Dedicated Priests
In “Healing Scandalized Hearts” (front page, Sept. 30 issue), Peter Jesserer Smith describes Los Angeles’ Bishop David O’Connell “weeping in silence.” I cannot help but believe that a great many of our dedicated priests, religious and deacons are similarly weeping.
The gnawing at the hearts of the laity over the turmoil in our Church must be equally devastating for their spirits and severely testing their fortitude.
It seems to me that our response to the priests and deacons at Mass has taken on a more penetrating and heartfelt appeal these days.
When I acknowledge their salutation of “May the Lord be with you,” I want them to know that I recognize the pain that they must be subjected to in light of the gross failings of others.
I can only imagine the torture that the conscientious and unblemished encounter daily because of the shroud that has been cast over their ministry by the villainous deeds of the weak within their ranks.
We, the Church, need them to be strong and to persevere — now, more than ever. This is not the time to turn our backs on the clergy.
Rather, we need to take much more supportive, administrative and compassionate roles in helping them carry out their ministries within our Church.
Let all Sunday Masses herald a resounding and supportive “… and with your spirit.”
Ken Horstman
Lakehurst, New Jersey
Recipe for Renewal
Several weeks ago, I was in the throes of depression reliving my own past as an abuse survivor due to recent reports by the Register of alleged clergy sexual abuse and their bishops’ cover-ups that began to trickle out all over the country, beginning in Pennsylvania.
The events since the summer point to the fact that the Church cannot be trusted to police its own personnel without scrutiny from civil bodies, as was found by the Pennsylvania grand jury, which uncovered the deeds of sexual misconduct and abuse by Cardinal McCarrick and the cover-ups of other past diocesan officials, notably those of the future archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Wuerl. This torture must now cease for all those victims of abuse within the Church, and we as laity have a supreme obligation to see that the Church is purified and never succumbs to such sin again.
Through this crisis of faith that attacks her very core, she must recommit herself to protect and serve the most vulnerable among us and offer the necessary financial and pastoral resources for their healing and their being restored to full communion with us at the banquet table of the Lord’s Supper if that is their wish.
We, as laity, can facilitate these just goals by:
- Being proactive. Don’t leave the Church. The Church was founded by Christ, and he is our perfect model of holiness. By being formed through the Eucharist, we can lead the purification of the Body of Christ and its individual members and thus help fashion a holier Church.
- Communicating to our bishops that we are willing to serve on lay boards that support transparency in the investigation of allegations of sexual and other types of misconduct in their dioceses.
- Communicating to our bishops that prevention of abuse of minors and other vulnerable adults in the Church is more than putting a billboard in a church building. It must be backed up by solvent financial plans to cover insurance enough for victims’ pain, suffering and ongoing therapy.
- Asking our bishops if they and their staffs will submit to a grand jury investigation of all of the allegations of abuse in their dioceses, including all past ones and surrendering the names of all priest predators — not just those deceased or those actively serving sentences for their crimes.
- Talking to our children — making sure they can identify what is appropriate and inappropriate contact by others and explain to them why, as well as warn adults who are vulnerable to predatory individuals about sexual and non-sexual abuse.
But above all, pray that all those who have experienced the greatest pain in their lives through abuse give the Church a second chance and are healed by the love of Christ and by our overwhelming and proactive concern for their welfare.
Mary Zipter
Lexington, South Carolina
What’s a Catholic to Do?
In three months, the ugly spectrum of clergy abuse has risen again. We are shocked and angry about the abuses of both “priests” (now ex-priests) and those individuals who should have done something about it.
There are calls from many who tell Catholics they should leave the Church.
Well, should I stay or go? Should I remain with a religion that traces its roots back to the apostles, or should I forgo any allegiance to organized religion at all?
But then I think of all the priests I have known who never did these things to anyone. Like my pastor, the late Father Sweeny, who talked an armed man out of killing somebody; or Servant of God Father Robert Capodanno, who took 27 enemy bullets, scrambling from one wounded soldier to another, before he was killed in Vietnam, earning him the Medal of Honor; or St. Maximilian Kolbe, who died in Auschwitz with about 7,000 other clergy and religious, male and female, who would not bow to the Nazi race theory, and whose Church Hitler had sworn to annihilate.
I think of all the clergy who have never been convicted of abuse, many even after being accused.
After doing some of my own research into the recent Pennsylvania grand jury report, I found names of priests, like Benestad and Fitzgerald, who were already cleared of abuse charges, but whose names were still on the list.
I found Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s name in the report, accusing him of “doing nothing” about abusers that he had transferred to other parishes, when, in fact, he had both men kicked out of the priesthood after he had himself verified their crimes and met with the victims.
I saw a photostat copy of a handwritten note, allegedly from then-Bishop Wuerl, which his legal counsel found to be forged. (Bishops, among other businesses or institutions, don’t conduct official business with handwritten notes.)
I found the names of about half of the priests in any one diocese declared abusers in the report, which doesn’t keep with the statistics that, out of 45,000-46,000 priests in America, only 2% have ever been found guilty of these crimes.
I wrote to the state attorney general of these inconsistencies and the fact that, in his own state, in the last five years, there have been more than 19,000 substantiated cases of child/minor abuse in his state, not counting the 30-40 deaths/murders of children who died from this abuse.
I wondered, to him, why he is singling out clergy abuse, when the abuse numbers in his own state are practically worse than any other state. Obviously, the great majority were not clergy-related. I received nothing in response.
So, what am I going to do? Do I leave the Church founded on Christ because of the Judases in them, or do I recognize that Judases will always be a part of any race, culture or religion in any society on earth? Do I abandon all I have believed in the last 30 years, or do I see and support the good in it and condemn the bad?
Two thousand years ago, the crowd was given a choice — Jesus of Nazareth or Barabbas. They chose the wrong guy. For me, I’m in for the duration. I will die, hopefully, a Catholic, and, hopefully, a better person than I was before, when I wasn’t one.
Guy Sudano
Sunnyvale, California