There is plenty of contradictory information published about the abuse of children in the Catholic Church. Just look for it and you'll find it. As other writers have pointed out, there is a very simple process for a victim of abuse to seek redress: file a civil suit. Parents of victims are not restricted to seeking redress solely within the curch: the justice system is there to help, as it always was. That we now have cases surfacing years after the statute of limitations has expired may be tragic, but it would be unjust to assume that all "recollected" cases are true. Psychologists have shown that "recollections" of abuse are sometimes "reinterpretations" of experience, so it would be irresponsible to assume that ALL claims of recollecte abuse are true. This is a great, messy, difficult area, and I acknowledge that. But we must make every effort not to be unfair to anyone accused of such horrendous behavior, just as we must not be unfair to an individual who alleges that he/she was victimized. Some things do not resolve easily, and in our deisre to find clear and easy resolution, we must not relinquish our painful responsibility to justice for ALL. Civilization and decency are at stake here.

How do I personally feel about them? I wish they were in jail and excommunicated. I wish the church was hammered even harder for the cover up. I wish the enablers had been thrown out of their positions with the church.

I'm still angry with the church about this. My family is still bothered that I openly support the people who locally attacked the church and shamed the priests.

I also am not willing to damn the possibly innocent because all those guilty as hell pieces of shit are still free. If we bend the law to get the guys who we want to get, then we damn ourselves.

I do not at all advocate doing anything outside the law. (The one operating outside the law is the church.)

Anyway, interesting discussion. I would love to have an RC priest weigh in on this in a non-official, candid way. It seems to be one side of the story that is never heard publicly. Aren't they outraged?

Loyalty is a good trait unless it lead to illegality or immorality. giuliani's loyalty to his friends should be an indicator that he will be loyal to his core values.

Sadly, his core values seem to include facism.

The title of the article says it all, doesn't it? Doesn't it? If it don't, then all our souls are damned to hell, ain't they....

Dear Editor, An Absolutely brilliant Investigative reporting on a person who is contesting for one of the TOP JOBS in the WORLD! I sincerely every single American gets to read this.

It is quite unbelievable that such a strong, developed country like United States of America have so MANY ERRING officials as their "HEROES"! Consistently, so many skeletons are coming out of the box, about so many HIGH RANKING Officials, that it is indeed quite frightening and depressing!

I actually feel very sad for the common American, who seems to have been manipulated and fooled on every single instance, for the past 7-10 years, wherein all such Jokers have come into power and abused it to the tee! Thanks to the President himself being so arrogant, rude and a born liar!

My SINCERE PLEA TO ALL AMERICANS : PLEASE LIFT YOURSELF ABOVE ALL PARTIES, CASTE, RELIGION AND CREED & APPRECIATE / ANALYSE WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND YOU! If it continues, it will be a DISASTER for the country and the only people to be blamed would have to be each of you. The WORLD needs you too and it is indeed shocking that each of you are still allowing such ERRING BUREAUCRATS to RULE YOUR LIFE!!

May God bless US of A and the world!

Dinesh Bhaskar (India)

This story, which I've never told before, may serve to illuminate the way the Catholic church operates when faced with accusations of child sexual abuse. I'd like to tell someone since I am unhappy with my own role in events - if I could go back and do things over, I would.

In the late 80's, when I was in college, I dated a Catholic guy. I had never really known anyone Catholic before. His family were very active in their parish. My boyfriend's little brother attended afterschool activities at Boys' Town. One of the volunteers there was another guy in seminary, and also a close friend and neighbor of my boyfriend's family, who had grown up and gone to school with my boyfriend. I'll call the volunteer "Mike" and the little brother "Andy." Mike used to drive Andy, who was 11 if I remember correctly (in any case, pre-pubescent), home from Boys' Town, since it was all the way across town and Mike lived two doors down.

One day my boyfriend's mother came home from work early and walked into Andy's room. He and Mike both had their pants down. They had shocked expressions - Mike stammered some sort of medical excuse - and left the house quickly. She asked Andy what was going on, and he burst into tears and told her that Mike had been molesting him over a period of several months.

If the mother hadn't caught the two of them together, she would have thought her son was making it up. As it was, she was emotionally unable to grasp the idea that a young man who had grown up playing with her oldest son was molesting her younger son. So before telling anyone else, the mom took the boy to the family doctor - also a Catholic and a member of the parish, who frequently gave the family free care. The doctor examined the boy and found physical evidence indicative of repeated anal intercourse. So, mom told dad, dad called his grown son (my boyfriend) and that's when I heard about it.

What happened next was interesting. My boyfriend and I went over to his parents' house for a family meeting. The subject of the meeting was, not to put too fine a point on it, lynching Mike. My boyfriend's dad was in agony; he couldn't believe that for years he had trusted and befriended this young man, even invited him into his house to prey on his son. As far as he was concerned, the appropriate response was to load his pistol, walk to the neighbor's house, and shoot Mike. We tried to persuade him that this would be a bad idea, since he would be jailed for murder. At some point, his wife suggested that they should call their parish priest and talk to him for guidance. The call was made, the meeting adjourned.

I wasn't present for the meeting with the priest, but I learned what happened later from my boyfriend.

It wasn't one priest who showed up, but three - the bishop, the parish priest, and the retired priest of the parish (regarded within the community as practically a saint). In addition, several influential neighbors and members of the community came along. Basically, their message was this: if you don't want to be ostracized by everyone you've ever known and loved, you'll let this drop.

This family's entire life was based around the church. They had half a dozen kids because they didn't believe in birth control. They spent money on tithing when they barely had enough for the rent. Almost every person they knew - both professionally and socially - was a member of their parish. Their kids attended Catholic schools. Breaking with the church would have meant losing their entire network.

In addition, they were told that if they reported the abuse to the police, "Nothing will get done, and it will just hurt the reputation of Boys' Town." They were told that the church would deal with Mike.

The next time I saw my boyfriend's parents, they were completely different people. His father in particular - the experience just took the starch out of him. He was pretty much gutted, unable to maintain any level of self-respect after his own complicity in his child's abuse.

When I heard that my boyfriend's parents weren't going to do anything, I ranted and raved for a while, even suggested going to the police myself. My boyfriend told me that the police wouldn't be able to do anything as long as his parents weren't willing to cooperate, and I let it drop, which I greatly regret.

I broke up with my boyfriend shortly afterward. As far as I am aware, nothing happened to Mike. He continued to work at Boys' Town, and I heard that later he became a priest. He's probably molesting children today, but there's nothing I can do about it, since at the time I didn't know him by his last name, so I couldn't find him if I wanted to. The retired priest (who was the driving force behind the closing of ranks against the family) died a few years later and was given a write-up in the paper worthy of a saint. The bishop, on the other hand, has finally been indicted for child molesting and covering up for bad priests.

I'd like to mention that I've written a letter before about another incident involving a young man in seminary school who had a stash of child porn in his attic. That was a different young man - I encountered TWO pedophiles attending seminary during less than a year of dating a Catholic.

It seems to me, based on two experiences within such a short time, that either my city in particular was a hotbed of child molesters (which is possible, since a federally-indicted high-profile criminal was bishop here), or molestation must be so endemic in the Catholic community that practically every Catholic knows a bad priest.