The Church Has A Lot to Hide

Outing Cardinal Egan
A priest's lawsuit alleges the Catholic Church is hiding pedophile clergy—and offers a stunning reason why

Who knows whether Cardinal Edward Egan is sleeping soundly these days. But as head of the New York archdiocese—as the top Roman Catholic prelate in the state—he'd have every reason to be restless after the recent advent of a little-noticed lawsuit.

The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson—a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment" that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims.

But that's not all his lawsuit claims. Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal: He alleges that Egan is "actively homosexual," and that he has "personal knowledge of this." His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay—Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.

I was raised in a Catholic church, but this whole sex abuse scandal has led me to despise the church and its hierarchy. The cover-ups, putting pedophiles back into churches where they have contact with children, the utter hypocrisy. Now the church is on a witchhunt against gay priests. Gay priests aren't the problem. Pedophiles are the problem. Gay bishops who let pedophile priests prey on children to avoid being outed are a big problem.

And the Vatican installed our own pedophile enabler Bernie Law in a private apartment in Rome. Sickening.

Here's Hoatson's complaint, from BishopAccountability.org.