Father Gilbert Gauthe--How It All Began

I came across a story at the Beaumont, Tx Enterprise reporting on the release of the guy in the pic after a two year jail term in Galveston for not registering as the sex offender, that he is.  Why should we care?

The guy in the picture is Gilbert Gauthe, a former Louisiana priest and one of the first priests in US history to be prosecuted as a pedophile priest.  In 1985 following a lenghty scandal, investigation, and attempted cover-up by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Gilbert Guather was convicted of 34 counts of child molestation.  This is from the Enterprise article on the Guathe's release:

"Former Catholic priest Gilbert Gauthe, 64, who in 1985 was convicted on 34 counts of child molestation and possession of child pornography in a Louisiana case, was arrested by La Marque police in April, 2008. Gauthe was living in his recreational vehicle at Galveston State Park when police arrested him for failing to register. Before then, he was living in La Marque and driving for a limousine service."
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The Gauthe scandal was investigated by Jason Berry.   Jason Berry detailed the heroic efforts of Father Tom Doyle, who fully faced down the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) and their hit man, Auxilliary Bishop A. James Quinn.  Bishop Quinn, a civil and canon lawyer, was an architect of the cover up of priest sex abuse scandals in the US.  Quinn was capable of any every loathsome act in his crusade to protect the Magisterium of the Church.  Quinn attempted to slime Doyle and Berry and really anyone critical of the Church.  If you're interested at all in how the Church finds itself where the Church  finds itself, read Berry's books!

When I practiced law in my prior life, I deposed Bishop Quinn and subsequently discussed evidence developed in connection with that discovery with Jason Berry, producers for 60 Minutes, and the investigators at  Boston Globe.  Yeah, OK that's a little bit of pride oozing out from under my hat.

The real heroes of the effort to reform the Church are people like Fr. Tom Doyle, Barbara Blaine of SNAP, David Clohessy of SNAP, Jeff Anderson, victims like Frank Fitzpatrick who came forward in the Father James Porter case, and so many nameless victims and others who had the courage to withstand the hatred of parishoners egged on by the likes of Bishop Quinn and the Red Mass militia.

The "Father Gilbert Gauthe case" is significant because it was the subject of the first 60 Minutes stories on priestly-child sex abuse in America.

So look closely at the picture of Father Gilbert Gauthe, his crimes are the crimes that toppled the very first dominoes.  In his way, Gauthe's crimes still resonate, louder and louder.