What does a church do when faced with potentially having to pay billions
of dollars in damages to victims of sexual abuse at the hands of its
clergy?
As Jason Berry documents so well in his compelling new book,
"Render Unto Rome," the Catholic Church's initial response was to fight the charges.
Highly placed bishops and cardinals denied any knowledge of such abuse
or claimed that proper procedures had been followed in sending known
pedophiles from one parish to another, where they often committed the
same vile acts.
High-priced lawyers argued that even if such evils had
taken place, the statute of limitations had passed and victims were not
entitled to compensation.
And perhaps worst of all, high-ranking church
officials in the Vatican and the United States branded the accusers as liars.
Apologies were almost as hard to come by as restitution.
We know that ultimately such tactics failed miserably and that
archdioceses across the country and around the world have either lost or
settled lawsuits that might bankrupt a major corporation — over $700
million in damages in Los Angeles alone.
So how does an archdiocese pay for these damages and the hefty legal
fees associated with them?
Some archdioceses have actually filed for
bankruptcy, while insurance payments and loans from banks with ties to
the Vatican have helped others cover the costs.
But, sadly, all too
often the short answer has been on the backs of good, innocent
parishioners.
According to Berry the church has shut down more than 1300 parishes in
the U.S. since 1995.
Some of these closings were legitimate due to
declining attendance and other factors; however Berry's focus is on
those churches with vibrant congregations, strong balance sheets, and,
in many cases, parishioners themselves willing to raise the funds to
meet any operating deficits.
Why were so many of these parishes targeted?
According to this
painstakingly researched book, it was because closing them would allow
the church to sell off their real estate, much of which was extremely
valuable.
Whether the money reaped from such sales should "follow the
parishioners" or go to the archdiocese to use as it pleased has,
understandably, been the subject of much contention and even litigation.
This battle pitting observant Catholics against their local bishops and
cardinals came to a head in the midst of the sex scandals plaguing the
Church.
Parishioners whose places of worship were to be shuttered and
whose land holdings were to be sold argued that if closure was
inevitable, sale proceeds should go to the congregations, not, as often
appeared to be the case, to settle the lawsuits based on misdeeds that
were none of their doing.
In "Render Unto Rome," Berry focuses his intelligent eye on two cities,
Boston and Cleveland.
In each of these locales, the architect of
post-scandal downsizing was a less-than-likable bishop named Richard
Lennon.
Berry questions the bishop's reasoning and motives in closing
over 60 parishes in Boston alone — where it just so happened that
lawsuits and settlements from the infamous Cardinal Law era totaled over
$150 million.
Berry knows the church landscape as well as any living investigative
journalist.
Almost 20 years ago, he documented the sex scandal in "Lead
us Not into Temptation."
And in 2004, along with the late Gerald Renner,
he wrote the highly-regarded, "Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in
the Papacy of Pope John Paul II."
Berry knows how to find the story lines that humanize the
stomach-turning behavior of the pedophiles, those who protected them,
and those who sought to clean up the mess in less than savory ways.
In
"Render Unto Rome," Berry follows the fascinating Peter Borre, a
Harvard-educated Boston businessman likened to Don Quixote.
After his
church, which catered to working class immigrants, was slated for
closure, Borre embarked on an effort to keep it and other churches open
using tactics ranging from civil disobedience to sophisticated appeals
to the Vatican.
At one point Borre brought petitions bearing 3500 signatures to the
chancery in Boston's Brighton neighborhood. "'We're not interested in
petitions,' the priest uttered. Borre asked what they should do with the
petitions. The cleric, whom he recognized as a chancery official,
retorted, 'You should go f--- yourself,'" writes Berry.
With his business background, Borre became curious about church
finances: "How did a 'land rich' church manage its assets?" Berry ably
chronicles the history of local churches sending money to Rome and the
lack of financial transparency, accountability, and efficiency in the
Vatican and its archdioceses.
Most disturbing is the case of Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, the
Mexican-born priest who founded the Legion of Christ.
Numerous men, some
of them now clergy, charged Maciel had sexually abused them when they
were young.
Berry follows the gifts that flowed from the cash-rich
Legion to the powerful Cardinal Angelo Sodano,
Vatican secretary of state from 1991 to 2006.
With Sodano as his
protector, Maciel enjoyed the support of Pope John Paul II.
At that time it was revealed that in addition to
pedophilia, Maciel had fathered children with two women and had
committed incest with one of his sons.
While Maciel is as close to evil as any character in this tawdry story,
many of the other principals are more complex.
So many of the cardinals
and bishops took admirable positions in fighting for civil rights, world
peace, and immigrant rights, that it is hard to imagine they could
recycle known pedophiles throughout the system and play dumb when
caught.
Sadly, their allegiance to Rome seemed to trump those Rome was
supposed to serve.
Chicago, which has not escaped the scandal, escapes Berry's
focus…almost. He notes that three years after the Catholic Church
adopted a youth protection charter in 2002, "Cardinal Francis George…put
an accused pedophile back in ministry over warnings from his advisory
board.
The priest reoffended, went to jail, the archdiocese paid heavily
to the victims —and Cardinal George was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops."