Bishop Kicanas Responds: More Questions Arise

Bishop Kicanas has published a rebuttal.

It is eerily similar to the many times Boston Catholics tried to report factual information to Catholic journalists and found out the Chancery was running interference and putting pressure on journalists to publish a FAQ they ginned up that danced around the incriminating facts. 




In fact, this is exactly one of the reasons Boston Catholics are building their own media outlets to expose episcopal corruption.  As things were unraveling here under Cardinal O'Malley and we gave Catholic journalists factual information about what was going on, when Cardinal O'Malley and his staff got wind of it, they would use their influence to try to snuff out the story.


One time (I think it was over the major stockholder shares the Archdiocese took in the abortion referral business before they unloaded Catholic Healthcare all together), they scrounged up their own journalist to gin up a FAQ that was a damage control waltz to discredit Catholics distributing factual information.


I got wind of the set up from an employee at the Chancery.   The FAQ deceptively tip toed around the incriminating evidence.   I wrote to all involved in the deceptive FAQ initiative, restated the facts, told them I would make sure it would backfire in Christendom and they withdrew that strategy from the table.     The Cardinal eventually had to admit to the sufficient findings that the Archdiocese had set up an abortion referral business and were set to receive profits which they said they intended to defer to somebody else.


Not surprisingly,  Boston Catholics were not at all comforted by their solution that they would tithe any profits the abortion business brought in.   It's a little like the mob skimming the top to donate to a peace and justice commission.


The influence the Cardinal and their staff uses with Catholic newspapers and media outlets, including sadly some orthodox people who blog actually has happened dozens of times.  This is why we are going outside of their circle of influence to expose in detail the factual information in a way where there is no tool to apply pressure.  We don't have donors who can put the squeeze on us and we are abandoned to serving Christ and His Church and truth.


Let me cut to the chase: 




He takes exception.  He never knew. He was never there.  

At no time while McCormack was a seminarian at Mundelein did I receive any allegation of pedophilia or child molestation against him. I never received any allegation, report or concern about McCormack during his seminary years at Mundelein that involved sexual abuse of anyone.

He didn't know the journalist was going to write about his poor judgment and he had no opportunity to do damage control.

Further, the reporter misrepresented to the Diocese of Tucson the nature and focus of the report when he contacted the Diocese seeking to talk to me, saying only he wanted to talk about the election of the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. That was not what the report was about. 

Here we go with the same old same old:

There are many Web sites and blogs that are vehicles for communicating outrageously inaccurate and grossly unfair assertions. I had never heard of this Web site before last week. We do respond to news media reports as we deem necessary. When an inaccurate report begins to be exploited by other legitimate news media without any effort to ascertain the accuracy of the report and without allowing us to respond, we do respond, which is why we were in contact with the Register today.

It is tiring that these Bishops continually control the Catholic media and undermine legitimate concerns with this kind of behavior.

He's where I start having some trouble:

Can you explain what is documented in the deposition of Cardinal Francis George and the subsequent news stories that cite that you were made aware of three incidents involving Daniel McCormack while he was a seminarian?

I have not read nor do I know any details about the Cardinal’s deposition....

Were you made aware, at any time, while rector, of adult, consensual, homosexual activity on the part of Daniel McCormack, with his peers in the seminary?

Outside the Sacrament of Reconciliation, any sexual experience of a seminarian that the Mundelein seminary administration learned about would have been subject to evaluation and would have been a possible cause for dismissal.

The Bishop’s clarifications do not address Cardinal George’s deposition which reveals there was evidence Bishop Kicanas was aware, according to the Cardinal.   

It is a rather casual dismissal of a substantive factual conflict in his assertions, is it not?

Further, I’m curious to know why there is a reference to activity ‘outside the Sacrament of confession’. Do I understand this to mean that if priests confess pedophilia he can protect himself from evaluation and dismissal unless or until a victim comes forward?

I am pretty sure this is how the  Sacrament of Confession works. Peculiar it is mentioned in the Bishop’s rebuttal. Why bring it up at all?

It almost seems like an inoculation.

Let us take it to the lowest common denominator – Bishop Kicanas says he had a seminarian on his hands with a noted problem with booze and a confirmed instance that the booze made him lose his inhibitions and have numerous inappropriate sexual encounters.

The revelation of these sexual encounters came when a complaint was brought forward that he inappropriately was patting another man's backside at a bar.   But drunken innappropriate sexual encounters had all been worked out with his spiritual advisor, the seminarian said.

Well then, what was he doing in the Bishop's office explaining why he was in barroom patting somebody's bum bum?

Did the Bishop ever find out the age of what the seminarian referred to as ‘peers’ in these encounters?

Why did 23 more victims have to come forward before the Bishop supervised the man given this history?

There is nothing more he could have done about this?  Really?

Even if you can get past the fact that the very reason why the seminarian was in his office proved the problem was not taken care of,   how about supervising the man a little more closely given the nature of the problems that he admits were brought to his attention before 23 more problems developed?

This still raises many questions in my mind that are very unsettling to me.   

At the end of the day, the election of Bishop Kicanas is going to put the scandal right front and center again and he should recuse himself along with any other Bishop on the list (irrespective of their history of doctrinal positions) who has a history of poor judgment that led to the sexual abuse of minors.   


BOSTON CATHOLIC INSIDER has an ACTION ALERT.   


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