Editorial: Clean the windows

Record Eagle
November 18, 2018

https://bit.ly/2A2LJdT

This week the Catholic Diocese of Gaylord named 10 priests in our area who faced “credible and substantiated” allegations of sexually abusing children.

The list carries names and current clerical status. Further details — like where the men served — were not available.

Eight of the 10 men on the list are dead.

None of the names have a prison record or were prosecuted in court. None of the names were ever on the sex offender registry. All of them were involved in at least one “credible incident of sexual abuse with a minor.”

Publishing and maintaining a list “may be helpful to the healing process of victims-survivors” and to the continued effort for increased transparency, a diocese statement reads.

That may be true but it’s also true that this comes after a search warrant was served two months ago by the Attorney General’s office investigating “alleged sexual abuse and assault of children and others by Catholic priests from 1950 to the present for all seven Catholic dioceses in Michigan.”

Like lists are being dropped by dioceses across the country. Like, careful wording. Like state investigations (at least a dozen, including our own) into the Catholic Church. Like headlines following.

We understand that the last known incident may have been 30 years ago, and can appreciate that the Diocese of Gaylord is making an effort today to rectify the situation with background checks, annual audits and prevention-based training.

We’re glad that clergy is among the mandated reporters required by law to report child abuse.

The problem is that for so many years, they weren’t reporting themselves. And still now, 16 years after the major awakening in 2002 when the Boston clerical scandal broke, there’s still a top-down reluctance to talk about it.

The American bishops this week tackled that issue at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The New York Times reports that Lansing Bishop Earl A. Boyea proposed a resolution asking the Vatican to release all documentation possible on the alleged misconduct of the former cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick “soon.”

“This is not going to solve everything,” Boyea said. “It is just one little text that I’ve proposed for all of us.”

The resolution failed 137 to 83 with 5 abstaining, and was the only measure voted on having to do with the sexual misconduct allegations.

A message from the Vatican asked the bishops to hold off on any action until a February meeting, according to a Washington Post report.

Locally, we are told that Bishop Steven Raica, who leads the diocese, will consult with others on when, if ever, diocese officials will share more of the accused priests’ information.

We know there is much at stake. We know that these priests who misused their position and access do not represent the whole. But slowly removing the Band Aid millimeter by millimeter can make the process much more excruiciating than just ripping it off and exposing the wound to the sun.

Let’s talk about what happened so we can talk about how to prevent it from happening again.

We have faith that it can be done.