The second Grand Jury Report from Philadelphia on sexual abusive priests has been released.  Indictments have been handed down for three priests, (one of them, Jim Brennan, entered the seminary as a college sophomore the same year I entered as a freshman), one lay teacher & a monsignor who turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse of children. 

One of the insidious things in the report is how the archdiocese victims assistance office was only interested in protecting the archdiocese from lawsuits.  To do that they lied to victims about how much detail the office needed to get rid of or prosecute an offending priest.  They turned all info they gathered to the law firm retained by the archdiocese.

I ask myself how can they ever be trusted again?  Over and over again they have demonstrated that victims do not matter to them, the only thing that matters is money. 

One of the canon lawyers, (dare I say conspiring for the diocese), I am also familiar with.  Msgr. James Oliver also entered the seminary in 1982 in pre-theology.  And now he tacitly, (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt), participates in the evil that seems to be almost infinite in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Recently I wrote a note to a friend about a different situation saying; “Chin up, evil has already been defeated.”  I included in the note a holy card of St. Theresa of Avila.  On the back is written: “Let nothing disturb you; nothing frighten you.  All things are passing.  God never changes.  Patience obtains all things.  Nothing is wanting to him who possesses God.  God alone suffices.”

Apparently there are a lot of us who do not possess God because these repulsive revelations, lies, continued cover-ups disturb me.