Back story: Skepticism and cautious optimism, a decade after a scandal's landmark settlements

By Peter.rowe@sduniontribune.com
San Diego Tribune
September 10, 2017

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/religion/sd-me-back-story-20170908-story.html

Bishop Robert McElroy: "I’m afraid the church will have a lot to answer for." Photo by Alejandro Tamayo

[Note: This is a five-part feature. It also includes: A decade after settling sex abuse cases, the Diocese of San Diego still copes with the fallout; Four priests who abused their flock: Grim stories from the San Diego diocese files; Largest sexual abuse settlements by Roman Catholic institutions in the U.S.; Timeline of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal.]

For this week’s Back Story, reporter Peter Rowe discusses his front page story about a painful anniversary. Thursday marked 10 years since the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego settled the sex abuse claims of victims of predatory priests.

Q. What’s changed over the past decade?

A. That depends on who you interview. Diocesan officials, including Bishop Robert McElroy, point to a range of new policies designed to reduce the chances of this happening again. These included a new curriculum for Catholic schools, meant to help students and their parents identify — and stop — suspicious behavior. There are new background checks for every employee, religious or lay. Even visiting missionaries and substitute teachers have to undergo this step.

McElroy says all allegations are now reported to the appropriate civil authorities. The Diocesan Review Board, which existed 10 years ago, has subtly changed. The panel has always reviewed allegations, but the chair says it now takes a more active role in determining the facts of a case. And McElroy added a new member to the panel, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

Q. You interviewed several victims of the abuse. What was the overriding feeling you got from talking to people who went through this incredible trauma?

A. Anxiety. Any new reports of sexual abuse by clergy — and there have been numerous in the last 10 years, in San Diego, the U.S. and abroad — revives their fears.

The victims won in court, receiving damages many would consider life-changing — the average payment was $825,000. Yet when you talk to them, they don’t sound triumphant. They remain saddened and scarred by their childhood experience.

Q. Do you get the feeling the church has acknowledged its culpability in this tragedy beyond making settlements for all these victims?

A. That’s difficult to say. I can’t assess the state of the church writ large, especially one as large as the Catholic Church.

In fact, the San Diego diocese is also vast, embracing two counties (San Diego and Imperial), 99 parishes and more than 1 million believers. The congregations are incredibly diverse, including military families, immigrants and refugees, seniors, members of the LGBT community. Within this group, there’s no one view of what the church should done, or should do.

So I found a range of reactions from people within the diocese. There’s tremendous shame, even among model priests who did nothing wrong yet felt humiliated by their colleagues. “It was a tough time to wear a collar,” one told me.

Some are hopeful that the diocese is on the right track, becoming more transparent and responsive to parishioners and law enforcement. Yet there’s also some defensiveness. American history has seen periodic bursts of anti-Catholicism — the Know Nothing Party, the whispers about JFK taking orders from the pope.

Still, McElroy ended one of our conversations by noting that we will all die and face judgment. “I’m afraid the church will have a lot to answer for,” he said.

Q. Were you surprised by anything you learned in reporting this story?

A. Reading over personnel documents for the perpetrators, I was surprised at how many were praised for their compassion and wisdom. Most of these men were outwardly charismatic, although their inner lives were dark and sad.

Also, I was stunned when the bishop said he does not expect that the crime — the sin, if you will — of child sexual abuse will ever be wiped out. This is a sad fact of human nature, McElroy insisted, and how it can be warped.

Perfection is impossible in this life, and we all fall short in ways small and large. I suppose this true, but it’s a sobering thought.