BishopAccountability.org

Will anger about sex abuse finally push Catholics to demand better of their church?

By David Fritz
StauntNews Leader
August 18, 2018

https://www.newsleader.com/story/opinion/columnists/2018/08/18/catholic-multiplied-scandal-sexual-abuse-priests-trying-avoid/1023393002/

A grand jury's report on sexual abuse by hundreds of Catholic priests in Pennsylvania is expected to be released later Tuesday.
Photo by Claudio Reyes

[with video]

What’s a Catholic to do in the wake of the damning Pennsylvania grand jury report covering a half century of sexual abuse by priests and coverups by their superiors?

The complicated individual stories span decades. Some catalog the misdeeds of a single priest through an entire career. Too few stories cover one-and-done miscreants. Most were excused by bishops, shuffled between parishes or shipped across the country to offend again.

Individually, the details are horrific. Compiled, they're devastating first and foremost for the grievous wrongs done to young people. But also in how they tainted the faith, the majority of the faithful – clergy and laypeople - and their works. They defame religion everywhere.

The first thing to do is get angry, suggests The Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit writer. Anger akin to Jesus’ when he drove the money changers from the temple. Martin urges embracing such anger as the way God can work through people.

And anger is easy. It’s out there. It’s flowing. We’ve had too much practice, as these stories have trickled out for decades now. We must make this an inflection point.

Catholics have talked before about moving on to the next step, as we hoped to after the Boston Globe's 2001 investigative journalism exposed John Geoghan, a defrocked priest accused of molesting more than 80 boys. It was journalism that mattered, but apparently not enough to an insular church leadership.

In the last week we were dragged back to the issue yet again by a single state’s accounting of 301 priests in just six of eight Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses. It was brutal in its honesty only because the grand jury was independent, had subpoena power and relied on the church’s own damning documents. 

It’s a start. Again. Now we need a similar accounting in the other 49 states plus the two remaining Pennsylvania dioceses. Oh, and the District of Columbia, whose retired bishop is now believed to have sexually groomed seminarians for decades before passing his crozier on to his successor, the former bishop of Pittsburgh whose actions are detailed in the report.

We need a state-by-state accounting because these stories exist in every single diocese, and because a subpoena can pry loose what journalism might not. Indeed these cases exist worldwide, but the U.S. church, working within U.S. laws, has enough to do to cleanse its own sacristies.

We can’t walk resolutely forward unless we know from where we’re starting. We must be reasonably beyond the fear constant new revelations.

The angry, both inside and outside the church, need to demand a full investigation of every diocese. 

The church has too long buried these cases and shuffled problem priests because they believed the “scandal” of exposing the evil would damage the church. The real scandal, of course, was two-fold – the scandal of the individual actions and the scandal of the enablers. The scandal did damage the church: before the exposure it poisoned its soul; after, it shames the faithful.

Keeping secrets doesn’t avoid scandal, it simply festers and multiplies, as the Pennsylvania report makes clear.

Then the angry must talk solutions: An intervention by the laity, a greater place for women for their own merit and to counter a warped hierarchy that betrays how the early church functioned, a rock-solid one-strike policy for proven abuse, civil changes limiting non-disclosure agreements, limiting statutes of limitations in criminal and civil matters involving minors and mandating reporting of wrongdoing by diocesan employees and volunteers.

And listen, most importantly to the victims. Groups such as Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests must be at the table.

To be fair, churches have taken some steps. New cases are declining and that likely will continue, but many actions to date have been about assuaging insurance carriers and lessening liability. Righteous anger and risk management aren’t equal motivations. The latter will be insufficient to reform the Catholic church hierarchy, which has operated this way for far too long.

A Catholic problem? Yes and no

People do ask why Catholics have this problem, and it’s fair to consider, although mine is just a view from the pews.

Every organization has people who ignore the rules, follow their urges, act out evil. Our pages are full of them. The percentage of Catholic priests who have inappropriate contact with young people is probably the same as ministers of other faiths, scout leaders or teachers.

Protestants can fire their ministers and to some extent pick which bishop they’ll follow. Catholic bishops impose clergy on Catholic churches, usually without regard to the parish’s wishes.

Protestants break into new churches over differences in doctrine or worship while Catholics just sit in different pews and sneer at each other. Or maybe travel to the next Catholic church up the road.

Protestants are participants in governance. Catholics are mostly observers, whipsawed every few years by changes of language, music, bells and smells that are always sold as improvements over the last set of improvements to which we begrudgingly grew accustomed.

All of these things reinforce an insular hierarchy that can make up its own rules and disregard parishioners.

The best priests are servant leaders, and there are many I know and admire. Others are focused more on power; they consider themselves undiscovered bishops. And perhaps the bishops of Pennsylvania considered themselves undiscovered popes.

Yes, the structure is based on an understanding of church and leadership. Like anything, you can cite scripture to justify it. It’s rooted in, if not the early church which was much more communal, then an adolescent church that was in some places underground and under siege, secretive and defensive.

It’s rooted in an understanding of a priest’s undissolvable marriage-like relationship with the church and mirrors church teaching on divorce. It’s why a Pennsylvania bishop could not easily be rid of a troublesome priest. It’s why priests stripped of all their powers of ministry were still provided for financially, as outlined in the report.

But spouses turn in their husbands and wives when they commit heinous crimes - especially crimes against children. Bishops must be compelled to do likewise and be criminally punished if they do not.

Once civil authorities are done with the offenders, if the Bishops want to continue to take responsibility, perhaps the Vatican could run a priest penitentiary – with the emphasis on penitent. Far better than shuffling them to another parish.

Use the anger

This report is heart-wrenching. The next 49-plus will be like lashes. But necessary. Necessary to focus Catholics on demanding reform of their clergy and ending the hidden scandal. Because the real church is in the pews, not on the altar.

And we’re angry because someone has yet again uncovered a den of something worse than thieves. Let's use that anger.

Contact: dfritz@newsleader.com




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