PENNSYLVANIA
National Catholic Reporter
Ken Briggs | May. 19, 2016 NCR Today
The letter was like one of those from the bank, reminding you how special you are to them, reviewing everything they’ve done to upgrade your life, then offering you a chance to return the love by taking out a home equity loan.
Except this one was from Bishop John Barres, dated on Easter Sunday, that circled around to another kind of pitch. As read to Cathoics attending mass in his Allentown, PA, diocese, it began by acknowledging the “prevalence of the sin and crime of child abuse,” noting that the diocese was “not untouched” by this scandal but hastening to add that it was “Just as important” that the church was enforcing “zero tolerance” through a wide variety of strategies. The bishop wanted Catholics to know that the church was doing its utmost to protect their children. While admitting no culpability in fostering the menace, which was inferred to be much bigger than the church, parishioners could be sure the diocese was on the prevention side.
That billboard was the prelude to the punch lines at the end of the letter. Bishop Barres hoped that good will spawned by the diocese’s initiatives would impel parishioners to urge their state legislators to kill a bill that would end limits on the right to file lawsuits against dioceses by victims of church-related sex abuse. The bill’s leading backe was a committed Catholic, Rep. Mark Rozzi (D-Bethlehem) who claimed he was raped by an Allentown priest during his teens.
Bishop Barres warned that passage of the law (two weeks later it won House approval handily, 180-15) could trigger dire results including “crippling damage awards” and the “very existence of some ministries.” Understandable disaster from an institutional standpoint. Similar letters were being dispatched from lecturnes in parishes across the state at the behest of the PA conference of bishops.
Two cradle-Catholic friends who trundle to their respective churches every weekend told me separately that they were outraged by the letter and came close to walking out of church. They were appalled by by the suggestion that they join the bishops’ fight against an opening of lawsuits on behalf of victims Each said he’d never before even thought of storming out of church in protest. But there they were.
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