By Ruben Rosario
Pioneer Press
April 1, 2010
http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_14797530?nclick_check=1
MINNESOTA -- In my line of work, you need to have a thick skin and embrace the bricks as well as the bouquets hurled your way.
So it was not in the least surprising when I was inundated by both after my column last Sunday profiling Father Tom Doyle.
An ordained priest of the Dominican order, Doyle attended a priesthood novitiate in Winona, Minn., and later became a canon lawyer for the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C. But the former church insider became a church pariah after he, a fellow priest and a former private attorney once hired by the church to represent a pedophile priest penned a critical report in 1985 about clergy child abuse. The report warned the church that things would get far worse if it did not effectively respond to the issue while also meeting the pastoral needs of the victims in a timely and just manner.
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| From left, attorney Jeff Anderson, Tom Doyle and attorney Mike Finnegan discusses Catholic Church records concerning sexual misconduct allegations during a news conference at Anderson Law Offices in St Paul, Minn., Thursday, March 25, 2010. Photo by Craig Lassig |
The report, largely ignored, so far has proved prophetic. The latest clergy abuse scandals flaring across Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy include disturbing allegations that Pope Benedict XVI reportedly pardoned a Milwaukee-area priest suspected of abusing more than 200 deaf kids. He also reportedly knew of or approved the reinstatement in Germany of a pedophile priest who went on to abuse again.
As a good priest I know once put it from the pulpit, don't call the parish if you suspect clergy abuse of a child. Call 911.
There are people calling for the pope's resignation over the latest string of scandals. A lawsuit already has been filed in Kentucky seeking to depose him. The response by Vatican legal eagles reportedly is to declare him immune from litigation because he's a head of state.
"Don't be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion," the pope said in apparent response to the recent child-abuse revelations during his Palm Sunday sermon last week.
That's defiant denial and finger-pointing instead of righteous atonement, which underlines exactly how badly the church hierarchy and its legal and public-relations machinery continue to handle this very sad and tragic issue.
Though I'm a Catholic by baptism and upbringing, I am hardly the head-buried-in-the-sand, church-right-or-wrong type. Never wired that way. Never will be.
As reference marker, I suggest you pick up and read my former newsroom colleague and mentor Jimmy Breslin's "The Church That Forgot Christ."
Jimmy B and I are pretty much on the same page on this issue. But I will share with you some of the responses I got.
I'll start out with one of the handful of "kill the messenger" diatribes.
"Put your column where the sun doesn't shine," wrote one reader. "You are an embaressment (sic) to humanity."
One suggested I should be "fair and balanced" like Fox News. Another wants me to convert to the Muslim faith since I'm a Catholic basher and hater.
Others raised the concern that such coverage made it appear the Catholic Church is the only entity in the world dealing with a pedophilia problem.
"Why don't we read about Protestant, Muslim or Jewish sins?" one wrote. "Don't they exist?"
Articles on child sex abuse and other crimes committed by members of other denominations or professions are almost a daily or weekly fixture. Cops, firefighters, teachers, Boy and Girl Scout leaders, ministers, pastors, high school coaches, lawyers. You name it, and you've read them here and elsewhere.
But in more cases than not, those folks are suspended, terminated or charged or undergo prosecution.
The other significant caveat is that the Catholic Church long has deemed itself the paragon of morality, a church founded directly on the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is a church that believes that, above all others, it is the one true path to salvation and the afterlife.
When you grab that torch and declare such, you'd better make sure your house of glass is not only squeaky clean but also in better order than anyone else's. So don't be surprised if the spotlight is more intense and blinding when you pretty much aid and abet the rapes and molestations of boys and girls while exerting moral authority on everything and everyone else.
That's called hypocrisy.
Still, the overwhelming number of e-mails and phone calls I have received actually praised Doyle and what he had to say. They ranged from many Catholic lay folk to priests and nuns.
"It's getting harder to reconcile the positions of the church on social justice and equity issues as the hierarchy continues to ignore the horror of decades of abuse," wrote another reader. "I'll keep going to church and practicing my faith until the cons outweigh the pros or my conscience can no longer reconcile what I hear and what I believe."
Indeed. Keep the faith. But keep the eyes wide open and use the brain God gave us to point out evil, wherever it may lie.
Contact: rrosario@ pioneerpress.com
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