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Sister Mary Ann
Walsh, the principal spokesperson for the USCCB, proclaimed on
national television in early 2000 that she was “convinced” that “99
& 44/100 percent of (US) priests keep their celibacy.” She
emphasized twice that she was convinced. That kind of hype and
hyperbole does a great disservice to clergy and the church. Fact and
truth are more powerful and believable than denials or exaggeration.
And priests must regain believability.
Pope Benedict
XVI spoke to the Irish Bishops and to the
world October 28, 2006:
“The
church must rebuild confidence and trust damaged by clerical sex
abuse scandals, which have created deep wounds…It
is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to
take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring
again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected
and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those
affected by these egregious crimes."
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Dioceses throughout the United States are now
recording an average of 7 to 9 percent priest abusers of minors in
their records. Albany, New York is the latest diocese to register
that range. Covington, Kentucky now acknowledges that 9.6 percent of
its clergy have been reported abusers. Los Angeles had 11.5 percent
of its active clergy in 1983 who have been identified as abusers of
minors. In religious orders the number of minor abusing priests and
brothers is harder to come by, but at this time it can be estimated
at 11 percent abused during the years that we are mapping as the
most reliable measure of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic
clergy system—1960 to 1985. |
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Take a look at the expanded and revised study in this
section (IN
DEPTH—A
NEW LOOK AT ARCHIVES)
that is evaluating cases of abuse from archives made public in the
course of civil investigations of dioceses. So far (1/20/07) we have
analyzed 500 clergy abusers’ files from 10 dioceses. We are also
comparing these data against the conclusions of the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice Study (2/27/04) of the abuse crisis in the
United States. |
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We now have a chance to use and refine the work done
by that study. They concluded that accounting for the data given
them by bishops 4.25 percent of incardinated diocesan clergy abused
minors. The time line that John Jay took was one of 52 years, and
the clergy population they projected as a denominator 75,694
diocesan priests plus 34,000 religious order priests. According to
the records supplied the investigators 4,392 priests had been
accused of abuse by 2002. An additional 700 plus priests have been
named abusers since the completion of that study.
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We must remember that the data in John Jay is taken
from reports in diocesan files produced under the orders and
direction of the bishop. No one can claim that all of the
molestation at the hands of priests and bishops are recoded anywhere
in any records. That is a limitation of even the most excellent
research studies. (The police tickets written do not tell the exact
rate of vehicle speeding violations.) But the work of the John Jay
report deserves close study to help get an ever more accurate
picture of the facts of the crisis of abuse.
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The most valid figures of priest sexual abuse from
that study can be traced if its data from reports of priests
accused as a percent of all ordinations by year (p.37) are
isolated from the 52 year time line and placed squarely in the
middle of the actual crisis, not merely as it has been publicized
since 2002. If the years 1960 to 1985 are taken as the norm for
sexual behavior of clergy the proportion of minor abusing priests
becomes 9 percent. These years are important for accuracy because it
has been proven that children and adolescents who are abused take
time to absorb the trauma and report abuse—over 25 years on average.
This means that abuse perpetrated since 1985 is less likely to be
reported than actions prior to that. Also the attention of the
media, the protests of victims, the legal interventions, and the
emphasis of churches on awareness and reporting undoubtedly have had
some as-yet-immeasurable effect on the behavior of clergy, in spite
of the fact the essential elements of the clerical system prevalent
during that period have not demonstrably changed.
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In the salient 25 years we are focusing on, an
average of 300 reports of alleged incidents of abuse by date of
first instance were recorded each year (p.31). That means that
during those years the bishops of the United States co-existed with
at least 7,500 recordable minor victims under their pastoral care.
Each year during that time the annual total of accused priests
averaged 400. The lowest number annual total of incidents was
reported in 1960 at 350; the largest number was reported in 1982 at
nearly 800. (p.30) |
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The United States is not the only country where
Catholic clergy are sexually active. One report claims that a
Vatican commission found evidence of more than 1,700 cases of sexual
abuse of minors by Catholic priests in Brazil. That number would
amount to 10 percent of the Catholic clergy in Brazil. The
importance of that finding holds tremendously important implications
for consideration of the sex abuse crisis in the United States
because the more refined data coming from many US dioceses indicate
that that percentage—9 to 10 percent—is the most accurate account of
the problem here. The systemic causes and dynamics of sex abuse of
minors exist, flourish, and are continually being perpetuated by the
church everywhere and can be validated by anyone who cares to
investigate. |
The
facts—truth about the sexual activity of priests (that Pope Benedict
XVI pleads for)—have been concealed, distorted, minimized, and lied
about. Denial of the problem continues. Our task is to chip away at
the tissue of deceit, and the smoke screens continually propagated
by the PR arm of the USCCB, The Catholic League and others that
claim that the search for facts are anti-religious,
anti-Catholic, anti-priest, or anti anything else. We are solidly on
the side of the Pope. Documents now available from many bishops
shine a brilliant spotlight on how they have perpetuated and
perpetrated the pattern of deceit.
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A
bishop in the process of referring for treatment one of his priests
who had sexually abused 5 girls 10 and 11 years old noted that the
priest had made “mistakes” that were so well known in the area that
his usefulness in the service of the diocese was gone. He added,
“If he has learned the lesson of discretion he will be a valuable
priest for some other bishop.” Naming and viewing molestation of
minors as Involvements, Mistakes, and Indiscretions
is a far cry from the Pope’s view of
“egregious crimes.” Learning discretion is certainly not the
same thing as practicing celibacy, which emerges in that thinking as
inferior to causing scandal. |
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Another church official was asked to explain the meaning of the
directive to “avoid scandal.” He responded: “That you should not
commit sin and that sin should not be—if you do commit sin, that it
should not be known to others.” That definition poses a complex
problem of logic, but it is a simple declaration of the primacy of
secrecy at odds with establishing the “truth of what happened.”
The secrecy that cloaks the sexual lives of bishops and priests who
profess celibacy is the major obstacle
“to implementing the steps necessary to prevent (sexual abuse by
priests) from occurring again.” |
Therefore it is important not to isolate clergy sexual behavior with
minors from other non-celibate activity. Both are related
systemically and influence the tolerance for a whole range of
injustices, harm, and egregious crimes. The sexual abuse crisis
involving the molestation of minors is only part of the reality that
compromises the trust of priests and bishops in the experience of
people. Injustices also occur when priests are sexually active even
with consenting adult women and men. (Cf "Another
View of Sexual Abuse")
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The same report (2006) about abuse of minors found that half of all
Brazilian priests were failing to observe (celibacy) “the norms of
chastity.” |
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The Magdala
Foundation reported that 200 of the 1000, or 20 percent of priests
in the Netherlands, cannot live celibately. Magdala is an
affiliation that has 110 female members who are involved in a
secret relationship with a priest. "Some relationships are
lasting for decades" they claim. “Recently, two
women joined the foundation after an unwanted pregnancy. To hide
their sin, they chose the most radical solution— abortion.
"An act of despair, for the celibacy" of their priest partner,
said spokeswoman de Jonge-Otte from Magdala. The Catholic
Church is silent about these events. "Because of the secrecy,
we cannot judge properly", a spokesman of the Dutch church
said. -
August 12, 2006 |
Posted:
2007-01-23
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