Archbishop Claims He Didn't Know Child Rape Was A Crime

Last week I posted what I thought, at the time, was the most inane argument to excuse a priest, as well as the Catholic Church, from any wrongdoing in the ongoing Pedophile Priest Scandal. A lawyer for the Diocese of Trenton said the priest, and the Church, were not guilty of any crime because the priest was “off duty” when he was raping boys — see post HERE.

Now, however, I have heard an even more ignorant excuse for priests sexually molesting children and why it went unreported.

See, back in 1984 when Archbishop Robert Carlson was merely an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and when he learned of a priest sexually abusing a child, he says he didn’t report it because, well, let’s hear the fool in his own words:

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.”

Yes, he didn’t know, or so he says, in 1984, that it was a crime for a grown-assed man, not to mention a priest in the Catholic Church, to have sexual relations with a child. That’s his excuse for doing nothing.

And yet, he also appears to be a liar as well, because new documents released show that he did indeed know, even back in the Dark Ages of 1984, that child-rape is a crime. According to one document from that time, Carlson wrote to John Roach, the then Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, about one victim of sexual abuse and mentioned that the statute of limitations for the victim to file a claim against the church would not expire for more than two years. He also wrote that the parents of the victim were considering reporting the incident to the police.

And yet now he says he didn’t know it was a crime? How stupid does the Catholic Church think we are? Do they honestly believe that any sane person thinks a priest who rapes a boy on a weekend getaway that isn’t sanctioned by the church is somehow off-duty and therefore the Church is not liable in a damages suit? And do they really think we buy that whole “Oh, I didn’t know having sex with a child was a crime” bull?

I think another crime by the Church, other than allowing pedophiles to graze on children, is to allow pedophile protectors, enablers, like Carlson to continue on in the ministry.

He may not have physically raped a child, but he emotionally raped many.

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