Friday, June 04, 2004
The Long Black Line
Did you wonder (rhetorical question, of course) why there was such a flood of scandalous accusations against priests all at one time, even though the alleged actions took place over four decades? Wouldn't it have made more sense for these things to have come out as they happened?
There are many reasons why, all of them shameful. The conspiracy of silence between diocesan officials and the police and lawyers played a big part in keeping a lid on things -- and, as a result, continuing the problem. And nobody today, looking at the payouts that were made way back when and the confidentiality clauses that complainants signed to get their checks, can deny that selfishness, pure and simple, aided and abetted these perverts in continuing to damage the people of God.
But there's one huge elephant in the middle of the room, and very few are adverting to it. The elephant? The willingness of otherwise innocent priests to keep silent about the sins of their brethren.
When James Porter's case brought all this to the fore, we were absolutely horrified to read about priests in his rectory having witnessed his depravity, about others barging in upon him while he savaged youngsters -- and saying nothing. Nothing. It stunned most everybody I've ever spoken with about the Porter case.
I hate to say it, but it didn't stun me.
Maybe it's because I didn't grow up in a clerical culture, maybe for some other reason, I never heard it. Clearly everybody else knew (by osmosis?) that while one might kvetch to one's priest friends about the excesses or depravities of a rectory-mate, one NEVER reported these issues up the chain of command.
I found out about this dictum the hard way, I'm afraid. I reported a guy in seminary who was an active sodomite -- as I and every other seminarian had been instructed to do if we were the subject of an advance. I discovered after the fact, however, that we were supposed to do what they did, rather than what they said to do. If you've read Michael Rose's book, you can imagine the consequences I discovered. Suffice it to say, answering the call to ordination was not a cake walk the rest of the way!
I've found, post-ordination, that this same dictum is applied more rigorously than canon law. One of my confreres is reported to have said (about me, after I turned in a pastor for disobeying diocesan regulations by having a 19-year old boy living with him in the rectory), "Nobody will ever take him as an associate if he turns people in!"
The "long black line," like the fabled solidarity of cops and soldiers, does serve a legitimate purpose. There should be solidarity in the priesthood. There should be a sense of commonality, an esprit de corps that always binds together those who put their lives on the line for the good of society. But when it becomes counterproductive, when it serves to sheild those who despoil the very nature of the comraderie, it must be broken, it must be dissolved.
posted by FatherElijah
I have read this article elsewhere. Fr. Malachi Martin wrote extensively about this subject - specificly in Chicago - in his last book Windswept House. While he cloaked the true names, dates and places (thinly) in fiction, it was based upon this reality of organized clerical satanic pedophilia. Very nasty stuff, but apparantly true. Greely and Martin both correctly point out that there have been murders to cover up such information, and a wall of silence in both the poice and diocesan offices. And he is justifyable fearful of comeing foward and telling all that he knows. However, if he (or anyone)were to do this it would be a great step foward to a thorough cleasing of the house that Bernadin built. How many more like the good Fr. Kunz have to die to protect the guilty? Kunz was a consultant to Martin on this book. Martin himself may have been offed, as he asserted on his death bed that "he was pushed". But at least he was brave enough to tell the story the best way he could.