The reaction to a recent report on Catholic priests' sexual abuse of children shows that the church still has much work to do in restoring its moral authority.
Published March 3, 2004
A church panel issued its findings last week on the sexual abuse of children by America's Roman Catholic priests, and the results are staggering. From 1950 to 2002, 10,667 abuse claims were lodged against 4,392 priests. Most of the victims were teenage or preteen boys, nearly half were abused for a year or longer and predatory priests, more often than not, had no qualms about molesting on church property. Rampant assaults on children were tolerated, an open secret, because pedophile priests learned not to fear the families, the church or civil authorities.
The findings had barely been announced before victims' advocates assailed the report, claiming the numbers were low and blaming some church leaders for a coverup. There is no way to know how many victims have not come forward the last 40 years. But the abuse was substantial, and the church - even after addressing the scandal in 2002, adopting a rule to remove any abuser from active ministry - still seems in denial of the extent of the problem.
Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said: "The terrible history recorded here today is history." He might be right in a legal sense. But with most victims likely still alive today, the church has a long way to go to restore public trust and its moral authority.
Individual parishes are coming clean about priests accused of abuse, and some bishops in the nation's 195 dioceses have shown a remarkable willingness to level with parishioners through meetings and church bulletins. The bishops also were the ones who called for the exhaustive study of past abuse cases. But there still are wide variations in how the bishops are reacting to the scandal, despite the church's position that the bishops are united on removing abusers from the ranks. The Vatican, too, has undermined the reforms, by blocking early steps to move against abusers and by trying to paint these criminal acts as a spiritual problem.
The bishops were never without the tools to stop sex abuse. While the church now has new protocols for handling complaints, the problem was never about - as the review board said - "leadership failings" or "church leaders who did not act effectively" but rather bishops who went to great lengths to conceal epidemic sexual abuse. That's how fewer than 4 percent of all predatory priests caused 27 percent of the abuse complaints.
The passivity of some bishops even now infuriates victims and their advocates. The very group that allowed the scandal to fester is now responsible for reversing an institutional culture. The church has a lot of work to do. Friday's report was simply another step in what's still an evolving story. If the bishops start believing this all is ancient history, they will again be as dangerously out-of-touch as those responsible for this crisis.
