How long did the ND administration allow former provost father james burtschaell to sexually abuse students/others.....a decade more?
cgvr, serious question: What evidence do you have that ND knew about father Burtchaell's sexual abuse for a lengthy period of time, whether it was a decade or several years, without doing anything? According to the articles I've read the first verifiable complaints are also the ones that led to an immediate investigation and subsequently led to Burtchaell being forced to resign within a year or so. I've seen articles that claim there may have been another person who lodged a complaint many years before but that complaint was lodged with the Congregation of the Holy Cross, not with the University. I ask this because I've seen you bring this issue up before as a way to point out that ND has its warts too, which is something that I agree with, but unless I'm missing something, I don't think this example fits.
According to the facts as I understand them:
Multiple students alleged sexual abuse sometime during the 1989-1990 academic year, an immediate investigation was conducted during the 1990-1991 academic year, more students came forward during the investigation and also alleged abuse, Burtchaell was forced to resign on Dec. 31, 1991.
If those are indeed the facts with regards to the University's involvement and there isn't more factual evidence out there, I really don't see how this story fits into the narrative that ND mishandled or turned a blind eye to a very serious situation. I did see that many people complained about one significant aspect of Burtchaell's resignation - he was allowed to take an off-campus sabbatical for one year after his letter of resignation, but this brings up another point. The term "sexual abuse" in this case is accurate but I believe it is also highly misleading. When most people see the words "priest" and "sexual abuse" in the same sentence they think of a horrific criminal act perpetrated on a child. In this case the word "abuse" refers to "abuse of power" because what Burtchaell did was not criminal. The students involved were all adults. Now, that doesn't mean that what Burtchaell did was OK. It was horrible in its own right and clearly abuse of power. He needed to be forced out, but what he did wasn't criminal and I think that is an important distinction. To this day ND hasn't disclosed specific details of their investigation or why they allowed Burtchaell to remain on sabbatical for a year. I think it's possible ND had legal considerations of their own with regard to Burtchaell's rights which may have forced them to act more cautiously than they would have liked.
Bottom line is, from what I can see, there is no damning evidence that points to ND turning a blind eye to Burtchaell's misconduct. Do you have links to any articles that definitively prove otherwise?