Editorial - Op Ed

Friday May 4, 2007

This message was addressed by me originally to the congregation of St. Joseph at Noon on April 25, 2004 just prior to the dedication of the Millstone Monument constructed on the campus of St. Joseph to honor the victims of abuse by James Hanley, pastor of St .Joseph from 1972 to 1982. It also stands as an expression of the sympathy and support of the parishioners of St. Joseph then and I assume now.

The text has been edited slightly on this the third anniversary, to correct minor grammatical errors and to add stylistic adaptations.

Father Lasch
St Joseph RC Church
Mendham New Jersey
April 25, 2004

Jesus came into a world broken by sin. He came as the son of righteousness to establish a dominion of justice through a ministry of reconciliation and peace. Many missed the message and failed to make the connection between the words of the great prophets and the words of The Prophet of prophets. He was a man of peace in the midst of people who preferred to do battle if not with weapons of massive destruction, at least with words of hatred. But he refused to fight fire with fire. He preferred instead to empty himself, taking on the form of a slave, becoming powerless in the face of the powerful. His only defense was his innocence and his only resource was compassion—hard-nosed compassion. In fact, he used the innocence of a child to demonstrate to his disciples their need for total dependence on God. “Unless you become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Children are defenseless.

They are powerless and so utterly vulnerable to harm.

Even his own disciples, those who knew him the best didn’t get it at first.

Although centuries have come and gone, we still haven’t gotten it right.

Only when we as Church come to know our powerlessness will we come to know our strength. Our ‘shepherd’ leaders have not taken the lead in this regard, preferring instead to take on the marks of earthly rulers. Turning to legal strategies to protect institutions, they have abused their power and forsaken their primary commitment as shepherds of souls, especially the most vulnerable of our society.

On this day when we honor those who have suffered and survived injury not only to their bodies but to their souls, we challenge our leaders to come to the table of justice, mercy and compassion; to acknowledge their failures not just with the cautious rhetoric of world rulers guided by the careful counsel of legal advisors but with heartfelt resolve and with full purpose of amendment to confess their sins openly and seek forgiveness without equivocation.

Victims and survivors of sexual abuse, do not succumb to despair or resort to vindictive weapons of destructive words reserved for warriors but turn rather to the example of Christ who though he was equal to God, did not cling to this title but emptied himself taking on the sins of humanity and in so doing, lifted up all humanity to God.

The ‘Millstone’ monument which will be blessed and dedicated immediately following this liturgy on the parish campus of St. Joseph inMendham will remain forever as an acknowledgement of the burdens you and your families have carried, some for as many as forty years. It will also remain as a symbol of the burden that was imposed on our Church by wolves in sheep’s clothing. But it will also remain a symbol of hope that healing is still possible with the help and support of many hands and hearts who reach out as did Jesus. “Come to me all you who are heavily burdened and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulder and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest for my burden is easy and my yoke is light.”

The millstone monument remains a testimony of faith for survivors of clergy abuse across this nation and a reminder to all that sexual abuse is a life-altering experience for victims and their families. Statistics that new reports of sexual abuse were down again in 2006 to 714 from 783 in 2005 and from 1,092 though assuring to many, are not encouraging to all, particularly in the mind of most experts, the number of those who come forth are only a small percent of those who will never come forth. And when you add to that statistic, the number of ‘vulnerable adults’ who have been sexually assaulted by priests and religious, the number increases exponentially. That of course is the next wave that has not even begun to crest.

The clerical system that bred the abuse of children and vulnerable adults is still very much in place in ‘our’ church, make no mistake about that. Bishops have continued to cover up for priests who have crossed and continue to cross sexual boundaries, declaring them “priests in good standing” because their moral ‘crimes’ do not fill the legal definition of a crime either because the statute of limitations has expired or through the application of prevarication and mental reservation. It is the story of a scandal that continues to unfold with the full collaboration of bishops and their ‘astute’ advisors. Shame on them!

Catholics in the pew who know the truth—and they are many—and fail to make their feelings known to the Church at large are complicit in a crime second only to murder. It is in fact, the murder of a soul. Such responses, “but that was along time ago… and why don’t victims get on with their lives….” are no different than those who tell survivors of a holocaust or a massacre that they need to get over it.

I think this week’s editorial in NCR (National Catholic Reporter( stated the current situation quite well:

Issue Date: April 20, 2007

Little genuine progress on sex abuse

In her cover letter accompanying the submission of the 2006 audits of diocesan child protection programs ( see related story), Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, says there is a “surrounding atmosphere that one might describe as Refusal to See the Evidence” (capitals and bold in original).
“It takes two forms,” says Kettelkamp. “Those who see the bishops in a negative light refuse to acknowledge the positive steps they have taken to address the problem of child sexual abuse and refuse to see the evidence that demonstrates the accomplishments which have been made.”

And, secondly, “those who either did not see this problem as their problem (since many of the victims were from years past), are tired of hearing of the failings of the church, or think the approval of the charter in 2002 and 2005 along with the audits solved everything [and] refuse to see evidence of what still needs to be done.”

Might we suggest a third category?

We count ourselves among those who, when it comes to evaluating their handling of clergy sex abuse over the past 25 years, “see the bishops in a negative light.” How else, we wonder, could their actions be viewed? A majority of U.S. bishops, over more than two decades, covered up heinous crimes, moved priestly predators from parish to parish, and paid hush money to victims while using strong-arm legal tactics. Read the reports of the district attorneys of Philadelphia; Suffolk County, N.Y.; Boston; and the limited report on Los Angeles—or the Bennett Report, which the bishops themselves commissioned—and it’s impossible for a fair-minded observer to come to a different conclusion.
Still, we agree that there is “evidence that demonstrates the accomplishments which have been made.” Yes, the overwhelming majority of dioceses now have “safe environment programs” in place that educate staff, volunteers and children about sexual abuse and how to prevent it. That is progress, no doubt.

And, yes, it is clearly the case that many of the worst offenders have been removed from ministry in the five years since the bishops approved the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Kettelkamp’s second category—those who “refuse to see evidence of what still needs to be done”—includes a fair number of bishops. This was demonstrated as early as 2004 when dozens of bishops urged that the audits of their child protection programs be scaled back (NCR, May 21, 2004).
“I do believe that after such a storm for two years, the bishops need a bit of a break to reflect on all that has happened so that we can move ahead, thoughtfully and prayerfully, instead of rushing in and making a lot of mistakes that we later regret,” Cheyenne, Wyo., Bishop David Ricken said in an April 16, 2004, letter to Anne Burke, then chair of the National Review Board charged with overseeing the bishops’ response to clergy sex abuse.

In fact, Ricken and the other bishops got their wish, if a little later than they hoped. The 2006 audits of child protection programs focused on the relative handful of dioceses that were not compliant in 2005 with aspects of the Dallas charter or who requested the additional scrutiny. That’s not progress.
And it’s not progress when the bishops use hardball political tactics in state legislatures across the country to combat efforts to repeal civil statutes of limitations related to child sex abuse. The same institution, and in some cases the same people who conspired to cover up the crimes, now lobbies to make sure that it is not held accountable for those crimes. That’s not progress.

The 2007 audit of diocesan child protection programs will again be relatively comprehensive, with teams of reviewers visiting each and every diocese that will let them in the door. (There are still some notable holdouts to the whole process, most notably the Lincoln, Neb., diocese, the bishop of which, Fabian Bruskewitz, is accountable to no one.) And these reviews, for the first time, will include an evaluation of the quality of those programs, and not just a check-the-box acknowledgment that they exist.

In the five years since Dallas, hundreds of U.S. priests have been laicized or “removed from public ministry.” Not a single bishop-enabler, to our knowledge, has met a similar fate. We support “safe environment programs,” we agree that priest-abusers should not have the opportunity to molest again, we applaud the consciousness-raising that has occurred.

But we contend that until individual bishops take responsibility for what occurred on their watch and tell the community, apart from grand jury investigations, what role the bishop played in transferring priests, countersuing victims and secretly tapping the treasury to pay for silence, there will be no real justice, no genuine progress.

National Catholic Reporter

In the end, there can be no healing without justice; no justice without the truth; no truth without full accountability. We’re not there yet!

Father Lasch

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