BishopAccountability.org
	Where to Find the Church Berkshire Eagle May 9, 2010 http://www.berkshireeagle.com/editorials/ci_15047822 Today marks the 500th day of the vigil at St. Stanislaus Church in Adams, and while the parishioners recently received a hearing in the Vatican it is difficult to believe much good will come of it. Too often in recent years, good ideas -- whether to reopen a church or crack down on pedophile priests or rein in a powerful rogue prelate -- have gone to the Vatican to disappear. There was no disputing that a Catholic Church had to close in Adams because of economic realities, but the spectacularly beautiful, financially sound St. Stan's was a puzzling choice. The Springfield's Diocese's dismissive attitude toward complaining parishioners hardened their resolve, leading to the occupation of the church. Three vigilers met with Cardinal Zenon Grockolewski in Rome to outline their grievances but it would be stunning should a top Vatican official side with parishioners over the hierarchy. The pedophile priest scandal that touched the Springfield Diocese and tore asunder the Boston Archdiocese erupted in Europe this year, and the story was doubly painful in its familiarity. The sins of a relative few pedophiles were compounded by the refusal of a dismissive, image-conscious Church to deal with them. Typical of a bureaucracy, its instinct for self-preservation clouded its judgment, and the resulting cover-ups enabled pedophiles to emerge in other parishes and find new victims, making the hierarchy directly complicit in their crimes. The pedophile scandal has ensnared Pope Benedict XVI, both as pope and as the influential Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The cardinal's reaction to a visit 12 years ago from two Mexican seminarians recounting decades of sexual abuse at the hands of the Reverend Marcial Maciel DelGado, the powerful founder of the Legionaries of Christ, is instructive. Less than a year after that meeting, Cardinal Ratzinger ended the ongoing investigation into Father Maciel's behavior, reportedly telling a Mexican bishop that "it isn't prudent." Eight years later, Cardinal Ratzinger, now the pope, removed Father Maciel from all priestly duties, and just last week, the Vatican revealed that he did so because of Father Maciel's "objectively immoral behavior" and "life devoid of scruples and authentic religious feeling." The damage done by this serial abuser, of course, can't be undone. Those who see a media conspiracy in recent stories on the Vatican do an injustice to the many Catholics who are disgusted and horrified by the failures of their leaders. The argument that all churches have pedophiles -- the "everybody does it" argument is particularly weak when it comes to child abusers -- ignores the fact that it is the callousness of church leaders who put the church's interest over those of victimized children, many still scarred as adults, that truly enrages Catholics. It has been said by columnists on these pages that the Vatican is not the church, and that truism also applies to the many, like Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law and other church leaders, who failed the flock by putting the institution first. The church is the nuns who broke from leadership to support federal health care reform because the plight of the poor was more important to them than tired abortion dogma. The church is the many good priests like Father James Scahill in East Longmeadow who have courageously called out the hierarchy for being arrogant and out of touch with parishioners. And of course the church is the many Catholics who hold fast to the principles of their faith even as church bureaucrats behave like so many Goldman Sachs executives. Among those Catholics are those keeping vigil at St. Stan's in Adams and still holding out hope for a miracle.
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