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and Views of the Sexual Abuse Crisis 2003–2005 Sample of a VOTF-News Email From: "terriandgoz" [email address redacted] To: "Goz Gosselin" [email address redacted] Subject: VOTF-News Date: Sunday, January 12, 2003 10:02 PM How the Study of Sexual Abuse by Priests Was Conducted To begin to address these questions, The Times created a database listing the names and stories of all known priests publicly accused of the sexual abuse of minors in America over more than 50 years. The reports were culled from newspaper clippings, court records, church documents and statements, and were checked against public lists of accused priests created by victim advocacy groups. Dioceses across the country were called to fill in missing details and to gather information about abuse cases and actions taken by the church against accused priests. Some accounts were specific and offered many details about a lawsuit, or a trial and convictions. Others were vague — a disclosure. for example, that a priest had been suspended for some misdeed in the 1980's and removed from office, without many other supporting details known. By the end of 2002, The Times had identified 1,205 priests who were accused of abuse of minor children, as defined by state law. Of these, 432 faced action by the church this year, as disclosures about the Boston Archdiocese prompted a public outcry over the problem. The database included only ordained priests identified by name who faced specific accusations of abuse of a minor; it excluded deacons, brothers, nuns or laypeople working for the church. Accusations involving adult parishioners and students were excluded. Some dioceses have disclosed accusations against additional priests, but have refused to identify them by name. These too are not included in the counts. Officials of several dioceses with no reported abuse cases in the database refused to come to the telephone or specifically refused to comment at all on any accusations of sexual abuse against priests. To better understand these cases and trends, The Times identified the year most accused priests were ordained, using information in The Official Catholic Directory and biographical information provided by dioceses. Ordination information was unavailable for priests who were trained abroad or who left the church or died many years ago. The study also compiled data and estimates on the number of priests ordained each year from annual editions of The Official Catholic Directory; from the Annuario Pontificio, a Vatican directory; and from estimates provided the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, as well as a few individual dioceses. The study found that 1.8 percent of priests ordained since 1950 have been accused of sexually abusing minors, including nearly 3.3 percent of priests ordained in two particular years, 1970 and 1975. Since ordination data was unavailable for 12 percent of all accused priests in the database, they were not included in the calculation. But if all of these priests were ordained after 1950 and used in the calculation, the figure could be as high as 2 percent. The study, although the most complete of its kind, faces some methodological limitations that make it difficult for either supporters or opponents of the church to draw sweeping conclusions. Although some facts were verified from the church or other official sources, some information was based on published reports that could not be independently verified by The Times. The availability of the reports varied from diocese to diocese, depending on public awareness of the scandal, and the willingness of church leaders to provide names and details of accused priests. In addition, some child abuse experts say that it may takes decades for victims to become aware of or understand the nature of abuse that occurred when they were children.
MANCHESTER (NH)
Tomorrow, church officials will respond to recent questions about the destruction of church documents, Patrick McGee, spokesman for the diocese, said yesterday. He also said that though the diocese has no formal policy governing records now, officials are working on one, and they hope to have it completed this year. He said tomorrow’s discussion will detail some of that work. The response comes less than a week after groups of church critics and alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests asked Bishop John B. McCormack to ensure that no church personnel records are destroyed. The groups became concerned following reports that former Bishop Odore Gendron destroyed church records during the 1980s that detailed sexual abuse of children by two priests. McGee has acknowledged that Gendron destroyed records, but said they were private medical documents, and it was not an attempt to cover up allegations of abuse. He also said no documents have been destroyed since November 2000. Senior Assistant Attorney General William Delker, who sorted through thousands of pages of church records as part of a state investigation of the church, has said it is clear that documents are missing, but wouldn’t speculate further. And McCormack has said sloppy record keeping kept him from knowing the full extent of sexual abuse allegations against some priests while he was a top aide to Boston Cardinal Bernard Law. Concern also arose because of a settlement the diocese reached with the state to avoid unprecedented criminal charges over its failure to protect children from abusive priests. The agreement allows the church to destroy the records of deceased priests. Last week McGee said the diocese has no plans to destroy any records. But Peter Flood, spokesman for the New Hampshire chapter of Voice of the Faithful, wants to hear it from McCormack. He sent the bishop a letter last week urging him to safeguard all church records. “We urge you to publicly pledge that the diocese will not destroy any more records associated with sexual abuse allegations against any priests, whether living or deceased,” Flood wrote. And earlier in the week, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said in a letter to McCormack that church records are essential to “healing, justice and truth.” Similar calls also are coming from within the church. Donna Sytek, who heads up a task force the bishop appointed to evaluate the diocese’s sexual misconduct policy, also feels record retention is vital. On Friday she said two of her group’s chief recommendations to
McCormack will be to create a centralized database for church records,
and that they never be destroyed. Those recommendations are expected to
be delivered this week.
AUL SHANNON seems to think that by bleating about an inquisition and alluding to a witchhunt that he can turn attention away from the Catholic Church's crimes (''Judging priests in a more just way,'' letter, Jan. 9). Shannon seems to forget that the church knew that these priests had assaulted children and did nothing to stop them.
The hierarchy of the church thought it was better to cover up the problem rather than deal with it. Had church officials done the right thing and reported the abuse to the authorities, they could have avoided the problems they are now facing. Shannon complains that we are judging people by the worst thing they have done in their lives. Perhaps, then, we should hold no one accountable for his crimes, since I am sure other criminals have done nice things in their lives. The children who were sexually assaulted deserve justice, and the priests who are proven guilty should be held accountable. It is not unfair to expect that. PAMELA McCARTHY Stoughton
The story of William O'Connell shows where the church's troubles really started By James O'Toole, 1/12/2003 Boston Globe BY NOW, THE STORY is all too familiar. A powerful cardinal cuts a wide swath in a predominantly Catholic city. Public officials defer to him, and anything he says on any topic makes news simply because he is the one who says it. He owes his position not to the support of the local Catholic community, but to powerful patrons in Rome, carefully cultivated over many years. The Vatican is his only real constituency. He is largely friendless among his own priests. He is equally remote from ordinary parishioners, most of whom respect but never grow to love him. And even as he wields considerable power, he also takes care to conceal a disturbing secret. Once the full story is revealed, his historical reputation is diminished. That may sound like the story of Cardinal Bernard Law, recently resigned as archbishop of Boston. But in fact it is a summary of the life of one of his predecessors, Cardinal William Henry O'Connell, who served from 1907 to 1944. Though he was originally from Lowell and had served in parishes in Boston and Medford, O'Connell was very much an outsider when he emerged as the surprise choice to lead local Catholics. The priests of the archdiocese actively wanted someone else for the job, but O'Connell used his connections in the Vatican to win the office for himself in the first such overt demonstration of personal ambition in American Catholic history. In the age of James Michael Curley and John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, O'Connell became a dominant figure in the region, unafraid to flex his political and social muscles on a broad array of concerns. Legislators and newspaper reporters learned to ask what "Number One" (as he was often called) or "Lake Street" (the location of his office and residence) thought of any important matter of public policy. In 1935, he single-handedly scuttled a bill to establish a state lottery, and in 1942 he marshaled his forces to defeat a referendum liberalizing Massachusetts' birth control laws. But even as he exerted this public influence, O'Connell was concealing a scandal. In the 1910s, his priest-nephew and another priest of his household were secretly married to women in Boston and New York, and they were embezzling money from the archdiocese to support their double lives. O'Connell knew of this but failed for seven years to do anything about it until he was forced by Rome to remove the two from the priesthood in 1920. Boston's priests, other American bishops, and some local politicians had known the story, but deference to the cardinal's authority left them reluctant to go public with the story. Ordinary parishioners never learned of the underside of local church administration. The city's newspapers-it's not clear how much they actually knew-were unwilling to take on the leader of the region's largest church: With a word from him, circulation might drop overnight. After Rome cracked down, O'Connell continued to exercise power locally, but his authority within the national and global church itself was finished. Not until the 1980s did the full story come to light, thanks to the opening of archives in the Vatican and elsewhere. The parallels between Cardinal O'Connell and Cardinal Law are striking, but they are of more than purely historical interest. O'Connell set in motion trends whose logical conclusion was Law. How the archbishop defined his role in the wider Boston community; how that community, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, viewed him; how an expanding Vatican influence came to outweigh local interests in choosing leaders-the patterns established after O'Connell came to Boston in 1907 remained fixed for nearly 100 years. Law's resignation, following a year of growing outcry from the Catholics of Boston, holds out the hope that the "O'Connell Century" in Boston may also have come to end. Whoever Cardinal Law's successor turns out to be, he may have the chance to move in a different, more positive direction. At the heart of the problem was the procedure by which Catholic bishops were chosen during the O'Connell Century. Changes in that procedure came from Rome, but O'Connell knew how to take advantage of them, and he showed other American churchmen how to do the same. Contrary to what many people assume, the appointment of church leaders was not always the sole prerogative of the pontiff. As late as 1870, a mere handful of the several hundred bishops in the world were chosen unilaterally by the pope. In most places, including the United States, the pope's role was largely to select leaders from lists prepared by local pastors and neighboring bishops. This appointment system took account of local needs and knowledge, and it produced churchmen who were intimately connected to their own people. In Boston, this system had worked wonderfully well. John Fitzpatrick (bishop 1846-1866) was a graduate of Boston Latin School, admired as much by Adamses and Lawrences as by the Irish immigrants who flooded into the city. John Williams (archbishop 1866-1907) had spent years in parish work, though he was also a capable and shrewd manager. Indeed, Williams was the last archbishop of Boston who combined competent administrative skills with fundamental decency in addressing problems. His successors have possessed one trait or the other, but never both. A new system of appointment-it was a genuine innovation, though presented as a long church tradition-ushered in a parade of less successful leaders in Boston and elsewhere as the Vatican bureaucracy came to control the process as they never had before. Ambitious prelates could lobby for advancement and succeed, because they only needed to persuade a handful of officials in Rome to secure the prize. The Vatican bureaucracy expanded significantly, and improved communication systems permitted officials there to scrutinize church affairs around the world more closely than they had before. O'Connell recognized the possibilities of this system early on. He spent his five years (1901-1906) as bishop of Portland, Maine actively campaigning for promotion to Boston, funneling large contributions to numerous Vatican causes, and loudly protesting that he was more loyal to the papacy than anyone else. While others followed his example, the dynamics of clerical lobbying could be complicated. Cardinal Richard Cushing, who served as archbishop of Boston from 1944 to 1970, arrived after intense politicking by New York's Cardinal Francis Spellman, who wanted to become the de facto leader of the American hierarchy by blocking the appointment of a more potent rival in Boston. (Even after Cushing's appointment, Spellman's influence prevented Cushing's designation as a cardinal for 14 years after his installation as archbishop.) Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, archbishop from 1970 to 1983, was an outsider to Boston. He was born in the Azores, grew up in Fall River, and served as a bishop in Texas; all this left him powerless to control violent anti-busing activity when the school desegregation crisis hit in the 1970s. Upon his appointment in 1984, Law-who was born in Mexico and had attended a seminary in Ohio-was connected to Boston only by a 30-year-old undergraduate degree in history from Harvard. But he had not been shy about drawing Rome's notice, both in staff positions with the National Bishops' Conference and in his previous assignment in Missouri. The real problem was less with any of these individual men than with the system that produced them. Leaders were chosen precisely because they were disconnected from the church and city in which they were expected to be important players. In Boston and elsewhere in the world, the Vatican clearly preferred outsiders, leaders who would feel more connection to Rome than to any particular diocese. Independence from their own dioceses was tolerable; independence from Rome was not. In Boston, another consequence of this system was that archbishops cultivated an imperial, even imperious, style of leadership. Beginning with O'Connell, they demanded to be treated as the "princes" of the church they were. Their closest associates addressed them always as "Your Eminence," never using their given names. (Fitzpatrick, by contrast, had been known as "Bishop John.") After hours and off the record, this might give way to sarcasm: Among themselves, some of Law's priests referred to him as "The Emperor." In public, everyone was more correct, speaking of "His Eminence, the Cardinal," and deference came to be expected. For all his folksy manner, Cushing delighted when policemen knelt in the street to kiss his ring. Medeiros eschewed many of these trappings, but he was often criticized for it: Boston's cardinal was expected to be assertive, not self-effacing. Law restored the full imperial style. That Medeiros and Law had done their seminary studies elsewhere redoubled their remoteness. They had no classmates or old friends among their own clergy upon whom they could rely for frank advice or brutally honest debate over church policy. To be sure, having a powerful and imposing archbishop was often a useful thing in Boston, as it was in other cities. The cardinal's "palace" on Commonwealth Avenue proved a sound investment, as wealthy donors flocked to the annual Catholic Charities garden party. One can only imagine the active role Cardinal Law would have played in bringing last fall's janitors' strike to a speedy and successful conclusion had he not been diminished by scandal. In the past, he had been effective in rallying legislative opposition to the death penalty and forceful in urging reconsideration of US policy toward Cuba. But ironically, his determination to stand in regal aloofness at times diminished the influence of the archbishop. Even faithful Catholics felt down deep that he was not really one of them, that his interests were not always theirs, that he knew them as little as they knew him. This gulf between the leader and the led was laid bare during the last year, as angry parishioners demonstrated outside Holy Cross Cathedral and priests signed an open letter calling for the resignation of the man to whom they had sworn allegiance. The next archbishop of Boston will be chosen in Rome. We must hope, however, that officials there have learned something from the disaster of the last year. The new leader of the local church need not have the comforting Boston accent of the interim administrator, Bishop Richard Lennon. He must, however, have the confidence of people here. He must be someone with the talent to manage the large institution that the archdiocese is, one that provides vital services to people of all faiths and of none. Even more important, he must be a person whose experience is in the real work of the church-saying Mass, baptizing and marrying, listening to the spiritual longing of ordinary people, offering both the comforts and the challenges of religion-rather than in the hallways of the Vatican. The next archbishop must foreswear the imperial style and be as willing to learn as to teach. Only then will he be able to restore the trust in his church that was too often tragically undermined during the O'Connell Century. James M. O'Toole teaches history at Boston College and is the author of "Militant and Triumphant: William Henry O'Connell and the Catholic Church in Boston" (1992) and "Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family" (2002). This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 1/12/2003. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsday January 11, 2003, 5:13 AM EST BOSTON -- A lawyer for alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse criticized a motion by the Boston Archdiocese to dismiss hundreds of lawsuits filed against the church. Roderick MacLeish, who represents hundreds of alleged victims, blasted the archdiocese's arguments that civil law does not apply to how religious organizations supervise their personnel. "Their position is that they have no accountability to anyone," MacLeish said Friday. The archdiocese has said the legal move was necessary to satisfy its insurance carriers in hopes at least a portion of any settlement costs, estimated at millions of dollars, will be covered. Superior Court Judge Constance Sweeney is expected to hear arguments on the motion Jan. 17. MacLeish's response came a day after the release of Cardinal Bernard Law's appointment calendar showing he had numerous meetings during his tenure as archbishop of Boston with priests accused of sexually abusing minors, despite his claims that his role in supervising accused priests was minimal. More than 800 pages of Law's calendar, released publicly Thursday, show Law had scheduled meetings with at least 20 priests who were either then or later accused of sexually abusing minors. Law resigned as archbishop last month. The calendar entries do not indicate the subject of the meetings or whether the priests Law met with had already been accused of sexually abusing minors. The records also do not indicate if Law kept each appointment. But lawyers for alleged victims who are now suing the Boston archdiocese for the failure of Law and other church supervisors to remove abusive priests say the records show a pattern of Law supervising those priests. In pretrial depositions in the civil cases over the last year, Law repeatedly claimed that he left the supervision of priests to his subordinates.
he sexual abuse crisis that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church in the last 12 months has now spread to nearly every American diocese and involves more than 1,200 priests, most of whose careers straddle a sharp divide in church history and seminary training. These priests are known to have abused more than 4,000 minors over the last six decades, according to an extensive New York Times survey of documented cases of sexual abuse by priests through Dec. 31, 2002. The survey, the most complete compilation of data on the problem available, contains the names and histories of 1,205 accused priests. It counted 4,268 people who have claimed publicly or in lawsuits to have been abused by priests, though experts say there are surely many more who have remained silent. The survey provides a statistical framework for viewing the sexual abuse crisis against the modern history of the American Catholic Church. It found, for example, that most priests accused of abuse were ordained between the mid-1950's and the 1970's, a period of upheaval in the church, when men trained in the traditional authoritarian seminary system were sent out to serve in a rapidly changing church and social culture. Most of the abuse occurred in the 1970's and 1980's, the survey found. The number of priests accused of abuse declined sharply by the 1990's. But the data show that priests secretly violated vulnerable youth long before the first victims sued the church and went public in 1984 in Louisiana. Some offenses date from the 1930's. "This has been going on for decades, probably centuries," said Richard K. O'Connor, a former Dominican priest who says he was one of 10 boys sexually assaulted by three priests in a South Bronx parish in 1940, when he was 10. "It's just that all of a sudden, they got caught." The survey also shows how pervasive the abuse has been. Using information from court records, news reports, church documents and interviews, the survey found accusations of abuses in all but 16 of the 177 Latin Rite dioceses in the United States. Every region was seriously affected, with 206 accused priests in the West, 246 in the South, 335 in the Midwest and 434 in the Northeast. (Some priests were counted more than once if they abused in more than one region.) The crisis reached not only big cities like Boston and Los Angeles but smaller ones like Louisville, Ky., with 27 priests accused, and St. Cloud, Minn., with 9. The scandal has set off an intense debate within the church over what caused it and what can resolve it. Many Catholic conservatives blame the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and the social upheaval of the 1960's for removing priestly inhibitions on sexuality and dissent. Liberals tend to find the root causes in what they call the church's repressive approach to sex, including priestly celibacy, and its deeply ingrained culture of secrecy. The Times database provides evidence to support the arguments of both sides. The data, together with extensive interviews with priests and former priests, abuse victims, church historians, psychologists and experts on sexual disorders, suggest that although the problem involved only a small percentage of priests, it was deeply embedded in the culture of the Catholic priesthood. Many priests began seminary training as young as 13, and all of them spent years being groomed in an insular world in which sexual secrets and transgressions were considered a matter for the confessional, not the criminal courts. The Times survey counted priests from dioceses and religious orders who had been accused by name of sexually abusing one or more children. It determined that 1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 had been accused of abuse. But the research also suggested that the extent of the problem remains hidden. In dioceses that have divulged what they say are complete lists of abusive priests — under court orders or voluntarily — the percentages are far higher. In Baltimore, an estimated 6.2 percent of priests ordained in the last half-century have been implicated in the abuse of minors. In Manchester, N.H., the percentage is 7.7, and in Boston it is 5.3. In November, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a top Vatican official, declared that "less than 1 percent" of priests had abused minors, and that there were fewer sex offenders among priests than other groups. But experts say it is impossible to know whether priests abuse more or less often than people in other professions, or even in the general population, because there are no reliable studies. The Times data include only cases in which priests were named, and many bishops have released only partial lists of accused priests, or refused to identify any. "My assessment is it's only the tip of the iceberg," said William R. Stayton, professor and coordinator of the human sexuality doctoral program at Widener University in Chester, Pa., who was shown the results of the Times study. "You really don't have a true picture. I have worked with many clergy sexual abuse cases over the years, and very, very few of them were reported." That attitude may be changing. Since last January, when the Boston Archdiocese was forced to disclose documents showing that for years its officials had protected priests who molested, hundreds of people have come forward with accusations of abuse. In those 12 months, as the scandal exploded throughout the church, 432 accused priests have resigned, retired or been removed from ministry. Because in the nearly 20 years since the problem surfaced the American bishops have refused to cooperate with researchers who sought to initiate studies, the Times study offers the fullest picture possible of the extent of sexual abuse within the church. These are among the other findings: • Half of the priests in the database were accused of molesting more than one minor, and 16 percent are accused of having had five or more victims. • Eighty percent of the priests were accused of molesting boys. The percentage is nearly the opposite for laypeople accused of abuse; their victims are mostly girls. • While the majority of the priests were accused of molesting teenagers only, 43 percent were accused of molesting children 12 and younger. Experts in sexual disorders say the likeliest repeat offenders are those who abuse prepubescent children and boys. • Those ordained in 1970 and 1975 included the highest percentage of priests accused of abuse: 3.3 percent. More known offenders were ordained in the 1970's than in any other decade. • Of the 432 priests removed from or who left the ministry last year, 183 were suspended, living in limbo while waiting for church panels to decide their cases. Bishops were known to have begun the most drastic step, defrocking, for only 11 priests, despite agreeing to a policy at their Dallas meeting last year that encouraged this option. At least nine priests have been reinstated. • The Boston Archdiocese, which received the most scrutiny in news reports last year, did have the most accused priests — 94 — but not the worst problem proportionally. More than a dozen other dioceses had a higher rate of accused priests when taken as a percentage of their active priests. The study shows only what has become public about a crime usually kept secret by both abuser and victim. Some experts, for instance, contend that the sharp drop in priests accused of abuse in the 1990's is less a result of efforts by the church to confront the problem than a reflection that the victims have not yet come forward. Resisting Only 'Punch and Judy'
"The priesthood was riding high," said Jay P. Dolan, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame and author of "In Search of American Catholicism" (Oxford, 2002). "A lot of boys were entering the seminary. It appealed to your altruism, your desire to help others, and it was a profession very highly valued by Catholics and others." To qualify, a young man needed little more than to say he felt "called" to a priestly vocation. "Getting in the seminary then was a rather easy process," said Mr. Dolan, who entered a seminary in 1954. "There was no screening of candidates at all. They accepted anybody, and the numbers were incredible." It was typical then for boys to begin their training in a minor seminary at age 13 or 14, continuing directly through for 10 or 12 years until ordination. Many of the minor seminaries, most of which were phased out starting in the 1970's, were essentially boarding schools. There young men lived together in semi-monastic isolation, missing most of the social, sexual and developmental milestones their peers were experiencing back home. "If you remained in the system, you were treated the same way when you were 26 as when you were 14 — basically as little children," said the Rev. Robert J. Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests Councils, who studied to be a priest in northern California in the 1950's. "On Thursdays, you signed out to go to town and buy what you needed. You couldn't go to a movie, to a restaurant. You went to a drugstore, and you came home. Once a month when we were younger we used to get what we called a walk into town. We could go and get milkshakes, but we always went together. You rarely socialized with other people." Seminary instructors warned students to stay away from temptations, but they never mentioned altar boys and teenagers. Their chief concerns, Mr. Dolan remembers, were "Punch and Judy" — alcohol and women. Diocesan priests take a vow of celibacy, promising never to marry or have sex with women. Seminarians were taught that all other sexual activity was unchaste and sinful, but not a violation of the celibacy vow. Some priests relied on this distinction to rationalize to their victims, the authorities or church superiors that mutual masturbation, fellatio or touching children's bodies, however wrong, left their celibacy vow intact, according to some victims, therapists who treated the abusers and court records. In general, though, the entire subject of sexuality was taboo in seminaries. "It amounted to don't ask, don't tell, don't touch," said Paul E. Dinter, a former priest ordained in 1965 and the author of a new book, "The Other Side of the Altar" (Farrar Straus & Giroux). "In my lifetime there were still seminaries handing out paddles so you could tuck your shirt into your pants and never touch yourself. There were nuns showering in gowns so they were never naked." Psychologists who have treated priest offenders now say that such a sexually repressed environment appealed to some young men who felt guilty about being sexually stimulated by children, male teenagers or adult men. Dr. Eli Coleman, professor and director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota Medical School, said, "The church was definitely an attractive haven for a lot of people who naturally wished that somehow, through a spiritual life, they would not have to deal with those conflicts." Accused priests first became a significant proportion of ordination classes in 1956, the Times study found. Of that class, 32 priests have been accused of abuse. Of priests ordained from 1956 through 1959, 119, or 1.8 percent, were accused of abuse. The number of those accused out of each ordination class fluctuated only slightly through about 1963, when it reached 40, or 2.6 percent of that year's class. Then it remained fairly consistent through the mid-1970's. But since fewer men were being ordained in the 1970's, priests accused of abuse made up a larger proportion of their classes. Many of these priests did not commit their offenses until the 1960's or 1970's. But the Times research found that 63 priests were accused of abuse that occurred in the 1950's, and 7 in the decades before. The relatively low numbers do not indicate that the sexual abuse of children was not a problem in those days, sexual abuse experts said, since it is likely that people of previous generations rarely reported it because of the social stigma, the fear of retribution or the failure to understand that what happened to them was abuse. Mr. O'Connor, who is now 73, said that when he was raped at age 10 by priests at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Church in the South Bronx, he did not dare tell anyone. He said his mother found out only when she discovered blood on his underwear. (The New York Archdiocese said it was unable to comment on the allegation because the director of priest personnel was traveling abroad.) Mr. O'Connor said that his parents wrote a letter complaining to the senior pastor, and even threatened to hire a lawyer. But he said he knew of 10 other boys who had been similarly attacked and whose mothers had learned of the molestations but said nothing. He says the women, devout Catholics, refused to confront the priests. "In the 40's and 50's, when you were talking to a priest, it was like you were talking to Jesus Christ himself," Mr. O'Connor said. One day, the three priests disappeared from the South Bronx parish, Mr. O'Connor said. His parents later learned that their letter had eventually made its way to Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, who sent the three priests, all now dead, to work in parishes upstate. Loosening the Roman Collar
There were simultaneous cultural revolutions inside and outside the church. The Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965, suddenly lowered barriers between the church and modern society, and between the clergy and laypeople. The liturgy went from Latin to English, the altar was turned around and priests faced the people at Mass for the first time in centuries. Laypeople took on leadership roles. Priests and nuns joined the antiwar movement and the civil rights struggle, rubbing elbows with Protestants and Jews, college students and feminists. Priests who had had strict curfews in the rectories where they lived with their fellow priests were suddenly free to come and go. They bought cars, were invited to meetings and marches, moved about without their collars. Father Silva, ordained in 1965 in San Francisco, said: "All of a sudden, father is expected to be close to the folks, and so he takes off his cassock, he takes off the Roman collar and puts on a sport shirt, and he's assigned to work with the teenagers. "Here you are developmentally somewhere between age 13 and 16, never having ever looked at your own sexuality, never having asked the question, gay or straight? — you didn't even know the words," Father Silva said. "And so you find yourself with the teen club, and father is taking the students on a ski trip overnight. If he is emotionally still a teenager, very inappropriate things can happen." In fact, it was customary for new priests then to be assigned to supervise the teen club or the altar boys, church experts said. Parishes in those days had full complements of three or more priests, and the priest with the least seniority was often given the job with the least status — working with youngsters. Dr. Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, executive director of the Trauma Treatment Center of the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis and a sexual abuse expert who addressed the Catholic bishops at their Dallas meeting last year, said of priests: "They were thrown into the company of young men who were having adolescences very different than they had — dating, masturbating, having buddies. The priest saw himself as an age mate of the youth, and better yet, as a leader of the pack. At some point, all those genuine human needs for closeness, including touch, just burst." The Times study found that 4 of 5 victims of priests were male. That is nearly the opposite of those victimized by nonpriests, nearly two-thirds of whom are female, several experts in sexual abuse said. The experts offered several possible explanations: that priests simply had more unfettered access to boys; that priests who had had their first sexual encounters in seminaries were more likely to be attracted to boys; that a high percentage of priests were gay; that women and girls hesitated to report such abuse for fear they would be accused of inviting the attention. Over all, 256 priests were reported to have abused minors in the 1960's. There were 537 in the 1970's and 510 in the 1980's, before a drop to 211 in the 1990's. The numbers do not prove that the upheaval in the church and society in the 1960's and 70's caused the abuse, but experts who reviewed The Times's research said it was important to consider the historical context in which the scandal occurred. The church was jolted by two earthquakes in the 1960's. Vatican II was the first, and Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical upholding the church's condemnation of artificial birth control in 1968, was the second. Amid surging use of the birth control pill, many priests say it fell on them to promulgate a teaching they could not agree with. And many said the controversy removed their inhibitions about criticizing or even disregarding church teachings on sexuality. "People were beginning to decide that the church couldn't make the rules anymore," Mr. Dinter said. At the same time, many healthier priests were jumping ship. Beginning in 1967 and for the next 10 years, priests abandoned their vocation in droves. About 525 left in 1968, 675 in 1970 and 575 in 1973 — at the height, more than 1 percent of the American priesthood annually, according to figures supplied by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Many left disillusioned that Vatican II had not eased the rigid episcopal hierarchy or the rules on celibacy, and many left to marry. Those left behind included a greater percentage of priests who were theologically conservative, gay or maladjusted, a trend that the bishops had apparently begun to note. In 1971, they commissioned a study by Dr. Eugene Kennedy, a psychologist at Loyola University of America and a former priest, and Dr. Victor Heckler, the principal investigator. Their report, "The American Priest: Psychological Investigations," found that 57 percent of priests were psychologically "underdeveloped." Sinners in Therapy
"If a priest was having sex with a boy it meant he was weak and gave in," Mr. Dinter said. "It meant he should go to confession and not be weak again." Even a serial offender like John J. Geoghan, a defrocked priest who was convicted of abuse last year in Boston, was repeatedly given a pass by his bishops and his peers. He has been accused of molesting more than 130 children over 30 years in a half-dozen parishes. "If you read his record, seminary rectors were wondering about him," Dr. Kennedy said. "But the culture of the priesthood was very supportive, so a fellow got a lot of cover just for wearing a Roman collar." By the 1970's, some bishops had begun referring priests to therapists, but most of the therapists were priests, or working at church-related treatment centers, Dr. Frawley-O'Dea said. Bishops who turned to outside clinicians sometimes disregarded the advice they were given. Dr. Stayton recalls that in the early 1970's, a bishop asked him to have precisely six sessions with a priest who was molesting children. After the six meetings, Dr. Stayton said: "They transferred him to a high school someplace outside of his diocese, and they didn't ask me. I never had to make a report, I just had to turn in a bill. I would never have recommended that he go to a high school." The Times study found that half of the priests accused of abuse had more than one victim, and one-third had three or more. In the rest of the cases, only one victim has come to light. But there have been many cases in which an accused priest insisted he had only one victim, and more came forward later. Experts in sexual disorders say that the high percentage of priests with multiple victims suggests that the church was dealing with a cohort of offenders who were not easily stopped. Dr. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said, "The more victims you have, the higher chance of reoffending." Sixteen percent of the priests accused of abuse had five or more victims, which may be an indication, said Dr. Finkelhor, that these were "compulsive child molesters — those who actually have a preference for juvenile victims. That's their primary sexual orientation." By the mid-1980's, the warning had been sounded. The Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, a Louisiana priest who molested as many as 100 boys, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Two priests and a lawyer who defended the church in that case produced a report predicting that sexual abuse by priests could eventually cost the church in the United States more than $1 billion. The report was never distributed to the bishops. A Scandal's Unwritten Chapter
The bishops say the abuse declined because they began to address the problem in the mid-1980's. In 1992 the bishops' conference issued five recommendations, which included removing an accused priest from ministry for evaluation and treatment, and reporting cases to law enforcement. Seminaries were overhauled, in part, in recognition that they were producing unhealthy priests. By the late 1980's, many Catholic seminaries and dioceses began psychological screening of candidates for the priesthood, said Sister Katerina Schuth, a sociologist at St. Paul's Seminary at the University of St. Thomas. Human sexuality was added to seminary curriculums soon after 1992, when Pope John Paul II called for the church to pay attention to the "human formation" of priests, said Sister Schuth. Studies show that more seminarians and priests now identify themselves as homosexual than in previous generations, and with the openness has come more candid discussion in seminaries of celibacy and chastity, she said. The decline in priest cases in the 1990's parallels a 40 percent decline in the sexual abuse of children generally, Dr. Finkelhor said. There are many reasons, he said: more offenders are incarcerated for longer periods; children are more closely supervised; and there is more awareness about identifying and reporting sexual abuse. But many say that the real reason for the decline may be simply that the victims of the 1990's have not surfaced yet. "You will see some kind of a bubble in 2005, when the people who were abused in the 1990's come forward," said Dr. Frawley-O'Dea, who has treated many abuse victims. "It takes a lot of survivors until their mid-20's, when they have accumulated enough life experience, to know they were messed up." But there could be another explanation for the 1990's decline: the church is still covering up cases. Despite the pressure on bishops over the last year to reveal the extent of the abuse, some refused to release the number of accusations or the names of the accused priests.
1967-1977 Hundreds of priests in the United States leave the priesthood annually. At the height in 1970, 675 leave. 1968 The pope issues the encylical Humanae Vitae, reasserting the ban on birth control. 1978 Cardinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland becomes Pope John Paul II. 1985 The Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, a Louisiana priest who molested more than 100 boys, is sentenced to 20 years in prison. 1985 U.S. bishops meet in Minnesota and discuss sex abuse for first time. 1985 Two priests and a lawyer who defended the church in the Gauthe case produce a report predicting that sex abuse by priests will cost church $1 billion, and urging bishops to develop a national policy. 1990 The Rev. Bruce Ritter, founder of a house for runaways in New York City, resigns after accusations he had relationships with boys. 1991 First victims support group is founded by the mother of an abused boy in Chicago. 1992 The pope issues apostolic exhortation, overhauling seminary education, including more teaching about sexuality and celibacy. 1992 Torrent of cases of sexual abuse by priests reported in American media. Bishops agree on five steps to prevent sexual abuse. 1993 Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez of Santa Fe resigns after mismanaging abusive priests and confessing that he had had sexual relationships with several women. 1993 James R. Porter, accused of molesting hundreds of children in three states, is convicted. 1994 Steven Cook withdraws a $10 million lawsuit accusing Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago of molesting him.
2001 Bridgeport Diocese agrees to pay at least $12 million to settle cases of 26 people who said they had been abused by six priests. January 2002 Judge unseals documents showing Cardinal Bernard Law and his aides in Boston Archdiocese reassigned abusive priests, including the Rev. John Geoghan, accused of assaulting more than 130 minors. February Lay group Voice of the Faithful is formed in Boston Archdiocese. March 8 The Rev. Anthony J. O'Connell, bishop of Palm Beach, resigns after admitting he had sexually abused a Missouri seminary student more than 25 years ago. April 23-25 American cardinals and leading bishops are summoned to the Vatican for meetings on the abuse crisis. May 24 Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee resigns after news reports revealed he had paid $450,000 to a man who claimed he had been abused by the archbishop. June 11 Bishop J. Kendrick Williams of Lexington, Ky., resigns after being accused of abusing two minors decades ago, a charge that he denied.
Oct. 18 Vatican substantially revises the Dallas policy, saying accused priests must be judged by tribunals made up of priests. Dec. 13 Cardinal Bernard Law resigns after judge unseals more church documents revealing he knowingly reassigned priests who had sexual relations with girls, boys and women.
01/12/2003 By BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News One in an occasional series
The priest then set up Casita Maria, or Little House of Mary, a tax-exempt corporation that has counseled thousands of undocumented immigrants. But it also has loaned money to some board members, even though state law forbids such a practice. It charged no interest and allowed the borrowing, in one case, to exceed a director's annual salary as Casita's No. 2 staff member. Furthermore, the charity has made inaccurate or incomplete sworn statements about its finances to the federal government. And Dallas police have named some staff members as suspects in the unsolved theft of about $50,000. Father Lucio answered a few questions during early research for this story but later declined to be interviewed in detail. Guadalupe Granados, a Casita Maria employee who serves with Father Lucio on the agency's board, acknowledged most of The News' findings. "Maybe everything hasn't been done by the rules and regulations," she said. "But these are just mistakes some people made because we're not informed." Father Lucio said he had given the newspaper abundant information by allowing a reporter to copy some records at his Oak Cliff office. He later cut off access to other files. State law requires most nonprofit organizations to release "all records, books, and annual reports of the financial activity of the corporation," and makes refusal to do so a misdemeanor. Ms. Granados, who keeps the organization's books, said she was aware of that law but would follow Father Lucio's order to withhold documents. She said that the inaccurate statements to the government "are things that can be corrected." Bishop Grahmann – a longtime advocate for immigrants, whose influx has made Catholics the largest religious group in Dallas – declined an interview request. So did Coadjutor Bishop Joseph Galante. Diocesan spokesman Bronson Havard would not comment about The News' findings except to say that the priest "is responsible for his own actions, as is any adult person operating an agency subject to government regulation and oversight." Internal Revenue Service spokesman Phil Beasley declined to comment about Casita specifically, but did say: "Any time there's self-dealing, the IRS will want to ask questions." The roots
While the suit was pending, Bishop Grahmann reassigned Father Lucio to part-time work at another church, then rescinded the move after the priest sometimes didn't show up to celebrate Mass. Mr. Havard said Father Lucio then was restricted to non-parish ministry and assigned to full-time work at Casita. This "final resolution of the controversy" came "with the full encouragement and support of the Hispanic community leadership," the spokesman said. In the decade since, some of those supporters have turned away from the organization. One of the priest's most prominent backers then was Adelfa Callejo, a Dallas lawyer and longtime civil rights activist. In a recent interview, she said she initially believed Father Lucio's claims that the diocese was retaliating against him because of his advocacy for its burgeoning Hispanic population. She said she began referring clients to Casita in the early 1990s, only to hear complaints about staff members driving expensive cars and charging high fees. She said she also became worried about Father Lucio's personal volatility and eventually cut ties with him. "I told him, 'You are betraying your trust as a priest.'" Ernesto Maldonado, a lawyer who helped incorporate Casita Maria, also has broken with Father Lucio. He said the organization abandoned its purpose long ago. "It was just a money-making machine," he said. "And it's so easy to make money off these people. They live in the shadows. They die in the shadows." Early in its existence, the organization won nonprofit status with the IRS, which spares it taxation, and permission for non-lawyers to represent clients in Immigration and Naturalization Service proceedings, which saves on attorney costs. In turn, Casita had to promise to offer free or nominally priced services. "Because there will be numerous ones that will not be able to pay anything, we will request donations from the general public to assist in this ministry," Casita wrote to the IRS in 1989, estimating that 98 percent or more of its clients were poor and unable to work legally. "No one in this organization, or on the board of directors, is seeking to profit from this ministry or receive any unreasonable compensation for their labor." Tax returns show, however, that Casita has gained all of its income in recent years from client fees and interest earned on those funds. Such a situation could lead to an investigation by federal immigration officials, said Anne Estrada, director of the Dallas district of the INS. She cited an immigration appeals board ruling that said: "The imposition of nominal fees was not intended as a means through which an organization could fund itself." Casita's fees range from $15 for an initial consultation to $300 and higher for help filling out government forms. The diocese's Catholic Charities program charges similar amounts for immigration counseling. Casita's records show that in 2000, the immigration service investigated whether to withdraw its accreditation of the charity, though it is not clear why. Casita hired a lawyer to argue its case and prevailed. The charity and the INS refused to release their files on the matter. Before cutting off contact with The News, Father Lucio said his ministry did not rely entirely on fees. He explained that in 2001, it raised about $1,500 at a special event and occasionally got donations of a few hundred dollars from lawyers or other professionals. The money wasn't accounted for separately from the fees, he said, and donors didn't get receipts. Limited oversight
Father Lucio said Casita has no budget because he can't predict how many needy people are going to seek help each year. "The board has never asked for a projected budget," he said. The board has met a few times, at irregular intervals, over the last two years. Ms. Granados said the non-staff directors sometimes glanced at financial statements but never scrutinized them. "I had no idea what was coming in and what was going out," said Christine DeSio, who served as treasurer until quitting the board about a year ago. She declined to comment further. Board member Jose Pineda described himself as "completely ignorant" about the organization's finances, although he acknowledged, "I do have a fiduciary duty to Casita Maria." While the charity has spent thousands of dollars on cars and real estate used by top staff members, most of its approximately 15 employees work without computers and none has Internet access. Charity and government records show that Casita: • Assembled a small fleet of automobiles it values at $140,000, even though it does not run a transportation service for clients. Recent-model vehicles have been supplied for personal use to Father Lucio, who is executive director and board chairman; to his housemate, Casita maintenance worker David Villatoro; and to Mr. Granados, who is the No. 2 staff member. Casita told the IRS on its annual filing that it did not provide any goods to its leaders or employees. • Spent about $45,000 in the last two years on expenses listed as entertainment. Payments listed in its books include $4,400 to the Dallas Mavericks. Mr. Granados said the charity bought two season tickets that were raffled to clients as a fund-raiser. The organization provided no supporting documentation. The other entertainment expenses were paid with credit cards assigned to Father Lucio and Mr. Granados, according to Casita records. Billings for the first 11 months of 2002 show that Father Lucio spent several thousand dollars at restaurants, grocery stores, hardware stores and pharmacies, and at service stations as far away as Mr. Villatoro's native El Salvador. At its most recent meeting, last month, Casita's board stripped Mr. Granados and Father Lucio of their American Express cards and MasterCards, Ms. Granados said. She would not release minutes of the meeting, which occurred after The News asked to review credit card billings and other financial records. Board member Fred Fields said he had never been told about personal use of the charity's credit cards and vehicles. • Gave $10,000 bonuses to each of its top four top administrators in 2001, when Father Lucio's salary was listed as about $52,000. The board awarded the bonuses, as well as $3,500 apiece for the rest of the agency's employees, after hearing about long hours of overtime. Board members also voted unanimously to set up $100,000 retirement funds for Father Lucio, Mr. Granados and a third veteran employee, Maria Briones, according to minutes of their December 2001 meeting. The full amount was to be set aside immediately for the priest; the other two funds were to be built over five years. • Paid cash for a one-story office building that now houses a for-profit business Ms. Granados owns, Granados Notary Services. Casita clients are urged to use the business, which sells money orders and, for a fee, will send faxes, take ID pictures and translate documents. One phone number listed as Casita's rings to the business, which has no listed number of its own. The charity told the IRS that it had not furnished facilities for any of its leaders, and it did not list any rental income on its 2001 tax return. Ms. Granados said she pays $500 rent, but it was not itemized on the return because all of the revenue was lumped together. Mr. Fields, a real estate broker, said he advised on the purchase of the office building and was told that the organization needed room to expand. He said he "had no idea" that Casita wasn't using the building. Mr. Granados said the expansion plans turned out to be unnecessary. • Owns a house in DeSoto that it rents for $10 a month to Father Lucio, 59, and the maintenance man, Mr. Villatoro, 28. The two men originally bought the house themselves in October 2001 – with the charity's cash, Ms. Granados said – then transferred the title to Casita two months later. Ms. Granados said Father Lucio called her and her husband that October while they were in San Antonio, saying he wanted to borrow funds to pay off his house. She said they gave their proxy votes by phone, thinking he was referring to a duplex he owned in East Dallas. Father Lucio told them he had a board majority, Ms. Granados said, adding that she did not ask for details. There is no record of the vote, she said. She subsequently learned that he had used about $170,000 in charity funds to buy the DeSoto house. Board members, she said, later decided that instead of having Father Lucio repay the loan, Casita would take possession of the house and let him live there. At a December 2001 meeting, with the priest abstaining, directors approved the $10-per-month rent – after Ms. Granados warned that an accountant had advised caution because "if ever audited by IRS, this could look as a conflict of interest." The director who proposed the $10 rent was Mr. Pineda, the only lawyer on the board. He said in an interview that there was nothing wrong with providing compensation in the form of housing. "The part I find odd," he added, is that Father Lucio bought the house before getting board approval. Father Lucio still owns the East Dallas duplex, which is valued on the tax rolls at nearly $190,000. Asked why Father Lucio might need to quit living at the duplex, Mr. Granados said: "It's ugly." • Loaned tens of thousands of dollars to employees, including some who are board members. Casita reported the borrowing to the IRS, although it did not answer questions on the tax form about the purposes, interest rates or other matters. Ms. Granados said the Casita staff had not known about a state law against lending to board members. The loans were considered interest-free salary advances to employees and are being repaid with payroll deductions, she said. Missing minutes
Mr. Fields, who has been on the board for several years, said the board was asked last October to lend $40,000. He said he raised concerns, the request was denied and members agreed that the charity should not be making loans. In 1998, Father Lucio owed the charity $10,000, according to the organization's tax return. And Mr. Granados owed nearly $50,000. At the time, his salary was about $36,000 and his wife had just bought a house in San Antonio from her relatives, without a mortgage. That property, which is publicly appraised at $65,000, is now co-owned by Mr. Granados. Mr. Granados said they borrowed the money mainly to pay off credit card debt amassed at a business they previously owned. His wife said they had bills for the criminal defense of their son, Eric Granados, who was charged in 1997 with raping the 12-year-old daughter of a Casita client. The son, who was 17, was doing volunteer work for the organization and took the girl there after hours. He has since gone to prison for violating terms of his original probation. Ms. Granados said the girl had pursued her son and told him she was 15. He "was still a kid" and barely old enough to face adult charges, she added. Office crimes reported
A police report said there were "no signs of broken glass where the vehicle was parked." The truck was never recovered, police said, and no one was arrested. In October 1997, Father Lucio reported that someone had stolen about $42,000 in cash and $6,000 worth of gold jewelry from an office safe. There was no sign of forced entry into the building or the safe. 'Very little paper trail'
The police investigator assigned to the case said the safe may not have been locked, and others may have known the combination. Several employees were considered suspects, he said. "They've got a lot of money and very little paper trail," said Senior Cpl. David McWilliams. "Their accounting practices were just horrible." A couple who served on the Casita board then, lawyers George Rodriguez and Michelle Saenz-Rodriguez, were hired to oversee an internal investigation that included polygraph tests for all employees and volunteers. Mr. Rodriguez declined last week to comment on the results of the investigation. Minutes for more than two years of ensuing board meetings are missing, Ms. Granados said. She declined to provide a copy of the lawyers' report to the board. Mr. Rodriguez said he and his wife quit the board soon after completing their investigation. He would not say why. A few years earlier, Father Lucio told police that some employees had stolen about $20,000. Three people were accused of pocketing fees and issuing fake receipts; at least one pleaded guilty and was put on probation. Similar allegations arose against an employee last year, according to board meeting minutes. Ms. Granados said the man quit and police were not notified. Money's destination
Ms. Briones, the No. 3 staff member, told the board about several other allegations against the employee. But she echoed his central assertion, the minutes show: "When there was excessive work, Fr. Lucio had approved that the representatives could keep the representation money from clients, because the reps. were having to work on their day off." There is no indication in the minutes that Father Lucio disputed this account.
Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Greeting some 380 U.S. bishops, priests and seminarians, Pope John Paul II said he was in "prayerful solidarity" with U.S. Catholics as they struggle to deal with the scandal of the clerical sex abuse crisis. The pope met at the Vatican Jan. 10 with more than 200 alumni of the North American College, the U.S. seminary in Rome, and with staff members as well as priests and seminarians currently studying at the college. "At a time of difficulty and suffering for Catholics in the United States, I assure all of you of my prayerful solidarity," the pope said. Every four years, the alumni hold their annual meeting and reunion in Rome, where they studied before their ordination to the priesthood.
Abuse in 'nearly all' US dioceses - report More than 1,200 priests are reported to have sexually victimised more than 4,000 children, the New York Times reported today. An extensive survey conducted by the newspaper tallied 4,268 people who have claimed publicly or in lawsuits to have been abused by priests. Using court records, news reports, church documents and interviews, the Times survey found accusations of abuses in all but 16 of the 177 Roman Catholic dioceses in the US. Most priests accused of abuse were ordained between the mid-1950s and the 1970s, a period of upheaval in the church. According to the newspaper, most of the abuse cases occurred in the 1970s and 1980s. Many Catholic conservatives blame the social upheaval of the 1960s for removing priestly inhibitions on sexuality and dissent. The Times survey determined that 1.8% of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 had been accused of abuse, according to available data. But in dioceses that have divulged what they say are complete lists of abusive priests the percentages are far higher. In Baltimore, Maryland, for example, an estimated 6.2% of priests ordained in the last half-century have been implicated in the abuse of minors. In Manchester, New Hampshire, the figure is 7.7% and in Boston it is 5.3%.
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Hartford Courant.. Hartford CT January 10 2003, 2:41 PM EST A record number of America's Roman Catholic bishops will be eligible for retirement in 2003, starting a gradual shift in leadership as the U.S. church seeks to recover from the clerical molestation crisis. By December, 32 of the 283 bishops active in the United States will be 75 -- the church's retirement age -- or older. It is the largest number of U.S. bishops eligible to resign in one year since Pope Paul VI set a retirement age in 1966, according to Catholic News Service. The potential retirees include 16 bishops who lead their own dioceses. There is also one cardinal -- Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia -- who will turn 80 in June. The remainder are either auxiliary bishops or prelates for Eastern-rite churches and the military. Under church law, a bishop submits his resignation to the Vatican at age 75 but cannot step down until the pope gives his approval. Pope John Paul II has increasingly allowed elderly prelates to keep working. Of 17 bishops who turned 75 last year, only a handful retired. "Once the pope himself turned 75, it appeared that it was harder for him to make these other people retire when he wasn't himself," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America. Three of the bishops who lead dioceses have already submitted their resignations, but the Vatican has not publicly commented on their status. They are Bishop Thomas Daily of Brooklyn, N.Y., Bishop Frank Rodimer of Paterson, N.J., and Bishop James Timlin of Scranton, Pa. Bevilacqua's spokeswoman, Catherine Rossi, said the Philadelphia cardinal will continue to serve until the Holy See directs him to leave. (At 80, he loses the right to vote in the conclave choosing the next pope.) The precise impact of the retirements is hard to gauge, but there is some hope among abuse victims that the new bishops will be more sympathetic to their ordeals. David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said dioceses hit hard by the molestation crisis would benefit from new leadership. Bishops who run dioceses are responsible for implementing the discipline plan that the prelates collectively drafted and the Vatican approved last year. "As a general rule, some of the younger bishops have been slightly better than their more elderly colleagues in dealing with survivors," Clohessy said. Daily, who formerly worked in the Boston Archdiocese, and Rodimer are among the church leaders who have dealt with particularly messy scandals, as are several of the other bishops who soon will be eligible to step down. Among them is Bishop Robert Banks of Green Bay, Wis., also a former official in the Boston Archdiocese. Both he and Daily have been subpoenaed to appear before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating abuse claims. Timothy Matovina, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, said 2003 is likely the first of several years of significant numbers of retirements, as bishops from the large ordination classes of the 1950s end their careers. "There will be a change of generations," Matovina said. With all the turmoil over how the church handled abusive priests, he said some bishops will be relieved to leave their jobs now, despite their reluctance to scale back their service to the church. "At the age of 72 or 74, they start thinking `I don't need to fight this battle myself,'" he said. * __ On the Net: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/
Roman Catholic Faithful Throughout human history when people have had to deal with a truth they do not wish to acknowledge, they have traditionally taken the option of “shooting the messenger”. I’m quite sure that in the old fable concerning “The Emperor's New Clothes”, the story ends too soon. I imagine that shortly after announcing that the emperor was naked, the little boy was torn limb from limb by the imperial guard. This is a risk that everyone who has ever been tempted to exercise the prophetic charism has had to accept. Recently I have heard a number of bishops ripping the press for reporting the many sex scandals in the Catholic Church. Now this is not right. The press is not at fault. They are doing their job and reporting the news. If the hierarchy and those who represent them want to crucify someone, don’t nail the one who is only the messenger – nail....me. You see, for the last 25 years I have noticed problems in the Church, inconsistencies and even contradictions between doctrine and practice. I’m not talking about isolated cases of human weakness. I’m talking about glaring departures from the teaching of Jesus Christ and His Church by those in positions of leadership. I have seen these contradictions cause great pain to God’s people and I have bent over backwards and tied myself in knots trying to find some justification or plausible explanation for what I was seeing. For twenty five years, I have had to do violence to my conscience, my common sense and my faith as I tried to reconcile many of the actions of the hierarchy with the Catholic Faith. But they’ve gone too far! Weakness is one thing, but evil is another! I have seen weakness and foolishness in every area of Catholic life and I have seen Popes abandoning their authority and allowing unworthy bishops to do whatever they wished, secure in the belief that they were completely unaccountable! I am ashamed of myself as I look back at the contortions I put myself through trying to avoid a truth I did not want to acknowledge, but let me give only a few brief examples of what has led me to be “disloyal” to my fellow priests and the hierarchy. 1. I have seen extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist pour the Blood of Christ into a sink which fed into a sewer. They did this with the full knowledge of the pastor. I have made this known to those in authority and nothing was done. Conclusion: IT IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE THAT ANYONE COULD TRULY BELIEVE THAT THE EUCHARIST IS THE BODY AND BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST AND POUR IN INTO THE SEWER! 2. ICEL has an incredible history of agenda-filled mis-translations of important documents and prayers. Rome (and everyone else) knows this , yet the bishops allowed ICEL to “translate” the latest edition of the Missal. Rome sent it back with a letter saying there were simply too many errors to mention. Conclusion: THE AMERICAN BISHOPS ARE NOT TRULY IN UNION WITH ROME. FOR ALL THE POSTURING AND PIOUS WORDS IT IS CLEAR THAT THE AMERICAN BISHOPS THUMB THEIR NOSES AT ROME AND WHILE THEY PLAY “POWER GAMES,” THE PEOPLE SUFFER! 3. Bishops have protected and supported perverts and pedophiles for years, and only the threat of multimillion dollar lawsuits has moved them to what pitifully small action they have taken. Conclusion: GIVEN WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT THOSE WHO “HARM MY LITTLE ONES” IT IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE THAT A MAN COULD BELIEVE IN JESUS AS GOD AND ALLOW AND AID IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INNOCENT! So, the bottom line is that I have tried for a long time to make any excuse I could for them, but the facts are crystal clear and the truth is that we have many bishops in the American Catholic Church who have very little faith in Christ, they do not humbly represent the Church He founded, and they will sacrifice the bodies and souls of God’s people rather than let their weakness and evil be seen. We have a large number of unworthy shepherds and that undeniable fact leads me to the heart of the problem: A priest is to be obedient to Christ and to his Bishop. But priests have been put in a position where they cannot do both. Christ and many of the bishops of the Church are leading in different directions and so a faithful priest has no choice but to follow Christ. So when I saw what was happening to the children and I saw the participation of the hierarchy in this terrible evil I began to advise people about the futility of dealing with the pastor, or the bishop. I told people to go instead to the newspapers and the local law enforcement agencies. I pleaded with them to retain good attorneys and bring lawsuits. In fact I begged them to sue the Church for every nickel and dime, and piece of rental property we own! I do this because I know that beneath the lies, weakness and evil, there is a Church pure and holy, true to the teaching of Christ and beautiful to behold. The birthday of this Church was on Pentecost and it is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth! I believe Pope St. Gregory the Great was right when he said: “IT IS BETTER THAT SCANDALS ARISE THAN THE TRUTH BE SUPPRESSED!”. We could pray for no greater grace than to be broken and humbled so that we as a Church could return to the purity of true Catholic Faith, a faith that formed great saints, prophets, and martyrs. Until that happens, (or Jesus comes again) we must at least stop destroying souls by deforming them by the false spirituality of “this present evil age”! The truth is that Children are safer today, not because of the Bishops of the Church, but because of the press, and attorneys, and law enforcement officials, and very large lawsuits! To the extent they are true to their task to uncover and present the truth, lawyers, the police and, yes, the press are the greatest friends the true Church and the people of God have had for many years! To have large numbers of unfaithful bishops in the Church is not new. History gives us hope! There are few things more uplifting than to study the lives of St. John Fisher, or St. Charles Borromeo, or St. Augustine! These were great men and great saints in the midst of men unworthy of their office. Until God raises up such men again we must pray that we can follow the first principle of medicine: AT LEAST, DO NO HARM! Thank God for those who can at least hold us to some accountability until God raises up saints to remind us of what we have forgotten.
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