Article 7, 101

Lest any doubts remain that the church -- at least, on these shores -- can handle allegations firmly, fairly, swiftly and with transparency and healing paramount, the following video of a presser yesterday in Knoxville might make for very useful watching:


Already one of the most effective diocesan-media shops in the country, just further proof that the folks in Volunteer Country sure know how to run the news, good and bad alike.

Elsewhere, Wisconsin's Superior diocese -- once a player in the Murphy debacle -- has won editorial plaudits for "doing the right thing" in its handling of cases, while the "swift and public" action taken by the Denver archdiocese after a report there was highlighted by the AP... leaving one local columnist to ask "Is there any other institution or employer that would act this decisively on the basis of a single, uncorroborated accusation dating back decades?"

Of course, the story has had a pronounced flip-side in concerns voiced through the years over the US' norms treatment of due process and the rights of the accused -- the central aspect that held up the particular law's Vatican confirmation for several months after its June passage by the bishops. In that light, the days of Dallas are likely numbered given last month's emergence that the Holy See will soon release universally-binding "supervisory norms" on handling cases -- the fulfillment of a process reportedly undertaken from the early days of this pontificate.

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