A 'Grave Crisis';
Head U.S. Bishops Admit Church's Sex Abuse Failures

By Carol Eisenberg
Long Island (NY) Newsday
June 14, 2002

Dallas - In a frank and powerful mea culpa, the leader of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops opened a historic meeting yesterday by saying the bishops take full responsibility for a sex abuse scandal he called "a very grave crisis, perhaps the gravest we faced."

"We are the ones, whether through ignorance or lack of vigilance, or God forbid, with knowledge, who allowed priest abusers to remain in ministry and reassigned them to communities where they continued to abuse," said Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Nearly 400 bishops sat spellbound in the ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel as Gregory acknowledged that the "crisis, in truth, is about a profound loss of confidence by the faithful in our leadership," and then as four victims of sex abuse spoke in halting and sometimes choked voices about their own childhood betrayal by priests.

Many bishops, including all three New York-area prelates, said they were deeply moved by what they heard. After emerging late last night from a closed-door debate, several said they had agreed to toughen a proposed draft by adopting a zero-tolerance policy that would require the removal of any priest after a single, credible allegation of sex abuse of a minor, no matter when it occurred. A public vote was to be taken today. "I think what we heard today was absolutely unique and historic," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, who has written several books about the Catholic hierarchy and who edits the Jesuit magazine America. "In 20 years, I never heard a president be so frank in standing up and admitting that the bishops themselves did wrong and expressing heartfelt contrition. Equally historic was the appearance of victims and lay people who were given free rein to speak what was in their hearts."

As the bishops retreated behind closed doors yesterday afternoon, several said they felt tremendous sorrow and in some cases guilt listening to victims.

"I found myself totally drained emotionally," said Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, who served for years under Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston. "I feel upset with myself; I feel upset with us all. I have to keep saying to myself, 'Why didn't I do more?'... I'm certainly going to be supportive of policies that say that anyone who abuses is out of ministry."

Brooklyn Bishop Thomas Daily, who also worked under Law, said he was "very much affected by the speakers. I think I came away with the presumption that we're moving towards so-called zero tolerance because of the emotions, the issues involved," he said.

However, Daily seemed to have some misgivings about zero tolerance, saying he hoped for a day when priests could return to service "through God's mercy," as parishioners became more forgiving.

Several senior prelates, including Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, said they were still trying to work out a zero-tolerance policy that would give bishops some discretion in a small number of cases by calling for the removal rather than the laicization of priests who were guilty of a single abuse incident in the past but who had been good pastors ever since.

"I'm still wondering if it can't be one strike and you're out of the ministry but not out of the priesthood," McCarrick said, suggesting the church find some way to place such men away from children, such as a monastery, where they could live out their lives.

The struggle, he said, is to balance the protection of children with compassion for priests, many of them elderly, who have served the church their whole lives. Over and over again, though, the victims told how they had never been shown that kind of compassion. They also said they had heard tough-sounding language from the bishops in 1993, only to see many of them fail to live by their words.

Michael Bland of Chicago, a former priest who became a clinical psychologist, talked about how he was molested as a 15-year-old boy by a priest he had admired. "He told me it was okay. It was a part of growing up," Bland said.

Only after he became a priest himself did Bland report his abuser. He said the church's response was neither humane nor pastoral. Eventually, he said, he felt so ostracized that he left the priesthood.

"The priesthood lost me," he said, "but kept the perpetrator."

Hearing such stories directly, many bishops said they were committed to finding better ways to protect children, and they pledged their commitment to showing care to victims.

"I have never heard anything like this in my 30 years with the conference," said Bishop Anthony Bosco of Greensburg, Pa., speaking about the candor from victims, lay people and Gregory. "I understand the reluctance of victims to believe that our apologies are sincere. But just as we must be forgiving to those among us who did not handle these cases appropriately, I would hope that people are forgiving of us, that they say, 'Okay, you goofed. Now shape up and give it a shot.' Don't assume we're frauds, and don't assume every bishop thinks the same way."

[Photos Captions: AP Photos - 1) Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the conference, addresses the assembly yesterday. 2) Craig Martin, of St. Cloud, Minn., breaks down while speaking about allegedly being abused by a priest when he was 11. 3) Newsday File Photo / Karen Wiles Stabile - Bishop William Murphy]