{"id":4611,"date":"2005-07-31T23:14:35","date_gmt":"2005-07-31T23:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html"},"modified":"2005-07-31T23:14:35","modified_gmt":"2005-07-31T23:14:35","slug":"aiding-and-abetting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html","title":{"rendered":"Aiding and Abetting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohio law  "enforcement" helped cover up abuse<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

In a review of thousands of court and diocese documents and interviews with dozens of police officers, judges, prosecutors, victims, and advocates, the investigation found:<\/p>\n

In five cases, police officers refused to arrest or investigate priests suspected of sexually abusing children. One longtime Toledo police chief pressured subordinates not to arrest priests.<\/p>\n

In three cases that did result in formal investigations, authorities blocked the release of the case files to the public. Unlike convicted sex offenders, those priests could now pass background checks and have access to children without ever divulging their pasts.<\/p>\n

In one case that did make it to sentencing, a judge agreed to a jail term for a priest far lighter than commonly given to other pedophiles convicted of similar crimes.<\/p>\n

And in three cases, police and child-welfare caseworkers delayed or dismissed investigations of suspected pedophiles who were priests.<\/p>\n

In understanding what has become the biggest scandal to engulf the American Catholic church in generations, victims’ advocates say one issue left unexposed is the role of civil authorities in helping to minimize or hide the criminal actions of pedophiles who wore priestly collars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The details are important to keep in mind, but the pattern shouldn’t be news to anyone, and not just in relationship to sexual abuse, and not just in relationship to Catholic clergy.  How many clerical DUI’s and solicitation charges have been covered up or expunged over the years? How often has law enforcement and the judicial system cooperated with the privilged and the powerful to conceal their crimes and erase their records? A lot, of course. <\/p>\n

In the case of the Church, all so that the appearance of "scandal" might be avoided. Well, that worked, didn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio law  "enforcement" helped cover up abuse In a review of thousands of court and diocese documents and interviews with dozens of police officers, judges, prosecutors, victims, and advocates, the investigation found: In five cases, police officers refused to arrest or investigate priests suspected of sexually abusing children. One longtime Toledo police chief pressured subordinates…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAiding and Abetting - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Aiding and Abetting - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ohio law  "enforcement" helped cover up abuse In a review of thousands of court and diocese documents and interviews with dozens of police officers, judges, prosecutors, victims, and advocates, the investigation found: In five cases, police officers refused to arrest or investigate priests suspected of sexually abusing children. One longtime Toledo police chief pressured subordinates…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-31T23:14:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Aiding and Abetting - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Aiding and Abetting - Via Media","og_description":"Ohio law  "enforcement" helped cover up abuse In a review of thousands of court and diocese documents and interviews with dozens of police officers, judges, prosecutors, victims, and advocates, the investigation found: In five cases, police officers refused to arrest or investigate priests suspected of sexually abusing children. One longtime Toledo police chief pressured subordinates…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2005-07-31T23:14:35+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html","name":"Aiding and Abetting - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2005-07-31T23:14:35+00:00","dateModified":"2005-07-31T23:14:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/07\/aiding-and-abetting.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Aiding and Abetting"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}