BishopAccountability.org
	Time for Catholic Church to Fix Problems So Good Work Can Continue By Phil Mcnichol The Sun Times October 17, 2009 http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2134854 "He is a criminal and should be treated as such!!! A bloody Pedophilic Criminal . . . in jail" "If biker gangs are criminal organizations because many of their members engage in criminal activity, shouldn't the same hold true for the Catholic church? How many pedophiles does it take to be considered a gang?" "So they 'warehoused' this guy with the rest of the perverts." Comments about the Raymond Lahey case found online Ican only shake my head at some of the comments I read at the bottom of published news reports on the Internet about the case of the Catholic bishop, Raymond Lahey, charged with possession of child pornography. Photos, allegedly of a sexual nature were found on his laptop when he was selected for a further search of his luggage upon arrival at the Ottawa airport from London, England. He apparently fit a profile, of a middle-aged man travelling alone who had visited countries where images of child pornography are produced. To say the least, it doesn't look good for Lahey, and by extension, the Catholic Church: yet another priest accused of sexual misconduct and/or mistreatment of children. To make matters worse, this time it's a bishop with a previous fine record of being a no-nonsense advocate of dealing with the problem in an honest, open and forthright manner. So add another layer, of potential hypocrisy, to an already complex, tragic issue. No question, the sexual mistreatment of children by priests and other members of the church in positions of trust, is by far the worst aspect of a tragedy that has probably spanned centuries. In the past it was routinely covered up. Now a high-ranking church official who stood for a different approach stands accused. Who can you trust? Public reaction runs the emotional gamut from a sense of disappointment and betrayal, to shock and outrage; and, worst of all, something that resembles a lynch-mob mentality. That too is part of the tragedy. Canada is supposed to be a country that operates on the basis of the rule of law. We're supposed to be steeped in the British common-law tradition of laws that matured over time in the courts, as well as those that have been enacted by government. In a free society such as ours, the rights of the individual are held to be sacred. The Crown, or the state, can't just throw someone in jail and take away their freedom. It has to prove its case. There are rules for doing that. It's called "due process." First and foremost, no matter what the police say, or what's reported in the media, an accused person is considered innocent until proven guilty. The Crown must prove its case in court, where strict rules of evidence apply. For example, evidence obtained by police without having first told a person of their right to legal counsel can be thrown out of court at trial. A person accused of a criminal offence also has the right to see the Crown's evidence against them before trial so as to be able to prepare the best possible defence. Failure to do that can lead to the charge or charges being dismissed in court. In my years of covering court I saw that happen many times. Some people think it's a bad thing that people who are "obviously" guilty end up being acquitted on a "technicality." In that case why even have a trial at all, why not just take people directly to jail, or to the scaffold, if you have a mind to bring back capital punishment in this country? Because "due process" protects us all, even those of us who consider ourselves law-abiding citizens who could never get into trouble with the law, or be wrongly accused of an offence. Keeping supposedly dangerous or subversive people under control is easy in a tyranny. You just pick them up off the street and throw them in jail, or shoot them. But the rule of law in a free society is far more complicated. It has to strike a healthy balance that protects the rights of the individual while maintaining a peaceful, orderly society. The social-conservative political tendency in recent years to characterize the rules that protect people's rights in court as "criminals' rights" as opposed to "victims' rights" is dangerous. It contributes to the sort of thing we're seeing now in the Lahey case, a mob-mentality rush to judgement, a complete lack of any presumption of innocence, or sense of due process. As citizens of a free society we should all know better. Just as bad is the labelling of the entire Catholic Church as a "gang" of pedophiles. That is terribly unfair to the many Catholic priests, nuns and other members who for many years have quietly done good, even great work, in the world. I think, for example, of Father Thomas Berry, who died just this past June at age 94. He wrote extensively about the need to reestablish the spiritual connection between human beings and the natural world, the Earth and even the Universe in which we live. He regarded the current disconnect in Western culture as dangerously destructive, even pathological. He came to Cape Croker, the home of the Chippewa's of Nawash First Nation, to speak at a Peace Assembly there in the mid-1990s. I feel fortunate that I was there to hear him. On an even more personal note, my family and I will always remember "Father Pat," formerly of St. Mary's Parish, based in Owen Sound. When my granddaughter Marina was born prematurely and the medical experts said there was nothing more they could do to save her life, my oldest daughter asked Father Pat to see what he could do. He came to the hospital to pray for her that night, and by next morning her condition had improved remarkably. Nina, as we call her, is a bright and lively, healthy little girl of six today. I think of Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was assassinated by a right-wing death squad in 1980 while performing the Eucharist. In 1979, a military dictatorship came to power in El Salvador amidst a wave of human rights abuses by paramilitary right-wing groups and the government. Romero openly spoke out against the terrorist tactics of the ruling junta. He also criticized the U. S. government for continuing to give military aid to the new government, but then-President Jimmy Carter ignored Romero's plea. Romero is now rightly regarded as one of the 20th century's great humanitarian martyrs. I think also of Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun and real person behind the film Dead Man Walking, about the last days of a man condemned to death in Louisiana for murder and the nun who befriended and counselled him. Prejean remains an opponent of the death penalty in the U. S., believing it to be morally wrong. But the killing of innocent people wrongly convicted of murder especially, "fills her with revulsion," says Catholic News Online. For all its past and present faults, and they are legion, that the Catholic church includes such people should at least give us pause to consider the value of its considered existence in the world. I'm not a Catholic, but I for one hope the church survives and finds a way to fix its problems, including the issues related to the celibacy of the priesthood. Phil McNichol is a former Sun Times reporter.
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