UNITED STATES
Des Moines Register
Bill LaHay December 14, 2015
When I was younger, I never understood why some non-Catholics griped about the ritual I knew as “going to confession.” It wasn’t the ’fessing up part that bothered them, but how easily one could get off the hook afterward. Declare your contrition, promise better behavior, say a few Hail Marys, and move on.
That such a casual effort could constitute “rehabilitation” explains a lot about the church’s response to the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, with victims in the U.S. alone estimated to number more than 100,000. The abuse and subsequent cover-ups are the subject of the film “Spotlight,” which chronicles the Boston Globe’s 2001 investigation into the local archdiocese and its top cleric, Cardinal Bernard Law.Back then I didn’t dwell on it, but the critics were right. No priest ever demanded anything of me but these simple gestures of repentance. None told me to make restitution or to right the wrongs I had inflicted upon others. Instead, penance was painless and even self-serving, a quick way to press the reset button on my soul.
For me and other clergy abuse survivors, the film deserves credit for conveying the existential punch-in-the-gut that we experienced when a priest’s hand — the same symbolic hand of God that baptized us as infants — ended up down our pants.
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