BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News
March 2, 2019
It has been one year since Michael Whalen went public with accusations of abuse by Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits, and Orsolits admitted to Buffalo News reporter Jay Tokasz that he had molested “probably dozens” of young boys. That began the uncovering of decades of abuse involving more than 100 priests in the Diocese of Buffalo, a harrowing story that is still unfolding.
As victims of rape or other abuse have come forward, a common thread is the awful toll the crimes took on their lives. Depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug addiction, eating disorders, thoughts of suicide and troubled relationships were common. For innocent lives to be shattered like that is unconscionable.
The misdeeds among some in the Catholic Church have metastasized into a worldwide crisis. Cardinal George Pell of Australia, once an adviser to Pope Francis, in December was convicted of molesting two choirboys in 1996. Pell will be sentenced this week, just a few days after the pope concluded a four-day global summit in Rome on clerical sex abuse.
Some 190 bishops, priests and monks heard Francis use strong language in his closing speech at the summit; tough policies from the Vatican need to follow.
One phrase that victims’ advocates were hoping to hear from the pontiff was “zero tolerance.” Activists called for him to declare a universal “one strike and you’re out” rule, but no such announcement came.
The summit was still a big step forward in the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the horrors inflicted upon children who were raped by clergymen. The pope referred to men of God who “let themselves be dominated by their human frailty or sickness and thus become tools of Satan.”
The church leaders in attendance listened to stirring testimony from sexual abuse survivors, including four women. One, a canon lawyer and under-secretary in the Vatican’s laity office named Linda Ghisoni, had observers in tears as she described her own abuse, five years of rape by a priest.
“Engraved in my eyes, ears, nose, body and soul, are all the times he immobilized me, the child, with superhuman strength,” Ghisoni said.
We can only hope that the moving words of the four women might inspire the church to revisit its patriarchal structure that keeps females in subservient roles.
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