More Falsely Accused Priests Finally Returned To Ministry

Back where they belong: (l to r) Rev. Michael O'Brien of the Archdiocese of Denver;
Msgr. Peter Popadick of the Diocese of Buffalo;
Rev. John Clemens of the Archdiocese of Chicago; and
Rev. Paul Guzman of the Archdiocese of Chicago

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the diocesan review boards formed by the Dallas Charter 23 years ago, while originally well intentioned, have become a virtual dragnet for specious, unfounded claims from decades prior in which the due process rights of priests are trampled upon and nearly every presumption is indulged in favor of the claimants, who are often kooks, con artists, and cranks.

Witness these recent episodes of falsely accused priests:

● Rev. Michael O'Brien of the Archdiocese of Denver was finally returned to ministry after local police and the FBI conducted interviews with over 85 "witnesses" only to determine there was no basis to the bizarre claim that Fr. O'Brien abused a single altar boy some 200 or 300 times back in the 2000s. But investigators should not have been surprised. Besides the accusations being ludicrous on their face, the former altar boy is currently in prison serving a 14-year sentence for the sexually assault and "assault-strangulation" involving two teenage girls.

● Msgr. Peter J. Popadick of the Diocese of Buffalo was returned to ministry after a charge dating back to when disco was cool was found "to be completely without merit." This was the second completely bogus accusation Msgr. Popadick faced.

● Rev. John W. Clemens of the Archdiocese of Chicago is back at his parish after an exhaustive investigation determined that there was "no reasonable cause" that he abused a youth a half century ago.

● The claim against Rev. Paul Guzman, also of the Archdiocese of Chicago, was so baseless that the priest was back in his parish less than two weeks after the accusation was made. The charge involved a claim dating back 40 years ago and a full quarter century before Guzman even entered the seminary.

Thus, the fraud now being perpetrated against the Church by such hucksters, nutjobs, and greedy lawyers is shocking as usual. But the Church, pressured by the media and the culture which hates her, reliably always caves in to this injustice and thus only breeds more of it.

As always, the same question remains: When will someone, anyone, in the media finally take notice?

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Want to learn more about the rampancy of false accusations against priests?:
- "False Accusations Against Catholic Priests Are Now At Epic Proportions" (May 2019)
- The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church by David F. Pierre, Jr. (Amazon.com)