October/November 2003

Reflections on the Church’s Sexual Abuse Crisis

I

Two cases of multiple sexual abuse of minor children by two priests of the Archdiocese of Boston were brought to light by the press and media the opening part of last year. These cases focused attention sharply on the question of the manner in which the Church handles similar cases of misconduct by priests in other dioceses.

I speak here not to defend certain bishops in their handling of cases. I speak to describe the ecclesiastical cultural context of the problem and what’s being done to address it.

Highlighting public interest in the issue is the popular perception of the Catholic Church being a highly bureaucratized religious institution that espouses some of the highest ideals and standards of morality. Certain of these ideals are framed within norms of canon law that proscribe that the Church’s clergy leadership vow lifetime celibacy.

In addition, there are the standards of professional conduct popularly understood to be part of the job description of clergy persons of any tradition, namely, that clergy persons should be stellar examples of the moral life such that they can lead others to higher standards.

II

Every service profession, religious or secular, has its weaklings and its scoundrels, members who fall short of the ideals of the profession. The Church cultured in the Biblical references to mercy and forgiveness has always dealt with clergy misconduct, be that alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual and other personal problems, in confidential ambiance in respect to the persons involved and their rights to privacy.

When we’re talking about sexual contact with minors, of course, we’re talking about a topic of high public interest if not public opprobrium. In a permissive society such as ours there nevertheless remains certain boundaries among the most obvious of which are taboos attached to sexual contact between an adult and minor children or youths. We give those taboos enforcement with the prescriptions of the law.

The Church’s confidential handling of these kinds of matters resulted in primary attention to institutional interests of the Church and secondary focus on the harm to minor children and the criminal aspects of the behavior. The church treated these matters from the vantage points of pastoral theology and psychology – the healing arts - believing it was saving the perpetrator and the victim and saving the church from scandal. Unbeknown to church leaders a greater public scandal was generating underneath that would explode in an assessment that the Church has been indifferent to victims of sexual abuse and callous to the public by the seeming secrecy of it all.

Added to the problem was the difficulty in arriving at consensus among the U.S. bishops regarding the usefulness of a national policy for handling sexual misconduct among clergy. This discussion has a history going back to the 1980s. The bishops figured each bishop was handling the issue wherever it showed up in his jurisdiction. However, there were hints and commentary that indicated the problem was not being handled thoroughly.

III

Church law sets forth that bishops are autonomous governors of their churches except where universal legislation dictates otherwise. Setting forth policy locally that obliges all bishops is ecclesiastically unconstitutional. Bishops are not answerable to one another but to the pope. Therefore, a group of bishops – in this instance – the episcopal conference of the United States (USCCB) - cannot legislate for all bishops. Bishops handle singularly the discipline of their churches while respecting canon law. Should the body of bishops agree on something touching church discipline that they wish to bind themselves to that initiative needs the authorization of the Vatican.

For the most part, the bishops were unaware of each other’s experience with the issue of sexual misconduct of priests. Each unfortunate incidence was considered highly unusual behavior in the priesthood in addition to being considered a serious moral lapse. There was the impression that instances of child sexual abuse were rare or infrequent. Bishops worked with psychologists and psychiatrists and lawyers representing the victim and the church. Certain cases involved the intervention of civil law enforcement; others not. Incidents of sexual abuse by priests were not publicized except for several celebrated cases since the 1980s. The scope of the issue was largely unknown until recent media exposure.

Canon law {c. 1395} legislates the sinfulness and unlawfulness of sexual misconduct by clergy and spells out the consequences of such behavior but is silent on any reference to the public or civil ramifications of the behavior. The Church exists in a variety of civil law jurisdictions around the world and within a variety of political sciences that sponsor those jurisdictions.

To inform their steps, bishops sometimes consult privately with one or the other fellow bishop comparing notes and taking counsel from the proven experience of one another. The sins of a priest were given the embrace of confidentiality as we give any lay person’s sins the cloak of secrecy. The behavioral, spiritual and treatment sciences were used to inform a bishop’s decision about an offending priest.

While the bishops have reiterated church moral discipline, namely, that sexual contact with those we minister to is forbidden, reprehensible and sinful, the bishops did what bishops do best, applied the salve of mercy and rehabilitation in these cases in order to save the priest, save the vocation and did not, by force of public scrutiny, give nearly as much pastoral attention to the welfare of the victims of misconduct beyond legal settlements which included provision for counseling and other supports, nor did the bishops perceive unfavorable consequences to this manner of solving cases of sexual abuse by priests.

The methods used by the bishops have run up against large outcry from church members and the general public who tend to see the behavior and the administration in response to it exclusively in criminal terms. And this part of the debate is worth it for sake of a more holistic approach to a societal problem that reaches into sectors of society beyond the clergy.

One puzzling aspect bearing down upon administrative competence will be the incomprehensible reality of certain serial perpetrators who were transferred from parish to parish or assignment to assignment only to repeat their offenses to the horror of church authorities who reassigned them. The documentary trail left in the priests' files, in those instances, was not given close tracking or analysis. This inaction serves to embarrass the Church and provokes a crisis of leadership by bishops.

The laity are now pressing for assurances and correction in direction and policy with professional misconduct of clergy and other lay leaders. The public now needs to know that the church is a safe environment for their children and that priests, by pressure of the requirements of their vocation, are not inclined to be predators. The public derives a sense of security with the routinely publicized and photographed, newspaper reported, Internet documented and otherwise monitored sexual offenders.

IV

At the meeting in Dallas, June 2002, the bishops felt enormous pressure to come up with a unison policy to address clergy misconduct and thus hone in an uneven approach to the issue and have this policy approved by Rome as binding all bishops.

The sharpest points of debate among the bishops involved the proposal for a one-strike-and-you’re-out of the ministry and possibly the priesthood, and the issue of priests who offended perhaps once in the past who underwent rehabilitation and whose records were clean ever since and were doing effective ministry. Is it just to remove these men a second time; priests in instances of older age but not eligible for retirement who would not be marketable outside ministry… how would they maintain a livelihood outside the Church? This in face of the public outcry that no priest who offends against a minor deserves to be in ministry, let alone be seen wearing a collar ever again.

Another one of the more puzzling parts of all this is that certain bishops believed or at least had little information regarding the recidivism rates of this behavioral phenomenon… they proceeded on the assumption that priests could be rehabilitated to serve again. Bishops did not have information or did not have qualified information or did not weigh the information or were not aware of the creeping professional opinion that pedophile behavior, in particular, is placed on the listings of crippling addictions and is therefore thought to be incurable.

To quote a noted priest-psychologist commenting on the public’s grasp of this sexual aberration, “… there are limitations to therapy… I received my doctorate from Columbia [University] and never heard the word pedophile spoken there. We were all naïve about this. The cases were very rare and the bishops turned to others for advice. We thought it was considerably more treatable than it was. Most people underestimated the power of this compulsion.”

While mercy, rehabilitation, forgiveness, personal conversion, are all virtues, which the church has operated with since its inception and are therefore indigenous to church culture and praxis, these virtues unwittingly provided a climate for repeat offenses by certain offending clergy. We now realize this to our shame. The victims of abuse perceive that allowing a priest to remain in ministry means the Church does not fully comprehend the harm they have endured.
The most poignant experience in the bishops’ meeting at Dallas was the personal narratives offered the bishops by several victims. These were heavy sessions and gave obvious indications of the mental and emotional hardship and confusion that overtakes victims of sexual abuse. The narratives were profoundly disturbing in their detail making one wonder – how could a priest lose focus in so horrendous a way? How could a priest lose site of his priesthood this way? We were dragged down to deep emotions to know that brother priests and several bishops failed so terribly. Tears were seen in the eyes of some bishops.

The Church shares in the harm insofar as we have been slow to correct incidences of abuse found in the Church. We are at fault for trusting without vigilance. The bishops as a body should have paid closer attention to certain warnings and intuitions and certain evidence that incidents of sexual abuse were showing up too frequently. One case is one case too many for our standards.

Bishops are at fault for not properly assessing the ramifications of the behavior and were naïve with respect to certain clergy members who were obviously ill. The Church should have been ahead of the problem with information and education and prevention.

While the bishops were, for the most part, satisfied that the problem was being handled in each unfortunate individual case, victims and their lawyers now no longer have sympathy for the Church in these cases and have called an end to the confidentiality surrounding the settlement of certain cases save for those where a victim demands anonymity.

The bottom line we are left with is the bishops need to be aggressive against priests who abuse minors while guaranteeing ecclesiastical due process for accused priests and healing services to victims. Structures and education for safe church environments for children are a must. Cooperation with civil authorities with local state reporting requirements is a must.

A joint commission of American bishops and Vatican officials clarified the details of due process. These procedures are enroute to being put in place locally through establishment of special tribunals for judging cases as regards their ecclesiastical effects emerging from clergy status and ecclesial office.

The Bishops of the United States now have established a national oversight board of distinguished lay persons of public record to oversee implementation and compliance with their Charter for the Protection of Children & Young People. This board is overseeing implementation of safe environment programs for the dioceses and also leading with certain studies of the societal and cultural and ecclesial underpinnings of the problem.

V

The press and media have couched the bishops’ administration in terms of criminal action and conspiracy. This is jarring, for no bishop would deliberately put children in harms way. There was no organized effort at racketeering and cover-up in the stumbling-fumbling effort with these cases. Nevertheless, because of instances of negligence, slip-shod record keeping, lack of oversight, and lack of communication, bishops have, unintentionally, put children in harms way.

There is evident a clash of philosophical approach to the problem of sexual abuse. The Church has viewed the problem through the lens of theology and psychology. Society views the problem through the lens of law and law enforcement. The Church has treated the problem as a profound human illness. Society treats the problem through criminal prosecution.

Even considering some of the more heinous crimes out there in society bishops have consistently argued in favor of treatment and rehabilitation of offenders. Society is skeptical about the effectiveness of treatment methods seeing public safety guaranteed when an offending person is placed under lock-and-key and thereafter removed from where decent people and their children live. But where does an offending person live for the rest of their life?

In that certain priests have done something sinful, immoral and illegal, how can we effectively bring both perspectives of law enforcement and the spiritual and healing arts to bear on the situation for the good of society and the church?

Regrettably, hysteria has pushed the issue solely in the province of law enforcement authorities and offending priests will be lost. Bishops have no choice now but to hand over a priest with a credible accusation to criminal investigation. We no longer have province to surround him to try to heal him. The public distrusts our methods of pastoral care in these kinds of cases.

VI

Lifetime celibacy is a superlative achievement. In imitation of Christ’s life and service celibacy is a gift to the Church. The Church is grateful for those countless priests who live daily fidelity to their vows. We are sympathetic and concerned about those who have not.

Our screening methods for applicants to our seminaries are among the most stringent of any profession. However, behaviorists tell us that sexual parafilias cannot be tracked or predicted by traditional testing instruments. We are left with an evaluation of patterns and indications surfacing from personal histories, testimonies and background checks.

Seminaries all over the country are reexamining their instructional and formational programs for celibate and priestly lifestyle to match the pressures and onslaughts of this age.

The church’s desire to rehabilitate an offending priest… the centuries old debate of who has jurisdiction over the criminal actions of a cleric… the developing professional assessment of sexual parafilias whether they are curable or incurable… the issue of trust that is generously given all who work for the church –clerics, lay and volunteers… the crisis with priestly numbers… the confidentiality employed with all sins confessed or revealed to the Church on part of clerics or the laity… are all elements sharply scrutinized in the current debate.

It is a critical balancing act to be of service to victims while being of service to those accused. It is a balancing act we must balance better. The Bishops of the United States are committed to protecting children and young people and to ensure that what has occurred by a fraction of the Catholic clergy population never happens again.

To quote the words of Pope John Paul II: “there is no room in ministry for a priest who abuses children.” This is the rubric to which all must adhere. The Church is where most people naturally and easily surrender their trust. I believe the Christian faithful deserves to know, in all instances, that the priest standing before them is a faithful servant.

We will hang on a cross for a while with this crisis. We trust the Holy Spirit who leads the church will work insight and healing for all of us.

March 2003
Most Reverend Joseph N. Perry
Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago