Bishop Bruskewitz vs. the Review Board, prt 2

(Part One Here)

I found the Wanderer interview with Paul Likoudis where Bishop Bruskewitz offers the ten reasons why he refused to participate in the John Jay study:

"1) This study is not directed to developing programs for the protection of young people. . . . The study seems to be to satisfy curiosity.

"2) Serious sins against the Eighth Commandment are likely to be part of the result of the study: detraction, calumny, slander, contumely, etc.

"3) The study asks to include information even for inconclusive allegations and anonymous allegations.

"4) Many of the accused in the files of many dioceses are dead and will not be able to defend themselves.

"5) No equivalent study has ever been made in the United States so that there is no comparison to any other sector of people in the United States, such as Protestant ministers, public school teachers, doctors, youth ministers, artists, newspaper reporters, etc.

"6) The United States federal government Office of Health and Human Services refused to grant a certificate of confidentiality for the study as requested by the National Review Board.

"7) The reporting of the study does not promise to place into context the overwhelming number of priests who do not and did not ever commit any sexual abuse of minors.

"8) The study is skewed and inaccurate from the start because any self-reporting can include both inflation and deflation of information.

"9) About one-third of all the Catholic clergy in the United States are not included in the study, since religious orders and other communities (for instance, Jesuits, Dominicans, Benedictines, Franciscans, etc.) are not included.

"10) The administration of the USCCB [United States Conference of Catholic Bishops] which signed the contract with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice has given the ownership of all the information into the possession of the college."