“from the most junior priest to the most powerful bishop.”
NEW YORK, June 24, 2002 (LSN.ca) - The June 22 New York Times reported on an interview with Oklahama Governor Frank Keating who has been named to head the national, church inquiry into the origins of the sexual abuse crisis. Keating, 58, who is in the final months of his two-term governorship, is a law-and-order Republican and a former F.B.I. agent and associate attorney general.
The Times reports that Keating said in the interview that he and a panel of prominent Catholics will seek “corrective action” for any clergyman found to be abusive or negligent, “from the most junior priest to the most powerful bishop…We have to participate in the restoration of faith to the faithful, and you can’t do that by suggesting there is some person in this mix who is above corrective action.” He continued, “So if a particular diocese is corruptly indifferent to addressing criminal action by priests and or cover-ups by bishops, this task tells us to recommend actions against abusive priests, or actions for removal or discipline of negligent, indifferent, or criminally sanctionable bishops,”
The Times stated in the article that “the American church, mired in its worst crisis, may be heading toward institutional upheaval unlike any it has known.” See http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/23/national/23KEAT.html