WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record
February 13, 2019
By Mike Kelly
The names are just ordinary. John and Michael and Robert and Peter and William and Thomas and Ken.
All Catholic priests.
All accused of abusing little boys and girls.
On Wednesday, after decades of CIA-like secrecy and obfuscation, the Catholic church in New Jersey finally opened its files and told the faithful in the pews what it knew about priests who had molested children.
“I wish to express my genuine sorrow to the victims and their families who were so profoundly betrayed,” Newark’s Cardinal Joseph Tobin wrote in a letter that accompanied the list. “On behalf of our Church, I beg your forgiveness. You have my solemn promise of prayers and support as you continue on your healing journey.”
In itself, the list is shocking – more than 60 names, just in the Newark Archdiocese, which includes roughly 1.3 million Roman Catholics in Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Union counties. By noon, the list had grown to nearly 200 priests across the state as New Jersey’s four smaller dioceses of Paterson, Metuchen, Trenton and Camden released names of abusive priests.
Click here for the full list of names.
At the same time, however, these lists– and, in particular, how many priests were named – should not shock anyone who has followed the sex-abuse crisis that has crippled the Catholic church for the past two decades, draining its finances and its moral credibility.
Church officials, in New Jersey and across the world, have known for years that far too many priests led secret lives in which they regularly abused some of the most vulnerable members of their flock.
The list of Newark Archdiocesan abuser priests dates back to 1940. It includes ordinary parish priests and others who became significant leaders. The archdiocese said all the cases had been “previously reported to law enforcement agencies.”
One prominent name is former Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who regularly abused seminarians but was nevertheless promoted to cardinal and placed in charge of the politically significant Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. McCarrick, now in retirement near Washington, has since been stripped of his cardinal’s title by the Vatican.
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Another prominent figure is the Rev. Charles Hudson, a well-known parish priest in Bergen County and former chaplain at Holy Name Medical Center, who became a nationally recognized leader in the hospice movement. Hudson died two decades ago. But the hospice he founded, the Center for Hope in Union County, is still considered a trend setter in the care of those who are dying. One of the center’s facilities in Elizabeth is called “Father Hudson House.”
The release of names such as McCarrick and Hudson underscore just how damaging the sex abuse scandal has been to the church and what it sees as its mission to offer guidance on a wide range of social, political and moral issues.
Just a few weeks ago, in the midst of the partial shutdown of the federal government over President Donald Trump’s demand for a wall along the Mexican border, Cardinal Tobin wrote a passionate op-ed article for the The New York Times in which he called for more lenient treatment of immigrants. The article was part of Tobin’s unabashed effort to become a national voice in America’s immigration debate.
“There are moral issues involved,” Tobin said in an interview about his stance on immigration. “I think the responsibility from a Christian standpoint is to welcome the stranger, to assist those in danger, certainly to offer love we owe to children and the mothers who carry them.”
Story continues below video:
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the leader of the Newark Archdiocese posted this video message on the Newark Archdiocese web site on Feb. 13, 2019. North Jersey Record
This week, however, Tobin has been pulled back to the church’s dark side – its sex-abuse crisis.
On Monday, he announced a special fund to compensate victims. On Wednesday, he released the names of abuser priests.
“The revelations of clergy sexual abuse of minors throughout this past year have provoked feelings of shock, anger, shame, and deep sorrow throughout our Catholic community,” Tobin said Wednesday. “Victims, their families, and the faithful are rightfully outraged over the abuses perpetrated against minors. Additionally, the failure of Church leadership to immediately remove suspected abusers from ministry is particularly reprehensible.”
Instead of calling police or defrocking abusive priests, bishops and other church leaders regularly often moved them to different parishes – a pattern that sometimes resulted in even more abuse.
Nevertheless, the fact that the files were finally pried open just a bit represents a significant change from the church’s long history of secrecy – and, sometimes, outright lies – when it comes to questions of behavior by priests.
But while Wednesday’s release of names of abuser priests in New Jersey represents a renewed emphasis by the Vatican on transparency, the list is still not complete.
Not included were priests from some religious orders such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Benedictines and Carmelites who served parishes or schools in New Jersey. Last month, the Jesuit order released names of 50 abusive priests from northeast states, including 10 who worked in New Jersey.
Also not included are the files on the abusive priests that could offer some context on how many children were victimized and why bishops and other church officials did not impose some measure of discipline. And finally, there is no reporting yet by church officials on whether bishops or other Catholic leaders might be disciplined for helping to cover up the reports of abuse.
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