Bishop's views on sex abuse are 'embedded in the structure of the church' (commentary)

By R.m. Douglas
Syracuse.com
September 20, 2015

http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/09/bishops_views_on_sex_abuse_are_embedded_in_the_structure_of_the_church_commentar.html

Bishop Robert Cunningham has been taking a great deal of heat in the past week for saying, in a case involving a 13-year-old who was orally raped by one of the Diocese of Syracuse's priests: "The boy is culpable." In the face of repeated incredulous questions by the victim's attorney, His Excellency went on to explain that the child could be regarded "an accomplice to [the perpetrator] in a sexual sin" and that he "cooperated" in his own assault.

Confronted by the predictable firestorm of criticism, the Bishop is now in full damage-control mode, protesting that we should not be misled by the plain meaning of his words. But perhaps we ought not to be too hard on the poor man. After all, he said nothing on that day four years ago that many other high-profile Catholic clerics have not also said, in almost identical terms.

Six months after Bishop Cunningham's deposition, for example, the famous TV priest Father Benedict Groeschel declared: "People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to [commit sexual abuse] — a psychopath. But that's not the case....A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer."

Similarly, the Vicar-General of Dallas, Monsignor Robert Rehkemper, angered when his diocese came out in 1999 on the wrong side of a $119.4 million child rape lawsuit, pronounced: "They [the victims] knew what was right and what was wrong. Anybody who reaches the age of reason shares responsibility for what they do. So that makes all of us responsible after we reach the age of 6 or 7."

The problem, then, is not that Bishop Cunningham carelessly shot from the lip. To the contrary, his testimony is solidly in the mainstream of Catholic hierarchical opinion, and has been advanced over and over again as part of its response to the clerical sexual assault scandal. Various calls are now being made for the Bishop to resign. That is unlikely to help. Cunninghams come and go. The distorted ideas with which his name is now indelibly associated, however, are solidly embedded in the structure of the church, both in the United States and internationally.

What this debacle has underlined is that the Catholic Church, of which the Bishop and I are committed members, remains spectacularly, damagingly and offensively ignorant of the dynamics of sexual victimization in general. This is something whose harmful effects extend far beyond the clerical sexual assault scandal alone, grave though that remains. As anyone with an Internet connection and five minutes to spare can confirm, the church has almost nothing to say to anyone who has experienced rape or sexual assault unless they are 1) filing a lawsuit; 2) kicking up a public fuss; or 3) contemplating an abortion.

This silence is immoral, and unacceptable. Sexual crime is a scourge of massive proportions, affecting, according to some estimates, one in four women and one in six men. The damage it causes is profound, and often lifelong. But those affected by it find little acknowledgement, and less spiritual and practical help in dealing with its ruinous effects, from the Catholic Church.

Every week at Mass, Catholics pray for forgiveness "for what we have failed to do." During my churchgoing life, I have heard somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 sermons, and joined in perhaps 30,000 "prayers for the faithful." Never have I listened to a single sermon setting out the church's teaching on sexual violence, coercion or exploitation, or warning perpetrators of its temporal and spiritual repercussions. Not once have I been invited from the pulpit to pray alongside my fellow Catholics for those who are suffering grievously from its consequences, or to stand in solidarity with them.

The same shameful indifference can be found throughout the church's social organization. We have innumerable apostolates and ministries — worthy and important ones — devoted to the needs of journalists, businesspeople, mariners, lawyers, even aviation enthusiasts. One can, in contrast, count on the fingers of one hand the number of Catholic agencies in the United States dedicated to binding up the wounds of the tens of millions of victims of sexual violence. None is to be found in the Diocese of Syracuse.

The faithful have no need of further exercises in spin-doctoring or episcopal self-exculpation, especially ones that reveal so poor an opinion of our individual intelligence and collective memory. Nor have we any interest in the public humiliation of those who have erred. As Catholics we believe instead in redemption, and conversion of hearts.

An urgent and vital task awaits Bishop Cunningham's attention. Let him educate himself, deeply and broadly, on what sexual violence truly is, and the devastation it causes. (We have been told for too many decades now that the Church's leaders are on a "learning curve" in respect of this field of knowledge. It is time for that curve to flatten out.) Let him see to it that all 262 priests and 70 deacons of the diocese do likewise. Let him consult, respectfully and attentively, the nuns and religious sisters of our area, from whom he might learn some things well worth knowing. Let him seek out the wisdom and experience of those members of the laity who also know, in the most literal and painful of senses, what they are talking about. And having done this, let him translate his awareness into actions.

Oh, and one last thing. When a 13-year-old rape victim asks the diocese employing the priest who traumatized and degraded him to pay for his therapy bills? Instead of spending church funds to drag that person through the civil courts, we, the faithful, would be infinitely obliged if the answer given to him is simply, "Yes."