No evidence Congressional chaplain, who oversaw pedophiles, called police

And they’ll challenge the congressional chaplain to disclose whether he ever called police or warned the public about any of the predators, especially those who were put back into any kinds of church jobs.

A story printed today in Roll Call discloses that Fr. Daniel Coughlin, chaplain for the US House of Representatives, spent at least five years overseeing predator priests in Chicago. There’s no mention whatsoever of whether he ever notified police or parishioners about the accused clerics. SNAP wants Coughlin to openly address this question and other questions about his role in keeping clergy sex crimes hidden.

In 1999, Coughlin wrote a letter to Wisconsin prison officials, urging them to free Fr. Norbert Maday, a convicted, imprisoned serial predator. In a deposition given this year, George said, “I have never seen this (letter) before ... I didn’t approve this letter.” SNAP wants George to discipline Coughlin for making this unauthorized, reckless move.

However, in previously secret church records obtained several months ago, George admitted making repeated, written, secret and recent efforts to get Maday cleric out of prison.

According to Roll Call, “One study was particularly critical” of the center Coughlin oversaw, “where accused priests were essentially living without monitors and had master keys to the building — including rooms where other retreat visitors slept. Coughlin said the system in place was much stricter when he ran the center before 1995, and the 2006 report gave no indication at what point the monitoring protocols at the center had lapsed.”

In 1994, Maday was convicted of molesting two boys in Wisconsin. In 2003, the Cardinal’s hand-picked abuse review panel recommended, for the second time, that Maday be defrocked. That didn’t happen until late last year.