Cardinals Continue Policy Of Community Endangerment

Boston.com / News / Local / Archdiocese defrocks four area priests: "The Vatican has defrocked four Boston priests who had been accused of sexually abusing minors, the Archdiocese of Boston announced yesterday.

The archdiocese said it was informed by the Vatican that the priests are ''no longer in the clerical state' over the past several months. The archdiocese offered no explanation for why it decided to announce the changes yesterday." [--snip--]

victim advocate said yesterday's announcement is insufficient because the accused priests will be unsupervised, and blamed the archdiocese for failing to refer the cases for prosecution decades ago.

''Laicization puts unsupervised child molesters into communities," said Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of BishopAccountability.org. ''Who is responsible for these likely child molesters now that they are no longer priests? Who will monitor them? . . . Because the church harbored these criminals when they could have been prosecuted, the church must acknowledge its responsibility for them even when they are no longer priests."