Cardinal Tobin's Challenges after Release of List of NJ Priests Accused of Abuse | Kelly

By Mike Kelly
North Jersey Record
February 15, 2019

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2019/02/15/cardinal-joseph-tobin-challenges-after-list-release-of-nj-priests-accused-of-abuse-kelly/2870274002/

The Roman Catholic prelate who was the driving force behind the dramatic release on Wednesday of the names of nearly 200 New Jersey priests accused of abusing children has a curious way of describing his role.

“I’m in sales. I’m not in management,” Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the head of the Newark Archdiocese and its 1.3 million Catholics, said in interview with NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey.

“I don’t think anything is beyond the grace of God,” he added. “So we have to do our best and trust that God can do what only God can do.”

Tobin’s remarks, in response to questions about how he might reset Catholicism’s moral compass after years of reports of sex abuse by priests, echoed a classic God-is-really-in-charge belief that has long been a cornerstone of Judeo-Christian theology.

But his description of himself as a salesman offers an additional glimpse into the daunting task he faces in trying to cleanse his church of the taint of sexual abuse while also remaining a credible voice on such progressive issues as economic reform and fair treatment for immigrants.

“We’re working for justice. We’re working for healing,” said Tobin, an unabashed political progressive, in pointing out his dual roles as reformer within the church and amid the outside world.

But for all his buoyant confidence, Tobin conceded what plenty of research studies have already discovered in the wake of Catholicism’s long running sex abuse scandal. “The bishops in this country," he said, "have lost credibility.”

Wednesday’s publication by New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses of 188 names of priests and deacons who had been “credibly accused” of molesting children during the last eight decades was part of an attempt for more transparency by American Catholic officials after years of stubborn secrecy that had eroded trust in the church.

Experts say a significant turning point in pushing more Catholic leaders to abandon their traditional code of secrecy on the church’s internal matters was the publication of a scathing 900-page report last August by a Pennsylvania grand jury that documented a decades-long pattern of abuse of 1,000 children by 300 priests.

The report, set in motion after Pennsylvania law enforcement officials successfully fought back against attempts by the church to keep their files secret, showed that some bishops and other church leaders engaged in criminal-like cover ups by shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish and not alerting police when they had credible reports that children had been molested.

Since the Pennsylvania report, nearly a dozen other states — including New Jersey — launched investigations into abusive priests and demanded that Catholic dioceses open their previously secret records.

In response, Tobin joined nearly 100 of America’s 187 Catholic dioceses who have either released the names of abuser priests or promised to do so within the coming months.

But critics and supporters alike say the mere publication of names is just a first step. Church leaders such as Tobin — one of only five U.S. cardinals — now face a series of formidable challenges.

Here are several.

Access to all church files

Critics say it’s not enough for Catholicism to merely publish the names of priests who had abused children. Also needed, they say, are church records that would document the extent of the abuse by each priest and reveal whether church leaders covered it up.

At the heart of this push for more transparency and accountability is a widespread lack of trust in Catholic leaders.

In issuing the grand jury report last August, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Josh Shapiro declared that Catholic leaders could not be trusted to investigate themselves.

“I do not believe that the church is capable of policing itself,” said Shapiro. “They need outside forces, ideally law enforcement, to hold them accountable.”

But the erosion of trust in Catholic leaders raises a question: Who should police the church?

Tobin has promised to cooperate with the investigation launched by New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, a former federal prosecutor who also served as Bergen County’s prosecutor. But some reformers say it’s not enough to merely turn over church records just to state investigators. Why not turn them over to an independent group that could monitor church affairs?

Who should take on such a task?

For 2,000 years, the church has relied on the judgment of bishops in evaluating priests. But now many rank-and-file Catholics say they want to be included — in particular because they don’t trust their bishops to be transparent or abide by objective standards.

Paul Baier, who played a role in founding the Catholic reform group Voice of the Faithful after widespread reports of sex abuse in Boston-area churches,

called the release of names by New Jersey priests a “step forward.”

But he also dismissed it as “window dressing” that will have “zero impact” on how the church is structured.

“I have zero confidence that anything has changed,” Baier said. “It’s organizational protection at all costs.”

Tobin said he wants to open up the church to more input from ordinary Catholics.

"As long as New Jersey has bishops, there will be accountability for us or asked of us,” he said.

How should abuser priests be monitored?

About half of the 188 New Jersey priests listed as accused abusers are dead. But the list contained no information about those still living, except to say that they had been “permanently removed from ministry” or defrocked.

So where are they?

Tobin said four priests on the list from the Newark Archdiocese — each over 80 years old — were living in a church retirement home for elderly priests where “they can be monitored” and “they don’t have a free reign of their lives.”

But details are sketchy at best.

Tobin said a priest from his office would make “regular inquiries” on how the four priests “were living and what they’re doing with their time.”

A more complex question involves the nearly two dozen other priests in the Newark Archdiocese and dozens more from New Jersey’s other dioceses of Paterson, Metuchen, Trenton and Camden who are living on their own after being removed from ministry or defrocked. How should the church monitor them?

So far, Tobin and other Catholic officials have offered no firm answers. Some priests who have been dismissed because of abuse have taken non-church jobs. One former priest on the list from the Newark Archdiocese — Kenneth Martin of Brick Township — worked for NJ Transit until last August, according to officials of the state transit agency.

But the deeper question is whether the church should even be given the authority to monitor priests who have been merely accused of abuse.

The issue is not only vexing for church leaders but it raises questions about civil liberties.

“Releasing names isn’t the same as doing perfect justice,” said the Rev. Boniface Ramsey, a former Seton Hall University seminary professor who was one of the first to call attention to the abuse of seminarians by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

What about the money?

Even though the church declined for years to publicly acknowledge that some priests had sexually abused children, it nevertheless quietly paid settlements to victims.

How many victims? And how much money was paid?

No one knows.

Last August, New Jersey Catholic officials revealed that the five dioceses in the state had paid at least $50 million to settle sex abuse claims in the last 10 years. Published reports for previous years indicated that another $10 million in settlements had also been paid.

But there were no other details. In some parishes, Catholics are refusing to donate more money until the church opens up its financial books.

Revelations about the $50 million came in the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the uproar that the Newark Archdiocese had quietly given financial settlements to two men abused by Archbishop McCarrick.

In an interview last August with the Network, Tobin said that when he took over the leadership of the Newark Archdiocese in early 2017 that no one on the staff — not even the previous archbishop, John J. Myers — bothered to tell him about settlement payments of $180,000 to McCarrick’s victims. Tobin said he did not learn of the payments until McCarrick, who left Newark to become a cardinal and head of the prestigious archdiocese of Washington, D.C., was formally disciplined by the Vatican.

“It’s embarrassing,” Tobin said at the time. “I was really shocked.”

A key question now for Tobin is whether he can eliminate the tradition of secrecy within his own archdiocese.

The church's overall image

Tobin said he hoped that the release of the names of abuser priests would “display an on-going commitment to be transparent and help bring healing to victims” and “restore trust in the leadership of the Catholic church.”

Certainly, Tobin’s promise of openness contrasts markedly with his predecessor, Archbishop John J. Myers, who was chided for his “arrogant secrecy” by the Boston-based reform group, Bishop Accountability.

David Gibson, the director of Fordham University's Center for Religion and Culture, compared Tobin to President Barack Obama after winning the 2008 election.

“You’re elected in the middle of the recession,” said Gibson. “You’re the president. You have to fix it.”

Gibson said he sees Tobin as uniquely equipped to bring more accountability and transparency to Catholic affairs.

But it’s hardly an easy task, Gibson said.

“You can’t move forward until you’ve accounted for the past," Gibson said. "Frankly it’s a classic Catholic penitential process, which is you confess your sins, you do penance and you move on.”

For his part, Tobin says he remains optimistic.

“I have to have hope,” Tobin said. “If I don’t have hope, I turn in my Christian card.”

Email: Kellym@northjersey.com