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	Priesthood Evolves in Response to Crisis Candidates, Process Changed by Abuse Scandal By Christine Morente San Mateo County Times May 31, 2008 http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/ci_9440402 MENLO PARK — In the quiet morning light, Mike Quinn and Jerry Murphy hold their Bibles close to their hearts and do the sign of the cross. They pray in hushed tones, and they take turns reading from the holy book's passages inside the comfort of Quinn's bedroom at St. Patrick's Seminary. Each phrase is marked with conviction and longing. "Oh God, you are my God," said Quinn, the image of the Virgin Mary not too far from his gaze. "For you I long, for you my soul is thirsty. My body pines for you." This is the life the two men have chosen. Not yet ordained in the Roman Catholic priesthood, Quinn and Murphy say they are destined to a life dedicated to God. Quinn can now joke that he once helped people maintain riches when he was an accountant. But as he became involved with the church, he started questioning what wealth really means. Quinn decided. "Real wealth is Christ." The 55-year-old is expected to be ordained next year. Quinn would join a new breed of older priests who have staved off their callings long enough to have other careers, to date women and even get married. The priesthood has evolved and much of it has to do with the years of child abuse and rape that have plagued Catholic churches across the nation. These new priests have passed a tough round of background checks, a battery of psychological testing, and training to prevent sexual abuse. But the stigma remains attached to a vocation that has always been grounded in trust and reverence. According to news reports, the church has paid $2 billion in settlements to victims in the past six years. Tom Daly, the vocations director at the San Francisco Archdiocese, which oversees parishes in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, said the number of men joining the priesthood plummeted in 2002 at the height of the scandals. Since 2004, he has seen a small but steady increase in seminaries nationwide. Daly said there was great sin, but now there's a correction being made. "I would believe the Holy Spirit is calling for greater holiness," said Daly, a Marin Catholic priest. "Heroic young men are stepping forward and saying they feel called to help." Two such men who attended St. Patrick's Seminary are about to be ordained. On June 7, Juan Lopez will be ordained at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco by Archbishop George Niederauer. Two weeks later, Ghislain Bazikila will become a priest, and ordained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He will be the second deaf priest for the San Francisco Archdiocese. Young priests The practice of boys joining the seminary is over. Fifty years ago, an average of 100 boys joined St. Joseph's School, a prep-seminary in Mountain View. And had their desire to pursue the priesthood remained, they would have moved on to nearby St. Joseph's College, and then St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park. Daly said of those 100 boys, 10 percent or fewer would become ordained priests. The first sharp decline in the vocation happened during the 1960s and 1970s with the sexual revolution and society's disenfranchisement with institutions. Jeffery Burns, the archivist for the San Francisco Archdiocese, said dioceses saw priests frustrated at the pace of change within the Catholic Church, and many left to seek out personal intimacy. "Once they became a priest, they realized it wasn't the life they wanted," Burns said. In June 2004, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Washington, D.C., found that 4,392 priests — or 4 percent of all priests in the country — were accused of sexual abuse. The report was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Two years earlier, the group met in Dallas and created the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People to address child sexual abuse by priests. It set forth a commitment to account for the nature and scope of the problem. The John Jay report studied allegations of sexual abuse with minors from 1950 to 2002. A majority of accused priests were ordained from 1950 to 1979. Approximately 10,667 victims came forward and, of those who say they were abused, a little more than 17 percent of them had siblings who also say they were abused. Clinical psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea was invited to the Bishops Conference in June 2002 to speak about the long term effects of sexual abuse. She said recently that the crisis has never been centrally reflective on the abusing priests, but focused instead on the lack of management skills and responses by church officials. "There are always going to be sexual abusers in the priesthood, just like there's abusive fathers, teachers, grandfathers, and bus drivers," said Frawley-O'Dea, author of "Perversion of Power: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church." "You can't screen these people out." The psychologist said there is a relatively small group of bishops committed to keeping children safe in dioceses. She said some bishops have "steadfastly refused" to follow the charter, and a majority of the bishops who are doing the right things are doing so only because people are looking over their shoulders. And once they are no longer under the microscope, church officials revert to ignoring the problem, Frawley-O'Dea said. She blames the common response of denial to perpetuating child sexual abuse. "I have patients who had mothers slap them in the face when they said they were abused by their father," Frawley-O'Dea said. "No one wants to believe that an adult would do this. If anything, the Catholic Church has unwittingly served a purpose because the scandal has been so public and has raised consciousness to some extent." Solutions Much like the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Diocese of Oakland — which represents Alameda and Contra Costa counties —is doing what it can to weed out individuals who may show serious mental disorders. Larry D'Anjou, vocations director for the diocese, said candidates for the priesthood are given anywhere from four to eight psychological tests, which include the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 and the Rorschach inkblot test. He said he hopes to include more assessments that would check for narcissism, and relationship issues. "What we're doing now is pretty good," D'Anjou said. "But there's more out there that can do a better job." He said psychological tests can only do so much, and they aren't relied on 100 percent. "It's important we go through their history to see if there was an instance at all of sexual abuse," D'Anjou said. "Most of the abusers were abused as children." The priest said he interviews 25 candidates a year, and about seven make it to the psychological exams. Three St. Patrick's seminarians were ordained within the Oakland Diocese on May 16 at All Saints Catholic Church in Hayward. Meanwhile, Deacon John Norris, director of the San Francisco Archdiocese's Office of Child and Youth Protection, oversees a program that goes out to the 90 parishes, 62 elementary schools, and 14 high schools, and teaches children how to protect themselves. Lessons include understanding what is acceptable touching and learning not to place blame on themselves or to feel ashamed. Secondly, employees and volunteers are required to go through background checks and take an hour-and-a-half-long course on how to prevent and report child abuse. Norris said each diocese across the country has its own program, but the San Francisco diocese requires more people to be fingerprinted and stringent background checking. In the fall, the archdiocese will start a new program about touching for pre-school children. "I was disappointed as anybody in the world when this (clergy sex abuse) scandal broke," he said. "But we've significantly raised awareness of child abuse. We're out in front of everybody in terms of helping to solve what is a societal problem." Barbara Elordi, the diocese's victim's assistance coordinator, fields calls from sexual abuse victims. The marriage and family therapist was hired by the San Francisco Archdiocese in 2002, and she also serves on an independent review board that investigates accusations of sexual abuse. Elordi said that each year since she was hired, two to three clergy members or other employees have been taken out of the ministry during investigations. But all of them were cleared and returned to the ministry. Elordi meets with 15 to 20 sex abuse survivors on a regular basis. Of those, eight live in San Mateo County. They are now in their mid-40s, 50s and 60s and were abused in the early 1970s but not by priests in the Bay Area. "It's one thing to read about the abuse in the papers, but it's another whole experience when in contact with the survivors," Elordi said. "It splits me up because this is reality." "They have all suffered," she added. "Some seem to have the inner strength and have had support to move forward in a healthy way, but others struggle to maintain day-by-day." According to the Catholic News Service, 800 lawsuits asserting sexual abuse by Catholic priests were filed in California in 2003, after a one-year suspension of the statute of limitations for civil suits for sexual abuse of minors was instituted. A Catholic, Elordi said some survivors are still tied to the church. Others can't enter one, and many have turned to Buddhism or meditation instead of the Catholic church. In April, Pope Benedict XVI attempted to bring closure to victims of pedophile priests during his first visit to the United States. He told reporters that he was "deeply ashamed" about the scandal, and privately prayed with a group of victims from Boston. God's calling Tom Daly holds fast to the belief that the priesthood chooses the man, the man doesn't choose the priesthood. The vocations director in San Francisco screens "well intentioned" men who feel they have been called to the service of God. Daly looks for red flags while asking questions that probe past relationships with women, the priests they look up to, even how often they go to Mass. He may turn someone away if he has never had a job, or if there are gaps in his background. Another red flag is if the person lives in an area rampant with promiscuity. However, Daly is understanding if a man's past revolved around, "wine, women and song." The question of whether he takes his faith seriously then arises. "We're not looking for perfect people," Daly said. "We want to see people who are humble. When I don't sense a humility, and an honesty, then we have a problem." In his eyes, a good priest is a man who would make a good husband and father. Someone who knows how to sacrifice, can respect the gifts of women, and can shepherd. "Respect for the priest is not instant," Daly said. "People have to know that they have to trust you. They have a sense that you are trying to lead a prayerful life and to guide them. People are very astute and they can kind of spot a phony. The church does not need hired hands." They answered Mike Quinn was married once upon a time. He's since gotten a divorce, and annulment, but he said he had always thought because of his divorce, he could not become a priest. At 49 years old, he applied as a student to the St. Patrick's Seminary. Quinn is expected to be ordained as a deacon in November, and then to the priesthood next year. "I used to think being a priest was a mixture of privilege and duty," he said. "It's really just privilege." Like Quinn, Jerry Murphy realizes the challenges ahead for the priesthood. It did not deter Murphy, a second-year theology seminary student. "It's amazing what a very very small number of people do to damage the reputation of the church," Murphy said. "And, unfortunately, it's had an effect on the faith of some people. It's important to get people back into the churches." Quinn said trust was abused. "(Priests) are held on a pedestal close to God," he said. "And the fact that they were brought down ... it's just awful. We are held to a high standard, and we should live to the high standard. I know I have nothing in my life to be afraid of." Reach Christine Morente at 650-348-4333 or cmorente@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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