I'm supposed to believe this?

I received an e-mail from Lady Anne with, among other things, a link to a story that begins like this:

The St. Louis archbishop embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal testified last month that he didn’t know in the 1980s whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children, according to a court deposition released Monday.

Okay . . . so let's give him the benefit of the doubt here and focus on the middle of that sentence:

he didn’t know in the 1980s whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children

It's possible that in the 1980's there weren't any actual laws on the books making it illegal for priests to have sex with children.  So I suppose from a legal standpoint, he might be right.

HOW-FREAKIN'-EVER . . . RC priests are supposed to be celibate, so he should have known that this was canonically illegal.  And whether that particular act was illegal, there certainly was such a thing as age-of-consent, and children can't legally give consent.  There is also something called "power imbalance" which dictates that those in positions of power need to be very careful about not using that power to the detriment of another person . . . like a child.

And finally . . . whether illegal or not, how about just plain WRONG?  Dude . . . hiding behind "I'm not sure if sex with children was illegal or not" does not help your argument that the church holds any kind of moral authority.  It's also cowardly.  It's also wrong.