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	Guest Column: Church Hierarchy Should Come Clean By Janet Clark Des Moines Register April 29, 2010 http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100429/OPINION01/4290331/-1/SPORTS09/Guest-column-Church-hierarchy-should-come-clean At the heart of the Roman Catholic sexual abuse crisis, the real issue is the cover-up. It's not unreasonable to hold religious leaders to a higher standard than people in other professions, but we all know there are people from every walk of life who do really bad things. Sex crimes in the Catholic Church are big news not so much because of the clergy who abused parishioners, but because of the organized, systematic nature of the cover-up. When I began to deal with the fact that I had been sexually assaulted by a priest, I was able through my attorney to speak with several of his other victims. Through our conversations, it became clear this priest was a serial offender, well known to hierarchy and law enforcement alike. It became apparent to me that the church in which I grew up had placed me in the hands of a known predator. That realization brought an overwhelming sense of betrayal, almost worse than the initial attack. I was baptized and raised in the Catholic Church, attended Catholic schools, joined the Legion of Mary. Coming to terms with the fact that this church failed to protect me and so many others from priests who were known to be sexually abusive was excruciating. Until recently, sexual abuse was shrouded in secrecy throughout all of society. With the abuse in the Catholic Church, however, that secrecy was clothed in sacred garments; "telling" was not only unacceptable, but a sin. Theologians argue about whether or not that secrecy was encoded in a Vatican edict entitled "Crimen Sollicitationis," a document then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) reissued in 2001 instructing bishops to follow certain protocol for dealing with sexual assaults by clergy. According to a BBC documentary, "Sex Crimes and the Vatican," this missive ordered victims, witnesses and perpetrators to keep quiet about the abuse under the penalty of excommunication. For a Catholic, excommunication means not only the loss of church membership, but the loss of salvation. The family of one of the other victims I spoke with was threatened by the bishop's office with excommunication if they told anybody else about the attack, and the resultant secrecy contributed to more people being victimized. Including me. Victim advocate and canon lawyer the Rev. Thomas Doyle stated that, while he was a consultant for the documentary, he did not believe "Crimen Sollicitationis" is "proof of an executive conspiracy." "I do not believe that the Vatican or any group of bishops needed a conspiracy," Doyle stated in an article in the National Catholic Reporter. "The secrecy and cover-up was very much a part of the Catholic institutional culture and was, in fact, a policy. I have studied the files of hundreds of clergy sex abuse cases throughout the U.S., in Canada, Ireland and the British Isles ... files produced by dioceses and religious orders ... and I can assure you that the common thread was an intentional cover-up enshrouded in secrecy. That is the way it was." Regardless of which interpretation of the document is correct, the fact is that the cover-up was well-orchestrated and involved the upper echelon of the hierarchy. Pope Benedict is known as an intelligent micromanager. It stretches the imagination to think that the man who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith from 1981-2005 did not know a great deal about the sexual assaults occurring in his church. It is time for him to come clean, along with the rest of the hierarchy To insist on accountability from this institution is not Catholic bashing. Those who use that term would be well-advised to remember that the victims were themselves faithful Catholics. I am thankful to the media for shining a light into this dark corner. There is a saying in 12-step circles: You are only as sick as your secrets. Or, in the words of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Contact: j_e_m_clark@hotmail.com
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