Are Catholic Lay Folks Ready To Be Treated To Same Standard as Clergy (Chaput's Action As to Priest)

Well it appears people some folks are upset in Denver over the Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis but it is an different angle. People are hopping mad a Priest was removed and VERY QUICKLY AT THAT.

See Archbishop Chaput takes immediate action on sex abuse allegation ...‎ -

Archbishop Chaput removes Centennial priest accused of abuse‎

To see Chaput's full statement see
Archbishop's Column: Swift action painful but necessary in abuse allegation and a more extensive statement here

Now the Priest is like 74 years old and this alleged incident (in which you see the Priest is protesting his innocence) occured in the early 70's. It appears this is the only allegation ever made against this Priest.

Now the alleged victim calls up the Archdiocese, the next day the Priest is removed from public ministry and just a couple of days later this is announced all over the place.

Now I have a lot of respect for Chaput. Perhaps the alleged victim had a lot of damning evidence for the Church to move this fast. PERHAPS PERHAPS PERHAPS. But it still does not feel right.

It seems , absent some pretty convincing evidence which there might be, that perhaps this should have been investigated a tad more before announcing it to the world.

Now in theory this same standard applies to Laity. Lets face it with the Catholic schools and all sort of different areas that LAY folks are in and encouraged to be in THERE IS TON OF LAY folks that have interactions with kids.

I am just trying to imagine what I would be thinking if I was a Catholic school teacher about to wind up a successful Career and after one day it is set in motion to put me on leave and then in short order to announce it to the world that had been accused of something in the early 70's.

Maybe Chaput is acting right here (time will tell) but I hate to think the mob mentality we are seeing played a part in rushing this. It would seem that if this was the only allegation ever and the guy is 74 that means some caution is needed. Again time will tell. Just seems very very fast.

Still the Church need to remember the rights of the accused here and people's good name. If not I suspect it might get harder for people to work for the Church.