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	Words Are Not Enough: What the Catholic Church Needs to Do By Bay Citizen Tim Lennon October 7, 2011 http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/words-are-not-enough-what-catholic-needs/ [text] The widespread sexual abuse of children by priests pushed the Catholic Church into a previously unknown level of crisis. The scandals that exploded throughout the United States within the last ten years have exposed a consistent and widespread pattern and practice of obstruction of justice and cover-up in an attempt to protect the clergy abusers as well as the church hierarchy itself. This crisis has not been diminished by the pronouncements of the Vatican and reforms suggested by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). In response, the USCCB enacted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002 in Dallas. We have seen apologies, prayers and other nice words from church officials, starting with the Pope on down the ladder to the local bishops, but have seen little or no action. Scope of the Problem Huge scandals appeared across the United States, including in Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Deigo, and of course San Francisco. The scandals were magnified by the discovery of bishops transferring priests to avoid disclosure, intimidating and harassing the victims, failing to report child sex abuse as required by law, dismissing complaints of abuse, a wholesale cover-up of child abuse. The church hierarchy, convinced of its sanctity, prestige and authority, engaged in practices that circled the wagons, protecting clergy abusers at all costs. The heat got so bad that Cardinal Law of Boston fled that city to avoid possible legal action, and was rewarded by the Vatican with a prestigious position in Rome. In Philadelphia, several priests, including a high church official, are on trial right now for major crimes against children. This was not just a few errant priests and forgiving bishops, but was yet another case of widespread abuse by clergy and cover-ups and obstruction of justice by bishops and high church officials. Thousands of similar cases to these are presented and documented in http://www.bishopaccountability.org which has served as the historian of the abuse crisis in this country. Church Responds to the Scandal When the nationwide crisis exploded, the USCCB responded with moderate reforms in the Dallas Charter. Compliance to the Dallas Charter is measured by self reporting by bishops. Audits of compliance fail any reasonable understanding of transparency and honesty, since all information is restricted and provided at the discretion of those same self-reporting bishops. A significant number, 55 out of the 195 dioceses (see April 13, 2011 entry http://nationalsurvivoradvocatescoalition.wordpress.com/library/ ) failed to meet even these minimal and limited reforms. And the USCCB will not identify those 55 dioceses. By contrast, when an outside civil authority (a grand jury) looked at the Philadelphia Archdiocese in three investigations over ten years, it found significant corruption and noted that the Archdiocese endangered children even though the USCCB certified that it was in full compliance with the Dallas Charter. (http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_statements/2011_statements/021111_summary_of_philadelphia_grand_jury_report_2_11.htm) The Chairwoman of the Philadelphia Review Board provided a scathing critique of the Archdiocese in Commonweal Magazine (http://commonwealmagazine.org/fog-scandal-1) acknowledging that the review Board was kept in the dark--pertinent information and records, it turns out, were hidden from them. Civilian Review? The Dallas Charter recommended that civilian review boards advise the diocese on cases of suspected clergy sexual abuse of children. A national review board was established, but the first chairman, Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating, quit, complaining about suppression of information, obfuscation, and resistance to civilian review by church officials. At every local diocese a review board is appointed by the bishop and is created to advise the bishop. Close examination reveals that these boards are highly constructed by the bishop: canon (religious) lawyers are appointed by the bishop, the investigators and interviewers are picked by the bishop. In addition, the bishop decides what accusations are passed on to the board, and the bishop controls the subsequent information passed to the board, such as personal records possibly showing past behavior problems. Even then there is no assurance that the bishop will even take the advice of the review board. Lastly, there is significant ambiguity about what and when accusations get reported to the police and child protective agencies. Bishop Walsh of Santa Rosa was famous for knowing of child abuse by a priest and that priest’s coming arrest, he warned the priest so he could escape to Mexico. Self reporting [text] The Church takes particular effort to show that this crisis is all behind us. They say the crisis is over, the church has made amends. It points to one statistic or another. The Church initiated a huge public report, the John Jay Report, in an effort to explain the crisis, rationalize their obstructionism, dismiss the abuse crisis as over, or pass the blame onto others, even going so far as to latch onto a particular decade, the sixties, as being the problem. However, this so-called study was yet another example of self-reporting. It was not conducted by using independent data. The data submitted was the information the bishops judged important. To make a parallel, it’s as if you had a known embezzler to provide an audit of the company that person had embezzled from--any reasonable person would be suspect of that audit. Without transparent data collection the John Jay Report is an academic, ethical and moral fraud, regretfully with a great cost--possible future child endangerment. Action, Not Words How do you protect children? What is the best course of action in the face of years of dismissal of credible complaints accompanied by the movement of priests from parish to parish and country to country to avoid scandal? Below is a proposal given to the San Francisco bishops months ago. It represents the fundamental actions the Church officials must take to repair their tarnished moral and ethical reputation, and most importantly, to protect children going forward: Open the books! Make full disclosure of the identities of clergy who have been criminally charged, settled in court, admitted guilt, or have been creditably accused of child abuse. Full disclosure will help parents protect their children. A creditably accused priest, Fr. Flickinger, was assigned by the SF Archdiocese to a parish (St Paul in Noe Valley which has an elementary school) without notification to the parents of the parish. As soon as he was exposed they expunged his name from the parish and archdiocese websites downplaying his assignment. Support the victims and survivors that were injured. Those who are sexually abused as children suffer lifelong injury. Some do not survive; most are crippled with problems due to the abuse such as severe depression, substance abuse, relationship problems, fear, anger, distrust, PTSD, etc. The church must make efforts to help heal those who they injured. Therapy and counseling are the principle needs while others may require substance abuse treatment, massage, job training, meditation or acupuncture. Victims of childhood sexual abuse are fragile and "break" in myriad ways. The Church is responsible for that trauma and must support victims who need assistance, in all the ways they need assistance. The church officials must acknowledge and renounce their bad past behaviors. The strongest measure for rectifying previous errors is to acknowledge them. This acknowledgment must accompany the full disclosure cited above, including acknowledging instances of covering abuse, moving priests to avoid consequence, and every act of intimidation against victims. In addition, every level of the Church hierarchy must make a full renunciation of those behaviors. Protect children by eliminating the statue of limitations. The reasons are simple: a. those who are sexually abused as children sometimes take decades for the memories of that abuse to come forward; b. child abusers can abuse children for decades, some clergy abusers documented to abuse for over 40 years. It took 30 years to remember my abuse and 20 more years to remember the brutal rape I suffered by a priest. Action can be taken to protect children, but the first step must be for all of us, including Catholics, to acknowledge that the crisis of clergy abuse of children is not over. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP (www.snapnetwork.org) provides support to men and women who have suffered abuse by clergy. If you've been victimized by clergy, please know that you are not alone. You can get better. You can reach out to others who've been hurt just like you have. Together, we can heal one another. Tim Lennon is a local leader of SNAP in San Francisco. Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/13sqg)
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