{"id":7120,"date":"2004-06-22T07:39:51","date_gmt":"2004-06-22T07:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/hot_potato.html"},"modified":"2004-06-22T07:39:51","modified_gmt":"2004-06-22T07:39:51","slug":"hot_potato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2004\/06\/hot_potato.html","title":{"rendered":"Hot Potato"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rod sometimes mentions his early days on AOL, experiencing the Catholic message boards there, and how contentious the whole scene was. I was around then too, intially thinking, “how great is this! Catholics from around the world conversing…” only to discover what Rod did…it took about a day for any single conversation to degenerate into total acrimony and chaos.<\/p>\n

Some of the most heated discussions I recall, before I gave up and moved on, centered on the case of Fr. Ken Roberts, for a while a very popular speaker and author who was accused (although I don’t recall if he was ever charged) of various sexual improprieties and at some point either in the late 90’s or early..what..00’s (!) went into seclusion. Where was he? What did he do? Was he guilty? Surely not! <\/p>\n

For a while, it seemed, that is all the AOL Catholic message boards were about. <\/p>\n

Well, he’s back in the news, as three bishops toss around legal culpability<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All three are named in a lawsuit filed in November by John Doe. The suit alleges that the Rev. Kenneth Roberts, now retired, sexually abused Doe at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Belleville in 1984. <\/p>\n

The St. Louis Archdiocese and the Dallas Diocese have responded by asserting that St. Clair County Court has no jurisdiction over them because they do not do business there. St. Louis also says Roberts was never assigned or employed here, although he was allowed to live in three parishes in Florissant and was permitted to conduct some religious services here. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rod sometimes mentions his early days on AOL, experiencing the Catholic message boards there, and how contentious the whole scene was. I was around then too, intially thinking, “how great is this! 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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. 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