Replies

I remember when I first learned --- I think it was in 2002 --- that 2/3 of the U.S. bishops had at least once quietly transferred a priest who either had "credible allegations" against him, or was a known offender. I heard this over the phone from a dear friend, a moderately prominent, very conservative figure in Catholic higher education, and for a good 20 minutes we both gasped, then cried, then raged.

We were raised in the same diocese as kids, and knew a lot of the same people. That was disturbing, because we started going over in our memories any priests who were sort of suddenly reassigned and/or never heard of again.

"I always wondered why Fr. D. was transferred from being Asst. Headmaster at the Boys' Prep School to being chaplain at a retirement home. Do you suppose...?
"Fr. O was so popular at St. Patrick's. Why did he get reassigned to (basically) "Our Lady of the Mudhole"?
"People said old Fr. M got sent to rehab for an alcohol problem. I wonder if that's all there was to it."
"Fr. E. was such a successful fund-raiser for the Seminary. They said he'd be impossible to replace. But---now he's in Ghana???"

In short, it put a cloud of suspicion and speculation around a lot of people --- innocent or guilty --- when we just didn't know what the story was. That's the kind of sudden drop of confidence to zero you experience when you no longer feel you can trust your bishop.

Over the last dozen years, things became clearer: not everything, but some things.

For one, we were talking mostly about an era (1970's-1980's) when the across-the-board consensus, and not only in the Church, was that an adult man who formed sexualized relationships with adolescent boys needed psychological counseling to help him understand and control his problem. Get counseling, plus stop drinking, and the guy would be cured, or at least good for another 20 years.

There was also a consensus that what the young victim needed was not to be "re-traumatized" by having to testify in criminal court proceedings, but to be healed by therapy/counseling. The Church would provide it or pay for it.

This was not just for priests. Back in xxx County, where we were raised, we knew of a Juvenile Court judge (yes, a judge!), an eminent and trusted Family Practice doctor, and a middle-aged unmarried man who had volunteered for decades with the Boy Scouts ("He's a real Christian!") who were pedos or at least ephebophiles (somewhat different psychiatric profiles). They were dealt with substantially the same way: no criminal charges, victims and offenders alike were whisked off to therapy under the guise of "sabbatical", "He's working on a book," "extended vacation" or "He's being treated for depression."

I think, also, that you had a combination of (1) perps who were outwardly affable, lovable, pious, generous, and experts at deception, leading a pathetic, freakish evil double life, and ... (2) bishops/superiors who genuinely couldn't imagine that a member of the clergy could do such things, couldn't believe it had gone from "a warm, affectionate guy" to "boundary issues" to "molesting" to "rape."

Does this make things right? No. No way. Not at all. But it gives you one view of the interior of the thing.

The bishops weren't thinking and acting like consecrated men who can teach, govern and sanctify in the name of Christ, but thinking like shrinks and acting like social smoothers and damage-controllers. I'm not saying "that's the way it was in 2/3 of our dioceses in the 1980's", but "that's the way it looked in the blue-collar Catholic city and diocese I grew up in.