UNITED STATES
PowerTrip
By Mark V. Serrano·March 22, 2012
Several years ago I was conducting an interview with a reporter with a major daily newspaper who had covered the Catholic clergy abuse scandals regularly. In the course of the discussion, the reporter asked me what I thought should be done with my perpetrator, Father James T. Hanley, an admitted child molester with dozens of known victims who could no longer be prosecuted for his crimes.
”Chemical castration,” was my response. The reporter was aghast at my suggestion and encouraged me to retract my quote. “You’re better than that,” he said. I noted that it was the only way to ensure that children would be safe from an admitted, compulsive child molester.
A couple of years later when notifying an urban community that my perpetrator was their new neighbor, we discovered a family with three young boys who had just unwittingly hosted the child-molester at their home for dinner. He came bearing balloons for the boys, as he had obviously chosen them to be his next victims.
Clearly, chemical castration would have been too good for him.
This anecdote brings an ironic twist to the news that despite an official investigation last year into hundreds of cases of sexual abuse enabled by Catholic bishops in The Netherlands over 50 years, ten cases of castration of clergy abuse victims went undiscovered – until, that is, a new report by investigative journalist Joep Dohmen was just released (see: Dutch Roman Catholic Church ‘castrated at least 10 boys’).
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