Bill Donohue comments on the sentencing today of Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero:
When we at the Catholic League first heard that a boy was allegedly raped by three different persons, two of whom were priests, we were immediately suspicious. After all, how many times in American history has anyone been raped three times by three different persons? The more we learned, the more we were convinced that “Billy Doe” was a congenital liar, school dropout, thief, and drug addict, a punk who sought to cash in on the prevailing animus against priests.
Fr. Engelhardt, whom no one has ever proved even met “Billy Doe,” was sentenced to 6 to 12 years in prison; Shero was hit with 8 to 16.
To read our account of this gross injustice, click here. My statement, which was submitted to the Philadelphia Inquirer as an ad, was turned down. It’s not every day a failing metropolitan newspaper rejects $58,000, even when the contents make the paper look bad for not doing its job.
