Did Archbishop Favalora of Miami Knowingly Employ a Boy-Raping Priest, by Eric Giunta, Renew America, October 1, 2009

Did Archbishop Favalora of Miami Knowingly Employ a Boy-Raping Priest?

By Eric Giunta
Renew America
October 1, 2009

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/giunta/091001

My latest piece for RenewAmerica.com raised a few eyebrows around the blogosphere and elsewhere, as I put forward my call for the resignation of Archbishop John Favalora of Miami, and gave my (well-documented) reasons for doing so

Several objections were raised to this call, most of them variations of the theme "Pray, pay, and obey." In many conservative Catholic quarters, holy obedience is identified with blind servility that admits of no public criticism of one's pastors. Often, Catholics tell themselves that "we receive the pastors we deserve," and while there is some truth to this, it cannot justify indifference to pastoral abuse, no more than the commandments to honor one's parents, one's husband, or one's government justifies pacifistic indifference to child abuse, spousal abuse, or tyranny.

In short: One can be obedient to one's legitimate spiritual authorities in those things which pertain to their offices, without thereby resigning oneself to silent acquiescence when that authority has been abused. One can call for the resignation of a bishop, while remaining obedient in the interim. I believe one of the reasons this is such a sensitive subject for conservative-minded Catholics is the fact that, all too often and for far too long, public criticism of the Church's pastors has been the purview of the Catholic far-left (modernists) and far-right (radical traditionalists). Conservative Catholics are also wary of falling into a kind of protestantism where every believer is in effect their own pastor, subject to no spiritual authority other than their own personal whims and preferences. (When surveying the landscape of Protestant schism — hundreds of disparate denominations, many of them nearly identical doctrinally — one gets the impression that the origin of many of these sects is in everyone's desire to be their own pastor.)

But such objections are self-fulfilling prophecies. If Catholics are to reclaim the mantle of legitimate self-critique, they must engage in it, and publicly, or else it will remain the privileged prerogative of dissident sectarians.

What I have written here of Catholics applies to conservatives generally, which is why the Tea Party movement is so historically unique. For conservatives by their nature tend to eschew revolutions, content as they are to tolerate temporary abuses and misfortunes rather than potentially overthrow a fundamentally sound institution. Conservative revolutions don't happen often (the American and Mexican wars of independence being two notable examples), but when they do they are marked by a spirit of prudence, measured activism, and prayerful loyalty to fundamental principles.

In that spirit of loyal and prayerfully obedient opposition, I reiterate my call for Archbishop Favalora's resignation, reiterating my insistence that this would be in His Grace's own self-interest: "Favalora's chickens are coming home to roost, and there will be more scandal to come to light in the years ahead. . . . The sooner he resigns, the less embarrassment he gets to experience when the full truth of the moral state of his clergy is no longer an open 'secret.'"

This "prophecy" is already unfolding, as the Miami Archdiocese is hit with yet two more sex abuse lawsuits, both naming as plaintiff Miami's counterpart to Boston's John Geoghan: the Rev. Neil Doherty. For the following history, I am principally indebted to the sadly forgotten exposé by Mr. Thomas Francis of the Broward New Times, "Lambs to Slaughter". I am sheltering my readers from the report's more graphic details.

Fr. Doherty is no stranger to sexual molestation allegations. Since 1971, a mere two years after his ordination to the priesthood (against the counsel of his seminary director), the Miami Archdiocese, under three successive archbishops, has regularly received complaints credibly alleging drug abuse and sexual molestation on the part of Doherty. The Archdiocese's official story is that the present occupant of Miami's episcopal throne, John Favalora, only became aware of all these allegations in 2002 when, in the wake of that year's startling priestly sex-abuse revelations, the Archbishop proactively combed through the files of every priest in active ministry, and removed Doherty straightaway, thereby tacitly conceding the validity of 30 years' worth of grotesque allegations.

There is much, however, which is amiss in this tale of heroic episcopal foresight: It's only half-true. Favalora received the See of Miami in December 1994, the very month his Archdiocese gave $50,000 in hush-money to one of Doherty's victims, "Tony."

Favalora claims to have been ignorant of this settlement, yet in 1995, he had a letter, bearing his signature, read from the pulpit of Margate's St Vincent parish during Sunday services. Therein, Archbishop Favalora said he had personally examined parishioners' allegations of Fr. Doherty's financial improprieties and found them to be without merit. He went on to say: "Likewise, I examined personal accusations made against Father Doherty and found them baseless," (emphasis added) an apparent reference to a report involving a male prostitute.

Before 2002, there were no other allegations made publicly against Fr. Doherty.

Here's where Catholics, civil authorities, and Favalora's ecclesiastical superiors need to start connecting the dots: Are we really to believe that when Archbishop Favalora personally investigated (as he claimed he did) the sexual and financial improprieties alleged against Fr. Doherty, the one place he did not look into was Doherty's personnel file with the Archdiocese? Does this seem reasonable? And if what was in that file was not so damning in 1994/1995, why did it merit Doherty's dismissal from active ministry in 2002 when the file was looked into then?

Isn't it, rather, more likely that Favalora discovered these credible allegations back in 1994, or 1995 at the latest, thought nothing of them, and only took action on the matter in 2002, fearing fallout from the Boston sex-scandals?

Why did Archbishop John Favalora of Miami keep in his pastoral employ, for almost ten years, a man he knew (or should have known) was a child rapist, one who had cost the archdiocese at least tens of thousands of parishioners' hard-earned dollars?

These are not questions conservative Catholic individuals, institutions, and news outlets feel comfortable asking. But they must be asked: the institutional credibility of the Church is at stake, as, if Catholicism is correct in what it professes about God and the human condition, is the salvation of immortal souls.