ABSOLUTE MUST READ: SNAP responds to Dublin Archdiocese Report
From an email from SNAP’s Barbara Dorris, 11.27.2009.
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Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
| For immediate release: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, Founder and President of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (312 399 4747) One sentence says it all: “The most senior figures in the Irish hierarchy did not report these crimes. . .because of an obsessive culture of secrecy and a desire to preserve the power and aura of the Church and to avoid giving scandal to their congregations.”Our hearts ache, just ache, for the thousands of once-trusting, innocent, devout Catholic girls and boys whose lives have been devastated by sick priests and evil bishops. Our hearts ache for the thousands of men and women whose childhoods were shattered, whose innocence was stolen, and whose trust was violated. We desperately hope that this report, however incomplete, brings each of them some measure of sorely-needed, long-overdue and inadequate but richly deserved comfort. Our hearts also ache for the thousands of kids now at risk in the Dublin Archdiocese because so little has changed in the church hierarchy. In our view, perhaps the main reason so many children were so severely violated and so many Catholic employees hid the crimes can be summed up in just a few words: the rigid, secretive, all-male monarchy that is the church hierarchy. Sadly, despite all these crimes and revelations, that structure and culture remains fully intact. Let’s keep in mind that this report is incomplete. It’s based largely on reports of abuse and cover up which were written down, filed, and kept by church officials. Given the obvious callousness and complicity of church officials, we firmly believe there are hundreds and hundreds more reports which were never written down or saved, reports in which other Catholic staffers are complicit in horrific crimes and cover ups. Let’s keep in mind that while the report said “the structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated (the) cover up” of child sex crimes, merely changing church rules is insufficient. It’s the centuries-old secretive and monarchical culture of the church that needs reforming. Church rules are largely irrelevant, because given the nearly limitless power of bishops, there’s rarely any real recourse when bishops break such rules. Let’s remember that while four prelates are named in the report, the culture of secrecy, entitlement and self-preservation within the Catholic hierarchy is deeply rooted and pervasive. These four men alone aren’t responsible for this devastation. We strongly suspect that there are dozens, even hundreds of current and former church workers – lay and ordained – who turned a blind eye to child molestation or, worse, helped hide it. Let’s ignore apologies from officials who intentionally put kids in harms’ way that border on the meaningless. What should happen now? Let’s stop using the past tense and start using the present tense. It’s foolish to assume or believe that what’s happened in the past isn’t happening now. It’s reckless to buy into a false sense of security. The prudent course of action is to believe that what’s gone on for centuries is going on today. Let’s err on the side of caution, not complacency. Let’s avoid the temptation to assume that knowledge means change. It doesn’t. Public awareness is good but not enough. Only tangible change, not naïve assumptions or soothing promises or comforting words, will protect kids. Let’s ignore words and demand action. Let’s not even read, much less be moved by, church apologies, no matter how lengthy or sincere-sounding. Victims deserve more and kids need more. Let’s not be side-tracked by arguments for ‘forgiveness.’ Individuals can, and usually should, at some point, forgive others. But our collective duty is to safeguard the vulnerable. And our private beliefs and attitudes don’t protect kids. Let’s harshly condemn those who will make excuses, point fingers, minimize harm, shift blame, and feign ignorance or misunderstanding. Let’s remember that bishops are extremely powerful and well-educated men who fully understand exactly what they do when they consistently put their wishes above children’s safety. Let’s beg church officials to avoid rubbing even more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of suffering victims and betrayed Catholics by making symbolic gestures and holding special events. These protect no one and heal very few. Instead, we beg church officials to take practical steps to deter future recklessness, callousness and deceit, by publicly and strongly disciplining every single church worker who ignored or concealed child sex crimes, or who is doing so today. |
9 Responses to “ABSOLUTE MUST READ: SNAP responds to Dublin Archdiocese Report”
November 27, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Letter to editor for your consideration
Mike Ference
817 Worthington Avenue
Clairton, PA 15025
Email: Ference@icubed.com
War Tactics Should Be Applied to Abusers and to Those Who Offered Protection
By Mike Ference
Every day brings new evidence that we no longer live in a civilized and principled society. The worst part, it usually concerns another case of sexual misconduct involving a Catholic priest, young children and a church hierarchy that helped to cover up the case.
The recent report that four Dublin archbishops conspired with Irish police and elected officials to methodically cover up the acts of dysfunctional sex freaks – cloaked as Catholic priests – clearly suggests that Catholic Church Hierarchy have certainly outlived any usefulness to society.
As always, the Catholic Church was more concerned with concealing the crimes, avoiding any public outrage, safeguarding its reputation and protecting its cash rather than helping God’s most precious commodity – His beloved children.
To be sure, media pressure and public wrath and billions of dollars in pr fees, legal fees and settlements internationally have inspired displays of contrition from plenty of red hats. But as more and more cases of abuse — and cover-up — continually come to light, one begins to wonder whether the pope and his entourage of so-called men of God should be considered any more trustworthy than, say, Saddam Hussein.
So — what should be done now for the umpteenth time Catholic Church hierarchy were more concerned with protecting dysfunctional sex freaks than innocent children? Given the level of wreckage and anguish caused in the lives of so many people, it seems appropriate to look to the war on terror for a model strategy.
A first prong of attack might involve a Special Forces unit made up of highly skilled and trained military personnel capable of tracking down and obtaining confessions from any current or former priests accused of acts of sexual abuse against children. If rights are violated, if military personnel sometimes go a little too far, so be it. The Catholic Church had ample opportunity to fess up and repent. Those incapable of civilized behavior shouldn’t expect the rights and privileges of civilization.
A deck of cards can be created to help identify hard-to-find priests as well as the disgraceful church leaders who permitted, and in essence, condoned the sexual abuse of young children. Photos of the most deviant and reprehensible church officials accompanied by a list of their offenses will encourage us all to do our patriotic duty in helping the authorities track down suspected priest-terrorists or at least be able to identify the culprits as they come and go freely because their sins where covered up and the time to criminally prosecute has expired.
Another option would be to divide the world into territories. A color-code warning system would be established, alerting parents about abusive priests being transferred into their respective regions. Depending on the designated color for a particular region, parents would know whether their children should serve at Mass, go on field trips, or even attend Catholic school that day.
To aid this unique war on terror, a pool of money should be collected, not involuntarily from taxpayers, but voluntarily from those decent human beings who believe crimes committed against our children are sins that God takes very seriously. Some of the funds raised could then be turned into outrageously tempting reward sums for information leading to the capture of our targeted criminals. Once the rogue clerics have been imprisoned and forced to talk, I recommend that their confessions be given to someone like Steven Spielberg or George Romero. Hollywood writers and producers could create a blockbuster movie like Roots or Schindler’s List to serve as a bitter reminder that these crimes should never again be permitted to occur. Tom Savini could be hired to recreate the horror on the faces of child actors chosen to play parts.
Proceeds from the movie could go to victims of abuse and their families. And no matter how old the crime, compensation would be available. There should be no statute of limitations when the rights of children have been violated by those who lived much of their adult lives perched on a pedestal heightened by the trust of innocent and vulnerable believers. In fact, I would extend compensation to the second and perhaps even third generation of sufferers. It would certainly include siblings denied the experience of growing up with a brother or sister untraumatized by such abuse. And since crimes of abuse tend to echo, it would extend to the victims of the victims as well.
If all else fails, is it any less rational to declare war on the Catholic Church as part of a war on child abuse than it was to declare war on Iraq (which had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda and apparently had no weapons of mass destruction) as part of a war on terror? How many innocent children have been verifiably lost to this menace — and how many more will be lost if we don’t make a preemptive strike?
As horrific as sexual abuse by priests may be, the perpetrators might merit a more forgiving place if only their superiors had the courage to do the right thing. For a few, counseling and close supervision might have been enough to prevent future abuses. Others clearly required something more intensive — a mental hospital or a prison.
But repeated abuse, as well as willfully hiding the crimes and the criminals — as far as I can see, this brings us much closer to the realm of mortal sin. And the sinners include not just the church hierarchy, but also attorneys who ill-advised parents not to buck the system and take on the Catholic Church, or may even have provided inside information to thwart legitimate cases against the church, law enforcement officials who may have thought it best to warn church officials of pending investigations, and janitors, housekeepers, teachers, and employees of the Catholic Church who kept silent because of concerns about a paycheck, a 401K, a pension, or a fear of standing up to church authorities. God has a place for everyone — and if you abuse children or protect the abusers of children, we can only hope that your place is called hell.
November 27, 2009 at 7:17 pm
I will not “beg” the bishops for anything. If the Catholic church is truly the People of God we have the right, duty and obligation to demand that there be a reformation to dismantle the clerical culture that is accountable to no one. And if our demand is ignored? We must have our own Bastille Day.
November 27, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Barbara Blaine’s precepts for action are a sensible, reasonable response to the festering problems left over from the complicity of Catholic hierarchs in the rape and sodomy of children worldwide.
Besides all the measures in Blaine’s call for protection of children, especially targeted for the remaining Catholic believers [“Joe & Mary Pews,” as I like to call them], I would add that there needs to be a complete overhaul, reform and renewal of the whole Catholic institution of the priesthood.
If any institution supposedly based on the life and teachings of Jesus could suffer this complete moral collapse and corruption, which the clergy abuse scandal surely represents, then it no longer deserves to continue to perpetuate itself as it is presently conceived.
The moral rot and decay is so pervasive, so universal, the Catholic Church needs nothing less than to scrape the entire present structures of the priesthood – from parish pastor to bishop to papacy – and just start over.
LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE how in the future they wish to be ministered to, and by whom. Each national society and culture must be allowed to chart their own way, their own future.
The days of the imperial Roman popes and its feudal oligarchy are over, and have been for decades, if not centuries. They are dead (Just look at the millions around the globe who have ceased identifying with the Roman church and no longer will associate themselves with it!). We just haven’t had a proper Catholic funeral and burial for them yet.
The resurrected Jesus said, “Be not afraid. I go before you always.” LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!
November 27, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Again, this is but a tip of the iceberg ,unless Dublin is the only diocese in Ireland. Barbaara Blaine said, “Now is the time to stop future child sex crimes and cover-ups, by identifying and prosecuting every person who played a role in devistating thousands of children.” Who would not agree with this statement. The question then becomes, who can start the ball rolling? The logical person, obviously, is the pope. But it is also obvious that if the pope was the one to start the ball rolling, he was in a position to do so many, many years ago and did nothing. So, scratch him mainly because he is part of the problem. First thing first. We must tell ( not request) our diocesan bishops to see that the entire Dublin report is printed in our diocesan papers. I will today, send my bishop, bishop Kicanas, this message so all Catholics in the Tucson diocese are made aware of the Dublin report. If he fails to include this information I will bug the hell out of him as I have been for his faiolure to remove the name of our late bishop, bishop Moreno, from the public address of our Tucson Pastoral Center. Moreno is one of the ten worst bishops in the country and yet bishop Kicanas has refused to remove his name. My real concern is , how can we expect any cooperation whatsoever from the present failed leaders still in control, when they are the main part of the problem. They still have complete control of our church money and will use it against us. Very shortly, the Bridgeport diocese will also be revealing information that has been secretly held from us. That also will be just the beginning. Many many more dioceses all over the country will then have to reveal the information they withheld. This information must get to the( head in the sand) Catholics that continue to refuse to believe what has been going on for decades. Whatever has to be done to identify and prosecute the persons that have been involved in the sexual abuse and whatever other crimes the bishops have been involved in, should be done and done right. RIGHT NOW.
November 27, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Beautiful statement. Perfectly worded. So long as Catholics continue donating money to keep it all going, against their own children no less, I fear there is no chance that Ireland will right itself. That the archbishops feel free to issue weak apologies is not a good sign. But there does lie hope in the efforts of the non-Catholics and lapsed Catholics to try to protect the children of Catholics. I don’t quite understand the justice system in Ireland. Are the Irish unable to file civil lawsuits?
November 27, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Two well-thought out and effective presentations of that old “the buck stops here” notion. It is time to let the People decide; this hierarchichal group cannot not be trusted, and MUST be stopped.
Thanks to the writers who work so hard to protect our children in the face of such incredible silence
and cover-up from the Vatican on down!
November 28, 2009 at 1:14 am
What would we all have done without Barbara and David and SNAP? And thank you, Dr. Jenkins, for your great courage and compassionate protection.
It is astonishing to behold that in the midst of clergy sex abuse crimes continually coming to light that Cardinal William Levada ordered an investigation of American Women Religious. Ireland has been exploding since before the Ryan Report, bishopaccountability.org reports daily on the crimes of clergy here at home and the Cardinal investigates elderly women after having covered up for pedophiles all his ordained life.
What exactly caused Levada, while archbishop of San Francisco to place an admitted pedophile priest in charge of creating church policy to protect children? Levada had been given the task of establishing clergy sex abuse policy guidelines by the bishops Dallas Conference in 2002. What kind of arrogance did Levada show to appoint this same pedophile, Rev. Gregory Ingels, as the Chancellor of the San Francisco diocese and his chief canon lawyer? Who exactly is this Cardinal William Levada, what is he hiding and who does he work for?
Men in high places who facilitate the sexual cruelty of children are not priests, no matter what the men/boys of the Vatican say. You can’t make a priest out of a sick pedophile and you can’t make a priest out of an evil bishop. You don’t even have to be a canon lawyer to figure this out. So who are they, then, these men around incense and altars, these men who believe themselves and their ilk to be transubstantiators, these men who have all the village secrets?
They, with their hatred of women and children and their cravings for dominating other men, can finally no longer hide in the shadows while they feign devotion to Jesus.
AW
November 29, 2009 at 6:29 pm
I couldn’t help but review again, the article above, by Mike Ference, which has been posted several articles above mine ,that was also dated 11/27/09 at 9:59 pm. Mike put a lot of himself in that article. I had to stop and think how much alike we both feel. We both want something to be done. We can go on forever saying the same thing. We know what the problem is. We know who is responsible. We know that unless some type of action is taken, nothing will change. We know that change will never take place as long as the same failed people are in charge. We know that as long as they still control the money, nothing will change. We know that these people can’t be removed by the pope because (a) the pope is part of the problem. He could have done something ,as I said above, many many years ago but he didn’t. and (b) there are millions of Catholics that for a number of reasons still do not believe that they should get involved or they are not aware of the enormity of the situation, or they just can’t believe that our bishops, can lie to us, use millions of dollars of church money to protect abusive priests and their own butts, or use billions of dollars of church money for financial settlements to keep from having abuse cases go to trial, or they are afraid to speak out foir fear of what other Catholics may say or think about them. God only knows what other reasons there may be but they remain silent. Talk about having depressed memories. ( Will the Ireland scandal jog their memory ) What will it take? If only Mike’s war plan was possible. You see, it would take a group of people like the members of SNAP to put something like this in operation. They have the organization. The contacts. They’re doing a tremendous job. I wish I could say the same for VOTF. But they, VOTF, seem to NOT WANT TO BE CONFRONTATIONAL. THEY WANT TO ENGAGE IN DIALOG with our failed leaders. Are they really that stupid. These guys will be willing to talk to them for the next hundred years but they never will concede one bit of power or agree to any change that threatens their power. Sure, the laity has members on parish councils,parishs finance committees, diocesan groups etc. but they DO NOT HAVE ANY VOTING POWER. Read my lips. The laity controls zilch. They , the bishops are not stupid. They have the best of everything, and as long as more than 99% of the priest also remain silent, their control is not in jeopardy. As long as the bishops control all the Catholic publications, were not going to reach the millions of churchgoing Catholics and until we can, THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE. THE SAME PEOPLE WILL BE RUNNING THE CHURCH IN THE GROUND. iF YOU AGREE WITH ME AND MIKE AND HUNDREDS OF OTHER PEOPLE THAT HAVE VOICED THE SAME FEELINGS, let SNAP hear from you. If you disagree with me, let me know. but for heavens sake, don’t remain silent. If you need more reasons for getting involved, check the numerous posting on the ,VOICE FROM THE DESERT web site. Frank Douglas has been one of the best hard working persons I’ve ever met that has been trying to get changes made. He has been so involved, that he had quadruple by-pass, followed by a stroke, and then he had a code blue. He was on life support for over three months.It’s been over a year now and he is slowly recovering. Keep him in your prayers. Mike, maybe you should send a copy of your posting to SNAP. We have to reach the millions of churchgoing Catholics to get the support we need. In a day or so, the report from the Bridgeport Catholic diocese will be out. That too, should open up some eyes. I have notified my bishop (Kicanas, the next president of the USCCB’s) to have his monthly Catholic publication carry the Doublin report so all Tucson diocese Catholics are made aware of what is going on in Ireland. I say the newspaper is his paper because he controls everything that is printed. He will not allow any articles that criticizes the diocese in any way. I know, the diocesan CATHOLICS PAY FOR THE PAPER, BUT YOU KNOW HOW BISHOPS ARE, THEY MUST CONTROL. Do you have an abusive priests living next door to you. You’ll never know, if the bishops have anything to say about it, and they won’t. For those of you that think we should not be saying all theses things about bishops, your right, we should also include archbishops.
December 2, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Why is it there is seldom a mention of, “JAIL” for those who knowingly covered up for their Pedophile Priests and Nuns? Let’s face it honestly! The bishops are a group of the most educated (and presumably) intelligent men on the face of the planet. Most have their doctorates in something! They have no grounds on which they can claim that they weren’t aware of how damaging the problem was nor the long-term effects that Pedophilia had on our adolescents and youths.
Quite possibly if JAIL or prison sentences are meted our, other bishops and cardinals might think twice, before they put the welfare of the Church over the welfare of our children. Maybe life would have a different perspective for them if they were placed in situations where their well-being was endangered by those who had physical power over them.