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Catholic Church in America has a pedophilia crisis, but in truth,
it's a crisis of leadership. Consider the following revelations
the Boston Globe made on Thursday, based on court testimony
and documents:
 In
1996, as state authorities were preparing to arrest Father John
Geoghan, Bernard Cardinal Law wrote to the man whom he knew to be
a serial molester of children: "Yours has been an effective
life of ministry, sadly impaired by illness. ...God bless you, Jack."
Brooklyn
Bishop Thomas V. Daily, who oversaw Geoghan in his previous role
as an auxiliary Boston bishop, explained the kid-gloves treatment
archdiocesan officials gave Geoghan as "concern of the public
reaction." Said Daily, excusing his own inaction: "I am
not a policeman; I am a shepherd." Bishop Daily also testified
that he believed at the time that priests had immunity from civil
or criminal charges of sexual abuse.
Newly
public Church documents show that Monsignor Francis S. Rossiter,
the pastor at Geoghan's final parish, had been made aware that Geoghan
had been removed from several parishes for abusing children. Yet
he assigned Geoghan to work with altar boys and youth groups. When
Msgr. Rossiter was questioned under oath last year about the matter,
he first denied he knew about Geoghan's past, then when questioned
a second time, replied, "I really can't say."
Even
as Geoghan was removed from parish after parish following allegations
of child molestation, his superiors, including two cardinals, wrote
to him with kindness and warmth. Typical of these missives was this
excerpt from a Law letter to Geoghan, upon reassigning him to St.
Julia parish in 1989: "It is most heartening to know that things
have gone well for you and that you are ready to resume your efforts
with a renewed zeal and enthusiasm," Law wrote, extending his
blessing "upon you and all whom you serve so well." In
1994, after Law suspended Geoghan yet again, following more molestation
complaints, the cardinal wrote sympathetically to the monstrous
cleric: "I realize this is a difficult time for you and for
those close to you. If I can be of help to you in some way, please
contact me."
Nowhere in
any of these documents is there evidence that the churchmen who
so agonized about the welfare of Father Geoghan ever showed concern
for the children he was raping and fondling, or their families.
Indeed, as the Globe reported, "With just one exception,
the Geoghan records and the transcripts of depositions of church
officials contain no hint that anyone around the cardinal urged
him to remove children from Geoghan's reach until 1993."
There's no
nice way to put this: The cardinal and his men come across as downright
pathological. It is inconceivable that a normal person faced with
a man who sexually abuses children would not react with horror
and disgust. Yet Law and his men saw Geoghan as nothing more dangerous
than a pitiful creature in need of tender loving care and endless
second chances. The 130 violated children and their families were
mere abstractions, of concern to the hierarchy only insofar as they
had the ability to embarrass the archbishop publicly with their
accusations.
Aside from
Cardinal Law, there are five current bishops involved in the Geoghan
civil trials, because they once served administratively in Boston
and had responsibility for overseeing Geoghan. They are Daily of
Brooklyn; Alfred C. Hughes of New Orleans; John B. McCormack of
Manchester, N.H.; William F. Murphy of Rockville Center, N.Y.; and
Robert J. Banks of Green Bay, Wis. Among them, these bishops are
responsible for the spiritual welfare of 4.3 million Catholics.
It is fair, indeed sadly necessary, for Catholic families in those
dioceses to ask if their bishops still retain the sanguine view
of priest-pedophiles that obtained during their tenure in Boston.
As it happens,
the 1.6 million Catholic souls under Daily's care include my family
and me. It hardly assures this Catholic father to read the bishop's
protest that he is "a shepherd, not a policeman" when
there are prowling wolves about. Worse is Daily's claim that during
the time he was monitoring Geoghan, he didn't realize that priests
were criminally or civilly liable for sexually assaulting children.
The man is either lying under oath or is denser than a week-old
bagel.
Perhaps it's
more charitable to assume Daily is thick; the alternative is to
consider that he is corrupt, a Catholic bishop who would perjure
himself to protect his reputation. Still, it is hard to believe
that a stupid man was the chancellor of the fourth-largest diocese
in the United States. It is impossible to accept that a cleric this
accomplished was unaware of one of the most basic facts regarding
the legal status of priests.
Whatever the
case, this is where the Boston rubber meets the Brooklyn road. This
Catholic father has no confidence that his bishop is doing his part
to keep children safe from child predators among the priesthood.
One has to wonder if there are any Father Geoghans running loose
in this diocese, implicitly protected by the willful ignorance of
a bishop who considers himself a "shepherd, not a policeman."
The Geoghan
story has finally become news here in New York, thanks to a Times
report today. Empire State legislators, as well as state lawmakers
across the country, should consider following their counterparts
in the Massachusetts state Senate and passing legislation compelling
churches to open their files to reveal evidence of past child-abuse
cases among the clergy.
The credible
threat of this action in his state forced Cardinal Law to declare
on Thursday that he would order the Boston Archdiocese to do so
voluntarily. Fine, but it's fair to ask: Do Boston Catholics trust
this archdiocesan leadership to hand over the files? All of them?
As Steven Rubino, a veteran victims' attorney says in my cover story
in the new National Review, "I don't want to hear about
another new policy until someone says to me that someone other than
the fox guarding the henhouse has examined the files."
It's a shame
that faithful Catholics have to be so skeptical of their bishops,
but what choice have these men left us? A Catholic should never
be put in the position of choosing between his children's good and
that of the Church. Yet here we are. The Geoghan letters reveal a feudal mindset among the top leaders in Boston — including Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, Law's predecessor — in which the welfare of a known priest molester of children was paramount, and that of his young victims and their families did not matter at all.
For example:
A relative of seven boys attacked by Geoghan wrote in 1982 to Cardinal
Medeiros protesting Bishop Daily's request to the family "that
we keep silent." The woman wrote that her family "never
as much as received an apology from the church, much less any offer
for counseling for the boys."
To which the
cardinal responded: "While I am and must be very sensitive
to a very delicate situation and one that has caused great scandal,
I must at the same time invoke the mercy of God and share in that
mercy in the knowledge that God forgives sins and that sinners indeed
can be forgiven."
Cardinal Law
said this week he had no intention of resigning his post. He also
announced his intention to appoint an expert panel to study the
best ways to handle priest sex-abuse cases in the future. Even now,
he still doesn't get it. We don't need more expert panels and bureaucratic
dodges. We need leaders with the vision and resolve to clean out
the Augean stables, now.
Given all that
we know in 2002 about the damage molesters do to their victims,
and their incurability, why does it require a colloqium of Ph.D.s
to determine that the way you deal with these monsters is to remove
them from the active priesthood immediately? Why do I suspect this
is patently obvious to, say, the night manager at a 7-11 in Dorchester,
but not to the cardinal archbishop?
As far as protecting
children and families from pedophiles in the priesthood, I'll paraphrase
a great man and say it appears the Catholics of Boston would be
better off if the local Church were governed by the first 500 people
in the Boston phonebook than Cardinal Law and his underlings.
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