By Lisa Wangsness
Boston Globe
April 8, 2010
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/08/vatican_crisis_touches_chord_in_boston/
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| Bernie McDaid, 54, of Peabody is organizing “A Day of Reformation’’ Oct. 31 in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Photo by John Blanding/Globe Staff |
Eight years after the worst scandal in the history of the Catholic Church in America exploded in Boston, an all-too-familiar scene is unfolding in Europe. Victims are coming forward. Bishops acknowledge covering up abuse and failing to stop perpetrators. Pope Benedict XVI is under scrutiny for his oversight of an abusive priest in Germany in the early 1980s, when he was an archbishop.
Bostonians who were engulfed in the scandal in 2002 have watched all this with a rising sense of frustration, exhaustion, and, perhaps most strikingly, validation. Many of the priests, academics, parishioners, activists, and victims interviewed over the last week said they felt a sense of relief that the Vatican is being forced to acknowledge the global breadth of a scandal that it had initially dismissed as an American problem.
“I think it’s a good development that the international scope of this disorder is coming out into the open,’’ said James E. Muller, a cardiologist who in 2002 cofounded Voice of the Faithful, a Newton-based group pushing for change in the Catholic Church. “There can’t be healing until the wound is recognized. What we’re seeing now is, it’s not a Boston problem, not a US problem. It’s a worldwide problem, and it reaches to very high levels in the Vatican.’’
The scandal in Boston unfolded over the course of a year, as the number of abusive priests became clearer, victims spoke publicly about their despair, and Cardinal Bernard F. Law resigned after losing support among laypeople and priests.
Suzanne Robotham, a parishioner of St. Joseph Parish in Belmont, watched it develop with revulsion.
“I think many people knew of instances that had occurred,’’ she said, “but the scope of the problem was just unbelievable. It was just very upsetting.’’ she said. Some Catholics she knew left the church; non-Catholic friends could not imagine how anyone could stay.
Much has changed in Boston since then. Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, a quiet Franciscan friar, replaced Law. He settled lawsuits with hundreds of victims, and the archdiocese follows a new zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse that was written by US bishops in the midst of the crisis.
After years of relative calm, the last few weeks have been jarring ones.
Holy Week is always a searingly painful time for Ann Hagan Webb, who was abused as a student at a Catholic school. Last week she found herself constantly checking the news. Like many survivors, she had long anticipated the day when victims elsewhere in the world would come forward.
“Everyone I talk to seems to be, on the one side, agitated and excited that all of this validation is coming, and on the other side [experiencing] a resurgence of some of the flashbacks and depression and anxiety that came in dealing with their abuse,’’ said Webb, now a psychologist and the New England co-coordinator of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
Phil Saviano is an abuse victim who lives in Roslindale and who, like Webb, is no longer Catholic. He does not understand why the pope has not implemented the zero-tolerance policy worldwide.
“Why would he make such a big deal of establishing reforms in the US [while] leaving kids in other parts of the world completely vulnerable?’’ he said.
Some Catholic leaders here, though, worry that the nuances of the situation are being lost in the uproar. The Rev. David M. O’Leary, a Catholic priest who is chaplain at Tufts University, has tried in recent homilies to add context, pointing out, for example, that psychiatrists did not recognize pedophilia as incurable until the mid-1980s.
The Rev. William P. Leahy, president of Boston College, said that the church must seek forgiveness. He said he found Benedict’s letter to the Irish faithful, in which he apologized to victims, impressive.
“I think the pope has been an ally of those who are trying to deal with this issue in the church, and I think he will be in Europe, too,’’ he said.
But there is also profound disappointment. Bernie McDaid of Peabody was one of five victims of clergy sexual abuse who met with Pope Benedict during his 2008 trip to the United States. He has been appalled by the Vatican’s defensive tone.
“This is a scourge to us victims; we cannot heal,’’ said McDaid, now 54. “There was a message of hope that day, and it has slowly burnt away.’’
McDaid is now trying to find hope elsewhere. He is organizing A Day of Reformation, a worldwide meeting of victims of sexual abuse by priests, on Oct. 31 in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. He said he hopes the event will call attention to victims’ need for support and help them heal.
Robotham’s response to the scandal in 2002 was not to leave the church, but to deepen her understanding of its problems and become more involved in fixing them. She is now a member of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, a lay advisory group to the cardinal, and she is studying church administration at BC’s School of Theology and Ministry.
The archdiocese has made tremendous strides in handling sexual abuse, she said, but the scandal in Europe raises broader concerns about how the Catholic Church operates.
“Giving the laity more responsibility for day-to-day operations is very important; improving lay access to the hierarchy and having more collaboration between laity and clergy is important,’’ she said. Even in Boston, making progress on those fronts “is slow going,’’ she said.
Other debates over church policy that arose in 2002 but soon faded have also reemerged.
“Even though it’s clear there are thousands of examples of really wonderful priests, one begins to wonder whether we’re not asking too much of people to live a life of celibacy . . . whether there aren’t opportunities to look at whether priests should be allowed to marry again, as was the case 1,000 years ago, and whether women should be allowed to become priests,’’ said Jack Connors, a former Boston advertising executive and a prominent fund-raiser for the Catholic schools.
Such questions should not be dismissed, said Ernest Collamati, chairman of the religious studies department at Regis College. Celibacy does not cause sexual abuse, he said, but if church leaders were also parents, “would the first response have been concern about the image’’ of the church? “Or would there have been an immediate and more forceful response?’’
O’Leary, the Tufts chaplain, fears the scandal has damaged the morale of priests. During a Holy Week when the controversy clouded the message of renewal, he said, many priests tried to focus on what they could control, their own ministries. And yet he has seen signs of hope in a robust collection to benefit Haiti and an enthusiastic response to an effort to encourage Catholics to come to confession during Lent.
“The more we are welcoming, and not whitewashing things, the better,’’ he said.
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