The diocese of Stockton, California bought convicted child molester Rev. Oliver O’Grady a pension (at the cost of 94,000) that would begin when O’Grady turned 65. Bishop Blaire of Stockton explained to his diocese:
When Oliver O’Grady was in prison, he refused to apply for removal from the priesthood, also known as laicization or defrocking. Already in 1993 Bishop Donald Montrose had removed O’Grady’s authorization to exercise priestly ministry.
I came to the Diocese in March, 1999 and O’Grady was to be paroled in November, 2000. I was determined that he not leave prison as a priest. At the time, the church process for removal from the priesthood was lengthy and often uncertain. There was no guarantee that he would be laicized.
O’Grady’s Canon lawyer informed me that O’Grady would voluntarily seek laicization if some retirement funds were made available for his later years. I found this arrangement very distasteful, but I was adamant that he not walk out of prison as a priest even though he had been removed from exercising ministry. So I reluctantly agreed to the proposal.
I wanted to provide some measure of justice for his victims and some peace of mind that he would never again use his priesthood to damage families.
The bishop seems to be telling the full truth.
After Vatican II, a flood of priests left the priesthood. Paul VI was hurt but granted almost all the requests. When John Paul II was elected, he stopped the automatic granting of requests and made it especially difficult to to remove a priest against the priest’s will.
This policy applied even to convicted, jailed child molesters like Oliver O’Grady.
After Cardinal Ratzinger took over the abuse cases in 2002, he ensured that abusers were removed far more expeditiously, and when he became pope he speeded up the process even more (although he has not acted against the bishops who enabled abuse).
John Paul’s blindness to the damage that he was doing by allowing convicted child molesters to remain in the priesthood is a severe stain on his papacy.
That’s why i believe the canonization of John Paul II should wait. Why the hurry?
When will we make the hierarchy and the people that defrocking a priest does NOT help at all?? All this does – as is proven by the O’Grady case – is set them loose on the unknowing public, free to continue to sexually abuse innocent children and vulnerable adults!! True, they do so without the collar, but they do so! They need to be sent to a monastery or kept in jail and monitored!
Poor JPII. He was so holy. He just had no idea what was happening to TENS OF THOUSANDS of CHILDREN UNDER HIS CARE. Just like he never had any idea what happened to his immediate predecessor, JPI. If you believe that, you are guilty of willful ignorance at this point, with all that is available. For those that have eyes, let them see.
Without firing any of the culpable bishops, Pope Ratzinger remains just another pedophile enabler. When he begins to realize that and act accordingly he may be able to save the legacy of his popedom and the faith of those he was supposed to protect.
Before he dies, may he tell the truth.
AW
In far too many cases, sending sexual predators to a monastery–or any other facility without bars on the windows–does no good whatever, as offenders are all too often allowed to come and go as they please, to send and receive mail without monitoring, even to use porn on the internet–all of which merely provides them with a comfortable base from which to continue their predation unchecked. (There have been several articles on the net about this in recent months, with specific examples that simply boggle the mind.)
Effectively dealing with clerical predators requires both barrels: (1) defrock them so as to strip them of the aura of “holiness” and special privilege that inevitably attaches to the clerical collar in the eyes of so many people, and (2) turn them over to the secular authorities for prosecution and imprisonment, either without possibility of parole or else with lifetime parole under very strict supervision.
But of course this is exactly what bishops throughout the world did not do, precisely because the Vatican did not want it done. This was made abundantly clear by Cardinal Castrillon’s infamous letter commending a French bishop for NOT turning a clerical predator over to the authorities–a letter that was, he tells us, copied to every episcopal conference on the planet with the active encouragement of Pope John Paul II and at least the tacit approval of the future Pope Benedict, and then posted on the internet as well. Given all that, it’s hard to credibly claim that this was some sort of accident, or that everyone just misunderstood what was intended; no, it was policy, and intended to be taken and implemented as such. And, indeed, it was.
The rot goes all the way to the top–not just to the local bishops, but to the national conferences and the curia and even the papal office itself. JP2 was grossly derelict not only in failing to protect children from sexual predators, but also in a host of other areas as well–of which the Vatican Bank scandal and the criminal sociopathy of “Father” Maciel are just two of the more notable examples. While Pope Benedict seems to be doing a bit better in this regard than his predecessor, he has nevertheless surrounded himself for five years with a host of high-level functionaries who are either unbelievably incompetent or hopelessly corrupt, and so far there is little if any indication that he intends to do anything about that.
Whatever may reside in the pope’s heart of hearts, he is not immune to the scriptural principle that “bad company ruins good morals.” Until some curial heads begin to roll, I fear the chances of any significant improvement in the present situation are slim indeed.
I have looked everywhere but cannot find any accounting of how O’Grady was treated by other inmates while in prison. It seems to be the general concensus of opinion that any man who is imprisoned for child abuse is sodomized and beaten regularly if in general population. Yet, there is no record of anything. Does anyone know how he was treated during his 7 years? If he was not placed in general population, he was once again given preferential treatment which I suspect was insured by the Catholic church. Why? Causing him to suffer that which he dished out would have been so very very just.