What is it that we don’t understand about “due process” in law anymore?  It wasn’t all that long ago that the Kavanaugh/Ford debacle took place, wasn’t it?  You know, where a formerly beer- addled -year old girl who would later become a college professor some 35-years thereafter accused a 17-year old beer-addled boy who would become a US Supreme Court Justice, of sexually molesting her.  What did we learn by allowing the case to be tried in the court of public opinion?

Do we not remember that it turned out to be insufficient evidence to, well, believe the-then college professor’s allegations?

Like everyone else, Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone is an American citizen, and, as it is with the rest of us, he’s due certain rights under the Constitution of our country.  You know, rights, like those same rights that those same kinds of peopled who want the many immigrants to have as they illegally cross our borders!

But before any arrest warrants are being served, I am hearing that there are those who are calling for his resignation.  The Bishop may be guilty of collusion, and if what Malone’s confidential secretary and whistleblower, Siobhan O’Connor, possibly have turned over to the police, such warrants may be forthcoming – I don’t know.  But here’s what bothers me about the whole thing.

There’s no question that the morality upon which America was once built, the morality that truly it made it the overall best country in the world, has slipped far past it from just being shaky – and I say that by virtue of all of those illegals to whom some people want to give rights – to the point that it seems that it has started to crack and crumble.  Would you believe that people who haven’t routinely darkened the door of any church, much less a Catholic church, is now demanding action from a high-ranking priest?

These are the same people who at the drop of a hat will spout out that misconception of separation of church and state whenever a cleric comments on a secular issue, and yet still demand that the state should be able to tell churches what it is that they should do.  They do this when the critics themselves have little to no power to tell the state what to do.

There’s been plenty of evidence to affirm that there have been some serious improprieties within the ranks of the whole of the Catholic Church; but such should be expected within an organization that is as massive in size as it is.  It is as I have often said about Niagara Falls; and that is if Niagara Falls was the size of Buffalo then we would have a already had a dozen FBI offices within the city’s limits. So then, imagine what is going on in smaller –sized churches and organizations, or among smaller groups, or even in our own personal lives?  While those same kinds of people talk about the relationship between what is considered the elevated moral expectations of the clergy and the responsibility that it implies – where much is given, much is required – then let these same pundits not forget where Jesus said to the accusers of the woman caught in adultery and facing a summary stoning, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

I want everyone to understand that I am neither supporting any nebulous events that might have occurred by the priests now or formerly assigned under Bishop Malone, nor any actions that Malone may have taken as chief executive officer to keep the business of the church running during these turbulent times as it tries to manage itself between accountability of the few and the massive good works to the many; but I am saying that we should not, nor are we non-practicing Catholics in a position to be making judgments.  Even though whistleblower Siobhan O’Connor has admitted that she did betray the trust that Malone had bestowed upon her, she also rightfully said that, “… at the end of my life, I’m not going to have to answer to Bishop Malone.  I’m going to have to answer to God.”

I agree with her, and I further say that at the end of his life, Malone will have to answer to the same God, and not to any of his secular detractors. But in the meantime, he may have to answer to the law that ultimately judges him innocent until proven guilty.

In the meantime,  let’s protect or children, and

• not be overly distracted by this, and
• make a greater effort to keep those who make the law to which we are accountable, more accountable to us as well, and
• leave the possibility of Bishop Malone’s resignation accountable to Malone and the Pope.