Jim, I agree with you completely. There's no question that my church "was and still is implicated in serious crimes against children," no question at all. And I find that appalling.

So, where's our disagreement? You know that I respect your opinion more than that of just about any other Mudcatter. If I had known about this at the time I lived in St. Francis, I would have stood before the City Council and demanded that they order their police department to arrest this horrible person. But I didn't know at the time. The School for the Deaf seemed strange because I never saw anyone outside there, but that's all I knew at the time. And hey, I was 14 years old when I lived next door to that school.

Fr. Murphy was buried in a Catholic funeral, and a bishop I knew well (and still admire more than any other bishop) presided at the funeral in 1998. This bishop was a very honest man, and I'm sure he would have spoken of Fr. Murphy's crimes during the funeral. I wish I knew what he said. Yeah, I know that many people might say the man should have been denied a Catholic funeral, but the Catholic practice is to let God (and the civil criminal justice system) do the condemnation. Still, I wonder why my friend, as a bishop, couldn't have faded into the background and let some other priest do the funeral. My friend was someone who always forgave people - and he got a lot of criticism for that.

Sister Helen Prejean ("Dead Man Walking") faced the same questions for ministering to inmates on death row in Louisiana.

-Joe-

Gnu, I know this will break your heart, but please remember that it is a Mudcat tradition that the thread originator does not have control of anything beyond his/her own posts. What other people post, is their business. The thread goes, where it goes.