Pope Francis’ commission on the clergy’s sexual violation of children had a timely private screening in Rome last week of “Spotlight,” the Oscar-nominated film about the pedophilia scandal in Boston. The film offers the Vatican, if it will listen, an emphatic lesson in accountability. It dramatizes the decision by The Boston Globe to do more than enumerate the scope of the scandal by reporting on cases involving scores of abusive priests. The scandal was tracked up the church hierarchy to Cardinal Bernard Law, who eventually had to resign his leadership when the news media, not the church, documented his role as a protector of abusive priests.
Hierarchical accountability remains a pressing issue that the Vatican has not fully confronted in the numerous dioceses of the world where the scandal was suppressed. The pope’s 17-member commission presented fresh evidence of this failing when one of its two abuse-victim members, who had gone to the news media to criticize the slow pace of its work, was suddenly suspended on Saturday in a commission vote of no confidence.
Peter Saunders
To its credit, the commission, stressing it was only a policy body, had previously urged the pope to create a separate tribunal to judge bishops accused of shielding abusive priests. But Peter Saunders, the suspended commission member, and other abuse victims complained that there has been no progress since the tribunal’s creation last June. They were incensed as well over the pope’s appointment last year of a new diocesan leader in Chile, Bishop Juan Barros, a close associate of a Santiago priestthe Vatican found guilty of child abuse in 2011. The pope nevertheless defended the bishop and was seen on a video complaining that protesterswere “lefties” and “dumb.”
Mr. Saunders may have become an impatient and annoying dissident on a commission charged with developing advisory solutions for the problem, but he has a valid point that Pope Francis cannot afford to ignore. Regaining credibility among the church laity requires clear and timely investigation and punishment of prelates who covered up the rape of children with hush money and rotated abusers to new parishes to commit fresh crimes. “There must be consequences” for offensive church leaders, the laity panelappointed by the United States hierarchy warned over a decade ago.
Unfortunately, no effective method of accountability was devised by the wary American hierarchy, leaving the issue up to Rome. Considering his reputation as a determined reformer, Pope Francis should prod the bishops’ tribunal into action and not let the gaping need for honest and full accountability disappear into the arcane workings of the Vatican.
The Vatican Secretary for the Economy is being called to give evidence after he was accused of covering up an old abuse case. Polisca says the cardinal is unable to attend the hearing in person due to health reasons
By IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – a commission set up by the Australian government in 2013 to investigate cases of child abuse perpetrated by priests amongst others – has accepted Cardinal George Pell’s request to testify via video link instead of making the long trip to Australia, on the grounds that he is too sick to travel. Pell, who is the former archbishop of Sydney and current Prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, has been called to give evidence to the Royal Commission after he was accused of failing to respond to reported sex abuse cases.
A note by Justice Peter McClellan was released in Australia this morning, outlining the situation: “Cardinal George Pell, ministered as a priest in Ballarat and was, for a period of time, advisor to one of the bishops in the diocese, Mgr. Mulkearns. As part of this role, he and another advisor were responsible for giving recommendations regarding the nomination of priests in parishes and to provide more general advice on administrative questions relating to the diocese. Pell was advisor during a period when there were cases of clerical sex abuse against children in the diocese and he was present at the meetings held to discuss the nomination of at least one parish priest who was a known child sex offender. Pell then became Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne in 1987. He held that role until 1996 when he was appointed Archbishop of Melbourne. The information currently at the Commission’s disposal indicates that as Auxiliary Bishop he was responsible for areas of the archdiocese where there was at least one abusive priest serving. As an Auxiliary priest he was a member of the archbishop’s personal advisory committee and a member of the curia. During his time as Archbishop he was obviously responsible for the overall management of the entire diocese. Given Cardinal Pell’s role in Ballarat and Melbourne, the commissioners consider it imperative for Pell to give evidence and explain his actions during the periods in question. In addition to the positions he held in Ballarat and Melbourne, Pell was also Archbishop of Sydney. In Melbourne he was in charge of the Melbourne Response programme and he gave evidence when it was examined in a case study. The case involving John Ellis was discussed when Pell was Archbishop of Sydney and the latter gave evidence on this case and on the functioning of the “Towards Healing” programme run by the Archdiocese of Sydney. The commissioners are now asking for Cardinal Pell’s assistance on questions that are different from those he has already testified on.”
“When Pell testified before the Royal Commission he was living in Sydney. The second time, when the Melbourne Response programme was examined, it was agreed that he could give evidence via video link from Rome, where he now resides. The testimony he will be required to give in the upcoming hearings will be more extensive than in the past.”
“At the hearing in Melbourne on 11 December last year, a representative of Cardinal Pell’s said that given his current state of health the cardinal had been advised not to undertake long journeys by aeroplane and for this reason the cardinal asked to give evidence via video link. The commissioners did not have access to this request,” Justice McClellan continued. ‘I said: given the complexity of the issues in question and the fact that the Commission is looking at two case studies that cover an extensive period of time, not to mention the technical complications that arose during the last testimony the cardinal gave via video link from Rome, it would be preferable if he were in Australia to give evidence in person.’ In the hope of an improvement in the cardinal’s health, we have set aside other considerations regarding the procedure to follow.”
“After the question was examined in December, I was told that the technical problems witnessed last time have been resolved and the video link from Rome should be satisfactory. However, bearing in mind the other questions I mentioned, it would be preferable, though not essential, for Pell to go to Australia to testify in person.”
“Mr. Myers, Pell’s representative, renewed Pell’s request to give evidence via video link from Rome. To support the request, he provided a medical report prepared by Patrizio Polisca, director of complex care emergency medicine at Tor Vergata University Teaching Hospital in Rome, dated 29 January 2016.”
Until last July, Polisca served as the Pope’s doctor. “The report confirms the evidence previously before the Royal Commission and indicates that Cardinal Pell is suffering from hypertension (for which he is being treated), ischemic heart disease, complicated by a previous myocardial infarction, cardiac dysfunction related to the arterial hypertension and previous ischemia and some other issues not of immediate relevance.”
“The professor concludes his medical report as such: ‘All the above mentioned functional and clinical changes have a negative synergistic effect with regard to your cardiovascular and respiratory functional capacity, in particular when going on a small walk on [sic] even slight physical exertion, when preparing to spend prolonged periods in a depressurised environment (airplane flight), with consequent relative haematic hypoxia and increase in blood pressure. Due to that outlined above, the undertaking of a long journey could induce an episode of heart failure and were this to occur during a flight it would also be difficult to treat. In conclusion, the clinical problems which Your Eminence presents therefore make it difficult for you to undertake a flight to Australia, which could entail serious risks to Your health.”
In response to the report, the commission published the following note: “Although people with the conditions that Cardinal Pell has may fly long distances it is apparent from the medical report that in the case of Cardinal Pell there is a risk to his health if he undertook such travel at the present time. Having regard to the nature of his ailments it could not be expected that his health is likely to improve and remove those risks. Although it would be preferable if he gave evidence in Australia, when the alternative that he give evidence by video link is available the Commissioners are satisfied that course should be adopted.”
As there will not be time for the Cardinal to give his video testimony during the Ballarat hearings, it will be postponed until Monday 29 February, when the Commission will be sitting in Sydney. The testimony is expected to take up three sessions. The staff of the commission will discuss the exact times with Pell’s representatives, taking into consideration the time difference.
Paedophilia victims mentioned the cardinal’s name on a number occasions in past hearings. They claim he ignored and even covered up incidents of abuse committed by priests for decades, allowing their transferral from one parish to another. Pell has consistently declined and denied these allegations.
Peter Saunders poses before a news conference in Rome, Italy February 6, 2016.
A prominent and outspoken British member of a papal advisory commission on sexual abuse by the clergy on Saturday refused to step down despite a no-confidence vote, and said only Pope Francis could dismiss him.
A Vatican statement issued earlier said that “it was decided” at a commission meeting that Peter Saunders would take a leave of absence. Saunders, head of Britain’s National Association for People Abused in Childhood, would now “consider how he might best support the commission’s work”, it said.
But Saunders, who as a child was abused by two priests, told a hastily called news conference: “I have not left and I am not leaving my position … the only person who can remove me is the person who appointed me, the pope.”
Saunders said he had not been aware of the Vatican’s statement until after it was issued.
Saunders had been publicly critical of the commission, which was set up in 2014. Made up of clerics and lay people from around the world, its task is to help Pope Francis establish “best practices” in dioceses around the world to root out sex abuse in the Church. Eight of its 17 members are women and two are themselves victims of abuse by clerics.
Saunders said that on Saturday morning the commission had taken a near-unanimous vote of no-confidence against him, accusing him of being hard to work with and a “campaigner”, and of talking too much to the media.
“A DISGRACE”
“For me, as a survivor, the commission is a disgrace,” Saunders said. “They believe that child abuse is behind us, but it is in no way behind us …
“I made it clear that I would not be a member of a public relations exercise. The protection of our children is much more important than that.”
Another commission member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was “deeply committed to the protection of children”, but that its brief was to advise and not investigate or judge.
In a worldwide sex abuse scandal, which first became prominent in Boston in 2001, abusers were shunted from parish to parish instead of being defrocked and handed over to authorities.
A year ago, Saunders criticized Francis for appearing to endorse parents who spanked their children in order to discipline them.
And in April, Saunders and three other lay commission members met with a top Vatican official to complain about the appointment of a bishop in Chile who had been accused of covering up abuse by a priest.
Saunders said on Saturday that the pope should dismiss Juan Barros as bishop of Osorno, as a test of his “seriousness on stopping child sex abuse”. Barros denies having known that abuse took place.
Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain: Catholic Church can in no way associate itself with same-sex marriage.
Bishop Blanchet High School in Seattle has refused to run an announcement in its alumni magazine for the same-sex marriage of an alumna who once served as student body vice president and homecoming queen.
In response to the submission by the 1997 graduate, the school sent her a letter saying, in part, “… the archdiocese does not permit this type of information to be published in our Catholic school magazine.”
The reaction has been a much-circulated Facebook post by James Nau, who was student body president in Blanchet’s class of 1997 and homecoming king.
In an open letter to the Archdiocese of Seattle, Nau quoted St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians — “if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” and wrote:
“The policy which prohibits the public acknowledgment of (the) marriage stands behind a faith that you no doubt believe is right, but it does so at the cost of what is greater: Love.
“When there is an opportunity to rejoice in love that exists among the members of your community, you have chosen instead to shut them out, and on this issue Pope Francis has warned, ‘a church with closed doors betrays herself and her mission.'”
Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain firmly closed all doors to same-sex marriage after Washington voted for marriage equality in 2012.
Sartain published a “policy refresher” raining down prohibitions on same-sex “marriage” — quotation marks courtesy of the archbishop. They include:
“No priest or deacon or lay minister may officiate at a same-sex marriage.”
“No church facility or school facility may be offered for such an event, even if it is to be witnessed by a non-Catholic minister or civil official.”
“No church facility or school facility may be used for a reception after such an event.”
“No church ministers, ordained or lay, may offer ‘wedding preparation’ for such couples.”
The archbishop’s chilly, hard-line stand on same-sex marriage has never gone down well with many Catholics.
Then-Gov. Chris Gregoire, a Catholic, helped persuade the Legislature to vote for marriage equality. Eastside Catholic High School students walked out of school and mounted a sustained protest in late 2013 after the school’s vice principal was forced out over marriage to his husband.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, a devout Catholic, went to St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in 2013 to marry his husband, Michael Shiosaki, in a deeply traditional ceremony.
Nau has received a strong, affirming response to his Facebook post, 227 “likes,” 59 comments and 122 shares by mid-afternoon Thursday.
“The Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle has played a large role in my life,” he wrote.
Nau is a graduate of St. Louise School, Blanchet and Seattle University. He has mentored fellow Catholics at confirmation, worked at CYO summer camps, taught and coached for three years at Blanchet, and participated in campus ministries. He stood vigil beside the body of Archbishop Thomas Murphy as the popular prelate lay in state at St. James Cathedral.
“It is my education by the Archdiocese of Seattle that has made me into the person who writes this letter,” he concluded.
In a subsequent update, Nau writes that he received a “gracious” email response from Antonio DeSapio, in which the president of Bishop Blanchet thanked Nau for his engagement but said that “we cannot knowingly publish anything that is contrary to Church teachings.”
The experience has been “very alienating,” Nau wrote in a response to DeSapio, adding:
“As a teacher, I keep thinking about what this policy says to your current students, and I hope that you consider what this incident teaches the students in the Archdiocese who might be gay or questioning their sexual identity as well as what it says to their friends, families and teachers who love and support them.
“What does it teach students whose parents are gay?”
The Blanchet denial, as with removal of the vice principal at Eastside Catholic, appears to have had an unintended consequence — one worth pondering at the archdiocesan chancery on First Hill.
The Eastside Catholic students came together in their protest and bonded with students at other Catholic high schools, such as Seattle Prep and Blanchet.
The refusal to announce the wedding appears to have similarly connected and reconnected Blanchet alumni. Here is how Nau put it to DeSapio:
“Thanks to social media, we do not lack the means to come together in support and celebration of one of our own, but your policy forces us to do it outside your walls.
“Do you wish for Blanchet to remain an institution that forces large portions of its warm and affirming alumni community to exist separate from itself?
“This effort to rally . . . has more quickly and effectively connected me with my classmates than any issue of the Blanchet magazine. … My connection to the archdiocesan community has grown not because of your policy, but because of our shared objection to it.”
The Rev. Fred Daley greets Grace Moran, 13, before the start of mass at All Saints Church in Syracuse, N.Y., on Dec. 5. Daley came out in 2004.
God, what are you calling me to do here, prayed the priest. Come out, or stay in the closet?
After 23 years in Chicago parishes, the question had pushed its way to the surface.
He weighed his options. He thought about his parishioners. Many, he knew, were accepting of gay people, even of same-sex marriage, but others — less so. He had grown up in a large Catholic family; he understood what people’s faith meant to them. He didn’t want to harm his flock, or the Catholic Church.
He wondered if he could be penalized in his job. And, in truth, he considered his status. He knew many Catholics had what he might call a romanticized view of the priesthood: Priests are supposed to be pure, almost above the world of sexuality, selflessly willing to give up creating a family of their own to serve God. This would mean falling from that pedestal.
Then, he weighed these factors against the impact his coming out could have on the lives of young gay people in treatment for addiction or who are suicidal, on the parents and grandparents who feel they must choose between their gay child and their church. For some, knowing their priest is gay — and at peace with it — could be healing, he felt.
Father Warren Hall gives Mass as more than 50 Seton Hall couples renew their vows at a special Mass service at the Chapel on the Seton Hall campus in South Orange, NJ, on Friday, February 14, 2014.
He thought of his complex feelings. He had no ax to grind, and he wasn’t an advocate.
He set the rules at the outset: He did not want to be identified in this article. But at the end of the first conversation, he said: I’m leaning towards using my real name.
At a time when the phrase “coming out” is starting to sound almost quaint, the Catholic priesthood may be one of the last remaining closets — and it’s a crowded one. People who study gay clergy believe gay men make up a significant percentage of the 40,000 ordained priests in the United States, including some who believe they may even be the majority. Meanwhile, the number who are out is minuscule.
The Catholic Church is in the throes of a historic period of debate about homosexuality. Between Pope Francis’s now-famous “Who am I to judge?” line and two high-profile, global meetings he called in the past year to open up discussion about sex and family, there has perhaps never been as much dialogue among Catholics about how far to extend the welcome mat to gay people.
Francis is expected in the next couple of months to release his conclusions from the meetings. Both sides claimed a measure of victory two weeks ago when he told a Vatican court that “there can be no confusion” between the family willed by God and any other type of union. To some, it was a sign that Francis will not give a doctrinal inch; others saw it as evidence that he might not put up a fight on civil unions.
Gay priests are invisible in this debate; the church does not research the topic. However, interviews with a dozen priests and former seminarians who are gay, and experts on gay priests, reveal a group of men mostly comfortable with their sexuality. Many express no urgency for the church to accept it. Some, however, say the priesthood remains sexually repressive; one said there is an “invisible wall” around the topic among priests.
They speak forcefully about the tough work they had to do to accept their sexuality and how important a part it is of who they are. But their acceptance of the closet often harks back to an earlier time.
This is in part, they say, because as priests they vowed to put service to God over all else.
The Rev. Warren Hall decided to join the tiny number of out priests after he was removed as campus minister of Seton Hall University last May. Officials noted he had supported a group on Facebook that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and racial justice.
But while Hall has since been outspoken about the need for more tolerant, open dialogue about human sexuality, he said he understands why gay priests don’t come out — or see gay rights as their cause.
“Priests want to be good priests, they want to do their job,” said Hall, who was reassigned to a Hoboken, N.J., parish. “More priests are rightfully more concerned about homelessness versus getting caught up in something about sex. We should be more concerned about those issues [like homelessness] that are impacting people.”
But some also fear the consequences of coming out in the Catholic Church, whose hierarchy frames a gay life as a diversion from God’s ideal. Parts of church teaching call being gay “objectively disordered.”
The Chicago priest remembers wanting to speak from the pulpit when same-sex marriage became legal in California in 2008. But he talked himself out of it. “I thought: ‘Oh my gosh, if I talk about it, they’ll think I’m gay.’ ”
He is torn as he watches the spike in dioceses firing employees who marry someone of the same gender, but his instinct has been to defer to the church.
“I have a problem with Monday-morning quarterbacking. There’s always stuff you don’t know about why people are fired,” he said. It grates on him, though. “But where do you draw the line? There are all kinds of folks not in line on morality stuff.”
Priests who have come out — in some cases citing the need to confront anti-LGBT discrimination — say they have found scant support among other priests.
“Parishioners were very supportive. Religious women were very supportive. One group that was silent were my brother priests. Gay as well as straight,” said the Rev. Fred Daley, a Syracuse, N.Y., priest who came out in 2004 after he was angered by people blaming gay priests for the global clergy sex abuse crisis. “In a sense, it was like I sort of broke the rules of the clerical club.”
The mixture of fealty to God and the church and concern about harming parishioners or their standing in the priesthood has led some gay priests to gauge each situation before opening up.
A New York priest says he comes out only in rare private circumstances, when counseling someone struggling to accept their homosexuality. “I’ve been in multiple situations where someone will say: ‘I’m a piece of s—.’ I’ll say: ‘Do I look like a piece of s— to you? God made me this way.’ ”
A Pennsylvania priest says he’s “quietly subversive,” speaking acceptingly of gay people but not to just anyone. Even the confessional is not a truly safe place for him to tell someone who is gay that it’s not a bad thing. “We have too much to lose. I’ve invested my life in this business.”
Priests’ views of the church’s handling of homosexuality are not uniform. Some blamed Catholicism for the decades it took them to accept themselves. Others credited their training and the help of other priests with their self-knowledge, saying homophobia in the non-church culture is the problem.
Even as the doctrine banning same-sex relationships has not changed, the church has varied its emphasis and message on the topic.
The most recent authoritative statement came in 2005, from Pope Benedict XVI, who, seeking to clarify doctrine after the sweeping changes under the Second Vatican Council, wrote that being gay is “objectively disordered.” The church, “while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture,’ ” Benedict said,
The message seemed clear, say many priests and several people who train seminarians. Many who had considered coming out of the closet decided to stay in.
Yet the intent behind Benedict’s words has been debated. Some say he never meant to bar gay men who are celibate. Others say he meant to keep out men who feel strongly defined by their sexuality, and perhaps would be challenged by celibacy.
Regardless, there is no question that in the past few years church leaders are emphasizing far more that Catholicism accepts people who are gay — it’s the sexual relationships or marriage that is the problem. Francis’s famous “Who am I to judge?” comment was said after a question about gay priests.
Last spring, a Jesuit — Francis’s community — wrote about being gay in a blog post believed to be the first time a Jesuit has come out with the explicit permission of his superiors. Damian Torres-Botello denied requests to be interviewed for this article.
In some communities, particularly the Jesuits, gay priests can be out — to a point, the priests interviewed said. Others say Benedict’s words created a lasting chill for gay men and that conditions are much harsher today.
“If there is a seminarian who is gay, my recommendation would be: Don’t tell anybody,” Hall said.
Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a D.C. priest-psychologist who helps seminaries create materials about sexual health, said there is a hesitancy today to admit people who are gay and that the percentage of gay priests has dropped. All other priests interviewed disagreed.
“They’re more conservative, but no less gay,” said the Pennsylvania priest of the incoming, younger generation of clergy.
The Chicago priest doesn’t disregard the church’s teaching on sexuality, but he tries to emphasize the church’s teaching that sexuality is an expression of the divine and encourages people topray and discern their own place. His place, he says, is that of a man who didn’t understand he was gay when he entered the priesthood and now views his sexuality as a gift to his ministry.
“There’s a level of witnessing here that’s important for me to do. The Christian faith has a lot to say about the underdog, about the marginalized or the leper, the blind, the lame, the ostracized woman prostitute, widow, the little one,” he said.
“I’d like to be one of those priests, who, with great respect for the church’s teaching, can say: I’m a human being. I’m a son — one of six — I’m gay and I’m a priest, period.”
Prayer has led him to believe this article is part of that witness. He has decided he wants to be known: His name is Michael Shanahan.
