BishopAccountability.org
	The Right to Return By Kristine Ward National Survivor Advocates Coalition June 17, 2011 http://nationalsurvivoradvocatescoalition.wordpress.com/editorials/ In diplomatic parlance, the phrase right to return is the shorthand for the tenet of international law that gives any person the right to return to and re-enter his or her country of origin. Americans are familiar with the phrase being used during the Dayton Accords that settled the Bosnian conflict and in the continuing conflict in the Middle East particularly regarding Palestinians. Startlingly, it came up in a different context this week at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) meeting and it is chilling. Retired Anchorage Archbishop Francis Hurley took to the open session microphone (a large portion of the meeting was behind closed doors) on both Wednesday and Thursday to speak to putting priests who have been removed in the scandal back into ministry. There have been whiffs of this foul smelling desire for retries during the nearly 10 year post Boston span of the scandal and a few end runs by removed priests who took their cases to the Vatican Congregation for Priests but none of the rumors or off hand remarks by hierarchs had been said in anything that resembled a public setting until this week’s USCCB meeting. In this instance, as is often the case with matters the bishops consider delicate, a retired bishop carried the water while sitting jurisdictional bishops continued to profess the company line with no hint of deviation. What makes Archbishop Hurley’s two day pitch so striking is his crassness of laying this concept on the platter of forgiveness all dressed up with a sprig of the Gospel. The usual bishop double speak was nowhere in evidence. On day one of his pitch Hurley said a “goal” of reconciliation should be to put priest abusers back in ministry. He asked: “Don’t we believe in forgiveness?” After his pitch had marinated for a day, he warmed it up and served it on day two with a side dish of underdog. Said Hurley, “This (reinstalling removed priests) might stir up SNAP – so what? The press might come after us. It’s time we confronted them. The time is now, not later on.” Juxtapose this approach with Child Protection Committee Chair Bishop Blaise Cupich’s ubiquitous quote” The Charter is working” and you have the bishops new plan stolen straight from the Taliban: take a few leaders out of play for a while, use words that sound civilized, bide your time, and when there is less interest by the outside world in what you’re doing, re-instate the chieftains. This two day cameo appearance of Archbishop Hurley on the bishops’ national stage provides the stark silhouette of the dark side of those who have chosen to learn nothing in the scandal. Before Archbishop Hurley or any of his colleagues use the word forgiveness again in the context of the scandal, we suggest they learn what justice means, what criminality means, and what rape and sodomy mean. We suggest Archbishop Hurley and his colleagues go to their local rape crisis center and listen to victims since they steadfastly refuse to sit down with those who have been abused in their own Church because one of them might raise their voice. We suggest they go to their local suicide prevention center for the midnight shifts. We suggest they go to the unemployment line and the waiting line for medications for PTSD. We suggest they go to the prisons. We suggest they tell the Catholics who are still putting money in collection plates that they are still paying the priests they have removed in the scandal while they refuse to batter down Rome’s door to move on the cases before the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. But more importantly, we call upon Catholics and all men and women of goodwill to take off the glasses of willful blindness and see this “right of return” trial balloon for what it is: a fresh offensive.
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