"He did admit to the enemas."

The subject line is a quote from Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth files, released yesterday by a state judge. The files are diocesan records on seven accused child-molesting priests whose cases were part of a 2003 lawsuit against the diocese. Here's the story from today's Dallas Morning News. The "he" in question is Father Philip Magaldi, who told the late Bishop Joseph Delaney that yes, he'd paid high school boys to administer enemas to him. Bishop Delaney left him in ministry, and let him continue as chaplain to Boy Scouts, and gave him chance after chance, despite more and more sex-related complaints piling up against him.

The files also show that Bishop Delaney wrote, in one confrontation with his old pal Magaldi: "There is no way that -- that I can defend myself before God or before the people of the diocese or before the world if ... [a reporter for The Dallas Morning News], for instance, tomorrow morning, published all of this. There would be no defense."

The only reason the DMN (and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram) are publishing them today is because we went to court to request that these trial documents be made public. Bishop Delaney was clearly more interested in saving face than saving the Catholic children of his diocese from his predatory priests. The diocese fought to keep these records secret, but failed, thank God (to his credit, the new bishop, Vann, decided not long after he took over from the deceased Delaney to stop fighting to keep the records sealed). People need to know what was done. It can't be undone, but it must not be forgotten. If not for the courts and the newspapers, this would all have gone down the memory hole.