As I write this, Paul Shanley was just convicted by a Boston jury of child rape. Big deal.
From this evening’s Times online: “Paul R. Shanley, the defrocked priest whose name figured prominently in the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston three years ago, was convicted on two counts of child rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery today, more than two decades after the victim said the molestation first occurred… Mr. Shanley, who many said had reached out to wayward teenagers as a so-called street priest, is only the second priest to be convicted of sexual abuse…”
Beautiful.
If you believe that, my friends, then you’re likely to believe the other twaddle that comes out of the mouths of the Princes of the Church who just want people to swallow what they’re putting out in the hope that this all goes away.
It won’t go away. Not as long as they keep lying while claiming a moral monopoly on the truth.
Convicting Paul Shanley will no more clean the Church of child rapists any more than the testimony of Joe Valachi made the Mafia go away.
Don’t remember ol’ Joe? Joe Valachi was a low-level Mafia soldier, a “button man” who was the first to break the vow of omerta or silence. He told the whole story: capos, bosses, soldiers, the Five Families, the Commission, the rackets, the made guys, the whole thing. He described his job as “the boss says to push a button on a guy, and I pus the button. I’m a button guy.”
Prosecutors, the press, the public at large, all knew that this would mean the end of the Mafia. The mob’s victims knew better. “You wanna kill a snake,” said one famously, “you cut off its head. Otherwise you’re just wasting your time.”
Why did the Mob flourish? Because prosecutors weren’t that interested in stopping it. The FBI was chasing Communists. I mean, they didn’t have to work that hard, it wasn’t like the Mob guys were some organizational geniuses or masters of stealth. They were in fact pretty clumsy. It had to do with not going after them.
They would occasionally catch and trot out a guy like Joe Valachi, who told their tales, horrified some city fathers, but in the end they didn’t amount to much. The guys on the bottom rarely do.
The mob bosses actually liked Joe Valachi. He became something of a smokescreen. When people were talking about Joe, they weren’t talking about them. They made a half-assed Mob movie about his tales, The Valachi Papers. Everybody went, "Oooh, gangsters!" And the Mob still stayed in business. Nothing changed.
When the Princes of the Church are talking about abortion, or electing George W. Bush, they’re really not talking about their own fetid house.
When they talk about their “moral authority” to speak out, they are really saying “don’t bother us with that again.”
Moral authority takes courage.
Ergo, they have no moral authority.
When will a prosecutor put these men under oath?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Paul Shanley’s in jail, but if the goal is to clean the Church’s house of the evil, then they’re just wasting their time.
Tomorrow, every bishop, archbishop, cardinal should offer his immediate resignation, then answer these questions under oath:
- Bishop, did you ever know of a case of a priest abusing a child within your diocese?
- Did you ever fail to report a pedophile who reported to you to authorities?
- Did you ever attempt to cover up those crimes?
- Do you know of anyone who is covering up for these priests today?
- Do you know of any accused pedophiles still performing as priests under your command?
