‘Same Ol’ Blind Eye’: Thank Goodness Police Ran Out of Patience With Dallas Catholic Diocese on Sex Abuse

For the sake of Myrna Dartson and the many others who have suffered at the hands of the Catholic Church, it’s a relief to see law enforcement run out of patience with the local diocese and its foot-dragging on sex abuse allegations.Wednesday’s warrant affidavit lays out accusations of how the local diocese stonewalled the police’s good-faith efforts to investigate allegations of sexual violence.Dartson, who got a run-around from the church in the 1980s about her accusations of inappropriate behavior by a priest, was the first person I thought about after hearing that the police had raided diocese offices Wednesday. The first words out of her mouth when I called her were “None of this is surprising. So much is still being covered up.”Victims’ voices went unheard for years as the Dallas Catholic Diocese claimed that it had done nothing wrong. And when it could no longer cling to that outrageous and arrogant lie in the face of growing evidence of molestations and allegations of cover-ups, the diocese begrudgingly apologized.Most recently, Bishop J. Burns has claimed to lead the way on transparency as he challenged other dioceses and even the Vatican to do better. But at its best — and I use that word with a large degree of skepticism — the local diocese and the church universal still hasn’t done enough.It’s another part of a piecemeal and lawyered approach to dealing with what amounts to a criminal conspiracy that allowed the sexual assault of minors to go on for decades. All of the Catholic leaders’ pretty words of compassion, in light of this affidavit, just seem like another attempt to whitewash the church's image.  Continue reading...