The long-running (and still far from over) Catholic Church sex scandals are well-documented and well-known around the world. In the United States alone, there are roughly 165 dioceses with at least one accused priest in them. Within the diocese where I live -- I am no longer Catholic -- there have been more than fifty priests accused, including the one who tried to abuse me almost forty years ago. (Fortunately, it did not get very far because I walked out, but I was still shaken by it.) Some have died; some were defrocked; some were sued; some cases were settled. Some of the priests abused one individual and some abused more than one. Some of the abuses were over shorter periods of time and some went on for decades.
Globally, sexual abuse claims have been made in approximately twenty countries, excluding the U.S.
The 2015 Oscar-winning film 'Spotlight' looked at the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston in the early 2000's when the Boston Globe newspaper uncovered a decades-long pattern of relocating priests who were accused of sexual misconduct in an attempt to keep the abuses quiet. (It is a well-done film which I recommend seeing.)
Prior to his stepping down over five-and-a-half years ago, Pope Benedict XVI had written a letter in the Fall of 1985, when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, to a Bishop in Oakland, California, regarding the possible removal of a priest for such accusations. At the time, Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of the promotion and defense of Catholic doctrine. In his letter, Cardinal Ratzinger argues against the removal, citing "the good of the Universal Church" and the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful". As if putting salve on a wound, Ratzinger suggests providing the one petitioning for the priest's removal "as much paternal care as possible". However, in the same sentence, he adds that the Court (within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) is "accustomed to proceed keeping the common good especially before its eyes".
This past Summer, the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court released a report stating more than 300 Catholic priests in that state had sexually abused children over the course of seven decades and, like in Boston, church hierarchy had done what they could to cover it up.
And just two days ago, the Illinois State Attorney General Lisa Madigan released a preliminary report that says there are more than 500 Catholic priests who have still not been identified by the church. Accusations have been made, according to the report, against 690 priests total, but church officials have said only 185 stand accused. Only. Madigan said that the Catholic Church cannot continue to "prioritize criminal clergy or ... the preservation of their assets." Not only are the actions of these abusers immoral and illegal, but the investigation also showed that none of Illinois' six dioceses have any policies in place that would hold any church official involved in covering up such abuses accountable for doing so. None. Not one. Zero.
And that is just one state in one country.
You might draw a parallel to the idea of shareholder value in business, which basically means that a company's greatest success is in how much it benefits its shareholders. Imagine the Catholic Church is the corporation and the Pope, the cardinals, and the bishops are the shareholders.
A report was commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and compiled by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice which studied sexual abuse by priests and deacons between the years 1950 and 2002. Released in 2004, the lengthy report showed that the percentage of priests accused of sexual abuse ordained in the 1980's had dropped to 8% (from a high of 23% and over 25% of those ordained in the 1950's and 1960's, respectively). It had dropped even further among those ordained in the 1990's, down to 2%. While even 2% of those ordained possibly committing sexual abuse is still too high, if this downward trend has continued, it is one positive sign of progress.
That same U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were, at their fall gathering last month, going to address how to deal with allegations of sexual abuse. The Vatican's Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (nicknamed the Dallas Charter), which was released sixteen years ago, addressed what to do regarding accusations of clergy, but gave no guidelines regarding accusations against bishops. The Conference was going to address allegations against bishops. One of the proposals was to give authority to a lay commission to investigate allegations against bishops. What was the Vatican's response? Ordering the Conference to not consider any proposals of how to respond.
There appears to be several reasons for this. First, since it sees the issue of sexual abuse by clergy as a global problem, the Vatican feels it should be dealt with globally. Just two months prior to the fall gathering, Pope Francis had called for the presidents of all of the Catholic bishop conferences in the world to assemble in Rome in late February of next year to address this serious issue. Second, having the laity involved in this kind of oversight is a non-starter for the Vatican. (So, lay persons serving as Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, one of the sacraments of the church, is fine, but serving as faithful overseers is a no-go?) Third, the move by the Conference may have been seen as an overreach or usurping the authority of Rome. I think the proposal of a lay commission is a good one. Why couldn't such a proposal, if passed, be brought to the February 2019 conference in Rome as a proposal there? That is not usurping authority, but this third point smacks of an it-only-counts-when-the-boss-does-it mentality.
There is and has been a lot of talk of keeping the reputation of the Catholic Church untarnished. There is nothing wrong with wanting your entity to have a name in good standing. In fact, that should be a goal, whether it be through involvement in your community, providing good service, rectifying any problems, and putting forth your best efforts in the first place. There are, however, other means of trying to do so that are deceptive, fraudulent, or even downright nefarious. How this epidemic has been allowed to fester, mostly untreated, has been due to nefarious practices.
I think, in the most basic sense, that wanting problems to go away is not a bad thing. Honestly, who wants more problems to come their way? Dealing with them to correct mistakes and trying to cover them up are means to a common goal, but the two are not comparable. Even though institutions, including The Church at large, are made up of people and people make mistakes and nothing is ever perfect, society does hold those institutions to a higher standard, rightly so. When something goes wrong, those institutions had better deal with those instances swiftly and properly. The Catholic Church did not do so regarding sexual abuse by its clergy.
If the Catholic Church was concerned about its good name, it needed to deal with this head-on ... no short cuts, no deceptions, no hiding. Sure, some of its faithful might have left at just the news of sexual predators being among the ranks of its clergy out of fear or disillusionment. That is not unusual since that kind of behavior is not welcome in society. The Catholic Church acted out of fear. How many times have we seen that responding out of fear can have devastating results?
Had the Catholic Church shed light on the problem, addressed it right up front, perhaps even sought counseling for clergy that had committed these abuses, or perhaps who were contemplating it, it would have shown that straightforwardness and compassion, not shadows and cover-up, were right practices. It would have shown that such behavior was unacceptable in the church, as in society, and that the faithful would know their religious leaders had their backs. The Catholic Church could have been one of the beacons in the world by shedding light on this issue. Yes, it would have lost some of its numbers, but its reputation would have been untarnished. Instead, it put its proverbial lamp under a basket.
This is the legacy the Catholic Church has brought upon itself.
Terry
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