UNITED STATES
USA Today
By Marci A. Hamilton
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, meets this weekend in Chicago. The legal failures that contributed to the secrecy and extent of abuse by clergy are on the agenda. The greatest void has been Congress' failure to take any action.
Childhood sexual abuse by clergy is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse, perpetrated by the people whom children are taught to trust most. The result is physical, emotional and spiritual devastation.
Yet Congress has registered no reaction since 2002 when it was revealed that the Archdiocese of Boston was shuttling pedophile priests between parishes, archdioceses, cities and states. The last thing any lawmaker wants to do in this era is to cast any aspersions on religion, let alone one with as many voters as are in the Roman Catholic Church.
In Congress' defense, there was a time when such abuses by clergy looked like a local issue. For example, when Father Gilbert Gauthe was convicted in 1985 for molesting 11 boys in Louisiana, no one thought to look beyond the city's borders. And when The Boston Globe exposed the Boston Archdiocese as a haven for dangerous child predators in priest clothing, including the notorious Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, the story was covered nationally, but the initial thinking among Catholics and others was that Boston was alone.
Posted by kshaw at June 8, 2005 09:43 PM