Dublin clergy-abuse report released.
While most of us were gorging ourselves yesterday, Ireland was busy digesting a government report on their own clergy sexual-abuse scandal. Its verdict? Over a period of thirty years, diocesan authorities systematically covered up sexual-abuse allegations against clergy–in collusion with the police. The L.A. Times reports:
The commission, which investigated how the church and state agencies handled three decades of endemic child abuse by priests in the Irish capital [from 1974 to 2004], also criticized police and social and health authorities who, with a few exceptions, it said, ignored complaints or simply referred allegations back to the church hierarchy.
Presenting the government-commissioned report at a news conference in Dublin, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern spoke of his “revulsion” on reading the findings and called them a “scandal on an astonishing scale.”
Ring any bells? The seven-hundred-page Murphy Report, three years in the making, studied how the archdiocese handled abuse allegations against a sample of forty-six priests who worked in Dublin between 1974 and 2004. (Eleven of the forty-six have either been convicted of or pleaded guilty to sexual assault. The rest are dead–or haven’t been prosecuted.) According to the report, the archdiocese demonstrated an “obsessive concern with secrecy and the avoidance of scandal,” while showing “little or no concern for the welfare of the abused child.” The archbishop has apologized. So have the police. And the government has promised swift action.
Other main findings from the report (from the Irish Times):
All archbishops and many of the auxiliary bishops in Dublin handled child sexual abuse complaints badly. None of the four archbishops reported their knowledge of abuse to gardaí [the police] “throughout the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s”.
Church authorities used the concept of “mental reservation”, which allows senior clergy to mislead people without being guilty, in the church’s eyes, of lying.
Senior members of the gardaí regarded priests as outside their remit, with some members reporting complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them.
It said there were some courageous priests who brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. But in general there was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
The report concluded that it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that no similar institutional immunity was ever allowed to occur again.
Ah, mental reservation. The truth but not the whole truth so help you God. Is Father available? No, the secretary says, knowing Father is upstairs not doing much of anything. She has mentally reserved the rest of the truth: that Father is not available to the person asking. Clever concept. Perhaps it’s time to give it a proper burial.
More, much more: A background timeline from the Irish Times. Their editorial. Dublin auxilliary bishop argues the Murphy inquiry should not be extended beyond Dublin to the rest of the country. Letters from the Murphy commission to nuncio and Rome asking for information about clergy sexual abuse went unanswered. Who abused and where. Backgrounder on the Murphy commission. Abusive priest forces victim’s family to move. Minister for Justice promises “a collar will protect no criminal.” The archbishop’s apology.
Is it Lent yet?
on November 27th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. Apparently no pre-born children — who, after all, are “the most vulnerable among us” — were abused.
on November 27th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Thanks, Grant – difficult reading as you go through the 46 cases. A couple of random thoughts:
- total loyalty to the magisterium led to this situation;
- it focuses almost exclusively on the four archbishops and their senior councils – why nothing about the priests who failed to respond, report, complain?
- we now know that this story has been repeated in Canada, Australia, England, Northern Ireland, New Zealand and countries with sizable state schools for native peoples e.g. Alaska, native Americans in the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana…..it is even more insidious because the abuse happened in schools that were run by catholic religious orders but supported/paid for by the government
- don’t have the link right now; but someone should post the recent talk by Cozzens when he received an award from Voice of the Faithful….he outlines what orthodoxy, magisterium, reform of the reform have done to the integrity of the gospel message, parishes, and churches; he also indicates that what we are seeing in terms of the “resistance” by US sisters is what is missing from our own clergy who behave and act more as second class citizens.
on November 27th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I also will suggest that the request to Rome and refusal to respond or answer will have continued negative impact…..Rome’s stance is hypocritical; the tired old phrases “scandal” and protect the church” no longer have any weight except for the hierarchy, their power and control. Somewhere in this mess, the gospel message has been completely lost.
Eventually, nations will be forced to take the Vatican to the courts to correct the situation – we already have the damning report from the UN on the Vatican. As Cozzens says, most Catholics are tired and indifferent but a sea change is coming.
on November 27th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Shame on us and our Church.
on November 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
As Bill D. notes, the failure of the vatican and the nuncio to respond ws particulalrly important -it’s not only the local hierachy.
An apologist said that it wasn’t like BXVI -but that sounds terribly hollow.
I keep thinking of how if we really had a full inquiry here, how one might look at our scene, where litigation and obfuscation continue.
When truth cam,e out, Law reigned and was given a sinecure in Rome.
The Philadelphia mess was covered in a scathing grand jury report, and yet the new Bishop of Minneapolios is promoted despite his role there.
When will we learn that the syutem of romanita style curial loyalty is morally rotten at the core, whether in Ireland or Australia or Canada or here?!
on November 27th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
One can rightly say that the number of clergy who abused children correspond to the same percentage in other professions. What is the serious problem is the majority of clergy and hierarchy covered up the abuse. We cannot forget that here is the real problem. For the sake of the hierarchy the cover-up took place. Yet too many of us are concerned about the finances of the dioceses when lawsuits are filed for access to all the files and that the SOL should not be extended. We fall trap to our political Catholicism and equate the quest for justice as an attack on Catholicism. Even many here were alarmed at the story in the New York Times which reported that a a priest “in good standing” was guilty of serious abuse. We juridicized it and forgot that when it comes to the gospel abusing children is the ultimate crime. That person would be better if tied to a milestone and thrown into the ocean.
But let’s continue to rave about 100 million dollar cathedrals, flowery encyclicals while the children and the downtrodden are thrown to the wolves and death. The status quo prevails and those are termed radical who demand justice. Stockpiles of wealth reign and the children are sacrificed to expediency.
on November 27th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
David–Just because innocent human beings weren’t killed does not mean this is not important.
Bill–What makes you say that total loyalty to the magisterium led to this situation?
on November 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
This is a classic case of what Russell Shaw wrote about:
“By ckerucakusn I mean an elitist mindset, together with structures and patterns of behavior corresponding to it, which takes it for granted that clerics—in the Catholic context, mainly bishops and priests—are intrinsically superior to the other members of the Church and deserve automatic deference. Passivity and dependence are the laity’s lot. By no means is clericalism confined to clerics themselves. The clericalist mindset is widely shared by Catholic lay people.”
Russell Shaw, “Nothing to Hide. Secrecy, Communication and Communion in the Catholic Church” http://www.thesestonewalls.com/Files/The%20Public%20Square.pdf, pg 57.
What we tend to forget is that clericalism survives because the laity let it survive! The laity needs to stop with the deferral to whatever the clergy says. If it doesn’t smell good, it most likely is not good, no matter who says it.
on November 27th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
“One can rightly say that the number of clergy who abused children correspond to the same percentage in other professions.”
I know, Bill, that you do not regard this as a defence, but some people do and no doubt someone has already said so somewhere. It has some merits as a defence, but it does seem to imply that the RCC is just another human organization. There is a disconnect somewhere in this line of thought.
O, if I may anticipate, someone will say that (1) this information is not news and (2) those who publish reports of it are anti-Catholic. Point (1), sadly, is well taken, in some sense, but the information is important and ought not to be suppressed. Point (2) is uncertain, and even if true, irrelevant.
on November 27th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
“ckerucakusn” is Macese for “clericalism.”
on November 27th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I disagree strongly about Bill. Mazzella’s note…. which a note too often used and seems to never go away.. “One can rightly say that the number of clergy who abused children correspond to the same percentage in other professions’..Baloney Baloney
I worked 30 years in the Bell System with thousands of men. I never heard of reports of abuse and never heard of an abuse cover-up or transfer of the perp. And they had hundreds of thousand of men and tens of thousands of places to transfer perps.
I worked 10 years with the Archdiocese and worked closely with 26 creditably accused priests and in all cases there was an attempted cover-up. But truth came out at the cost of countless lives and one billion dollars plus in Ca…. And please, don’t let me hear ‘it’s the teachers’. The Church PR campaign has worked in The USA, The vast majority of pew Catholics have ‘bought’ the excuses and the minimalisation. Ireland, I believe will be a different matter. The embedded corruption in both Church and State is sticking out and smelling like a an un-buried corpse. It should also be noted that only countries [as mentioned above] who pursue the abuse have Anglo-Saxon law… another entire subject when we look to reform the Catholic culture.
on November 27th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
The scope of this scandal would bring down the government of any reasonably decent state. The scandal extends through parts or all of the regimes of four Archbishops. Undoubtedl;y, more than one papal nuncio served in Ireland during this period. Certainly more than one papal secretary of state and more than one head of the Roman congregation that nominates bishops served during these years. More than one pope served during these years. Either unbelievable incompetence or deliberate concealment of grossly immoral concealment of heinous sins.
In any reasonably decent political state, the leader would launch an investigation into the this mess that brought to light the names of the culprits. Why shouldn’t the pope do so in this case?
Please note that this scandal has to do with Church administration and discipline. No excuses about not “confusing the laity” will wash? No talk about protecting the good name of the church. No institution that has to preserve its claim to respect by covering up foo deeds such as these deserves to avoid harsh criticism, not least of all from its own members. No talk about observing proper protocol, or oroper procedures or, for God’s sake, the supposed suavity of “Romanita” cuts it.
Frankly, until our own bishops make public their acknowledgment that this scandal badly affects all Catholics, not least us in the U. S., they too shirk their responsibility to make clear that they unreservedly condemn what has happened. Even in my own life, this scandal makes it extremely hard for me to make the case to my own children that the bishops have the moral credibility to address the big issues like health care, immigration, etc. that face us.
I stop here. This issue is too serious for me to allow myself to give vent to my own outrage. Only disciplined insistence on justice is of service to the church. That’s true for our bishops and it’s true for all of us. But silence is not part of that discipline.
on November 27th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
The doctrine of mental reservation – it reminds me of an episode of the X-Files where Scully told her partner – Mulder, not everything is a labyrinth of dark conspiracy, and not everybody is plotting to deceive, inveigle and obfuscate. She should have known better, being a Catholic. And I keep thinking my opinion of the church hierarchy can’t get any lower :(
on November 27th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
“Bill–What makes you say that total loyalty to the magisterium led to this situation?”
Mark, I take it this is a serious question. Before this scandal practically everyone covered up for the clergy. If police found a priest drunk, with prostitutes, with a married woman or man, they brought him to the pastor or bishop and forgot about it. The reasoning was not to harm the clergy/church reputation. For years the bishops preached covertly that this should not be revealed. In a famous enjoining Cardinal Law proclaimed to a victim of pedophilia who complained to him, not to ever mention this again.
In moral theology classes, besides sex, scandal and calumny was stressed more than anything and negative talk about the doings of clergy was sinful whether true or not. This is all connected to the sacralization of the clergy; kissing their hands, ring, calling the Father, bowing or genuflecting before them. It was the nature of the “office” we were admonished.
And on and on.
on November 27th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Archbishops Ryan, McNamara and Connell would count as good men. who would not do anything they felt to be wrong. The choice of the latter two, both close friends of Joseph Ratzinger, was dictated by the usual Vatican criteria of orthodoxy and social conservatism, in both cases crushing the hopes of liberal Catholics for a more imaginative leadership.
I haven’t read the report, but I wonder how it tallies with the Jay report commissioned by the USCCB. Of the 46 priests studied, how many were pedophiles and how many were guilty of misconduct with older teenagers. In a country where adult homosexuality was criminal until the mid 1990s it may have been difficult to discern between the criminality of sex with minors and with adult males; if the former should have been reported to the police (something the police did not demand at the time and something the law still does not make mandatory) why not the latter as well? Just as no bishop would report a priest to the Law for adult consensual behavior, so they probably thought that offenses with minors were equally something to keep quiet about.
Bad systems — bad civil laws and bad church priorities and policies — are a chief culprit in this debacle.
on November 27th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I see that the report identifies the problem of using “doctrinal orthodoxy” as the chief criterion in appointing archbishops (1.55), with no concern for the management skills of a man whose role looms large in secular society (through Catholic schools and hospitals).
on November 27th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
One interesting aspect of this report, which I don’t think was recognized quite enough in the American context (and was likely not quite as prevalent) was the collaboration of the civil authorities,namely the police, in the cover ups.
I was put in mind of John Banville’s NYT op-ed from last May, when a report on abuse in Irish reformatories came out, “A century of looking the other way.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/opinion/23banville.html
Not to dilute any responsibility in the church ranks, I think it is important to note how much the church can be part of the culture, for good and ill.
on November 27th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
“Fondling” etc., not oral. vaginal or anal rape, is the sort of thing Frs Boland, “Cicero” and “Clemens” are accused of. All three had a pedophile kink — but they seem to be put on trial as much for their affectivity as for any actual behavior.
on November 27th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Bill–
I don’t see those things you mention as caused by a total loyalty to the magisterium. I see them caused by a disordered desire to protect the Church. I would like to think every Catholic is loyal to the magisterium, or at least tries to be. Otherwise I don’t see how they can consider themselves Catholic.
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Next case: Fr “Quinton”: two unsubstantiated allegations (especially of a 5-year connection with an intellectual disability, involving oral sex) and then “rumor/innuendo” and self-admitted homosexual orientation. Again, this does not sound like a earth-shaking revelation. If Fr Q were reported to the cops I don’t see what they could have made of the matter.
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Fr “Marius” was probably a confusing case, but I am non-plussed by the laxity and incompetence in dealing with Fr Reynolds.
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Fr “Daryus”, dismissed as soon as his behavior (”digital rape”) comes to light — again, no substantial wrongdoing on the part of the authorities.
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Just one more: Fr “Terentiius”, an alcoholic given to groping young teenagers. The Archdiocese is praised for its handling of this troublesome case. Some victims’ relatives are curiously insistent on their need to keep in contact with the abusive priest. He is pressured to pay medical bills for the victims.
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
“Archbishops Ryan, McNamara and Connell would count as good men. who would not do anything they felt to be wrong.”
Doubtless true, but what does it say about the clerical culture in which they were (de)formed. And what can we say, as we consider this, about their “close friend” Joseph Ratzinger?
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
” I see them caused by a disordered desire to protect the Church. ”
Mark, and who but the magisterium mandated the “disordered desire to protect the Church.”
on November 27th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Bill, the smoke of Satan.
on November 27th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
From the little I read, this report seems rather underwhelming as an indictment of the archbishops. In murky and complicated situations they behaved in an understandable and mostly quite responsible way. I don’t think any of us would necessarily have dealt with it better. The Irish Church is rather badly organized, though, and this added to the murkiness.
on November 27th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Strong words from Fintan O’Toole this morning: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1128/1224259619182.html
on November 28th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Dear Father O’Leary,
You seem to find the details (as specified in the Murphy Report) of the several archbishops’ negligence in the face of reports of abuse of children (even in hospitals for sick children) rather “underwhelming.” Archbishop Sean Baptist Brady, archbishop of Armagh and primate of All Ireland, as well as the present archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin (long of the Roman Curia), seem to take a quite opposite view of the actions of John Charles McQuaid through Desmond Connell.
A separate point. What after all are papal nuncios (titular archbishops in every sense of that peculiar archaic usage) — representatives of the Holy See to the local Church or diplomatic agents of the Vatican City State to national governments? It seems in the matter at hand, simply the latter. Yet, as we know, the Papal States came to an end in September 1870 with the breach by Garibaldi’s troops of the Porta Pia.
The lack of a Roman response as late as two years ago is, I submit, very troubling.
on November 28th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Of the cases I looked at only the Fr Reynolds one is to me “overwhelming” — the commission should perhaps just have focused on a number of such clear cases where the wrongdoing is flagrant and proven and the episcopal response clearly deplorable.
on November 28th, 2009 at 1:13 am
I must admit I take everything any bishop says on this issue with a grain of salt. Archbishop D. Martin is making all the right noises and is now a darling of the media. But he should take heed: those who live by PR will perish by PR, as the cases of his colleagues Eamonn Casey and Brendan Comiskey cruelly showed.
I think bishops are all too ready to sell out their priests, the religious orders and even their own predecessors in response to the media’s baying for blood and to popular hysteria.
A sidenote: alcoholism in priests has always been viewed leniently in Ireland: “Many a good man’s fault.” The supposition has been that alcohol is a substitute for sexual deviancy. But in fact alcoholism makes a priest more prone to deviancy. The role of drink in many of these cases should be looked into.
on November 28th, 2009 at 2:08 am
The case of Fr [blank], no. 20 in part 2 of the commission’s report, is supposed to be the worst. Fr X was indeed a very sick pedophile (and still is, no doubt). The Church went to great trouble to have him treated, including with drugs such as Depo-Provera, but he remained cunningly uncooperative. In the end he was forcibly laicized. The commission claims that the Church authorities had no concern for the children. But in fact by keeping tabs on the man as much as possible they were doing what they could to control his activities. Now he is probably out of the reach of any such control.
Read in full, Archbishop Dermot Ryan’s letter quoted by Fintan O’Toole in today’s Irish Times is not a damning document:
“1. The most distressing feature of Father failures is the effect they are likely to have on the young people involved. Apparently their ages range, in so far as I know, from 6 – 16.
“2. The parents involved have, for the most part, reacted with what can only be described as incredible charity. In several cases, they were quite apologetic about having to discuss the matter and were as much concerned for the priest’s welfare as for their child and other children.
“3. A particularly disconcerting feature was that access to the families was usually through acquaintanceship based on a variety of good works, whether of the parents or the children in question, e.g., altar boys; one or other parent involved in the management of a school (a father felt bound to withdraw his children from the local school because of what happened to one of his children); in another case, the mother was involved in charitable work in the parish. Having got access to the home through this acquaintanceship, Father [] abused a young son of six years of age.”
on November 28th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Abp Ryan could have laicized Fr [ ] on day 1, leaving him free to pursue an unchecked pedophile career and saving the Church from scandal. Reading the full account of how he, his auxiliaries and his successors handled the troublesome priest I find that a black and white judgment is not so easy to make. The “learning curve” that bishops have undergone seems to consist not in deeper understanding of pedophilia etc. (a topic on which the current orthodoxy is not infallible) but on the practical realization that the easiest way to handle pedophiles is to throw them out of the priesthood immediately.
If Fr [ ] was your or my uncle, and the family had to decide how to deal with him, what would they do?
on November 28th, 2009 at 2:59 am
I remember the Fr “Horatio” incident with the 15 year-old boy, mentioned in part 2, ch. 21 of the commission. It seemed to me to be a quite insubstantial incident, given prominence by the parents’ public demonstrations outside the church. That it should be reported to the police 15 years later and the priest subjected to a fitness for ministry review sounds very much like hounding. The bishops who handled the incident in 1980 got it right; the priest already suffered a lot of homophobic obloquy then; reviving it in 1995 to satisfy those baying for blood, possibly as a relatively harmless “sop” to them, and then devoting a chapter of an expensive investigation to it in 2009 sounds like over-kill.
on November 28th, 2009 at 3:01 am
“The boy was contracted by the Gardai but he did not wish to make a complaint” — 15 years later when the boy was 30! This is witch-hunting.
on November 28th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Fr “Donato” — again a very underwhelming story.
on November 28th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I see that the report identifies the problem of using “doctrinal orthodoxy” as the chief criterion in appointing archbishops (1.55), with no concern for the management skills of a man whose role looms large in secular society (through Catholic schools and hospitals)
Management skills? What in pluperfect hell do management skills have to do with this? This is about simple decency and integrity. Any member of the clergy who can’t or won’t face down anyone in authority including the Holy Father, to stand with the victims of abuse ought to throw himself off a cliff, period.
on November 28th, 2009 at 8:02 am
John Page,
On your “separate point:” If Wikipedia is to be trusted –
“When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in July 1870, Italian public opinion heavily favored the Prussians, and many Italians attempted to sign up as volunteers at the Prussian embassy in Florence. After the French garrison was recalled from Rome, the Italian Army captured the Papal States without Garibaldi’s assistance.”
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Mary Eberstadt has an interesting piece in the December issue of First Things where she relates that, for all the horrors of the priest sex scandals, at least the Holy Spirit was able to make something good come out of it: Pedophilia is no longer chic among the intelligentsia. It seems that the anti-Catholics in that crowd could not condemn the Church without at least acknowledging that sex with boys is wrong. Since they can’t have it both ways, we can at least be thankful that pedophilia has lost its cool.
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Fr. O’Leary: do you understand that the point of the report was not to gather forty-six of the most egregious cases in Dublin between 1974 and 2004 but to study a representative sample of the cases the commission had before them?
And:
By all means, read the case studies Fr. O’Leary is interpreting: http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Part%202.pdf/Files/Part%202.pdf (PDF)
You’ll see, for example, that “Fr. Horatio” was allowed to keep ministering to the gay community after a fifteeen-year-old’s parents complained the priest had inappropriate sexual contact with the boy in a gay club. According to the priest’s superior, leaving him in place would “save him embarrassment and loss of face with counsellor and priest colleagues” because “a sudden change to a curacy in the more immediate future would, I think, raise unhelpful questions and be an occasion for unwelcome comment.”
And: In the late ’90s, Fr. Horatio was having a sexual affair with a teenage girl. According to the woman, Horatio began talking of marriage when she was eighteen (the relationship began when she was sixteen). He went so far as to tell his bishop about the relationship–conveniently reserving the important facts that she was a teenager and that the two were sexually involved–and that he wanted to be laicized so they could marry. He was removed from ministry, but not “reduced” to the lay state, in 2005.
on November 28th, 2009 at 11:53 am
As David Gibson notes, one interesting aspect of this report is that it found police colluded with church authorities. To the best of my knowledge, this has not been an issue in the U.S. scandal, even though there can often be substantial ties between top police and church officials. To those who know the issue better than I do: Is this correct?
on November 28th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Mary Eberstadt has an interesting piece in the December issue of First Things where she relates that, for all the horrors of the priest sex scandals, at least the Holy Spirit was able to make something good come out of it . . .
Mark,
First, my initial comment (of November 27th, 2009 at 3:12 pm) was meant to be ironic: Abortion trumps everything, so why even bother to talk about child abuse?
Thankfully, you are incorrect that Mary Eberstadt attributes the change in attitude among the “intelligentsia” to the Holy Spirit. She attributes it to hatred of the Catholic Church. The Holy Spirit is not mentioned. It’s about the only thing related to the article for which we can be thankful. Here is what I posted on First Things. (It has not appeared yet.)
on November 28th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Paul,
My copy of the Boston Globe’s book on the scandals is at the office, but I do recall reading about Boston cops looking the other way on at least a few occasions. I’ll try to dig it up next week.
on November 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Paul, I do recall a number of instances in the public record, and many from my own interviews with church officials, of cops catching a priest in flagrante at a rest stop or exposing himself or similar and delivering him back to the rectory or chancery like a habiutal drunk, telling the superiros to try to keep a closer eye on the fellow. Again, it was special treatment for priests (the reverse of today, I suppose) and it showed how “these things” were all treated much like drunkeness.
Moreover, laws and investigative techniques for dealing with child abuse (of a sexual kind) were only being developed in the 1970s, and they were not unifoirmly adapted or adopted. Then the debacle of the McMartin day care case spooked prosecutors everywhere for years and contributed to a reluctance to bring such cases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
on November 28th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I’ve heard stories about how the civil authorities here in Los Angeles used to handle wayward priests in the “good old days” of the ’40s and ’50s. If the police found a priest drunk or disorderly, they would pick him up and call the archbishop’s mansion no matter how late. The archbishop’s priest-secretary would be dispatched to collect the priest, who would sleep it off at the mansion. In the morning he would receive a rebuke from the archbishop over breakfast and be sent back to the parish in time for morning Mass. And that would be the end of it; no arrest report, no charges filed.
So even though drunkenness is relatively minor, I have no reason to believe this standard modus operandi between the police and the archdiocese was not followed in more serious cases.
on November 28th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
All phases of government has protected the clergy. New Jersey policeman proved the exception in giving speeding tickets. At one time it was proverbial that priests were speeders.
The status quo always protects the status quo. Unless other factors enter in like political enemies, a current election, J Edgar Hoover and the like.
Nowadays, it is different. But the old ways happen more often than not.
on November 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I think Bill and the others are right about the past and the police or prosecutors protecting clergy.
The question today though is (if I get David right) has the Church leadership and civil authority worked together in this country to suppress not only priest malfeasance bu thierarchical failure to deal with it.
A whiule back a lengthy grand jury report was issued in Suffolk Co but not in Nassau and there was talk of the Nassau DA (dennis dilln if Iremember?) being influenced.
The Philadelphia grand jury report was awful, but I’v e heard rumor that prosecution was blocked by hierrachical influemce.
There is so much secrecy (often burnished by claims of privacy or by last minut esettlements or bankruptcies( that it’s hard to really know how much happens behind the scenes.
And, as truth comes out, as in Dubin, the daage is considerably worse.
It’s also true, I think, as Bill M. pointed out that leadership is chosen for loyalty to all things Roman, not only canonical or other demands as well as teaching and all of these can easily be wrapped together mentally by the loyal to the core.
And the goals, as the Dublin report makes clear, of protecting reputations, assets and not giving scandal may also easily lead to trying to use whatever connections one has to keep things well under wraps.
on November 28th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
A sampling of one diocese’s criminal mismanagement. Heaven only knows what went on, or is going on in other places.
It would be interesting to see if Roman Catholics ever had the spine to exact consequences on bishops and sees that were notably seeped in scandal. Rome itself was elevated early for its fearless witness of martyrdom in the face of persecution.
Too bad nobody would ever consider “relegation” for sees like Boston or Philadelphia or Dublin whose witness was alarmingly contrary to the gospel. Stop moving ordained bishops around. Stop the automatic red hats to large cities. JP2 had his pet idea in the 80’s: appoint coadjutors and carve up troublesome dioceses. Enact the consequences where it will bruise egos and topple people from power.
on November 28th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
The following link concerns the relationship between local police and the Archdiocese of Boston in 1977, before the time of Bernard Law. Keep in mind that the article’s date is 2002. It may shed some light on procedures three decades ago. The location is the small peninsula of Nahant, Massachusetts, population 3,000. The article is not clear as to the priest’s assignment at the time two police officers came upon him.
Link:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2002_10_28_Mashberg_RecordsArchdiocese_Edward_Kelley_2.htm
on November 28th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
But David, Ms. Eberstadt says she can’t think of a clearer case of good coming out of evil. You know someone besides the Holy Spirit who can do that?
on November 28th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Mark said: “I would like to think every Catholic is loyal to the magisterium, or at least tries to be. Otherwise I don’t see how they can consider themselves Catholic.”
Jim says: the Church is NOT equatable to the magisterium! If it were it would have lost total credibility long before it already has.
I’m sure in your mind there is an equation between guidance of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, binding pronouncements of the magisterium. I and many people don’t buy this connection for one minute. There is too much history of magisterial pronouncements that fell flat on their face in the light of later facts and actions.
A couple of examples of faulty magisterial teachings:
* In 1866 Pope Pius IX declared, “It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given.”
* The church condemned usury at the Second Lateran Council in 1139, the Third Lateran Council in 1179, and the Council of Vienne in 1311. Now we have a Vatican Bank!
* Almost anything the church said about Jews prior to Nostra Aetate.
* If you knowingly ate meat on Friday and died before confessing, you would go to hell because to do so was a mortal sin. Now it is not. Mortal sin yesterday; OK today?
on November 28th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Jimmy,
I think that Mark is saying that every Catholic does his best to be loyal to the Magisterium. Maybe eating meat on Friday really was a sin when the Magisterium said so, because it was a sign that one ignored the rules of the Church. It is no longer a sin because the Magisterium has removed that rule, so one can eat meat without being in direct conflict with the teachings of the church. In other words, it is not the act itself that was sinful, but the fact that the act went against the Magisterium.
on November 28th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Grant Gallicho, it seems to me that the Commission has in practice dealt with the most egregious cases (we hear for the umpteenth time about Ivan Payne etc.).
On Fr H. you are slightly incorrect: “he was allowed to keep ministering to the gay community after a fifteeen-year-old’s parents complained the priest had inappropriate sexual contact with the boy in a gay club.”
He met the boy in a gay club (the one run by now Senator David Norris — which was a tremendous resource for gay people back then and which was associated with the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality that ultimately succeeded in 1993). But the incident took place in the presbytery during a gathering of a gay group. The boy’s presence in the club does suggest that he must have looked or acted older than his age (alcohol laws would exclude him).
He did not have a formal ministry to gays, but was a marriage counselor and teacher and it is these positions that he was not dismissed from and to which the phrases you quote refer: “save him embarrassment and loss of face with counsellor and priest colleagues” because “a sudden change to a curacy in the more immediate future would, I think, raise unhelpful questions and be an occasion for unwelcome comment.”
He was a quite charismatic counselor and teacher and, I also believe, quite honorable in his dealings with the gay community (strongly against promiscuity for example). His later affair with the 16 yo girl does not justify the unrelated treatment of the 1980 incident in 1995.
Bob Schwartz, the issue IS one of management skills. Was Des Connell head of his department of philosophy in University College Dublin? Did he show management skills in that position? I don’t know, but the general view of all who know him is that it was cruel to make him archbishop. To run a small academic department is already a difficult management role. To run a diocese of 900 priests (the number in the 1970s, down to 600 today) and more than a million laity is a huge management task.
Decency alone is not sufficient to handle the complexities of clerical sexual deviancy, real and alleged. Even in a family, if your uncle told you he had problems with pedophilia, or had touched a teenaged 15 years before — would the decent thing be to hand him over to the police directly (as one is now expected to do)?
The vast support of Roman Polanski from his peers, his fans and French politicians, which seems to have been successful in blunting the hand of justice, is undoubtedly indecent — but it does suggest that even decent people can be misled in good faith on this topic.
on November 28th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
But David, Ms. Eberstadt says she can’t think of a clearer case of good coming out of evil. You know someone besides the Holy Spirit who can do that?
Mark,
The primary point is that Eberstadt did not say, or even imply, that this was a case of the Holy Spirit bringing good from evil. She just said it was a case of good coming from evil. You said:
The Holy Spirit is not mentioned or alluded to in the article. Whether or not Eberstadt personally believes the Holy Spirit was involved could only be determined by asking her.
I don’t agree with much of anything in the article, including her conclusion that good has come from evil. And even if one believes the Holy Spirit can bring good from evil, I don’t think it is reasonable to conclude that any good that comes from evil is the work of the Holy Spirit. For example, there is a conjecture that the legalization of abortion resulted in a drop in the crime rate. I doubt that Catholics, even if they agreed with the conjecture, would say that the Holy Spirit was instrumental in bringing good from evil, and the silver lining of legalized abortion is a lower crime rate.
on November 28th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Fr. O’Leary: I appreciate the correction.
In what practice do you mean? As the commission explains its own study, a representative sample was chosen. If you’re saying they have misrepresented their own report, you should explain how.
Who can say how the boy appeared? (The fact that he was in a club that would ordinarily exclude minors is hardly dispositive.) Or whether his appearance explains “Fr. Horatio’s” sexual contact with him?
And let’s be clear about something: according to the report, Horatio withheld important information from Bishop Murray about the nature of his relationship with the girl: that it was sexual and that she was sixteen when it began. So while Dr. Walsh found Horatio refreshingly forthcoming in 1996, it turned out the priest lied to him and his bishop about the girl. One might reasonably conclude that Fr. Horatio was perfectly willing to lie to protect himself–and to maintain his sexual relationships. Perhaps he had a thing for teenagers. A lot of people do. Most of them don’t act on it.
on November 28th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
It is not the notion of the mental reservation that is faulty in this instance, but its application. The authorities had the right to know what was happening to these children, so “taking a mental reservation” could hardly apply. The example of the priest’s housekeeper, screening people who request to speak with him does not apply either. If the concept of “mental reservation,” as conceived, is correctly applied, it should refer only to giving information to people who have a right to know it and who will act responsibly on receiving the information. That seems to me to be quite serviceable and reasonable, especially in extreme cases where someone may withhold information to benefit a greater number of people. I am not in favor of burying it on the basis of the Irish scandal, where there were no mental reservations actually taken; people just lied.
on November 28th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Claire: capricious is capricious. Do you really think that Catholics should simply say “Yes (Father) Magisterium” no matter what the matter/issue is — just because they say so?
Thank you, but no thank you. The Creedal elssentials of Catholic Christianity are one thing. Code (behavior) and Cult (practices) are an entirely different matter altogether!
I also note that you focused on one small matter, but didn’t comment on the other three which are much more egregious matters. There have been many instances similar to those used as examples where what is up one day is down the other, when it comes to what “the Church” teaches.
on November 28th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
You’re right, Allen. Although it could lead to relativism.
on November 28th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
If the concept of “mental reservation,” as conceived, is correctly applied, it should refer only to giving information to people who have a right to know it and who will act responsibly on receiving the information.
Doesn’t everyone have the right to know the truth? And if not, if for example you’re a Jesuit in Elizabethan England and you don’t want to give someone up to the authorities, can you not still speak the truth – “I don’t want to answer that question.” The doctrine of mental reservation seems to be about getting around the responsibility for lying.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Jimmy: no, I don’t personally think that, but am trying to figure out what the fans of the Magisterium could be thinking. Maybe Mark will come back and explain.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
David—
I need to ask, what you have got against the Holy Spirit? You seem to be on a mission to discount his influence in something good that has happened, and feel I’ve insulted Ms. Eberstadt by implying she might believe he’s had such an influence. Has the Lord, the Giver of Life, done you wrong in some way?
PS Ms. Eberstadt, if perchance you are reading this, please accept my apology if I have insulted you or misrepresented your beliefs in any way.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Here is a link to the Voice of the Faithful statement on the Murphy Report:
http://votf.org/8337
Highlights: “So far the response to the report by Irish Bishops, and by the Holy See, tells us that too many minds are still closed. No bishop has yet admitted what all of us can plainly see: their unaccountable and aristocratic system of governing the church has failed our children and disgraced the Catholic community of faith throughout the world.
In the wake of reports on Ferns in 2005, and on Cloyne in 2008 – and a tide of similar revelations in over twenty other countries – this devastating report on the Archdiocese of Dublin can lead to only one conclusion. The absolute and unchecked administrative power that Catholic bishops have acquired not from God but from history tends inexorably towards their corruption.
For the sake of all other Irish victims of clerical abuse, known and unknown, this revelation now demands an inquiry into the remaining twenty-three Irish dioceses.
This dangerous and absurd church system must in the meantime be changed. It has failed our children and the people of God on many levels, and is not fit for purpose. It cannot be redeemed by outstanding individual bishops because, in the words of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin on the feast of Epiphany 2009:
“We have to have a system whereby people are pushed to be accountable. ”
At present, the only forces that push a Catholic bishop to behave accountably are the secular media and the secular state. This is the reason that for over two decades Catholics all over the world have been shocked by a succession of appalling scandals that have held us all up to global contempt. To deny that change is now necessary in the way the church governs itself is to condemn other children of the church to the same trauma, and to condemn the rest of the church to endless derision and scandal. Catholicism cannot survive this.
To argue that God supports the present church system is to argue that God approves of child abuse – and that is blasphemy.
Would also like to pick up on an earlier thread and comments by Dr. John Page and Fr. Imbelli – the Vatican continues to “play” a game in terms of documentation and holding bishops/priests accountable – when it suits their purpose, they play the Vatican is a “state” and you must follow proper foreign policy/political protocols; yet, when it suits their purpose, they fall back on the fact that they are the magisterium and how dare you question them.
My hope would be that either the World Court or the UN will eventually call the Vatican State on this manuever.
It is interesting that a number of things have happened since the early 1980’s – Ratzinger ran the CDF or was pope for the last 30 years; canon law was re-written so that accountability and sexual abuse crimes now fall under the CDF. Given this, it is difficult not to presume that the current Pope has 30 years worth of knowledge – and yet you can count on one hand the number of times he has spoken out on this issue; much less taken any type of steps to rein in bishops. It appears that Romanita continues as the Vatican state policy.
VOTF of Ireland letter to B16: http://votf.org/8339
Fr. O’Leary – respect much of what you say and write but on this subject, you miss the point.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
John XXIII clearly lied about issuing baptismal certificates to thousands of Jews so they would not be cremated. The Nazis clearly had no right to that and I consider the deception moral in that case. So lying may not be the issue so much as sending or leaving harmful clergy or religious where they could do damage to others.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
The recent bishops of Dublin seem to me to have much in common with the bishops who produced the new English version of the Missale Romanum. Both sets of bishops surely did no less and no more than what they believed they were supposed to do and of course they took this to be exactly what Rome wanted, and quite possibly in both situations they were right about what Rome wanted. In both situations also there were unfortunate consequences, in the one situation damaged, perhaps ruined, lives and betrayed innocence and in the other an awkward, pompous and in some places a faulty translation. The difference that stands out is this, A poor translation can be scrapped and replaced by a better one if, as is possible, Rome should see the light. The situation is more difficult with the victims of presbyteral predators.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Jimmy—
You confuse blind obedience to the magisterium with loyalty. It seems to give comfort to many on the left to believe that those who try to be loyal to the Church are not able to think for themselves. On the contrary, loyalty precludes blind obedience, and that’s not what the Church asks of her flock. However, the Church does ask much more than frantic efforts to dig up reasons NOT to believe the magisterium. For example, do you have evidence that the Vatican Bank lends money at usurious interest rates? If not, what’s your point?
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
If you want a comprehensive and complete history and definition of “mental reservation”, click on this link: http://richardsipe.com/Doyle/Doyle-Mental_reservation.pdf
Highlights: “Under the present circumstances some claim that it is morally justifiable to lie in order to protect the reputation of the institutional Church. The lie generally is formulated in either an active form such as denying that a person has sexually abused children, or in a passive form, such as failing to inform a pastor or a parish that an assigned priest or cleric is a
known abuser. In either case and under any guise there never fulfills even the most remote circumstances for applying mental reservation. The concept of the “good of the Church” never allows for enabling sexual abuse or covering for sexual abuse since the “church” is hardly limited to the clerics or the hierarchy but includes the abused and the lay faithful susceptible to abuse.
13. In short, mental reservation is an unacceptable and unapproved doctrine that some appeal to in order to justify lying.
14, The concept of mental reservation is not and never has been included in Canon Law. It has never been officially approved by Catholic Church authority but has been debated in years past by the scholars of the law and of moral theology.,”
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
When Popes and Councils condemned “usury” they were condemning interest plain and simple. The Latin word “usura” until recently was used for all interest, not simply for excessive interest.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Joseph Gannon, I agree with the Missal analogy.
These reports are sobering reading for everyone — reminding us that extreme care must be taken in dealing with the vulnerable, and that matters that it might be convenient to take lightly should often be taken with the gravest sense of accountability.
Yes, why is the CDF involved in this?
Retrospectively, should the archbishops of Dublin have suspended any priest against whom an allegation was made and laicized any priest against whom an allegation was proven? But would that also not have been thinking of church respectabiliy first? Remember that the Jay report found that 50% of deviant priests are one-time offenders. Would it be over-kill to admit no process of rehabilitation? I recall Parnell’s plea to his colleagues when the bishops and the media were baying for his blood over an adulterous relationship: “Do not throw me to the wolves.” The protectiveness of pope and archbishops to the priests involved is not an entirely contemptible thing, it seems to me.
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
It is wrong to say that Ratzinger as prefect of the CDF has thirty years of knowledge. This was placed on the CDF agenda only toward the end of JP2’s pontificate. Remember how Ratzinger said it was a penance for him to have to read the material, which he found shocking?
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
“All of this did immense harm to the victims and to the church itself. But it also harmed Ireland as a whole. The abusive relationship between church and society in which people were induced to collude in the maintenance of a corrupt and cynical system of power and control screwed up the Irish relationship with authority.
It deeply damaged the democratic and republican notion that power comes from the people, by creating a culture of shame, of weakness and of collusion. It taught us to live with, and believe that we loved, an arrogant and unaccountable kind of authority.
If we are ever to awaken once and for all from the nightmare described by the commission, we have to unlearn that lesson and create forms of collective authority that are open, accountable, lawful and genuinely democratic.”
Don’t Fintan O’Toole’s shrewd observations above about the relationship between the Irish laity and their clergy have some relevance to the relationship between clergy and laity in the Church as a whole? Until the faithful wake up to their own responsibility for maintaining “an arrogant and unaccountable kind of authority” in the Church, what hope is there of ever seeing forms of ecclesiastical authority more open, accountable, lawful and genuinely respectful of basic human rights?
on November 28th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Thanks for the link about “mental reservation”. It isn’t that I think there are never times when it is best to lie … yes, if you’re hiding Jews from the Nazis, you would of course lie to protect them. What I’m getting at is that the doctrine of reservation was created, as far as I can tell from what I’ve read, to allow someone to lie without being responsible for lying. It’s a way of having your cake and eating it too in that you can lie without incuring the “sin” of lying. The news story Grant linked to this post has this explanation ….
Cardinal Desmond Connell had explained the concept to the commission as follows:
“Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be – permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying. It really is a matter of trying to deal with extraordinarily difficult matters that may arise in social relations where people may ask questions that you simply cannot answer. Everybody knows that this kind of thing is liable to happen. So mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying.”
Are there people who don’t deserve to know the truth? Maybe, but if you are going to decide the answer to that question is yes, then you should at least be honest enough with yourself to cop to the fact that you are going to lie to them.
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Not long ago, a friend and I witnessed a shocking incident. Shortly afterwards I tried to discuss it with him, but he said: “No. We must not tell anyone. We must not talk about it. We must not even think about it!”
People here seem to assume that one reason for lack of reaction was that the priests who failed to report minimized what that they were witnessing. On the contrary, I wonder if one alternate reason could be that it was so shocking that they just could not deal with it. Similarly to my friend, they would just try to pretend it never happened precisely because it was too much for them to face.
No excuse of course. Just a comment.
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
“And let’s be clear about something: according to the report, Horatio withheld important information from Bishop Murray about the nature of his relationship with the girl: that it was sexual and that she was sixteen when it began. So while Dr. Walsh found Horatio refreshingly forthcoming in 1996, it turned out the priest lied to him and his bishop about the girl. One might reasonably conclude that Fr. Horatio was perfectly willing to lie to protect himself–and to maintain his sexual relationships. Perhaps he had a thing for teenagers. A lot of people do. Most of them don’t act on it.”
Withholding information is not the same thing as lying. Quite possibly the relationship became sexual only when the girl had reached the age of consent (17 in Ireland I think). If a priest comes to his bishop and says “I am involved with a woman and thinking of leaving the priesthood” the bishop will not necessarily prod him on the age of the woman or the nature of their relations. You may think Fr Horatio is foolish for getting involved with such a very young person, but I do not see diabolical wrongdoing. If their sexual relations began after the age of consent it is a matter of consenting adults and in no way illegal. I am pretty sure that Fr H did not actively pursue sex with teenagers. But in the atmosphere of the 70s, when the sexual revolution was in full swing, Fr H may have exposed himself to dicy situations. Recall that sex with minors was not distinguished in gravity from homosexual sex with adults in the eyes of the law, and that church teaching also lumped together indiscriminately all sorts of breaches of chastity or celibacy.
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I’ve been watching the Irish scandal unfolding for several years and have been waiting for it to definitively explode. Irish culture is particularly sensitive to “scandal” (it’s been less than 20 years, I think, since unwed mothers were still being sent to quasi-penal sweat shops) and so when this finally came out, I knew it would turn out to have been buried particularly deep. And the Catholic Church in Ireland has always had a close relationship with all of the governments since the time the Free State was created. Catholicism was almost, but not quite, the State religion. And this isn’t simply a case of an old boy network. The authority of the State and the Authority of the Church have in many ways been mutually supporting.
But there is a certain diabolical beauty to this entire state of affairs. The Church hierarchy is so compromised right now at the level of the parisioner that people are talking about boycotts. The bishops have started opening the door and letting in some light, but they are afraid (in some cases for the Church and in some cases for themselves; and in some cases for both). The more light they let in, the more angry people get. The more angry people get, the more afraid the bishops become. Further, the bishops are not just culpable themselves; some of the organs of the State are also compromised. The center and right parties are also compromised, because all of these obscenities happened when they made up the government. The demands that the Church settle claims will soon run up against the Church’s mission in Ireland, which is far wider than here because it plays such a large role in social services (education, medicine) that are public here. The lackluster secularization of society that one has seen even these past 20 or 25 years, as church attendance has fallen away now has a true and cogent focus. Ireland is a Catholic country and this has turned it upside down (on top of an economic crisis). In the midst of this, some victims will get justice and some won’t. Some innocents will be accused and some guilty will escape.
So now what? Some people want more lay involvement in the Church in Ireland. They will soon get it. Not through any sort of new layperson participation in the Church hierachy, but through the tender mercies of the State. Right now, the State isn’t pushing too hard on the Church (not as hard as they should be). But fairly soon, the government is going to have to choose between saving itself and protecting the Church. The main parties are already in deep trouble over the economy. I predict that they will throw the bishops to the dogs when push comes to shove.
But if everyone involved is prosecuted, retired, dies of natural causes, or escapes detection, then what? The hierarchy is disgraced. The Church as it was is dead. What will bring trust back into the Church? Putting the Pope in the dock? Would harsh jail sentences and massive penalties wipe the slate clean?
I am not saying that people should not be sent to prison and that victims should not be compensated. In fact, because of the relationship between the Church and the State, Ireland seems to me to be one place where perhaps the State should also compensate the victims.
But I do think there is a hole here now that will not be filled by retribution or even justice. What shall fill it? Who will rebuild the Church?
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Voice of the Faithful thinks that the clerical abuse scandal points to the need for a more democratic church; but right wing Catholics will say it points to the need for a more drastic exercise of authority from the Vatican and bishops; I suspect that a struggle between these different prescriptions will stymie efforts to learn from the debacle.
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
In the case of schools and hospitals, sexual scandals and mismanagement do not ensure their demise, because society knows that it needs these institutions. The problem of the church is that society may decide that it doesn’t need churches anyway.
on November 28th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I need to ask, what you have got against the Holy Spirit? You seem to be on a mission to discount his influence in something good that has happened . . . .
Mark,
Actually, I thought I was protecting the Holy Spirit’s good name. :-)
Eberstadt’s argument is that the “intelligentsia” deemed pedophilia to be “chic” and were in some attempting to normalize it, but they hate the Catholic Church so much that they changed their position in order to foment an anti-Catholic “hate fest” using pedophilia as a stick to beat the Church with. This is the work of the Holy Spirit?
. . . and feel I’ve insulted Ms. Eberstadt by implying she might believe he’s had such an influence
I have no idea what her feelings would be. I am just pointing out that your capsule summary of her argument included something she did not say. She might see the hand of the Holy Spirit at work in all of this. But she didn’t say she did.
The problem I see with routinely attributing to the Holy Spirit the good that results from evil is that a great deal of the time, evil results from good. We live in a world where we can’t predict the future, and there are unintended consequences galore, both good and bad.
Has the Lord, the Giver of Life, done you wrong in some way?
As Robert Frost said, “Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.”
on November 28th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Fr. O’Leary: Do you personally know the man referred to as Fr. Horatio?
on November 29th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Yes, I knew him when I worked in Dublin archdiocese in 1980, and thought him a good and serious man. From the report it seems that his parishioners also held him in high regard.
As to how to rebuild the Church, Scripture gives clear indications, in the many situations in which Israel through its own fault has its back to the wall. “Lent” indeed — reflection, repentance, atonement, prayer. But also, I would say, mercy, understanding, even the “unbelievable charity” of the parent referred to by Abp Ryan who saw that the priest in their case was pitiable (thought Fintan O’Toole sees that as brainwashed subservience). Where, if not here, do we apply “Judge not, that you may not be judged”? That this in the past has been self-serving and collusive does not undercut its validity.
Note that the Church is not the sole proprietor of religion in Ireland today — the other Christian churches and Buddhism are flourishing.
on November 29th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Structural reform of the Church can only be effected by a General Council.
on November 29th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Fr. O’Leary –
True, we are not to claim in any absolute way that we know beyond doubt the consciences of others, so we must beware of judging them too harshly. Even when we have a high degree of certainty that someone has sinned grievously, we are still called to be merciful.
But how is it merciful to an abused child to let the perpetrator not be censured, not be held accountable, not even be required to apologize? Where is the mercy for the grievously suffering child?
And what about mercy for the perps themselvew? If they show no sign of repentance is a bishop truly being merciful if he simply moves him to another parish to sin some more thereby being unmerciful to more abused children?
I’d say that in the U. S. most people realize that the abusers are mentally sick at least to some degree. So it is the bishops who incur our greatest wrath. The enablers of terrible objective wrong are, in our view, more despicable than the sick perps.
In another post you commented that not all instances of sexual abuse are equal — some are worse than others. I agree. And I agree that the failure of some of us to make that distinction is probably motivated by a desire to bash the bishops. But we have *reason* to bash the bishops — hard. Not only have they allowed them to be grievously injured, in doing so they have scandalized the children, and we all know what Jesus said should be done with such people. Merciful Jesus also could be outraged by such behavior.
I generally agree with what you say, I’ve learned a lot from your posts, and I’m very grateful for your participation in this list, but I think in the matter of the bishops’ behavior you’ve been conned, Father, you’ve been conned.
on November 29th, 2009 at 4:10 am
I agree that recycling known abusers to where they are likely to abuse the young again is a criminal practice, even though it may have been one that was habitual in the Church. Does the Commission find instances of this practice in recent years? Haven’t bishops been aware that this is a no-no for a long time?
on November 29th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Bishop Donal Murray has just defended his record (concerning the early 1980s): http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1129/breaking4.htm
on November 29th, 2009 at 4:16 am
“When an allegation of sexual abuse of children by a priest was brought to my attention, I responded promptly and conscientiously and in each case notified the Archbishop and Diocesan authorities and co-operated fully with them.”
I know Bishop Murray and I believe him.
on November 29th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Paul, in response to your question about whether there’s evidence that the police colluded in covering up sexual abuse cases in the Catholic church in the U.S., I’d recommend Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea’s “Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church.”
P. 197: “In many places and for many decades, police, judges, and prosecutors helped the Church keep its secrets about clergy misconduct.” Among the “many places” Frawley-O’Dea discusses in this section of her book is Toledo, where a pattern of extensive police collusion with church officials has been well-documented.
On the way in which the justice system itself often remains skewed in favor of the church when victims of clerical abuse ask for justice, see Marci Hamilton’s “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children.” As Tom Doyle’s review of Hamilton’s book notes, “It is about the chasm that exists between the lofty sentiments expressed by civil and religious leaders when it comes to the rights of children, and the dark reality of a court system that still reflects ignorance about both the devastating nature of sexual abuse and the compulsive nature of sexual perversity” (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/books/reviews/20080625_doyle.html).
on November 29th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Mark:
Usury comes from the Medieval Latin usuria, “interest” or from the Latin usura “interest”) originally meant the charging of interest on loans.
The history of the Vatican Bank over the past 50-75 years has not exactly been that of a church-run credit union offering low interest or interest-free loans to campesinos so they can raise themselves out of a cycle of poverty.
Time magazine did a story sometime in the 1980s for those readers who are not familiar with the rather seamy past of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951806,00.html).
Technically, none of this was usury. However, close connection to money laundering (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Works_of_Religion, and http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/) and fraud are a wee bit outside the remit of an institution of the Church, don’t you think?
I suspect that the Holy Spirit had zilch to do with any of this, don’t you? Do you think the magisterium was privy to any of this?
on November 29th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Joseph:
“The vast support of Roman Polanski from his peers, his fans and French politicians, which seems to have been successful in blunting the hand of justice, is undoubtedly indecent — but it does suggest that even decent people can be misled in good faith on this topic.”
It suggests that celebrity and wealth trump all. Further, it suggests that people don’t care about childhood sexual abuse. Much of the “outrage” in the public is simply a way to insult the Church.
That said, the buck stops with the Vatican and the Pope. Period. They are the worst offenders of all. They and they alone are responsible for pushing the clericalism that created more climate of secrecy, lying and covering up. I still go to mass and will work out my own relationship to God in my own way. There are many good pockets within the Catholic community.
But as for the public hulabaloo, don’t fool yourself Joseph the public doesn’t care about it. There are rafts of studies that show victims not only of priests, but teachers, family members, doctors, etc. are routinely silenced.
Roman Polanski is a truly vile human being. But he is not white trash he is a famous celebrity with lots of wealth. That alone covers his sin.
on November 29th, 2009 at 11:34 am
PS
As for the official structure of the Church. In my mind it has already crumbled. It is over. LIke an old building it is just teetering and ready to collapse. I have already left. Those still inside have plenty of warning.
Time to start over.
Happily many in the Catholic community already are. the so called “authoritarianism” of the Vatican is paper tiger stuff. The religious sisters know it and will expose it. The only tension for them is whether to make it overly public or not. Either way they will send a clear message to the hierarchy about how the game is going to be played and not played. Everyone knows that historically it has been the sisters who actually ran the Church.
on November 29th, 2009 at 11:57 am
“When an allegation of sexual abuse of children by a priest was brought to my attention, I responded promptly and conscientiously and in each case notified the Archbishop and Diocesan authorities and co-operated fully with them.”
I think that the point is that that’s not enough. When he saw that the Archbishop and Diocesan authorities were not doing the right thing, he should have done more. That’s what’s hard: not merely being conscientious in doing his part to try to deal with sexual abuse, but also stepping in when others are not doing their part.
on November 29th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
George D: The Catholic church is big. We cannot vote, but we can
- act locally in our parish to develop a culture of lay participation and of accountability at the parish level; if necessary, move to a different parish whose pastor is open to the idea.
- redirect our donations to those, among the numerous ministries of the Catholic church, that are the most transparent and well-managed.
If many people did that, it would change the face of the church.
on November 29th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Jim—
If you are saying there are reasons not to believe, some of them self-induced by the certain members of the hierarchy, I can hardly disagree. If there WEREN’T plenty of reasons not to believe, there’d be little room for faith.
But if one of those reasons is that over 800 years ago the Church taught that you shouldn’t charge interest when you lent money to your brother (because loans weren’t syndicated back then, I don’t think) and the Church recently augmented that teaching to say it’s ok to charge a reasonable interest rate when money is lent in a free market, to people you don’t really know, and you find THAT capricious….well, all I can say is that apparently you’ve never been with a woman when she is shopping for shoes.
on November 29th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
It suggests that celebrity and wealth trump all. Further, it suggests that people don’t care about childhood sexual abuse. Much of the “outrage” in the public is simply a way to insult the Church.
George,
I think a lot of people feel that putting Roman Polanski behind bars would serve no purpose. (Wisely or not, that is how the authorities at the time viewed the situation.) His crimes were over 30 years ago, and he does not appear to be a pedophile or a repeat offender. His victim has sued him, won, and considers the matter settled. Presumably incarceration serves three purposes — to protect society, to rehabilitate the offender, and to punish. Certainly two of those three aren’t necessary.
It’s not my intention to defend Roman Polanski. I am really not sure what would serve the cause of justice in his case. My point is that how people feel about Polanski is not an indicator of how they feel about child abuse. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
If anything, it’s not that people don’t care about sex abuse. It’s that the pendulum has swung so far that we have public hysteria over all matters involving sex and young people, and one can become a “registered sex offender” and be ostracized for life over just about any sex offense, no matter whether it involves a danger to the public or not. I don’t think hatred of the Church has anything to do with it. What Eberstadt identifies as a change in view of the “intelligentsia” is more likely explained by the fact that one has to be extraordinarily careful what one says and does in today’s atmosphere lest one be accused of being an apologist for pedophilia for trying to discuss the issues calmly and rationally.
on November 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
I’d just like to make a couple of points because there’s some sidetracks in the discusion:
-trying to put a best face on what’s happened in Ireland – and beyond – is useless in helping to solve the problem
-The problem is systemic and requires systemic change; don’t see much hope of that, though more local ccountability, etc. is nice
-Which is to say the problem is not just individual offenders.
Sex offenders, as criminal justice folk know, are particularly given to denial and are in need of much structure, hence the “registrated sex offender” laws – because government is charged with comunity protection.
I’m not sure those laws were driven by “hysteria.”
-But beyond the offenders is the massive failure of leadership to deal accounatbly with the problem not only in Ireland but in other places including the USA. As has been noted by several here, that problem is rooted in deep loyalty to the center of power, which does not seem much interested in real change.
-Finally, i think clergy in viewing what has happened need to be extra careful in making judgements, not unlike police or other large groups who can easily seek first to defend their own and close ranks.
What comes out of that is damage control and little resolution of a problem.
on November 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Another viewpoint expressed about the facts around Fr. H: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/worrying-links-existed-between-serial-abusers-1957849.html
Highlights: “A fourth worrying paedophile link noted in the Murphy report involved Fr Horatio. He was a marriage counsellor, taught adults and had an informal role counselling homosexuals. He had been accused in 1980 of abusing a 15-year-old boy in a gay nightclub. The boy’s parents complained to the diocese but Fr Horatio claimed he thought the boy was over 18 and that he had touched him first. Bishop O’Mahony saw no reason to move him from his teaching post and he continued from there to become a parish priest.
In 1989, Fr Horatio confided in Bishop Donal Murray that he was in an emotional relationship with a girl and wanted to be laicised. He apparently didn’t disclose the girl’s age, according to Bishop Murray, nor did he say it was sexual. The bishop told him to think about it and meanwhile moved him to another parish.
In 2005, that woman wrote to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin about repeated and wanton acts of sexual abuse perpetrated on her as a young girl by Fr Horatio. She was aged 16 when the relationship started and it continued for three years, in various locations, including a holiday home, the key for which was given to Fr Sean Fortune, the notorious Wexford child molester. Fr Horatio later said the only link between himself and Fr Sean Fortune was that they both lived in the same area at the time.
Only when Archbishop Martin asked the priest to step down and began an investigation in 2005 did Fr Horatio confess that he had also abused a boy of 15 in the mid-1980s. He never disclosed it to anyone, even his psychiatrist, thinking that he was in enough trouble as it was.
Fr Horatio is now retired from ministry and living under the supervision of the archdiocese.”
I also know a number of confirmed pedophile priests – some who I was in school with. Fact – in some cases out of fear, anxiety, guilt they have been less than honest about their behaviors. For some, it is a fear that their religious community will no longer support them; they can not imagine having to earn a living; etc. I have yet to find a case where an offender had “ONE’ solitary lapse of good judgment. Have found cases where there is only one alleged abuse victim – over time, this usually changes because they are many victims who do not come forward for a variety of reasons. I still have classmates who see some of these priests as victims – the teenagers or older children coerced them into these behaviors.
Sorry, both Bishop Martin and Fr. H have serious issues and no amount of shifting the blame will resolve the issues. Yes, it is sad; yes, it is complex; yes, we will probably never know the full truth; but, accountability and responsibility need to applied now. This means resignations; this means priests need to be isolated and supervised for the rest of their lives; this means dioceses need to financilay and emotionally support victims. I can’t speak for the Irish government or Gardai but in many ways they need to parallel these same steps.
on November 29th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
David:
In Canada adults can press criminal charges against those who abused them. This has occurred frequently. In almost every instance, the plea is that the person has repented (assuming they have which most often they haven’t), they are older now, that dragging up history will break up the family, that this is motivated by revenge, this will not contribute to healing, or memories are false or exaggerated, etc.
“…one can become a “registered sex offender” and be ostracized for life over just about any sex offense.”
Total mythology. If someone is incarcerated for a sex offense, before release there is a board that recommends levels of warning to the community around risk. Not all information is publicly available, just those cases based on past history and risk. It isn’t as blanket as you describe it.
There was a highly publicized case of a hockey coach in Canada who was charged and convicted. Don Cherry, who is a kind of populist conservative styled commentator on Hockey Night in Canada said that he did his time and should be allowed back into coaching.
Mackenzie Phillips chronicled her long sexual affair with her father in her book. I am sure her father interpreted their affair as consensual, mutual, etc. However, this is not how Mackenzie saw it. Obviously she does not see her father as a monster but the boundary violation has had a significant impact on her life today.
I would doubt that Mackenzie would have wanted her father jailed. But on the other hand, why is the victim alway being called implicitly or explicitly to heroic levels of virtue, self-sacrifice, forgiveness and love.
It isn’t an issue of being an apologist but it is an issue of allowing multiple voices to be heard and for there to be an analysis of power which can help gauge sexual activity. I am by no means a prude but I do think that sex needs to be circumscribed in an ethical framework.
Back to the point, in the sex abuse scandal the boys and/or girls associated are nameless and faceless “things”. All the attention was on protecting the power figure. Same in the case of Roman Polanski. He has a lot of power, carries a lot of economic, cultural and social capital. And that capital purchases, for him, a lot of moral latitude that would not be afforded to people in similar situations.
Even Mackenzie Phillips who also has a degree of power was ostracized by members of her family over her book. She was accused of revenge, hysteria, etc for simply telling her story.
So much for discussing the issues calmly and rationally.
on November 29th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Total mythology. If someone is incarcerated for a sex offense, before release there is a board that recommends levels of warning to the community around risk. Not all information is publicly available, just those cases based on past history and risk. It isn’t as blanket as you describe it.
According to Wikipedia:
In New York State, a decision is made as to whether a convicted sex offender is a Level 1, 2, or 3 offender, and only Level 2 and 3 offenders may be listed on the public web site however:
According to The Economist (a very informative article, but a subscription is required)
Check out the article in Newsweek that begins and ends as follows:
This is not the appropriate thread in which to have a detailed discussion of how sex offenders are treated in the United States, but I stick by my position that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of demonizing and ostracizing sex offenders, many of whom have committed minor offenses and are no threat to society. Anybody who has lived in New York City for any length of time has seen men urinating on the street. Certainly it should be illegal, but it is a public nuisance, not a sex crime. It’s public hysteria, and thankfully there are small signs here and there that authorities are beginning to “get a grip.”
on November 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Even Mackenzie Phillips who also has a degree of power was ostracized by members of her family over her book. She was accused of revenge, hysteria, etc for simply telling her story.
I can tell you stories from my family –none particularly sensational — where some of us remember things one way and others of us remember it quite differently. Actually, I have been in business meeting and walked out only to find out that accounts of what happened are so varied that you would think people had gone to different meetings. It is not surprising that when one person in the family alleges in a book something as sensational as an incestuous relationship with her father, other members of the family might not be supportive.
on November 29th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
David:
I would love to chat about this over a coffee. A dark roast, fair trade, coffee…on me.
On the topic of this thread, but related, there were reports to the Bishop which is, in practice, like no reports at all. The pendulum has not even inched in the church.
The Catholic church is well known for keeping meticulous records. I am sure that these are somewhere on a priest’s personnel file. So all of this was suppressed, kept within the “family”, Indeed, was it Keating the US politician charged with looking into this matter from a lay perspective who noted that the Bishops were like an organized crime syndicate when it came to transparency. What does that tell you.
on November 29th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Regarding the view of intelligentsia (e.g., friends of Roman Polanski) on sexual abuse: Very definitely, there are two things going on. The first is, it’s hard to abandon your friends. This is true of most subgroups, regardless of political or educational orientation. Maybe you remember a woman who went into a bar in a heavily Portuguese community in Rhode Island and pressed charges of rape because of what she encountered there. I vividly remember what I can only call a blockade of mostly middle aged women who were part of this heavily ethnic Catholic community blaming the victim during a protest against the prosecution of the alleged rapists. They were screaming on camera. I only use them as an example because I can’t think of anyone else who is what I might call the opposite of Roman Polanski and friends, but they exhibited pretty much the same reaction. (Note, also, that there are many people who have not supported Polanski. Most have simply maintained silence, but more than a few have voiced support for allowing the legal system to proceed to resolution.)
The other is, although we may know it intellectually, we do have a very hard time internalizing just how destructive sexual abuse is. Between the first and the second, it will always be an uphill battle for victims, particularly those whose victimization can most easily be “understood” under what we view as “normal” sexual response (this is definitely underlaying the reaction of Polanski’s friends, as it did at the time of the original crime).
Overzealous prosecutions in other cases have not helped (e.g., “finding” sexual abuse where it didn’t exist, particularly in very young children).
on November 29th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
The Church of Rome’s institutional culture is sick.
Every Catholic, lay as well as ordained, shares responsibility for this dysfunctional picture.
Massive systemic change is needed.
Yet we have a pope doing his utmost to retrieve and preserve cultural artifacts and beliefs that are not only symptomatic, but also causative, of this churchwide sickness.
It is here that I believe God does, indeed, help those who help themselves. We can’t expect this papacy and its suckup hierarchs to take the lead in excising the bad stuff and encouraging us to conceive of church in healthy ways.
If Vatican II’s legacy is to be preserved, I suspect it will be a laity “mad as hell” and determined not to “take it anymore” from reactionary/”orthodox” popes and papal lackeys.
on November 29th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Going forward, until proven otherwise over time, this should be the thinking Catholic’s yardstick:
“Blessed are those from whom you expect nothing: you shall not be disappointed.”
on November 29th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Thanks to all those who responded to my query on cases in which police may have colluded with church officials in the U.S. Perhaps the Irish report indicates that there were some dots that have not been connected here?
on November 29th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Here is additional reaction to statements by Bishop Murray:
“Last night, when questioned about the culture of cover up in the Dublin Archdiocese, Bishop Murray flatly denied he was part of such a culture.
“I wish to state that I never deliberately or knowingly sought to cover up or withhold information brought to my attention. There were, as the report notes, occasions when roles or responsibilities were not clear or where I did not have full information concerning cases in which I was asked to become involved,” he said.”As I indicated in 2002 in response to one particular case, if I had succeeded in deriving more information, it might have been possible to prevent some of the dreadful suffering of child abuse in that instance. I very much wish that I had been able to do so.” (Bishop Murray was thoroughly castigated in the Murphy report for his handling of any number of abuse cases, not just how he investigated them but how he dealt with the victims. The victim he refers to in the 2002 case committed suicide two days after meeting with the Bishop and his board of advisers.)
Here is the VOTF presentation by Rev. Donald Cozzens:
“As you know, Pope Benedict has declared 2009 to be the “Year of the Priest.” Well, I think the Pope should declare 2010 the “Year of the Laity.”
Your voice, the voice of the faithful laity, has spoken with urgency and strength and clarity to church leaders and to the church as a whole at a time when the voice of priests and bishops is hardly heard at all—except to minimize, contextualize, and rationalize the abuse scandals and their cover-up that have led to the worst crisis ever faced by the U.S. Catholic Church.
You have spoken from your hearts—with hope and courage for a renewed and vital and humble church. And you have done so in the face of uncalled for mistrust, misunderstanding, and trenchant hostility from numerous church bureaucrats and authorities.
You have rightfully recognized, in perfect harmony with the Second Vatican Council’s teachings on the responsibilities and rights of the laity, that you have an obligation to speak out—in the name of justice and compassion—for reforms promised by the bishops and popes of Vatican II who sat in ecumenical council, the highest authority in the church.
With Pope John XXIII, you have insisted on Aggiornamento, the updating, so clearly, undeniably needed by our church—for its own sake, for the sake of the children, for the sake of the church’s mission to bring the hope and freedom of the gospel to a battered and bloodied world.
I’m sure you must wonder if anyone is listening to your voice…wonder if anyone understands the depth of faith and fidelity and passion with which you speak.
I’m afraid most Catholics in the U.S. haven’t heard of you. Of course, most Catholics don’t know the name of their own bishop. While most priests have heard of the Voice of the Faithful, many of us remain either indifferent or wary of your voice. While bishops certainly have heard of Voice of the Faithful, many accuse you of having an “agenda”, some Machiavellian scheme to refashion the church in such a way as to render it indistinguishable from the churches of the Protestant Reformation.
As the years go by and your energy ebbs, you might indeed wonder: Is anyone listening? I believe Jesus of Nazareth asked himself the same question. But he went on preaching, teaching, and healing. Jesus’ voice was indeed THE voice of the Spirit. But I say, without hesitation, that your voice is of the Spirit.
You can’t give up because the women of the church and the world need you to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. We need women leaders in our chanceries and Catholic Centers. We need to hear the gospel preached in the voice of women as well as men.
You can’t give up because the men in holy orders are growing old and tired. The lifting of mandatory celibacy is the key to a healthy, revitalized priesthood and church.
You can’t give up because the world’s economic order is twisted and unjust and you are positioned to forge a more just and humane order.
You can’t give up because the church has barely set out on its grudging journey down the road of accountability and transparency.
You can’t give up because there remain victims of clergy abuse who need your support and compassion.
Don’t give up. We priests, whether we realize it or not, need your witness of adult maturity and courage and integrity. You are the voice of hope to countless priests you may never hear from.
There is yet another reason why you can’t give up. The church is in the midst of a major, powerful, wrenching period of conversion and renewal—the likes of which we haven’t seen in centuries.
We are too close to this conversion to see it in perspective, but we sense its muted thunder and urgent significance, its transforming power and spirit of hope.
As you meet here in significant numbers, remember what Thomas Merton wrote to Jim Forest, a discouraged young activist exhausted from his work for racial justice. Whether or not he saw any positive results from his work for racial equality, Merton wrote, he must carry on. Merton understood that seeing results in the young activist’s lifetime could not be the ultimate goal. Jim Forest’s faith, his vision, his integrity required him to persevere, even if his efforts seemed, at the time, fruitless.
So we keep on carrying on. Parishioners and priests speak the truth in love. And as we speak, we ask for the grace to listen as well. For it is necessary for us to listen—prayerfully, humbly, and with open hearts. Otherwise our voice will be heard as strident, whether we mean it to be or not.
In his memoir, The Journal of a Soul, Pope John XXIII spoke of his complete confidence in the maxim: Absolute Trust in God in the present and complete tranquility in regard to what is going to happen in the future.
You who love the church and you who have dared to speak your truth in love should sleep well—no matter how small the steps of renewal and conversion might be in your lifetime. You have taken the gospel seriously. You have taken the Second Vatican Council seriously. You have tried to act responsibly and faithfully. Now that, it seems to me, is integrity.
If only we priests were more united, we would do well to honor Voice of the Faithful with our “Laity of Integrity Award.” It would be well deserved.
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Roman Polanski drugged, raped and buggered a 13 year old girl — this is a level of criminality that few priests if any have reached. Recall that one of the most demonized Irish priests, Ivan Paine, was sent to jail for “the offense of touching”.
The same arguments used against alleged one-time clerical offenders could be used a fortiori against Polanski — the 13 year old girl was probably not his only victim.
Polanski’s cinematic talent I would say is confined to his early works, such as ‘Knife in the Water,’ ‘Repulsion’ or ‘Rosemary’s Baby’; shoddy rubbish like ‘Oliver Twist’ or ‘The Pianist’ (the best of the later batch) or ‘The Ninth Gate’ hardly justify his fame. I thought ‘Bitter Moon’ was an unpleasantly kinky opus, and ‘Tess’ lingers on the heroine with a pedophile gaze.
When the media, the cops or the Law get onto someone’s private life — anyone’s private life — the consequences are liable to be dreadful — see Tiger Woods this week. In the case of priests, the tinder-box created by celibacy and its associations can mean that any action perceived as inappropriate — such as the words and gestures of priests trying to make some sort of gay-liberation or priest-liberation statement back in the 1970s — can spark off scandal and outrage and a train of disastrous consequences. Priesthood would seem to be a highly dangerous occupation, and episcopacy even more so.
I think it would be a mistake for the Church to force Bishop Murray to resign — he is an intelligent and seasoned leader, one of the pillars of the Irish Church today. The Irish people got rid of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and have been rueing it ever since — he could have steered the country through the Lisbon Treaty vote and the financial crisis. Likewise, the Irish church could end up rueing their rejection of strong leaders.
Finally, we need to integrate into our reflection the psychology and sociology of the characteristic adolescent psychology exhibited by priests, whether sexually active or not. One of the most important books on this is Eugen Drewermann’s ‘Kleriker’ — not translated into English as far as I know. Drewermann was hounded out of the priesthood, by a Church that should have been drawing on this therapeutic gifts.
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I see another priest shares my view on Bp Murray: http://www.sbpost.ie/newsfeatures/abuse-report-beyond-belief-45893.html
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Deluge of commentary here: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/100018182/lets-get-it-straight-irish-child-abuse-was-perpetrated-by-the-trendy-modern-post-vatican-ii-catholic-church/
Lay support for Dr Murray: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1130/1224259709261.html
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Also this: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100018045/dublin-sex-abuse-this-could-finish-off-catholic-ireland/
on November 30th, 2009 at 9:19 am
One last thought: the Sunday Independent on Fr H might suggest that his relationship with the young lady was just cynical sexual predatoriness. But it seems clear that he got in out of his depth with her, thinking of marrying her — then — “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. It’s a situation that will ring a bell for many men. I imagine that angry feminists, who abound in Dublin, might have urged on the young woman to therapeutic revenge.
on November 30th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Fr. O’Leary: What an unfortunate digression. Why are you willing to assume (or, as you say, “imagine”) the worst about the woman but the best about this priest? Because you knew him? Because everyone knows women can be really nasty when scorned? Do you have any grounds for your theory?
However one judges the nature of “Horatio’s” attraction to teenagers, describing his strange desire to marry the 19-year-old who was 16 when they began having sex as having gotten “out of his depth” doesn’t quite get at the question: What was it about this grown man, this priest, that led him to believe it would be a good idea to leave his ministry to marry her? (Presumably he didn’t want to wed the 15-year-old boy he says he thought was 18.)
on November 30th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Grant, you know that many priests lead women to think that they are going to leave the priesthood to marry them — and then default.
The women are naturally angry and feel they have been used. What they thought was a relationship turns out to have been on the priest’s part just “fooling around”, though subjectively the priest may have thought it was a substantial relationship.
Why would a woman then describe the four-year relationships as “wanton acts”? The best explanation I can find is that she is following a well-known feminist script. Presumably if he had followed through on what he had seemed to promise her she would not have made such a complaint.
You make much of the age difference. I suggest that it is not all that bizarre for 42 or 43 year old men to become infatuated with teenagers and marry them. (16 is the age of consent in Britain.) T. S. Eliot married a woman one third his age. It may be a sign of adolescent sexuality on the part of the doting male. It also happens that men are attracted to women much older than themselves. That may be a sign of a mother complex. Love relationships do not always follow an orthodoxy of age appropriateness and super-normality. Just abstract from celibacy and the Roman collar and I suggest that such attractions are not all that grotesque.
Not sure why you drag in the 15yo again — this was just an incident, not a four-year relationship.
Would it have been a good idea to leave the ministry and marry the girl? It could have been, if their relationship was thriving. Why did it all end in tears? I don’t know.
It’s a nice theme for a novelette.
on November 30th, 2009 at 11:42 am
It is interesting to note that Oscar Wilde, often presented today as a martyr and icon of gay rights, would probably receive a longer sentence in our society, since he consorted with under-age male prostitutes hanging out in Piccadilly (or “perverted telegraph-boys”) as did many Victorian gentlemen.
on November 30th, 2009 at 11:51 am
PS I do not assume the worst about the woman or the best about the priest. I just suggest a possible alternative reading of the facts. Do I have empirical grounds? Yes, a stray remark I picked up in Dublin which I now think was probably an allusion to this case.
Please understand that I am not at all holding up the priest’s behavior as a model of wisdom or discretion or responsibility. I am just suggesting that his foolishness is not too far from what many, perhaps most, men have been guilty of.
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Checking the Commission’s report I see that I got some facts wrong: it was the girl who broke off the relationship, in 1990 when she was 19. The priest had offered to marry her the year before and was making preparations to make his living as a layman. The complaint, with demand for compensation, was lodged 15 years later in 2005.
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
For criticism of the Granada Institute see http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1130/1224259709683.html
on November 30th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Age of consent in Ireland is 17 for one category of sexual activity but only 15 for another: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe#Ireland
on November 30th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I guess I’m sorry to see Fr. O”Leary so het up with so many posts but it’s clear that the Irish folk are (rightfully) angry, especially at the bishops, even if perceived as “good men.”
I think it’s truly interestuing that the Nuncio is eing called in and calls are made for his expulsiopn.
The Roman connection -clearly there will be attempts to insulate BXVI and his folk from the mess, but will the Bishops, trying to hang on to their own jobs, have the beleivability to provide that cover?
I’d like to add a footnote on sex offender dealings – much happened in the 90’s to bring more sophisticated and structured handling of offenders.
Notions of”dangerousnes” have always been limited in criminal justice due to predictive factor complexity. But providing for the safety of the community first, neither advocating or acting adversarially, should be the guide in this.
on November 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Fr. O’Leary: I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the “feminist script” you’re referring to. You say the best explanation for the woman’s characterizing her sexual relationship with “Fr. Horatio” as “wanton acts” is that she was parroting a feminist talking point. Why not presume that she came to her own conclusion about the nature of the relationship? That in her adulthood she realized she had been used by a man more than twice her age who promised to be celibate? Used for sex, used to satisfy an underdeveloped emotional need, used as an excuse to get out of ministry.
Speaking of: why wasn’t he laicized? He seemed to want it. Why did he stop?
on November 30th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
If Grant will allow me to jump in here, Fr. O’Leary, would suggest a number of other concerns:
- yes, Fr. H’s behavior is not much different from many males;
- suggest that there are some differences:
many of us work for large national/international corporations. this type of behavior with an underage or barely old enough person; if made public, would probably jeopardize our employment……doubt that any corporation would help me defend myself in these circumstances and yet that is exactly what the church has done
you completely ignore the fact that this is a Priest/ the spiritual component of this abuse / what SNAP calls “soul murder”
you quickly dismiss the 15 yr. old boy as an “incident”…..is this isolated? do you really know? were there other victims who have not come forward? Again, do you really know?
you cite Victorian times; well, guess we could put Fr. H in the role of many men who can afford to travel to third world nations to purchase under age sex (in fact, that may be one of the most alarming evils in today’s society)….how does that lessen or put Fr. H’s behavior into a context. you want us to remove his collar and celibacy and then consider the “incidents” – how can you do this?
the approach you advocate for does not really balance the scales of justice; it allows the person in the position of power to control the other…it is especially damaging when the person in power is a cleric…..that may be why you see the words “wanton acts”.
Let’s frame this with some studies: http://www.richardsipe.com/Dialogue/Dialogue-16r-2009-07-15-NEW%20NUMBERS.pdf
http://www.richardsipe.com/Dialogue/Dialogue-19-2009-06-16.pdf
on November 30th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
It is interesting to note that Oscar Wilde, often presented today as a martyr and icon of gay rights, would probably receive a longer sentence in our society . . .
What’s the point here? The Founding Fathers, as slave owners, would all be thrown in jail in today’s society.
on November 30th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
What’s lacking on these posts is an action suggestion. Let me start with having the irish Gov. expell the Vatican nuncio as persona non grata.. two days to pack. For non response to abuse inquires … easy… with worldwide reprecussions. If I hear complaints from academics and clerics on Dotcom about whathisname’s carreer I’ll get sick ..
on November 30th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Ed – agreed. But, the government could also start legal proceedings against a number of bishops named in this report for cover-ups, lying, etc. Start with the auxiliaries.
Then, and I know folks get tired of this – the Irish Government needs to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission along the lines of the one done in South Africa. Make it happen.
on November 30th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Why not have every bishop and auxiliary bishop resign, and start over with fresh promotions everywhere? Yes, some bishops of integrity would have to resign. But that would be a small price to pay, it seems to me, in order to have a chance for a new start.
on November 30th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
The feminist script I refer to concerns the goodness, liberating effect, and necessity of denouncing abusers (as in Virginia Woolf’s public denunciation of her brothers). Given the emotional nature of the priest’s involvement with the young woman and his plans to marry her, and the recognition of the pair as a couple, her reduction of the relationship to a series of wanton acts is not necessarily the only possible interpretation.
T. S. Eliot was very much the “person in power” when he fell in love with his besotted fan whom he later married. I never heard this denounced as immoral or shameful. This power-differential can be invoked in a huge number of relationships — men generally have more power than women to begin with.
Professors who marry their students are not, as far as I know, black-balled in their profession.
Bringing in the scandalous effect of the Roman collar is to open a whole can of worms, since ANY sexual behavior of a priest can be interpreted as scandalous. Should bishops police all such behavior/relationships?
Priests are very easy to demonize because of the mythology surrounding celibacy. That is why it can be useful to bracket this dimension to let the human texture of the relationships emerge.
on November 30th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Claire, mass resignation of bishops is not the answer for 2 reasons. One is that the system would remain unchanged, firmly held in place by Rome. The other is that the new bishops would be inexperienced and would make more mistakes.
Some poster above characterizes the bishops attitude to Fr H as “helping him to defend himself” — I don’t see that at all. Rather he seems to have been harried with an endless stream of interventions, including having a 15 year-old incident raised afresh with the police, even leading to an action from the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A third reason why a new batch of bishops would be a bad idea is that they might adopt a crudely draconian approach that would satisfy unthought-out calls for action in the short term and that would then probably be found insufficient in the long term.
on November 30th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Bill DeHaas bllithely classes Fr H with third world sex tourists. This again is a kind of unwarranted demonization.
The Sipe statistics to which he links cannot “frame” an individual without risking becoming a frame-up. What conclusion does he intend us to draw from them in any case?
on November 30th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I notice that the only way in which church authorities police adult sexual behavior is in refusing communion to divorcees. It is unfair. surely, the breaches of celibacy (where minors are not involved) are treated with don’t ask, don’t tell, whereas public adult decisions of people who remarry are treated to rigorously. The only breach of celibacy that canon law makes much of is attempted marriage.
on November 30th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Sorry, Fr. O’Leary – you have either misunderstood my points or taken them truly out of context.
Sipe’s research highlights that a sexual behavior by a celibate cleric can be much more damaging than the same behavior in society (to use your example – T.S. Eliot or any other Victorian figure you want to use). His research underlines this fact – it goes far beyond just “unequal”; “power”; or “control”. It strikes at the heart and soul of the victim.
Allow me to make a distinction between the focus of the Ryan and the Murphy report. The Ryan report focused on the schools run by religious communities using government funds and focused on individuals in these schools. The Murphy report focused on the Dublin archdiocese and the episcopal behaviors that covered up; excused; blamed; or lied about criminal sexual behavior. Yes, it used 46 case histories as a method in demonstrating the depth and complicity of gardai, government, and bishops dating back to McQuaid.
Yet, Fr. O’Leary, you continue to focus on one story (Fr. H who you obviously know) and make conclusions, etc. without answering many of the questions some of us have asked. Do you really know the whole story? Does anyone?
You correctly point out the danger of having the pendulum swing too far the other way – is there really a danger there? Sorry, but your characterization of Fr. H and his behavior; your comments about women’s views; your dismissal of sexual behavior by clerics as almost expected seems to swing too far to the other side especially given the gravity of this situation. I can explain and understand why a cleric friend and fellow colleague was involved with a teenage girl; but I do not excuse his behavior; do believe that he is answerable for his behavior; feel outright compassion and sadness for the girl’s family; and do not believe that this man has any place remaining a priest in the church. Unsure if you agree with that – you seem to feel that because they were considering marriage; the behaviors were okay? We are not talking about a culture or society in the 1990’s where teenage marriage was expected….you seem to want to make an extreme example the norm?
on December 1st, 2009 at 3:55 am
Defense of Bp Murray: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1201/1224259803432.html
Bill DeHaas, I don’t think I misunderstood your remark, which I quote: “well, guess we could put Fr. H in the role of many men who can afford to travel to third world nations to purchase under age sex (in fact, that may be one of the most alarming evils in today’s society)”
“your dismissal of sexual behavior by clerics as almost expected” — Cardinal Franjo Seper, Prefect of the CDF, said in 1971 that celibacy was very widely not observed. Richard Sipe says the same thing. I don’t say that clerical sexual activity is “almost expected” but I do say people are mature enough to take it in their stride — there is an element of what is called pharisaic scandal in displays of shock and horror here. In fact an Irish priest who declared he was leaving the priesthood to marry the woman he loved received a warm ovation from this congregation a few weeks ago.
“I can explain and understand why a cleric friend and fellow colleague was involved with a teenage girl; but I do not excuse his behavior; do believe that he is answerable for his behavior; feel outright compassion and sadness for the girl’s family; and do not believe that this man has any place remaining a priest in the church.”
I think that the tendency to hound people who commit offenses with minors out of the Church or out of society is vicious. A Church that cannot bear with flaws and mistakes in its pastors is an immature Church.
On the moral aspect, it seems that the priest wanted to rectify the situation and had spoken to the bishops about this; he had prepared to marry her. Had he done so, the situation would not have blown up to these proportions. I don’t say the behavior was OK, but I would note that once the girl had reached the age of consent it was fully legal. Indeed, if the initial sexual aspect had occurred in the UK or Northern Ireland even sex between a 40 year-old and a sixteen year-old would be fully legal.
“We are not talking about a culture or society in the 1990’s where teenage marriage was expected….you seem to want to make an extreme example the norm?” The law protects such extreme examples as well as more normal ones.
“Sipe’s research highlights that a sexual behavior by a celibate cleric can be much more damaging than the same behavior in society (to use your example – T.S. Eliot or any other Victorian figure you want to use). His research underlines this fact – it goes far beyond just “unequal”; “power”; or “control”. It strikes at the heart and soul of the victim.”
“Can be” does not mean “always necessarily is”; very many priests reach a practical accommodation with celibacy, and some bishops may be happy to see their priests involved in “a mature, discreet friendship” rather than running wild.
T. S. Eliot is not such a remote figure as you imagine. Valerie Eliot (born 1926) married T S Eliot (born 1888) in 1957. She was his secretary from 1949, when she was 23 and he was 61. The marriage was postponed until Valerie was a respectable 30 years old. Both were very happy with their relationship and Valerie continues to work for her husband’s cause 45 years after his death. Feminists may instantly write this off as exploitation, pointing to power disparities, etc. But I do not think this is a priori reprehensible at all.
on December 1st, 2009 at 7:42 am
Fr. O’Leary: Feminists are still complaining about Eliot’s marriage? Really? Where? I’d slide that complaint back under the rug. You don’t need it to advance the point I think you’re trying to make: inflexibility in dealing with a certain class of moral (if not necessarily legal) offender is not particularly Christian. Just as you don’t need to impugn the judgment of Horatio’s one-time lover to claim that the relationship wasn’t finally abusive. (That you refuse to accept the woman’s later, considered view of her own relationship should give you pause.) I can’t say how well you knew the priest, but one shouldn’t assume that sex between a 40-something and a 16-year-old is healthy because not so long ago it was “normal.” Surely you recognize the difference between desiring a 16-year-old and desiring a 23-year-old. Even Eliot waited until the woman was 30 to marry her. Most people I know would cringe if a middle-aged friend confided that he was sleeping with a 16-year-old. And if he confided a desire to marry her they would try to dissuade him. They’d wonder about his judgment, about his emotional maturity, because in this day and age teenagers are not little adults so much as they are big children. Sure, we can argue about the details, about how we got to that point and what used to be, but there’s no denying where we are. This is why we have consent laws. Sixteen is too close to Ireland’s. This is not to say Horatio should be strung up or run out of town. No one here is arguing that, or comparing him to the worst pedophiles. But, given his history, and his willingness to conceal the truth about his affair(s?), you shouldn’t be so perplexed that some of us find it worrying that he remained in active ministry (and as a bloody marriage counselor) for so long. For my part, I have doubts about the priest’s seriousness. These vague “preparations” for marriage he supposedly made. What did they entail? A little job-hunting? House-hunting? If you have decided to marry, it’s probably time to leave ministry. If your intended bride leaves you high and dry (or if she never gave you reason to make such preparations in the first place but you convinced yourself otherwise) and you decide to remain in ministry because, well, what else are you going to do?–you’re probably not doing yourself, or the church, any favors.
on December 1st, 2009 at 11:01 am
It was only last year that Canada changed the age of consent from 14 to 16. I wonder if the change was based on empirical evidence that 14- and 15-year-olds were being damaged by inappropriate (but legal) relationships, or whether it was based on people saying 14 is just too young. Under the old law, the age was higher when an adult in a position of authority (teacher, counsellor, priest, coach) was involved.
A lot of this is cultural. I don’t imagine that the boys in ancient Greece who were courted by older men were traumatized by it. Of course, as with any cultural comparison, it has to be pointed out that we live in our culture now, and the fact that things have been different in different ages and different cultures does not mean we should abandon our current approach to them.
I do wonder, however, if a bad situation is not made worse by overly emotional reactions. You will find statements like the following in just about any information about child abuse: “Parental distress is associated with child distress, i.e., the more the parent is negatively affected by the crime, the more the child is negatively affected.” In today’s atmosphere, how are parents expected to keep their cool when child sex abuse may be a possibility? There was a case in Connecticut a few years ago in which a father, upon hearing allegations from his wife that his 2-year-old daughter had been sexually abused by a neighbor, promptly went over and stabbed the neighbor to death. It turned out the neighbor was innocent.
on December 1st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
“Feminists are still complaining about Eliot’s marriage? Really? Where?”
Having read the very unjust book of Anthony Julius (Princess Di’s lawyer) tarring Eliot as an antisemite, and having seen the equally unjust film “Tom & Viv” about Eliot’s first marriage, I am highly suspect of the rhetoric built up in adversarial cases, and refuse to take sides in “he said/she said” scenarios, especially when they have not been adjudicated in a court of law.
Yes, I would of course deplore an affair between a 40 yo and a 16 yo and warn the 40 yo to desist. Yet I also recall that “love is no respecter of age” (Pushkin), that Goethe cultivated an inspiring passion for a 17 year old when he was 72 and unsuccessfully proposed marriage to her when he was 74 (for “little girls get bigger every day” as a song probably now regarded as pedophiliac puts it). Stefan George vowed a cult to Maximilian Kronberger when he was 14: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kronberger. There are many young people who are sexually attracted only to older people.
istian. Just as you don’t need to impugn the judgment of Horatio’s one-time lover to claim that the relationship wasn’t finally abusive. (That you refuse to accept the woman’s later, considered view of her own relationship should give you pause.) I can’t say how well you knew the priest, but one shouldn’t assume that sex between a 40-something and a 16-year-old is healthy because not so long ago it was “normal.” Surely you recognize the difference between desiring a 16-year-old and desiring a 23-year-old. Even Eliot waited until the woman was 30 to marry her. Most people I know would cringe if a middle-aged friend confided that he was sleeping with a 16-year-old. And if he confided a desire to marry her they would try to dissuade him. They’d wonder about his judgment, about his emotional maturity, because in this day and age teenagers are not little adults so much as they are big children. Sure, we can argue about the details, about how we got to that point and what used to be, but there’s no denying where we are. This is why we have consent laws. Sixteen is too close to Ireland’s. This is not to say Horatio should be strung up or run out of town. No one here is arguing that, or comparing him to the worst pedophiles. But, given his history, and his willingness to conceal the truth about his affair(s?), you shouldn’t be so perplexed that some of us find it worrying that he remained in active ministry (and as a bloody marriage counselor) for so long. For my part, I have doubts about the priest’s seriousness. These vague “preparations” for marriage he supposedly made. What did they entail? A little job-hunting? House-hunting? If you have decided to marry, it’s probably time to leave ministry. If your intended bride leaves you high and dry (or if she never gave you reason to make such preparations in the first place but you convinced yourself otherwise) and you decide to remain in ministry because, well, what else are you going to do?–you’re probably not doing yourself, or the church, any favors.
on December 1st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Oops, didn’t mean to reprint GG’s post.
On Eliot, there is also the classic “woman scorned” scenario of Emily Hale, his muse. He broke her heart five times: by leaving her for Europe, by marrying Vivien Haigh-Wood, by refusing to marry her when that marriage broke down, by refusing to marry her when Vivien died, and — the last straw — by marrying Valerie Fletcher. Emily then dumped her letters from the poet in Harvard Library and Eliot’s lawyers quickly imposed an embargo on the letters until 2020 or so! Being a gentle soul she did not indulge in any more vindictive reaction. Recall the breach of promise cases once so popular for many more such scenarios. Wise men are very careful not to end up in one of them.
Why do I lend only a skeptical ear to what people say against Eliot? First, because I am suspicious of politically correct outrage; second, because the discussions are far too often marked by flights into the suppositious; third, because I have the strong impression that Eliot was a very good man, and even if he made grave mistakes I would not think that would eliminate this goodness.
on December 1st, 2009 at 10:40 pm
A good piece here: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1202/1224259893373.html
on December 1st, 2009 at 10:45 pm
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1202/1224259894359.html
I am astonished at his optimism.
on December 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 am
“21.6 In 1989, Fr Horatio approached Bishop Murray and told him that he was attracted to a young girl in a family to which he was close.
GG, you misreport this above as happening in the late 1990s, thus magnifying the age discrepency from about 24 years to 34 years, and diminishing the time lapse between the behavior complained about and the complaint itself from 15 years to 5 years.
on December 2nd, 2009 at 2:19 am
I don’t think it is otiose to quibble about accuracy on such a matter.
on December 2nd, 2009 at 9:17 am
You’ll have to forgive me, Fr. O’Leary, as I’m not clear on where you think I’ve erred. According to the report, Horatio was “born in the 1940s.” You have me at a disadvantage, since you knew the man (or know him?). You’re saying he was in his thirties when he first started having sex with the 16-year old? Then allow me to clarify: if a friend in his thirties told me he was having sex with a 16-year-old I would advise him to stop immediately and then interrogate him about his motives. And if he said he wanted to marry her, I’d probably biff him in the head. Because this is not the early or even mid-twentieth century. And when a grownup believes he wants to spend the rest of his life with someone who has never paid an electric bill, he’s likely quite confused. Or regressing.
You call for a rather strenuous effort at making distinctions in the case of this priest you knew, yet seem happy to lump all “the feminists” together and blame them for this woman’s own views of this obviously dysfunctional relationship with a priest who may have been more than twice her age (all the while railing against “suppositious outrage”). One of these things is not like the other. Give up the ghost. We don’t speak of “women scorned” anymore because it implies that they have a special, deeper capacity for scorn than men, which, you know, a lot of women find insulting. Almost as insulting as the presumption that if you wear a Roman collar you must have a thing for little boys.
on December 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
As this thread winds down, it seems, i wonder:
-will there be any attention to the Vatican role, centering on the nuncio or not?
–will we have a thread on the released documents in Connecticut and the actions of the former hoierrach ther ewho became shepherd of the New York Archdiocese?
on December 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Grant Gallicho, the mistake was your phrase “at the end of the 90s” when in fact the relationship was at the end of the 80s.
“since you knew the man (or know him?).” Knew personally in 1980.
” You’re saying he was in his thirties when he first started having sex with the 16-year old?”
We don’t know if he had full intercourse with her, or indeed whether the relationship was even predominantly sexual (recall that all his other known relationships are homosexual). I do not know his age but I think he would have been close to forty when the girl was 16 in 1987.
“if a friend in his thirties told me he was having sex with a 16-year-old I would advise him to stop immediately and then interrogate him about his motives. And if he said he wanted to marry her, I’d probably biff him in the head.”
AGREE with first half of this; in fact you put it too mildly.
DISAGREE with second — many men fall in love with minors and propose to them when they come of age.
“Because this is not the early or even mid-twentieth century.”
I have many colleagues who proudly boast of their wives 20 or 30 years younger than themselves, now. in the 21st century.
If you are going to invoke chronological relativism, what about cultural relativism? In Japan and ancient Greece and the Islamic world recall that quite different attitudes prevail or prevailed. How does this inflect one’s judgment?
“And when a grownup believes he wants to spend the rest of his life with someone who has never paid an electric bill, he’s likely quite confused. Or regressing.”
Likely, but not necessarily. And in any case people grow and learn, and the lover will help the younger partner to reach maturity more quickly.
I don’t really get this age thing you make so much of. Once there is no question of illegal sex with minors I don’t see any prohibitive ethical taboos.
on December 2nd, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Thank you, Bill deHaas, for your posts throughout here, and especially for quoting Fr. Donald Cozzens. It was my very great privilege to meet him again at the recent VOTF conference. That great man belongs on every short list for bishop, but of course it will never happen.
His stirring words were and are balm for the soul. And he does not mince them:
“Your voice, the voice of the faithful laity, has spoken with urgency and strength and clarity to church leaders and to the church as a whole at a time when the voice of priests and bishops is hardly heard at all—except to minimize, contextualize, and rationalize the abuse scandals and their cover-up that have led to the worst crisis ever faced by the U.S. Catholic Church.”
From a letter I sent the Limerick Leader about Donal Murphy:
“…what does it take to wake up and realize that no matter how pleasant or charming Murray may be, how delightful a dinner companion, or skilled as an intellectual or thoughtful to widows and orphans, the man is responsible for criminally endangering vulnerable children — in any common sense understanding of justice.
Murray must be held accountable beyond the promotion to higher office he already enjoys as the only consequence of his appalling negligence.”
We hear the same spin from Egan and the NY archdiocese today on the release of the Bridgeport documents:
“Egan had ‘aggressively investigated’ all allegations of abuse.” Just read excerpts from Egan’s infuriating deposition to know how correct Cozzens is about statements by priests and bishops: “minimize, contextualize, and rationalize”
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/2002_03_17_Rich_ADefensive_Gavin_OConnor_4.htm
As for Ireland, may the nuncio be removed as dean of the diplomatic corps at a minimum, for using bureaucratic niceties to hide the truth about sexual crimes. While the Holy See thumbs its nose at Irish authorities, I wonder how many documents bishops may have sent to the Vatican embassy to gain diplomatic immunity from law enforcement.
The pattern of episcopal response is the same everywhere, apparently, but I never get used to it.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:41 am
“…what does it take to wake up and realize that no matter how pleasant or charming Murray may be, how delightful a dinner companion, or skilled as an intellectual or thoughtful to widows and orphans, the man is responsible for criminally endangering vulnerable children — in any common sense understanding of justice.”
Can you point to any bishop in the early 1980s, in comparable circumstances, who did better?
Is there reason to think that a new Vatican appointee, of lower intellectual caliber, less proven care for the faithful, less experience, will do better?
on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:44 am
See also this: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1203/1224259997276.html
on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:46 am
The wife and daughter of a victim who committed suicide say they think people are using the story to “get at” Dr Murray, who they say was a great help to them.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Well, O’Leary and I will never agree about this, but he does have the right idea about liturgy.
I am heartened though that even the local Limerick Reader calls for Murray’s resignation, despite his good qualities.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
And today’s Irish Times: bishops’ reactions “mindboggling – they seem incapable of responding”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/1203/1224259998203.html
Theologian calls on all bishops in report to resign
PATSY MCGARRY, Religious Affairs Correspondent
ALL BISHOPS named in the Dublin diocesan report “should resign immediately from their current pastoral positions”, leading theologian Dr Vincent Twomey has said.
The former professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, said “the longer they delay in doing so, the greater the damage they will do to all faithful Catholics, and in particular to the survivors of abuse who are still paying the price for the sins of their priests and bishops”.
In a letter published in The Irish Times today, he says “my instinct is to defend the church from unfounded attacks. But the revelations of the Murphy report are something else. The actions, or rather for the most part, the inactions of the bishops named there are simply indefensible.”
He says: “at the very least, it would seem, all were guilty of negligence – some, such as Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick, whose behaviour was described as ‘inexcusable’, more than others. But all were deemed guilty of inaction, of failing to listen to their conscience, as Mary Raftery put it on radio and television.”
Author of a number of books including End of Irish Catholicism? , Dr Twomey was a doctoral pupil of the current pope for seven years at Tübingen University in Germany.
He is also a member of the Schülerkreis, an annual conference of the pope’s graduate students who meet the pontiff annually. This get-together has taken place at Castel Gandolfo every summer since Pope Benedict’s election to the papacy in 2005.
Speaking last night, Dr Twomey said he had written the letter in a personal capacity. He had found the response of Ireland’s Catholic bishops following publication of the report last week “mind-boggling”.
“They seem incapable of responding,” he added.
In his letter, Dr Twomey says the bishops “were deemed guilty of putting the interests of the institution above the safety and welfare of children. Their failure to act when necessary, whatever the motivation, caused profound emotional damage to the victims of clerical sexual abuse and their families, and facilitated even more abuse.”
He said “their failure to act decisively has also, as Fr Tom Doyle, the American canon lawyer, said on Prime Time , caused untold spiritual damage to those entrusted to their pastoral care”.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Speaking of mental reservbations/lies’
-What to make of the Egan depositions as reported in CT and the NYT?
-And worse, what to make of Abp. Dolan’s defense of him?
-or maybe even worse, the Abp joining forces with other good hierrachs and the likes of Anne Coulter to tell us wht’s really important?In my opinion, the new Abp of Ne wyork continues to continually disappoint with his defensiveness, and, for a historian, his intellectual honesty.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Bob, it’s a wasteland of spin, a consistent and widespread pattern whether in the US, Ireland, Vatican City, you name it.
I drew up a list of “lies” by NH bishops, comparing their perjury of the truth against what the attorney general found. For interesting reading:
http://votf.org/Survivor_Support/truth_list.html
Just substitute the names of our prelates for those anywhere else. The script is well established. They really stay on message, as developed by the NY PR firm, R.F. Binder, that orchestrated the Dallas conference talking points.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Thanks, Carolyn. Been out of pocket for almost 3 days.
Fr. O’Leary – here are some of my concerns about your responses:
- did any bishop respond well in the 1980’s – very few but so what and what does this have to do with the current call for his resignation? we have already seen too many documents about bishops in the 1980’s failing to address the issue and now as bishops in the new century making some of the same mistakes; continuing to not speak out or offer a different way. sorry, your question does not absolve the bishop from decisions he has made since the Fern Report
- your comments about Fr. H and all priests, celibacy, etc. Actually, your statement that many bishops would welcome the fact that one of their priests was in a stable relationshop; discreet, not public, etc. Reminds me of my formation direction days when an incident would occur and the first question was = with a boy? you almost welcomed it when the facts were about a female. Now I look back and realize how sophomoric, immature, and clerical that approach and attitude is?
- you state that catholics in the pew are mature enough to handle and understand relationships – wish that were true but experience tells me differently. Yes, most catholics or parishes will respond as they did with the Irish priest or Fr. Cutie but we recently had an associate leave and he was not allowed to state the facts – the pastor/bishop used the diocesan policy on sabbaticals and just said that he was going on sabbatical. Of course, rumors, etc. flew – so, who treated who as “children” in this setting?
- from a formation director/professional setting. In the behavioral health field, you spend years getting your degree and license. There are strong professional ethics in terms of clients and counselor behaviors. Your examples about age differences, etc. do matter – they would raise red flags and probably result in some type of sanction, etc. Not sure if this 16 yr. old was a parishioner or not but what the church most needs are a set of professional ethics and priests in their role as ministers, pastors, chaplains, teachers must be held to that. Agree with you that on a personal life level, what a priest does relationally needs to be handled with charity and understanding but I draw a pretty deep line between how you handle him personally and how you handle him professionally. That is the biggest failing for bishops, nuncios, religious superiors.
Thanks to Grant – his replies are right on target about society, age diference, boundaries between a man and a girl; and especially his comments that a priest in his 30/40’s who has already had some incidents is now considering house hunting, job hunting, etc. no longer belongs in active ministry. You say we should not force them out – my comments are not about leaving the church….my comments do clearly state that this man does not belong in active ministry and possibly, not as a cleric.
Either the church respects and supports the promise of celibacy or it does not. Yes, there are always grey areas but the failures over the years has been because there has been little effort to continue to “form” priests – it stops at ordination. Bishops/dioceses need to continue to support and form men emotionally, personally, professionally, ministerally, etc. and not just accept that things happen or that a priest at ordination has finished his growth.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Carolyn Disco, the fact that the only theologian calling for Bp Murray’s resignation is Vincent Twomey is suggesting. Vincent is one of Benedict XVI’s favorite students and notoriously dismissed the Ryan report by saying it concerned only “the dregs of society”. His speech now is not about the worthy concerns you mention but, once again, about defending the institutional facade.
Bill DeHaas, you admit that Murray did no worse than any other bishop at the time; since then he had done far better than most, so that even victims’ relatives do not want him to be targeted. My second question stands: What guarantee is there that the replacement named by the Vatican — Vincent Twomey for example — would handle these difficult matters any more competently?
on December 3rd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Well, Bill DeHaas. “either the church supports the promise of celibacy or it does not” — you can say the same thing about the teaching on birth control.
Both teachings are highly unpopular on all levels. What in practice do you recommend?
on December 3rd, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I recommend scrapping both, and I am sure many bishops would agree — but Rome has forbidden episcopal conferences to discuss celibacy (this has been the case for at least 30 years),
on December 3rd, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Sophomoric, immature, for religious superiors to accept that a priest is in a discreet, mature relationship rather than fooling around?
Well, in that case the logical thing would be for the church to make breaches of celibacy a cause for automatic dismissal from the clerical ranks. Is that what you are calling for?
Or perhaps you would expel only priests who are discerned to lack a serious commitment to celibacy.
Unfortunately the way the celibacy promise is administered is not such as to guarantee serious commitment.
Many priests see no positive value in celibacy but accept it as a sort of tax.
Dealing with concrete situations. it is understandable that bishops resort to a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.
If an irregular situation is thrust on their attention I don’t think it is immature and sophomoric of them to handle it in a discerning, differentiated way.
on December 3rd, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Bill DeHaas, you refer to “decisions Bp Murray has made since the Ferns Report” — what decisions are you referring to?
on December 3rd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
In fairness to Vincent Twomey he did make a winning apology for the “dregs of society” remark in the Irish Times. He is also a sincere and principled man. Perhaps he stands for the kind of consistency Bill DeHaas calls for. I hear that he would disrecommend students for ordination if he felt they had difficulties with Humanae Vitae, which is indeed logical. His book “The End of Irish Catholicism?” (2003) did not have anything about clerics and minors as far as I recall.
Why would I prefer Murray to Twomey as a bishop handling these difficult issues? Because Twomey is very much in the mold of doctrinal orthodoxy, which the Murphy report criticized as a basis for episcopal appointments. Bp Murray is also a champion of Humanae Vitae, but as a trained moral theologian he is probably better at handling gray areas. Vincent’s formation was in patristics; he has a thesis on the Papal Primacy in Eusebius and Athanasius; perhaps he was appointed lecturer in moral theology in Maynooth (at Ratzinger’s suggestion?) on the same ground that doctrinal purity is all you need. Meanwhile a whole string of trained Irish moral theologians were found to be suspect, even heretical, by Irish bishops.
on December 4th, 2009 at 10:28 am
One last plea: Can we not discern between cases where there is grave damage done to children, and where police intervention is called for, and on the other hand minor incidents like Fr H’s 1980 misdemeanor? The current policy of treating both as police matter, even dragging out inquiry into them so that they reappear 15 years later and 29 years later, is unjust, and has caused many priests to be harried, hounded and demonized.
I think Jesus stands with the hounded and demonized. not with those who do the hounding. He would probably say they are more sinned against than sinning. and would add “neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more” (that is in the Gospel, isn’t it?)
Bishops should react promptly to the former kind of cases. But if they are bullied into treating every allegation as matter for criminal investigation they will have to repress any instincts of mercy and human understanding, as the hang-’em-high brigade has shown itself all too ready to do. Need it be added that in the process all fraternal or paternal bonds between a bishop and his priests will be destroyed?
on December 4th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Fr. O’Leary – completely agree with your last post and no, this theologian and I would not see eye to eye on most anything (can’t believe the Vincentians were forced to employ him at Maynooth).
Above I tried to make a distinction between damage done to children that is clearly criminal and the types of sexual escapades that create another type of damage to the parish, diocese, etc.
Agree that on a moral level, we need to use grace, mercy, etc. and agree that these matters are rarely criminal. On the other hand, I was dead serious about the lack of professional ethics; consistency in dealing with priests that stray (especially if it appears to be a pattern); and separating ministerial assignments from how to deal with a man individually and personally.
We both probably agree that at the heart of the matter is an outdated church theology/morality around most sexual issues. Your comparison between birth control and sexual behaviors by priest, tho, is comparing apples to oranges.
Reality – any bishop/religious superior/pastor even must live and deal in a very shaking environment. We continue to see Rome draw a bright line around sexual behaviors – very condemning and rigid; we know that the church calls homosexuality disordered and yet 30% or more of its clerics are gay; we know per folks such as R. Sipe that across a career 50% of all clerics will violate celibacy.
Yet, that means as it is today we leave it up to current leadership to deal with a very confused and mixed up almost hypocritical environment. You acknowledge that celibacy requirement makes no sense and you ask to treat priests as if the requirement is already gone. That is where one of the significant disconnects is – on the one hand, folks preach and act as if they are celibate; but on the other hand, behind closed doors, we have behaviors that can truly damage folks. Living is messy but the current church set up for clerics creates a dilemma within an enigma (or whatever the Churchill saying was). Understand what you are trying to do but it comes across as having it both ways which stretches the boundaries; creates too many gaps which can be abused.
on December 4th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I agree about the importance of professional ethics. The Church’ focus on sexual individual ethics, to be resolved in the Confessional, caused it to take its eye from the ball where professional deontology was concerned. In Ireland, a certain managerial sloppiness added to this.
Why is the comparison of the widespread rejection of HV on contraception and the widespread breaches to celibacy one between “apples and oranges”? In both cases a sexual discipline imposed unilaterally by the Vatican is ignored by many of those to whom it applies. You may say that scandal results in the former case but not in the latter. But the Vatican would say that the former case is a source of scandal too, effectively undercutting the Church’s witness all along the sexual front and even its witness against abortion.
on December 4th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Viincentians? No, his employers at Maynooth were the Irish Bishops. They willingly appointed him. The academic staff there may not have been entirely happy that he was appointed to teach moral theology (not the first time a non-moral theologian was chosen by the bishops for this role). His best contribution to Maynooth was in the area of Patristics anyway, especially as founder of the Maynooth Patristic Conferences.
Vincentians do serve as spiritual directors at Maynooth, founded in 1795 to form the Irish diocesan clergy.
Vincent Twomey is an SVD priest (Societas Verbi Divini missionaries).
on December 7th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Well, the first shoe to drop….link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/irish-bishop-is-first-to-quit-over-child-sex-abuse-scandal-1836062.html
This is only the beginning; unlike Boston, it will take more than just one “Law” to assuage the outrage; criminal behaviors; and cover-ups by church, government, gardai.
on December 8th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Has he actually quit? Here is a radio interview: http://www.limerickdiocese.org/interview_09.pdf
Outrage can force someone to quit, who yet may be guiltless.
on December 8th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Fr. O’Leary – not trying to offend nor judge. But, would caution against conflating various accountabilities:
- criminal behaviors which may include cover-ups, commission/omissions in applying these codes
- professional and ministerial leadership accountability which includes responsibility to his own priests, parishes, and people. Sorry, the old 1980’s excuses that we only followed medical recommendations has become lame and weak. Was communication to the people open and clear? Was oversight of a questionnable priest implemented? Was this “priest” put back into active ministry? Would suggest that relying on Rome to manage this is another lame and weak link;
- personal, moral behavior……this is a judgment by God.
Just like in any societal, business, political leadership context – behaviors can result in outcomes that may have no direct link to personal guilt, criminal behavior, etc. But, as a leader there is an accountability (Truman’s The Buck Stops Here) which requires action that may result in resignation, stepping down, changing positions, etc. Accountability is different from personal guilt – on another note, mixing these various levels (and am sure that others could add more levels) is what created confusion around issues such as handling abusers both criminal (kids) and non-criminal (adults).
There needs to be a consideration and weighting given to the community – its health, its moral compass, its integrity. These can be violated without being criminal; without being personally guilty.
To be honest, Carolyn and folks would remind us that current legal statutues allow lots of wiggle room given SOLs so that some bishops’ behaviors can no longer be criminally adjudicated but this does not mean that they acted correctly, properly, or appropriately.
on December 8th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Today’s Irish Times talks of “the impending resignation of Dr Murray”. Rome may refuse his resignation, if offered.
on December 9th, 2009 at 2:53 am
This is juicy: http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2009/12/end-old-boys-club-says-priest-who.html
on December 11th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
My, this thread has (properly in some ways) gone on.
Popping up on my MSN home screen is the headline that the Pope is “distressed” by the Irish abuses.
I recall my courses in counselling and being told trhat to say one was “distressed” was to use an inhuman word and intellectualization of bad feeling instead of expressing the real compassion needed.
It remains to be seen how Rome at a distance will deal with the “distress” and particularly the bishops there.