May 13, 2005
Fr. Hughes vs. Loyola University
Da Paper does another page-one story on the pseudo-controversy between Loyola University and the Archdiocese of New Orleans. At issue is the university's plan to honor the Landrieu family with an honorary doctorate for their good works in the city. I say "pseudo-controversy" because an outsider like Fr. Alfred Hughes, who is under such a cloud of darkness for his role in the pedophilia scandals of the Archdiocese of Boston, really isn't going to be able to lay a glove on a family that has done as much good for the city of New Orleans as the Landrieus. And let's not forget that the university is owned and operated by the Society of Jesus, and the Jesuits have a lot more credibility in New Orleans than Fr. Hughes will ever have, even if he was totally innocent of the charges that have followed him down south.
All but the most hardcore abortion foes will acknowledge that this sort of position taken by Fr. Hughes is merely a smoke screen set up in an attempt to personally regain the moral high ground. When you take pot-shots at prominent people who have dedicated their lives to making this city a better place, however, expect those shots to ricochet:
Some faculty members and students aren't pulling their punches in reacting to Hughes' snub of commencement events.
"I'd rather be on the podium with the Landrieus than an archbishop who protected pedophiles in Boston," communications professor Larry Lorenz said.
Hughes served as the top aide to Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law in the early 1990s. While he played a peripheral role in the handling of John Geoghan, perhaps the most notorious of the era's sexually abusive priests, and generally implemented Law's policies in Boston, Hughes' name has not been directly linked to most of the sex-abuse cases that came to light in that archdiocese.
OK, now I don't know if the reporters on this story are just lazy, or if a stronger characterization of Hughes' criminal behavior in Boston was edited out of the story. Still, one would think that either reporter or editor would realize it's not too terribly hard to Google sources that contradict their description of Hughes' role as "peripheral." For example:
From Gambit Weekly:
In Jan. 30 editions of The Clarion Herald, the bi-weekly newspaper of the archdiocese of New Orleans, Hughes admitted he failed to adequately monitor the treatment regimen of now-defrocked Father John J. Geoghan, who is serving a 10-year sentence for sex crimes against children. "The continued acceptance of John Geoghan for priestly assignment was a tragic error," Hughes said earlier this year. "My predecessors and I thought we were addressing the issues at hand and providing for the appropriate protection of the potential victims. We had no idea of the extent of his abuse of children."
In fact, a Gambit Weekly review of Hughes' testimony in the deposition of a civil suit against Geoghan showed that Hughes never checked the confidential file on the troubled priest ("Deposing the Archbishop," May 21, 2002).
Or perhaps this from the Boston Phoenix:
Fortunately, one thing that has changed since the scandal became public is the awareness that new laws must be enacted to prosecute rapists and those who cover up their crimes. Last year, the state legislature finally added clergy to the list of mandated reporters of suspected child abuse, which already included teachers, therapists, doctors, and other professionals who come into regular contact with children. For years, the Catholic Church in Boston had successfully lobbied against the inclusion of clergy on this list. (It was a move that paid off for the Church and its leadership when Reilly concluded that it would not be possible to indict Bernard Cardinal Law, Bishop Thomas Daily, Bishop Robert Banks, Bishop Alfred Hughes, and others who covered up for pedophile priests, given that their actions violated no state laws. Clergy-sex-abuse victims’ advocates have since called on US Attorney Michael Sullivan to investigate the actions of Law and his subordinates under criminal conspiracy laws or the RICO Act.) Meanwhile, the legislature also passed a law making it a crime to recklessly endanger children, as Law, Daily, Banks, Hughes, and others most certainly did.
Those suspects that a district attorney wants to indict tend to be more than merely "peripheral players."
And let's not forget the fact that Fr. Hughes is a documented liar:
In fact, like most everyone else covering this story, I have been dumbfounded by the insensitivity to victims that church officials have sometimes demonstrated, and secrecy has been part of that pattern. The recent report by the Massachusetts attorney general, for example, highlights the appearance of Bishop Robert Banks before a sentencing hearing in 1984 on behalf of Fr. Eugene O’Sullivan, convicted of sexually assaulting a minor. Banks successfully argued against incarceration, even though he had knowledge of other victims of O’Sullivan that he withheld from the court. Similarly, Bishop (now Archbishop of New Orleans) Alfred Hughes in 1992 rallied to the defense of Fr. John Hanlon, indicted for sex abuse charges, even though Hughes knew of more recent allegations that he did not reveal. (emphasis mine)
Fr. Hughes needs to go patch up his own glass house before he throws more stones at the Landrieus.