• Problem priests Problem priests When the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops released a study Friday documenting the extent and the causes of the priest sex abuse epidemic, the numbers got the headlines: At least one in every 25 American Catholic
• Problem priests
Problem priests
When the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops released a study Friday documenting the extent and the causes of the priest sex abuse epidemic, the numbers got the headlines:
At least one in every 25 American Catholic priests serving in the past five decades was a sexual predator. Those 4,397 priests sexually victimized no fewer than 10,667 children. The church paid out at least $572 million in settlements, judgments and therapy costs. More than 700 priests have been removed from active ministry in the past 30 months.
Staggering as they are, all of those numbers probably are understated. A few Catholic dioceses didn’t cooperate with the studies. Many cases, particularly those that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, certainly went unreported. The total cost of legal proceedings, as well as treatment for priests and their victims, may be as high as $750 million.
Yet the numbers are only part of the story that the bishops told on themselves Friday. Two separate studies were released, the first a statistical compilation put together by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York University. The second was a “context and causes” analysis done the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. That 12-member board, made up of prominent Catholic professionals, was created by bishops when they met in Dallas in June 2002, six months after the priest abuse scandal erupted.
The review board’s report, known as the “Bennett report,” after Washington super-lawyer Robert S. Bennett, its research chairman, saves some of its harshest language for bishops who recycled abusive priests from parish to parish or otherwise failed to protect children from predatory priests. Indeed, the panel suggests that bishops who knowingly allowed predator priests to return to ministry should be subject to the same “one strike and you’re out” rule that now governs priests.
“The actions of priests who sexually abused minors were grievously sinful,” the board said. “The inaction of those bishops who failed to protect their people from predators was also grievously sinful. Somehow, the ‘smoke of Satan’ was allowed to enter the church, and as a result the church itself has been deeply wounded. Its ability to speak clearly and credibly on moral issues has been seriously impaired.”
The Bennett panel also blasts bishops who refused, on the “myopic” advice of church lawyers, to meet with victims or victims’ rights groups. One diocesan official was reprimanded by a church lawyer for even telling a victim that he was sorry for what had happened. The panel’s report quoted one bishop as saying, “I think if we can’t talk to people and listen to people, then we’re in the wrong business.”
The Bennett report suggests one major cause of the crisis was inadequate screening and training of seminarians. Too many sexually immature and psychologically fragile young men became priests, and seminaries underplayed the difficulty of the celibate lifestyle.
The report tiptoes around the controversial subject about homosexual priests. Many conservative Catholics say the permissiveness of the post-Vatican II church led to an acceptance of sexual permissiveness, including the tacit acceptance of a gay subculture within seminaries and dioceses.
More liberal Catholics argue that if a man is celibate, it makes no difference what his sexual orientation is. The board suggests that such questions are best left to individual bishops, but that given the realities of today’s culture and the temptations within an all-male environment, “additional scrutiny” should be given to seminary candidates who are gay.
The Bennett report could be an important road map for the church in America. But the bishops are free to toss the road map right out the window. Under canon law, individual bishops are free to run their dioceses as they see fit. In Rome, church officials still regard the sex abuse question as an American preoccupation. Men like Justin Rigali, who refused to meet with victims rights groups when he was archbishop of St. Louis, are not disciplined, but rather are promoted to archbishop of Philadelphia and given a cardinal’s red hat.
The church is full of devout, intelligent and impassioned lay people who want only the best for it. Now we’ll see if the bishops can be smart enough, and humble enough, to listen to them.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
