That’s always the question for the blogger. For me, and my interest in Catholic-tinged news, the question has arisen with particular force during these years of pretty much continual clergy sexual abuse revelations. A general rule of thumb that I’ve developed is this: I usually don’t post news about lawsuits or accusations. Anyone can file a lawsuit. Anyone can accuse. However, if a situation gets to a point at which criminal charges are filed, arrests are made, or it’s become a very big story in mainstream media, or the Church removes an accused cleric (as is the case in the Joliet post below), that’s far more postable, because they have been deemed credible, or at least worthy of action,  by a third party, and have made the news.  They’re not infallible, and I’ve probably not lived by them myself at all times, but it seems to me to be a fairly decent standard.

The other question is – open comments or not? On some stories, I don’t open comments because there is really not anything known beyond the bare bones of the story, and there is nothing for anyone outside the situation to say, and what they say might quickly veer into gossip.  So that’s an issue too.

So now I’ll test all that by posting a story that, again, about ten people have passed on to me this morning. From the Village Voice: Lawsuit outs Egan:

The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson—a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment" that began after Hoatson alleged a cover-up of clergy abuse in New York and started helping victims.

But that’s not all his lawsuit claims. Halfway through the 44-page complaint, the priest-turned-advocate drops a bomb on the cardinal: He alleges that Egan is "actively homosexual," and that he has "personal knowledge of this." His suit names two other top Catholic clerics in the region as actively gay—Albany bishop Howard Hubbard and Newark archbishop John Myers.

It’s not that Hoatson has a problem with, as the suit puts it, "consensual, adult private sexual behavior by these defendants."

No, what Hoatson claims is that, as leaders of a church requiring celibacy and condemning homosexuality, actively gay bishops are too afraid of being exposed themselves to turn in pedophile priests. The bishops’ closeted homosexuality, as the lawsuit states, "has compromised defendants’ ability to supervise and control predators, and has served as a reason for the retaliation."

No comments yet. Maybe later, after we’ve had a chance to think this over.

(This is not truly breaking news. It’s been bubbling for almost a year now, I think, if not longer)

Here’s the text of responses from Albany and Newark, posted by Matt Abbott, who follows all these cases very closely.

And there is a discussion of this story at Dom’s, if you’re interested.