Catholic Church Hierarchy Lambasted in 'Codes', by Sandi Dolbee, San Diego Union-Tribune, May 4, 2006

Catholic Church Hierarchy Lambasted in 'Codes'

By Sandi Dolbee
San Diego Union-Tribune
May 4, 2006

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060504/news_1c04priest.html

Four years after the Catholic abuse scandal became part of the national conversation, a priest and two former priests have teamed up on a new book detailing what they say is a trail of violations and denial going back for centuries.

"Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes," argues that the sexual abuse of minors "has been denied and hidden by bishops and popes who have consistently acted in a conspiratorial manner to prevent instances of abuse from becoming publicly known, especially to law enforcement authorities."

It lays much of the cause on the church's celibacy policy, saying that leaders have stuck with the mandate despite "a consistent pattern of non-celibate behavior by significant numbers of priests."

From left, A.W. Richard Sipe, Patrick Wall and Father Thomas Doyle have retraced a "paper trail of sexual abuse."
Photo by John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune

And the assessment is blunt:

"Betrayal of trust, violation of the pastoral contract, soul murder, rape, sexual assault, character assassination, slander and financial mismanagement in the name of religion are some of the abuses that people are up in arms about. These issues will not go away, nor will they be rectified unless drastic attitudinal changes take place, primarily on the part of the church's leadership."

Between them, the three authors – A.W. Richard Sipe, Patrick Wall and Father Thomas Doyle – have several decades of experience dealing with both abusive clergy and their victims.

Sipe, a psychotherapist and former Benedictine monk who lives in La Jolla, began counseling abusive priests in the 1960s; since 1992, he's been a consultant on behalf of victims. Wall, a former priest, is a senior consultant with an Orange County law firm that handles victims' lawsuits. And Doyle, who belongs to the Dominican religious order and lives in Maryland, is a church law expert who has worked on this issue since the 1980s.

All three have been vocal critics of the church's handling of this recent sex abuse crisis, which began in Boston in 2002 and swept across the country with allegations that went back for decades.

Last week, sitting at the dining room table of Sipe's home near Mount Soledad, the authors made no apologies for their work on behalf of civil litigation against the church. So far, these claims have cost the U.S. church an estimated $1.2 billion. At least three dioceses have declared bankruptcy.

"The only way the institutional church knows how to say effectively, 'I'm sorry,' is by coughing up the money," said Doyle.

Wall goes further: "If it wasn't for the American or English civil law tort system, we would never have gotten to the bottom of this whole deal. Ultimately, the only way to say you're sorry is through the finances."

The San Diego diocese refused to comment on the book or its authors.

But Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the U.S. bishops' office in Washington, D.C., said the book "takes a very cynical view of the bishops who have long been dedicated to dealing with the sexual abuse problem."

He offers the bishops' zero-tolerance policy passed in 2002, which calls for permanently removing any clergy member who sexually abuses a minor, as among the most recent proof of their commitment.

Father Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, doesn't think the authors have "axes to grind" against the church. But Silva, whose Chicago-based group represents about half of the 46,000 U.S. priests, also doesn't believe that child molestation is a celibacy issue or only a church issue.

"The moral question of child sexual abuse crosses all lines, of those who are celibate, those who are married and those who are in the world leading a single life," Silva added.

The local impact of the lawsuits remains unresolved. More than 100 civil suits are pending against the Catholic Diocese of San Diego, tied up for three years by a court order to coordinate them with hundreds of other similar cases in Los Angeles.

Wall said plaintiffs' lawyers are anxious to go to trial so they can begin questioning local church leaders. "If they would allow us to do discovery, it would all come out," he said.

Sipe, Doyle and Wall, who dug through centuries of reports and archives for the book, argue that a sweeping reform of the Catholic hierarchical system is needed. They say that lay people, priests and bishops must come to the table as equals to talk about the church's problems and solutions. "This is the task of the new century: Clergy and lay people need to talk together about sexuality and how it affects them all," they write.

As for the scandal, Sipe suggests the focus has shifted from the East Coast to Southern California, where there are hundreds of lawsuits pending and where Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has become a target of critics who complain he's stalling on these cases. "This is the epicenter of the crisis now," said Sipe.