Voice of
the Faithful
National Office
Newton, MA For Immediate Release
Communications Office
February 27, 2004
STATEMENT OF JAMES E. POST, PRESIDENT, VOICE OF THE FAITHFUL
Re: Bishop Accountability, Lay Responsibility, and Hope for the Church
Good afternoon and thank you for being here today.
This afternoon, I am going to discuss the response of Voice of the
Faithful to the John Jay Study Report that was prepared for the National
Review Board. I will also address the response of the USCCB to the
John Jay Report.
VOTF represents more than 30,000 members from 40 states and 30 nations.
It is clear that the National Review Board’s report has national,
and worldwide, implications for the Catholic Church. The horror of
clergy sexual abuse is not confined to the United States alone, and
the John Jay study may become a model for studies in other countries.
I would like to highlight several key points.
1. The report speaks to both the past, and the future, of the Catholic
Church. It paints the picture of an enormous tragedy, much larger
than previously acknowledged. It is “horrific”, as the
bishops themselves have stated. How sad that the bishops have come
to this realization today, years after the deeds and decades after
they were first warned of the magnitude of this tragedy. As members
of the Catholic laity, we must ask “why?” Why this tragedy?
Why these numbers? Why so little attention in the past?
2. This is
the bitter harvest of a culture –a clerical culture--
that has emphasized power, privilege, and secrecy for decades. If
there is a single, overarching lesson from this tragedy, it is the
need for this dysfunctional, cancerous culture to change.
The clerical culture requires deep change. Secrecy must be replaced
by sunlight; deceit by truth; authoritarian decision making by a more
open system.
3. This report documents a massive failure of leadership. The history
of these decades
is filled with leaders who closed their eyes to the facts before them,
and too often enabled predators to continue to prey on children. They
failed to take the worst perpetrators out of circulation (those with
multiple victims and numerous allegations) and/or failed to install
effective management and supervisory systems. 4. It is time to return
responsibility to Catholicism. The only way to repair this Church
is to extract the lessons from this tragedy
and apply them to the manner everything is done in the Church in the
future. To do less is to do too little.
5. The statistics released in the John Jay report suggest broader
patterns. The number of victims is almost certainly under-reported,
yet larger than any data previously collected. The number of priests
(surely under-reported) is nearly double the highest previous estimates
based on publicly verifiable facts. The money spent to deal with sexual
abuse cases exceeds any previously reported amounts. On every dimension,
the picture is worse than previously acknowledged by Church leaders.
6. Finally, we must never forget that this entire tragedy is about
people, not numbers.
It is about the real people whose lives have been shattered. It is
chilling, and ironic, to know that Patrick cSorley’s funeral
took place today, about a half-hour before the National Review Board
released their report.
Patrick McSorley was one of John Geoghan’s victims. He, and
Geoghan, are “numbers” in the Boston report. But they
were real people – flesh and blood—and both are now dead.
Their deaths, and lives, were products of a culture of secrecy and
darkness. Our job is to turn that culture into one of sunlight, truth,
and openness. That is what Voice of the Faithful is fighting for.
7. Bishops must be held accountable. The banner behind me shows the
Number “1”. Within the number are the faces of hundreds
of children – like those children who were abused by priests
over these decades. “1” is a symbolic number – it
represents the primacy of each child – statistics should not
numb us to the fact that each victim of sexual abuse is scarred for
life.
8. Statistics cannot defend the indefensible. It is vital that
the Vatican now remove those bishops who transferred abusive priests. “1” is
the number of bishops who have been removed (resignation accepted)
because they moved pedophile priests and concealed the truth. Only
1 bishop (Cardinal Bernard Law) has resigned for this reason. Today,
we call on the Pope to accept the resignations of bishops who knowingly
transferred abusive priests. If they do not resign, they should be
removed.
9. We also call on each bishop in the United States to disclose details
of how priests against whom allegations were made were transferred.
Who? Where? And, what did the bishops do? And, we call on each bishop
to cooperate –in full- with public officials who are investigating
alleged crimes and abuses of civil rights.
10. Finally, we call on the Pope to meet with an international delegation
of survivors of sexual abuse from round the world. Clergy sexual
abuse exists throughout the universal Church; the “sins of the
Church” must be acknowledged by the pontiff, as he has acknowledged
other "sins of the Church.” Nothing less than a face-to-face
meeting with the victims of abuse from the many countries where cases
have arisen will send the
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