Archive for the ‘Sexual Abuse Crisis’ Category

New Norms, Renewed Commitment

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

Today, the Holy See issued revised rules, approved by Pope Benedict himself, that will govern how the most serious offenses under the Canon Law will be handled.  Since the most prominent of these crimes is the sexual exploitation of children, I fully expect that the secular press will fail to understand these norms and present a distorted or incomplete view of them, permit me to propose a few observations.

This new legislation reflects a great deal of knowledge that has been learned from hard experience during the “Long Lent” of the past decade, and specifically our American experience under the Bishops Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

One such lesson is that the process of dealing with sexual abuse cases needed to be standardized across the Church.  The Canon Law already contained rules that, if used prudently, would have been sufficient in many cases in addressing these offenses.  But in many cases these rules were either not being used at all, or were being applied inconsistently from diocese to diocese.  These new norms do what good law should do — make the rules and procedures clear, and make it easier to come to a fair and final determination of guilt or innocence.

Another positive factor is the broadening of the kinds of sexual exploitation that will be treated as grave crimes.  The new norms include possession of child pornography and the exploitation of developmentally disabled adults among the most grave offenses that will be disciplined.  These crimes were not clearly included in the definition before, so it will be helpful to investigators and judges in the future to have this clarification.

It will also be helpful that the process has been streamlined, including easing the process of laicization, the relaxation of rules that permitted only priests to serve as canonical judges, and the ability to resolve clear cases without a trial.  While it always has been true that diocesan bishops had the authority to remove offenders from active ministry at any time, the complex and cumbersome canonical process has at times impeded efforts to bring some cases to a definitive conclusion.

What does all this mean in the big picture?  I think it shows that the Catholic Church, to the highest level, has renewed her commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from the wicked sin of sexual exploitation.  For those of us who work for the Church, it is yet another reminder that one of our most solemn obligations, during this time in which the the Bride of Christ has been entrusted to our care, is to ensure that we preserve Her “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27).

Tags: , ,
Posted in Sexual Abuse Crisis | No Comments »

Sunlight is the Best Disinfecant

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

The Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, writing about the need for transparency in government as a way of ensuring responsibility and accountability, famously said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”.  Our Church has painfully learned this lesson in dealing with the problem of child sexual abuse.

The recent news articles over the past few weeks about particular cases, both here and in Europe, have fostered wide confusion about how the Church handles sex abuse cases, and about the causes of the crisis.  I’d like to offer a few reflections to shed a little sunlight on each of these topics.

The Church, like any organization, operates according to certain rules and regulations.  These can be found in the Code of Canon Law, various papal and curial documents, and in the ordinary course of doing business in chanceries and departments of the Holy See.   The failure of Church officials to govern and discipline according to the Canon Law was one of the major problems in dealing with sex abuse cases in the years before 2002.  In those days, overlapping jurisdiction, painfully slow deliberations, communication difficulties between Rome and other nations, inconsistencies between dioceses, failure of some high-ranking officials to grasp the big picture, irresponsibility and buck-passing all created significant problems and left children at risk.  These problems exploded in 2002, and damage has not yet been healed.

The Church has learned many hard lessons from this experience.  But dwelling on the failures of the past do not really help us much in moving into the future, nor does it help heal the wounds caused by evil acts and negligent leadership.

Since the American scandal broke in 2002, things have changed significantly.  The process for removing offenders from active ministry and for resolving their cases has been regularized and streamlined, due to the leadership of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.  The Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, and the new canonical rules that go along with it, are a model for Church governance and for child protection.  Victims are not treated as threats and adversaries, but we are doing much more to reach out to them and help them heal.  And herculean efforts are being made to prevent sexual abuse in our institutions.

For those who are interested in knowing how cases are now actually handled (and who rightly do not trust the American press to describe it accurately), the Vatican has posted a short primer on their website, along with information about the response of the Church around the world.  For more information about how the Church in America has responded to the crisis, and has instituted significant reforms, you should visit the website of the U.S. Bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection.

Another major source of heat and smoke, but very little light, has been the question of the cause of child sexual abuse in the Church, particularly by clergy.

Some people have ignorantly blamed celibacy, as if living a single life necessarily disposes a person to child abuse.  Others have cited “homosexuality” as the primary cause, reasonably noting that about 80% of the victims of sexual abuse by clergy were teenaged boys.

In this inflammatory situation, we need to be very careful with our terminology. In my opinion, the problem is not “homosexuality”, as that term is ordinarily understood.

The Catechism defines “homosexuality” as “relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex.” (2357)  Note the emphasis on “relations” — that is, on conduct, and not on the disordered sexual attraction alone. In the popular understanding of the word “homosexuality”, it also means that the person has accepted these feelings and actions as “normal” for them, and has organized their affectional and sexual life around them.

The real problem in the sex abuse crisis is not “homosexuality”, understood in that way.  The root of it is in the disordered sexual feelings — particularly feelings of same-sex attraction — that are experienced by men who are not well-formed in their psychological and sexual development.  On top of this is the inability or unwillingness of some men to conform their conduct to the virtue of chastity.

Merely saying “it’s a homosexual problem” finds a handy scape-goat, but doesn’t get at the real problem or the real solution — helping men who are preparing for the priesthood and who are already ordained to achieve a normal sexual and psychological development, helping them to reject any sexual feelings towards young people — again, particularly same-sex attraction — for the distortions and lies that they are, and training them spiritually to live lives of chastity and continence.

If anyone is interested in further information about homosexuality, and how it can be addressed by the Church and by mental health professionals, the best document is “Homosexuality and Hope” by the Catholic Medical Association.  The U.S. Bishops’ statement on Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination is also an excellent resource.

In the end, sunlight — the truth — is the indispensable tool if the Church, and society as a whole, is ever going to understand the causes of child sexual abuse, heal the victims, and prevent further problems.

Tags: ,
Posted in Sexual Abuse Crisis | No Comments »

What We’ve Learned

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

In addition to the work I do with the Respect Life Office, I am also the Director of the Safe Environment Program here at the Archdiocese.  That means that I’m responsible for overseeing the implementation of some of the key provisions of the Bishops Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, particularly the sections that are aimed at preventing child sexual abuse in our institutions, and in responding appropriately to any incidents that do occur.

It’s a terrible task, because you have to talk to people about the unspeakable, and you have to prepare for the worst.  And, you have to face the fact that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, or how diligently we work, no system of child protection is 100% effective.

But it has taught me some things that I think are relevant to the current media frenzy about child sexual abuse in the Church.  Much ink has been spilled, and many electronic pixels have been created, in the last few weeks about this dreadful issue.  Much heat, but really very, very little light.

Let me offer a few ideas about what we have learned in the actual work of dealing with, and preventing, child sexual abuse:

  • The media is incompetent and biased against the Church.  Well, we knew that already, but this latest flare-up reminded us of how poorly journalists understand (or care to) the way the Church is structured and how it works in reality.  It’s funny that political reporters love to write “inside baseball” stories about how campaigns and legislatures work, but never seem interested in learning how the Church actually operates.  Of course, the media is not the ultimate problem, and we have to get over that.
  • The vast majority of our priests and bishops are good, holy men.  Well, we knew that already, too, but it can’t be emphasized enough.  The “bad apples” amounted to a tiny percentage of our clergy.  It is grossly unjust and iniquitous that all priests and bishops have been lumped into the same category as the offenders.  We need to be very careful about how we speak about our clergy, especially to make sure that they know how much we love and respect them.  We also need to be sure to understand that our priests are an essential part of the solution to this issue — their leadership and example is indispensable.
  • The problem is not limited to the Church.  Yes, the vast majority of sexual abuse takes place not in Church institutions, but in other places — particularly in schools and in homes.  But, in the end, that doesn’t matter.  We can’t get hung up on pointing fingers at others.  We have to look in the mirror at ourselves, and make sure that we’re doing whatever we can to make our institutions safe.
  • The problem is not celibacy.  Just to clarify our terms, in the Roman Catholic Church, priests undertake two obligations — celibacy and continence.  Celibacy means that they will remain unmarried, continence means that they will not engage in any kind of sexual activity.  To suggest that marriage is a cure-all for sexual abuse, or that being single and continent is a cause of sexual abuse, is absurd.
  • The victims are not the enemy.  One of the worst things that the Church — and law enforcement officials — did in the past was to treat the victims of sexual abuse in an adversarial way.  Too often, they were ignored, disbelieved, and treated as potential litigants to be kept at arms’ length.  You will recall the disgusting comment by former-Archbishop Weakland that “Not all adolescent victims are so innocent.  Some can be sexually very active and aggressive and often quite streetwise.”  If we’ve learned anything, it’s that victims are to be healed, not blamed.
  • The problem is not  “homosexuality” or “gay” priests.  These terms are thrown around very loosely, and we have to be careful about what we’re saying.  As used in ordinary speech, the term “homosexuality” refers to a settled affectional and sexual preference for members of the same sex, which one accepts as an organizing principle of one’s life.  The word “gay”, which is primarily a political term that means not just accepting “homosexuality” but celebrating it as the equal of heterosexuality, is not helpful to the discussion.  It is unfair and unjust to allege or imply that child sexual abuse can be blamed exclusively or primarily on homosexual persons.
  • Nevertheless, we would be deluding ourselves if we didn’t admit that same-sex attraction has been a factor here.  All we have to do is look at the profile of victims of priestly sexual abuse (about 80% have been adolescent males), and we see that reality.  This is not true of sexual abuse in society as a whole, but we can’t address the problem in our Church unless we acknowledge it.
  • The sexual abuse of children is primarily the result of disordered psycho-sexual development.  If there’s one thing that everyone should agree upon, it’s that a normal adult should not be sexually attracted to children or adolescents, and that such feelings are a symptom of a problem in the person’s psycho-sexual development.  Good sexual development has to be an essential part of the formation of priests.  But we lay people have to recognized that we bear a considerable burden here too.  We cannot expect our priests to have good sexual development if we aren’t doing our share to create a culture of virtue in our Church.
  • The problem can’t be dealt with by therapy alone.  In many, many cases, our bishops, acting in good faith, trusted the word of therapists who assured them that offending priests could be returned to ministry because they were in treatment, or had completed a course of therapy.  This proved to be a disastrous mistake.  Therapy can certainly help those with problems in their psycho-sexual development.  But some people just cannot be allowed to be around young people, and strong steps have to be taken to ensure that they are not.
  • A key answer to the problem involves life-long training in sexual virtue — in chastity.  All persons — married, single, clergy — are called to live a life of  chastity (see the Catechism, no. 2348).  This means that we must integrate our feelings into a healthy adult sexuality, and live according to our state in life.   We all experience difficulties in this, as the result of original sin, the temptations of the Evil One, and the sex-saturated culture that we swim in.  We are sinners, and we sin.  But chastity is possible, even if it is difficult, with the help of God.  Everybody, including those with seriously disordered sexual feelings, and those who experience same-sex attraction, can still live chaste lives.  Good spiritual development, and the formation of healthy chaste relationships, are essential in this task.  This is where the Theology of the Body can be a powerful tool — it is a wonderful way to foster sexual virtue, no matter what one’s state in life.

    • Much of what we’ve learned from the problem of child sexual abuse in the Church comes down to two words — virtue and vigilance.  We have to be vigilant in screening all those who deal with children, training them as to the proper ways to behave with minors and in how to recognize potential dangers, supervising them, and responding properly to any incident.

    But we must also foster a culture of virtue — especially chastity and prudence.  That’s the most important lesson we’ve learned.

    Tags: ,
    Posted in Sexual Abuse Crisis, Theology of the Body | 1 Comment »

    Questions the Times Never Asked — Updated

    Saturday, March 27th, 2010

    As Ronald Reagan once famously said, “There you go again”.  The New York Times published a story the other day about a sex abuse scandal in the Church, and it was — unsurprisingly — filled with errors and omissions.

    The facts in the story are fairly simple and uncontested — and horrendous.  It involved the case of a serial sex abuser, a priest who abused as many as two hundred deaf children from the 1950’s through 1974 of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.  Complaints were repeatedly raised about the priest’s misconduct, but he was never disciplined or removed.  In the mid-seventies the complaints were referred to the civil authorities, but he was not prosecuted.  The Archdiocese did remove him from ministry temporarily at that time, but he was later returned to work in the Diocese of Superior, where he served until the early 1990’s.  To put it mildly, the case was very, very badly handled by the Church, and many children suffered terribly as a result.

    In the mid-1990’s, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee decided to take action against the priest, in order to provide some justice to the victims in the deaf community, and in response to threats of civil legal action.  The Archdiocese petitioned the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (“CDF”) for instructions on how to proceed, and the CDF directed them to begin a canonical trial of the priest.  However, after a personal appeal by the priest, who was ill and near death, the CDF directed the trial to be terminated, and the priest died soon thereafter.

    The Times, of course, portrayed this as a failure by the CDF to “defrock” the priest, and accused it of “inaction”.  What a coincidence, of course, that the head of the CDF at the time was our current Holy Father, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger.

    That may all seem straight-forward, but there’s a major problem with how the Times reported it.

    This story involves an arcane and specialized subject — Canon Law in general, its penal provisions in particular, and the differing jurisdictions of dioceses, dicasteries and tribunals.  When a journalist is doing such a story in virtually any other area, they routinely consult an expert in that arcane and specialized field.  Yet in this article, we see that the reporter merely consulted a “Vatican spokesman”, reported second-hand an interview from an Italian newspaper, and quoted no canon lawyers.  In fact, there is virtually no discussion of the Canon Law at all in the story.  How do you write about a legal proceeding, without presenting or even understanding the proper legal framework and the applicable laws?

    If the Times had done their job and spoken to a canon lawyer, they would have seen that there were some fundamental questions that needed to be answered, in order to present the full story:

    1. What could the CDF have done about such a case in 1996-97?  At that time, under the Canon Law, the CDF did not have direct jurisdiction over the principal offenses committed by the priest, but only had jurisdiction over the crime of solicitation in the confessional.  In fact, if you read the documents attached to the Times’ story, that’s all that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was writing to them about — not all the offenses, but just that one.  And, the CDF acted on that jurisdiction, by directing the Archdiocese to commence a canonical trial on the only offense over which they had jurisdiction.  How is that “inaction”?
    2. Could the CDF have done anything else about that case?  Under the Canon Law, the CDF had the authority to waive the statute of limitations for the offense involving the confessional, but had no authority to waive it for any other offense.  Again, if you read the documents attached to the Times’ story, it is crystal clear that this is precisely what the CDF did — it exercised its authority to permit the otherwise time-barred case to go forward.  This extraordinary act — which no court in the United States is authorized to do — was not even mentioned in the Times’ story.  And again, how is that “inaction”?
    3. Could the CDF have done anything else about the other crimes committed by the priest?  Under the Canon Law at the time, the CDF did not have jurisdiction over those other crimes, and all of those offenses were beyond the statute of limitations, which the CDF could not waive.  To find fault with the CDF for failing to have done anything outside their jurisdiction and authority, on offenses that were beyond the statute of limitations, would be like criticizing the Department of Agriculture for doing nothing in 2010 to prosecute a bank robbery from 1950 — it’s just legal nonsense.
    4. Could the Archdiocese of Milwaukee have done anything about the other offenses?  Unfortunately, by the 1990’s there was nothing they could have done either. All the offenses were beyond the statute of limitations and nobody had the authority to waive it.

    These questions were never asked by the Times, and as a result, the story is unfair and misleading.  The story accuses the Holy See of “inaction”, as if there was some fault in what the CDF did, when in fact they did everything they could have done within their authority as it existed at the time.  And the Holy Father gets no credit at all for making sure that the laws were changed in 2001 to give the CDF greatly expanded powers to adjudicate these cases, including the exclusive jurisdiction to try cases involving clerics and the power to waive the statute of limitations — authority that he used with great diligence.

    Don’t get me wrong here.  The crimes committed by this priest cry out to heaven for justice.  But you cannot just dispose of the rules in order to effect our idea of justice.  That’s the hallmark of arbitrary, oppressive regimes, not societies that respect the rule of law.

    How are we to explain this story?  Was it just unprofessional reporting?  Or, as I suspect, is it yet another instance of the Times’ inveterate bias against the Catholic Church?

    Update 1 — For an excellent step-by-step analysis of the actual evidence in this case, see this article by Jimmy Akin at the National Catholic Register website.  The Times should reprint his article, as a lesson on how to read and interpret Church documents relating to Canon Law.

    Update 2 — The priest who handled the canonical trial of this priest has written a response to the Times.  His most important comment — that no reporter has ever even contacted him to ask for his side of the story.  “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, indeed.

    Tags:
    Posted in Media, Sexual Abuse Crisis | No Comments »