Thursday, January 12, 2006

strange bishop

Bishop Gumbleton of Detroit waited until he was 75 to claim that he was once molested by a priest when he was a seminarian. A seminarian? Wasn't he a wee bit too old for that ….? Unless it happened at the minor seminary and he was a small sized 13 year old this doesn't make a whole bit of sense. The priest in question is obviously dead now and can't confess or deny this story. We have no witnesses. No evidence. There is only the word of one man and the bishop did not name the priest. Gumbleton wants the statute of limitations on molestation cases to be lifted so someone who claims to have been molested a jillion years ago could, if the bishop gets his way , sue the church. The trouble with these old cases is that there is just no proof. I'm not comfortable with changing the law for such emotional reasons. Bad (highly emotional) cases make bad law.