State Attorney’s Office of Pennsylvania Uncooperative. Refuse to Answer if Attorney General Knew of Catholic Church’s Dramatic Success in Reducing Clerical Abuse
Last week Mystic Post reached out to the Pennsylvania State Attorney’s office seeking some answers to questions we had about the explosive “report” on clerical abuse that took place in the state of Pennsylvania.
In an email we wrote:
“I run Mystic Post a digital Catholic news magazine and I wanted to ask a couple of questions
1, Was Mr. Shapirio aware of the progress made since 2002 by the Catholic Church in its efforts to protect children against predator pedophilia priests. The Vatican issued this statment:
“Most of the discussion in the report concerns abuses before the early 2000s,” the statement reads. “By finding almost no cases after 2002, the Grand Jury’s conclusions are consistent with previous studies showing that Catholic Church reforms in the United States drastically reduced the incidence of clergy child abuse.” The statement goes on to say, “The Holy See encourages continued reform and vigilance at all levels of the Catholic Church, to help ensure the protection of minors and vulnerable adults from harm.” The statement from the Press Office also expresses the Holy See’s desire “to underscore the need to comply with the civil law, including mandatory child abuse reporting requirements.”
2. Does Mr. Shapiro believe the Church has been successful in protecting children ..that is, does Mr. Shapiro agree with the Church’s findings?
3. Does Mr. Shapiro believe the State of Pennsylvania has a duty to promote the truth to its citizens about the safety of children in the Catholic church. After all the Catholic Church is a very large institution and many PA. citizens are very confused right now.
Thank you..
steve ryan
publisher
Mystic Post
The State Attorneys Office did get back to me and I spoke with
Jennifer Crandall, jcrandall@attorneygeneral.gov
Unfortunately all Ms. Crandall could do was direct me to a link on the thier web site.
She refused to answer whether or not State Attorney Josh Shapario was aware of the dramatic success the Catholic Church has made in protecting children against predator priests. And she was uncooperative with my interest in getting useful answer.
I mentioned that their is a lot of confusion and I emphasized that the people of the state of Pennsylvania deserved clarity on a subject that is important to millions of people in Pennsylvania and across the country.
From Catholic World Report
“What could or should the Pennsylvania bishops have said in advance? Firstly, that the whole report should not be treated as news but should be run on the History Channel. Why? Because there is nothing new in the report; all that is there has been treated before, especially in 2002. Secondly, over half the priests accused are dead, with one man actually having been born in 1896 and accusations going back seventy years! Thirdly, we are dealing here with “accusations,” not convictions. Were some of the accusations valid? Unfortunately, yes, but many could never be substantiated in a court of law. Do any of you want to live in a country or Church where someone’s mere accusation convicts you? Amazingly, only two of the accusations are even able to be prosecuted! If you want real news, it is that out of over 40,000 priests in this country, last year there were only six allegations (with four of them against the same priest), again, I stress “accusations.” The New York City public school system gets that many accusations against its personnel in a month. If you want to read an independent, non-Church critique of the Pennsylvania report, check out the work of David Pierre at Media Watch.”
