We are in a different world today. Some years ago one never heard much of religious figures being slain in their own churches. True you had the awful bombings of African American Churches in the South, during the Civil Rights movement. You had the occasional situation where a nun was attacked. But they were rare, and what few attacks there were sparked such an outrage is gave many people pause. In all, attacking a religious cleric of any denomination was considered a sacrilege. Even the less sane or less balanced in our society refrained from hurting leaders of a faith.
But that’s not the way anymore. Be it clerics or their parishioners, there are increasingly a number of deranged people who think nothing of entering a church and killing. There have been rampages, and while they have not been limited to the United States. Wherever, assaults have taken place they are for the most part conducted by interlopers, outsiders who enter the house of worship and start killing.
But in the case of the Paterson, New Jersey Diocese, the accused murderer, Jose Felicano, was working at St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, when he stabbed the pries, Reverend Edward Hinds 32 times. Feliciano was an insider, gainfully employed and apparently upset that the new Diocese policy of conducting background checks on every member of the staff, from its teachers to school and parish administration personnel. Feliciano is apparently wanted for a 1988 assault on a minor. According to Lehigh Valley Live, to avoid capture, Feliciano has been using different social security numbers, and false names over the years.
It is not clear yet whether Felicano had not yet submitted to a background check, or he did and one returned results that aroused suspicion. In any case, a criminal background check at the point of his hire would have perhaps helped in preventing his hire and ultimately prevented the death of the murdered priest.
The criminal background check, or any other type of background search for that matter, is a twofold process. First you have to run the background check. Adn then you have to review it. This sounds simple, prosaic, but there are a number of ocmpanies, including state and municipal public service agencies who may ordered background checks but because they take so long to return, they forget or don’t bother to review them. Convicted felons or wanted persons slip between the cracks.
Why background checks can take so long to return to public service agencies is beyond me. Most background checking services will return results within the week. Even with the lousy economy, the county courts are still operating at a pretty decent pace. If there are delays, in the overall they are not significant to the turnaround times. Background checks, these days are certainly cheap enough to be cost effective. To say the least they may help to prevent a grisly murder or even physical violence in any work place.
Here in the church, it is a horror story. Perhaps the background check would have helped to circumvent all this. It would have been just another day for school and worship.
Check them out before you hire.
