BishopAccountability.org

Our view: Bishop’s open approach welcome

GoErie
August 24, 2018

http://www.goerie.com/opinion/20180824/our-view-bishops-open-approach-welcome

Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico, in black, speaks to demonstrators with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests outside St. Mark Catholic Center in Erie on Tuesday. From left is Daniel Bauer, an abuse victim; Tina Naylor-Riston; abuse victim Mark Fuller; and S.N.A.P. organizer Judy Jones.
Photo by ED PALATTELLA

Worn levers and a tired script were within easy reach of Catholic Diocese of Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico when protesters showed up Tuesday at the seat of Catholic power in Erie.

He could have retreated behind the walls of St. Mark Catholic Center and held the protesters at legalistic bay on a distant public sidewalk.

Persico exercised a greater power instead. He stepped into the chancery parking lot and invited the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to hold their demonstration on church property.

“Down there, what good is it?” he asked, referring to the sidewalk, as detailed by reporter Ed Palattella.

The church deserves every ounce of opprobrium heaped upon it right now. Charged with a divine saving mission, it put the interests of the institution and the men who control it above the protection of children, whom some priests defiled.

The details of the state grand jury report detailing the abuse of more than 1,000 children by more than 300 priests in the Erie diocese and five others statewide are new. The story is not. Reforms have been underway for decades, but have as yet left untouched the structures and mindset that gave rise to the global crisis in the first place.

Persico did not commit the sick crimes, but is the face of the institution that enabled them. Cowering in the chancery, defensive and clinging to the illusion of clerical exceptionalism, would be one response. It has certainly been the favored default of others churchwide.

Instead, with each step, this unassuming Erie bishop appears to be charting a new, unvarnished style of leadership — humble, accountable, decent — that the church may well need to survive this epoch. It began when he became the first bishop nationwide to release the names of clergy and laity credibly accused of abuse and misconduct and it continued when he opted not to oppose the release of the grand jury report.

Other bishops statewide followed suit. Persico has joined Pope Francis in naming the evil at the root, clericalism. Then Persico broke convincingly with clericalism in Tuesday’s parking lot encounter, which S.N.A.P. members said was unprecedented.

This new way of being bishop is awkward and unfamiliar. Watch the video. Persico asks whether he has the authority to let them protest there. Cameras rolling, he and abuse survivor Jim VanSickle begin a fraught dialogue about the harm VanSickle suffered.

Forget the awkwardness. It is a pretty safe bet to say where Jesus was on Tuesday. Persico’s decision to join him in the St. Mark parking lot was an exercise of the exactly the power the church should have been wielding all along, love. Our advice: Don’t hold back.




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