BishopAccountability.org
	Jack Spillane: Local Priest's View of Church Crisis Is Refreshing Southcoast Today June 6, 2010 http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100605/NEWS/6050372 I sat down with Father Roger Landry of St. Anthony's in New Bedford this week to have another one of our liberal-conservative talks on religion. Father prefers the term "traditional Catholic" for himself but, given my progressive politics, you get what I mean. The topic was the assignment of Cardinal Sean O'Malley last week as part of a team of senior church officials whose job is to help the Irish hierarchy better deal with the sex-abuse crisis. The widespread scandal has helped transform Ireland from one of the most unquestioningly Catholic countries in the world to one in which there are now widespread demands for justice for church officials alleged to have covered up abuse. I told Father Landry — who's worked closely with O'Malley since the latter was the Fall River bishop — that an Irish colleague of mine was skeptical of the assignments to his homeland: It's company men doing company business, was his attitude. And in spite of my admiration for the way O'Malley so forthrightly resolved the child abuse financial lawsuits in Boston and Fall River, I was hard-pressed to disagree with the colleague prior to my talk with Landry. The Easter weekend Vatican comparisons of the New York Times' stories about Pope Benedict to the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust left me feeling that high church officials, including the pope, were incapable of admitting mistakes. I thought they always seem to have to first frame the problem as a liberal media conspiracy. Their belief seems to be that the folks who oppose celibacy and who support abortion rights and gay marriage are simply trying to convince the world that the Catholic Church is evil. For the hierarchy, I thought, there always seems to be the media bogeymen first, and a close second, concerns about the questionable financial motivations of some lawyers and victims — Jeffrey Anderson (the principal source for the Times' stories) for instance, has earned $60 million on abuse cases and has yet to volunteer to represent victims "pro bono" going forward. But regardless of any liberal agendas and greedy lawyers, the church's sex abuse problem, in the end, is the church's sex abuse problem. It's their problem, not someone else's. Father Landry got this. He acknowledged that whatever the agendas of the news reports (he believes they deliberately failed to explore canonical law procedures showing Pope Benedict's innocence), the stories have done the church a favor by spotlighting that its own failures are the principal problem. "The real issue is not that the New York Times can get a story wrong," he said. "The real issue is that the church had members who first, harmed the young, (and) second, had other members that didn't do all that they could do prevent it." The church is not being falsely accused of evil, it's being reminded of the evil it did, he said. "In this sense, journalism in general has done the church a huge favor, to allow us not to escape the evil that was done," he said. MY PERSPECTIVE Growing up in a very Catholic family with lots of informal contact with priests, I've always known that the majority of priests were very definitely not child molesters. Yet I've also long felt that the child abuse issue, at bottom line, represented a shocking inability of the Vatican and its bishops. I thought it represented a cluelessness to the immense psychological, and often physical, damage done by sex abuse. But until the growing awareness of abuse issues in recent decades, the church's lack of understanding was pretty much reflected in society at large, too. Whether it was in other religions, schools, organized youth sports, scouting, you name it, we didn't understand the problem. Landry said the scandal's strength has come from the failure of some bishops to protect children in the way that a father would protect his kids from a brother who had molested them, even if he didn't want his brother to go to jail. "Most dads still wouldn't want to give him unfettered access to kids, no matter what the psych(iatrist) said," he said. Even in hindsight, it can be said that bishops who returned priests to work that brought them into contact with children were "at least, terribly naive," he said. Landry went on to say that both cardinals and the pope can personally acknowledge making mistakes. That's a relief to those of us who were beginning to believe the Catholic hierarchy thinks admitting mistakes means ending their moral authority. It's actually just the opposite, as even theologically I'm fairly certain that the Christian position is that we are all sinners. "It is quite possible for bishops, cardinals, even the pope to apologize for actions," Landry said. He gave the example of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago who has won praise for apologizing that he did not respond quickly enough to a case in which one of his diocesan priests was accused of child molestation. In fact, Landry said the pope may very well make a personal apology when he speaks directly to priests in the near future. And, of course, the pope has already acknowledged church wrongdoing in his recent speech at Fatima. "Pope Benedict very forcefully said the greatest harm that comes to the church is self-inflicted, not stuff that comes from without," Landry said. He also said that the O'Malley appointment — in light of the Franciscan cardinal's reputation for always first responding to the horror of child abuse as a concerned pastor instead of like a lawyer or P.R. spinmeister — is truly a positive. "The Vatican wanted to bring somebody in to model what the church's authentic response to this evil needs to be," he said. "It clearly shows how serious the Vatican takes this." he said. Landry did say that those who won't give the church credit when it does something right on abuse issues, lose their own credibility. He questioned the effectiveness of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticism of the O'Malley assignment. "I think they would be able to do greater good over the whole, and have greater credibility, when they would be able to start to become more balanced in their review of what the church has done," he said. I agree with Landry about the reluctance of some victims groups, as well as just ordinary Catholics and citizens, to give due credit. But I also somehow hope that I understand the trauma of the victims. For those who have been shattered by the sexual abuse of those entrusted as God's representatives, rage and mistrust is not likely to subside from one, two or even 10 good efforts at understanding. "After the church blew her credibility, totally, as someone who would police her own, and protect everybody, it's understandable that people wouldn't trust a bishop, even like Bishop O'Malley," Landry said. For those badly abused, only longstanding love and charity will ever offer any hope of reconciliation. On that, both Father Roger and I agree. Contact: jspillane@s-t.com
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