UNITED STATES
Thomas P. Doyle via BishopAccountability.org
Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
ANNUAL SNAP CONFERENCE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
June 24 to 26, 2016
Revised August 16, 2016
In the original presentation I followed the basic format suggested for speakers at Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve Step meetings: What it was like before. What Happened. What it is like now. I have revised the original and expanded it to article length and have retained to this format. [See also a PDF of Doyle’s original Word file.]
WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEFORE
The present era of awareness of sexual violation by Catholic clerics began in 1983 in two Catholic dioceses: the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana. This was not the start date of the problem of sexual violation but the beginning of widespread public awareness.
The reality of sexually dysfunctional clerics preying on minors and adults goes back through the centuries. In our lifetime it had been covered with a thick blanket of secrecy. It was unknown to the vast majority of lay persons and clerics as well. Many bishops knew about it but when they had to confront real cases they did so in secret with only a very small number of their closest advisors, all clerics, involved. Although they knew about sexual violation of minors in general, they were incapable of comprehending both its deeply pathological nature and its disastrous effects on victims.
Few knew about such abuse in the Church and even fewer believed it existed and this was due to the nature of the Catholic Church at the time. Back in the forties and fifties there was only one Catholic Church and it was the visible monarchical structure, a stratified society with a clerical aristocracy that was made up of celibate men and the vast ocean of lay commoners. The wall between the clerical caste and the “faithful” as the commoners are known, was steep and almost totally impenetrable.
Catholics were programmed either from birth or from the process of conversion to believe that the bishops and priests were exalted, privileged beings because of their ordination and the fact that God had chosen them to be his representatives on earth. They were taught that priests were “ontologically different” and “conjoined to Jesus Christ, “ thanks in great part to the largely incomprehensible theology of Pope John Paul II.
The Church we knew was often referred to as the “Church Triumphant.” The Vatican II definition of the Church as “The People of God” was an unknown and alien concept…. alien because it could be construed to lead people to believe there was some degree of equality with the sacred clerics, a threat not to be tolerated. The Church was totally identified with the external structures and the clerical establishment.
Bishops, priests and religious were an aristocracy within a vast monarchy with the pope presiding over all as an absolute ruler, answerable to no earthly power. Priests and bishops lived behind the mists of the clerical citadel. Their private lives were shrouded in mystery but one thing was certain and it was the presumption that these private lives, like their public lives, were clearly marked by holiness, virtue and knowledge. We took this all for granted because for most of us it was simply inconceivable to think of it in any other way.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.