There are other models the Roman Catholic bishops might have used, but didn’t. Call to Action, a Chicago-based reform group with 25,000 members, drew up a proposal and mailed it to every bishop in the country last month. In return they got a thank-you note from Archbishop Harry Flynn, but no action on their key point, establishing an independent monitoring group appointed by parishioners. Another thoroughly researched proposal, compiled in 1985 for the U.S. bishops, also remained on the shelf. That document called for a centralized team of abuse experts to respond to allegations. It is not clear whether the ad hoc panel that drafted the new church policy even read it. “They didn’t talk to victims, they didn’t talk to lawyers, they didn’t talk to shrinks–and they definitely didn’t talk to me,” says Rev. Tom Doyle, a priest who coauthored the 1985 report.
The 13-page policy, adopted last Friday after two days and nights locked in a ballroom and surrounded by guards, is nonetheless groundbreaking. By a vote of 239 to 13, the bishops made clear they understand how severe the church’s problems are. They expressed “great sorrow and profound regret” for the children and families who have been harmed, and acknowledged the crisis of faith the scandal has sparked. But they remained divided on a central demand of abuse victims: to fire priests whom they know have abused, even if it was only once. A vocal minority of bishops believe it is important to allow for redemption, a central tenet in their creed. “We have to come to a standard not of zero tolerance but a standard of forgiveness,” says Brooklyn Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Sullivan, “and I believe we have arrived instead at a standard of unforgiveness.”
Lately, it has been apparent that most bishops favored a harsher policy, while others moved in that direction after hearing emotional testimony from survivors last week. However, the guidelines they adopted fall short of the “one strike” policy victims and their advocates had demanded. The bishops agreed to remove such priests from parishes and bar them from wearing clerical garb. But it allows them the opportunity for a “lifelong regimen of prayer and penance” within the church. According to Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the bishops thought a stricter policy would be nixed by the pope, who must approve the plan to make it mandatory.
The Vatican’s reluctance to go even this far is rooted in the conservative theological view that once a man is ordained, he is forever a priest–even if he commits the worst of sins. The American bishops are challenging that understanding, and it is on those grounds that the battle with Rome will be fought if the Vatican resists the Dallas vote. The timing of the Vatican’s reaction is unclear and may not come until autumn or early winter. “It’s almost summer, and summers are very hot in Rome,” McCarrick says.
Dozens of men and women who were abused by priests are not pleased at all. “Zero tolerance must be zero tolerance,” says David Clohessy, director of the Survivors’ Network for Those Abused by Priests. “It works in schools. Why can’t they understand that?” The bishops, meanwhile, did not address the severe financial crunch caused by the huge civil claims they face and the serious slump in income from disillusioned parishioners. In Boston, a new organization called Voice of the Faithful has begun work on a fund it hopes will divert church donations. “We want to make sure the money gets to the soup kitchens and the schools, not to the cardinal’s limousines and massive settlements,” says campaign director Michael Emerton.
But the most pressing unfinished business is how to punish the bishops, two thirds of whom have transferred offending priests into unsuspecting parishes. The bishops have called for a committee to look into it, perhaps by the next meeting in November. This gives Katherine Freberg, who represents 34 new abuse victims, something of an opportunity. The battle goes on.
