BishopAccountability.org
	Twin Scandals Rock Congress and Church The Republican [Springfield MA] October 25, 2006 http://www.masslive.com/metroeastplus/republican/index.ssf? /base/news-2/1161678232114910.xml&coll=1&thispage=1 Underneath the stately dome that encases gilded murals bearing witness to its institutional heft and history, the party faithful scrambled as the scandal that one of its male leaders had sexually seductive contact with high school boys flew out through its brass revolving doors. No, the sexual predatory behavior had nothing to do this time with the Vatican dome. Instead, it involved the dome of the U.S. Capitol and the recent resignation of Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley soon after he learned that the news media had obtained electronic copies of the X-rated e-mail conversations the self-proclaimed gay and alcohol-addicted lawmaker had with high school boys who served as House pages. In one day, Foley was gone, his congressional office closed and wiped from the House's Web site. Catholics in the Springfield area watched with interest. They hope that the Roman Catholic church learned. Yes, learned. Did they make a connection between the sex scandal within the Republican Party and the sexual abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield? "Absolutely," said John M. Bowen of Longmeadow, who serves as the spokesman within the Springfield diocese for the Voice of the Faithful, an international organization that supports priests of integrity and advocates for victims of sexual abuse. The unfolding Capitol Hill charges, the denials, blame game, cover-ups and loss of recollections all ring reminiscently true of what Massachusetts Catholics saw in their church in both Boston and Springfield. "Let's just hope the bishop gets this message," Bowen added. "The message you can no longer fool the people by covering these things up. You destroy your credibility and moral authority." In the political world - unlike in the Catholic Church - the congregants have recourse, said Greenfield attorney John Stobierski, who represents most of the victims of clergy abuse in Western Massachusetts. "The difference in the institutions is (that) one is a democracy where public opinion does make a difference," Stobierski said. "The other is an autocracy where it really doesn't matter what the congregants think." He made another observation - that the church and the Republican Party have both tried "to claim the mantle of morality. They are the moral beacons." "When they turn out to be hypocrites, they lose faith and their congregants," he said. To many, Democrats and Republicans alike, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R.-Ill., seems like a decent man. Chicopee resident Tom Lyons, a devout Catholic who is active in the church, believes Hastert will most likely have to leave office. "It's a shame. The man is basically a good man," Lyons said, adding that no organization or individual is served well - not priests, cops or politicians - when "compromise and a thirst for power corrupts." At first, the similarities between the political scandal and the church sex abuse of children and teenagers had eerie déjà vu similarities. "In our view, the Washington situation just highlights what's happening in the church and continues to happen," Lyons said. "No accountability. Nobody willing to take responsibility. Thank God we have a democracy and we can vote these people out of office." The Rev. James Scahill, the pastor of St. Michael's Church in East Longmeadow, has been the lone voice of the black shirts nagging his church into doing the right thing, and he has a critical following of Catholics who love their church and have deep faith. He and his parishioners upset former Springfield Bishop Thomas Dupre by withholding collection money that would be used to support Richard Lavigne, a convicted child molester who was kicked out of the priesthood after a long career in it. (An unsolved murder of a Springfield altar boy also surrounds Lavigne. Dupre subsequently fled from his office as bishop in February 2002 after The Republican e-mailed him questions that involved allegations that the bishop initiated sex with two boys, one 12 and one 15, when he was middle-aged.) Foley, 52, checked himself into alcohol rehab days after the news broke about his contact with minors. Dupre checked himself into a sex abuse clinic outside of Washington, D.C. Scahill sees the same pattern unfolding here in Washington as he did at home. "Leadership protecting its power at the expense of the truth and the protection of children in both instances," Scahill said. "St. Michael's parishioners were the first ones to shake the trees, and our children are safer." "These guys are sick," Scahill said of sexual predators of children. "But the ones who covered it up are criminal." Months after Dupre fled from Springfield, Boston Cardinal Bernard Law was finally driven out from his archdiocese by his parishioners and priests who believe that he failed to protect children after legal documents showed that a band of priests preyed on hundreds of children and were reassigned to other parishes by church leaders. Law spends his days in private quarters in Rome going about freely in and out of the Vatican dome. Jo-Ann Moriarty is a staff writer for The Republican who covers Washington, D.C. 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