By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
April 9, 2010
http://www.sltrib.com/faith/ci_14853394
In the weeks leading up Christendom's holiest day, Monsignor Francis Mannion felt like hiding.
 |
| Monsignor Francis Mannion of the the Salt Lake Catholic Diocese. |
After the U.S. Catholic Church had spent eight years dealing with its own priest abuse crisis, the Irish-born pastor was stunned by new reports of similarly horrific cases in Ireland, Germany and a deaf school in Milwaukee.
Though these alleged abuses were committed by a small fraction of the nearly half million priests worldwide, Mannion felt the recent publicity put all priests under a cloud of distrust and accusation.
And it wasn't just the abuse that troubled the pastor at St. Vincent De Paul parish in Holladay. It also was the church's handling of the matter for the past three or four decades.
So Mannion and other priests in Salt Lake City diocese took occasions during Holy Week for Utah's 300,000 Catholics to address the topic publicly or privately.
"It's not a matter of many scandals occurring at one time, then the society solving the problem," Mannion, considered the diocese's resident theologian, said he told the packed parish. "Child abuse has always and will always be here. It is not going away."
As many as 10 percent of children are abused, though fewer than 1 percent of the cases are ever reported, he said. "Everyone has to be vigilant about the safety of our children in families, schools and churches."
In 2002, the Utah diocese announced that during the past several decades eight priests had been accused of sexual abuse of minors by nine victims. None of the priests was then in active service. All the cases were reported to state authorities.
Since then, Mannion said, every American diocese, parish and school has been monitored for strict compliance with policies regarding child abuse.
"A Catholic institution is probably one of the safest places for a child to be at the present time," he said. "As a pastor, I can assure you that I take my responsibilities very seriously to protect children in our parish, school and child-care center. Everyone, including volunteers, is carefully and completely vetted."
Drawing on Christian belief in the resurrection, Mannion assured the faithful that the church will survive this new round of accusations.
"If Christ can rise from the dead," he said, "then he can help us overcome this crisis."
At the end of his homily, the congregation burst into spontaneous applause, the first time, Mannion said, a sermon of his generated that reaction. Many parishioners told him afterward that they hoped every priest would deal with it in a similarly open manner.
The Rev. Erik Richsteig of St. James Catholic Church in Ogden didn't address the issue on Easter, but is willing to discuss it with any interested parishioner. He has strong opinions about the unfolding crisis.
"We've known [child sex abuse] by some priests was a problem for quite some time," Richsteig said. "We are basically cleaning up a mess that's several decades old."
He blamed the abuse on the liberalism of the 1960s and the Second Vatican Council, when some "procedures were loosened up." He acknowledges the church should have done things differently when abuse allegations first arose.
Psychologists were telling the bishops that abusive priests could be treated, and church lawyers were telling them it wasn't their problem, Richsteig said. "We should not have listened to them and done what is right, which is to get these priests away from kids and teens."
Although Pope Benedict XVI has offered apologies in the name of the church to victims in Ireland and the United States, he has done nothing wrong personally, the Ogden priest said. "The pope has been the prime force within the church to make sure these things were dealt with appropriately."
Unfortunately, there are "forces out there that are using the scandal to score points against the church," he said, "because of its stance on homosexuality and abortion."
Contact: pstack@sltrib.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.