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	Vatican's Code of Secrecy Hides the Truth By Dianne Williamson Telegram Gazette April 15, 2010 http://www.telegram.com/article/20100415/COLUMN01/4150673 The bishop was defensive and evasive. He finally admitted that he knew of some 30 complaints of sexual abuse by about 20 priests, but did nothing to protect children. Instead, he transferred predatory priests from parish to parish, some as often as a dozen times. At one point, the bishop was asked if the scourge of clergy sexual abuse has plagued the diocese for a long time. He bristled. "I don't know why you're singling us out." The bishop was the late Timothy J. Harrington. The place was Worcester. His legal deposition was recounted in this space in 1996, six years before the Catholic sex abuse scandal would explode on the pages of The Boston Globe, rock the nation, and result in far fewer consequences for the hierarchy that covered it up. Today, no one should be surprised that the crisis has reached the highest level of the Vatican. If you were a bishop before 1990 or so, and one of your priests had abused a child, the pattern was consistent and nearly universal: You would cover it up, transfer the priest and protect the institution. The young victims were barely addressed, other than with a stern suggestion that they keep silent. In almost every case, the stories came to light with no help from the hierarchy. Rather, the church used every method within its vast arsenal to deny, to attack its accusers, to feign victim of anti-Catholic bias. In almost every case, the church acted only after media reports led to public outcry. In Worcester, for example, a priest revealed in a deposition in the mid-1990s that a fellow priest had allegedly groped someone. In return, this brave priest was subjected to such abusive and hostile questioning that the diocesan lawyer was later rebuked by a Superior Court judge. The priest would bring his concerns about the diocese's harsh handling of alleged victims to the local hierarchy. No one wanted to hear it. The bishop blocked his ears. The lawyer stayed. I bring up these stories not to rehash the past, but to question how much has changed and whether the church has learned enough from its mistakes. Sadly, the answers are: not much; and no. Despite the lip service given to the current crisis, the Vatican continues to counteract, feign victim and protect the kingdom at all costs. It continues to fall back on the centuries-old code of secrecy. According to Pope Benedict, faith allows him not "to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion." Within the closed walls of the church hierarchy, the sense is that this, too, shall pass. Will it? This time, it was The Associated Press that found the future pope resisted pleas to defrock a priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter. It's the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's claim that Benedict had no role in blocking the removal of abusive priests. And while last month they blamed the devil, this week they're blaming the gays. In Chile, a high-ranking cardinal sometimes called the "deputy pope" said this at a news conference: "Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia, but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia." Sigh. It can make you crazy, really, and there's not enough space in this newspaper to refute the galling ignorance of that remark. The irony, of course, is that emotionally stunted gay men were indeed drawn to the priesthood in the '50s and '60s because their own church taught them to repress and loathe their sexuality. But plenty of studies note that gay men are no more at risk of abusing children than straight men are. Back in the '90s, when this newspaper first began to write about abusive priests and the shocking diocesan cover-up, we were chastised from local pulpits and reviled by Catholics who accused us of blasphemy. Those cries were gradually silenced by the steady, grim ooze of evidence that eventually engulfed the nation. Now, as the crisis extends across the globe, we have to wonder: When is enough, eno Contact: dwilliamson@telegram.com
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