Pedophile Enablers Continue to Enable Pedophiles

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about the Pedophile Enablers (aka the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts respectively.) Well there I was this morning, looking through the news sites as I do, when I saw this article at the Lexington Herald-Leader about a priest who had been removed because of sex abuse allegations yet was basically allowed to remain in place with no one actually monitoring him or his actions:

Five years after church officials ordered Carroll Howlin to stop functioning as a missionary priest in southeastern Kentucky, leaders of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., received a letter from a suburban pastor that illuminated just how little the diocese had done to enforce its own protective measures amid a crippling sex abuse scandal.

Howlin, an avuncular-looking priest who moved here more than 30 years ago, had been suspended in 2002 after he was accused of molesting a teenage boy — the second of four such allegations he would face in his career. The Joliet diocese later substantiated claims involving two other victims, including one who committed suicide at 17.

Church officials removed Howlin from public ministry, but otherwise left him alone in Kentucky with a $1,100-a-month pension. He was allowed to continue living in this community where he once helped run the Good Shepherd Catholic Chapel, providing food, clothing and other social services.

...snip...

Joliet Bishop R. Daniel Conlon believes the diocese has handled the Howlin issue correctly, Dwyer said. Conlon, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, has met the diocese's obligation to inform the public of Howlin's circumstances by issuing a press release in 2002 and listing his name among priests with substantiated allegations on its website, Dwyer said.

I checked a little further when I realized the article had originated with the Chicago Tribune.

They. Just. Don't. Get. It.

I did a quick check of der Google using "sex abuse Chicago archdiocese" and got a return of 349K items. The first few headlines:

1. From wiki: "Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago"
2. From Huffington Post November 2011: " Daniel McCormack Sex Abuse: Chicago Archdiocese To Pay $3.2 Million To Another Victim"
3. From Catholic News September 2008: "Chicago Archdiocese to pay $12.6 million to 16 sex abuse survivors"
4. From Chicago Sun-Times April 2013: "2 men sue Chicago archdiocese, allege priest molested them in ’60s"
5. From Chicago Tribune March 2013: "Files detail decades of abuse in Joliet Diocese"

Yes, that would be the same Joliet Diocese whose Bishop Conlon in the first article of this post is said to believe "...the diocese has handled the Howlin issue correctly" (quote is of the article, not of Bishop Donlon.)

Bishop Donlon, I do beg to differ. The church removed Father Howlin in 2002. It is fairly obvious that removing him, placing his name on a list somewhere, and leaving him with no supervision is probably not sufficient in protecting children from abuse.

I guess the Chicago Archdiocese must have a printing press or mint somewhere that allows them to continue to pay million dollar settlements or buy survivors of victims who have committed suicide a car and a house. Even after the Vatican substantiates the abuse and the perpetrator is allowed to flaunt the Vatican rulings against contact with children.

They. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Some more pedophile enablers who need to hear the clang of the cell door behind them

About two and half weeks ago, I wrote a post titled "Just put the damn pedophile enablers in jail already." Well, yesterday's LA Times had this article on how the Boy Scouts helped alleged child molesters avoid prosecution:

Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public.

A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks.

Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, "chronic brain dysfunction" and duties at a Shakespeare festival.

Please read the entire Times article.

I was a Boy Scout back in the day. I achieved the rank of "Star." The troop was sponsored by the Methodist church right across the street from where I lived, classmates were in the troop as well as boys from my grandmother's neighborhood. I was so proud the day I was old enough to join and the only reason I didn't keep up with it was because I went away to military school for high school.

It saddens me to see what the Boy Scouts are doing to themselves. My memories of the Boy Scouts were of an inclusive organization but today's Boy Scouts seem intent on being exclusive and consequently marginalizing themselves. One of my younger cousins has a young son who has expressed an interest in scouting and just last week she questioned how she could give him a scouting type of experience without actually having him be in the scouts.

The Times article states that of the 1,600 plus cases they reviewed, 500 of them were of cases where the scouting organization was informed by the boy, parents, staff members, or anonymous tips yet in 400 of these cases, did not make a report to authorities. Reading the article, it appears that at least some of the lack of reports were specifically to "protect the reputation of the Scouts and accused staff member." And where have we heard of this happening before? Oh right. The Catholic Church. Penn State.

It amazes me to see groups like the Catholic Church and the Scouts refusing to report child molesters to authorities, preferring to let the alleged offender shuffle on off to do damage elsewhere. At the same time both the Church and the Boy Scouts seem to consistently equate being gay with being a pedophile no matter how many times reports and studies show this is wrong.

I won't even get into someone like Mike Huckabee making the same claims but I keep hoping that someone in the Church and the Boy Scouts will enter the 21st Century. I'm not going to hold my breath but I will keep hoping that at some point they will recognize that pedophiles are not the same thing as two caring individuals who happen to be in love with a person of the same sex.