Catholic Church must make full confession on sex abuse | Opinion

By Tim Morris
NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
August 19, 2018

https://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2018/08/catholic_church_abuse_of_child.html

Victims of clergy sexual abuse, or their family members react as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. Photo by Matt Rourke

More than 30 years after horrific crimes against children in the Louisiana Diocese of Lafayette first exposed a culture of sexual abuse and systematic cover-up within the Catholic Church, the tragedy continues.

The latest evidence comes in a scathing report issued Tuesday (Aug. 14) by a Pennsylvania grand jury that found bishops and other leaders of the church had concealed sexual abuse of children by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years.

The grand jury said there were more than 1,000 identifiable victims and likely thousands more whose records were lost or who were too afraid to come forward.

Heartbreaking examples in the 1,400-page report included a priest who raped a young girl in a hospital visit after she had her tonsils out; another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a young girl and arranging for her to have an abortion; a 7-year-old boy who was sexually abused by a priest and then told to go and confess his "sins" -- to that same priest; another priest who forced a 9-year-old boy to perform oral sex, "then rinsed out the boy's mouth with holy water to purify him."

As hard as it is to read about the physical abuses, the mental anguish heaped upon victims and their families as church leaders sought to intimidate or use cynical guilt against them to remain silent magnifies the damage done to both body and soul.  

"The main thing was not to help children, but to avoid scandal," the report said. "Priests were raping little boys and girls and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing: they hid it all."

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the grand jury reviewed more than 2 million documents, including from the church's "secret archives" that included reports of abuse leaders kept hidden from the public for decades.

And it mostly worked.

"As a consequence of the coverup, almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be prosecuted," the report said.

In Pennsylvania, victims of child sex abuse have until they are 30 to file civil suits and until they are 50 to file criminal charges. In Louisiana, a child abuse victim has until 28 to file a civil suit and 48 to file criminal charges.

The Pennsylvania grand jury recommended ending such limitations for criminal cases and allowing older victims to sue the church for damage they suffered as children. It also urged tighter laws to mandate the reporting of abuse and an end to nondisclosure agreements when legal settlements have been reached.

Many had hoped that the church was addressing these horrific practices after a high-profile Boston Globe investigation found widespread abuse in the Boston Archdiocese in 2002.

The Boston Archdiocese agreed to pay $10 million to victims of Father John Geoghan and an additional $85 million to 552 victims and parents who had filed civil lawsuits over the ignored abuse.

It was just the beginning.

Five years later, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $660 million settlement with 508 abuse survivors. In May of this year, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced plans to establish a $210 million trust fund for hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse there.

The church's complicity in this tragedy is impossible to ignore.

When Father Gilbert Gauthe arrived in Lafayette in the 1970s, he showed a special interest in young boys, organizing camping trips and inviting them for sleepovers in the rectory. He kept a gun at his bedside and threatened to use it when the boys refused to submit to his demands. He raped them and forced them to perform sex acts on each other while he took photographs.

When complaints came, he was transferred to a smaller church in the diocese and nine families were offered settlements totaling $4 million. But the abuse continued until a lawsuit against Gauthe forced the district attorney to act. Gauthe became the first Catholic priest in U.S. history to face indictment for multiple cases of child molestation.

Gauthe would eventually plead guilty to 34 criminal counts and be sentenced to 20 years in prison. He told a psychologist that he had abused more than 300 children. And he was not alone.

The Diocese of Lafayette and its insurers have now paid $26 million to 123 victims of priest sex abuse between 1950 and 2002. But in June of this year, Bishop Douglas Deshotel declined to release the names of priests whose victims received settlements. Unless priests are charged by law enforcement, the records of the church remain private.

Deshotel said none of the men remain in the ministry, but that doesn't mean they aren't in positions to abuse and exploit children. 

The church should realize that its reputation is long gone. It is time to open the "secret archives" and truly atone for its decades of failure. It is time for change.