Abuse Victims Courageously LED the Way

Chicago Sun-Times
January 21, 2014

http://www.suntimes.com/opinions/25098733-474/abuse-victims-courageously-led-the-way.html

CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME TO SANTIAGO INSTEAD OF SANTIGAO - Joe Iacono, left, and Angel Santiago, both abused sexually by priests, listen during a news conference on the release of files of Catholic priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, in Chicago. Projected on their clothes are photos of priests identified as sexual abusers. Newly released documents offer the broadest look yet into how one of its largest and most prominent American dioceses responded to the scandal. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Years ago, some victims of clergy abuse in the Archdiocese of Chicago began an effort to uncover the truth and hold the abusers responsible for their actions.

At the time, it seemed a fool’s errand, doomed to go nowhere in the face of an institution determined to dig in and protect its image.

Nevertheless, that effort broke the silence. Over the years much of the horrifying story has come out, and on Tuesday, as part of a negotiated deal, lawyers for some of the abuse victims released thousands of pages of once-private church documents that cast further light on the full extent to which the archdiocese failed to protect children.

Although redacted, the pages tell the story of an institution that quietly returned known abusers to ministries where they could resume their predatory behavior, hid information about their backgrounds and misled the public about the depth of the problem. Assurances to families that abusers would have no further contact with children proved to be untrue, as the offending priests were reassigned elsewhere. Details of allegations were not immediately reported to law enforcement authorities, although the church said it followed the law as it existed at the time and that all cases eventually were reported.

On Tuesday, the archdiocese admitted it “made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify” and said it’s committed to reaching out to victims and protecting all children. Legal settlements have been reached in some cases.

But it’s fair to wonder whether the church would have reached this point had not some victims chosen to take a stand.

Again and again, the documents show, the diocese brushed off complaints about priests who abused children.

In a 1970 case of a young woman who reported she had been abused by a priest when she was a teenager, then-Cardinal John Cody told the offender the “whole matter has been forgotten” because “no good can come of trying to prove or disprove the allegations.”

That doesn’t sound like an institution that was prepared to launch reforms on its own.

The gut-wrenching documents released Tuesday go back 40 years and include files on only 30 clergymen, though the archdiocese has acknowledged at least 65 are suspected of abuses. Most of the 30, 14 of whom now are dead, never were prosecuted, and none now are in the ministry. Most of the abuse was alleged to have occurred long ago.

Yet by making public how the church let an unconscionable scandal fester in its midst, the release of the documents on Tuesday amounts to an important public accounting. And lawyers for abuse victims hope documents about more cases will be forthcoming.

The abuse scandal can’t be allowed to blot out all the enormous good that the diocese, its clergy and its laity performed over the years and continue to perform, helping many who are in need. But neither can the lessons of the scandal be forgotten.

At a press conference Tuesday, Angel Santiago, who was abused in the early 1980s at a Chicago parish, said he hopes more victims will come forward.

“We are an army now,” said Santiago.

That army has grown from the foot soldiers who took the first stand.