Archdiocese
of Philadelphia's ‘Mass for healing' a contentious event
for victims of abuse
By Patti Mengers Times Herald March 22, 2014
http://www.timesherald.com/general-news/20140322/archdiocese-of-philadelphias-mass-for-healing-a-contentious-event-for-victims-of-abuse
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Victim advocate and clerical
sex abuse survivor John Salveson inside his office complex in
Radnor. |
Officials in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia say it is
another step in the healing process for Roman Catholics who were
abused by priests when they were children. Advocates for
survivors of abuse say it is just adds insult to injury.
Touted by the archdiocese as “the Mass for healing
for victims of clergy sex abuse,” the service will be
conducted by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput at the
Cathedral Basilica of SS Peter and Paul in Philadelphia Saturday
evening.
“All are welcome to attend as we continue to pray
for the survivors of clergy sexual abuse, for the healing of the
Church and for all who have been affected by clergy sexual
abuse,” said the press release issued by the archdiocese
10 days before the Mass.
That would translate to dozens of victims of more than 60
priests since the 1940s in the five-county area that comprises
the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, according to two Philadelphia
Grand Jury reports issued in 2005 and 2011. “Holding the
Mass is just one way in which the archdiocese reaches out to
victims in an effort to assist them on the path to
healing,” said Kenneth A. Gavin, Director of
Communications for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
The last place most people who have been abused by priests
want to be is in a Roman Catholic Church maintains Tammy Lerner,
Vice President of the Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse, an
advocacy organization started in 2006 by foundation president
John Salveson of Radnor, himself a survivor of clerical sex
abuse.
“It just shows a complete lack of understanding of
the trauma (the Catholic Church) has caused individual
victims,” noted Lerner.
Gavin said the archdiocese’s Office for Child and
Youth Protection “had received requests from multiple
victims for a Mass of this type to be celebrated by the
archbishop.”
“As the office oversees the Victim Assistance
Program in addition to ongoing efforts aimed at preventing child
abuse through education and training, it was logical for it to
spearhead this effort. Through it, outreach was made to all the
victims with whom it has had contact and who expressed a
willingness to receive ongoing information,” said Gavin.
Last week Lerner said she had heard from several clerical
sex abuse victims who had received letters from the archdiocese
about the March 22 Mass and they “are refusing to go and
are outraged.”
“It just seems to me it is more about public
relations for the Church than healing for victims. If it were
about healing for victims, they would not ask victims to enter a
church setting where the abuse occurred,” said Lerner who
added that some of those victims were also recently informed
that their psychological therapy would no longer be covered by
the archdiocese.
Gavin said last week to accommodate victims who might not
wish to physically attend the Mass, it was going to be
live-streamed on the archdiocesan website with care “to
not have cameras focus on any individuals in the
congregation.”
“We cannot imagine the enduring pain which victims
and their loved ones suffer. We take our role in assisting them
on their path to healing seriously. Praying with and for victims
is only part of the process but it is an important one,”
said Gavin.
Lerner has lobbied state legislators to remove the civil
statute of limitations so that victims of child sex abuse can
file lawsuits against abusers who have escaped prosecution
because of the previous criminal statute of limitations that was
expanded to age 50 in 2006. She maintains it is the only way
they can expose their predators who are still at large.
Representatives for the Roman Catholic Church lobbied against
expansion of the criminal statute and are now doing so against
the civil one, she noted.
“If it were more about helping victims, they would
publicly identify abusers they know about, but they are not that
transparent,” said Lerner.
None of the priests accused of abuse in the first grand
jury investigation were prosecuted because their superiors had
failed to turn them over to civil authorities before the old
Pennsylvania statute of limitations for child sexual abuse had
expired. In 2002, after the molestation conviction of a Boston
priest triggered accusations of clerical sexual abuse
nationwide, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ordered that
church hierarchy turn all reported abuse cases over to civil
authorities.
Three priests and a male lay teacher named in the second
grand jury investigation were able to be prosecuted because of
the expanded criminal statute. Former parochial school teacher
Bernard Shero, the Rev. James Engelhardt and Edward Avery, a
defrocked priest and former Haverford resident, are now serving
jail sentences for abuse of the same altar boy at a northeast
Philadelphia parish between 1998 and 2000. The Rev. James J.
Brennan, who taught at Cardinal O’Hara High School in
Marple from 1991 to 1996, is awaiting a June 16 re-trial for
allegedly attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in his apartment
in 1996.
As a result of the second grand jury investigation,
archdiocesan officials suspended more than 20 priests alleged to
have behaved inappropriately with minors, turned their cases
over to law enforcement officials, then had them reviewed by an
archdiocesan panel of law enforcement and child abuse experts.
Some have been restored to public ministry by Chaput while
others have been permanently removed because of credible
allegations of abuse. They may be defrocked by the Vatican. On
March 12 a mistrial was declared in the case of one suspended
priest, the Rev. Andrew McCormick, who is accused of abusing a
10-year-old altar boy in 1997 at a parish in the Bridesburg
section of Philadelphia.
Another priest named in both grand jury reports, the Rev.
Msgr. William Lynn, a former parochial vicar of St. Katharine of
Siena Church in Radnor, was convicted in 2012 of child
endangerment. A Philadelphia jury determined Lynn was aware of
Avery’s abusive history, when, as secretary for clergy
under former Philadelphia archbishop, the now-late Cardinal
Anthony Bevilacqua, Lynn allowed Avery to have continued access
to children by assigning him to parishes. The state Superior
Court overturned Lynn’s conviction last December saying
the child endangerment law under which he was tried did not
apply to him. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is
appealing the reversal to the state Supreme Court. Lynn is now
under house arrest on 10 percent of $250,000 bail, furnished by
the archdiocese.
Salveson contends that archdiocesan officials’
willingness to pay the bail of someone whose actions put
children at risk contradicts their claims of concern for sexual
abuse victims. He said the idea of a Mass for sexual abuse
victims staged by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia strikes him as
“cynical, self-congratulatory and insincere.”
“You have got to look at the totality of their
behavior. In Harrisburg they are spending hundreds of thousands
of dollars lobbying to fight legislation that would extend the
statute of limitations to make kids safer,” said the
58-year-old Radnor resident.
Gavin maintains that “the best way to protect
children from the scourge of abuse is to create an atmosphere of
prevention”. He said the archdiocesan Office of Child and
Youth Protection has trained more than 30,000 employees, clergy
members and volunteers in mandatory reporting and between 6,000
and 9,000 individuals in safe environment programs. Background
checks and child abuse clearances are required for all clergy
members, employees and volunteers.
“The archdiocese goes above and beyond what is
required by state law to create the safest possible environment
for children and young people entrusted to its care,” said
Gavin.
Lerner said not only lobbyists for the Catholic Church and
the insurance industry, but state legislators, both Republicans
and Democrats, have resisted the expansion or elimination of the
civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse survivors.
“Most still do not make the connection of the civil
statute of limitations and civil window with the protection of
children. They’re viewing it more as a vehicle for adults
to find justice which is true, but in the large scheme of things
it is a child protective measure because it is a way to identify
child rapists who would otherwise go unexposed,” said
Lerner.
The latest legislation, House Bill 2067, was proposed by
state Rep. Mark Rozzi (D—126th Dist.), himself a survivor
of Catholic clergy abuse. It is an amendment to Title 42 of the
Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes to suspend the civil statute
of limitations for past child sexual abuse victims who have not
yet attained the age of 50 and eliminate the civil and criminal
statute of limitations involving child sexual abuse.
In a memorandum to House members, Rozzi noted that his
proposal would remove the sovereign immunity defense for public
officials and institutions. On March 10 it was referred to the
House Judiciary Committee where, Lerner noted, forerunners
proposed by other legislators such as state representatives
Michael P. McGeehan and Louise Williams Bishop, both Democrats
from Philadelphia and former state Rep. Dennis O’Brien, a
Republican from Philadelphia, have stalled.
Lerner said the most common refrains she hears from
opponents of amending the civil statute of limitations for child
sexual abuse victims are “memories fade” and
“evidence grows stale”. She said it is unfair to
arbitrarily apply these blanket statements to alleged abuse
victims.
“These legislators need to understand the dynamics
of childhood trauma. Memories are magnified and, seared into
your memory, are minute details that stay with your
forever,” said the 44-year-old lobbyist who, herself is a
victim of childhood incest. “The courts will filter out
the cases where memories are faded and evidence fades.”
Salveson, who earned an undergraduate degree in 1977 and a
graduate degree in 1978 from the University of Notre Dame,
detailed the seven years of abuse he endured starting as an
adolescent at the hands of a Long Island parish priest, in
articles published in the university magazine in 2003 and 2013.
In 2003 he wrote about how the priest, who was young and
hip, ingratiated himself to Salveson’s family before
taking Salveson on a weekend trip to Virginia where the priest
first sexually assaulted him. Salveson was 13. The next day the
priest told him that what “we” did was okay. The
abuse continued on subsequent trips and in the priest’s
rectory bedroom, where they drank a lot of alcohol which
Salveson said “helped me cope”.
“While he had considerable control over my body,
(the priest) had complete control over my mind. He told me it
was all right to do this with him and God approved. If I balked,
he told me it meant that I was unloving, ungrateful and cold. He
often told me I was a ‘bad person’ if I did not do
exactly what he wanted. I believed him. He was a priest,”
wrote Salveson.
When Salveson moved to Indiana to attend Notre Dame, his
abuser visited him there then eventually moved there himself to
earn a graduate degree in psychological counseling. Salveson
said when he would resist the priest’s sexual advances,
the priest would either scream or cry. Salveson finally broke
free of his abuser’s grasp at age 20.
In 1980, Salveson summoned up the courage to write to the
bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island about
the abuse he endured from the parish priest, but got no
response. Salveson said when he sent a second registered letter,
the bishop met with him and promised to “take care of
it”.
In 1989, when Salveson realized his abuser was still
serving at a Long Island parish, Salveson, his father and his
two brothers stood on the steps of the church and distributed an
open letter to parishioners telling them of his abuse by their
priest and that the bishop had been aware of it for nine years.
The priest was finally removed from parish work, but he
then started a counseling practice. Salveson’s abuser died
of cancer in 2002, just as the clerical abuse scandal broke
nationwide. In March 2003 Salveson was among 30 survivors of
clergy abuse at a meeting with the New Jersey attorney general
and the executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection. The five
bishops who led New Jersey’s dioceses were invited, but
none showed-up, a sign to Salveson as to how little had changed
in the Roman Catholic Church despite the eruption of the abuse
scandal.
“People think it’s a moral issue. The Church
doesn’t see it as a moral issue, they see it as a risk
management issue. If they saw it as a moral issue they would
have behaved much differently in the last 40 years,” said
Salveson last week.
He noted that the expansion of the criminal statute in
Pennsylvania allowing child sexual abuse victims to file
criminal complaints against alleged abusers until age 50 is
progress, as is increased awareness of child sexual abuse in the
Church and in other institutions.
“I think people have figured out if there is a
problem with the Catholic Church the place to go is law
enforcement, not the Catholic Church,” said Salveson.
“I think the Catholic Church probably does a better job
reporting cases to law enforcement themselves. It’s hard
to know because they are not transparent.”
Despite the damage done by his abuser, Salveson, with the
help of family, friends and therapy, has managed to lead a
productive life. He is the co-founder of an executive search
company, has been married to his wife, Susan, for 32 years, is
the father of three and the grandfather of two. In his 2013
Notre Dame article, Salveson admits he is often on the verge of
burn-out with the uphill legislative battles and people who
express outrage but do nothing.
He also reveals the mantra credited to Mahatma Gandhi that
has helped him survive his abuse, carry on with his life and
advocate for other victims: “First they ignore you, then
they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Salveson concedes that some clerical sexual abuse victims
may find a healing Mass to be positive and good. However, it is
not for him. He noted in his 2013 Notre Dame article that his
healing process will not be complete until Church leaders fully
admit what they have done, apologize, fix “the wreckage
they caused” and make changes to ensure children are never
again victimized by priests.
“When all of that happens,” wrote Salveson,
“I’ll start considering forgiveness.” Contact:
pmengers@21st-centurymedia.com
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