During my professional career as editor and publisher of daily newspapers, there was no more thorny question than the one about how to handle the obituaries of well-known people, especially when they had some negative issues during their careers.

The question always came down to this: Should an obituary be a device that family members are able to clip from the newspaper and lovingly squirrel away in the family Bible, or should it be handled like any other news story that includes all relevant facts of a person’s life - even negative ones?

Until the late-1980s, most newspapers treated obituaries as any other news story, except they were all gathered in a separate section of the paper. Back then, obituaries were printed free of charge and followed mainly a prescribed template which stuck to the basic facts of a person’s life, such as name, age, place of residence, place of passing, career or life milestones, spouse, children, other survivors and predecessors and funeral arrangements.

Following this simple writing format, it’s not easy to discern the deceased person’s authentic character through the final written record of their life.

Many newspapers back then had obituary writers who would take information from funeral directors but then were encouraged to add any relevant information - good or bad - that further identified the individual. As you might imagine, the publication of what was considered adverse or negative information sent the funeral directors and the deceased’s families ballistic.

As newspaper fortunes dwindled, industry leaders began searching for alternate sources of revenue, and someone hit on the idea: “Why don’t we start charging to have obituaries published?”

It was at this point that obituaries included only what was given to the newspaper by the funeral director. The cost of the obituary, determined on either a per-inch or per-obituary basis, was charged to the funeral director, who passed it along to the deceased’s family. That’s why you see such things these days as significant others and pets being listed as survivors along with other unconventional tidbits of information.

I remember a few years ago that an obituary in a Wilkes-Barre newspaper had this phrase listed among the deceased’s survivors “a s----load of grandchildren.” The obituary received international attention after newspaper officials decided to run the scatological phrase because it was at the deceased’s request made through a surviving family member, and the family was paying for it.

The question about an obituary’s contents came into sharp focus when Edward Cullen, the third bishop of the Diocese of Allentown, died last month at the age of 90. Most newspapers in the diocese published the obituary provided by the diocesan public relations office, which made no mention of Bishop Cullen’s being named in Pennsylvania’s infamous grand jury report on sexual abuse of youngsters by a number of priests, followed by the cover-up by church officials.

Despite glowing achievements during his ministry, Cullen reportedly had knowledge of instances of sex abuse allegations involving some accused priests early in his career when he served in the Philadelphia Diocese.

After an exhaustive investigation of alleged sexual abuse by priests and other church workers in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including Allentown, over a 70-year period (1947-2017), a blockbuster grand jury report alleged Cullen had mishandled the case of a priest accused of abuse, as had some other bishops.

A 2011 report from The Philadelphia Inquirer, citing testimony by Cullen, revealed that parishioners in Philadelphia diocesan parishes would be told that accused priests were on a religious retreat or resigning for health reasons rather than the real reason for their disappearance from public view.

As chief prelate when he came to the Allentown Diocese, Cullen took a much different approach. In the diocese’s statement on Cullen’s death, it credits the bishop with “almost immediately working to remove offenders from the ministry and implementing polices and reforms to protect children in the church.” The statement says in 2002 he was the first Pennsylvania bishop to convene a meeting with the five district attorneys in the diocese’s counties (Carbon, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lehigh and Berks) and turned over personnel files of all accused priests.

The counties’ district attorneys commended Cullen for cooperating in investigations that led to charges or actions against the offending priests. “He enhanced protections for children and young people; he enhanced care for victims of abuse, and he forged bonds of cooperation with law enforcement,” said Matt Kirby, the Allentown Diocese’s media relations director in a statement.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI| tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.