America’s Catholic bishops are notoriously divided on many fronts,
but there’s at least one new point where complete consensus reigns: that
the recent scandal in Philadelphia, where a grand jury found that 37
priests remained in ministry despite "substantial" allegations of sexual
abuse, couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Not only do the findings call into question the bishops’
much-ballyhooed “zero tolerance” policy and their system of annual
audits, but they also threaten to cloud two looming milestones that
should have been occasions to tout progress: the release of a massive
study of the “causes and context” of the crisis by the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice, slated to appear this spring, and a review of the
bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” this
June.
Bishops across the country say they remain committed to zero
tolerance, and insist that tremendous gains have been achieved in
ensuring that the church is a safe environment for children. They
concede, however, that Philadelphia makes that message a much tougher
sell.
“It’s a perfect storm,” one bishop said. “We’re all worried that public reaction will just bury us.”
Beyond that agitation, consensus over what went wrong in Philadelphia
and who’s to blame appears more elusive. In part, bishops say, that’s
because it’s not yet clear to them how serious the charges against 21
priests suspended March 8 really are.
To gauge reaction among the bishops, NCR spoke to a cross
section of prelates March 18-23, representing different geographic
areas, backgrounds, and theological and political perspectives. All
spoke on the condition they not be quoted by name.
A few expressed anger at Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia for
appearing to undercut national efforts to combat the crisis, while
others -- particularly bishops for whom Rigali has acted as a mentor
over the years -- seem inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Most, however, struck a wait-and-see attitude, hoping that an
investigation commissioned by Rigali and entrusted to a former assistant
district attorney will shed more light.
“The concerns raised in the grand jury report obviously fly in the
face of what we’ve told people we’ve been doing for the last 10 years,”
another bishop said. “The question most of us can’t yet answer is, how
much of that is reality?”
During a March 22-23 meeting of the Administrative Committee of the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops pulled back from
specifically addressing the Philadelphia situation in a public
statement.
Instead, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, as president of
the conference, issued a statement March 24 confirming the bishops’
commitment to zero tolerance.
“We remain especially firm in our commitment to remove permanently
from public ministry any priest who committed such an intolerable
offense,” Dolan said.
The Administrative Committee, composed of roughly 40 bishops, is the
conference’s main governing body. During the meeting in Washington, an
overview of the Philadelphia grand jury report was presented by the
bishops’ conference general counsel, Anthony Picarello.
According to bishops who took part in the session, some wanted to
publicly express disappointment in the Philadelphia leadership,
especially for not reporting some charges either to the police or to the
archdiocesan review board as called for by the charter. Other bishops
-- by most accounts, a smaller number -- wanted to voice confidence in
Rigali.
In the end, sources said, the view that prevailed in the
Administrative Committee was that the situation in Philadelphia is still
fluid, and any detailed statement would run the risk of being overtaken
by events.
On several points, the bishops contacted by NCR struck similar notes.
All insisted that the apparent breakdown in Philadelphia does not
represent the reality across the country. In the vast majority of
American dioceses, they said, bishops can honestly say that no priest
facing a credible charge of sexual abuse remains in ministry.
What happened in Philadelphia is “radically uncommon,” one bishop
said. “If anything, these days we err on the side of caution, reporting
absolutely everything.”
Most bishops also said developments in Philadelphia have prompted
them to direct their own staffs to comb through files to be certain that
no case has slipped through the cracks in their dioceses.
To a person, the bishops expressed support for the bishops’ charter
and its pledge of zero tolerance. One bishop who took part in the
Administrative Committee said the mantra there was, “We can’t let this
derail the charter.”
On Rigali’s handling of the situation, however, opinions ranged more widely.
One senior prelate bluntly suggested that Rigali ought to resign
quickly and a new archbishop, someone with no ties to Rigali and with a
profile as a reformer on sex abuse, ought to be appointed.
Given that Rigali turns 76 on April 19, putting him beyond the normal
retirement age of 75, most observers expect him to be replaced soon in
any event.
Another bishop complained of a “lack of information” from the Philadelphia archdiocese.
“We have this massive grand jury report,” he said, “but the responses from the archdiocese so far have been vague.”
Others came to Rigali’s defense, suggesting there may be a “benign”
interpretation of choices made by the cardinal and his aides.
Some of the cases in the grand jury report, one bishop said, may
involve “boundary issues,” such as an inappropriate conversation with a
minor, that do not necessarily rise to the level of sexual abuse.
In
those instances, the bishop said, a decision not to make a report may
have been intended to resist “charter creep,” meaning expanding the
purview of review boards beyond their
mandate, distracting them from
their core purpose.
Another bishop said the Philadelphia situation highlights a key bit
of unfinished business: achieving a clearer definition of what precisely
constitutes sexual abuse, and how it differs from other objectionable
conduct.
“My sense is that some review boards handle these ‘boundary issue’
cases one way, and some boards handle them another way,” one bishop
said.
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take them seriously,” this bishop
said. “We have to move quickly to address them, but they require a
different response than actual sexual abuse.”
In general, most bishops seem hesitant to pass judgment until more facts are in.
“At this point, I don’t sense resentment directed at Rigali that in
any way approximates what the bishops felt about Bernie Law,” one
prelate said, referring to the former archbishop of Boston who resigned
in December 2002 amid the first wave of the American crisis.
A final worry expressed by some bishops concerns the impact of the Philadelphia situation upon priests across the country.
The takeaway from Philadelphia, one bishop said, is that no matter
how weakly documented a charge may be, it will now automatically result
in a report to the police and the review board, and suspension from
ministry -- meaning that in the court of public opinion, the priest will
be branded an abuser.
“Every priest in the country is just one phone call away from
disgrace and removal,” the bishop said. “I don’t understand why nobody
seems to be speaking up on this.”