MASSACHUSETTS
Crux
By Margery Eagan
On Spirituality columnist November 3, 2015
How can you spend your workdays chronicling thousands of cases of Catholic priestly sexual abuse — and still remain a Catholic?
Before the release of “Spotlight,” the movie detailing the massive abuse cover-up in Boston, I asked that of Anne Barrett Doyle and Terry McKiernan. They’re co-directors of BishopAccountability.org, which documents that abuse from an office in Waltham, Massachusetts practically overrun by floor-to-ceiling files and more than 100,000 pages of Church records, court documents, media reports, letters from mothers of victims, victims themselves, and even abusers detailing their crimes.
Doyle and McKiernan have done this work full-time for more than a decade now. Yet both not only remain Catholic, they say their faith has increased.
Here’s how Doyle and McKiernan explained that a few days back in their Waltham repository.
“Everything good in my life has come from Catholicism. I’ve never been more Catholic than I am now. It’s never been more vivid and important to me to pray every day,” said Doyle, a mother of four married 35 years now. She talked about the shared family rituals — the Masses, baptisms, weddings, Easters — with her kids, father, siblings (all 9 of them) and her Jesuit-schooled husband.
But mostly she talked about her mother, her “hero,” who had a passion for trying to change the Church. She wrote letters to bishops “as a loyal critic,” Doyle said.
“That’s exactly how I feel about our work. We’re loyal critics. I really do feel I’m doing this for justice for survivors, but also for the Church. It’s absolutely crucial that the Church fully owns up to this heinous and deliberate enabling.
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