Chapter Five: Analysis and Interpretation of Bishops’ Data

To understand the response of the bishops you must first understand bishops. They are not appointed to change the Church but to maintain and defend it as it is. (Eugene Kennedy 1997/1998)[184]

 

Why don’t twenty-five of us stand up? I honestly don’t know. This is our home—we can’t burn it down. This is our mother—we can’t defy her. We were trained to be loyal. You don’t shake that, even if you really dislike what Rome does to you personally. (Bishop Lucker)[185]

 

Ecclesia semper reformanda. (Unitatis Redintegration 6)

I. Introduction

This chapter analyzes and interprets the data collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty Catholic bishops. During these interviews, the bishops attempted to “make sense” (Feldman 1995) of the phenomenon that they and other bishops faced from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. They focused on the time when allegations of clergy molestation and sexual abuse of children and adolescents were not publicly known and bishops were responding on their own.[186] The first and major question that I asked the bishops was: What were the factors that you considered when dealing with the various clergy abuse cases in your diocese in the early 1970s to mid-1980s? The letter to the bishops (Appendix 1) highlighted the management of multiple identities concept (Cheney 1985, 1991), an idea with which they readily identified. Said one bishop, “I love that management of multiple identities idea.”

When the bishops were forced to face the dilemma of abusing clergy—individually, within their own dioceses, and collectively, as the hierarchy in the Catholic Church in America—they had to decide which of their many roles they were going to assume. This was a dilemma unlike any they had had to face in their history, which is as old as the United States itself (Byrnes 1991, 11). The image of the Church has always been an important and dominant theme in the ecclesial literature (Dulles 1974/1978, Minear 1960). Whatever the proclivities of the bishop, an image of the Church existed that they had to promote and protect. To theologian-bishops, the Church is the Body of Christ;[187] to historian-bishops, the oldest institution in the western world; and to politically savvy-bishops, a major player in local, state and national politics. To sociologist-bishops, the Catholic Church is a social institution with a moral mandate, or, more simply, a moral institution concerned with morals, values, and behavior that reflect a belief in the Church and its teachings. To authoritarian-bishops, the Church is a major control agency, which demands obedience of its members.[188] To fiscally sensitive bishops, the Church is a major corporation.[189] The bishops, whether consciously or not, were sensitive to the liability that their dioceses could suffer if a scandal were to break. Whatever their spiritual, psychological, or emotional makeup of the bishops, all were attuned to preserving an image of the institutional Church, even though all would agree with Dulles (1974/1978) that the Church viewed simply as an institution is inadequate.

Two basic underlying assumptions permeate the data from both the bishops and the priest-perpetrators. These assumptions had become, as Ott (1989) argues, so much a part of the bishops’ life that they were no longer conscious of them because they had moved into their “preconscious” (42).[190] The following underlying assumptions have been assimilated into the bishops’ thinking and affected their understanding of and decisions about the molestation and sexual abuse of children and adolescents by members of their presbyterate. The first is the primary motivator for all the bishops and the second supports and sustains the first:

¨    the bishops’ primary responsibility was to preserve the institution of the Roman Catholic Church

¨    a vocation to the priesthood was permanent and irrevocable

Once the allegations of clergy abuse became public and the bishops were forced to deal individually (as the Ordinary of a diocese) and collectively (as members of the NCCB), these assumptions may have slipped into the bishops’ “consciousness” and most probably have been reexamined, challenged, accepted and/or rejected. However, in the 1970s to mid-1980s they were once very much a part of the ecclesial and episcopal organizational culture in which the bishops functioned.

 

A. Preservation of the Institution of the Church

First, most bishops are preeminently institutional men and their main objective, supported by both tradition and doctrine, is the preservation of the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Stability is a key feature of social institutions. When discussing institutionalization, O’Dea (1963) writes, “The great virtue of social institutions from the point of view of the functioning of the social system is that they provide stability” (73). As one ex-priest wrote, bishops “ ... are not appointed to change the Church but to maintain and defend it as it is ... their first commitment as organization men is to maintain the institutional church” (Kennedy 1997/1998). They are the successors to the first Bishop, St. Peter, and to the college of the Apostles. Their episcopal consecration bestows on them the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and gives them a permanent gift—the powers to sanctify, teach, and govern. This office of sanctifying, teaching, and governing is exercised in “hierarchical communion with the head and the members of the college” (Lumen Gentium 21). Thus bishops “ ... in an eminent and visible way undertake Christ’s own role as Teacher, Shepherd and High Priest, and ... they act in His person” (Lumen Gentium 21). While bishops may have lacked uniformity in determining “appropriate collegial action” (Lumen Gentium 21, ftn. 96), they were united in their commitment to be loyal to the Catholic Church. This is most easily manifested in the bishops’ commitment to avoid scandal. As AUX4 said, “The greater good was to do the right thing. And that was caring about scandal … that was the right thing to do.” Most bishops said something similar to AUX5: “Their concern was for the good of the Church, the overall Church … First, that this would get out to hurt the people, the faith of the people.”

B4 expressed the same sentiments: “ … the whole issue of scandal may have played a part in their thinking. My God, if this ever gets out. They’ll take this information and disseminate it and if it gets out, it could hurt the Church … this is a terrible scandal.”

B5 tied the concept of scandal to the idea of abuse as a moral failing:

… one of the big concerns at any time was the danger of scandal. If the priest had done these kinds of things in public, the Church would be quite apprehensive. That fact was mitigated by the fact that we were treating it as a moral fault. We thought of it as a sin. And like any sin, it could be forgiven if the person made a good retreat, good resolutions. They could reform. With what we know today, that’s very simplistic. But whether we like it or not, that’s the way we were treated it. So, I think that in the early years the danger of scandal, the fact that we thought it was a moral fault and not something much deeper led to the kind of response that we’re not proud of.

 

Bishops also mentioned protecting the faithful. B3 was fearful of the damage that would be wrought and the good relationships of non-abusing priests would be shaken:

… when this began to come to the fore, our object was to protect vulnerable people, and we don’t get credit enough for that. We realized that this would not be tolerated, and we wanted to maintain the integrity of ministerial relationships.

 

The fear of scandal was echoed by the parents. Contrary to today’s situation, the parents of victims were often very supportive of the priest-perpetrators and often wanted to avoid scandal. B3, among others, said,

The parents were more involved in the church. They didn’t want to see any scandal. So most parents who reported to us would say, just take care of this fellow. There’s something wrong with him. They were not so angry because I don’t think they realized that their own children were being as badly affected by this as they came to realize later.

 

Some bishops said the fear of scandal “short changed” the laity. First B5:

… there was a sister on the staff, a layman, and the question was, Are we going to talk about this at the staff meeting? Will we scandalize these two people … Well, … they were just as worried as we were. They were just as anxious to do what was right. If you grew up in that clerical Church, that was your first impulse.

 

B7 was specific about his fear of scandal. “It wasn’t so much, as everybody says, a cover-up.… I think our great fear was what this would do to people if they thought that priests were attacking children.”

A corollary to the scandal issue is the accusation of a “cover-up.” The bishops saw the priests’ actions as moral failings, as sins, and thus, secrecy was warranted. Today this is seen as a “cover-up,” but not in the 1970s. B7 said,

But we didn’t know it was a psychological problem. And we didn’t know that it was treatable. And we thought it was moral. … It wasn’t so much what everybody says, a cover-up.

The bishops’ ignorance was verified by the priest-perpetrators. In a follow-up interview, I questioned P-P6 about what he had said about the Church protecting him. “You said the Church always protected you. You didn’t ask for it; they just gave it. You said they were easy on you.” P-P6 responded, “Yes, it was Father and Father is doing good. People aren’t very suspicious.”

A significant difference exists between what the bishops knew from being told about a priest’s abuse and what the priest-perpetrators knew of the abusive actions. Both saw the priest’s actions as sins, as moral failings, but clearly the priests and not the

bishops understood what was really entailed in an accusation of “molesting” or “abusing.” P-P6 said,

If I am going to criticize—then it’s my confessors. None of them, not one, ever said anything to me…. I was always running to confession. To anyone—just to get rid of the guilt. I felt terrible. I knew it was wrong. I just couldn’t help myself.

The bishops’ argument that the priests’ behavior was a moral failing is in keeping with the Catholic Church’s teaching on sin. More importantly, it is also in keeping with the Church’s argument on forgiveness. The New Testament is replete with the “good news” of forgiveness. From Lk 15:1-7:

Another time, the tax-gatherer and other bad characters were all crowding in to listen to him; and the Pharisees and the doctors of the law began grumbling among themselves: ‘This fellow,’ they said, ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ He answered them with this parable: ‘If one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the missing one until he has found it? … ‘Rejoice with me!’ he cried. ‘I have found my lost sheep.’

Luke 15 continues with other parables about being lost and found: a woman with ten pieces of silver (8-10), the father with two sons, one of them a prodigal son who leaves home, lives recklessly, realizes his plight, returns home and is greeted with a robe and a ring and a fatted calf (11-24). When the loyal son realizes that his younger brother who squandered his life is being treated royally by his father, he is angered. The father affirms his love for faithful son and his place in his household, but of the prodigal son he says, “How could we help celebrating this happy day? Your brother here was dead and has come back to life; he here was lost and is found” (Lk 15:32). But forgiveness does not dismiss moral accountability. Surely it would have been better if:

¨    seminary training were more comprehensive and dealt with sexual/celibate issues

¨    bishops had taken more stringent action with the priests

¨    confessors pushed the priests into therapy

¨    priests and bishops had responded quickly to accusations of abuse

¨    psychologists and therapists, etc. would have understood better the addictive nature of the priests’ sexual abuse.

But this was not the situation in the 1970s.

B. The Permanency of the Vocation to the Priesthood

An integral part of the doctrine and the tradition of the episcopacy and of the Church itself is the institution of the priesthood. The institution of the priesthood is the bedrock upon which the church was founded and is as ancient as the institutional church. “You are Peter (petros), the Rock; and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the powers of death shall never conquer it” (Mt. 16:18, see also Brown 1996, 189).[191] When faced with allegations of clergy abuse, the bishops turned inward, thinking both of the Church and of the priests. Their actions were motivated by a desire to help the priest repent and resolve to “sin no more,” and to protect the Church from scandal. Because of “the seal of confession,” they are scrupulous in keeping private any allegations of wrongdoing. Plus, little if any thought was given to the addictive nature of the priests’ sin or its psychological dimensions. Even less likely was any consideration of the victims, who were, after all “just children” or “just teenagers.”

These two underlying assumptions informed most, if not all, of the bishops’ responses and reactions. These two assumptions are interwoven into the findings, which are discussed below.

II. The Bishops’ Relationship with Other Bishops

Not surprisingly, the bishops were unanimous on many issues, chief among them was heterogeneity and autonomy of the bishops as a group. The Catholic Church is not a monolithic institution and its bishops are not a homogeneous group (Reese 1989a, Gustafson 1965, 70-99; see also Coburn 1963). B1 said,

I have a sense—you can argue with me on this—that you might have a sense of collectivity of bishops and collegiality, something that’s far more advanced than really exists now. I think that there’s some, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily linear and progressive.

B1 often compared the wide diversity of the bishops to the US weather.

I am concerned that people make collective judgments about bishops as a collective. It’s like asking, “How’s the weather in the United States?"  Well, it all depends on where you are ....

B15 also stressed the heterogeneity of the bishops and the fact that most people, especially the press and victims’ groups, expected the bishops to be more unified than they are.  B15 continued,

They expect us to act in a way that we didn’t act collegially.  The Church image is that each bishop is kind of a prince in his own realm and that’s the way in which it worked. And even more so when it comes to your dirty laundry.  You did not share this unless they were your close friends.

All the bishops affirmed the independence and autonomy of the bishops and the lack of authority of the NCCB. AUX2 said,

… maybe this is unfortunate, but we give the image that we are a monolithic, top-down structure, and the Pope gives orders, and that goes to the National Council of Catholic Bishops and then they order us. That isn’t the way it works. Each diocese is a separate entity and there is a great deal of reluctance on the part of one bishop to criticize another or … to interfere with what happens in another jurisdiction. Much less on a national basis. So the National Council of Catholic Bishops, I think, from the beginning kind of said, this isn’t our problem; this belongs to the individual bishop.

The responses of the bishops to clergy abuse cases differed widely. In general, we only know about cases that have been publicized recently. Some cases were settled out of court and one can presume that they were handled satisfactorily.[192] Given the diverse skills and temperaments of the bishops (Reese 1989a), the bishops were not surprised that some cases were not handled well, as B1 indicated,

I don’t pretend to know all the different kinds of responses. … some bishops have probably been superior to others and some inferior to others. Some are probably more enlightened, more responsible, and so on. More straight forward. Others may have been something else …

Quite simply, the bishops were (and are) an autonomous group and they solved their problems themselves. This is the main argument offered by the bishops against a major criticism levied by victims, their advocates, and the press who feel that the NCCB should have addressed clergy abuse as a Conference as soon as cases became known. First, the bishops perceived the abusing priests as discipline problems. Second, the bishops’ sense of who they are—consecrated as head of a diocese and reporting to the Pope—dictated that they independently administer their dioceses as best they could. For them to “air their dirty laundry,” for example, would have been anathema.

Given the above, some bishops recognized that the bishops’ “way of doing business” while successful on many levels, had its problems. AUX2 was explicit,

… given the way bishops have operated for several hundred years, with a patriarchal, heavy male, nobody-can-tell-me attitude, you have a kind of built-in system where they’re going to hold their cards close to their chest.

AUX2 discussed the contentious issue of private versus public (open) NCCB sessions. Most bishops agreed that they might have talked privately among themselves to a friend-bishop, but they were very unlikely to ask another bishop with whom they had no special relationship, even if he had prior dealings with an abuse case. B4 said,

… if a bishop did have a problem with a priest who acted in this way, he might ask another bishop friend if he might take him for a while. There was no indication of the past, and that was natural.… But no, not going to another bishop and asking “How do you handle this?” To my knowledge, up until it became a very public issue in mid-80s, I don’t ever remember it being discussed.

Although victims and victims’ rights groups think that the bishops should have discussed their problems more openly, this was not the way the bishops conducted their diocesan business. B4 was explicit:

But I don’t think a public discussion of the issue would have taken place, and that’s a shame, but that’s the way it is.  Even now, even though there have been a lot of times when we’ve talked about it publicly, the idea that we would have a national policy dealing with this, is just not something that is in our way of thinking.  Most people think that the Catholic Church is a monolith, but each diocese is so different.  The way we deal with things is so different.  It’s unbelievable.

The autonomy issue was difficult to reconcile with the obvious help that bishops would have received by making known to the NCCB a problem as serious as clergy abuse. It seemed to make good sense to discuss the problem as soon as cases became know in a particular diocese, a long time before their public airing, but not one bishop saw the issue in those terms. But B4 said,

I think that we were working in isolation. We didn’t think about two in each diocese across the country, which would have made it a bigger issue. I don’t think we had the sense that it was that big an issue.

The fact that clergy sexual abuse, in the present climate, was not “that big an issue” enrages victims and surprises the laity. But how abuse was perceived needs to be considered within the broader framework of the ecclesial culture, which is discussed further in this chapter.

As mentioned elsewhere, from the beginning of episcopacy in the United States, the bishops differed widely—sociologically, politically, spiritually, and philosophically (Gelm 1994, Hennesey 1981, Reese 1989a). Bishops are roiled in controversy on practically every aspect of the life cycle from birth (abortion, artificial insemination, human embryo research, and birth control), sexual identity (homosexuality), marriage (annulment, contraception, premarital sex), ministry (the ordination of women, priestly celibacy), to death and dying (assisted suicide, euthanasia). The bishops do address many social issues and on some issues they have set the pace for the rest of the country.

One of the disturbing aspects of the bishops’ responses to clergy abuse has been the fact that the bishops, through NCCB, did not address the issue earlier. The following indicates that a small communications network exists among bishops, most likely among those whom they know from their own region. Bishop (B1) said,

I think the bishops as any group of colleagues do, have their own communication network. I’m not saying everybody participates, or they all participate in the same way. But, I can only tell from personal experience, a couple times, with a long time friend, who used to be my bishop, we’d talk about a whole range of matters, including this (clergy abuse). How do you handle this; what do you do?  What do you read?  I know from my personal conversations with lots of other bishops, that lots of other bishops do that too.

The above discussion set the stage for the discussion that follows. Many bishops mentioned the extraordinary attention paid to liturgy and language during the NCCB meetings. Most of the bishops felt that too much time was being spent on rituals and important ecclesiological questions were being left unaddressed. The following is but one example (AUX5):

You know, in the conference, the things that get the most play are the liturgy, the prayers. To pray is to believe. Lex orandi, lex cruledandi. The praying Church is the believing Church. Well, some, most of us are not competent to judge the translation. We have to depend on the faithful few who are scholars in these areas and who have access and they are people, like myself, who tend to bow to them.

All the bishops spoke in praise of the work of the Bishops Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse. They appreciated the information provided so that they were much more knowledgeable than their counterparts of 25 years ago. But still the way that the NCCB meetings are structured mitigates against in-depth dialogue. AUX5 described the cumbersome process at the NCBB and in the process described why organizations, such as the NCCB, can fail its own leaders:

Bishops come home frustrated. First of all, they realize they voted on a lot of stuff and they’re going to get a lot of information … which they have no capacity to process.… So even in dealing with pedophilia situations … You have the formal, didactic presentation of what the issues are; and how we must try to get a canonical process … for administrative discharge. That was one concern because of the patrimony of the Church, where there was a lot at stake in a lot of these cases. A lot of money was spent on all of this. But nobody sat down and said, ‘How are you going to handle this in your own diocese?’ There’s not a group for the guy who says, ‘Let me tell you, look this is what I learned, and this is what I did. And this is the most important thing that we did. We have a process form, and you sit down with the person, the perpetrator of the crime, and you try to see if the person can be healed. If so, he goes for treatment. Then you get into the legal. Then you settle, or you don’t settle. Whatever.’

The college of bishops is a fraternity that discusses issues of relevance to the Catholic Church as a whole, but not discuss those issues that pertain to their own interpersonal and human resources. Much of the discussion focuses on non-theological and non-ecclesial issues. This disenchantment with their collegiality was voiced by many bishops. B1 was very explicit,

I just think that the collegiality is not as healthy as I’d like to see it become. And I honestly believe that it is not as healthy as it once was.… There are issues on our conference table, to which bishops bring widening diverse points of view … There are some sharp differences among the bishops ... My personal feeling is that it’s a deeper question than language; it’s a question of ecclesiology and Christology that we need to come together on, in ways that would allow us to get beyond fighting the battle on that level, and really settle, and I don’t mean this as a contentious statement, but we need to have an honesty and openness that will allow us to come to a better understanding of deeper things than language, as important as language is.

Other bishops were critical of the disproportionate time that is wasted on issues that are important to the liturgical life of the Church, but not to its theological and ecclesiological life. AUX4 said,

… whether you translate beatus as “happy” or “blessed” really doesn’t strike me as a world-striking event. … In one of the occurrences we were arguing about whether we should stand or kneel at the Eucharistic part of the Mass. Are you kidding? This is how I get into trouble. I said, “You should understand that the preferred position of Catholics on Sunday morning is reclining, it’s not standing.” To show you how literal some guys are, they thought that I meant people fall asleep in Church because it’s boring. They’re not even there!

Most bishops agreed with B1 that of late there has been a change in the type of bishops chosen. B7 gave a more moderate response, but he did say,[193] 

I think that both in Rome and over here, everybody got a little concerned that you’ve got to be orthodox here; you’ve got to be loyal to the Pope. The Pope’s surveys always ask, is he loyal to the Church on questions like birth control, the ordination of women, and abortion …

B1 reiterated again his concern about the collegiality of the bishops. His assessment supports my assessment that the bishops have not truly learned significant lessons from the clergy abuse phenomenon. B1 said,

I think that the strength of our collegiality today is sig­nificantly weaker than it was ten years ago. … I’m thinking of the nature of our Conference right now.  I was much more at home with the thrust and the level of our discussion we shared ten years ago than I am today. … the experience and disposition of the people being appointed to the office of bishop today … tend to be more conservative in ecclesial matters than they were ten, fifteen years ago. Generally speaking, I think there’s been a much more authoritarian, Vatican-oriented sentiment among the bishops in their pastoral care.[194]

Some bishops attributed the lack of communication of clergy abuse to a more general lack of communication among the bishops. First, most of the bishops do not contribute to the general discussion; this is left to a few vocal bishops. AUX5 said,

The majority of bishops, the vast majority of bishops won’t get up and talk at conference. Now, there are possibilities. One, they didn’t do their homework ... And with the amount of the homework, you can understand why. Or they’re prepared, but in the diocese they don’t have any talent around to help them in raising questions around, urgent questions, which need attention.

But the more significant issue is the lack of in-depth discussion and sharing. AUX5 said,

You never get bishops really sitting around, who all share this burden, and really talk about it in a human way that they’re facing. You know, my God, I don’t have the talent. … Or I haven’t got a canon lawyer with a degree.  I don’t have anybody with a psychological degree. … So I’m kind of left out.  But you never get this kind of conversation.

The bishops’ assessment of the weaknesses of the NCCB was very clear. The bishops think the NCCB needs to get beyond liturgical ritual and attend to more important matters (see Origins 25).

Other factors are also important in understanding the bishops’ responses to clergy sexual abuse. As mentioned elsewhere, the laity differed demographically from the present population. The laity was very supportive of the Church and the priests, even those who abused. Rarely did they want the priest punished. AUX1 stressed the complexity of the early cases. First, the priest might have denied the allegations, and second, the family might not have wanted to have the case litigated:

… you had to prove (abuse). You couldn’t take one person’s word for it.  When he, on the other hand, denies it and has no chance to confront his accuser ... You can’t just take someone’s word for it, and say, “Oh, yea, you have to go off and see about some treatment because someone said you did this.”  And he doesn’t even know who “so and so” is because they won’t let their names be used. If they said, “No, it never happened,” what could you do?  You can’t railroad people. In civil law you can’t certainly, and you certainly can’t totally overlook people’s rights …

I:  What happened when there were repeated accusations of the same priest?

B:  Well, then, again, you tried too pursue it. … It’s hard to believe now, because everything has become so litigious, but back then people were very hesitant to bring anything out and let their names be used. And there were a number of factors involved. One, they felt ashamed that their names would be discredited if some thing were to come out. Also the exaggerated sense that, well, Father couldn’t have done it, so they wouldn’t be believed. And also an exaggerated sense of deference for the Church. You don’t take the priest to court. In spite of the fact that I would encourage people to do it, they wouldn’t do it. 

Some bishops, even in the early days, tried to get professional help although, as discussed elsewhere, the thinking within psycho­logical community was not as advanced as was needed to help the bishops and the priests. B4 discussed his efforts. “Initially, what I did was talk to places that treated people with sexual addition problems. And the first thing that I did was to find out where they went and to talk to the people there.”

AUX1 described how he handled cases in the early 1970s. In addition to describing the process, he provides an insight into a way that a case might be handled:

This goes back years, when there were very few… but once in a while somebody would call with a complaint about a priest molesting a child, and immediately … I would do something about it. And I was following the policy of the diocese at that time. First … establish the facts; was it true? So, you would talk to the people involved; although generally that would be the parents. The child himself would come later. Try to get as many facts … and then you’d talk to the priest to see what he said about it.…

A major difference was the attitude of the parents. AUX1 continued,

But generally back then, the frustration was that the parents wouldn’t take it any further. They would expect you to do something about the priest but you wouldn’t have adequate grounds to do anything because they would not confront the priest. They didn’t want their names to be used. So you were stuck.

The situations changed slightly when more cases became known, and the bishops suspected that the allegations were true. AUX1 continued,

.. it became clear that “this is true.” And yet nothing had been done back then, but it wasn’t from any lack of determination on the part of the diocese. Actually I wanted to do something about it, but I don’t know many cases back then that truly got resolved. It was always people did not want to “push it.” … They wouldn’t do it; they wouldn’t take it to the authorities.

Debates that previously took place in private are now being contested in public. Most recently, some cardinals and bishops reacted publicly and almost bitterly to the activities of other bishops. Two recent events illustrate the vast differences that exist among the approximately four hundred U.S. Catholic bishops.[195] The first is the reaction to now deceased Joseph Cardinal Bernadin’s Common Ground project, in which Bernadin called for talks among church factions on such issues as the role of women, questions of human sexuality, and dwindling Mass attendance. Reese (1996) quotes Bernadin who said that he was troubled by “an increasing polarization within the church, and at times, a mean-spiritedness (that) have hindered the kind of dialogue that helps us address our mission and our concerns” (1). Mean-spirited indeed were some cardinals’ and bishops’ responses to Bernadin’s call to dialogue on thorny issues.[196] Boston’s Cardinal Law disagreed with Bernadin’s call to dialogue. He said,

the fundamental flaw … is its appeal to ‘dialogue’ as a path to ‘common ground.’ The church already has ‘common ground.’ It is found in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and it is mediated to us through the authoritative and binding teaching of the Magisterium … Dissent either yields to assent or the conflict remains irresolvable. (quoted in Reese 1996, 1)

Washington’s James Cardinal Hickey agreed with Law, denying the possibility of dialogue. Since Vatican II, a small, vocal, and somewhat powerful minority of bishops have taken stands on issues that were not popular with the majority. Some of these same bishops participated in this study.

The above being said, bishops, as a group, have responded jointly in pastoral letters from the early 1900s. A recent (1983) and significant joint effort was their pastoral letter on nuclear arms.[197] The main thesis of Cheney’s (1985/1991) analysis of their pastoral letter is that the bishops had to wrestle with and manage their “multiple identities” in order to write the statement that would come out under their joint names. In the Preface to his 1985 dissertation, Cheney writes,

By reacting to, wrestling with, and fostering various symbolic associations, members at all levels of an organization as complex as the Catholic Church not only define and redefine individual and collective stances with respect to continuity and change, but also shape, maintain, and transform their shared identities in the social order by linking themselves to common, though usually not universal, authorizing “targets“  (vi-vii)

The bishops’ data revealed another theme—recognizing the value of the men who were both perpetrators and priests who did many things well in their active ministry. They had the “special character” of holy orders and their lives, on some level, had value. As one bishop said, “They weren’t vultures; they weren’t carnivores.”

III. The Bishops’ Relationship with Priest-perpetrators

The irrevocability of a vocation to the priesthood was dearly held by all Catholics—priests, bishops, and the laity. In addition to the scriptural mandate, “Thou art a priest for ever, in the succession of Melchizedek” (Heb 7:7), the bishops knew the canonical prescriptions on permanency of a vocation to the priesthood. Also, when large numbers of priests left their dioceses in the 1960s, it reflected badly on the Catholic Church as a whole and its bishops. So it is not surprising that bishops sought to “save” their priests, rather than suggest that they leave. Neither bishops nor priest-perpetrators saw leaving the priesthood as an option.[198] The following bishop’s (B15) response is representative:

Number one was, in those days, you didn’t think of the option to getting rid of the person as the Church, or as society might today.  You had to face up to the problem. …Our concept of Church and how priests related to Church was quite different, and colors how we even think about Church because when a priest is incardinated into a diocese, it creates a relationship between priest and diocese that is almost like family. And I have a hard time explaining that to people—why we don’t treat our cases exactly the same ways as the Lutherans. But our priests are incardinated into the diocese for better or for worse. Like a marriage relationship. And so, if problems are discovered after a priest is incardinated, you just can’t get rid of him.… That concept has colored, I’m sure, how the Church dealt with it then, not so much now as in the old days.

Today, the climate has changed. First, allegations of clergy abuse have become public, and second, the victims have changed. Previously, the families of the victims insisted that the priest not be punished. They wanted him to receive help and to be removed from being with kids, removed from the “occasion of sin,” but not removed from the priesthood. The parents expected the pastor to “do something,” but what that entailed was not always clear. Most bishops agreed that the help from the psychological community was not always very helpful, as B9 indicates,

… you have to place the factors that were considered in context. Surely we made a lot of mistakes. And I don’t want to excuse that, but I also want to say there were a lot of other people in society that didn’t know how to handle these things. I’m not saying that’s good; I’m just saying that was the fact. The Psychological Association didn’t have very clear directions … so our approach to a person who was involved in sexual misconduct … were very much hidden. We thought of moral perpetuity. They were people who did something wrong, and they would then be very repentant and go some place for an extended period of prayer and retreat, recollection, and maybe even some psychological evaluation and then come back. And the evaluators would say, well, he’s now on the way and he’s agreed that he would never do this thing again. And then we’d give him another position.

 

It isn’t that the bishops were totally naïve. Some recognized the difference between a priest being sexually involved with a parishioner and with a youngster. How to handle them was not clear. B9 continues,

I think there’s a difference between how people who were pedophiles responded and those who were involved in other sexual misconduct, for example, people who were dating a member of the parish. The response of priests to that kind of situation was much different.  When they said, “This is it. I’ve learned my lesson,” they were much better. …  Whereas pedophiles were really sick and they just kept repeating. So I think bishops were mostly stumped. They thought that they could handle in this way. Individual priests would be counseled, would be sent away for treatment, and would then be reassigned.

 

Although all the bishops saw the priests as in need of spiritual healing, diocesan priests were treated differently from religious priests, as indicated by B15:

It would be difficult because a person becomes a member of the community and certain rights follow. You can’t just dismiss people, just as you can’t dismiss a brother or a sister.… You could bring a religious priest to the monastery, the generalate, the motherhouse.  Religious had more opportunities to get the priest out of the pastoral situation and put him in another situation.  I’m not sure that diocesan bishops had that same opportunity.  They were more handicapped than what religious could do.

Second, because the bishops and priests saw the abuse as a moral failing, the bishops saw the priests as in need of spiritual healing through the sacrament of penance. The gospels are replete with stories and parables that deal with the forgiveness of sins.

¨    Go, sin no more

¨    Thy sins are forgiven thee

¨    This day you will be with me in paradise

¨    What is easier to say, thy sins are forgiven thee, or take up thy bed and walk. That you may know the son of Man has power to forgive, and turning to the man, Jesus said, “Son, take up they bed and walk.”

In addition to this scriptural base, the sacrament of penance, or of reconciliation as it is now called, is part of the liturgy (see CCC: 1420-1498). A moral treatment was sought for a moral failing, as B1 indicated:

The bishop felt it’s a simple, clear, moral problem, what’s the need for treatment. That’s all. It’s a matter of grace and that’s what’s going on. It was a moral issue and not a psychological issue.

 

B4 agreed:

And we also looked on that as a moral fault that should be corrected by Church means. That is, by a retreat, or by sent away and so on. And we did not succeed so well. It was like people in the parish. If there was a fellow in the parish who was drinking too much, we’d give him a pep talk, give him the pledge, and he’d be back in a few weeks to take it again. We did not address the real issue. And so, we had many priests who were falling back, going back, and even some were allowed to function.

 

B1 and other bishops compared it to the treatment of alcoholism, which was also seen as a moral failing as well as a disease. Often I would say that the Church had some practice in dealing with deviant behavior because of the problem of alcoholism. B5 agreed,

We did not address the real issue. And so, we had many priests who were falling back, going back, and even some were allowed to function.  And it was really, really ... bad, but they did. And in those days, it was like, a pastor had four assistants and they covered up. They ran the parish, they did everything. We were like the military, and the last thing you’d do is “rat” on someone. Because the priests out there were drinking too much, the bishop would be the last one to know, simply because he didn’t want that name of turning somebody in. It’s juvenile today, but nevertheless real. I think Guest House was a great step forward for the treatment of problems and AA.  Without question, AA succeeded where we did not.  Not only with lay people, priests. I think today we have any number of priests serving well because they’ve gone through Guest House and are faithful to the AA meetings and have really helped a lot of people because of their own willingness to discuss it.

 

The bishop also discussed “taking the pledge.” I asked if it was a formalized procedure. B5 said,

Oh, yes. A little card promising never to drink again. Probably the most unreal thing that these poor devils that were brought up to do it.  But so much of our practice was piety ... in those days ... and not understanding really the dynamics of human development.

 

In connection with alcoholism, B2 said,

I’m not saying … that there’s no moral components to a person’s drinking too much in ways that damages others. There are moral implications, at least.  But once people believe, or grasp the fact that there was certainly a strong disease component here, that it was treatable, then things happened in very wonderful ways. I support the parallel very strongly here. The main thing, I think, is the indication that I keep saying—you can’t judge behavior of people a quarter of a century ago, or thirty years ago, on the body of the information that we have today.  And it’s an anachronism to say that you are this, and knowing that they did this. I just don’t think that’s fair. But you cannot say that in the midst of the heat. 

 

The diverse ways of looking at priests with either or both of these problems—alcoholism and abuse—was discussed because Rev. Joseph Fichter had written extensively about alcoholic clergy and most of the bishops knew his work.[199] Note the difference in perspectives—the bishop seeking to rid himself of a problem, the social scientist seeking underlying causes. B7 said,

Fichter would be approaching (the problem) as a scientist and we were looking at it as a moral problem. And we just wanted them to heal, get it over with, and he would want to look at the underlying causes, and I don’t think any of us wanted to know too much about that. It’s a pretty uncertain science. We still don’t know whether alcoholism is a result of genetic stuff or where it comes from. And certainly Joe Fichter wouldn’t have known either, but he would know that there were enough alcoholics around that we had to do something about.

 

In the 1970s, the treatment centers were primarily for alcohol addiction. One of the more popular and well respected was St. Luke Institute in Suitland, Maryland, which had won “high marks among bishops” (Berry 1992, 88).[200] Some treatment houses that catered to priests and religious existed. In 1958, the priest founder of the National Clergy Council on Alcoholism (in 1949) published anonymously a book on alcoholic priests.[201]

The bishops’ relationships with the presbyterate are signifi­cantly different from that of his relationship with other bishops. The bishops “ ... constitute a collegial body enjoying supreme power in governing the Church” (Lumen Gentium 22, ftn. 96). And govern they do with autonomy.  They are extremely hesitant to indicate to other bishops any weakness or failure to handle their discipline problems with their priests. An abusing priest was seen as a priest with a moral problem. With the exception of contacting a neighboring bishop-friend, they are loath to make public any disciplinary matters.

Thus, the bishops only addressed the issue of clergy abuse when forced to by the publicity the abuses cases had garnered.

I asked the bishops how they felt about the priests who were accused of abuse. B5 was the most compassionate:

I’d say probably sad. You know, it’s so different from what we preach and what’s expected and what we’ve committed ourselves to. And I have to say, too, that probably I leaned toward the priests rather than the victim in those early days. What can be done for them? What can we do?  And that wasn’t clear either, but that’s totally different today, especially with the addiction part of it …

 

Most bishops were angry. They echoed what B13 said,

Very angry with him. Very angry. Yes, and it’s just pure stupidity. I was angry with them because I had to meet with the parents and I was so embarrassed.  So embarrassed and they were so hurt. … This person is calm as can be. I’m the guy that feels terrible. So I’m mad, and I let it be known. I didn’t have to deal with that many.  But I remember, I was very angry. And I don’t get angry. I don’t like to … get angry publicly.

 

The most telling reaction came from AUX5: “Angry, very angry; he let down the team!” It is telling because it indicates the basic mentality at that time. Once ordained, the priests were part of the clerical team. They were expected by his fellow priests, pastors, bishop, and the laity to “measure up.” But, by most accounts, the priests were ill prepared to face parish life. They were academically prepared, but not emotionally or psychically equipped. One priest said, “They didn’t even tell us how to say our first Mass. I practiced in my parent’s cellar.”

B5 also discussed the routinization of the priest’s assignment and the lack of any professional development.[202]

There was a period when almost everything was cut and dried as far as personnel issues went with priests. You were ordained. You were an assistant. Then you got a little parish, then a bigger one, and then you got a big one.  I mean it was pretty predictable in the sense that in a large diocese maybe 25 years before you were a pastor. In a small diocese it might be 12 because everybody wished to become a pastor. But there were certain things that a bishop was expected to follow. … he might feel that at this point he has to appoint this man to be pastor because of seniority when the better man over here for the parish was not long ordained. So that happened fairly often. And priests are strong on—“I’m ordained 20 years and it’s my turn.” And he could generate against the bishops some of his friends, and that sort of thing ... And it’s always true, you know, that priests could go see the bishop, and he might come out and tell his side of the story, but he wasn’t free to tell his side of the story. And make it difficult for him. And in those days, it could be very unfair.  Today we have personnel policies …

 

The assignment process, devoid of attention to personnel issues, was also related by B1.

I remember twenty-five years ago … I was in the bishop’s office in (N) where I was a priest. The Bishop and two or three advisors, at most, sat down with a yellow legal pad, and in about, in final form at least, an hour, he transferred about 40 priests. And when they finished that, the priests got the appropriate form and assignment, “Dear Father, I’m happy to announce that I’ve assigned you to such-and-such a place, on such-and-such a date.” Well, there’s been an evolution in that regard, in at least thirty years, and personnel boards were formed … and priests are beginning to have some input into their futures …

 

This same bishop recognized the broader issues surrounding sexual abuse. The priests are responsible for their own behavior, but as B1 indicates, other issues also need to be taken into consideration when assessing the cause and blame.

I don’t want to sound self-serving. But my point is, unless people understand that the question of abuse is a societal one, they’re going to expect the Church to solve it all by itself, and that’s not possible. Anything short of ideal is going to be seen as cover-up of a person’s behavior. I’m not saying the Church has never behaved in that way and they won’t in the future. But it’s totally unfair to characterize the Church’s response to this issue when it’s a question of growth and understanding and insight, and developing systems to deal with the implications of those insights.

In the 1970s to mid-1980s, clergy abuse was an anomaly. Bishops did not know how to react; they didn’t understand the priests, and the didn’t understand the problem. B7 said,

Around 1984 and 1985 the Bishops’ Conference became aware that we had a growing problem, and it was in a sense a public relations problem.  We didn’t know what we were dealing with, and we certainly did not know how to deal with the media. And they gave us a program in Collegeville, in Minnesota … And I was a brand new ordinary…. And I heard the word pedophilia, and I said to myself, I don’t even know what that is.  I never heard that word before. There’s plenty of reasons why I should have. I had an excellent course in moral theology that really did cover the whole range. I’m a canon lawyer and these things impact on church impediments and irregu­larities and so forth. I worked in the curia, so you would know about incidences. I worked at the apostolic nuncio in Washington, so you know about bad priests. At the Bishops Conference for a long time, I never, ever heard the word pedophilia. And I don’t think I, if I ever knew priests or anybody attracted to children, it simply never entered my mind that there was sodomy involved.  That was as far away from my imagination as anything could be.  And even when I got here and my first case or two, it never entered my mind about sodomy. And of course, I really think that any manipulation of a child in any way at all is terrible and has a lastly impact, sodomy, that’s ... they don’t forget that. The body doesn’t forget that. 

 

In general, the bishops wanted the problem—not necessarily the priests, but the problem—to go away. They thought this could be accomplished with prayer, penance, a spiritual retreat, and some counseling, which was usually short-termed and ineffective. B7 said,

The other side of the equation is, in a sense we’re enlarging the pool of the “wicked ones.” “We can’t cure him.” One of the best, most illuminating things that has been said to me was by a psychiatrist who was treating a victim and he said to me, “whatever psychiatrists tell you, it isn’t. Don’t believe them. We are flying by the seat of our pants with this stuff. We don’t know how to cure the victim, and we don’t know how to cure the perpetrator.”  Then he added, “Psychologists may know some better things to do because of their ability to test, and all that. With their data, they come down to some refinement that they know how to use.” But he said, “as far as their psychiatric approach, we don’t ... we’re still at the bottom of the ladder.” … Nobody has ever told me that before. 

 

In sum, the bishops, too, were “flying by the seat of their pants.” They were brought into the muddy field of sexual abuse through the back door. Their efforts on a national level through the Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse have advanced their understanding greatly. The American Catholic Bishops are probably more knowledgeable than another leadership group—more so than leaders in major corporations, the Boy Scouts and other youth organizations, law enforcement, and school personnel. But their knowledge is still very basic and their focus has been on procedures—stemming the tides of litigation. Many, probably most, have genuinely listened to and tried to understand the victims and their families. Pastorally inclined bishops have been emphatic and have tried to redress past abuses. But as far as knowing and understanding the priest-perpetrators, they are neophytes. Perhaps not culpable because the information on ephebophilia and pedophilia is still at an elementary level.

IV. The Bishops’ Relationships with Victims

About victims, the bishops were unanimous. They were unanimous in acknowledging the need to respond pastorally to victims and their families. How to do this was not at all clear cut and, in fact, was quite complicated. Much of their pastoral response was formulated by listening to and learning from victims. Most of the bishops’ nonpastoral responses occurred when they were not responsive and sensitive to victims. Some were very forthright in admitting their apprehension at dealing with victims, most, if not all, of whom were angry, some intensely angry. Some admitted that their first impulse was to view the priest-perpetrator as the victim. In reference to those who were abused, B13 said, the term victim “ … was never used.  It wasn’t a concept.” B13 continued,[203]

… back then, you wouldn’t think in terms of a victim.  A person who had an adulterous relationship, you wouldn’t think of that as a victim—two consenting adults. You might think of the husband as a victim because he’s the one that’s made. And you might try and talk to them, but there wasn’t much sense of that. The child, there was no sense of the child or what it did to a child. None whatso­ever. So the victim was, I don’t know—the parents, in a sense, were the victims. They were angry. But not all that angry, generally speaking. But you’d want to make sure that … if the woman got pregnant, there would be concern about that, make sure that she was taken care of, but we didn’t call it victims.

Also markedly different was the influence of lawyers. Most bishops agreed that the presence of lawyers and making financial settlements had greatly influenced and in many ways adversely affected the processes whereby bishops had to reconcile with victims and meet their pastoral and financial responsibilities. They had to minister to various constituencies, each with widely diverse and often very conflicting needs and objectives.  And of great importance, they had to meet their fiduciary responsibilities. And although the time when clergy abuse allegations became public was especially painful for all bishops, for one bishop, at least, it was also a very rewarding time for ministering.

A. Pastoral Response to Victims

All the bishops said that their responses to the victims and their families had to be pastoral. “Our primary concern is, of course, to be pastoral toward the victims” (B14). Ministering to victims has become a kind of “mantra” for the bishops, especially after having attended many special sessions on clergy abuse under the aegis of the Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse[204] and having established diocesan policies that specify ways to ensure a pastoral response. B8’s statement is representative:

… for a lot of reasons—because of justice and that’s where we needed to be—we have tried to stress the immediacy of the importance of the victims. Being with the victims. Ministering to the victims.

 

AUX 4 described the issue this way:

So I am sure that in the first case and in every subsequent case, the information was received by someone who had the sense to know that good pastoral care requires prompt, no-nonsense response, but that’s not the sort of thing that one treats for from the pulpit. And particularly in the pulpit, you’d be very careful of any allusion that would lead the person to say, “He’s talking about me.” I think that the pastoral sense of effective confidential dealing was brought to this situation. You want to deal with reality.  You do your best to understand it, but you don’t make a public issue of it. That’s it.

B. Victimization Not a Concept

Both bishops and victims’ advocate groups, such as Survivor Connection, Inc., [205] SNAP, and VOCAL would agree that this attitude of ministering to the victims was noticeably missing when clergy abuse cases were handled previously.[206]

All readily pointed out that while current diocesan practices and policies are centered on a broad-based, multi-discipline pastoral response to all involved in clergy abuse cases, this was not always the case.[207] Most would agree with AUX2 who said,

… no one thought that this could be shattering for a kid. And so, for a long time, the bishops were convinced, all they had to do was stop this thing. If it happened once, you didn’t want it to happen again. So that was the approach.

It wasn’t just dealing with victims that was new to bishops. It was dealing with angry victims whose angered had been building for years. Meeting with a bishop was their chance to finally “have their say.” Some bishops had faced angry groups but none had faced angry groups whose anger was directed toward not only specific priests for their sexual abuse, but at the Church as a whole, for what was seen as a blatant disregard of them. While understandable, dealing with them was intimidating to many of the bishops.

To help him concentrate on the victims and on not becoming defensive, one bishop who was sent to restore confidence in a diocese that had been ravaged by clergy abuse kept reminding himself that the problems did not occur “on his watch.” B2 describes meeting the victims’ families:

I can remember one evening sitting in a room with families of victims, the victims were not in the room, but families were. There was one person in particular who was very obnoxious toward me. And I didn’t know this person; I mean this was the first time and she was being really obnoxious.… And all I kept doing as the person was talking, all I kept thinking was, I am not the problem; I’m only part of the solution. 

It was clear that while bishops were committed to responding pastorally to victims, the abuse that the victims suffered occurred many years ago. Their lives had since become much more complicated and complex, and it was difficult, if not impossible for the bishops to "sort out" the Church’s culpability. Their present major responsibilities were to respond pastorally and at the same time be financially responsible for the whole diocese.

C. Learning from Victims

As unsettling and confusing as it was to deal with victims, the bishops were enthusiastic in expressing their gratitude for having had the opportunity to listen to and learn from victims, as B8 indicates:

Some of the most powerful, if not poignant, committee meetings were ones in which we listened to priest-perpetrators and to victims, separately. Those discussions were moments that changed our whole perspective. It put a human face on it.

One bishop said that he had learned a lot from the laity in general as a result of the clergy abuse cases. The laity was much stronger than was assumed. B5 explains:

I think we underestimate the loyalty of the people in the Church. Because almost anytime that you approach them with something, they do not take the fearful approach that you think they’re going to. They’re as supportive and helpful as you would be yourself. They love the Church; they’re committed to it; they want to do what they can to help. And that’s a great thing. 

The same bishop described the discussion he had about telling the staff about the accusations of clergy abuse.

… In the staff meetings I have … a sister and a layman, and the question was, you know are we going to talk about this at the staff meeting? Will we scandalize these two people, that sort of thing. Well, we talked about it, and they were just as worried as we were. They were just as anxious to do what was right. But if you grew up in that clerical Church, that was your first impulse.

D. Mistakes Made

When asked to identify mistakes that Church leaders made, their responses were similar: the inadequacies of their responses to victims and their families. AUX3 said, “Not approaching the victims and families of victims, I think was a mistake, in terms of reaching out to them and trying to offer pastoral care.” A similar response came from B4:

The major mistake, I think, was not to do anything. And in some instances even to deny that it even occurred.  To not even give credence to the victim—that was a tragic mistake.  But even when they accepted the allegations, but assumed that our responsibility had terminated once we had acted to remove the priest from the ministry, I think that was a mistake we made.

AUX1 describes the reaction in much the same way:

I think the biggest mistake we made was to try to hide ourselves from the victims. … I think we were too concerned about the legal ramifications and the financial ramifications of being taken into court. I think we were probably in denial. A lot of us thought, Priests don’t behave this way.  The hell they don’t.

Many echoed the sentiments of B8 who said,

Now hindsight is a lot better. I think that we were shocked by it and so taken aback by it, that we didn’t do what I think we should have done, and that is talk about it openly. Instead it was always in Executive Session. It was always, kind of we’ll just talk about it among ourselves, lest the people become scandalized. Mistake.

For some bishops meeting with, listening to, and learning from the victims were painful but important experiences. One of the more difficult aspects of responding pastorally to the victims was to deal with their anger, as indicated by B2:

Sometimes that anger comes to me even though I didn’t victimize, but representing the Church … Sometimes it was difficult to take and sometimes the anger would not come from the victim himself or herself, but rather from members of a family.

Some victims had been in treatment for years; others had little or no treatment. Whatever the situation, most of the victims were frustrated and angry as B2 suggests:

… and the question would always have to be asked—and I don’t have the answer for it—is that accelerated anger there because of some other agenda. And perhaps that would be true. In other words, this other person hurt this person in some way and now can look at the Church or this perpetrator over here and say, You good-for-nothing, you did this and this. I hate the Church, and I hate the Bishop and everybody else. And in the meantime, the heat is taken off there.

Some bishops admitted that previously they misunderstood who the victim was, as indicated by B5: “I have to say, too, that probably I leaned toward the priests rather than the victim in those early days. What can be done for them? What can we do?” This was echoed by B8,

… our first, quote/unquote, inclination was to be with the priests. And not to be with these people … not even to believe them. And they’ve been indignant and they’ve been right to be indignant, but it is still a struggle on the part of every bishop on how do I stand with the victim when I’ve got this priest right next to me and he’s critically ill. He’s done some terrible things, and how do I relate. And that’s been a very uneasy set of discussions, even within our committee ... Some victims are not easy to be with. They’re mad, and they are deeply hurt.  But, you’ve got to be with them.

As indicated at the beginning of this segment, B13 said the concept of “victim” didn’t exist, or if it did, it was more in connection with the person whose public image might be sullied. For example, a husband, if his wife was having an adulterous affair. But today the emphasis is different. B13 continued,

If I were to do it today, I’d say the first response is the victim, the very first.  You want to see them, you want a competent person to see them, a person who will be helpful, and that’s your absolute concern because we know the effects … Because priests have powerful leverage, as it were, and these persons, even though they were consenting adults, are victims of that.  And lost of trust.  But anyway, it’s reversed today.

The conflict over “who is the victim” indicates some of the complexity of the clergy abuse phenomenon and the widely diverse and conflicting objectives of the various constituencies whom the bishops are consecrated to serve. Ministering to victims while ministering to others, especially priest-perpetrators, represents a major part of dilemma in the “management of multiple identities,” a concept presented in my request letter (see Appendix I) and referred to in some of the interviews. The bishops had to respond in diverse ways to a variety of persons.

The pastoral response was also complicated by the fact that both victims and perpetrators came from families who often times were an integral part of the laity, the faithful. B8 explains:

But then, I think, it eventually gets down to families, and we ought to be the experts on this.  And we haven’t even crossed the tip of the iceberg. 

I: The victims came from a family; the perpetrators also …

B: They came from our families. I read it and forgot where it was … of the priest calling up the mother at 3:00 and having her send her son over to the rectory for whatever reason, reported reason, and the mother doing that.  Three o’clock in the morning!  And so, yea, the families—this happens in families ... My experience has been rural, but I think we’ve only begun to scratch the surface. And we’ve got a long way to go, and again, the Church needs to be the strong support, the learning Church.

A pastoral response to victims was not always easy to achieve, even in a diocese that in the 1970s had policies relating to the handling of abusive behavior. AUX2 explains:

I must say, and I criticize this diocese very heatedly, but in this diocese, we were always in the forefront of doing the right thing because we truly did not hesitate to act on situations like this. … You didn’t just think about it. That’s why there was a big roar when we said, we have to set up procedures on how to handle this thing. It seems clear cut now, simple enough. At the time, when you put all this together … it wasn’t hard to look and say, we have to do something about this. Together with this and then the awareness that this was going to cost us a lot of money, so we better do something about this. Then based mostly, I think, on the promptings of some of the victims, they finally got to the point, they realized that they had to do something for the victims, too.

Some victims had been in treatment for years; others had little or no treatment. Whatever the situation, most of the victims were frustrated and angry. Some other factors may have contributed to the victims’ frustration and anger, factors that can get ignored in the situation of clergy abuse. Extricating the effects of clergy abuse from all the other contributing factors demanded skills that would have challenged the most skillful therapist. The situation demanded skills most bishops did not have. B2 addressed the issue in this way:

… and the question would always have to be asked—and I don’t have the answer for it—is that accelerated anger there because of some other agenda. And perhaps that would be true. In other words, this other person hurt this person in some way and now can look at the Church or this perpetrator over here and say, You good-for-nothing, you did this and this. I hate the Church, and I hate the Bishop and everybody else. And in the meantime, the heat is taken off them.

Some victims were angry at, not only the Church, but their own family members who, like Church leaders, often did not believe them. B7 explains:

I think the biggest problem in this whole period that we’re discussing here, was parents would not tell us what happened to children. They couldn’t believe that Father would do such a thing, so kids were told to “shut up,” and irreparable harm was done as a result.  Probably far greater harm was done by the failure of trust of the parent than done by the sexual act of the perpetrator.  I’m not blaming them, but I mean, in my conversations with victims who go back to that period, the fact that my mother wouldn’t believe me is the thing that sticks most in their hearts. I think that is very significant point. The trust factor and the violation ...

B8 discussed the isolation experienced by both the perpetrator and the victim, which years later turned into deep-seated anger.

And there was nobody, absolutely nobody to whom this priest could go. And, of course, the same thing with the victim—there was nobody to go to.  Victims telling stories to their parents and being rebuffed.  “Father, would never do that.” … And then, of course, they go to the bishop, and the bishop doesn’t believe them.  What do you do?

B15 discussed some efforts his dioceses made to help deal with the victims’ anger.

We’ve tried to have a few healing ceremonies, but the anger levels were extremely high. And how to work through that anger. We’re not terribly there yet, but I do think we’re at the next level. There have been some studies there, but not a lot.  I did see a study some years ago. Forty some odd women, sisters, who has been abused by their fathers and how this affected how they pray, how it affects their relationship to God. We’re only beginning that.

5. Bishops Reacted as Families Did

Some bishops felt that they had responded pastorally in the past, but that the times had drastically changed. The bishops’ responses matched or reflected the values of their parishioners. First, AUX2:

This goes back years when very few came to light. But once in a while somebody would call with a complaint about a priest and accuse the priest of molesting a child and immediately when it came to my attention I would do something about it. And I was following the policy of the diocese at that time. First thing to do was to establish the facts; was it true? So, you would talk to the people involved; although generally that would be the parents.  … But generally back then, the frustration was that the parents wouldn’t take it any further. They would expect you to do something about the priest but you wouldn’t have adequate grounds to do anything because they would not confront the priest; they didn’t want their names to be used. So you were stuck.  So I remember some cases, especially later as things became more public, it became clear that “this is true.” And yet nothing had been done back then, but it wasn’t from any lack of determination on the part of the diocese. Actually I wanted to do something about it, but I don’t know many cases back then truly got resolved. It was always people did not want to “push it.” … They wouldn’t do it; they wouldn’t take it to the authorities.

B13 described a similar situation in which the bishop’s action was in keeping with society.

I remember as a young priest …1963, where a young girl—scarcely fifth or sixth grader—came to me about being sexually abused by her father. And so, I summoned my courage and went to talk to her mother. And her mother did exactly what Mother Church did—she went and told her husband to stop doing it. That was the end of it. He didn’t, I found out later. But there was no awareness that this was anything, but attitude—one too many beers. So the Church did the same sort of thing. We told them to stop it.

AUX4 described his parish as having “beautiful homes, with absolutely no food in them.” He knew that he had to be very careful about the way he approached sensitive issues.

So you would deal with those issues, family issues, in the best, most appropriate way. Sometimes very strongly.  In dealing with alcoholism or whatever was the disturbing the family, but it was absolutely nobody’s business.

Sometimes victims did not want their privacy invaded or their names exposed. This was complicated when some of the victims wanted to expose the priest and others did not, as B5 explains:

It was the year the young fellow was ordained a priest—he’s the one who went public about this fellow who abused the whole gang of them. And … a few of his friends who had been abused came to see me. They … were quite adamant that we go public and invite all the others to come forward. Well, that was in probably in ‘85 or ‘86, and my first reaction, What? But we did. And we had a lot of phone calls from people who were willing to say, “I was abused there by him but I don’t want my name or the public or that sort of thing.” … this priest was on the faculty, and that school, being an accelerated school, has turned out the leaders in the community—the lawyers, the doctors, all those things. So there was a lot of phone calls from people who did not want anything public, but wanted us to know it had happened. So we got probably fifty names, fifty people who called up and came to see me.

… But we went public and we surfaced some more names; some other victims we were unaware of. And we put this announcement in the church bulletins on Sunday, in the church papers. All of that. And so that we thought we had at least we brought things up to date so we could deal with the news ones from a different standpoint.

Probably no bishop was as forthright and honest as B15 who described his own inadequacies in dealing with victims and the skill, albeit sometimes too uncritical, of his auxiliary:

He has done remarkably well with victims. I don’t. I tend to be less sympathetic, especially if they’re older. It’s part of my nature, I guess. Together we interviewed a victim, he called himself a victim. He had a relationship from age 17 to 23. It went on for six years and now he’s blaming himself for his marriage being in bad shape. I wasn’t at all sympathetic, you know what I mean?  He had this relationship from 17 to 23 and you’re just now thinking about it? I tend to be a little less sympathetic. Only twice; well, once I thought the case was fraudulent and he was just taken in. My instincts were right on that one. But he’s so much better than I am with victims.

The most significant difference in victims between those who came forward prior to the mid-1980s and those who have come forward in the last dozen years is the change in attitude. Previously, for the most part, victims and their families did not want to get the priest “in trouble” as AUX2 explains:

It’s hard to believe now, because everything has become so litigious, but back then, people were very hesitant to bring anything out and let their names be used. And there were a number of factors involved. One, they felt ashamed that their names would be discredited if some things were to come out. Also the exaggerated sense that, well, Father couldn’t have done it. So they  wouldn’t be believed. And also an exaggerated sense of deference for the Church. You don’t take the priest to court. In spite of the fact that I would encourage people to do it, they wouldn’t do it. I used to find it very frustrating because ... I always wanted to push it to a resolution. I hated to sort of have things sort of adrift. It was very difficult. You couldn’t convince people that that was OK.

B5 stressed that every case was different, but he echoed the attitude expressed above:

Very often the priest would have been a close friend of the family. This one case we had in which the priest … was counseling them in regards to their marriage. He was at their house frequently. They had this teenage boy and they were persuading him to go see Father (name). And they were happy every time he went up there … because they thought he was in good hands. And when they discovered this was going on, they were quite understanding. Now they sure didn’t want him abusing some other kids. But they were not after getting him in jail or wanting some revenge. They were concerned with him, that he would go to counseling. That was one where it really got to me—the effect on a kid because this man was about 22 and he cried and he cried. You know, you don’t see young people that age crying. And he cried, “My God, what has happened?” He’s since married and seems to be doing well.

Prior to the mid-1980s, most cases were handled privately. When that changed, so did the responses of the bishops and the victims. Jenkins (1996) argues that if the Porter case had “broken” in the mid-1950s, church leaders would have “feared social consequences very different from those imagined by their modern-day counterparts” (125).[208] There might have been political ramifications, affecting, for example, the anti-Catholic movements that were prevalent in the United States as early as the colonial period and continued to the 1930s. Jenkins (1996) writes,

The English anti-Catholic tradition had a potent influence on the American colonies, all the greater when reinforced by the comparable traditions of immigrant groups from other Protestant nations: Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Dutch and German Reformed, German and Scandinavian Lutherans, Swiss Anabaptists. Anti-Catholic sentiment was overt in colonial periods, enhanced by local conflicts like the political insurgency of the 1680s (22)

All the bishops were surprised to hear about the Pentecostal minister Tony Leyva who, in the 1980s, molested “hundreds of boys in various southern states over a period of several years” (Jenkins 1996, 10).[209] As Jenkins (1996) notes, “the Leyva case is not mentioned in any of the books or analytical articles on clergy abuse, which is noteworthy because in so many ways Leyva’s career resembled that of the internationally notorious former parish priest James Porter” (11). Jenkins (1996) ends his chapter on clergy abuse and the legal environment by referring to a cartoon and asking a question. In the cartoon the priest, presiding at a baptism, tells the parents to hold the child “ … until my lawyer gets here …” (138).[210] The question Jenkins (1996) asks is: “Can a church maintain its “soul” in the face of so wide ranging a legal challenge?” (138). The next section briefly touches on the interplay between lawyers, victims, and bishops.

F. The Influence of Lawyers

Bishops were also unanimous in their agreement that the presence of lawyers—for the dioceses, victims and insurance companies—profoundly affected the way the bishops responded to clergy abuse allegations. In general, the presence of lawyers has been necessary, but it has had a deleterious effect on the process. B4 explains:

You know, of course, one of the problems that you face, and this is where lawyers are involved, when people come forward and say there was abuse, and some accusations have been made, there is a tendency on the part of their lawyers to lay all the blame of everything that has happened in that person’s life as … Now I can’t blame them, and I think in some way there’s responsibility, but ... all the worth of the compensation sometimes is demanded, or all the level of caring and help. How reasonable is it? I mean, you want to do what’s right, but how reasonable is it? Is it an open-ended checkbook for the next 50 years? And most of the psychiatrists that we had examining the individuals were saying that, “Yes, this had an influence, in some instances a great influence.” But of the many problems they have, theirs are a lot harder. Because some of them, they would have had their problems anyway. 

And it’s very easy to say it was all due to the abuse by Father so-and-so. You know, in my own mind, I’m working ... “What’s the balance?”  The balance of the Church to heal and to rectify the harm that’s been done by one of its agents. At the same time to be a good steward of the resources that are affected and not just throwing money out as a solution to the problem when that’s not done.

One bishop whose first case involved a priest who had abused dozens of adolescents. To gain some insights on how he should approach the case, he called Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. B5 describes the situation:

So we, in that position, sought help and diocesan attorneys were the ones we usually turned to. And then they turned to each other and then they talked to our attorneys in Washington. And I’m sure that they had a lot of influence into our response in the beginning. And then we began to hear from some of our own bishops. I remember calling Cardinal Bernardin … (when) … I was going to make a statement here. He said, “Don’t let the lawyers determine what’s to be said. Be pastoral.”

It’s fortunate the bishop followed the Cardinal’s advice, as B5 describes below:

The papers were after me because the publicity was enormous. So I wrote a statement apologizing to people who had been abused and how it affected me, and that sort of a thing. The lawyers weren’t totally happy because I was admitting and so on, but the papers and the people were super. I got all kinds of good feedback. Why? Because I was pastoral. It was not the legal response, but … they saw the statement before I said it, and they had a shot at it, but that’s it. … It was good advice.

Prior to the mid-1980s, in a few dioceses bishops considered clergy abuse a legal matter. B4 describes his responses previously and presently.

When I first became bishop (1977) when some of this happened, the first thing I did was call a lawyer. And I think that lawyers look at this from the point-of-view of a liability. That was the lens through which they viewed the thing and that was the lens through which they gave advice to the bishops. Because of our lack of understanding of the total dimensions of the problem, we tended to rely heavily on counsel. Now, I think, certainly in our diocese, and it must be recommended nationally, and rightly so, that the pastoral has to be the first support and concern. That’s the way our policy was written.

B4 said he maintained a pastoral response in spite of pressure from lawyers, even from his own diocesan lawyer, whom he respects very much.

Lawyers are still involved, that’s true, and in some instances maybe they have had a disproportionate influence in terms of how the cases are handled. But I mean to say, I work very closely with our attorney, but our attorney knows that I’m the calling the shots and he knows, at least, that the pastoral has to be first.

AUX3 responded pastorally to a victim against the advice of counsel.

I think many times the lawyers would not allow the bishop, or would warn the bishop not to give pastoral care in a certain situation, because, were they to do that, they would jeopardize the diocese. I think today, bishops would be able to risk that. I have been involved in a situation where I wanted to meet with the family and I was told, Don’t do it. This could be used against us in court. And I did it. And so, it did come back in a deposition. And sure enough ... at the meeting, you said this, and so on. It is legally very difficult sometimes to offer pastoral care because what you do is going to be used against you in court. And they sway the juries. And so, lawyers had a very strong influence for quite a while there. … Today I think that that’s changed a little bit, a little bit.

I:  Do you regret that decision or do you think it was the right one?

B:  I think it was the right decision; it was the wrong legal decision in court. It was the right thing to do pastorally, but it didn’t help us. In the long run, it didn’t help us financially. … We loss some money on that one. But I don’t regret doing it. (laughs). But the insurance company (laughs)—they’re in a different place than I am.

Sometimes the bishop and the diocesan lawyers do “the right thing.” B9 has a reputation for being honest and trustworthy as the following illustrates.

Cases that we’ve had that we’ve had the most trouble with were the ones that we had in the last four or five years, which were cases involving priests, one in 1977, and the cases were of people who were affected during the 60s.… We had a group of about five men who came forward; we had to reach out to them, and we had to then go to the community where the parishes were involved. Some of the people remembered the old priest as being a very nice old man, a very good person, and that this nice stuff, and they just couldn’t accept it. Why are you bringing this up now? Why are you destroying this poor old man? A lot of them had a hard time with a lot of the accusations. … They went into legal action, and then we had a very difficult time even finding out who the insurance carriers were in those days. There were attorneys for the individual victims, attorneys for the insurance companies, attorneys for the parishes, attorneys for us. … the major attorney for that case was Anderson.[211]  He said to us, that we were as up front and open and just as anybody he’d seen. And they were very pleased with the way we worked with them. And the cases were all settled; they were settled without trial. There were payments, settlements.  And we recognized that there was damage …

The victims’ lives are complicated and complex because the abuse occurred many years ago and it is difficult to assess the diocese’s moral, spiritual, and fiduciary responsibilities. Their lives and their requests seem all the more complicated by requests for financial settlements. While all the bishops wanted to be as pastoral as possible, some were not hesitant to discuss the greed that seems to permeate many of the cases. B7 describes how times have changed:

Well, the victims in the early days (laughs) didn’t have their lives complicated by greed. They were not looking for big judgments and financial awards. Nowadays, you’re almost always dealing with that. With anger and greed together, so it’s very difficult to sort out what you’re dealing with.

I:  A lethal combination.

B:  I’m afraid so. Like booze and drugs.

In many cases it seems that greed is meshed with anger. B7 is very straightforward about this.

If the victim is over 20, the chances are the victim is very, very angry, and is looking for some “big bucks.” And the lawyers want us to keep away from them because we might say the wrong thing, we might do anything.

Most bishops, I think, recognize that they will not be totally free of new suits for many years and the fallout from past cases will haunt them for some time to come. It seems that “the worst” has passed, and they are optimistic. B2 described how much he liked the people in the diocese that he was sent to help after it had been ravaged by numerous clergy abuse scandals. Now in another state B2 said, “I really realized how much I miss them.  We got along very, very well.” This is extraordinary given the hostility he met when he first went to the state.

And I remember the very first week that I went there. I went to a store to get something and there was a man in the store. He started yelling at me, “You’re one of those people, good for nothing.” All kinds of things like this. And I was just horrified because I had come from a parish where I was loved as pastor and everything.… I couldn’t image what was going on, but I was determined to continue to go to public places with a Roman collar and I did, and it never bothered me, but I know that others would be bothered more. That one scene bothered me, but very much because everybody stopped talking and looked at me, and I wanted to get out of the store.

G. Input from “Restoring Trust”

How to deal effectively with victims is probably still one of the most contentious issues in clergy abuse cases.[212] In “Restoring Trust” guidelines from various diocesan policies are suggested as a way to effect a “coordinated and sensitive response” (II, Victims 7-10). Incorporated into the section on diocesan policies are principles and general guidelines that focus on reaching out to victims, communicating a commitment to their spiritual and emotional wellbeing, and responding to human suffering, weakness, and imperfections in ways that are “rooted in love, compassion, and concern” (27). The report stresses the need for diocesan policies to have a “receptive tone” (32). The section ends with a quote from one diocesan policy:

We are open and respect your complaint.

We will provide an advisor/advocate, if you so choose.

We will help you obtain counseling support.

We will provide information about support groups.

We will help you obtain spiritual direction.

We will help you bring your concern to the proper church officials outside our diocese. (II, Victims 10 and 29)

In this same section (II, Victims) are victims’ responses from to a set of questions that had to deal with healing and how the Church has helped or inhibited that process. Their responses reflect deep-seated pain and anger.

“My road to healing has been painful, complex, and continuous.” (33)

“The director’s response was condescending and of no assistance. Furthermore, the tone of the letter enraged me.” (34)

“The Church is listening to and getting advice from lawyers first.” (38)

“Too worried about scandal and money.” (38)

“The Church should have been my ally in my quest for justice.” (41)

Some indicate how complex the situations have become years after the abuse occurred. For example, victim-survivors are constantly exposed to other people’s opinions about victims, which can be harsh and cruel, as one set of responses indicates (II, Victims):

Now as an adult, some friends and relatives tell me “It happened so long ago just don’t think about it and it will go away.” (37)

When a person talks about something concerning sexual abuse that they read in the newspaper or saw on television and they make light of it or say, “She asked for it.” I can’t understand this and want to correct them no matter where I am.” (37)

What’s most evident is how widely diverse the victims’ responses are. The most profound response came from a victim-survivor who turned around the question about how the Church helped in the healing process, and asked:

What would help the Church heal itself from this problem? What inhibits the Church in its healing? … The Church needs religious self-honesty in order to heal and is inhibited from healing by self-delusion and fear of change. We travel, then, the same path. (II, Victims 41)

Clearly, the teaching Church needs to be the learning Church.

V. Conclusion

Responding pastorally—compassionately and nonjudgmentally—and providing spiritual, emotional, and financial support are not easily achieved. For adults who now have complex lives, achieving justice is not a simple and straightforward venture. It seems to me that the bishops and the victims, and their respective support groups and agencies are more distant than ever. While bishops and priests are making every effort to move beyond clergy-abuse cases, victims’ groups are expanding, primarily by becoming more inclusive. Even ones that began because of clergy abuse have expanded to include abuse by other professionals. For exam­ple, Survivor Connections now has a “perpetrator types” list for complaints sent to them. As of December 1997, the Survivor Activist (TSA) has been contacted by 3,300 individual survivors from all 50 states and from countries around the word.[213] The codes and tallies are as follows (1998, 6):

Clergy, other*                           217

Doctors, medical                       48

Foster homes/orphanage             9

Incest                             704

Law Enforcement             15

Neighbors/family friends          199

Priests, Roman Catholic          994

Ritual abuse                            136

Strangers                                   22

Teachers                                    79

Therapists/counselors               77

Youth leaders                             72

Identified survivor           364

* Includes RC nuns & brothers, and all other denominations)

It seems as if victims’ groups “have just begun to fight.” The Catholic bishops and their dioceses have survived, even those that have faced multimillion dollar settlements and seemed on the verge of bank­ruptcy. Bishops and dioceses have changed, but they seem to have survived clergy abuse very well, even surprisingly well. The dioceses’ success at surviving will not be a blessing if the only lessons learned are tied to a few priests who have emotional and developmental problems, most of whom are no longer priests.