Clergy abuse rears its ugly head in the Bishop Braxton case:

BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) An advocacy group for victims of clergy abuse wants Roman Catholics across southern Illinois to earmark or cut back their tithings to the church until complaints that the bishop misspent money is sorted out.

Pastoral groups in the 104,000-member Diocese of Belleville want Bishop Edward Braxton to address claims that he bought ceremonial garments with about $8,000 in donations to a Vatican world outreach fund.

And the Belleville News-Democrat reports Braxton also may have bought a wooden chancery table and chairs with $10,000 from a fund for children and adults.

Braxton isn’t discussing the complaints publicly.

His ilk is usually above all that public discussion.  Bishop Ed, formerly pastor of Oak Park’s St. Catherine & St. Lucy parish, can afford to ignore this, because he has friends in high places.

In Connecticut this priest adjusts:

When he is training new altar servers, he asks parents to stay for the lessons. If he is measuring young people for robes, he enlists mothers to help him. If there is a church- or school-sponsored field trip, everyone goes on a bus, never alone with him in his vehicle.

“It’s frustrating, I had nothing to do with this, but I just have to face it,” he says. “This is what happened and this is what we will do about it.”

What happened we know about.  How a priest manages things these days we may not know about.

We knew Catholics aren’t the only ones with abuse problems, but here’s a blog about Southern Baptists:

For faith groups that proactively try to address clergy sex abuse, prevention and compassion go hand in hand.

After all, how will people find out about clergy child molesters if victims are turned away and intimidated when they try to report their abuse?

For Southern Baptists, their leaders are still way behind the curve compared to the leaders of other faith groups.

Southern Baptists don’t even provide a safe place to which victims may report abuse. So most victims don’t try.

It’s worse among them, according to Christa Brown, “the national outreach director for SNAP-Baptist and maintains the StopBaptistPredators.org website. She is a wife, mother, attorney, jazz-lover, slow-runner, and a Southern Baptist abuse survivor”:

Why should anyone believe that Southern Baptist leaders will be able to prevent abuse by clergy child molesters they don’t yet know about when, day in and day out, they do nothing about the clergy child molesters they’re specifically told about?

In addition, Stop Baptist Predators dot org is “the voice of SNAP Baptist.”

Cardinal George not only considers financial gain the motive force behind proposed state legislation that would widen opening for suing about sexual abuse, he said so in a letter of apology to parents of a victim of two priests, Sun-Times reports tomorrow.

“This is irresponsible, is not about the safety of children as the sponsor claims, and is clearly, to me at least, about money,” he wrote.

The victim, who is not suing, “called the letter outrageous,” Sun-Times reported.

“Victims sue for justice, not for fabulous houses,” said the man, who . . . is negotiating a settlement. “Nobody wants to live in a fabulous house that reminds you that you were molested by two priests as a boy.”

This is George at his blunt best.  He has a knack for the sharp comment that should make his coming term as bishops’ conference president interesting, if not disastrous.

The bill’s introducer, State Sen. Terry Link, a Lake County Democrat, has heard the cardinal talk this way before and has told him it’s offensive.

This is not likely to slow the cardinal down, and his no-holds-barred commentary has echoes in how auxiliary bishop Thomas Paprocki characterized increasing financial pressures from victims.

“This attack is particularly directed against bishops and priests,” he said in a recent speech, adding that the principal force behind the attacks “is none other than the devil.”

Somehow, you’d think he would reserve diabolism for a number of other heinous things.