In January, a loyal reader showed up at the blog/journal gathering I organized and afterwards asked me why I hadn’t covered the Catholic sex abuse scandal. Part of my answer, I remain comfortable with — that I’m not Catholic and I didn’t feel well versed enough to comment much on it. But the rest of my reasons haven’t sat well with me during the ensuing weeks. With the recent release of reports and newspapers everywhere reporting on their local dioceses involvement, I thought I’d comment further and, hopefully, better.
At the time the scandal was unfolding, two things impacted my decision not to comment much on them. First, I was moving Pursed Lips away from headline humping and more towards commentary with links. I was really tired of doing headlines. I also — and hear me out on this one — rolled my eyes when the scandal broke. Not because I didn’t care or because I viewed this through an archaic nativistic “serves ‘em right” prejudice, but because it had already garnered attention where I live. Catholics had already been agitating for response and action from local diocese leaders. If you care to sign up at The Hartford Courant, then look through its morgue and pay for access, you’ll find a lengthy Northeast magazine article from some time ago, detailing the very nature of the complaints and coverups — anticipating exactly what would unfold nationwide years later. The scandal was important, but it wasn’t fresh news to me and I said so at the time.
But another thing occurred in the midst of the scandal that I realize now few of us could’ve anticipated and that’s just how gut-wrenching a blow this was to the Catholics of Boston. I truly believe Bostonian Catholics were affected by the scandal more profoundly and fundamentally than just about any other diocese in the nation. Yes, victims everywhere were harmed, hurt, and suffering, but Boston’s pain was ground zero. Boston ached. There, the scandal wasn’t a wound, it was a gangrenous infection.
I don’t think I realized how much Boston ached until the Vatican responded so cluelessly to the pain of American Catholics, especially when Boston folk called for Cardinal Bernard Law’s resignation. That Law fought to stay on didn’t surprise me; it was, after all, the first time an American archdiocese had ever confronted a call for resignation from the masses. But that the pope didn’t understand the nature of pain of the masses and failed to hear their voices astounded me. I think then I began to realize how deeply and profoundly hurt American Catholics were then.
I won’t claim to understand every nuance of this scandal. As I said, I’m not Catholic. In fact, I belong to a liberal Protestant sect where parishioners have a direct relationship with God and in which we decide for our own church collectively under our roof, independent of any hierarchy. That independence alone separates me from the Catholic reliance on its hierarchy. But to see our sense of democracy intertwined in Catholicism, evidenced by its people standing up and saying what they want, to see lay people advocate only to have the Vatican, which has never known democracy of any sort, deny them… well, then I had a sense of their agony.
I’ve never felt homosexuality was wholly to blame here. A measurable portion of the victims in the reports were girls and had female alter attendants been around in earlier decades, I bet the gender numbers would’ve reflected it. I’m glad that the John Jay College of Criminal Justice report pointed out in an interview that they had “no data on sexual orientation of the perpetrators and that the more likely explanation is that sexual abuse is a crime of opportunity and priests had more unfettered access to teenage boys than to teenage girls.” (Via NYTimes.) I should point out that the John Jay reports goes against the Catholic national review board’s more strident take on a “gay subculture” being a causative factor.
Often, though, I’ve wanted to blame celibacy for the scandal, figuring the denying a basic human drive was in itself dysfunctional and would only breed dysfunction, but I can’t ignore that 96% of Catholic priests weren’t sexual abusers and that a significant number are happy with their calling and comfortable with the constraints placed up them by their faith.
So I have come to understand Boston’s pain, even though I haven’t written about it. I’m particularly saddened that that pain may have reached a tragic culmination in the young man who’s suffering became symbolic of all the victims’ pain, a suffering never left him until he left this veil of tears. I only hope others will find a livable peace and that Catholics will keep their voices strong, in faith and in times of challenge. I hope they continue to advocate for what they see as their due. And I hope I’ve redeemed myself just a little bit to that loyal reader in Boston.
