DALLAS (AP) – The Roman Catholic bishop of the Dallas diocese has challenged the accuracy of a Dallas police affidavit’s allegations that the diocese had “thwarted” its investigation of past sexual misconduct by priests.
Police used the affidavit to authorize Monday raids on diocesan headquarters, a storage unit it uses and a church office. In the affidavit, police Detective David Clark described a diocese that wasn’t forthcoming with critical files and relied on personnel to identify predatory behavior when they had no background or training to do so.
In his lengthy statement Friday, Bishop Edward J. Burns said the diocese had turned over all of the files it had on the priests and their cases. He said “the diocese cannot turn over what it does not have.”
Burns said the affidavit had revealed no abusers that hadn’t already been revealed to the diocese, and he defended the expertise of personnel chosen by the diocese to identify predatory behavior.
A Dallas police spokesman says the department has nothing more to say on the matter.
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