An
opinion article by author
Jason Berry in Sunday's Los Angeles Times (11/11/07) claims that
United States Catholic bishops "released data [in 2004] showing that
they had identified about 4,400 abusive U.S. priests." The truth?
That number refers to the number of priests who had allegations
of abuse.
This discrepancy is significant for a number of reasons:
- A priest "with an allegation" does not necessarily represent "an
abusive priest." An allegation is not a presumption of guilt. The
2004
John Jay study, to which Berry alludes, defined an allegation as
"any accusation that is not implausible" (link).
In addition, "The survey results do not include 'unfounded' or withdrawn
allegations of abuse, but they do include allegations of abuse that
were 'not substantiated' and allegations for which no investigation
was conducted" (link,
page 22). "More than ten percent of these allegations were
characterized as not substantiated. In addition, for approximately twenty percent of the allegations, the priest was deceased
or inactive at the time of the receipt of the allegation and
typically no investigation was conducted in these circumstances" (link,
page 25).
- As we reported in
this post over the summer, a number of priests have vehemently
denied the allegations against them. (In the post I identified one Los
Angeles-area priest whose accuser received a settlement despite the
priest's vociferous denial.)
- The Jay study covered allegations spanning over a half a century
(1950-2002). Berry's article conveniently omitted this fact. A
significant percentage of priests are deceased, and many were tagged
with a single accusation after their death. We reported that in the case
of the Los Angeles archdiocese, about 25% of the accused clergy
were deceased at the time of the large settlement in July of this year.
Berry and the Los Angeles Times owe their readers a correction. The
study did not "identif[y] about 4,400 abusive U.S. priests." (By the
way, the actual number of individuals with allegations who were
classified by the study as being an actual priest or bishop (as
opposed to a deacon, seminarian, other, or unknown) is 4,078. See
Table 3.3.5 here.)
Meanwhile, last month, the Associated Press published an explosive
three-part series about our nation's schools. (Must-read AP report: Part
1,
2,
3.) It "found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were
revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005
following allegations of sexual misconduct." The AP also reported, "One
report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million
students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject
to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between
kindergarten and 12th grade." The series also talked of a practice among
schools of "passing the trash" and the "mobile molester." Also included
was the story of a teacher who kidnapped "more than 20 girls, some as
young as 9. Among other things, he told prosecutors that he put rags
in the girls' mouths, taped them shut and also bound their hands and
feet with duct tape and rope for his own sexual stimulation." Finally, "The
system fails hundreds of kids each year," the investigation found.
Yet the Los Angeles Times has not printed a single syllable
about this stunning report in their newspaper. (I found
a cached version of an latimes.com story from a couple of days ago
with a reference to the AP study, but it never appeared in the print
edition.)
The abuse by priests has been undoubtedly real, angering, and
contemptible. (The actions by
Michael Wempe, for one, have been nothing short of abominable.)
But it's clear that it's not the harmful abuse itself that's
important to the Los Angeles Times, it's who is committing the
abuse. (We've reported before on the negligent coverage of the Church abuse
scandal by the Times
here, here,
here,
here, here, and
here.)
Berry's article comes across as a weak and desperate attempt to keep
the church abuse scandal in the public arena. The end of the article
reveals that Berry is directing a documentary film about the scandal "to
be released next year." It sure seems that Mr. Berry has a vested
interest in keeping this story alive and in the public eye. And the LA
Times is all too willing to oblige.
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_
Berry also wrote in the article,
The problem is that [Chicago's Cardinal Francis] George shows
little indication of having internalized the lessons of the scandal.
He displays a stunning insensitivity to the church's failures.
(snip)
George did not apologize but defended [a] colleague
[Kenneth Martin, accused of past abuse].
While George does not appear to have publicly apologized in 2003 at
the time the Martin story surfaced, the Cardinal has issued
apologies for the way he handled the scandal.
On February 13, 2006, the Chicago Sun-Times reported ("George
extends his apology to churchgoers: Parishes get letter," emphasis
mine):
In addressing his handling of sex abuse cases, Cardinal
Francis George has issued apologies to priests, the media and
members of affected parishes.
On Sunday, George extended his apologies to churchgoers
throughout the Archdiocese of Chicago.
"I must apologize to all of you for the great embarrassment every
Catholic must now feel in the light of media scrutiny of these
events," George wrote in a letter he asked to be distributed at
Sunday masses.
The two-page letter, addressed to "brothers and sisters in Christ,"
concluded: "I pray that a failure to act more quickly on my part
will not harm the archdiocese itself. You are in my prayers;
please keep me in yours. God bless you."
By omitting this, Berry flat-out misleads his readers by going out of
his way to deliberately portray the Cardinal only in the most sinister light.
As far as Berry's charge that George "defended" the molester Kenneth
Martin, the Chicago Sun-Times reported in March 2003 ("George
Didn't Know Details of Guest Priest's Sex Abuse Case"):
Told the details of the Martin abuse case Friday evening,
[Cardinal] George said, "That's a little bit sobering.... Those are
things I wasn't aware of, nor of the details of the case.
"You trust the conclusions given you. We didn't ask for the details
of the case. Perhaps we should have."
That's hardly emblematic of someone "defending" Martin. Again, Berry
does not quite give the full story.
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_
Berry also wrote of a situation at a school where a priest abused
students (emphasis mine):
The archdiocese did take action against Barbara Westrick, the
school's principal, who had called the police after she learned of
the complaint against the priest [abuser Daniel McCormack]. She was
fired in June. Although the archdiocese denies it, it seems
likely that her criticisms of the church's response cost her her job.
"It seems likely"? Why? Berry offers no explanation
whatsoever. Not cool.
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_
Berry also added,
Displaying the callousness that has cursed so many Catholic
bishops for so long, [Chicago auxiliary bishop Thomas J.]
Paprocki insulted the victims of the scandals, as well as the
attorneys and judges in their cases, with these words: "We must use
our religious discernment to recognize that the principal force
behind these attacks is none other than the devil."
"Insulted the victims of the scandals"? Berry refers to a homily that
Bishop Paprocki gave in October. You can read the homily
for yourself
here (pdf file).
Paprocki's homily addressed the effects of the scandal and lawsuits
on the Church:
While the sexual abuse of minors is a sin that must
be addressed by the Church and a crime that must be punished by the
criminal justice system, I would suggest that the current approach
of awarding large monetary damages to victims is not only contrary
to the purposes of tort liability theory, but also place an
excessive burden on the free exercise of religion for Catholics in
the United States. If such purposes seek to punish wrongdoers and
deter wrongful conduct, the settlement or award of civil damages is
punishing the wrong people, namely, the average parishioner or donor
whose financial contributions support the Church but who have no
role in the supervision of clergy. Instead of supporting the
parishes, religious and charitable works that these donors seek to
support through their contributions, these monies are being diverted
to pay claimants and their lawyers.
Most of the bishops who were negligent in their
supervision of clergy who offended
20, 30, 40 or even 50 years ago
are long gone. Monetary damages taken from a not-for-profit
entity do not punish the wrongdoers, but only serve to constrain the
scope of the entity’s charitable, religious and educational
activities.