Had this been an isolated case, I might agree with you. In fact, being born and raised a Catholic, and attending both Catholic grade school and high school in Philly, I would have been doing cartwheels over this verdict for the very reasons you've stated in your article. The sad fact is that I'm ashamed to say that I'm Catholic, and it has little to do with Msgr. Lynn or this case and everything to do with the systematic cover-up and transfer of pedophiles from one parish to another where they were allowed to continue their ministry and, unfortunately in many cases, their shameful acts on children.
So, I'm glad that you can take some solace in this verdict and believe that it proves no conspiracy took place. Maybe some need to hold onto that to move forward and continue practicing their religion. But while I don't condemn every priest, the extent of the abuse across the globe leaves me with little doubt that there was a conspiracy. And, whether intentional or not, children were put in harm's way with many subsequently abused, as a result of the Catholic Church's policies and practices.
So, for me, praying is easy but going to church and giving my hard-earned money to the Catholic Church is no longer possible and won't be until new leadership takes responsibility and changes, and the rotten eggs, like Msgr. Lynn, are thrown in the garbage where they belong.
Dennis Stuempfle
Pittsgrove, N.J.
Christine Flowers has now hit a high point of hypocrisy. In praying her rosary, Flowers cannot reserve any Hail Marys for those for whom a statute of limitations in the law barred any "justice." In fact, nowhere in her story does Flowers show any compassion for the victims of the priests who must wait for justice of another kind in another world.
Cold, Christine.
What was wrong with the prosecutors' use of examples of the priests' victimization, Ms. Flowers? Are you now a defender of a law that protects those who go unprosecuted when the time in the statute expires? Tell those who endure a lifetime of emotional and psychological pain that their feelings have a time limit because the priest who harmed them has a law to allow him to have a life without threat of having an arrest. Indeed, Ms. Flowers was the lawyer in this story, not the Catholic with her rosary who cares little about God's defenseless and suffering who sought the justice.
But Christine Flowers' skewered notion of justice is not the same justice that would be a salve on the victims' wounds — the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, as an institution, was guilty and the programs, hotline and other amenities that arose as a result of the revelations in the grand jury's reports are proof that the institution was certainly responsible and is liable for not having these programs for the abused in place prior to the grand jury's investigations. Sounds like institutional guilt to me.
And what office held onto the information on the pedophile priests? Was it a person or office/institution? Not even Ms. Flowers can separate the Archdiocese, that great owner of choice real estate, from the Catholic Church's doctrine.
The jury was off base, Ms. Flowers, and so are you by your callous disregard of the victims who want justice, even without any monetary reward.
Ms. Flowers' story was sickening and her flawed Latin (to appear intellectual? Not to this student of Latin!) puts her in a category where there are no "conservatives" like her phony self.
Celeste A. Morello
Philadelphia
