How Can Catholic Church Officials Sleep at Night? (column)

By Jeffrey Blum
York Daily Record
September 8, 2016

http://www.ydr.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/09/08/how-can-catholic-church-officials-sleep-night-column/89964526/

Bishop Ronald Gainer recently submitted a letter to the newspaper stating that his “heart aches” for victims of sexual abuse. He apologizes "for the harm that has been inflicted on them.”

All well and good, Bishop Gainer. However, may we remind you that reconciliation is not as simple as saying you are sorry? It is also promising not to sin again by totally righting the wrong, not just partially.

Do your faithful Catholics contributing to the Sunday collection realize that a significant amount of their donation is taxed by your office and spent to fund the Catholic Conference? The title sounds like an organization dedicated to doing good works: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, not protecting pedophiles!

Do the faithful realize that dollars were spent on lobbying and lawyers to sway the Senate into stripping House Bill 1947, a bill that had been overwhelmingly passed by the House, to give voice to victims of sexual violation?

Do the faithful realize that this action gives a free pass to the 95 percent of sexual predators who are not members of the clergy? That it enables them to continue to violate a hundred thousand children?

Do they even hear the word "violate" in your toothless apologies? Abuse, rape, molestation are soft words. Shatter. Traumatize. Violate, Destroy. These words all more appropriately describe what happens to an innocent victim of sexual violence.

People were to believe that claims of past victims would hurt the programs and ministries. The full truth is that funding for Catholic Charities comes mostly from federal dollars. The church has insurance for lawsuits and there are enormous hurdles a victim must navigate before a claim is even taken seriously.

Lawsuits don’t close churches. Lack of vocations to staff them and lack of practicing Catholics to support them is what closes churches. Who in good conscience would want to appear in public in a Roman collar these days?

Who will put money into the basket on Sunday when they realize their good intent may well be turned on its head to protect sexual predators. Their donations may be protecting a man in their neighborhood that raped a friend when he or she was a child so the predator can get a free pass to violate more children.

Half-hearted half-truths have already driven people away from the church. If you choose to wait for investigations rather than being forthcoming, you will lose more of your flock even more quickly and effectively. The church will be its own undoing when, in the public eye, the hierarchy is today's Judas – sacrificing blessed innocents for 30 pieces of silver. Have you considered the true costs of your lack of transparency beyond the church's wallet?

How do you sleep at night, Bishop Gainer? The diocese has admitted there were 24 accused priests or former priests, though only 18 have been listed. What if even one of those accusations is credible? What if even one is alive, living out of state where parents don’t know he is a predator? Statistics say he will ultimately violate either 52 girls or 150 boys. You have the power to help his victims.

You may ask, but what if the accused is now dead? You still have that power to help people begin to heal. My wife and our family suffered for 45 years until she saw That Name on a list of predators. Only now are we beginning to find renewed healing, trust and faith.

How can you wake up each day, clothe yourself in the vestments of faith, and go about your work, all the while knowing that the people who have put their faith and trust in you are suffering needlessly? How can you look the faithful in the eye in full awareness that you are protecting violent predators at their (literal) expense?

Incomplete transparency is incomplete truth. Will you correct this spin and let Catholics know the whole truth? Will you publicly list all those accused before embarrassing the faithful with an investigation? Will you direct the Catholic Conference to fund lobbying that protects children instead of pedophiles?

I will believe your words of heartache when your actions speak as righteously. Right now, they are as hollow as an empty pew.

Jeffrey Blum lives in New Freedom.