He added, "The suits are settled--[maybe] not settled to the satisfaction of news media but settled to the satisfaction of the victims and diocese." He applauded the decision by the Bishops Conference in Dallas to prohibit confidentiality agreements unless desired by the victims.
He also criticized the common journalist reliance on depositions, pointing out that depositions do not have the same level of accuracy as courtroom testimony because they are not subject to the challenges of lawyers on both sides. He noted also that people are allowed to change depositions to make them more accurate so that Bishop Moreno's changing a deposition does not indicate anything wrong. "The change is not an indication of perjury," he said.
He disagreed with the notion that Bishop Moreno failed to cooperate with law enforcement authorities. "The detective said the diocese did not cooperate. The diocese disputes that claim. Had it gone to court we would have provided evidence." [Beliefnet viewed this as a fair criticism and changed the sentence to clarify the attribution.]
He also pointed to the sentence mentioning "several" other cases. He said he knew of only one that could be relevant and asked for the names of the others.
Allison alleged that the article didn't provide attribution for certain key facts, and that the article said documents "showed" instead of documents "allege". Allison also faulted Beliefnet for not calling the diocese beforehand to get reaction.
Finally, he said that the piece implied, toward the end, that Bishop Moreno was responsible for a number of these problems even though he hadn't arrived there until 1982.
