It Takes a Village to Abuse a Child – December 21, 2017

Cardinal Bernard Law died on Wednesday.  The Associated Press report described Law as “the disgraced former archbishop of Boston whose failures to stop child molesters in the priesthood sparked what would become the worst crisis in American Catholicism.”  To honor his victims and the tens of thousands of children and teens all over the world abused by priests I watched the movie “Spotlight” again last night.  The movie tells the true story of how The Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the Boston Archdiocese.  The movie is complex and fascinating and heartbreaking.  The Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.  The movie won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Picture.

I’ve worked with a lot of priests in over thirty years of ministry…four different dioceses… diocesan and order priests.  In that time I’ve listened to the stories of many victim-survivors.  I’ve had victim-survivors sit across from me, crying because they trusted someone who wasn’t trustworthy. I have had mothers sit across from me, crying because they didn’t believe their children. 

In the early 80’s I worked briefly in the Diocese of Cape Girardeau-Springfield (where Law was bishop before being named archbishop of Boston).  While doing youth ministry in a town in the boot heel of Missouri I became concerned about the pastor’s drinking and his practice of inviting young teens to the rectory.  I shared my concerns with the pastor (about whom I truly cared) and was met with anger and denial.  I shared my concerns with the chancellor of the diocese and was met with disdain and ridicule.  “Who are you to accuse a priest?” he challenged.

A decade later I was working for a parish in the Diocese of Sioux City and right before Holy Week the pastor was arrested and charged with assault (for touching children and teens inappropriately).  Everything was very “hush-hush” and chaotic as we had different substitute priests for weeks until a new pastor was assigned.  I was told by the chancelor that information was being shared “on a need to know basis,” and I didn’t need to know what was going on.  Eventually the pastor was sent off for graduate studies – and then returned to ministry.

In between I worked for a parish in the Diocese of Phoenix.  Only later did I learn that that the associate pastor was abusing children and teens while we worked together.  I had no idea.  He was a masterful predator – grooming not just his victims and their families, but the whole parish and staff.  He is currently serving a prison term of 111 years.

And then, of course, I have the experience of working in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph under Bishop Finn and the horrific, criminal mishandling of Father Shawn Ratigan’s abuse of children.

In the movie, one of the characters says, “it takes a village to abuse a child.”  For too long, too many “looked the other way” and “didn’t say anything” – in Boston, in Cape Girardeau- Springfield, in Sioux City, in Phoenix, in Kansas City – St. Joseph.  In the Catholic Church.

But things are changing.  My hope is that through programs like the ones sponsored by our excellent diocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection, the eyes of all of us will be open to the horror of child sexual abuse.  Most priests don’t abuse children.  And most victims of child abuse are not victimized by priests – but by family members or teachers or coaches or neighbors…  It’s complex and fascinating and heartbreaking.  And so we must keep learning and speaking out and doing all we can to protect the children.