I was initially persuaded by the SSPX rebuttal....until reading the CM counter-rebuttal.

Now I am not so sure:

On the one hand, that Fr. McLucas has never publicly denied the acts, but instead sought to have the lawsuit dismissed due to the statute of limitations expiring, does not make him look very good.

Then, when that strategy fails, he settled out of court, which makes him look even worse.

On the other hand, all three of those actions (ie., the refusal to deny the allegations; the attempted dismissal because of the statute of limitations; the out of court settlement) could all plausibly have been -from a purely legal strategy- expedient maneuvers:

1) His lawyers could have advised him that an early dismissal is his best and cheapest option (ie., having gone that route is not necessarily an implicit admission that “I did it, but you waited too long to do anything about it.”);

2) Same thing for the out of court settlement: If his lawyers advised him that a long trial would bankrupt him and bring even more scandal and contempt, this too could simply have been an expedient solution rather than an implicit acknowledgment of guilt;

3) As regards the lack of denial, such could have been interpreted as unrepentence, or construed as evidence of predation/illness, and once again become an expedient (non) response.

Also, how is he going to deny that which he paid money to suppress?  Making a public denial is going to open the whole matter back up.

Now I don’t know if any of 1-3 are true, but they are certainly plausible.

But for all that, if the allegations were an elaborate fabrication, why didn’t Fr. McLucas go after the woman in court for defamation/libel, knowing what was at stake?  

Perhaps for the same reasons mentioned above (ie., expediency)?

All I can say is that it doesn’t look too good for Fr. McLucas, and I am very surprised the SSPX let him in the door with that kind of baggage, which they surely must have known about.

I hope both the SSPX and the Resistance will be doing their due diligence on any and all refugees who come calling.

And as mentioned earlier, none of this touched upon the fact that (unless it has happened very quietly in the last couple month), Fr. McLucas has never been certainly validly ordained, and given the current environment in Menzingen, he is unlikely to be.

Does the District know something we don’t know, in order to stick its neck out like this for McLucas?

In any case, per the CM response, it is clear the case of Fr. McLucas is much more credible than that of Fr. Perrone (entirely based upon a single allegation of a 40-year “repressed memory.”)

In the vernacular, we call that “bovine feces” from someone looking to get paid.

A judge has to give the benefit of the doubt. Everyone else should not. Catholic morals compel us to not give any benefit of the doubt but rather be wise as serpents.

And that's what you do.