In 1990, when the group Omaha for Decency was fairly new and trying to increase membership, Daniel Sheehan (Omaha's Catholic Archbishop from 1969-1993) gave his support to the group's anti-porn campaign. Archbishop Sheehan wrote letters to local clergy urging them to become involved in Omaha for Decency's efforts to eliminate porn from the Omaha area. He wrote that porn needs to be eliminated because of the "evils" that it brings. (Omaha Catholic Voice, 3/9/1990 & 4/13/1990).
     This wasn't the first time the former archbishop endorsed anti-porn crusades. In the early 1970's, Sheehan expressed his support for former Omaha City Prosecutor Gary Buchino's prosecution of adult bookstores. (Omaha True Voice [prev. title of Catholic Voice], 6/29/1973). At this time Sheehan recommended using The Longford Report as a guide for fighting porn in Omaha. The Longford Report, published in 1972, is a British study which claims that looking at porn can lead to child sex abuse, and therefore porn should be banned. The Longford Report also concludes that the best way to prevent kids from seeing porn is to ban it for everybody. (Pornography: The Longford Report (1972), Coronet/Hodder (London), secs. I-6, III-16, III-22, IV-24.)
        The fact that Sheehan recommended The Longford Report as a guide for eliminating porn in Omaha means he was a hypocrite. After Sheehan's death in 2000, people came forward to report that a Catholic priest, Thomas Sellentin, had sexually abused them as kids in the 1970's and early 1980's. When confronted, Sellentin admitted the abuse and was removed from ministry. Priests and church members stated that Archbishop Sheehan, who at the time had the responsibility of assigning Catholic priests to churches in his diocese, was told about the multiple cases of abuse from various churches at the times the abuses occurred. But the only thing former Archbishop Sheehan ever did after learning about each case of Sellentin's abuse was to repeatedly transfer Sellentin to other churches. (Omaha World Herald, 4/8/2002, 4/9/2002, & 4/10/2002. See also Omaha World Herald 6/20/2002.).
        Former Archbishop Sheehan endorsed a pro-censorship study which claims that porn should be banned because it leads to child sex abuse. (This claim is a myth, and is discussed on another section of this site.) Yet Sheehan repeatedly and knowingly reassigned a child molesting priest to work at other churches, allowing the molestation to continue. Obviously Sheehan was another Omaha censor who didn't practice what he preached. Sheehan even claimed that any priest involved in sexual misconduct would be relieved of duties. (Omaha World Herald, 9/26/1992). But this, of course, was a lie.