Sunday, April 17, 2005
Carl Hiaasen: Abuse scandal - Vatican Still Doesn't Get It
note: this is CH's take on Cardinal Bernard Law, NOT THE CHURCH (in case you're Catholic and reading this).
The very last sentence of this article is how those of us who are clergy abuse survivors feel.
=====================
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/11410426.htm
Abuse scandal: Vatican still doesn't get it
Posted on Sun, Apr. 17, 2005
By CARL HIAASEN
Miami Herald Columnist
As the world's cardinals begin huddling in secret to pick a new pope, many American Catholics are still trying to figure out why Bernard Law was allowed to say a public funeral Mass for John Paul II.
The answer seems obvious. The Vatican still doesn't believe that sex abuse by priests is a serious problem. The old guys running the show still don't get it.
As archbishop of Boston, Law specialized in spiriting predator priests from one parish to another without informing either the cops or parishioners, some of whose children were later targeted for abuse.
So far, more than 600 persons in the Boston archdiocese have said they were victimized by church clerics, and more than $90 million in settlements has been paid out. As a result, the archdiocese is teetering on financial ruin.
Initially, Law refused to step down. Then a judge unsealed commendation letters written by Law praising priests that he knew had been accused of molesting children.
When the cardinal finally left the archdiocese in 2002, he received no punishment from the Vatican. On the contrary, he was brought to Rome, installed in a beautiful apartment and named archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
That's a lot better than being locked away in a Massachusetts prison for covering up multiple felonies, which is what should have happened to Law.
Thanks to him, sex-criminal priests were allowed to continue preying on the youth of the Catholic Church, splintering lives as well as the faith.
In most modern, media-savvy bureaucracies, Law would be the sort of high-profile embarrassment who would be whisked away to some obscure outpost and ordered to lay low.
But the Vatican is neither modern nor keenly attuned to its image problems. Plainly it couldn't care less about the feelings of all those damaged families in Boston and scores of other cities.
Because there was Cardinal Law, three days after the pope's death, delivering the center-stage homily in a globally televised mourning mass.
Regardless of whether he was chosen out of institutional arrogance or blind tradition (archpriests in the basilica have presided at past papal funerals), Law's prominence in Rome outraged many Catholics, disturbed many church leaders and reignited the sex-abuse furor.
That's not a bad thing, especially after the marathon funeral extravaganza for John Paul II.
Fueled by unprecedented TV coverage, the emotional tide of grieving for the beloved pope was a public-relations tonic for the church. Most media were content to focus on the goodness of the man, and to only sparingly mention the scandal that marred his papacy and threatens the future of the priesthood.
The uproar over Cardinal Law's appearance is a needed dose of cold reality. According to a report published last year by a panel of Catholic lay leaders, almost 11,000 persons -- mostly boys between 11 and 14 -- said they were sexually abused by U.S. priests over a 50-year span.
Many accusations were known to local bishops and in some cases passed along to the Vatican, which did virtually nothing until forced by the accumulating weight of lawsuits and sordid headlines.
Finally, after an eternity of silence, the pope acknowledged the problem and issued a terse condemnation.
Discipline, however, remained spotty. And prosecutors in pursuit of child-molesting priests still had to battle to pry evidence from the church.
Even today, as some Catholic scholars have noted, the leadership in Rome is floundering in denial.
A leading contender for the papacy, Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez of Honduras, says that the sex-abuse controversy was manufactured by the American news media. In particular, the cardinal has singled out Ted Turner, the former CNN chairman, for being ``openly anti-Catholic.''
Blaming Turner is not only inane but insulting to every abuse victim. That Rodríguez is sticking with his conspiracy theory suggests that as pope, he would be less than aggressive about purging predators from the priesthood.
Fortunately, some cardinals seem to grasp the seriousness of the crisis. German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a confidant of John Paul and another possible candidate for pope, recently decried the ''filth'' in the church, ''even among those'' who are priests.
Still, a culture of cover-up prevails in the Vatican hierarchy. The Dallas Morning News has reported that several priests accused of sexual abuse were quietly moved from their home countries to others, where they continued to work with the public in church settings.
The newspaper also revealed that numerous priests who'd admitted molesting minors -- and in some cases were facing criminal charges in the United States -- had been hustled all the way to Rome, out of the law's immediate grasp.
No wonder Cardinal Law was treated so warmly there after leaving the Boston archdiocese in shambles. By protecting those dangerous priests, Law was merely following a long-standing Vatican strategy of evasion and obstruction.
This week he'll be casting his vote for a new pope. Catholics can only pray that whoever is chosen will show more courage and rectitude than the exiled cardinal, who looked the other way while the children of his flock were being raped.
The very last sentence of this article is how those of us who are clergy abuse survivors feel.
=====================
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/11410426.htm
Abuse scandal: Vatican still doesn't get it
Posted on Sun, Apr. 17, 2005
By CARL HIAASEN
Miami Herald Columnist
As the world's cardinals begin huddling in secret to pick a new pope, many American Catholics are still trying to figure out why Bernard Law was allowed to say a public funeral Mass for John Paul II.
The answer seems obvious. The Vatican still doesn't believe that sex abuse by priests is a serious problem. The old guys running the show still don't get it.
As archbishop of Boston, Law specialized in spiriting predator priests from one parish to another without informing either the cops or parishioners, some of whose children were later targeted for abuse.
So far, more than 600 persons in the Boston archdiocese have said they were victimized by church clerics, and more than $90 million in settlements has been paid out. As a result, the archdiocese is teetering on financial ruin.
Initially, Law refused to step down. Then a judge unsealed commendation letters written by Law praising priests that he knew had been accused of molesting children.
When the cardinal finally left the archdiocese in 2002, he received no punishment from the Vatican. On the contrary, he was brought to Rome, installed in a beautiful apartment and named archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
That's a lot better than being locked away in a Massachusetts prison for covering up multiple felonies, which is what should have happened to Law.
Thanks to him, sex-criminal priests were allowed to continue preying on the youth of the Catholic Church, splintering lives as well as the faith.
In most modern, media-savvy bureaucracies, Law would be the sort of high-profile embarrassment who would be whisked away to some obscure outpost and ordered to lay low.
But the Vatican is neither modern nor keenly attuned to its image problems. Plainly it couldn't care less about the feelings of all those damaged families in Boston and scores of other cities.
Because there was Cardinal Law, three days after the pope's death, delivering the center-stage homily in a globally televised mourning mass.
Regardless of whether he was chosen out of institutional arrogance or blind tradition (archpriests in the basilica have presided at past papal funerals), Law's prominence in Rome outraged many Catholics, disturbed many church leaders and reignited the sex-abuse furor.
That's not a bad thing, especially after the marathon funeral extravaganza for John Paul II.
Fueled by unprecedented TV coverage, the emotional tide of grieving for the beloved pope was a public-relations tonic for the church. Most media were content to focus on the goodness of the man, and to only sparingly mention the scandal that marred his papacy and threatens the future of the priesthood.
The uproar over Cardinal Law's appearance is a needed dose of cold reality. According to a report published last year by a panel of Catholic lay leaders, almost 11,000 persons -- mostly boys between 11 and 14 -- said they were sexually abused by U.S. priests over a 50-year span.
Many accusations were known to local bishops and in some cases passed along to the Vatican, which did virtually nothing until forced by the accumulating weight of lawsuits and sordid headlines.
Finally, after an eternity of silence, the pope acknowledged the problem and issued a terse condemnation.
Discipline, however, remained spotty. And prosecutors in pursuit of child-molesting priests still had to battle to pry evidence from the church.
Even today, as some Catholic scholars have noted, the leadership in Rome is floundering in denial.
A leading contender for the papacy, Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez of Honduras, says that the sex-abuse controversy was manufactured by the American news media. In particular, the cardinal has singled out Ted Turner, the former CNN chairman, for being ``openly anti-Catholic.''
Blaming Turner is not only inane but insulting to every abuse victim. That Rodríguez is sticking with his conspiracy theory suggests that as pope, he would be less than aggressive about purging predators from the priesthood.
Fortunately, some cardinals seem to grasp the seriousness of the crisis. German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a confidant of John Paul and another possible candidate for pope, recently decried the ''filth'' in the church, ''even among those'' who are priests.
Still, a culture of cover-up prevails in the Vatican hierarchy. The Dallas Morning News has reported that several priests accused of sexual abuse were quietly moved from their home countries to others, where they continued to work with the public in church settings.
The newspaper also revealed that numerous priests who'd admitted molesting minors -- and in some cases were facing criminal charges in the United States -- had been hustled all the way to Rome, out of the law's immediate grasp.
No wonder Cardinal Law was treated so warmly there after leaving the Boston archdiocese in shambles. By protecting those dangerous priests, Law was merely following a long-standing Vatican strategy of evasion and obstruction.
This week he'll be casting his vote for a new pope. Catholics can only pray that whoever is chosen will show more courage and rectitude than the exiled cardinal, who looked the other way while the children of his flock were being raped.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
An Abuse survivor's view: Not so "Holy" Pope John Paul II
this is a personal and serious post.
if you can, please take the time to read it.
also, please understand that I am holding *individuals* responsible for their actions, not an entire institution ... (in case you think I'm headed that way) and decide to get offended rather than read on and be informed.
i think many of you will be surprised at at least one thing in this post, if not more.....
=============
As a survivor of clergy abuse, I must say that the practice of honoring high ranking government and religious officials after their deaths, making them out to be something close to a saint as if they were some kind of super human, can sometimes be truly nauseating.
While we all like to say good things about the recently departed, my only thoughts on Pope John Paul II's passing are that:
1)I'm glad he's gone and
2)I hope that he enjoys his place in hell not only with my abuser, but the hundreds of other sexual predators he allowed to continue working with, and abusing children with his full knowledge, including assisting with the cover-up of their crimes and hiding their past so as not to besmudge the Catholic Church's name.
No matter what the press says, this "His Holiness" and his henchmen are nothing more than demagogues in Satan's robes, who have taken collection money from the poorest of their parishioners to support priests who mentally and physically abused thousands of children, adolescents and vulnerable adult parishioners, while the Bishops, Cardinals AND the Pope did more than "look the other way" - they were all actively involved in the cover-up of the abuse. The pedophiles and rapists were quietly moved to other parishes, being supported fully by not only their diocese, but also the Vatican and "His Holiness", and the children and others who were scarred for life as a result of this abuse and were usually given paltry sums of "hush money" with a gag order to keep them quiet.
The abuse of vulnerable adults by priests has yet to be sufficiently addressed by the Vatican or its offices, and this step must go beyond outreach. Sexual misconduct by priests with adults in their care occurs with alarming frequency. Yet, the church has not been recognized these behaviors as potential criminal conduct despite the fact that some 17 states have criminalized sexual contact between clergy and vulnerable adults. There have been numerous cases where priests who have been accused by adults remained in ministry only to be later accused by minors. Diocesan policy must address the sexual abuse of adults with the same seriousness as violations against children, and remove those who offend.
No, it's not a myth, and I'm not just some crazy ex Catholic with an axe to grind. Here's an except on the Pope's knowledge of the cover-up from NBC news:
A GROUP called the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors said Tuesday it had come across the document from among the thousands of personnel files that the Boston archdiocese made public last week. A court hearing lawsuits against the archdiocese had ordered the release.
Joseph Gallagher, a co-founder of the group, said the document was the “smoking gun” that spelled out a Vatican policy of placing image ahead of child welfare.
In the document, Pope John Paul II says a defrocked Catholic priest who had a history of molesting boys should leave the areas where his “condition” was known — or stay put as long as it caused no scandal. “That would explain why [other] bishops have done the same thing as Cardinal Law — they’ve moved sexual offenders from parish to parish without notifying the parishioners,” Gallagher said.
The May 25, 1999, document is a translation of Pope John Paul II’s order removing Robert Burns, a convicted pedophile, from the priesthood. The file on Burns contained not only lurid revelations about the priest’s behavior but also said Law told the Vatican that his archdiocese had assigned Burns to two parishes even though it knew of his “proclivity” toward molesting boys.
In his 1999 order defrocking Burns, the pope said the former priest “ought to live away from the places where his previous condition is known.”. But the pope’s order also offered the man’s religious superior an alternative to forcing Burns to abandon the areas where his condition was known.
The religious superior “is able to dispense from this clause of the decree if it is foreseen that the presence of the suppliant will cause no scandal,” the document said.
Roderick MacLeish, a Boston attorney who last week released the archdiocese’s file on Burns along with those of other priests accused of sexual misconduct, said “This document says he is to be relocated to another place where presumably they wouldn’t know about him, unless the bishop or the cardinal of the appropriate diocese determines it will cause no scandal,” he said. “What about the children?” MacLeish has said the files, which a judge ordered the archdiocese to turn over, help prove a central claim in his lawsuits against the archdiocese — that the church reassigned priests accused of sexual abuse without warning parishioners.
The document itself, really tells us what the normal policy has been inside the Vatican: "Cover up the sins of our priests. If you do it well enough, you won't have to throw them out of the club." And that was pretty much policy until the U.S. bishops wrote their new norms in Dallas in June 2002: offending priests have regularly been transferred from one venue to another.
But that is only part of the story ....
There was no talk by any of the Vatican's sources about the pattern of cover up that Law and his minions provided over the years for Boston's clerical scoundrels. No mention of Law's warm letters to the priests who he knew had violated little boys. No mention of Law's praise for a priest who had been diddling young postulants in a Boston nunnery, or that Law wrote that same priest an admiring letter about the depth of his faith and his courage.
If the Vatican had its druthers, we wouldn't know anything about these events, under the principle that such reporting "creates scandal." Translation: it makes people begin to have their doubts about the institution, specifically the institution of the priesthood. Much of the information has come to us from the plaintiffs' lawyers in Boston who are making Law accountable in ways he never imagined, seeking and getting and passing on documentation that has been sitting in Law's secret files for decades. When they were secret no longer, and their essence trumpeted in the headlines, we understood in a new way the Church's pattern: the institution comes first. The people's needs second, if at all.
ref: www.traditioninaction.org/Questions/E01KaiserDoc.htm
and as for the late Pope John Paul II ? Here's how he "punished" Cardinal Law less than one year ago:
Cardinal Law Rewarded for Sex Abuse Cover-up by Vatican
April 28, 2004
ROME, May 27 - Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who was forced to resign as leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston after a long and painful sexual abuse scandal involving clergy members, was chosen by Pope John Paul II on Thursday to head a basilica in Rome.
A statement released in the Vatican's daily bulletin announced that Cardinal Law, who resigned in 2002, would become the archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica, a church in a downtown neighborhood of Rome that is under direct Vatican jurisdiction.
The statement said that Cardinal Law, 72, would succeed the 82-year-old Italian Cardinal Carlo Furno, but it did not say when. It made no mention of Cardinal Law's new responsibilities, but a Vatican official said that "now he will be responsible for one of the four most important basilicas" in Rome. "He will be in charge of the administration of the priests and anything related to the basilica," the official said of Cardinal Law. He added that the post "is not a position of power."
The appointment angered the cardinal's critics and others who see it as a reward.
David G. Clohessy, the national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a nonprofit support group based in Chicago, chided church leaders in Rome for what he called insensitivity to abuse victims.
"Why can't the Vatican officials see that any position of honor afforded to Law will inevitably and needlessly cause more pain to hundreds who have been abused and have already suffered enough?" Mr. Clohessy said. He added, "It just rubs salt into already deep wounds for parishioners, victims and their families."
ref: http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/blasphemy.html
If you still want to cry over this man's death, please feel free to do so.
But all I ask of you is one thing: imagine how you would feel if YOUR son or daughter , sister or brother, husband or wife were the victim of one of these men ... imagine your child's or loved one's life forever damaged by the abuse they went through at the hands of a trusted official of the Catholic church......
....... Imagine that you know what you know now after reading this article, and I must ask you:
Would you still shed tears of sadness for his passing?
Would still you honor him publicly as a man of God who acted in your best interests?
All I ask is that you think about it, in your heart of hearts you will know the truth.
for more information on helping to heal those of us who walk quietly among you:
Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup
http://www.thelinkup.org/
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
http://www.snapnetwork.org/
if you can, please take the time to read it.
also, please understand that I am holding *individuals* responsible for their actions, not an entire institution ... (in case you think I'm headed that way) and decide to get offended rather than read on and be informed.
i think many of you will be surprised at at least one thing in this post, if not more.....
=============
As a survivor of clergy abuse, I must say that the practice of honoring high ranking government and religious officials after their deaths, making them out to be something close to a saint as if they were some kind of super human, can sometimes be truly nauseating.
While we all like to say good things about the recently departed, my only thoughts on Pope John Paul II's passing are that:
1)I'm glad he's gone and
2)I hope that he enjoys his place in hell not only with my abuser, but the hundreds of other sexual predators he allowed to continue working with, and abusing children with his full knowledge, including assisting with the cover-up of their crimes and hiding their past so as not to besmudge the Catholic Church's name.
No matter what the press says, this "His Holiness" and his henchmen are nothing more than demagogues in Satan's robes, who have taken collection money from the poorest of their parishioners to support priests who mentally and physically abused thousands of children, adolescents and vulnerable adult parishioners, while the Bishops, Cardinals AND the Pope did more than "look the other way" - they were all actively involved in the cover-up of the abuse. The pedophiles and rapists were quietly moved to other parishes, being supported fully by not only their diocese, but also the Vatican and "His Holiness", and the children and others who were scarred for life as a result of this abuse and were usually given paltry sums of "hush money" with a gag order to keep them quiet.
The abuse of vulnerable adults by priests has yet to be sufficiently addressed by the Vatican or its offices, and this step must go beyond outreach. Sexual misconduct by priests with adults in their care occurs with alarming frequency. Yet, the church has not been recognized these behaviors as potential criminal conduct despite the fact that some 17 states have criminalized sexual contact between clergy and vulnerable adults. There have been numerous cases where priests who have been accused by adults remained in ministry only to be later accused by minors. Diocesan policy must address the sexual abuse of adults with the same seriousness as violations against children, and remove those who offend.
No, it's not a myth, and I'm not just some crazy ex Catholic with an axe to grind. Here's an except on the Pope's knowledge of the cover-up from NBC news:
A GROUP called the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors said Tuesday it had come across the document from among the thousands of personnel files that the Boston archdiocese made public last week. A court hearing lawsuits against the archdiocese had ordered the release.
Joseph Gallagher, a co-founder of the group, said the document was the “smoking gun” that spelled out a Vatican policy of placing image ahead of child welfare.
In the document, Pope John Paul II says a defrocked Catholic priest who had a history of molesting boys should leave the areas where his “condition” was known — or stay put as long as it caused no scandal. “That would explain why [other] bishops have done the same thing as Cardinal Law — they’ve moved sexual offenders from parish to parish without notifying the parishioners,” Gallagher said.
The May 25, 1999, document is a translation of Pope John Paul II’s order removing Robert Burns, a convicted pedophile, from the priesthood. The file on Burns contained not only lurid revelations about the priest’s behavior but also said Law told the Vatican that his archdiocese had assigned Burns to two parishes even though it knew of his “proclivity” toward molesting boys.
In his 1999 order defrocking Burns, the pope said the former priest “ought to live away from the places where his previous condition is known.”. But the pope’s order also offered the man’s religious superior an alternative to forcing Burns to abandon the areas where his condition was known.
The religious superior “is able to dispense from this clause of the decree if it is foreseen that the presence of the suppliant will cause no scandal,” the document said.
Roderick MacLeish, a Boston attorney who last week released the archdiocese’s file on Burns along with those of other priests accused of sexual misconduct, said “This document says he is to be relocated to another place where presumably they wouldn’t know about him, unless the bishop or the cardinal of the appropriate diocese determines it will cause no scandal,” he said. “What about the children?” MacLeish has said the files, which a judge ordered the archdiocese to turn over, help prove a central claim in his lawsuits against the archdiocese — that the church reassigned priests accused of sexual abuse without warning parishioners.
The document itself, really tells us what the normal policy has been inside the Vatican: "Cover up the sins of our priests. If you do it well enough, you won't have to throw them out of the club." And that was pretty much policy until the U.S. bishops wrote their new norms in Dallas in June 2002: offending priests have regularly been transferred from one venue to another.
But that is only part of the story ....
There was no talk by any of the Vatican's sources about the pattern of cover up that Law and his minions provided over the years for Boston's clerical scoundrels. No mention of Law's warm letters to the priests who he knew had violated little boys. No mention of Law's praise for a priest who had been diddling young postulants in a Boston nunnery, or that Law wrote that same priest an admiring letter about the depth of his faith and his courage.
If the Vatican had its druthers, we wouldn't know anything about these events, under the principle that such reporting "creates scandal." Translation: it makes people begin to have their doubts about the institution, specifically the institution of the priesthood. Much of the information has come to us from the plaintiffs' lawyers in Boston who are making Law accountable in ways he never imagined, seeking and getting and passing on documentation that has been sitting in Law's secret files for decades. When they were secret no longer, and their essence trumpeted in the headlines, we understood in a new way the Church's pattern: the institution comes first. The people's needs second, if at all.
ref: www.traditioninaction.org/Questions/E01KaiserDoc.htm
and as for the late Pope John Paul II ? Here's how he "punished" Cardinal Law less than one year ago:
Cardinal Law Rewarded for Sex Abuse Cover-up by Vatican
April 28, 2004
ROME, May 27 - Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who was forced to resign as leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston after a long and painful sexual abuse scandal involving clergy members, was chosen by Pope John Paul II on Thursday to head a basilica in Rome.
A statement released in the Vatican's daily bulletin announced that Cardinal Law, who resigned in 2002, would become the archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica, a church in a downtown neighborhood of Rome that is under direct Vatican jurisdiction.
The statement said that Cardinal Law, 72, would succeed the 82-year-old Italian Cardinal Carlo Furno, but it did not say when. It made no mention of Cardinal Law's new responsibilities, but a Vatican official said that "now he will be responsible for one of the four most important basilicas" in Rome. "He will be in charge of the administration of the priests and anything related to the basilica," the official said of Cardinal Law. He added that the post "is not a position of power."
The appointment angered the cardinal's critics and others who see it as a reward.
David G. Clohessy, the national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a nonprofit support group based in Chicago, chided church leaders in Rome for what he called insensitivity to abuse victims.
"Why can't the Vatican officials see that any position of honor afforded to Law will inevitably and needlessly cause more pain to hundreds who have been abused and have already suffered enough?" Mr. Clohessy said. He added, "It just rubs salt into already deep wounds for parishioners, victims and their families."
ref: http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/blasphemy.html
If you still want to cry over this man's death, please feel free to do so.
But all I ask of you is one thing: imagine how you would feel if YOUR son or daughter , sister or brother, husband or wife were the victim of one of these men ... imagine your child's or loved one's life forever damaged by the abuse they went through at the hands of a trusted official of the Catholic church......
....... Imagine that you know what you know now after reading this article, and I must ask you:
Would you still shed tears of sadness for his passing?
Would still you honor him publicly as a man of God who acted in your best interests?
All I ask is that you think about it, in your heart of hearts you will know the truth.
for more information on helping to heal those of us who walk quietly among you:
Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup
http://www.thelinkup.org/
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
http://www.snapnetwork.org/
