Commentary
[What do you think? Write to pthorp.ed@votf.org]

“Thanks, But, No Thanks”
David Clohessy, National Director of SNAP

Cardinal Roger Mahony set up a chapel for us. Others pen apologies for the past. Some meet face-to-face with victims. A few others hold "healing masses" for us (often, however, neglecting to invite us). Others are talking about erecting statues or monuments in memory of what was done to us.

At the risk of seeming ungrateful, many abuse survivors say "thanks but no thanks."

One of my favorite Biblical passages comes from Matthew: "And what parent, when his child asks for bread, would give that child a stone?"

For years now, abuse victims and caring Catholics have sought real nourishment from bishops - real openness about past crimes and effective steps to prevent future ones. Yet increasingly, bishops give us stones - policies, procedures, and worse, symbols. These might make us feel better today, now, but are really illusory and leave all of us hungry.

We can heal with or without the bishop's help. We can conduct our own services and erect our own statutes. Others can apologize or meet with us.

But only a bishop can:

  • name the known, admitted and credibly accused abusive clerics in his diocese, thereby warning parents and protecting kids;

  • discipline church employees who refuse to be fingerprinted, or an accused priest who plays legal hardball and sues his accuser;

  • marshal an entire diocese's resources to lobby for tougher laws against child sexual abuse.

Which is a more effective way to reduce suffering? A one-time foot-washing ceremony, or on-going parish bulletin announcements urging witnesses and victims of sex crimes to call the police or SNAP (and include the phone numbers)?

In the months ahead, shrewd public relations firms employed by bishops will no doubt come up with other "innovative" steps allegedly intended to "bring healing."

When evaluating such moves, we recommend a two part litmus test.

First, where'd the idea come from? Is it something many victims and Catholics have long sought?

Second, does this action reduce a bishop's power in sex abuse cases or increase the power of police, prosecutors or the victims themselves?

If the answer to either question is no, then it's not reform. It may be well-intentioned even, but it is a symbol. It is not substance. And symbolism protects no one.

Why is this second question - lessening bishops' power - so crucial? Because one reason we're in this mess is that bishops have, and have had, too much power.

For decades, any bishop has had the power to play police, prosecutor, defense lawyer, forensics expert, judge, jury, and social worker - in other words, to handle the investigation and adjudication of crimes himself (usually with no training in any of these areas). At the same time, he's assessing risk in the victimizer and damage to the victim. But no one person can play all these roles. Nor should any one person try.

That's why SNAP so vigorously supports enlarging the role of the unbiased, experienced and independent professionals in law enforcement, and reducing the role of biased, untrained Church officials and volunteers. That's why we back legislative reforms like expanding the dangerously rigid and restrictive statutes of limitations. Those arbitrary and archaic time limits force victims to turn to secretive, untested internal Church processes, instead of what they really need – open, time-tested external judicial processes that have successfully evolved over more than 200 years of American jurisprudence.

So we're asking for bread, but getting stones.

And we're getting continued secrecy and more molesters. We’re seeing cover ups exposed only when forced by determined prosecutors and dogged journalists (the same pattern we've seen for years).

Sometimes we're told that "half a loaf is better than none at all." This is only true, however, when it's real bread, not something that looks like bread. At best, such symbolism is often a waste of energy. At worst, it's a distraction from the real remedy - substantive change. Such symbolism may enable some to feel less guilty or less inept. But it may also dissipate drives for genuine reform.

We want, need, and have repeatedly asked for the bread that only bishops have

  • names of perpetrators and names of enablers (and secret files)

  • the power to discipline either

  • access to parish bulletins (for outreach notices begging victims to step forward)

  • Church records that could shed light

Victims and Catholics have sought all of this and more. Instead we get PR stunts (like Orange County Bishop Tod Brown's shameless nailing of his promises to his own cathedral door, a la Martin Luther at Wittenberg), We get carefully crafted apologies (pre-emptively posted on web sites just before Church documents are disclosed, like Boise Bishop Michael Driscoll).

Sometimes, something that's supposedly "better than nothing" really isn't.

 



In the Vineyard
June 2005
Volume 4, Issue 6
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