The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness or Why Is the Review Board Placing the Abusive Priest Back into a Parish?

Virginia Jones
January 16, 2012

http://compassionategathering.blogspot.com/2012/01/voice-of-one-crying-in-wilderness-or.html

I try not to criticize the Catholic Church in public very much because the people in the pews and the leadership of the Church are all too human. You can’t really motivate people to change through criticism. I am the mother of two teenagers who went from being sweet, wonderful children to still wonderful but rather prickly children as soon as they hit puberty.

My son likes swear words. MY daughter likes creative put downs. I try to listen but sometimes I find myself resorting to long lectures about their bad behavior. The problem is they don’t respond well to lectures. Truthfully, they respond better when I model the behavior that I want them to display.

But my attempts to reform my children fly in the face of the culture around them. Both complain of significant bullying from classmates.

Unfortunately adolescent mood swings are not confined to adolescents because the people in the pews and the leadership of the Church often act like unruly adolescents -- inclined to bully anyone who challenges their spiritual safety.

So I try modeling with other Catholics what needs to be done.

But this time, something so bad has happened that I cannot not criticize the Catholic Church.

One evening before bed this last week I engaged in the odd act of perusing Abuse Tracker just before I turned out the lights and rolled over to sleep. Instead, I sat bolt upright in shock. The top article was about a priest with an accusation of abuse against him who is being placed back into ministry.

I’ve read other cases over the years. Priests about whom there were accusations made after 2002, but the number of accusations had to pile up before they were removed from ministry. I wonder what the priest and his supervisors were thinking. How much more publicity does the abuse scandal have to have before they get it? But these cases are not personal.

This time the case was personal. I know the survivor from the case as well as the survivor’s family. I’ve supported them for a long time. They do not want their name in the media so I won’t link this blog to the article, and I won’t name them, and I will gloss over the details of the case.

Apparently the Review Board reviewed the case after the lawsuit was settled and found the accusation of abuse not substantiated, because there were no other accusations of abuse and the prosecutor had not chosen to file criminal prosecution.

I wonder if the personnel of the Archdiocese gave all the information they had access to the Review Board because I know enough details to know these assumptions are faulty.

There is at least one additional survivor of abuse by the same priest, a victim of physical abuse, who did not have the wherewithal intellectually or emotionally to come forward. There is a good chance there are other child sexual abuse survivors too.

I looked up the Review Board for the Archdiocese involved. The members are not named so I can’t go to them personally and tell them what I know, but the code of ethics that they are supposed to follow has been published.

Physical abuse as well as sexual abuse is considered something that disqualifies one for public ministry.

The person who was physically abused was only able to disclose that abuse to other family members. That person was too intimidated to make that accusation public, but I would be extremely surprised if the lawyers for the Archdiocese did not know of the accusation because I am not privy to most of the legal details of the case of sexual abuse, and I know about the accusation of physical abuse.

Moreover, the person who was sexually abused and that person’s parents were significantly ostracized and harassed by their community, which was very supportive of the priest. I think I am making an educated guess as to the reason that the prosecutor chose not to file charges was because so many people came out in support of the priest. Once the case became a civil lawsuit, the judge slapped a confidentiality order on the case and no one could come out in public in support of the survivor.

My comment as to why I don’t focus on our current legal system passing still more laws for lawsuits or criminal prosecution of abuse cases is because I’ve seen too many cases slip between the cracks like this one.

Now I have to get on my soap box.

Our legal system is based on Retributive Justice -- find the perpetrator and punish him or her. Retributive Justice is a very high stakes system -- the stakes are money or prison. Guilt has to be fairly conclusively proved before you get justice. Civil lawsuits mean that a few people get lots of money and lots of people get little or no support. Witnesses and victims can and will be intimidated from coming forward. It is obvious that many people will never get justice when the stakes are so high. There must be a better way. I think that the way forward is Restorative Justice because it is much more holistic and much more healing. When the injustice is smaller or when the victim is scared, support is still available. I think more people will come forward and more long term change will happen when you get support for lesser crimes or despite imperfect evidence -- such as reluctant witnesses or victims. In another blog I will write about a case that happened here in Oregon when the charges were dropped and how much more effective Restorative Justice would have been than Retributive Justice turned out to be.

If we are going to put an end to abuse, we have to change the whole society, not simply our legal system. I don’t think Retributive Justice should be eliminated right off. We will still need some place to put those people so sick they will harm others at any opportunity. Moreover, I think a long transition period will have to take place as changes are made in people’s hearts and minds. The change is happening and has been happening for a long time, because not so long ago it was a crime to be poor, but it wasn’t a crime to sexually abuse children or beat your wife. Moreover, both prisons and mental hospitals were far more inhumane than they are today. We are changing, but maybe we can name the place we need to go and that place is Restorative Justice.

Off my soapbox and back to the case. The ostracism of the survivor and the survivor’s family surely also had the affect of silencing any other accuser, and the victim had heard from others who appeared to have been abused.

If the Review Board of the Archdiocese knew what I know about the case and chose to put the abusive priest back into ministry, then they are acted in a way every bit as evil as the actions taken by Cardinal Law and many others to put known abusers back into ministry. Please note I am being careful to call the actions evil and not the people. I hope and pray for their redemption. If they did not know, then the people from the Archdiocese who withheld the information I know from them acted in a way that promotes evil.

I am Catholic. I sent my children to catechism. Both of my children went through classes for First Reconciliation and First Communion. My son was a member of our church's youth group for a couple years. They remained safe during those experiences, but I am very worried for other children and their safety in the future. I am concerend for the Church I love. I fear that the abuse scandal will come back bigger and worse than ever in the future. The media and the parishioners are scandal weary now, but until the whole Church faces this issue fully, we are doomed to repeat it over and over.

As I write this blog, I am begging every Catholic I can reach to act.

I once was told by another Catholic parishioner, “We don’t have to do anything because the bishops have done everything.”

How very untrue. The people in the pews are every bit as responsible for covering up abuse as the bishops -- simply because they so often decide to support the bishop or the abusive priest and not the survivor or they chose to remain silent and do nothing.

I know the harassment suffered by the survivor whose abuser was put back into ministry because I suffered it too.

My children were safe after the abuse scandal broke in 2002, but we were not safe before the abuse scandal broke, not at all. We were very much in danger, but I did not know it.

I was baptized Catholic as an adult. My young children were baptized with me. Not long after baptizing us, the priest started grooming my son and me. What I did not know because nobody in our parish knew, was that the priest had an accusation of abuse against him dating back to 1980. The survivor came forward not once but many times, trying to get the priest removed. EACH TIME HE WAS DISBELIEVED. EACH TIME THE PRIEST REMAINED IN MINISTRY.

Only in 2002, when the scandal was overwhelming, did other survivors come forward.

Why did the scandal have to be overwhelming before the Church would act?

The scandal is not the fault of the survivors. The scandal is very much the fault of the Church, the whole church, the people in the pews included.

The priest was whisked away from our parish. The words were never breathed out loud, but we were all afraid of more accusations. They came years later, but they came from someone who wanted silence to cover his own transgressions of abuse, and they came from survivors who lived in Southern California -- very far away from Portland, Oregon.

I asked Fr. Armando Lopez to place those accusations from Souther California in the parish bulletin, and he did.

A parishioner said, “Why do we have to hear about this? This has nothing to do with us.”

She did not know what I knew -- that there was at least one survivor in our parish. Please note that I am glossing over details here because the person who came forward wanted confidentiality. I have also heard from several other cases suggestive of the presence of abuse.

The parishioner who complained when Fr. Armando announced new accusations in the parish bulletin might have heard about me or about the Youth Minister who came forward with stories of strange behavior by the abusive priest, but she probably did not believe us. The Youth Minister who told her story of witnessing the priest seeking unsupervised contact with Church youth to The Oregonian and in a forum in 2002, was so harassed by other parishioners that she left the Catholic Church. Other parishioners would walk up to her in a store as she waited for the cashier to pay for purchases and would start verbally harassing her saying,

“You ruined Fr. _____’s life.”

When I came forward and shared my story, I was dismissed as mentally unstable and obsessed with the priest. For years people gossiped about me. I was even thrown out of my parish. Only later, when Fr. Armando became pastor, he apologized to me for how I was treated by the parish and invited me back to the Church.

With Fr. Armando’s support, the parish held a few forums in late 2006 and early 2007, that were moderated by a Church employed Victim Assistance Coordinator. My therapist cautioned me not to tell my story during these forums about my son and I being groomed by the priest. She cautioned me that I would not be believed. She told me to share the stories of the survivor who came forward in 2002, as well as that of the Youth Minister before I shared my own story so people could see that my accusations fit a pattern and were not unique to me.

What happened is that the Victim Assistance Coordinator never let me speak freely. She interrupted me or allowed other parishioners to interrupt me and criticize me and put me down. Them she allowed to speak freely for long periods of time. And in one forum, when one person spoke in support of my position, she allowed others to criticize him and put him down.

In addition to all this, people told me that I could not tell other people’s stories, that I could only tell my own. That is a wise piece of advice normally, but the survivor who came forward in 2002 and many times before was invited to the forums. He did not come because he was afraid that what happened to me would happen to him.

I felt depressed for several weeks after a couple of the forums, because these forums were so painful to go through. I was afraid to go to Church. I went anyway because I felt God called me to go as a witness for the issue of clergy abuse. The survivor who did not attend any forums is much more fragile than I am. There is no way he could have gone through these forums.

In essence, the leadership of the Catholic Church, knowingly or unknowingly, allows parishioners to bully survivors into silence.

The experience turned me off to Victim Assistance Coordinators completely. I am told there are good ones, and I’ve heard from survivors who’ve had good experiences with Victim Assistance Coordinators. My experiences have been perfectly awful.

When I wrote my survey on what clergy abuse survivors want and need for healing (see my previous blog) one of my thoughts in mind was I wanted to give lots of room for survivors who wanted nothing to do with Church employees to express their opinions. If you are a survivor and want to go to someone other than a Church employee for support, you can express that opinion loudly and clearly by taking my survey here Survey of Survivor Wants and Needs for Healing.

I once thought that you could heal the clergy abuse scandal through citizen diplomacy -- through bringing survivors together with other Catholics. You can dismiss a story in a newspaper much more easily than you can dismiss the human being.

Unfortunately, what I learned from the forums held in my parish is that you can’t bring survivors together with other Catholics. Too many other Catholics will act like rude teenagers, emotionally bullying the survivors. Since survivors are already wounded, they will be even more deeply wounded by being brought together with other Catholics. You have to hand select the Catholics for their compassion and then train them how to listen with compassion. When you do this, bringing survivors together with other Catholics can be a very healing and uplifting experience. I know, because I’ve done it several times.

I wonder if these members of the Review Board who reinstated the abusive priest ever had to go through an experiences like the ones I have gone through. Probably not. They are obviously not attuned to the bullying and intimidation so many survivors have to go through and not just clergy abuse survivors -- staff members from the Domestic Violence agencies I’ve visited on the Walk Across Oregon have shared similar stories with me.

I feel like an angry, rebellious teenager. I want to shout at the Review Board members, borrowing my teenaged son’s most colorful language and my daughter’s creative put downs to tell them what I think of their decision to reinstate this abusive priest in a parish. It takes real bravery to come forward when a significant number of people in the community will bully you if you do.

Even if you are a priest and bring the subject up very gently during Mass, parishioners will complain.

Fr. Armando, the former pastor of Ascension who helped me so much with this work, did bring up the abuse scandal in his homilies now and then. He commented how he got negative feedback from parishioners who did not want to hear about it.

What should happen is that the Archbishop goes before every parish every year and tells people to kindly support survivors coming forward and then offers training so the people in the pews know how to listen with compassion to people with painful stories as well as how to report abuse.

How often do bishops do this sort of thing?

I’ve had coverage from OPB radio and KBOO radio and the Willamette Week and Street Roots, but The Oregonian, the most influential paper in the state of Oregon has opted only to post some of my op-ed pieces in their online edition. One Spirit, One Call had their first event passed around through numerous e-mails through many parish staff members and priests and influential parishioners. I’ve never had that kind of support. I guess the role of women in the Church is much less scandalous than clergy abuse.

I am just one person crying out in the wilderness.

If you want to heal this wound, the wound of abuse and scandal in the Catholic Church, you have to listen to and support with compassion all the wounded, not just the people who are easy to listen to. I think my message is one Christ would endorse. I am sorry that the leadership of the Catholic Church does not see it way.

So I am begging you. This abuse, this scandal will happen again and again if we do not change. We cannot be passive. Please help. Please.

If you are a survivor, you can’t be silent or more children will be abused.

If you are a Catholic, you cannot be passive and expect other people to change the Church for you. You have to act. Christianity is not a spectator sport. You are supposed to participate.

Please contact me at compassion500@gmail.com