It's wrong to point finger at
Pope in sex abuse scandals
By Bishop Fred Henry, For The
Calgary Herald — March 30,
2010
(This is a pastoral letter
that was sent to all of Calgary's
Catholic parishes).
In the Liturgy of the Hours for
Passion (Palm) Sunday, part of
a Sermon by
St. Andrew of Crete reads: "Let
us go together to meet Christ
on the Mount of Olives ... In
his humility Christ entered the
dark regions of our fallen world
...
his love for humanity will never
rest until he has restored our
earthbound nature from glory to
glory, and made it one with his
own in heaven."
These are not easy times. Priests
and people feel battered and scattered
by the seemingly relentless media
campaign about child sexual abuse
in the Church.
We, too, have entered into the
dark regions of our fallen world.
This is a painful, emptying and
humbling experience.
Pope Benedict XVI, in his Pastoral
Letter to Catholics in Ireland,
has expressed his dismay at the
sexual abuse of young people by
Church representatives and the
way this was addressed by local
bishops and religious superiors.
He speaks of his closeness in
prayer to the whole Irish Catholic
community at this painful time
and he proposes a path of healing,
renewal and reparation.
Addressing the victims of abuse
first of all, he acknowledges
the grievous betrayal they have
suffered and he tells them how
sorry he is over what they have
endured. He recognizes that, in
many cases, no one would listen
when they found the courage to
speak of what happened. The Pope
urges victims to seek in the Church
the opportunity to encounter Jesus
Christ and to find healing and
reconciliation by rediscovering
the infinite love that Christ
has for each one of them.
In his words to priests and religious
who have abused young people,
the Pope calls upon them to answer
before God and before properly
constituted tribunals for the
sinful and criminal actions they
have committed. They have betrayed
a sacred trust and brought shame
and dishonor upon their confreres.
Great harm has been done, not
only to the victims, but also
to the public perception of the
priesthood and religious life
in Ireland.
The Pope encourages parents to
persevere in the demanding task
of bringing up children to know
that they are loved and cherished,
and to develop a healthy
self-esteem.
Parents have the primary responsibility
for educating new generations
in the moral principles that are
essential for a civilized society.
The Pope invites children and
young people to find in the Church
an opportunity for a life-giving
encounter with Christ, and not
to be deterred by the failings
of some priests and religious
(officials). He looks to the younger
generation to contribute to the
Church's renewal.
Addressing the Irish bishops,
the Pope notes the grave errors
of judgment and failure of leadership
on the part of many, because they
did not correctly apply canonical
procedures when responding to
allegations of abuse. While it
was often hard to know how to
address complex situations, the
fact remains that serious mistakes
were made, and they have lost
credibility as a result. The Pope
urges them to continue their determined
efforts to remedy past mistakes
and to prevent any recurrence
by fully implementing canon law
and co-operating with civil authorities
in their areas of competence
A sidebar to the Irish Pastoral
Letter has been the attempts to
personally embroil Benedict XVI
in the sex abuse scandals.
The New York Times on March 25,
and parroted by other newspapers,
accused Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
of intervening to prevent a Wisconsin
priest, Father Lawrence Murphy,
from facing penalties for cases
of sexual abuse of minors. The
story is not even supported by
the evidence of the Times.
Cardinal Ratzinger does not appear
in the record as taking any decision.
His office, in the person of his
deputy, Archbishop (Tarcisio)
Bertone, agreed that there should
be a full canonical trial. When
it became apparent that Father
Murphy was in failing health,
Archbishop Bertone suggested more
expeditious means of removing
him from any ministry.
Furthermore, under canon law at
the time, the principal responsibility
for sexual abuse cases lay with
the local bishop. Archbishop (Rembert)
Weakland had from 1977 onward
the responsibility of administering
penalties to Father Murphy.
He did nothing until 1996. It
was at that point that Cardinal
Ratzinger's office became involved,
and it subsequently did nothing
to impede the local process.
In August 1998, Archbishop Weakland
writes that he has halted the
canonical trial and penal process
against Father Murphy and has
immediately begun the process
to remove him from ministry. That
same month, Father Murphy dies.
The New York Times flatly got
the story wrong. Readers may want
to speculate on why.
The sin and stigma of sexual abuse
is not unique to Ireland, nor
is it unique to the Catholic Church.
It is a sin found in all societies
and nations. Sexual abuse of children,
like the abuse of women, has deep
historical roots. Hopefully, by
serious investigations of the
social, psychological and cultural
root causes of this behavior,
we can eliminate it as we have
made encouraging progress in eliminating
violence against women.
Let us pray together for the healing
and reconciliation of the Irish
Church, of the Church in Canada
and the United States, and for
the Church in Germany, Austria,
the Netherlands, Italy and all
those places where the Body of
Christ has been deeply wounded
by the sin of sexual abuse. Together,
let us bind the wounds and be
agents of healing, reconciliation
and peace.
Fred B. Henry is the Catholic
bishop of Calgary.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary
Herald
The Long Ascent to Calvary
On the Church’s mishandling
of sexual abuse by priests
March 30, 2010
by Fr. Thomas Berg
At Holy Week, the Church throughout
the world, through liturgy and
personal meditation, accompanies
Christ on the long, arduous road
to Calvary. Last week, for all
those whose lives have been scarred
directly or indirectly by the
crime of clergy sexual abuse,
that road became even more onerous.
A front page story in the New
York Times last Monday presented
an account of a group of men who
were sexually abused as children
by the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy
at a school for the deaf in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.
This story was preceded by allegations
that the Pope had mishandled an
abusive priest when he headed
the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising.
It was followed last Friday by
a statement from the Legionaries
of Christ - a religious congregation
to which I belonged for twenty-three
years - admitting and recognizing
that its founder, Fr. Marcial
Maciel, had sexually abused seminarians
for years and fathered at least
three children. All of this has
contributed to a maelstrom of
controversy around Pope Benedict,
and the reopening of the terrible
wounds of so many victims of this
abuse.
There is no denying that the Church’s
handling of cases of sexual abuse
and pederast priests was for years
more than deplorable. The acts
of these priests have been criminal.
Changes in the manner of handling
these tragedies have come far
too late.
Objectivity and intellectual honesty
require us to insist, however,
that those changes have nonetheless
come.
As George Weigel put it in an
article appearing yesterday in
First Things:
Reprehensible patterns of clerical
sexual abuse and misgovernance
by the Church’s bishops
came to glaring light in the U.S.
in 2002 …That the Catholic
Church was slow to recognize the
scandal of sexual abuse within
the household of faith, and the
failures of governance that led
to the scandal being horribly
mishandled, has been frankly admitted
- by the bishops of the United
States in 2002, and by Pope Benedict
XVI… It took too long to
get there, to be sure; but we
are there.
As for the New York Times article,
numerous commentators have pointed
out significant inaccuracies and
omissions. Fr. Raymond D’Souza
notes among other problems:
[Documents made available at the
NYT website supporting the story]
show that the canonical trial
or penal process against Father
Murphy was never stopped by anyone.
In fact, it was only abandoned
days before Father Murphy died.
Cardinal Ratzinger never took
a decision in the case, according
to the documents. His deputy,
Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, suggested… that
more expeditious means be used
to remove him from all ministry…The
charge that Cardinal Ratzinger
did anything wrong is unsupported
by the documentation on which
the story was based.
As for Pope Benedict’s broader
role in changing the Church’s
way of handling abuse cases, a
recent article by John Allen in
the National Catholic Reporter
describes a Cardinal Ratzinger
who, after the CDF took charge
of handling the Church’s
abuse cases in 2001, became “a
Catholic Eliot Ness” in
terms of handling high profile
abuse cases. And in a follow up
op-ed in the New York Times on
Sunday, he affirmed:
The outside world is outraged,
rightly, at the church’s
decades of ignoring the problem.
But those who understand the glacial
pace at which change occurs in
the Vatican understand that Benedict,
admittedly late in the game but
more than any other high-ranking
official, saw the gravity of the
situation and tried to steer a
new course.
And the Pope’s recent pastoral
letter to the members of the Church
in Ireland, though widely criticized
by victims groups and the secular
press, attests to that new course.
Shockingly blunt at times, it
represents a real break with previous
protocol.
***
In my own life, I have been given
at least a small glimpse of
the unspeakable hell that victims
of priest sexual abuse have
lived. The rage, and raw emotions,
the sense of crushing betrayal
that I personally felt upon
discovering the double-life
lived by the founder of my
own religious congregation
have afforded me that. To those
victims, I pledge in this Holy
Week my own acts of reparation,
prayer and atonement, desiring
to accompany them with eyes
fixed on the triumph of Christ’s
resurrection, and on the Kingdom “where
every tear will be wiped away.”
***
Fr. Thomas Berg
