Some priests are not sexual predators

Mary Garrigan tells us from the Journal that nine Rapid City area predator priests were exposed in a recent United States Conference of Catholic Bishops report:

The majority of the Rapid City diocese’s allegations were made in connection with the litigation involving a Catholic boarding school for Native American students at St. Francis, a Jesuit-run mission on the Rosebud Reservation that was staffed by the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus, according to the Rev. Steve Biegler, diocese administrator. The Diocese of Sioux Falls did not respond as of Wednesday to a request to release its 2010 audit or survey results. Last year, 55 dioceses, including Rapid City, received letters expressing concerns about record-keeping and reporting procedures that could result in non-compliance.

From the Great Falls Tribune via indianz.com:

Richard King, a member of the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana, suffered abuse at a Jesuit-run school on the reservation but kept quiet for almost 50 years. King is part of a $166.1 million settlement with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus. Attorneys estimate more than 500 Native Americans in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington were victimized by members of the clergy.

Beatification for a dead pope is on the fast track. From US Catholic:

Sadly, the most significant but disappointing legacy of Pope John Paul II was his decision to play down the clergy sex abuse of minors. He initially "blamed American culture" and didn’t treat it as a big deal. But particularly bad is that he thought to “rescue” Boston's Cardinal Law from hostile critics by letting Law skulk over to Vatican City. By doing so, John Paul II rewarded or at least shrugged off Law’s disgusting pattern of transferring sexually abusive priests to other parishes, where of course they simply corralled more children and adolescent boys to engage in sexually deviant practices, ruining hundreds of lives.

Greg Smith's blog post From Eternity to Here:

I do know one thing: Last week, at my mother’s Catholic funeral, I introduced my partner to everyone I knew and grew up with in that little church and we were received with nothing but warmth. Nothing but. If only the leadership would get it- and all those gay clergy (and bishops!) would share their experience- we might have a shot at addressing reality….

Here's the birther dealio in a paragraph from a lawyer close to the White House as quoted by James Fallows in The Atlantic:

I think that he and his campaign are genuinely worried about having to deal with the various state legislative efforts to require some specific documentation in order to appear on the ballot in 2012. The Arizona bill nearly became law and may yet overcome the Governor's veto. Bills like this will force the campaign to spend significant sums of money in legal challenges and ultimately may result in partisan state officials keeping Obama off the ballot. The hope is that disclosing the "long-form" birth certificate deflates this issue, truly marginalizes it, and allows the saner members of the Republican Party in the various state legislatures to move away from these pending bills.