Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Rape culture; clergy sex abuse.]

"I'm not the slightest bit surprised that of course the scandal was going to be fun in the news—not fun, but the easiest thing to write about. If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I'd be happy to know who he is. … Well, the media everywhere made that the whole thing. I never had a case. And I believe that the cases I had were each handled just exactly as they should have been. … [The media] can talk about sex abuse or talk about their concern about finance—that's all right. I believe the sex abuse thing was incredibly good."—Former Bridgeport, Connecticut bishop and New York City cardinal Edward Egan, who, during his tenure at Bridgeport, "let accused priests continue to work in local parishes, authorized payments to victims in exchange for silence agreements, and lied about those payments during a deposition," but continues to maintain that the institutional sex abuse problem in the Catholic Church is a non-story inflamed by sensationalist media, and that the Church's—and especially his—handling of predator priests has been exemplary.

If the interview whence these excerpts came is indicative of the attitude among Church leadership—and one must reasonably believe that it is, given Egan's promotions and plaudits—it's no fucking wonder that there are legions of survivors of clergy abuse who have never seen anything resembling meaningful accountability.

[Via @delong.]