It was a message, all right, and it is worth teasing out what Stokes, his lawyer and the jury were collectively saying: A victim can remain a sanctified object of public sympathy even if he guns down a man. He can speak for other victims and send moral messages to the larger society. He is not responsible for his actions, even actions taking place after almost a decade of reflection. In Baltimore, it is open season on priests, at least priests who have sex with teenagers, at least if they are teenage boys.
The repugnance toward Catholicism is obvious, but the submerged anti-homosexual message should not be overlooked. For thousands of years in traditional masculine sexual culture, to have submitted to homosexual acts (to be penetrated rather than penetrator) is to be unmanned. The rage aroused has the same deep sources as the violent impulses that drive some men to get even with wives who betray them sexually.
Yet as bad as we still think adultery is, we no longer sanction the violent sexual impulses of betrayed men. Don't get me wrong: Blackwell should be disgraced, defrocked and imprisoned.
But beware of what it means when a jury starts handing out 007 licenses in the name of sympathy for the victims.