Conference Puts Spotlight on Sex Abuse Accountability, by Lona O'Connor, Palm Beach Post, November 9, 2007

Conference Puts Spotlight on Sex Abuse Accountability

By Lona O'Connor
Palm Beach Post
November 9, 2007

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/
epaper/2007/11/09/s1c_VOICE_1109.html

Though he once walked the halls of the Vatican Embassy in Washington, Thomas Doyle would now probably not feel all that comfortable at a gathering of Catholic Church officials.

The same goes for Jason Berry.

If you go

'The Real Costs of the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church,' 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Unity of the Palm Beaches, 1957 S. Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach. Copies of both authors' books will be available. For information, phone John McGovern at (561) 736-5568 or visit www.votf.org. A donation of $10 is suggested. Checks should be made payable to Voice of the Faithful of Palm Beach County.

Doyle, a Dominican priest, and Berry, a journalist, are the featured speakers at a conference of reform-minded Catholic laymen Saturday.

The two authors of books on priest sex abuse are scheduled to speak on "The Real Costs of the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church," a conference sponsored by Voice of the Faithful of Palm Beach County. More than 100 people are expected to attend.

Begun in Boston, Voice of the Faithful seeks greater accountability for sexual and financial wrongdoing by Catholic clergy.

Palm Beach County has had its own share of notoriety, including two bishops in a row who resigned amid allegations of sex with young men; U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's revelation that he was abused as a boy by a priest; and two Delray Beach priests accused of misappropriating $8.7 million in parish money.

Berry challenged Bishop Gerald Barbarito of the Diocese of Palm Beach to attend Saturday's conference.

"This is the kind of event that a bishop should welcome if he's truly part of the solution," said Berry.

Doyle, an expert in Catholic law, was a Vatican Embassy staffer in the early 1980s when he heard of the case of Gilbert Gauthe', a Louisiana priest accused of abusing dozens of children. Berry, then a newspaper reporter, covered the Gauthe' case and later wrote "Lead Us Not Into Temptation."

In 1985, Doyle co-wrote a long document in 1985, called "The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner," called "the manual" for short. The manual was ignored by all except a few bishops, Doyle said. Ironically, one of those who was receptive to the ideas in the manual was Bernard Law, who later left his post as cardinal of Boston in disgrace during the priest-sex scandal there.

By the beginning of the 21st century, Doyle's predictions were being fulfilled in nightmarish proportions, in what Berry, his fellow speaker, calls a "rolling crisis" that continues to this day. Dioceses across the country have paid out billions in settlements to victims, and several dioceses saddled with lawsuits have claimed near-bankruptcy and closed churches. Meanwhile, priests have been tried in criminal courts.

In 2002, in response to the crisis, U.S. bishops published the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Doyle noticed that his colleagues at the Vatican Embassy grew suspicious and "started holding back from me. I was the loose cannon." When it became clear to him that no action would be taken on his suggestions, he left his Vatican Embassy post in 1986.

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops disputes Doyle's version of events.

According to a chronology published by the organization, the council began directing its attention to sex-abuse cases in 1982 and has worked steadily since then to produce solutions. This issues raised in the manual had "already been analyzed. ... Media characterizations of the (manual) as a proposal either ignored or summarily rejected by the Conference are inaccurate."

Doyle used his knowledge of Catholic canon law when he collaborated with ex-priest Richard Sipe and sex-abuse lawyer Patrick Wall on the 2006 book "Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes."

The book uses historical documents to show that priests having sex - with women, men and children - has been a problem since the dawn of Christianity. At the core of the sex-abuse problem are two problems that church leaders have not solved: the insistence on celibacy for priests and the aura of secrecy around sex-abuse cases. The book contends that Catholic leaders were less secretive in the early centuries than they are now.

Despite being immersed for decades in some of the most revolting stories of priest sexual abuse of young people, both men remain devout.

"I don't want to give up on the church despite the terrible abuses of power," said Berry, who lives in New Orleans and is also an expert on jazz. "I have held onto the gift we are taught we receive. I struggle with it, but here I am."

Doyle's experiences shook him to the core.

"I had to probe into my own soul and say, 'What is it I believe?' Now I believe that I've been liberated from the control the institutional church has on me."