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	Column: Church Sex-Abuse Crisis Sparks a Haunting Déjà Vu By Robin Washington Duluth News Tribune March 28, 2010 http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/164166/ WISCONSIN -- Verne Wagner gets to live a normal life most of the time. But then, as he told News Tribune reporter Jana Hollingsworth in Saturday's paper, a new wrinkle in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal erupts, and he's reliving the horror of his childhood, lost at the hands of a Proctor priest. Verne Wagner gets to live a normal life most of the time. But then, as he told News Tribune reporter Jana Hollingsworth in Saturday's paper, a new wrinkle in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal erupts, and he's reliving the horror of his childhood, lost at the hands of a Proctor priest. I know something of what he's talking about. Not, thank God, the terror of abuse, but the lulls and flash points of an incessant wrong that never seems to go away. For most of 2002 and 2003, the scandal consumed my life; reporting — mostly on the victims, and later, the accused priests — for the Boston Herald. It was a fantastic story that encompassed every aspect of journalism; shoe-leather and investigative skills, empathy and skepticism, of victims and clergy and bishops alike; and tears. Journalists (and even archbishops, as the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law told me in a fleeting moment of compassion) do cry. But you turn your head away from the person you're interviewing, hide it and go on. Victims, or survivors, as they prefer, can't always hide it, and the periodic allegations in a continuing crisis "solved" by the U.S. bishops in 2002 trigger no end of new tears. Like the victims — and clergy, too, I am certain — I wonder, when will it end? It didn't help that I moved to the Twin Ports, where ground zero followed me from the Archdiocese of Boston to the Diocese of Superior. It was there, in 2005, that the Rev. Ryan Erickson case unfolded of a priest committing murder and suicide in response to an abuse accusation, as a judge determined the likely turn of events. Now another Superior Diocese case consumes the church, leading directly to the Vatican. Is this finally it? Will the pope take full responsibility for all the crimes of his brethren and somehow make it right once and for all? Or will he step down and give his critics their pound of papal flesh? I hold out little hope of change happening in either scenario, not out of cynicism but because I've seen it before. In Boston almost a decade ago, the battle cry rang "Cardinal Law must go!" He left. Little changed. And here we are again. For all their pain, much of the dysfunction lies with the victims, who have fomented a movement, but one led by broken souls. "All I want," I have heard so many times, "is for my abuser to be removed." He's removed. Then "all I want is for the church to admit it." They admit it. "All I want is for his files to be released." They're released. "All I want is a settlement to help me live a normal life." A settlement is granted. "All I want…" No, all a victim wants is to be unraped. And that is impossible. At heart, the issue is neither theological nor hierarchical but criminal, and for all the church's procedures and policies, charters and norms, there is only one response to a report of the molestation of a child: Call the police. The U.S. bishops' norms do dictate that, but they are not universal church law and do not cover the Vatican. Until that is the church's true norm, the periodic jolts will continue. For me, a disruption of professional life; for Verne, the nightmares between peaceful sleep. Robin Washington is editor of the News Tribune. He may be reached at rwashington@duluthnews.com
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