Sex abuse crisis requires ‘courageous’ response

August 24, 2018

by Andy Telli, Tennessee Register

The pain, the anger, the hurt that brought the Catholic Church to its knees more than 15 years ago after reports of sexual abuse of minors by priests and the efforts to cover up that abuse by leaders of the Church in the Archdiocese of Boston and other dioceses across the country have resurfaced in recent weeks. In Pennsylvania, the report of a grand jury investigation of sex abuse allegations in six dioceses in that state found that more than 300 priests were credibly accused of abusing more than 1,000 victims. The cases listed in the report go back as far as 70 years and most took place before U.S. bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002. The report also detailed efforts to cover up the abuse by Church leaders. The Pennsylvania report came weeks after the revelation of a credible allegation that Archbishop Theodore McCarrick abused a minor nearly 47 years ago as well as accusations against him of sexual misconduct with seminarians, all while he was rising through the ranks of the Church hierarchy to become a cardinal. “Bishops are extremely humbled and humiliated by this,” said Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville. “However, we can’t just stay immobilized. We have to respond in a courageous way.” “As in grief, people respond very differently and that’s OK,” Bishop Spalding added. “Some respond with sadness, and that’s OK. Some respond with anger, and that’s OK. Some respond by wanting to run away. We can’t. We have to pray for the courage to confront this issue.”  Laity key to response Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has announced a plan to address the new abuse scandal. The plan, which will be considered at the November meeting of the nation’s bishops, will include a “full investigation” of the questions surrounding Archbishop McCarrick, including a request to the Vatican for an apostolic visitation to investigate the situation.

The plan calls for a group of laypeople identified for their expertise by the USCCB’s lay-run National Review Board to be heavily involved in the investigation and be “empowered to act.” The second and third goals of the plan are to make it easier to report abuse and misconduct by a bishop and to develop “better procedures to resolve complaints against bishops,” Cardinal DiNardo said. The three criteria guiding the proposal, he said, are “genuine independence,” authority, “and “substantial involvement by the laity.” Bishop Spalding said he has “no problem” with the creation of a lay board to review allegations of misconduct against bishops. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People called for each diocese to create a Review Board of laypeople to investigate allegations against priests, deacons and lay employees and volunteers of the Church.  “I’ve been on a diocesan review board. It’s been one of the best experiences of church I’ve ever been a part of,” Bishop Spalding said. The members of the Review Board, each selected for their expertise or perspective on various facets of the issue of sexual abuse, come together with the same thought: “What’s best to protect children and young people,” Bishop Spalding said. The experience of previous sex abuse scandals has shown that protecting children “is the best way to promote and protect the Church,” Bishop Spalding said. The Charter, which was adopted in 2002 and revised in 2005, 2011 and 2018, includes a Statement of Episcopal Commitment that states, “We will apply the requirements of the Charter to ourselves, respecting always Church law as it applies to bishops.” But it doesn’t outline a clear mechanism for people to report allegations of misconduct by a bishop or for investigating such a report, Bishop Spalding noted. “I’ve always been at peace and supported by the rules around financial accountability,” Bishop Spalding said. “It provides checks and balances, transparency, audits that protect all parties involved.” “If we can bring that kind of value system to oversee those who are dealing with children and young people or anyone in the Church, the better off we are,” Bishop Spalding said. Charter’s goals to protect, to heal The Charter was adopted to provide a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, stipulating zero tolerance for anyone accused of even a single incident of abuse of a minor, permanently removing them from ministry. It also established lay Review Boards, education programs to detect and prevent abuse, and background checks for anyone who works with minors. It also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing and accountability.  “We’ve grown better because of the Charter,” Bishop Spalding said. “So many more people are open to speaking up, open to reporting and open to holding people accountable. That doesn’t mean we’re perfect.” “One slip is one slip too many,” he added. “One failure to implement the Charter undercuts the whole thing.” The Diocese of Nashville had several elements of the Charter already in place before it was adopted, including abiding by the 1985 state law that required mandatory reporting of abuse allegations. The diocese also had been conducting criminal background checks on people working with youth.  It began implementing other aspects of the Charter as soon as it was adopted in June 2002. Subsequent audits of its efforts have always found the diocese to be in full compliance with the Charter’s requirements. “The Charter implementation was a concerted effort of the bishops of the United States to provide protection for children and healing for victims,” said Deacon Hans Toecker, Chancellor for the diocese as well as its Safe Environment Coordinator and Victims Assistance Coordinator. The diocese’s Safe Environment program includes background checks for all priests, deacons, parish and school employee and any volunteers who work with children. They also are required to comply with the diocesan Code of Conduct. They, as well as all the children in schools and religious education programs in the diocese, are required to participate in a training program to teach them how to recognize the signs of sexual, emotional and physical abuse and how to report it to civil authorities if they become aware of abuse. State law and diocesan policies require anyone who reasonably suspects that abuse is taking place to report it to civil authorities. If they need help in reporting the allegation to civil authorities, the diocesan Victim Assistance Coordinator will help them. The diocese, as required by the Charter, has a Review Board to review any allegation of abuse as well as the diocese’s Safe Environment policies and make recommendations to the bishop. The members include medical professionals, mental health professionals with experience treating victims of sexual abuse, the mother of an abuse survivor, a judge, experienced business advisors, canon lawyers and a retired pastor. The diocese has not received a contemporary report or allegation of the abuse of a minor by a priest since the mid-1980s. But diocesan officials encourage all survivors to report the abuse to civil authorities whenever it happened. “An allegation that involves a cleric, it doesn’t matter when, where or how it happened, the accusation is reviewed” by the Review Board, Deacon Toecker said. No cleric found to be the subject of a credible allegation is reassigned, Deacon Toecker said. They are removed from ministry by the bishop and a petition to have them laicized so they can never be in ministry again is sent to the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican, he explained. Although someone can be suspended from ministry, canon law requires the bishop to continue to provide support for housing and food, Deacon Toecker said. The Church not only has an obligation to protect people from abuse, it has an obligation to protect the good name of the accused while the allegations against them are being investigated, Deacon Toecker said. The clear-cut cases of abuse are easy to address, Deacon Toecker said. But it is much more difficult when the situation is more muddied, he added.  Although civil and church law presume a person is innocent until proven guilty, those who have been falsely accused of abusing a minor have found they are presumed guilty until they prove their innocence, Bishop Spalding said.  “Developing a mechanism for reporting an allegation that protects all involved, that is hard,” Bishop Spalding said. “You have to be careful because you can crush innocence. You need due process in any legislation that protects all the parties involved. That’s what becomes the burden for all of us.” ‘Healing is necessary’ The second goal of Charter and the diocese’s Safe Environment policies is to help survivors of abuse heal, Deacon Toecker said. “As victims come forward, the church has a duty to help them with their healing,” Deacon Toecker said. “Many come with effects of depression, post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, broken families, broken homes.” The diocese provides survivors with counseling and other support, he said. “We help them move toward a sense of healing. … The healing is necessary.” The healing doesn’t come quickly, said Donna Harper, the mother of a survivor of abuse by a priest and a member of the diocese’s Review Board since its creation. When she and her child came to the diocese to report the abuse, Bishop Edward Kmiec, then the Bishop of Nashville, never questioned the allegation and took steps to provide the help they needed, Harper said. At first, her child was reluctant to accept therapy, she said. “It took two years to say yes to therapy.” They chose a counselor from a list of several provided by the diocese who was able to her child heal emotionally, Harper said.  But the healing process is not easy, for the survivor or their family, Harper said. “It’s a job. It’s a major job for the whole family. I felt like such a terrible parent.” Her work in the Review Board “helps me heal knowing all we were doing or trying to do,” Harper said. When Bishop Kmiec asked Harper to join the newly-created Review Board, she agreed.  “Those first couple of years when we were meeting at the Catholic Center from 3 to 8 o’clock at night were grueling” as the board hashed out the diocese’s new Safe Environment policies, Harper said. The discussions were often contentious. “It made you want to quit.” But the policies have been effective, Harper said. “The board, the bishops took it very, very seriously.” ‘I cry and pray’ The latest scandals have evoked new disappointments, Harper said. “I cry and pray for the people in Pennsylvania,” she said.  The Pennsylvania cases show the importance of following the guidelines of the Charter, Harper said. “Don’t ignore the Charter. Pay attention to it,” she said. Harper wonders if the Pennsylvania report will prompt more abuse survivors in this diocese to come forward. Harper encouraged any survivors to report the abuse first to civil authorities, then the diocese. “They need the confidence to come forward and they certainly need the prayers of all of us, prayers for their healing,” Harper said. “You can’t heal if you keep something buried.” Learning about the situation in Pennsylvania and that surrounding Archbishop McCarrick has been difficult for Bishop Spalding as it has been for the faithful of the diocese, he said. “I share the hurt, the pain, the anguish and an element of despair. “But I believe that Jesus Christ is our savior and is the victor over all sin, death and darkness,” he said. “We receive at Mass the gift of His word and the gift of his body and blood in the Eucharist, and I can’t go without that.”