Enough is enough: Catholic Church needs to heal itself

Denver, Colorado --

Scandalous. That's what a former superior of the Rev. Harold Robert White called Eric Gorski's reports.

Last week, Gorski, The Denver Post's religion writer, revealed alleged sexual assaults by White on a series of young parishioners roughly 40 years ago.

Gorski also detailed what appear to be failures of Denver's Roman Catholic Archdiocese to properly react when told of White's supposed abuse.

Several alleged victims say they complained to church authorities, but church officials let White continue to minister.

Scandalous. No question about it. It makes members of the church hierarchy accomplices after the fact to felonies.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the scandal the Rev. James E. Kane saw when he talked to Gorski last week.

"I am a good friend of Father White's," Kane told Gorski. "And I personally like Father White, and I personally think this publicity is scandalous because I feel if a person has an illness, whatever it should be, what we should do for these people is pray for them and not criticize them."

We might also want to consider counseling them and, if that doesn't work, prosecuting them.

But we can't be covering up or making excuses for them.

Kane wasn't home Friday when I called. His kill-the-messenger approach to revelations of White's decades-old alleged crimes explains why there is a priest sexual assault scandal that has cost the Catholic Church an estimated billion bucks in lawsuit settlements.

Evidence mounts that several of White's young alleged victims reported the priest, saying they'd been fondled. Troubling questions arise about why White continued as a parish minister.

Read the article at DenverPost.com Dated August 1, 2005

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