Bogus Abuse Lawsuit Is Hard To Beat – OpEd

By William Donohue -- (November 23, 2011)

No segment of the population has been inundated with more bogus lawsuits than Catholic priests. This latest one out of Rhode Island is hard to top.

Some guy from Pawtucket says he was molested by a member of the New England Province of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart when he was in the seventh grade. But there are just a few problems with his tale:

• the alleged abuse took place more than a half-century ago
• the alleged offender is dead
• the accuser never reported the offense to the authorities
• the accuser never contacted the religious order
• the school where this allegedly happened is closed
• the accuser says he never remembered the alleged abuse until he watched a TV show about molestation in 2008
• the accuser says the Penn State case has added to his pain
• the accuser says he doesn’t trust people
• the accuser has been married seven times
• the accuser has had 82 jobs

His counsel, Mitchell Garabedian, is one of America’s premier steeple-chasing lawyers; he is also utterly shameless and has an embarrassing track record in court.

But it’s Thanksgiving, so let’s look at the bright side: it suggests the Church-haters are running out of “victims” to exploit.