ENTERPRISE EDITORIAL: Disclosure on priests needed, and overdue

Beaumont Enterprise
February 4, 2019

https://bit.ly/2TzC9rK

Catholic officials in Texas deserve credit for what they did last week — naming priests who have been credibly accused of sexual assault. But the disclosure, welcome as it is, does not excuse this terrible crime or mean that the church should relent in rooting out this evil.

The church released the names of 286 priests, including 13 from the Beaumont diocese. None of the accused are still active priests, and many have died by now. That number is staggering. It is impossible to imagine how much trauma they caused their victims, how many tears were shed, how many nightmares they suffered. Priests who should have been the strongest defenders of morality and kindness turned out to be the worst abusers.

It’s an inconceivable horror, and Catholic officials must acknowledge that their church has a special problem with this crime. The sexual abuse of children does occur in many other places, of course, but the historical pattern in the Catholic Church is undeniable. And all too often, church officials quietly transferred a priest who was suspected of abuse to another parish — where he invariably attacked other children.

Finally, that naïve attitude is gone from the church — and schools and scouting troops that did the same thing. The #MeToo movement seems to have driven home a message about sexual assault that all of us should have learned long ago: When an accusation is made, the victim should be respected and believed, and the incident thoroughly investigated. There is a small percentage of false reports, as there is with any crime. But the statistics show that most of the time, a vulnerable person is being exploited and harmed. It must be stopped — immediately — and the criminal must be appropriately punished, which usually means a long prison sentence.

Churches, schools, youth groups, etc., should also be proactive in fighting this scourge. They must investigate the backgrounds of all adults who have contact with children, and they must take active measures to ensure that no abuse takes place. It’s hard to conceive of anything more important in their organization. The Boy Scouts took the commendable step of forbidding any adult employee from being alone with any child.

This story is not over. We recounted the anguish of a Nederland man who says he cannot go into the church that once housed his attacker. He has missed weddings and funerals because he simply cannot re-enter that space. Worse yet, some other Catholics accused him of slandering an innocent priest. That denial was sadly common years ago, when faithful Catholics could not imagine their beloved priests harming innocent children. It did indeed happen, but it must never happen again.