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	Salon Columnist Michael Higgins Returns to the Bookshelves with a New Book with Peter Kavanagh about the Catholic Church's Sexual Abuse Crisis and the Media. By Charles Enman The Telegraph-Journal November 6, 2010 http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/salon/article/1294431 The question is asked again and again: How can an organization that claims to represent God on Earth impose some of the worst horrors on its most vulnerable charges? In Suffer the Children Unto Me: An Open Inquiry into the Clerical Sex Abuse Scandal, Michael Higgins and Peter Kavanagh - both writers and thoughtful Catholics - seek to answer these and other questions. Salon readers know Higgins both as a former president of St. Thomas University in Fredericton and as the author of the religious and mystery book review column Mysteries & Mystics. The authors' impulse to write the book came from the laying of charges against Raymond Lahey, Bishop of Antigonish, last fall for having pornographic pictures of children on his laptop. This was extraordinarily troubling, because only a month before, Lahey had announced that the Diocese of Antigonish had reached a $13-million settlement in a class-action suit from parishioners who had alleged sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. Lahey had been seen as an enlightened bishop at the time of the settlement, and only weeks later, he joined the ranks of the perpetrators. Still, the way the media reported the Lahey case was troubling for the authors. Headlines blared that there was an all-Canada warrant for his arrest - which was true, but also true of many warrants. The media also reported that his whereabouts were unknown - again true, because Lahey was travelling to turn himself over to the police. The implicit picture of a fugitive cleric hiding from a cross-country police search had no basis in fact. The authors are at pains to say that no one should downplay the church's sexual abuse crisis. Again and again, they state that what happened in so many places was utterly wrong and a betrayal of the church's mission. That said, they believe that media treatment has been unfair. They mention several cases throughout Canada. "The number (of cases) has not been wildly disproportionate to cases found in other professions; the media coverage, however, is." They reference studies that suggest that between two and four percent of priests have had sexual contact with an underage person. That is too many, of course - and yet over 95 percent of priests are innocent and should not be tarred with the abuser's brush. The media, the authors point out, inherently require compelling narratives - protagonists in white hats, antagonists in black hats, and simple stories that bring the two into collision. Too often, subtleties are lost. Moreover, with the 24-hour news cycle, there is a rush to interpretation and judgment that is often premature, offered before the truth is really known. The book discusses the Canadian scandals at length and then sets out the larger context across North America and Europe. The liberal and the conservative perspectives on the scandals can only speak past each other. The liberal perspective, the authors state, sees the problem originating in compulsory celibacy and the refusal to ordain women. The conservative view blames failure to root out homosexuality in the priesthood, a sagging moral sense throughout the Western world and a failure by the church's hierarchy to enforce the teachings of the faith. Incidents of abuse seem to have peaked some years ago. The issue today is less about abuse itself than the church's confused efforts to hide what, by its own beliefs, can only be considered sinful and illegal behaviour. Observers have suggested that Pope Benedict XVI has been part of the old pattern of tolerating and minimizing sexual abuse within the church. The authors vehemently disagree, saying that Benedict's record of taking strong action against abuse is long and more than clear. The Church in Canada was one of the first to deal with sexual scandals. Some of the early responses - such as the report, From Pain to Hope, released by the Coalition of Concerned Canadian Catholics in 1992, a document that won admiration beyond Canada - were promising. However, the authors suggest that the church in Canada has taken fewer measures to lead its followers to a new place than have its counterparts in other countries. The book is not remarkable for bringing new material forward - but rather for assembling a comprehensive account of how the church has dealt with sexual abuse around the world over several decades. The focus is both global and very particular. Chareles Enman is a former writer for the Telegraph-Journal, living in Ottawa. He can be reached at charlesenman95@yahoo.ca
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