Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to the news that Pope Benedict XVI has named Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput to be the new Archbishop of Philadelphia:
This is great news. Anyone who knows Archbishop Chaput knows him as a man of integrity, brilliance and courage. Outspoken but never abrasive, he is quite capable of using the bully pulpit to rally the faithful.
The Catholic League worked with Archbishop Chaput in 2006 to successfully defeat those who sought to single out the Catholic Church for retribution in the courts: when a bill to extend the statute of limitations on cases involving the sexual abuse of minors was finally amended to include public institutions, the public school establishment quickly got on board to kill this anti-civil libertarian measure. Thus was the mask pulled off those who claimed to be only interested in protecting adolescent males.
The grand juries in Philadelphia that have cherry-picked their way through the legal system—never once investigating wrongdoing in other institutions, religious or public—are a disgrace. In particular, former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, who reneged on her pledge to investigate organizations other than the Catholic Church, has left the impression that Philadelphia is rife with miscreant priests. This is a lie. We await a fresh start and look forward to the day when the whole story is finally told.
Congratulations to Archbishop Chaput. He has our unqualified support.
