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	Dangerous Patterns By Eileen McNamara Boston Globe May 24, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/ articles/2006/05/24/dangerous_patterns/ Get a lawyer, ladies. Litigation is the only language the Archdiocese of Boston understands. Sue Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley for trying to insulate Dr. Robert M. Haddad from charges of sexual harassment, or you will help perpetuate the wrist slapping that passes for disciplining sexual predators in the Catholic Church. File suit against the alleged perpetrator, even if public outrage prompts O'Malley and the board of governors to do today what they should have done last week: fire the physician-administrator with the roving lips and hands, the one who is reputed to earn more than $1 million a year as president of the Caritas Christi Health Care System. In case you missed the last four years, there is a pattern: At the chancery, taking responsibility for sexual miscreants in its employ is always someone else's job. Despite serial sexual harassment complaints against Haddad, O'Malley chose to edit the information he shared with the hospitals' governing board, which voted last week to reprimand, rather than fire, Haddad. O'Malley did not tell the board that Caritas Christi had fired less-prominent men between 2003 and 2005 for similar acts of sexual harassment -- unwanted hugging and kissing -- and that each involved a single victim. By yesterday, the number of women accusing Haddad of unwanted physical contact had grown to more than a dozen. His reprimand last week was based on the complaints of four women. It hardly seems possible that an archdiocese still reeling from its coverup of decades of sexual abuse of children by scores of its priests still could be this obtuse. Haddad's misconduct, which he has characterized as nothing more than effusive friendliness, was such an open secret that Helen G. Drinan, the executive vice president for human resources at Caritas who argued unsuccessfully for his immediate dismissal, received a bouquet of flowers this week from the nurses at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton. "Thank you for standing up for the women," read the card. Who else was going to, O'Malley, who surrounds himself with a familiar cadre of prominent local Irishmen for advisers? Kevin C. Phelan, vice chairman of the Caritas board, who took male bonding to new heights with his observation that "in my experience, Bob Haddad is an honorable person"? The fact that his experience with Haddad is irrelevant to how the doctor treats the opposite sex apparently did not occur to Phelan. Haddad himself took refuge in the preferred defense of men accused of sexual improprieties: Blame women for misinterpreting an innocent man's harmless attentions. Marginalizing victims of sexual harassment as hysterical females is the time-tested practice of powerful men, perfected by Clarence Thomas more than a decade ago. Haddad embellished that standard defense with offensive nonsense about the demonstrative nature of the Lebanese people, as if women cannot distinguish a warm greeting from a boorish grope. In response to the new charges, including Haddad's alleged leering and winking at the original complainants after a hearing earlier this month, O'Malley has called an emergency meeting of the board of governors for today. If the past is prologue, the possibilities are mind-boggling. O'Malley could seek an exemption for the Catholic Church from state and federal sexual harassment laws. That's the approach he considered earlier this year when state antidiscrimination laws got in the way of his plans to prohibit same-sex couples from adopting children from Catholic Charities. Even with Governor Mitt Romney's support, that idea faltered after members of the Catholic Charities board resigned in protest. Instead, Catholic Charities in Boston got out of the adoption business. Pulling out of medicine in Boston is an unlikely solution. With more than a few Caritas Christi board members feeling misled by the cardinal, O'Malley might have to decide whether to accept some of their resignations or demand that Haddad submit his own. Eileen McNamara is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at mcnamara@globe.com. RELATED CONTENT: • Caritas Chief Negotiating Departure • Lebanese-Americans Scoff at Explanation of Behavior • Where Was the Board?
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