ROCKFORD (IL)
Register Star
April 2, 2019
By Chris Green
Involve lay people in the selection of priests and in the power structure of the Catholic Church, hold priests accountable for their behavior as well as for their ministry, and make celibacy an optional requirement for priesthood.
Those were some of the suggestions offered Tuesday night during a panel discussion titled, “Engaging Lent 2019: Ending the Sex Abuse Crisis.” About 80 people, mostly seniors, attended the event held at Rockford University’s Fisher Memorial Chapel and moderated by Register Star Metro Editor Kevin Haas.
The Rev. David Beauvais, a retired Catholic Diocese of Rockford priest, said church leaders from the Vatican down have been slow to acknowledge and fully address the crisis.
“They have to break the clerical stranglehold and allow more people in on the decision-making,” he said.
Ruth Kolpack, a former pastoral associate of St. Thomas in Beloit, added, “If lay people, mothers and fathers, were involved in the governance of the church, this sex abuse business would not be happening.”
Beauvais, Kolpack and Dick Kunnert, a former victim assistance coordinator for the Rockford diocese, served as the panelists.
What is normally a difficult topic to discuss became at times very frank. Sex abuse survivor Don Bondick of Rockford spoke about his long and continuing road of recovery from the horrors of being strangled and sodomized as a child at the hands of a priest and family friend.
“And the priest tells you, ‘Who are you going to tell?’”
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