BIG NEWS with Dave Crampton
Paying for the sins of the Fathers
It’s Easter already and that must mean the Church is in the news again. Usually at Easter the media report on some
Church leader denying the virgin birth of Jesus or his resurrection, but that is so common now it’s not even news. This
year’s news is sex abuse by Catholic clergy and it is the cover story on TIME magazines Easter edition.
The news throughout holy week is the holy scandal in the Catholic Church in the US. In the past two months, 55 priests
in 17 dioceses have been suspended or have retired because they sexually abused children. This time of the year the
churches should be concentrating on the events of the Easter story. But officials in the Catholic Church in the US have
more pressing matters at hand – and they all revolve around the hands of sinful priests who abuse those who confide in
them. It’s the worst form of abuse. Clergy are seen to have moral authority – well that authority is quickly slipping
away because of the much publicised sins of the Fathers.
Since 1985, 70 US priests have been sent to prison for sexual abuse. One, Father John J Geoghan, abused 130 children and
is now serving a 10-year prison sentence. In January, one diocese paid out $210 million dollars in an abuse case and
since then at least 28 US priests have been forced to retire or have been removed from office. The latest scandals,
mainly in Boston and New York, could cost the Catholic Church hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements and legal
costs. The Boston diocese has agreed to pay up to $30 million for the sins of their 15 paedophile priests. Catholics are
getting annoyed. Guess where their collection money is going?
When the news broke in the Boston Globe, then spread to the Washington Post then spread to TIME magazine and just about
every metropolitan daily paper in the western world like a cancer, the Vatican decided to publicly comment. But Vatican
officials didn’t overtly apologise – instead Joaquin Navarro-Valls, chief spokesman for Pope John Paul II, told The New
York Times the church needed to prevent gays from becoming priests – as if it were gays that were doing the abusing.
Last week the Pope commented, and said the scandal was causing a “dark shadow of suspicion” over the priesthood and was
undermining the Churches moral authority. To the Pope, the damage done to this “moral authority” appeared more important
than the damage to those sexually abused at the hands of priests.
The Pope did not write the letter or read it aloud, and the main topic was penance. Maybe the Vatican thinks penance is
for other people. He described the sex abuse as “mysterium iniquitatis” (the mystery of evil)", stopping short of using
the P-word. Well, it’s certainly evil. There's nothing very mysterious about paedophilia. It's a crime.
Here’s how it the abuse happens: First, priests are suspected of "fooling around" with the altar boys, then complaints,
then more complaints. Superiors take notice and so do diocesan lawyers. Those who have been abused are asked to keep
quiet for the good of the Church. So they keep quiet. No parishioners find out. No-one tells the police. The lawyers
(good Catholics) stonewall and hardball; the church's doctors (good Catholics too) pronounce the priest cured and the
priest is quietly transferred to another parish. Then the cycle continues. The Vatican ignores the abuse, but the aged
virgins in the Vatican certainly know what is going on, but the abuse is ignored to preserve the dwindling number of
priests in the Catholic Church. The parish shunting treatment Geoghan got from his Archbishop Boston’s Cardinal Bernard
Law just gave him opportunities to abuse children in as many parishes as he could. And he did. Many are calling for
Cardinal Law’s resignation as he concealed sin.
In January, the Vatican issued guidelines for handling sex abuse by clergy, but amazingly reporting the abuse to police
wasn`t in the guidelines, giving priests a free rain to abuse more children under cover and with collar. The US Catholic
Church prefers to keep the abuse in-house. It still does, it’s just that the media won’t let it any more.
The Catholic Church probably has no more abusers than, say, the Anglicans, but what is staggering is the extent of the
abuse. Many priests are multiple abusers over several years in several parishes having been pushed from parish to parish
by bishops hoping to hide priestly sin.
The publicity is leading to calls for the draconian rule of priestly celibacy to be removed, as if celibacy has a link
with paedophilia. But the only link between priestly paedophilia and priestly celibacy is that celibacy stops good men
from becoming priests. Consequently many who do become priests get paid by the church and sin against the church. In
return the Church also sins by concealing the abuse. It’s an ongoing, repeating cycle.
About a year ago, Big News noted that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia splashed out NZ$250 000 for an advertising
recruitment campaign through cable TV to get more priests. Ordinations have dropped 42 percent since 1975, while the
Catholic population in the US has increased 23 percent. They need more priests. Last year one large US diocese enrolled
just two priests. One large Irish diocese enrolled none. If that carries on there won’t be a priesthood in 15 years –
which may not be a bad thing given the current state of affairs. The “Philadelphia Priest Call” has the slogan of
“ordinary men called to do extraordinary work”. I wonder how many men answered the call to hide their urges? Paedophilia
in Philadelphia, perhaps? Now that’s extraordinary!
But, back to the issue. To the Vatican, concealing child abuse by criminals in collars seems to be less of a sin than
contraception and abortion. Breaking the law is less of a sin than breaking church rules that have nothing to do with
biblical edicts. Women priests, married priests and breaking vows of celibacy are more of an iniquity than exposing
abuse by clergy.
That’s where the Catholic Church of America has got its priorities wrong, and now its going to cost them a great deal of
money. Church leaders could have avoided unnecessary payouts, and prevented hundreds of abuse cases, by being open and
honest in the first place.