CHICAGO (IL)
Archdiocese of Chicago
By Cardinal Francis George, O.M.I.
This January, as was announced a month ago in a press conference by a plaintiff’s lawyer, documents relating to the sexual misconduct of thirty priests of the Archdiocese will be released as part of settlement agreements over the past years. All these incidents were reported over the years to the civil authorities and claims have been mediated civilly. Almost all of the incidents happened decades ago, perpetrated by priests whom neither I nor many younger clergy have ever met or talked to, because the priests were either dead or out of ministry before I came to Chicago as Archbishop.
Nevertheless, the publication puts the actions of these men and the Archdiocese itself in the spotlight. Painful though publicly reviewing the past can be, it is part of the accountability and transparency to which the Archdiocese is committed. For more than twenty years, the Archdiocese has reported all allegations of sexual abuse to the civil authorities and to DCFS. Records of priests have been shared with civil authorities when asked for. Accountability to the civil authorities constitutionally responsible for the protection of children is part of the life of the Church here. The names of priests known to have abused a minor are published on the Archdiocesan website, and the Archdiocese will offer more information in the future. But publishing for all to read the actual records of these crimes raises transparency to a new level. It will be helpful, we pray, for some, but painful for many.
Pope Francis has spoken several times in recent months about “clericalism” as a vice. Clericalism appears when a person or group decides it is not accountable for its actions. Clericalism in the clergy is evident when a priest decides he is not accountable to his bishop or to the faithful for what he teaches or how he celebrates the Church’s liturgy or pastors the Church’s people or when a bishop, in turn, is not accountable to his Councils and his clergy for his own ministry. Clericalism is spiritually deadly when a priest decides he is not accountable even to God and breaks his promise of chaste celibacy as well as the commandments of the Lord himself. The general discipline of the clergy weakened during the years when sex abuse was most prevalent, during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Chicago followed the now well-known national trends. In the late eighties, however, the Archdiocese began to put its house in some order and started, sometimes hesitantly, to follow the path of accountability and transparency.
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