Posted on 04/21/2010 6:12:35 AM PDT by NYer
1. The crisis seems to be nearing its conclusion. The vast majority of allegations are from the 1960-1985 period, and only six cases of clerical sex abuse in 2009 have been reported.
2. There was no global cover-up. “Nobody, nowhere, no time, no way, no how knew the extent, depth, or horror of this scourge, nor how to adequately address it,” wrote New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan. No one had the knowledge necessary to orchestrate anything on a global scale. The crisis arises from individual cases, distant from each other in time and place, which have hit the press simultaneously.
3. Going public seemed like the wrong thing to do. As Father Dwight Longenecker has written, “What we now call ‘cover-up’ was often done in a different cultural context, when the problem was not fully understood and when all establishment organizations hushed scandals. They did so for what seemed good reasons at the time: protection of the victims and their families, opportunity for rehabilitation of the offender, the avoidance of scandal to others. It is unfair to judge events 30 years ago by today’s standards.”
4. Pope Benedict XVI is part of the solution, not the problem. He orchestrated profound changes in Vatican policy in 2001 and supported the U.S. bishops in their revamping of allegations handling in 2002.
5. “Nobody is doing more to address the tragedy of sexual abuse of minors than the Catholic Church.” So says Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. bishops’ conference reports that more than 5 million children have received safe-environment training and more than 2 million volunteers, employees and clerics have undergone background checks.
6. Seminarians now undergo increasingly rigorous scrutiny. That includes both intensive background screening and psychological testing, according to the U.S. bishops’ conference.
7. Child sexual abuse is “profoundly prevalent” throughout society, John Jay College of Criminal Justice researcher Margaret Leland Smith told Newsweek on April 8. “The sexual abuse of boys is common, underreported, underrecognized, and undertreated,” an American Medical Association report has concluded.
8. Children are far safer with priests than with the average person. According to Dr. Garth Rattray in The Gleaner (2002), “About 85% of abusers are family members, babysitters, neighbors or friends.”
9. Adult-adolescent sexual encounters (ephebophilia) account for 90% of all priest-minor interaction; encounters with children under 13 years old (pedophilia) account for only 10%. Of these, worldwide, approximately 60% are homosexual encounters and 30% are heterosexual. In the United States, 81% of victims are male, and 19% are female.
10. “Defrocking” isn’t always the solution. The press’ insistence that offender priests should have been laicized earlier overlooks two important facts: The normal first step, called “suspension,” which bishops are instructed to take in these cases, removes a priest temporarily or permanently from ministry so that he no longer will be a danger to children. And once a priest is laicized, the Church can no longer monitor his activities and restrict his access to children, so he is at large in society.
11. The Church is taking care of victims. In 2009, the U.S. bishops’ conference reported that $6.5 million was spent on therapy for the victims of clergy sexual abuse.
12. The Church is “the holy people of God,” and yet her holiness is imperfect. As the Catechism states, “The Church, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal. All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners. In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time. Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness” (No. 827).
***Until the Vatican defrocks Cardinal Law the church will remain under suspicion. Cardinal Law moved many of these “priests” all over the world after being caught knowing all too well they would molest again.***
I’ve asked the following question on a previous thread, and was delighted with the answers:
“Am I the only one who remembers reading in our local paper (liberal) that the psychiatrists had told the Catholic church that pedophilia COULD BE CURED, and to send their priests to them for help? Who wouldn’t believe such a prestigious group of doctors? So the Church did just that. Years later, the psychiatrists said that pedophilia COULD NOT BE CURED.”
From the answers I received, it turns out that others also had read the above. So go ahead, keep on blaming the mistake of the Church and ignore the mistake of the psychiatrists, if it makes you happy to do that.
I’m not trying in any way to hijack this thread, so bear with me a moment please for an observation.
Is it me or is it the definition of irony that the Church is now purging her known homosexuals and others for acts they allegedly committed years ago, while in the present day the Boy Scouts of America is being chastised legally in courts for their refusal to allow homosexuals as leaders.
The Boyscouts of America were right. And they should use exhibit A “The Catholic Church” for their defense.
I think the telling thing about this statement is not so much the praise for the priest in the relationship, but the comparison of where the ‘average person’ falls on the ‘pervert-ometer’. As a culture we have collectively so devalued human life for so long that we no longer really value children or their little lives compared to how we used to perceive them.
I for one, only through the Grace of God, delight to see and be around children. I love to hold them and play with them. Children make me happy. Infants and toddlers make me delighted. One of my colleagues has a little nephew, a toddler now. Every once in a while her sister brings the little guy in when she visits. The last time he came in, we were in a conference room at the start of a meeting. I saw him cming around the end of the table and I pushed back in my chair and told him to ‘come over here and give me a kissy’, he walked right over with his little arms outstretched and I scooped him up and put him on my knee and kissed him on the cheek. I bounced him; tickled him and talked to him for quite a while and I didn’t see or hear anything but him during that time but the room was full of people. He made my day, maybe my week.
Mother Teresa once said, ‘saying there are too many children is like saying there are too many flowers’.
I weep and pray for our culture and for our world.
Lord Jesus Christ, save us from ourselves...
You wrote:
“Sorry, Cardinal Law is in Rome not the Vatican.”
He works in the Vatican.
“How about these facts:
How many times did Cardinal Law move Father Shanely and Father Geoghan after repeated allegations of molestations?”
That’s not a fact. It’s a question. You do realize what question marks signify, right? Now, about your question: How many times did Cardinal Law move Father Shanely?
Well, let’s look at the facts. Law became archbishop of Boston on March 23, 1984. Shanley resigned from the archdiocese in November, 1989. Five and a half years then. How many times did Law move Shanley in 5.5 years? Once that I can find. ONCE. Within a year or so after become archbishop. Only afterward was Law told of any allegation against Shanley. Most of the allegations surfaced AFTER Shanley left the archdiocese. I still think Law mishandled the case, but apparently you’re completely wrong if you believe Law shuffled Shanley all around the diocese year after year. No such thing happened.
Now, what about Geoghan? Again, Law became archbishop in March 1984. On September 18, 1984 Law removed Geoghan from his parish after hearing that he had molested boys. From here on out, on this case, I’ll rely on chronology of BishopAccountability.org (which is no friend of Law’s):
Nov. 13, 1984 Assigned by Law to St. Julia’s, where Monsignor Francis Rossiter is “aware of past allegations.” Geoghan is put in charge of three youth groups, including altar boys.
Dec. 7, 1984 Auxiliary Bishop John M. D’Arcy writes to Law and complains about Geoghan’s assignment to St. Julia’s because of his “history of homosexual involvement with young boys.”
Dec. 11, 1984 Dr. Mullins: Geoghan “fully recovered.”
Dec. 14, 1984 Dr. Brennan: no restrictions on his work as a parish priest.
[so the doctors say he was cured]
Feb. 26, 1985 D’Arcy appointed bishop of Fort Wayne/South Bend, Ind.
1986 Patrick McSorley of Hyde park says he is molested by Geoghan. Geoghan allegedly molests boys at the Waltham Boys & Girls Club. Bishop Robert J. Banks is told Geoghan is accused of molesting boy at a pool.
March 9, 1989 Banks learns of another 1986 accusation.
April 3-12, 1989 St. Luke’s Institute, Maryland. Diagnosis: homosexual pedophilia.
April 28, 1989 Geoghan is told by Bishop Robert J. Banks he had to leave ministry.
[So he was removed from ministry. Now, let’s count the number of moves under Law thus far: 1]
May 24 - Nov. 17, 1989 Placed on sick leave.
Aug. 10, 1989 - Nov. 4, 1989 Treated at Institute of Living, Hartford. Called “moderately improved” on release and recommendation is that he be returned to assignment.
Nov. 30, 1989 Banks is unhappy with the Discharge Summary from the Institute for Living because it is different from what he understood and he used it to base his decision on allowing Geoghan to return to St. Julia’s.
Dec. 13, 1989 Letter to Banks explaining the Discharge Summary: “The probability he would act out again is quite low. However, we could not guarantee that it would not re-occur.” Return to parish OK’d.
Nov. 28, 1990 Note from Banks: “I would recommend him for parish, but decision left up to [another bishop] and BFL”–Cardinal Law.
Dec. 7, 1990 Letter from Dr. Brennan: Geoghan OK for pastoral work.
Oct. 23, 1991 Complaint about Geoghan “proselytizing” at a pool with a boy.
1993-1996
Regina Cleri residence for retired priests
[so, he was moved to a retired priest’s home. It’s a move, but not to a parish and has nothing to do with children so we’re still really at “1”]
April 4, 1994 Mother says Geoghan abused her son while he was at St. Paul’s in Hingham. Geoghan denies the accusation.
Nov. 1994 Single mother from Waltham calls church to say Geoghan molested her four boys and made obscene phone calls to them. Placed on pre-trial probation. The case was dropped.
Jan. 16-25, 1995 St. Luke’s report states: He “has a long history of pedophilic behavior ... Father Geoghan should have no interpersonal contact with male minors that is unsupervised.”
1995 Geoghan allegedly molests a Weymouth boy, including at the christening of boy’s sister. (Criminal counts 3 and 4 in Suffolk.)
July 29, 1996 Spends four to six months in Southdown Institute, Ontario, for therapy.
1997
Clergy personnel office
[so he was moved again, but not near children in his work]
1998 Geoghan defrocked. Church settles 50 sex abuse cases against Geoghan for more than $10 million; 84 other cases pending.
This is fascinating. Law moved both Geoghan and Shanley ONLY ONCE. I never knew that. I always thought - relying on the MSM - that he moved them multiple times. I was wrong. He moved them ONLY ONCE.
How many times did you think they were moved? I bet you thought it was more than once too, right? So you were wrong too weren’t you?
“As a member of the Archdiocese of Boston don’t tell me to get over Cardinal Law. The Archdiocese is a shell of its former self. If these crimes were reported when they first happened the church wouldn’t be in the present state that it is now. The secrecy and the actions after the fact of Cardinal Law made the situation much worse.”
I agree. And it still doesn’t mean people should obsess over Cardinal Law. Boston was doomed to become a “shell of its former self” because of the liberalism the people soaked up in the Northeast since the 1950s.
“Take a tour of the closed parishes and schools in Boston along with the empty Mass and then tell me to get over Cardinal Law.”
Get over Cardinal Law. If you think he made this happen then you’re way off. Law didn’t make liberalism happen.
The other leaders are dead and gone. Law is still here on earth and still wearing a collar. Law white-washed Shanley’s record and never gave the whole truth on why he was being transfered. Geoghan was transfered more than once under Law. How about the fifty priest who wrote a letter stating that Law should resign?
I still attend church today and I remember what mass was like in the 60’s and 70’s into the 80’s and 90’s. Every pew filled numerous massess on Sundays. Now half the churches are left and if you’re lucky there might be three masses on Sunday, sparsley attended. Liberalism killed the church? It didn’t help but I blame the church and its response. Law and the rest felt that they didn’t need to answer to anyone. The Catholic church did it all on their own. I will not get over Law and until the church comes forward and condemns his actions or inactions I won’t get over it. I didn’t forgive Ted Kennedy for his crimes and I won’t give Law or the church a pass. Law should have gone to jail.
There is no defense for the church in this case and blaming “liberalism” is a cop-out.
You wrote:
“The other leaders are dead and gone. Law is still here on earth and still wearing a collar.”
Yes, he still has that collar.
“Law white-washed Shanley’s record and never gave the whole truth on why he was being transfered.”
That might be. Law is a sinner. So is everyone else.
“Geoghan was transfered more than once under Law.”
Not that I could find - not to a parish at least. I list his chronology. If you know differently please post the evidence. I would be very interested in seeing it.
“How about the fifty priest who wrote a letter stating that Law should resign?”
That doesn’t matter to me. I have no reason to believe that they were interested in justice. Some of his most outspoken critics among his former priests openly supported the most unorthodox of teachings. Just a matter of days ago a priest called on the pope to resign. I can’t take him seriously - especially because he’s a liberal modernist. In February, Fr. Walter Cuenin - who used to be a diocesan priest in the Boston archdiocese - called on Law to step down. Cuenin is a well known liberal modernist. I can’t take these people seriously. And don’t forget, 50 priests is about 10% of the priests in the archdiocese. That’s not exactly what I would call a ground swell of support.
“I still attend church today and I remember what mass was like in the 60’s and 70’s into the 80’s and 90’s. Every pew filled numerous massess on Sundays. Now half the churches are left and if you’re lucky there might be three masses on Sunday, sparsley attended. Liberalism killed the church?”
Yes.
“It didn’t help but I blame the church and its response.”
But you would be wrong. Attendance is down in Boston and dropped noticeably since 2002. But then again it dropped DRAMATICALLY since the late 1950s. The Church has been dying in the Northeast for DECADES. Parishes are closing and have been closing for nearly 40 years. Schools are closing all across the Northeast. The simple fact is that people adopted liberalism as their real religion even if they showed up in the pews on Sunday. The support among so-called Catholics in New England for liberalism is HUGE: Pro-Obama, pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-gay marriage, etc.
“Law and the rest felt that they didn’t need to answer to anyone. The Catholic church did it all on their own. I will not get over Law and until the church comes forward and condemns his actions or inactions I won’t get over it.”
Then you’ll never get over it and you’ll achieve NOTHING. Those of us who choose to be rational have gotten over it and realize that everything has changed. Condemning Law now, 8 years after his resignation, is meaningless - especially since he did not do what you even accuse him of. Remember, he moved Geoghan and Shanley ONCE - and he took actions against their abuse. Not enough. But he did not just allow it to go on in his diocese.
“I didn’t forgive Ted Kennedy for his crimes and I won’t give Law or the church a pass. Law should have gone to jail.”
That isn’t apparently what the legal authorities in Boston thought. And remember, the only person who would benefit from your forgiveness there is YOU. Ted Kennedy is long since dead and he can’t use your forgiveness. You could use it, however. Carrying a grudge against the dead is simply counter-productive in the life of a Christian.
“There is no defense for the church in this case and blaming “liberalism” is a cop-out.”
No, it’s the truth. I could almost say liberals get the Church they ask for. New England wanted a pro-gay church and they got it. Enjoy, liberals!
***A deviant criminal act takes place and the answer is to send the offender to a psychiatrist?***
If you believed your son had cancer, would you send him to a doctor, or report him to the police?
***Never reporting the crime and paying off the victim to buy silence.***
You also said that the Church did nothing to help the victims. Which way is it? Millions for psychiatric care or “did nothing:?
I’m sorry you hate my church. I have every reason to love it. I truly wish you happiness in your discovery of what the Catholic Church really is.
***A deviant criminal act takes place and the answer is to send the offender to a psychiatrist?***
If you believed your son had cancer, would you send him to a doctor, or report him to the police?
That is the most twisted thing I have ever read on freerepublic.
You wrote:
“Nice try. I don’t need to forgive anyone.”
You said you didn’t forgive Teddy. Jesus would say you must do otherwise or you won’t be forgiven yourself. I believe Jesus. How about you?
“The church has not done enough and you obviously don’t know anything about the archdiocese of Boston and it’s history.”
I apparently you don’t know much about the archdiocese either. After all you seem to claim to know what went on there and yet were apparently grossly misinformed about events.
“The number of churches and schools that closed before 2002 and can be counted on one hand.”
No. “Throughout the first half of the 20th century he brought the number of Catholic parochial Schools to 158, and he pioneered the creation of Catholic high schools, which numbered 86 by 1944.” - according to the archdiocesan website.
Yet, now, there are less than 3 dozen. Are you telling me that 50 high schools have closed in Boston in just the last 8 years? R-I-G-H-T. They’ve been closing for decades.
“You blaming liberals for the molestation of children by the hand of the catholic church is despicable and cowardly.”
The HANDS of men were used to molest children - never the Church. The Church CAN’T sin because it is the spotless bride of Christ. Men, on the other hand, are born sinners and stay that way, sadly.
“I blame the priests and the bishops and cardinals who allowed this to happen.”
Me too. I don’t blame the Church. I blame the men and their philosophy - liberalism.
“Shanley’s entire file was right there for Cardinal Law to read. Moving him knowing full well that he would molest again once was a crime.”
Prove Law knew that Shanley would molest again. Remember, the doctors told Law that Geoghan was cured - as I posted.
“Not reporting the crimes to the authorities was a crime.”
Apparently the legal eagles in Boston disagree with you.
“Anyone who posts this kind of drivel on this website is going to get a reply from me.”
That “drivel” has gone uncontested by you. You have yet to present any proof against what I posted. Emotional responses are everyone’s right, but a nice, cogent, fact based response to what I posted would be nice. I guess that’s not forthcoming any time soon.
“What happened here was a terrible thing that ruined hundreds of lives.”
It sure did.
“The actions of the church after that fact was despicable.”
No. The actions of some of the bishops and priests was despicable - not the Church.
“Those poor kids had no where to turn to for help. All the while these so called leaders just turned the other cheek. And you blame the liberals?”
I blame those responsible.
While the Left imagines they can destroy the Church with this, the fact is that it is the lurching of the Catholic Church to the left following the Vatican II that is condemned by the scandal mongers. A more conservative Church is emerging from this crucible. Glory be to God.
Seriously. If anything should strengthen the BSA’s ban on homosexuals, it should be the Catholic scandals. I would love to see the liberal media handle that.....
You are wrong, wrong about the archdiocese of Boston and wrong about the molester priest scandel. I am here right in the middle of it. You are not.
“Boston’s Roman Catholic archdiocese will close 60 churches in eastern Massachusetts over the next four months and reduce the number of its parishes from 357 to 292, the most extensive cutbacks in the U.S. in at least three decades, Archbishop Sean O’Malley said.
The cuts announced today don’t include at least 10 parishes targeted for closure last year in the cities of Lawrence and Lowell, an archdiocesan statement said.
Easy-print version
Admission of awareness damning for Law
By Thomas Farragher, Globe Staff, 12/14/2002
Cardinal Law in taped testimony taken in June on the handling of the Rev. Paul Shanley.
About Cardinal Law
Career timeline: Priest to cardinal
Changing statements on abuse
Coverage of his career in Boston
Photo gallery
Cardinal Law through the years
Official statements
Cardinal Law on his resignation
Groups, officials, clergy react
Related stories
The resignation
Law steps down, pope accepts
Scandal eclipses a long record
In cardinal’s final days, a firestorm
Admission of awareness damning
Rare speed displayed by Rome
Focus moves to Law’s deputies
Timeline
A tumultuous year for archdiocese
Message board
Boston.com readers react to Cardinal Bernard Law’s resignation.
Read messages
In-depth
Top church officials, such as Bishop John B. McCormack, have been implicated in systematic abuse coverups.
Coverage of archdiocese coverups
ardinal Bernard F. Law’s tempestuous road to resignation was marked by roiling protests, televised apologies, secret sessions beyond velvet ropes at the Vatican, and the specter of financial calamity.
But the roots of the archbishop of Boston’s demise lay in a simple admission he made in court papers in June 2001 and then reaffirmed with a damning repetition.
He knew.
He knew about allegations that John J. Geoghan, the now-convicted child molester, had been attacking little boys and returned him to parish work nevertheless.
He knew that the Rev. James D. Foley had fathered two children with a woman who later died from a drug overdose after going to bed with him, and yet he kept Foley in active ministry until this month.
Law knew that the Rev. Peter J. Frost was an admitted sex addict and child abuser and still held open the prospect of future ministry for him.
With an undeniable certainty, the cardinal’s own words, revealed in documents forced from locked chancery filing cabinets by court order, confirmed that knowledge.
Law blamed sloppy record-keeping. He blamed a leadership style in which he delegated tough personnel decisions to subordinates. He said he tragically had relied on now-outdated medical advice to return predatory clergymen to churches where they enjoyed access to children.
And for a time, as last winter’s seismic revelations about widespread clergy sexual abuse began to fade, it appeared Law might survive the storm.
But when the year ended as it began - with a release of graphic court records last week that made clear that Law’s knowledge about abusive priests was more extensive than he had acknowledged - the cardinal’s paper-thin support was swept away.
‘’It struck like an explosion and things were suddenly worse than they were at the beginning,’’ said Thomas H. O’Connor, a Boston College historian. ‘’If there had been any wiggle room at all, it was now gone.’’
The beginning of the end for Law and his 18-year tenure in Boston came in the summer of 2001 after 86 people who said Geoghan had assaulted them as children filed civil lawsuits against Geoghan and his supervisors. In response, Law acknowledged that within six months of his arrival here in 1984, he knew Geoghan was notified of charges that Geoghan had molested seven boys.
That admission, and a judge’s ruling to unseal Geoghan’s court file, triggered months of reporting by the Globe that showed that it took a succession of three cardinals and many bishops 34 years to place children beyond Geoghan’s reach.
In January, the Globe reported that the archdiocese had secretly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests over the past decade.
At first, Law refused to discuss the issue with the newspaper.
But the January stories provoked such instant fury that Law abandoned his policy of silence within days. Dressed in a simple black cassock, he stood before reporters and a phalanx of television cameras at a press conference and - without defensiveness - said he was ‘’profoundly sorry.’’
‘’With all my heart I wish to apologize once again for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse by priests,’’ the nation’s most senior cardinal said. ‘’I do so in my own name, but also in the name of my brother priests. These days are particularly painful for the victims of John Geoghan. My apology to them and their families, and particularly to those who were abused in assignments which I made, comes from a grieving heart.’’
A few days later, Law made it clear that while apologetic, he was not ready to leave.
‘’My resignation is not part of the solution as I see it,’’ Law told 500 Boston-area priests in late January. ‘’I want the archdiocese to become a model for how this issue should be handled. I have a responsibility as your archbishop to help that happen, and I want you to know that with every fiber of my being I am going to try and see that that happens.’’
By early February, Law had twice reassured the public that he had removed all priests known to have sexually attacked minors.
‘’There is no priest known to us to have been guilty of the sexual abuse of a minor holding any position in this archdiocese,’’ Law said.
When reporters pressed him, he repeated that assertion three times.
And then, with an edge in his voice, he insisted: ‘’There is no priest, or former priest, working in this archdiocese in any assignment whom we know to have been responsible for sexual abuse. I hope you get that straight.’’
In fact, the archdiocese would find many more, and it was forced to remove them from their ministries, stunning their unsuspecting parishioners.
As Law fought for his job, the scandal spread and gained momentum. Polls showed nearly half of local Catholics wanted him out. The cardinal found himself on the cover of national magazines.
The church in crisis became fodder for talk radio’s echo chamber. Television reporters standing outside brightly lit churches became a staple of the 11 p.m. news as the chancery pored through records and began removing some 20 priests against whom there were credible accusations of sexual misconduct.
Through it all, Law personified the crisis. Rarely seen in public, his residence became his bunker. Cartoonists satirized him. Protesters heckled him. Late-night comics lampooned him. Catholic audiences rescinded their invitations for him to speak.
With Law deeply wounded, a nascent revolt took form. Priests began a loose association to air their concerns. In February, a restive group of faithful Catholics began to gather in a Wellesley church basement, seeking to amplify the voice of lay people in a church led by bishops like Law.
The cardinal, once one of the most prominent figures in New England, appeared to sense the erosion of his ability to lead the third-largest diocese in the United States. On Feb. 19, he called to the chancery a constellation of prominent Catholics - many of whom had been in Rome when he was elevated to cardinal. Law wanted their advice about how to negotiate the scandal’s shoals.
The cardinal spoke for about 20 minutes. Somewhat defensively, he characterized his handling of the crisis as ‘’flawed.’’ William Bulger, president of the University of Massachusetts, interrupted him, telling the cardinal that ‘’flawed’’ was too temperate a word.
‘’It’s been disastrous,’’ said Bulger, as heads around the cardinal’s conference table nodded in agreement.
As dioceses around the nation checked their personnel files and began to dismiss sexually abusive clergy of their own, the cases in Boston mushroomed.
Prosecutors who spoke gravely about the possibility of a grand jury persuaded the archdiocese to waive confidentiality agreements that had prevented victims from giving law enforcement authorities details about priests who sexually abused them as children. More than 300 more alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse reached out to lawyers. The archdiocese, already in fiscal distress, faced tens of millions of dollars in extra costs to settle lawsuits.
In March, the first major business leader said it was time for Law to quit. ‘’There is only one way for the Archdiocese of Boston to put this scandal behind it and regain its rightful role as a force for good within our community,’’ David F. D’Alessandro, the chairman and chief executive officer of John Hancock Financial Services Inc., wrote in a Globe opinion piece. ‘’And that is with a new pastor and teacher and father at the top.’’
Even as the church promised a policy of openness, Law’s lawyers fought in court against efforts to have it produce records about whether Law knowingly allowed the Rev. Paul R. Shanley, who had allegedly molested children, to remain in his Newton parish. Court battles against the production of archdiocesan records would continue until year’s end.
‘’When you look at the documents with an objective eye, the reader almost wants to disbelieve what is contained in them,’’ said Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who represented scores of Geoghan’s victims. ‘’It’s almost surreal that the supposed most moral institution in the world could act so immorally. Those uncontested facts led to the demise of Bernard Cardinal Law.’’
A turning point arrived in April when new records revealed that Law and his deputies for more than a decade had ignored allegations of Shanley’s sexual misconduct and reacted casually to complaints that Shanley endorsed sex between men and boys. With those damaging documents - projected by lawyers for two hours from a laptop computer onto a large screen in a downtown hotel ballroom - the demand for Law’s dismissal reached a fever pitch.
‘’I’ve done a lot of this stuff, but I’d never seen records like this,’’ said plaintiffs’ lawyer Roderick MacLeish Jr. ‘’On the one hand I thought, `This is really great for the case.’ On the other, I thought, `This is really horrifying.’’’
A color photograph of Law shaking Shanley’s hand, which MacLeish had made the centerpiece of his high-tech presentation, made national news that night.
Within days, as financial support to Catholic Charities fell sharply, a sizable majority of area Catholics - 65 percent in one poll - said they wanted Law to step down. The cardinal flew secretly to Rome where he discussed calls for his resignation with Pope John Paul II, who then summoned all US cardinals to the Vatican to assess the evolving crisis. Law appeared isolated there, too.
‘’In a sense, if I had not made the terrible mistakes that I made, we would not be here,’’ Law, once a rising star in the US Catholic Church, told the American cardinals in Rome. ‘’I apologize for that.’’
US cardinals pledged a new policy of zero tolerance toward clergy sexual abusers and affirmed it later during a national bishops’ meeting in Dallas, where Law apologized yet again. He tried to dodge a battalion of reporters, who portrayed him as the man who lit the fuse to one of the worst church scandals in centuries.
In early May, Law was driven into a downtown courthouse behind the tinted windows of an unmarked car to become the first US cardinal ever questioned under oath over issues of clergy sex abuse occurring in his archdiocese.
‘’In 1984, you knew, did you not, that it would have been wrong for a priest to have sexually molested boys, is that correct?’’ Law was asked in the pretrial deposition for the civil suit brought by Geoghan’s alleged victims.
‘’Oh, absolutely,’’ the cardinal replied.
‘’And that is something you would have tried to stop from happening?’’ he was asked.
‘’That’s correct,’’ answered Law, who insisted that he could recall little of the critical events surrounding his decision to send Geoghan to a parish in Weston.
For a man accustomed to having his ring kissed and to being addressed as ‘’Your Eminence,’’ it was a startling spectacle.
Church attendance continued to decline. Financial support waned.
As spring faded into summer, Law - now protected by a special police detail - responded for the first time to a fast-growing lay movement spawned by the crisis. But his answer showed little sensitivity: Law said he would refuse to accept money raised by the Voice of the Faithful for church agencies, schools, and hospitals, infuriating key church supporters.
By mid-October, when Law appeared before his first full news conference since the early days of the crisis, he appeared more confident. He presented a smiling visage and an optimistic view. He promised tough sanctions against abusive priests. He cracked jokes with reporters.
He looked like a man who may have begun to see faint light behind the clouds of a ferocious storm.
But by late November, the cardinal’s lawyers were back in court seeking to block the release of thousands of pages of church records on scores of priests accused of sexual misconduct. A judge flatly refused. The records were coming out. And, like those before them, they were damning.
The files held reports of one priest who beat and terrorized his housekeeper, another who had traded cocaine for sex, and a third who compared himself to Jesus Christ as he enticed teenage girls bound for the convent into sex acts. In some cases, Law reacted to the explosive charges by quietly transferring the rogue priests and handling them with a gentleness that belied the heinous allegations against them.
The records made it clear: the cardinal knew.
‘’The uncontested facts indicate that they wanted secrecy at any cost,’’ said Garabedian, the plaintiffs’ attorney. ‘’And the cost of that secrecy was children being sexually molested and families being destroyed. The archdiocese just didn’t care. At first I thought they didn’t understand. But as I looked at these documents I understood that they just didn’t care. And they still don’t care.’’
His reputation in tatters, his archdiocese on the precipice of financial collapse, Law again flew secretly to Rome as scores of his priests said publicly that he had lost any moral authority to shepherd them.
‘’In the end, he had lost his priests,’’ said O’Connor. ‘’The priests had been his family, so that was particularly poignant.’’
This time when Law discussed the possibility of resignation, the Vatican’s first concern was no longer the possible domino effect Law’s departure might mean for the US Catholic Church.
In the same city where in 1985 Law was named a prince of the church, the Vatican accepted his resignation as archbishop of Boston.
I have an uncle who is a Catholic priest as well as an aunt who is a nun. I have two friends that went to the seminary and dropped out because of the debauchery going on there. My dad's best friend is a priest who would spend two weeks every summer at our house.
I am waiting for a leader to come into the church address this awful thing and move the church into a positive direction. This is not happening now. Vatican II seemed to stir up this problem as most of these molester priests became ordained shortly after.
You wrote:
“You are wrong, wrong about the archdiocese of Boston and wrong about the molester priest scandel. I am here right in the middle of it. You are not.”
I was right. You were wrong. What I posted showed that. ou can post a long article if you like, but nothing in it contradicted what I said. As I showed, schools have been closing for decades already in the Boston area. No one doubts that that went UP after 2002, but it had already been happening. The same goes for parishes. Boston was long overdue for such closings anyway. Mass attendance had dropped dramatically in the 1960s, 70s and 80s already - as it did EVERYWHERE in the US.
You wrote:
“My kids are in parochial school and I still attend the catholic mass. Long ago are the days when nuns and priest teach at parochial school.”
In your diocese yes, but not in the last three I have lived in. Your diocese is overrun with liberals so vocations are few and far between. At every high school in the last three diocese I have lived in there are chaplains - many of whom also teach religion, Latin, etc. The same is true for schools on the lower levels. It doesn’t surprise me that your archdiocese is so bereft of vocations. Liberalism does that to a diocese.
“There just isn’t enough of them anymore.”
Not in your diocese. In other diocese it isn’t that bad. It depends on the diocese, the bishop and the people. It also depends on the faithfulness of the religious orders in the given diocese. If you have Nashville Dominicans or Franciscan Sisters of the Martyr St. George in your diocese, then you’ll have some teaching nuns right there.
“My problem with the church is the leadership that could have done something but did nothing. They also defrocked these priests and never contacted the police as these defrocked priests roamed around to molest again.”
And what will you do about it?
“I have an uncle who is a Catholic priest as well as an aunt who is a nun. I have two friends that went to the seminary and dropped out because of the debauchery going on there. My dad’s best friend is a priest who would spend two weeks every summer at our house.”
Who cares? I don’t care about who your supposed friends are. I only care about the facts and you’ve been wrong on many of them.
“I am waiting for a leader to come into the church address this awful thing and move the church into a positive direction.”
Oh, I see. You want someone to do what you want. Yeah, probably ain’t gonna’ happen. I suggest you stop wasting your time “waiting” for someone to do your will and just keep doing the right thing in your own life. If Cardinal Law’s resignation from his diocese, his apologies, meeting with some victims, priests going to jail and massive payouts don’t meet your expectations, then I think your expectations will never be met.
“This is not happening now. Vatican II seemed to stir up this problem as most of these molester priests became ordained shortly after.”
No, Vatican II didn’t cause this. Liberalism did.
You didn’t show me anything. Just conjecture and opinions. What ever schools or churches that closed before 2002 was sparse compared to what closed afterwards. In fact because of recent immigration the church was growing in Boston before this scandel. Again I am a member of the Archdiocese of Boston you are not.
Cardinal Law didn’t send one molester to jail. He did not report a single one to the police. He and the rest of the leaders let these monster roam free amongst society.
Again you know nothing about the Archdiocese of Boston and the scandel that hit here and your posts prove it over and over again.
The molesters kept being outed long after Law resigned even when he lied and said that there were no more molesters. The problems didn’t end in 2002 when Law left for Rome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.