make sense to me, either, but that's "America"'s argument.

If that's the best justification they could come up with for demolishing a chapel, the Jesuits are in worse moral condition than even I thought.

And, in case you were wondering for what urgent purpose Boston College would demolish a chapel; the demolition was done to make room for a parking lot.  Imagine the lengths they'd go to build a dormitory.

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