Church child-abuse scandal
Where is it leading?
By Leslie Feinberg
"In the worst scandal ever to hit the American Catholic
Church, as many as 500 priests, by some estimates, have been
accused of sexually molesting children. Already, the church has
paid tens of millions of dollars to victims, most of whom were
abused decades ago, and it still faces dozens of unsettled
lawsuits. Worse, the bishops themselves have been accused by
critics of coddling known offenders and hushing up victims who
complain."
Sounds like today's news? It was published in Newsweek--July
12, 1993.
A year earlier, then-Boston Archbishop Bernard Law had
called down "God's power onto the media" for their reports that
priest James Porter stood accused of multiple child rapes.
Law also proclaimed in 1992 "that tough new policies would
prevent the archdiocese from ever again turning a blind eye to
priests who abuse parishioners. What's more, he pledged a
thorough review of past accusations to root out any pedophile
priests who remained in their posts." (USA Today, March 18,
2002)
How many children--boys and girls--have been raped since Law
made that promise? The church hierarchy, behind its strategy of
secrecy and silence, has the best guesstimate. Its
undemocratic, centralized institutional structure--particularly
through the confidential conduit of confession--gives those at
the apex of authority knowledge of psychological disturbance in
the clerical ranks.
But "The bishops have resisted attempts to do studies on
this, and the Vatican is death on any empirical, scientific
study on the celibacy or sexuality of the priesthood," notes
the Rev. Thomas Doyle, priest and canonical lawyer. (Washington
Post, March 16) Doyle helped author a 1985 internal report on
the magnitude of child sexual abuse by clergy, known succinctly
as "The Manual."
A March 18 Boston Phoenix online report states that as far
back as the early 1970s the Vatican was warned about potential
problems with child-abusing priests. Yet although the highest
ranks of the Vatican were cognizant of the crisis, no
significant changes were ordered.
Today, "conservative estimates put the number of victims at
more than 10,000; in the meantime, an estimated 3,000 priests
have been indicted for sexually assaulting minors, according to
victim-support groups." (phoenix.com)
Serial sexual abuse of children by priests has been reported
in Dallas; Santa Fe, N.M.; Fall River, Mass.; Santa Rosa,
Calif.; Philadelphia; Manchester, N.H.; Fargo, N.D.; St. Louis,
Mo.; Los Angeles; Long Island and New York City.
How have church higher-ups dealt with this dire
circumstance? For nearly two decades the Roman Catholic Church
officialdom has blamed the victims, sued them for slander,
hired investigators to incriminate the abused, intimidated
witnesses, put the burden of proof on the children and their
families, concealed evidence, stonewalled court proceedings and
denied any knowledge. (phoenix.com)
Equally shocking is the charge that those in the upper
echelons of the church quietly spirited known child rapists
from parish to parish to keep the abuse under wraps.
Priest John Geoghan is now serving a 10-year sentence for
indecent assault on a 10-year-old child--one of 120 children he
is accused of abusing. Law, who admits he was notified about
Geoghan's child abuse in September 1984, is reportedly named in
25 lawsuits charging that he covered up this serial child
assault. (phoenix.com)
Law, an official in the upper ranks of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy, is now one of eight cardinals in the United States
and heads the fourth-largest diocese here.
"He is a senior member of the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops (NCCB), a canonical body that makes high-level
recommendations for the American Catholic hierarchy on pastoral
practices, inter-religious affairs, and government policy. One
Boston attorney who handles clergy sexual-abuse cases says that
'suing Law is almost like suing the pope.'" (phoenix.com)
Vatican sounds tocsin for anti-gay crusade
It is the sheer bravery of the victims and their loved ones
that has elevated societal awareness about the scope of this
child rape. They are coming forward knowing they face ostracism
because they are perceived as "attacking a divine
institution."
Church authorities are attempting to shield scandal's glare
by imposing gag orders as part of out-of-court settlements. But
it's costly.
The Boston Herald and Boston Globe reported in early March
that the city's archdiocese might have already paid $100
million in settlements. The Globe estimates that the national
cost could be approaching $1 billion.
As a result, the immense wealth of the Roman Catholic Church
is being tapped at a time when, like every moneyed institution
with vast capital holdings in transnational banks and
corporations, it is already feeling the impact of the worldwide
economic recession.
And in a recent Boston Globe opinion piece, Mary Jo
Bane--professor of public policy and management at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government and one of Cardinal Law's
parishioners--called on congregations to withhold
"contributions to the archdiocese until the church becomes more
open and participatory."
In early March the Boston archdiocese was obliged to
announce a six-month extension of its $300-million capital
campaign because of a slowdown in contributions.
This is a coast-to-coast problem for the church. In Los
Angeles, an angry Catholic schoolteacher asks, if the
Archdiocese has millions to pay out in settlements, "why can't
they pay me a decent salary?" (Los Angeles Times, March 15)
A March 14 Boston Phoenix editorial concludes,
"Rank-and-file members of the Church are clamoring for change.
The reactionary hierarchy that leads them opposes that change.
Just as the civil-rights movement slowly but surely battled the
forces of segregation in the 1950s and 1960s, and, in the years
that followed, the women's-rights crusade and the movement for
gay and lesbian rights forced societal change, so too could a
grass-roots movement of Catholics force much-needed change on
an unresponsive institution."
But the top leadership of the church and its most
reactionary secular support are trying to deflect and divert
this rage and revulsion in a rightward direction.
The pope's chief spokesperson, Joaquin Navarro-Valls,
stunned and angered progressive people everywhere when he told
the New York Times in early March that the answer to child rape
by priests is that gay men "just cannot be ordained. ... You
cannot be in this field."
The church had avowed "homosexuality" was the problem, not
"homosexuals": Hate the sin, love the sinner. But
"Navarro-Valls aligned himself and the Vatican with
conservatives in the church." (New York Blade, March 8)
This official new statement opens up a modern witch-hunt
against gay men--and lesbians, bisexuals and transgender
people--inside and outside the church.
Dignity/USA, an advocacy group for lesbian and gay
Catholics, accused the church "of targeting gays to deflect
attention from its own wrong-doing." (Associated Press, March
14)
Bigotry is never good coin
The Boston Archdiocese publication "The Pilot" issued its
response to the roiling crisis. An editorial in a special March
15 supplement asked, "If celibacy were optional, would there be
fewer scandals of this nature in the priesthood? Does
priesthood ... attract a disproportionate number of men with
homosexual orientation?"
The real question is: Does celibacy create child abusers or
does it attract them?
Victims, psychologists and academic researchers, according
to the March 16 Washington Post, "argue that celibacy attracts
people with troubled sexuality and that the church's structure
allows abusers to move around and avoid exposure."
The March 16 Washington Post quoted researchers who argue
that it is wrong "to believe that celibacy turns
psychologically healthy men into child abusers or that
pedophiles go to the priesthood to gain access to children."
It's more nuanced, explained psychiatrist Frederick Berlin, who
founded the sexual disorders clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
"I have seen men ... experiencing troubling sexual attractions,
perhaps to children, who thought that, by going into a life
involving celibacy, it would become a non-issue."
Gregory M. Herek, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the
University of California at Davis, emphasized, "The empirical
research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any
more likely than heterosexual men to molest children." He said
that "many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an
adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on
children."
Jesuit priest and psychiatrist the Rev. James T. Gill
explained in the Feb. 25 Philadelphia Inquirer, "Most
pedophiles don't find adult partners the least bit attractive
sexually. ... It isn't celibacy that creates pedophiles. Think
of the tens of thousands of American children damaged in
incestuous situations in which parents are responsible for the
sexual exploitation of their own children."
Eugene Kennedy, a psychologist and former priest, authored
"The Unhealed Wound: The Church and Human Sexuality." He
emphasized, "The church uses sexuality to control people in a
punitive atmosphere. If flesh is evil, you cannot teach
celibacy in a healthy way."
In a March 11 USA Today online chat, A.W. Richard
Sipe--psychotherapist and former Benedictine monk--pointed out,
"The universal requirement for priests to be celibate was
[begun] in 1139, and the reason was power and control of church
finances." Sipe, author of "Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of
a Crisis," stated, "Married priesthood would probably not in
itself prevent this abuse; however, it would be a monumental
shift toward a solution to all the sexual problems in the
Catholic priesthood."
He added, "There have been a great number of priests abusing
girls and women. Unfortunately, it hasn't gotten the kind of
publicity it deserves." Reports of sexual assaults on girls by
Catholic clergy in Haverhill, Mass.; Mesa, Ariz.; Indiana and
New Mexico have been reported in the media in recent weeks.
(uspolitics.about.com)
The Vatican had to officially acknowledge a report in the
Rome daily newspaper la Repubblica last March about prevalent
rape of nuns by priests and missionaries in 23 countries,
including the United States.
Generations of children also tell horror stories about
non-sexual abuse, including beatings by nuns and priests in
orphanages, schools and churches.
A call to consciousness
Exposure of this institutional crisis could mark a crucial
turning point in the battle against child abuse in every sector
of society.
It's not just a Catholic Church problem. A former Episcopal
priest in Maryland was convicted in February of abusing a
14-year-old boy; a New Jersey Orthodox rabbi is about to go to
trial on charges of sexually groping two teenage girls; and a
South Carolina Baptist minister has begun a 60-year sentence
for the sexual assault of 23 children. (Washington Post, March
16)
And incest of girls by their married fathers is
widespread.
Yet the slur "child molesters" has always been hurled at
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. That is the
basis on which the right wing argues that gay people shouldn't
be allowed to adopt children, share child custody, coach
sports, teach in schools or serve as Boy Scout troop
leaders.
Efforts to redirect the Catholic Church crisis into an
anti-gay crusade take place in a climate of political reaction
in the United States, heated by an expanding Rambo war drive
that wraps itself in the flag and divine blessing.
President George Bush said he believes the church "will
clean up its business." He added, "I know many in the hierarchy
in the Catholic Church. I know them to be men of decency."
Whether Law should resign? "That's up to the church," Bush
diplomatically dodged. "I know Cardinal Law to be a man of
integrity. I respect him a lot."
The March 14 AP report added that Bush "has assiduously
courted Catholic support since becoming president."
Archdiocese spokesperson Donna M. Morrisey said the church
is "encouraged by the president's comments." Indeed. Church
officials are working hand-in-glove with this administration to
secure their chunk of tax dollars for "faith-based" orphanages,
schools and other youth facilities.
And big capital investors--like former mutual fund manager
Peter Lynch, vice chair of Fidelity Management--are publicly
vowing to donate tens of millions of dollars to replenish the
church's coffers in its hour of need.
Courageous revelations are rocking the church's powerful
prelates. So did the exposures in 1993, 1992 and 1985. But the
right wing of the ruling establishment--religious and
secular--is determined to deepen oppression in order to derail
any real change.
Catholics are standing up against the church hierarchy.
Those outside the church should also stand up to keep this
struggle from turning into an inquisition against gays.
Reprinted from the March 28, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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