Posted on 10/18/2006 7:49:29 AM PDT by NYer
SEATTLE, Wash. (CNS) – Jesuit Father Anton T. Harris resigned Oct. 12 as Seattle University's vice president for mission and ministry after local news media reported that he was accused of sexually harassing a 25-year-old Jesuit seminarian in the mid-1990s.
Both Jesuit universities in Washington state – Seattle University in Seattle and Gonzaga University in Spokane – have recently been in the news because of claims of sexual abuse of minors that occurred in those institutions decades ago.
Father Harris has not been accused of any misconduct with a minor, but he resigned after the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a front-page report that the former Jesuit seminarian, John Bollard, had reached a settlement with the order in 2000 over his complaints about homosexual overtures from Father Harris and two other Jesuits during his time in the seminary.
Bollard said that several years earlier Father Harris had sent him several greeting cards that featured suggestive pictures of naked men.
In an e-mail to Seattle University faculty and students, Father Harris said, "I do not want to be a distraction from the important work at hand." He said he believed his resignation would be "in the best interests of both me and the university."
Jesuit Father Stephen Sundborg, president of the university, said Father Harris' decision to resign was the right thing "for him and for the university."
Barbara Nombalais, a university spokeswoman, said the university did not force the priest's decision and Father Harris, who was the second-highest Jesuit official at the university, is to stay on the staff for the remainder of the academic year working on special projects.
In September Father John D. Whitney, head of the Oregon province of Jesuits, disclosed that Jesuit Father John Leary, who died in 1993, had been accused of abusing minors and young men while he was president of Gonzaga University from 1961 to 1969.
A lawsuit currently pending in Seattle claims that Jesuit Father Michael Toulouse, who died in 1976, sexually abused at least one minor in Spokane in 1950, when he was teaching at Gonzaga High School and living at Gonzaga University, and subsequently abused others after he was transferred to Seattle University.
Seattle University officials also said they recently learned that another dead Jesuit who once taught there has also been accused of abuse of minors. Father Sundborg said that priest's name would be released once affected parties have been notified.
In a statement Oct. 5 Father Whitney said he has "sought to acknowledge the failures of the past and to bring forward all that can be healing for the future."
His statement followed an Oct. 3 press conference held outside the entrance to Seattle University by victims' advocates who urged the release of the names of any other Oregon province Jesuits credibly accused of abuse.
Jesuits of the Oregon province engage in ministry in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.
"I have tried to make public information on those who have abused as situations arose," Father Whitney said. "It was for this reason that, over a year ago, I released information regarding Michael Toulouse and, more recently, released information on John Leary.
"We take seriously every allegation of sexual abuse of minors and have removed any Jesuit from active ministry who has been accused of such abuse," he said.
According to Father Whitney, the province has spent about $8.5 million in recent years to settle sex abuse claims, some going back more than 50 years, and still has dozens of claims pending.
Very good points.
I've been thinking about this more, and I really feel it's a challenge to be less (ulp!) conciliatory. If we let the culture set the terms, as redhead mentioned, we'll never make any progress even among our own believers.
My teenage daughter mentioned recently that she's bored with being lectured on chastity at every Catholic youth event she attends. (And my 12-year-old son is desperately embarassed even to have it brought up!) There's so much to learn and do and experience in our Church ... why can't they get past, "It's not Christian to screw around ... it's not Christian to screw around ..."?
The answer, I think, is that we've stopped even speaking of general moral norms in the culture outside the Church. (I'm reminded of St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians, in which he seemed to be facing the same issue: "No, y'all, it's not Christian to screw around. Stop asking! The answer's not going to change!") Although it may be impracticable or inappropriate to consider legislating some of these moral rules, simply stating that the rules exist ought to be something we can manage!
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You're right. Maybe that's why the term "soldiers of Christ" was coined. It certainly seems like a battle at times.
Yes, and I hate upsetting people ... but I think I need to get over it!
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You and me both. :)
"Yes, and I hate upsetting people ... but I think I need to get over it!"
And therein lies part of the underlying logic of political correctness. It relies upon people's natural desire to be accepted, not to stir up controversy, to get along, etc.
Here's the deal with the devil political correctness seeks to make. If you'll tell just a little bit of a lie of omission by not calling something what it really is, by not daring to attach a moral label to it, then you won't be forced to suffer the heat or embarassment that you might incur by calling something it's proper name.
So we tell lies of omission by failing to call things what they really are. And isn't it interesting how once the language becomes morally neutral, it becomes easier to just go ahead and accept the underlying evil that the language isn't adequately describing?
Language is usually how we express thought, and often how we internalize thought. If you can successfully change the language relating to a specific subject, then what you're doing in the long run is subtly changing the way that people think about that subject.
Words have power.
It's not impossible that the ones in positions of holding these priests accountable are in the same boat...
I would think in a religion where the clergy are not allowed wives, it would be a very good atmosphere to attract homosexuals, male and female...
And horror of horrors when a family sends their young son off to seminary to become a priest and he is preyed upon by homos in the clergy...
It's my belief that queers are recruited, not born...
But I wonder why the 'straight' priest don't 'out' the queer ones...Maybe it's only the queers that get promoted and the straights are under pressure to keep quiet...
I think you're on the wrong thread. This one is about an immoral interaction between an adult homosexual and a man who was in his 20's.
Excellent post, excellent! You are absolutely right.
I'm reading a book of essays by Theodore Dalrymple, the British commentator, and he made exactly the same point in one article. We Charismatics call this "a confirmation," when we get the same message from two or more unconnected sources :-).
Words have power.
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Excellent post. I couldn't agree more.
I guess that should be, "an immoral proposal from an older homosexual man to a man in his 20's who wasn't interested."
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