my point EXACTLY

the other day i posted this about a panel in ireland, the catholic church and the abuse of children. the following courant article was in today's paper

and oh, by the way, not for one second do i believe anything has changed in the catholic church

Connecticut Supreme Court: Unseal Priest Abuse Documents
By DAVE ALTIMARI |The Hartford Courant
For more than 15 years, some of the 23 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse claims against at least seven priests from the Bridgeport diocese have remained sealed, but on Friday for the second time the state Supreme Court ruled the public should have access to nearly all of the 12,675 pages.

As church officials criticized the court's decision and vowed to review all options to keep the files secret, victims' advocates hailed the ruling and questioned whether the documents will have a lasting negative impact on recently retired Cardinal Edward Egan, who ran the Bridgeport diocese as a bishop when many of the priest abuses were alleged to have occurred.

"Sadly, the history of this case has been about access by the secular media to internal church documents of cases more than 30 years ago to suggest, unfairly, that nothing has changed," the diocese's statement said.

"From the anti-church rhetoric of the first trial judge who proceeded to 'invent' an entirely new procedure to accommodate the press, to the lack of an impartial trial judge to reconsider the case on remand from the Connecticut Supreme Court, the history of this case raises issues that should be of concern to all. We are, therefore, currently reviewing our options in response to this decision."...............

more on the devil that was george reardon

love your children and always know where they are and what they are doing and WHO they are doing it with. BELIEVE your children when they tell you stories about evil like this. it happened years ago with reardon, but it STILL happens today.

keep them safe

Questions Haunt Two Of Reardon's Earliest Victims

By HILARY WALDMAN
ALBANY, N.Y. - By the time she reached her mid-30s, Ellen Manning had a degree in English and a respectable job with the state of New York. She had a large group of friends, a supportive family, a nice house and a cat she loved.

Still, she had always felt somewhat adrift.

She had dated, but never fallen in love. She didn't have a family of her own. She wondered if, perhaps, she might have been able to accomplish more.

Those aren't especially unusual thoughts for someone moving into the early throes of middle age. But there was something else lurking in the back of Manning's mind. And, in 1987, as she watched and read stories about child sexual abuse and its emotional consequences, the memories of her own past came bubbling forward.
Manning couldn't help but wonder if her own melancholy might have something to do with a man who lived next door when she was growing up, a young medical student named George Reardon.

Manning is among the first known victims of the late Dr. George Reardon, former chief of endocrinology at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center who has been accused of sexually molesting an untold number of children during his 30-year career in Hartford. For her it is too late to join more than 100 other victims who are now suing St. Francis, saying the hospital was negligent in its supervision of him.

And while it was two decades ago that Manning began asking herself how Reardon's abuse affected her, and trying to get officials in Connecticut to stop him, she never spoke publicly about it — until now.......

more on the monster

that was dr reardon. more on the pain he caused. the parents who didn't believe their children because doctors were gods. yet you will never know what it feels like to be those boys and girls. what it's like to have and keep those memories. they never go away.
The Reardon Case: For Alleged Victims, Little Solace
Unshakable Memories
By HILARY WALDMAN And DANIEL P. JONES Courant Staff Writers
He says he can still see the huge Cadillac DeVille that slid up to his childhood home around lunchtime that Sunday 40 years ago.In his memory, he is 12 years old again and can feel the terror as he climbs into the front seat next to Dr. George Reardon for a drive to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford.Reardon's hair is slicked back, and he smells of smoke from the cigarettes that seem almost constantly pursed between his lips........

.............But both also said that Reardon's eventual resignation in disgrace, his death from heart and lung disease in 1998 and finally the proof that everything they remembered was true would not be enough to salve their pain. What they want — and fear they may never get — is acknowledgment from their parents that the doctor harmed them and that the children were not to blame."He was a person of authority, my parents treated him as a god," said Dr. C., who like several other alleged victims described his upbringing in a devout Catholic household. "My parents' philosophy was if something bad happened it was because God was punishing you."...............