Understanding the Full Context and Causes of the Scandals
by Fr. Roger Landry - December 11, 2009
On the day American Catholics celebrated Thanksgiving, Catholics in Ireland marked what should be called Ash Thursday, the first day of what portends to be a long ecclesial Lent.
On November 26, a Commission headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy published its exhaustive report on the Archdiocese of Dublin's response to allegations of the sexual abuse by minors between 1975-2004. It investigated how the Archdiocese handled 320 claims of abuse against 46 priests and gave this appalling conclusion: "The Dublin Archdiocese's preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State." When one reads the 720-page report, it is impossible to argue with those conclusions.
Although restricted to the three decades of abuse complaints in the Archdiocese of Dublin, the report details many of the same failures of ecclesiastical leadership that have been exposed elsewhere, especially in the United States, and its conclusions are just as applicable here as in Ireland. The report also raises important questions that have not yet been adequately addressed on either side of the Atlantic.
Here, the bishops in 2002 published a "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" which, with its accompanying norms, has established firm protocols to prevent the sexual abuse of minors and, should it occur, to respond to it effectively, by providing direct help to those who have suffered the abuse and by facilitating the removal from the priesthood of those who would use their office to desecrate rather than sanctify those entrusted to their care. The Charter and Norms are not perfect, but they have dramatically changed the operative culture of the Church to ensure that the protection of children is prioritized above consideration of the individual rights of priests and the reputation of the institutional Church.
The bishops have also dedicated a lot of resources and time to investigating what went wrong. The bishops hired the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to do a detailed scientific report of the number of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests, the nature of the allegations of abuse, the responses of Church leaders to the allegations, the amount of money paid to victims or alleged victims and other items from 1950-2002. This took courage and leadership to see just how bad the problem was. The 2004 report gave data from the dioceses throughout the United States.
It was accompanied by an analysis of the data and a formulation of recommendations by a lay board chaired by Attorney Robert Bennett called the "Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States." It sought to answer why individuals with a disposition to prey sexually upon minors gained admission to the priesthood and remained in the priesthood even after allegations and evidence of such abuse became known to their bishops and other Church leaders. It gave compelling, provisional answers to those questions. It recommended further study and analysis of the context and causes of the abuse, enhanced screening, formation and oversight of seminarians and priests, increased sensitivity and effectiveness in responding to allegations of abuse, greater accountability of bishops and other Church leaders, improved interaction with civil authorities, and meaningful participation by the Christian faithful in dealing with the protection of children and in Church life overall.
Advances have come in four of these areas. In November of this year, John Jay College researchers gave a presentation to the bishops on the far deeper scientific study of the causes and context of why priests abused. There is now much greater screening of candidates for the priesthood and deeper formation in chastity. There is greater cooperation with civil authorities and increased participation by laity not only on diocesan and national sexual abuse allegation review boards but also in providing administrative assistance and training to priests and to dioceses. While it's clear that there is still a lot of room for improvement in each of these areas, it's also obvious that progress is being made.
There's one area, however, in which more focus needs to be given for the Church to regain the trust necessary to carry out her mission: the accountability of bishops and Church leaders. This is why the Murphy Commission report is so important. It studied and brought to light just how inadequate was the response of Church leaders — specifically within the Archdiocese of Dublin, but its analysis also applies elsewhere — to the allegations of abuse brought to their attention. Knowing how bad the problem was, and what specifically the failures were, is a crucial first step in fixing what's broken. The second step, however, is to figure out why those failures happened. Just as the U.S. bishops recognized it wasn't enough merely to study the incidence of the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy without investigating the context and the causes of that abuse, so also it's not enough to describe the failures of Church leaders to respond adequately without examining the context and the causes of that misfeasance.
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, in his exemplary public statement in response to the publication of the Murphy report, asked, "How did those with responsibility dramatically misread the risk that a priest who had hurt one of those whom Jesus calls 'the little ones' might go on to abuse another child if decisive action was not taken? Efforts made to 'protect the Church' and to 'avoid scandal' have had the ironic result of bringing this horrendous scandal on the Church today."
How is it that so many of those in responsibility equated "protecting the Church" more with guarding the reputation and assets of the institution than defending Christ's innocent lambs? Why did they respond like lawyers instead of fathers to families whose sole motivation was to prevent abusive priests from hurting other children? With all their direct contact with recidivism in the confessional, how could they be so naïve in accepting psychological evaluations that claimed a minimal risk for abusers' abusing again? How could Church leaders seem so blind and insensitive to the reality of what it would mean for a child to be molested by a figure representing God? How could representatives of the one who promised millstones to those who harm the young (Lk 17:2) not have made preventing that horror the foremost consideration in their decision-making? Why is it that they didn't apply the canonical processes set forth by the Church to punish and remove the abusers?
These are questions that not only need to be asked, but answered.
Archbishop Martin has been crusading to try to help the Church in Ireland behave as the Church should. He opened his archdiocesan archives to the Murphy commission soon after he became Archbishop and fought off a civil lawsuit by his predecessor trying to prevent the release of those files. He has spoken repeatedly with candor, shame, sorrow and holy indignation about the "revolting story of the sexual assault and rape of so many young children and teenagers." He has publicly called on those leaders who failed to stand before the Catholics of the Archdiocese to try to defend their actions, and he has openly suggested that they examine their conscience and, if they recognize they've failed, resign their episcopal duties.
He's responding, in short, like a true leader of the Church should.
In order for the Church to recover from the tremendous destruction of the scandals — both the abuse and the failure to stop it — it is crucial for the Church to understand why Archbishop Martin's example has been so uncommon. It's also urgent that we get more leaders like him.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
