How “the Manual” Helped the Cover-up
Jay Nelson's Renegade Catholic Blog
Most survivors of clergy abuse by now have heard the woeful tale of The Manual (full title: The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Responsible Manner). It’s widely known how back when the first scandal arose in Louisiana in the early 1980s, Ray Mouton, the attorney for the perpetrating priest, Gilbert Gauthe, called for help. And how Fathers Tom Doyle and Michael Peterson responded. Together, the three men wrote a proposal on managing the already brewing clergy abuse crisis for the country’s bishops, and how, mysteriously, nothing ever came of it. Why? Could it be that was the entire point of the exercise? While going through old newspaper clippings about the scandals for my book Sons of Perdition, I came upon a curious fact that had emerged. Our old neighbors, the Servants of the Paraclete, were advised by the bishops’ organization at one point to destroy their records. The purpose was supposedly, “to make room.” The archbishop of the hosting diocese of Santa Fe was also told to do the same. But how did the folks in Washington come to think both places were running out of space and they had to tell them to do something about it? Were the bishops suddenly psychic? Unfortunately, no precise date was given for the advice, just the “mid 1980s”. Interestingly, The Manual was completed on June 8-9, 1985 and presented at the annual National Conference of Catholic Bishops pow-wow shortly thereafter – as close to “mid 1980s” as one can get. Presented at this critical juncture, The Manual conveniently spelled out for the host abbot and the visiting bishops precise instructions on just what to destroy and why: It is important to know what matter should be contained in a priest’s personnel file, considering the very probable discoverability of these files. The idea of sanitizing or purging files of potentially damaging material has been brought up. This would be in contempt of court and an obstruction of justice if the files had already been subpoenaed by the courts. Even if there has been no such subpoena, such actions could be construed as a violation of the law in the event of a class action suit. On a canonical level, to sanitize the personnel files could pose a problem of continuity from on diocesan administration to another. One other suggestion regarding files has been to move them to the Apostolic Nunciature where it is believed they would remain secure, in immune territory. In all likelihood such action would ensure that the immunity of the Nunciature would be damaged or destroyed by the civil courts. The canon law law [sic] speaks of secret archives. Are these safe from civil discovery whereas ordinary files might not be? Thus far it appears that the secret archives afford no more security from discovery than regular diocesan archives. [Emphasis added] (The Manual, under “Civil Law Considerations”, section 6, “Maintenance of Diocesan Records”, pp. 39-40). In other words, the take-home lesson here is that if you have to get rid of incriminating information, destroy it quickly, quietly, and have a plausible excuse. And the Paracletes at least, helpfully named in The Manual as among those places where priests could get treatment, took the hint with a right ready will. As late as 1989 they were still busily shredding records – ostensibly to protect confidential medical assessments – until their own lawyer told them to stop because it could be “construed as tampering with evidence.” So this brave effort to warn the bishops seems to have done just that, anyway – it notified them of a problem and inspired a long-term, quiet, purging of the records. However, though the rejection of The Manual appeared to have put them in a bind, it might have saved the bishops from an even worse fate. The rejection minimized the hierarchy’s liability, both collectively and individually. In other words, it covered their asses but good. There is a principle in Roman Catholic theology called “invincible ignorance“. Basically, it means that a sin is only so bad as the person committing it believes it is. It is much the same in practice as the secular principle of “plausible deniability” which means that a leader must be protected from compromising or damaging information. Time after time throughout this crisis, we’ve seen bishop after bishop, cardinals, even the pope say, “We didn’t know it was so harmful.” It’s like they are reading from the same book. Maybe they are. Doubtless, they didn’t know because they did not want to know. The bishops were so deep in the cover-up already by 1985 that they had no choice but to act clueless and carry on. No challenge there, but who would believe them? Moreover, in any real investigation, the existence of The Manual would quickly become known, so their only option was to say they didn’t take it seriously, for whatever reason. According to Doyle, “The Manual was not commissioned by nor assigned by anyone in any position, official or otherwise. It was an entirely private venture undertaken by the above three, as a response to what they believed was quickly developing into a very serious problem for the Catholic Church.” In other words, the proposal was entirely a voluntary effort by three concerned Catholics for the good of the their church, one that was rejected out of hand. The fact that each man had an iron in the fire was mere coincidence. Mouton just happened to be Gauthe’s lawyer; Peterson had recently founded St. Luke’s Institute, which was indeed to become the premier priest-treatment center in the country; and Doyle was a young canon lawyer on the rise. He was already in an important position in the Vatican Embassy, and had recently written a booklet called “Rights and Responsibilities” for lay Catholics under the just-revised code of canon law – a booklet by the way, that is big on what laypeople owe the Church, but is silent on dealing with bad priests, even though that is a major part of the law. So perhaps the bishops’ rejection of the proposal as too expensive or as a money-making scheme was not entirely baseless. To this day, however, Tom Doyle claims he was never told why his work was rejected, simply that the bishops were already aware of the problem and were dealing with it. He says they were by means of a document called “Crimes of Solicitation”, Crimen Sollicitationis, a secret papal instruction issued in 1962. Theoretically, as Doyle explained, this instruction remained in effect until 2001, when new orders replaced them, issued by then-Grand Inquisitor, er, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope. Yet, despite this, as I have demonstrated, Vatican II effectively broke this policy. The bishops were left in charge; and the new orders from Rome were to treat perpetrating priests as sick, not punish them as sinners. And so, by ostensibly failing, The Manual allowed things to continue on just as they had been. Perhaps, just as it was intended, to allow the bishops to play dumb. Which they certainly have. For instance, Robert Sanchez, the disgraced ex-archbishop of New Mexico, claimed he only found out at a bishops’ seminar in the 1990s that sexual abuse was a mandatory reportable offense. And then he was told only to protect the rights of the accused priests and get the lawyers in the game ASAP. So we are left with the mournful litany, “Non mea culpa, Non mea culpa, Non mea maxima culpa.” followed the response, “Alas, we didn’t know,” over and over again. The prelates mutter this sadly, beating their chests and spreading their hands as immaculately clean as Pontius Pilate. And why not? Because they are as treacherous as he was for they also acted with willful blindness. This is a legal term meaning much the same as “vincible ignorance”; an attempt to avoid liability by putting themselves in a state where they are unaware of facts that would make them responsible. For spiritual shepherds to evade their duty in this way while their supposed sheepdogs ravage the flock like wolves is an utter scandal. It may also be a crime. Yet, even under the new policy, plausible deniability continues.The policy covers clergy sex abuse with “pontifical secrecy” so no one not directly involved with the trial is to know, but while dealing with the crime is reserved to the Apostolic Tribunal, the sin itself is not reserved. Which means any other priest can forgive it. So any claim that all that secrecy is to protect the identity of the victims as well as the perpetrator is hogwash. It’s solely meant to save the priest and the Church any embarrassment. If Doyle was told the truth, the supposed failure of The Manual came about because there was already another policy in place to replace Crimen Sollicitationis. It’s quite possible that the lawyers for the bishops may have composed a playbook for dealing with abuse cases that is still secret. If that is true, then maybe, a copy exists somewhere in the huge piles of paper that have been released to attorneys, just like Crimen Sollicitationis was. If found, victims would finally have a basis for a class action lawsuit or even criminal prosecution under the anti-racketeering laws. (It was, after all, former National Review Board chairman (and one-time FBI agent) Frank Keating who compared the Church’s behavior to La Cosa Nostra…) Interestingly, the location of the event where The Manual was discussed may be somehow significant in all this. Held at a different place each year, in 1985 it was held at St. John’s University in Minnesota; curiously enough, the same place the second national Linkup conference was held seven years later in 1992, and one helluva creepy monastery/university it is, in my opinion. For years thereafter, the abbey was the home of the Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute, (ISTI), which tried to bring perps and victims together. That seems to have died, but there are over 300 victims involving no less than 17 monks or priests from St. John’s. There’s even a website for their victims called Behind the Pine Curtain. Since the Benedictines’ alleged abuses began in the 1960s but did not end until 2004 – nearly 20 years after the bishops’ meeting and a dozen years after the victims’ – it is quite possible that this situation had some influence on the meetings’ location and even agendas. At the Linkup Conference, there was a session that I attended just for clergy who were also clergy abuse victims, and I can report that the room was packed with well over 20 cleric-victims, most from the monastery. Doubtless many members of the Benedictines had a profound interest in abuse issues, for various reasons. Who knows what their agenda really was? To pay for their sins or to help divert the discussion away from them? Unfortunately, at the moment, these are among the many questions that may never be answered. Like was The Manual indeed written as a good faith effort that just came along at the wrong time as has always been assumed? Or was there a larger agenda at work behind the scenes? In any case, by rejecting The Manual outright, the bishops bought themselves at least another decade before it all exploded. But one has to wonder: if the plan was never actually used, why is it still universally referred to as “The Manual“?
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