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Diocese fails to court justices

08 Nov 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Christ, the high priest in this Sunday's reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, "did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands." The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to enter into deliberations on an appeal filed by the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut of a state court decision to make public more than 12,000 pages of clergy sexual abuse files. The appeal to the nation's highest court was the diocese's likely last legal effort to keep secret documents from 23 clergy sexual abuse cases that were settled in 2001. Four newspapers--the New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post, and Hartford Courant--have been fighting for eight years to get the documents unsealed. Among the court documents are three depositions by former Bishop Edward Egan, who was in charge of the Bridgeport diocese when most of the lawsuits against priests under his supervision were filed and adjudicated. Egan retired last year as the archbishop of New York City. The Hartford Courant obtained copies of Egan's depositions, which show that he knowingly transferred priests who had been accused of sexual molesting minors to different parishes and rarely removed an alleged pedophile priest from service. Church officials believe that the church has been treated unfairly by the courts and the media in the case. "We were disappointed to learn that the United States Supreme Court has decided not to hear our case. The Court reviews only about 80 cases out of more than 10,000 cases presented, and regularly reminds the public that it must decline to review many cases that were wrongly decided by the lower courts. Unfortunately, ours was one of those cases," diocesan spokesman Joseph McAleer said. Source: An article by Dave Altimari for the Hartford Courant

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Europe roiled by fresh allegations of clerical child abuse

14 Mar 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

We are to be ambassadors for Christ, Saint Paul reminds readers in this Sunday's second reading. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi Tuesday acknowledged the "gravity of the crisis the church is undergoing" after fresh allegations surfaced in recent weeks of widespread sexual abuse by members of the clergy in Germany, Austria, and Holland. But the Vatican said it was wrong to focus blame for child abuse exclusively on the church, saying "the issue is much broader." Lombardi also denied allegations by a German government minister that the Vatican had hampered investigations of pedophilia by "creating a wall of silence." Reports last month alleged that Catholic priests had sexually abused more than 100 children at Jesuit schools there. "Errors committed by the institutions and members of the church are particularly reprehensible given the church's educational and moral responsibility," Lombardi told Vatican Radio. "But every objective and well-informed person knows that . . . concentrating accusations on the church alone gets things out of perspective," he said. Lombardi cited a recent report by Austrian authorities that detailed 17 cases of abuse in institutions linked to the Catholic Church, but 510 in other organizations. The Dutch Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday said it would ask an independent commission to look into more than 200 reports of alleged sexual abuses by priests, in response to an increasing number of victims coming forward. Germans were outraged by reports of abuse by Jesuits and allegations of beating and pedophilia at three Catholic schools in Bavaria, including one linked to a prestigious choir run by Pope Benedict XVI's brother from 1964 to 1994. Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, 86, has acknowledged he slapped pupils in the face to discipline them but has denied any knowledge of sexual abuse. "At the beginning I also repeatedly administered a slap in the face, but always had a bad conscience about it," Ratzinger is quoted as saying in an interview with a German newspaper Tuesday. The latest allegations follow years of damaging scandal in Ireland and the United States. The U.S. church has paid some $2 billion in settlements to victims since 1992. Source: An article by Daniel Flynn for Reuters News, Allan Hall for TimesOnline.co.uk, and Melissa Eddy and Alessandra Rizzo for the Huffington Post

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Buzz builds around new unofficial “saint of abuse victims”

10 Oct 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist this Sunday praises the Lord for having done “wondrous deeds.” Many saints have been lauded for remarkable deeds as well, but few if any are known to have exposed clerical sex abuse—until this week. A new documentary brings to light that Australia's Mother Mary MacKillop (1842-1909), to be canonized October 17, was briefly excommunicated after having blown the whistle on abusive priests. MacKillop, the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who now have thousands of women in their communities across Australia, heard disturbing reports of priests sexually abusing children in the Kapunda parish in the diocese of Adelaide in south Australia, according to the documentary on Australia’s ABC Compass station. MacKillop and her sisters informed Father Julian Tenison-Woods, cofounder the Josephites, of their concerns, which were then reported to the diocesan vicar-general. One of the abusive priests, Father Patrick Keating, was sent back to his native Ireland, where he continued to serve as a priest. The whistleblowers apparently so angered Keating’s colleague Father Charles Horan that he vowed revenge and used his influence over Adelaide Bishop Laurence Sheil to have MacKillop excommunicated. In 1871, after only four years as a nun, MacKillop was turned out onto the street with no money and nowhere to go—a bit like one of the outcast lepers we read about in this Sunday’s readings. Perhaps recalling the God of justice praised by the psalmist this Sunday, however, Sheil revoked the punishment on his death bed some five months later. After being reinstated by the Catholic Church, MacKillop became known for her work with disadvantaged children, female ex-prisoners, and prostitutes. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995. After her canonization October 17, she will be known as Saint Mary of the Cross. A statement from the Sisters of St. Joseph has confirmed that the documentary’s reports are “consistent with” the extensive studies that have been done of the event. In a column commenting on the revelations, Father James Martin, S.J. wrote: “Now victims of sex abuse and their families, and all who desire reconciliation and healing in the church, can pray to Mary MacKillop, who understands them perhaps better than any other saint. Perhaps it is providential that she walks back onto the world’s stage again.” Source: Articles by DailyMail.com.uk, Ecumenical News International, Father James Martin, S.J. for The Huffington Post, CathNews.com.au, and ABC.net.au

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Pope calls for reflection on lessons of abuse scandal

26 Dec 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The gospel at the Christmas Vigil Mass recounts how Joseph, on learning that Mary was unexpectedly “with child,” decided not to “expose her to shame.” Pope Benedict XVI told Vatican cardinals and bishops gathered to hear his traditional Christmas address Monday that the church needs to reflect on what can be learned from the shameful revelations of clerical sex abuse of children, which he said reached “an unimaginable dimension” in 2010. Benedict spoke of the church's need to accept the "humiliation" of the revelations of abuse as a call for renewal. "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred," Benedict said. "We know of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and our corresponding responsibility," Benedict told the prelates gathered in the frescoed Sala Regia of the Vatican's apostolic palace. While accepting responsibility for the scandal, Benedict said the abuse also must be seen in a broader social context in which child pornography and sexual tourism are rampant, and where as recently as the 1970s pedophilia wasn't considered the absolute evil that it is today. Recently, the Vatican released documentation showing that as early as 1988 then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sought to find quicker ways to permanently remove priests who molested children in a bid to get around church law that made it difficult to defrock priests against their will. While Ratzinger was unsuccessful then, Vatican rules now allow for fast-track defrocking. But victims’ advocates say the Vatican still has a long way to go in terms of requiring bishops to report sex crimes to police and release information and documentation about known pedophiles. Source: An article by Nicole Winfield for the Associated Press

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This Philadelphia story is not a happy one

13 Mar 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned,” intones the psalmist this Sunday as Lent gets underway. Tuesday, Cardinal Justin Rigali of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia acknowledged the “great evil” of sexual abuse of minors as he placed an unprecedented 21 archdiocesan priests on administrative leave. In February a Philadelphia grand jury released a report that harshly criticized the church's handling of complaints by alleged victims of pedophile priests and singled out a lack of action by Rigali and retired Archbishop Anthony Bevalacqua. In the wake of the grand jury disclosure, the archdiocese hired a former district attorney with experience in molestation cases to review the complaints. Rigali said the decision to suspend the 21 priests came after "looking at both the substance of allegations, and the process by which those allegations were reviewed." Since 2002, when the national abuse crisis erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston, American dioceses have barred hundreds of accused clergy from public church work or removed the men permanently from the priesthood. The actions of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia stand out because they come more than eight years after U.S. bishops reformed national child protection policies and pledged swift action to keep potential abusers away from young people. "I know that for many people their trust in the church has been shaken," Rigali stated. "I pray that the efforts of the archdiocese to address these cases of concern and to reevaluate our way of handling allegations will help rebuild that trust." Sources: Articles by Joann Loviglio for The Huffington Post, Dave Warner for Reuters, and Katharine Q. Seelye for the New York Times

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Can Catholics' trust be restored in the city of brotherly love?

24 Jul 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Saint Paul was surely one of the most hopeful of early Christians. “We know that all things work for good for those who love God,” he promises in this week’s reading from the Letter to the Romans. Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, deeply shaken by revelations of wide-ranging sexual abuse of children, hope that all can work for good under new leadership. Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., the first Native American to be named an archbishop in the U.S., will succeed retiring Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Vatican announced Tuesday. In his remarks before introducing Chaput, Rigali did not refer directly to the sexual abuse situation but said, "If I have offended anyone, I am sorry" and apologized "for any weaknesses on my part." Later, in response to questions from the press about whether he had any regrets, he said, "We've learned so much we didn't know before," and "we see now with greater precision" what might have been done differently. For his part Chaput said his transition to leading the Philadelphia archdiocese was a little like joining a family and that it would take some time to become familiar and adjust to each other. “No bishop will try harder to help persons who have been hurt by the sins of the past or work harder to strengthen or encourage our priests and to win the hearts of the people." Chaput, a Capuchin Franciscan, was born in Concordia, Kansas and is a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe. In the Philadelphia news conference announcing his appointment, Chaput said he has two Indian names, one from the Potawatomi meaning "he who makes the leaves rustle like the wind" and the other from the Lakota meaning "good eagle." Chaput is considered by many to be a conservative Vatican hardliner who voices strong opinions on “hot button” issues, but he rejected labels in a recent interview. “I try to be faithful to the church's teaching, as the church has handed it on to us,” Chaput said. “I don't feel that as a Christian or as a bishop I have a right to play with that tradition, which is the apostolic tradition of the church. I hope that I'm creative and contemporary, however, in applying that teaching and in the structural living out of it in the local church.” In addition to Tuesday's Philadelphia announcement, the pope also accepted the resignation of Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Savannah, Georgia and appointed as his replacement Father Gregory Hartmayer, a Conventual Franciscan priest who currently is pastor of St. John Vianney Parish in Lithia Springs, Georgia. Sources: Articles by Patricia Zapor for Catholic News Service and Eric Marrapodifor CNN and an interview by John Allen for National Catholic Reporter

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It’s a new order in the church court

22 Jan 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The arrest of John the Baptist, we hear in this Sunday’s gospel, set Jesus’ public ministry in motion. The recent spate of court cases related to sexual abuse in the church has triggered a notable increase in the number of canon law proceedings brought by laypeople and clergy alike to protest decisions made by ecclesiastical higher-ups. Sometimes the challengers even win. The reasons for the increase are complex. Canon lawyers say the American concern for individual freedoms likely has played a role. So has the explosion of information on the Internet. But the change is also an unexpected consequence of the child molestation crisis, with the scandal exerting an influence far beyond cases that directly involve abusers. "The focus on canon law and penal procedures in the case of sexual misconduct has made people aware that the church has a law system, it can work, and people can take advantage of it," said Michael Ritty, founder of Canon Law Professionals, a private practice in Feura Bush, N.Y. "For so long, especially in the United States, many of the laypeople did not speak up and did not know how to speak up, and many people in the hierarchy did not know how to accept things when people did speak up. I think that is changing." "Most of us, when we were training, were preparing for marriage tribunals, marriage annulments," said Monsignor Patrick Lagges of Chicago, a canon lawyer for three decades. "Now there's such a broad range of things. It's a much broader field." Observers note that the abuse scandal has damaged the credibility of church leaders. So as bishops announce parish closures, for example, angry parishioners these days don’t only protest and pray. In some cases they also hire canon lawyers. "We just Googled it and got some information about who was available," said Patricia Schulte-Singleton, a 52-year-old parishioner who has helped coordinate resistance to church closures, including her own St. Patrick Catholic Church, throughout the Diocese of Cleveland. They hired a nun who was a canonist in Rhode Island. Source: An article by Rachel Zoll for the Associated Press

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Many (not all) church officials repent handling of abuse

12 Feb 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In all that we do, Saint Paul counsels this Sunday, we should “avoid giving offense” but rather should “do everything for the glory of God.” Catholic bishops and other leaders Tuesday held an unprecedented service of repentance in Rome, asking forgiveness “for those who have abused in various ways,” including the actions of church management which allowed the abuse of children to continue. "This evil is within us and severely tarnishes our testimony," Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, said during the service at the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome. Church leaders have at times “become an instrument of evil” toward those they were charged to protect, he said. The service was held as part of a four-day symposium, held at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University, on the sexual abuse crisis called “Towards Healing and Renewal,” which brought together roughly 100 bishops and religious superiors from around the world, along with child protection experts. Representatives of six groups who were in various ways involved in sexual abuse--including the head of a religious order, a teacher, and a priest--apologized to Mary Collins, an abuse victim from Ireland who served as a representative of all abuse victims. At the end of the service, Collins asked God for the strength to forgive so that the church "may be healed." Collins earlier had told conference participants of her personal experience of abuse. She recalled the collapse of her confidence in church authorities when the archbishop she had confided her story to focused on trying to protect the "good name" of the priest and refused to suspend him from ministry. “We need to be vigilant in choosing candidates for the important role of bishop, and we also need to use the tools that canonical law and tradition give us for the accountability of bishops,” said Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top prosecutor for sex abuse cases. “Bishops are accountable to the Lord, but also to their people,” said Scicluna, who serves as the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “They owe their people good stewardship.” For his part, retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan wasn’t feeling particularly repentant in a recent interview in which he said he regretted apologizing for the priest abuse scandal in 2002 when he was bishop of Bridgeport. In the interview with Connecticut magazine, Egan said "I don't think we did anything wrong" in handling abuse cases. He said he was not obligated to report abuse claims and maintained he inherited the cases from his predecessor and did not have any cases on his watch, according to the magazine. Clergy in Connecticut have been required to report abuse claims to authorities since the early 1970s, according to attorneys who represented numerous abuse victims. Sources: Articles by Alessandro Speciale for Religion News Service, John L. Allenfor the National Catholic Reporter, and John Christoffersen for The Huffington Post

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