The local archdiocese of the Catholic Church has withdrawn its request to be reimbursed for court costs by a plaintiff, Jim Keenan, whose lawsuit alleging child molestation by a priest was thrown out under the statute of limitations. I wrote about the subject here. That Keenan was molested as a youth by Father Thomas Adamson is beyond dispute. The Church spent $64,000 getting the case dismissed on a technicality and, having succeeded in that effort, turned its attention next to recovering from Keenan the costs it had incurred shielding itself from his charge. Despicable!
The public reasons given for dropping the request for reimbursement concern Keenan's recent bankruptcy after a business interest collapsed. "If Mr Keenan is bankrupt, the question should be asked, 'Does it make sense to pursue a claim of cost against someone who is bankrupt?'" said Andrew Eisenzimmer, an archdiocesan lawyer whose statement was quoted in today's Star Tribune newspaper article about the case.
Apparently it makes sense to recover the money from a victim of child molestation by one of the Church's pedophilic priests--but not from a bankrupt. The article also quotes some academic in Nevada who says he was "astounded" by the Church's effort to collect, since the action "appears to conflict with the message from Pope Benedict, who recently met with victims and apologized."
The capacity to be "astounded" requires too lofty a view of the moral status of the Catholic Church. Here is a more realistic theory of the case:
The Church has adopted a two-track strategy for responding to the sexual abuse scandals. When the cameras are rolling, like when the pope is meeting with victims of abuse, the talk is all theological--we hear of the Church's own "sin" and "shame" and the need for "reconciliation," etc. Meanwhile, when hardly anyone is looking, the Church does what it can to silence, intimidate, and harass victims of priestly abuse. Sometimes it gets confused and plays bad cop when it should be the good one acting. Then those who are large and in charge--in this case John Nienstedt, archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis--send out lackeys like this Eisenzimmer character to perform a ridiculous dance.
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