Courage founder pushed bishops to resist zero tolerance on abuse

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mjm076

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https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-u...ed-bishops-to-resist-zero-tolerance-on-abuse/

I am heartbroken at this hit job on Fr. John Harvey, may he rest in peace! This article only quotes an article from 1992 from Crisis magazine and does not take into consideration an article Fr. Harvey wrote in the Spring of 2002 during the sex abuse crisis. (Scroll down to page 7 in the PDF) to read his thoughts!


Unfortunately this article has been quoted by a Conservative blog: An Awful Truth About Courage Founder | The American Conservative

I do believe a through investigation of Fr. Harvey life and works (writings) is being done and hopefully this will shed more light on his thoughts back in 1992 and in 2002!
 
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Ok, we need to put the time frame in perspective here. I am not justifying any of the cover ups or the successive transfer offending priests from one parish to another. But, to say that society’s attitudes have not changed in the last 20 years is wrong, and many of the decisions made were made during a time of different reactions to these problems. I remember talking to a friend of mine who happened to work in as a assistant district attorney of a large city here in the US. He said that back in those days, child sexual abuse was simply rarely considered for prosecution. Almost never, it didn’t matter if it was a teacher, family member, or priest. If it came to the attention of local law enforcement, they did very little. That’s the way things were done. And the Bishops were given modern “expert” psychological advice that these behaviors were curable. The priests in question were sent to a facility for this purpose, and after a few months they were given a “clean bill of health”. So seeing that a priest, back in 1992, would not have advocated zero tolerance is not surprising. I doubt very many people at all would have.

Now, this does not excuse the bishops. These were very immoral acts, and they should not have been led astray by society. But whenever we wonder why these priests were not turned over to the authorities: in those days the authorities wanted nothing to do with it.

There is my politically incorrect reply.
 
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I had some interaction with Fr Harvey, and my takeaway was that he came from a place of charity and compassion and wanted healing for everybody.

I believe his mistakes came from ignorance and not malice.
 
I agree. I remember visiting the doctors office and seeing ash trays in the waiting room.
There were some doctors who prescribed cigarettes for some people with a cough.
 
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