Bishop Dupre Indicted for Child Rape
The first US bishop to be so charged. Sadly, probably not the last.
Bishop Dupre was my bishop when I was in college. He had a run-in back in 2002 with the former Catholic chaplain at Amherst, Fr. Bruce Teague. At the time, Fr. Teague was the pastor at St. Brigid's. The problem began when Fr. Richard Lavigne, a Catholic priest who'd been convicted of child molestation back in 1992, showed up at St. Brigid's in 1996. At that time Fr. Lavigne was in the middle of a ten-year probation, and had been forbidden by the diocese from acting as a priest (though apparently had never been defrocked). Fr. Teague, understandably concerned that there was a child molester in the midst of his child-filled parish, wrote to the diocesan leadership asking that he be ordered to leave. When he got no reply, he went to the Amherst town police and got a trespass order, such that Fr. Lavigne was threatened with arrest if he returned.
What did the Diocese of Springfield do when one of its pastors took such dramatic action to protect his flock? Naturally, they fired him. Fr. Teague was made to step down as pastor of St. Brigid's. (Not that all my ire is directed at the Diocese; the Fairest College also let Fr. Teague go at around that time, replacing him as chaplain at around the same time, though he continued to say Mass in the makeshift Catholic chapel, at least while I was there.)
(There are some good Boston Globe pieces on this story here and here.)
This was an incredibly disheartening moment for me, the epitome in my mind of the ethic of unseriousness with which too many bishops treated the molestation crisis. You can argue, maybe, that in the 80s and 90s the bishops didn't know what they were doing when they shuffled suspected molesters around, that they didn't understand the scope and seriousness of the problem. But you'd have to have been blind not to have seen that in 2002. I'm beginning to think that "blind" may be the most charitable explanation of Bishop Dupre's actions, since it turns out that the bishop may have been a molester himself.
Such terrible corruption in the Holy Mother Church. The heart breaks from sadness.
Bishop Dupre was my bishop when I was in college. He had a run-in back in 2002 with the former Catholic chaplain at Amherst, Fr. Bruce Teague. At the time, Fr. Teague was the pastor at St. Brigid's. The problem began when Fr. Richard Lavigne, a Catholic priest who'd been convicted of child molestation back in 1992, showed up at St. Brigid's in 1996. At that time Fr. Lavigne was in the middle of a ten-year probation, and had been forbidden by the diocese from acting as a priest (though apparently had never been defrocked). Fr. Teague, understandably concerned that there was a child molester in the midst of his child-filled parish, wrote to the diocesan leadership asking that he be ordered to leave. When he got no reply, he went to the Amherst town police and got a trespass order, such that Fr. Lavigne was threatened with arrest if he returned.
What did the Diocese of Springfield do when one of its pastors took such dramatic action to protect his flock? Naturally, they fired him. Fr. Teague was made to step down as pastor of St. Brigid's. (Not that all my ire is directed at the Diocese; the Fairest College also let Fr. Teague go at around that time, replacing him as chaplain at around the same time, though he continued to say Mass in the makeshift Catholic chapel, at least while I was there.)
(There are some good Boston Globe pieces on this story here and here.)
This was an incredibly disheartening moment for me, the epitome in my mind of the ethic of unseriousness with which too many bishops treated the molestation crisis. You can argue, maybe, that in the 80s and 90s the bishops didn't know what they were doing when they shuffled suspected molesters around, that they didn't understand the scope and seriousness of the problem. But you'd have to have been blind not to have seen that in 2002. I'm beginning to think that "blind" may be the most charitable explanation of Bishop Dupre's actions, since it turns out that the bishop may have been a molester himself.
Such terrible corruption in the Holy Mother Church. The heart breaks from sadness.
<< Home