A girl and her family are suing a Catholic priest and his church
supervisors, charging that Fr. Stephen Tarleton Dougherty repeatedly
abused her for six years, starting when she was seven, from 2005-2011.
We applaud her for her courage and hope her bravery will inspire others
who are suffering to come forward.
Catholic officials should yank Fr. Dougherty’s passport, so he can’t
flee overseas. They should use pulpit announcements, church bulletins
and parish websites, across the Corpus Christi diocese, to aggressively
seek out other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers and beg them to
call police. But they won’t. They’ll passively sit back and do the bare
minimum.