Editorial: 'Trail of pain' continued
EDITORIAL 'Trail of pain9 continued On January 12, the front page of the Sunday New York Times featured a story, which jumped to two full pages inside the newspaper, offering the most...
...How the relative "health" of these priests was ascertained is difficult to imagine...
...Titled "Trail of Pain in Church Crisis/ Leads to Nearly Every Diocese," the story examined the number of reported incidents of sexual abuse throughout the country over the past six decades...
...Let's hope too that the Review Board's other reports one on the money bishops have paid out to settle the cases, the other, an epidemiological study on the psy-chosexual development of priests also receive full cooperation from each and every bishop...
...Just as clearly, the hierarchy's secrecy and lack of accountability seem to have played a part...
...Certainly, the prevalence of abuse in the 1970s and 1980s could reflect the confusions of both the post-Vatican II church and the larger sexual revolution...
...Liberals tend to focus on the hierarchy's secrecy and arrogance, the rule of celibacy, and the effects of clericalism...
...Whatever its shortcomings, the Times story demonstrated yet again how inadequate, even inept, has been the response of the U.S...
...That American Catholics have to rely on the New York Times to provide the first comprehensive picture of the extent of a scandal that has rocked the foundations of the church is a scandal itself...
...As this magazine and many others have argued, the bishops themselves should have been the first to compile and release such a broad-ranging study...
...True, the National Review Board established by the bishops at their June meeting in Dallas is compiling just such a report, to be released this June...
...bishops to the scandal...
...Despite extensive media coverage, the causes and contexts of the abuse are still not well understood...
...But if that is indeed the case, it would be better, for the victims as well as the church, that the National Review Board and the bishops get the truth out as soon as possible.as possible...
...Overall, the Times estimated that during the six-decade period, 1.8 percent of Catholic priests had been accused of abuse, a percentage generally considered below the level of sexual abuse in the adult population as a whole...
...The inability, or unwillingness, of the church hierarchy to recognize the urgency of the need for precisely such a study and the important word here is urgency boggles the mind...
...People have tried to get their arms around these numbers for twelve years," he said...
...The study found that abuse was especially rampant in the 1970s and 1980s, but that the number of reported cases had dropped significantly since the early 1990s, a time when many bishops created independent boards to review such accusations...
...Or is it because predators had easier access to boys than to girls...
...Egan has pledged his full cooperation with the Review Board's investigations, but some of his actions convey a different message...
...Paul R. McHugh of Johns Hopkins University...
...It concluded that more than twelve hundred priests had victimized four thousand minors, although it cautioned that these numbers were conservative because of the refusal of some dioceses to provide the names of alleged abusers...
...Within the church, of course, a battle rages between conservatives and liberals over the "root causes" of the abuse...
...The bishops have pledged their full cooperation with the independent board, which is made up of prominent laymen and -women...
...The laity is not going to tolerate a bishop who doesn't cooperate...
...That is an important part of the truth, but not the whole truth...
...The Times story, for example, provided almost no information about the prevalence of sexual abuse in other professions or in society as a whole...
...Is it the dynamics of repressive, celibate, single-sex seminaries...
...The Times story was not without its methodological flaws and dubious assumptions...
...Whether the drop in accusations over the past ten years is the result of actions taken by the bishops to address the problem or whether more recent victims have yet to come forward remains to be seen...
...EDITORIAL 'Trail of pain9 continued On January 12, the front page of the Sunday New York Times featured a story, which jumped to two full pages inside the newspaper, offering the most comprehensive statistical analysis to date of sexual abuse among the Catholic clergy...
...Even more shocking, 43 percent of the victims were twelve or younger...
...There was a lot of vague talk about the psychosexual immaturity of priests in general, even speculation that "many healthier priests were jumping ship" in the late 1960s and the 1970s...
...The goal is to understand the causes and contexts of this abuse," McHugh has said...
...If someone doesn't cooperate, everyone will know about it," added attorney Robert Bennett, another board member...
...Conservatives blame reforms of seminaries after Vatican II, dissent from church teaching on sexual morality, and tolerance of homosexuality within the priesthood...
...New York's Cardinal Edward Egan, well know for his aversion to the press and for having kept a particularly low profile throughout the past year, refused to celebrate Mass for board members when they were in New York earlier this month...
...Clearly, sexual abuse in the church will not be fully understood until we know more about the extent of sexual abuse generally...
...Neither is it fully understood why boys were the most frequent targets of offending priests...
...In reporting on this clash of views, the Times summed up its study succinctly: the "database provides evidence to support the arguments of both sides...
...Is it because of the number of homosexual priests...
...In the larger population, girls are much more likely to be victims of abuse...
...But the study also confirmed the impression that the vast majority 80 percent of victims have been young boys...
...The media's perspective has largely been shaped by the storylines provided by plaintiffs' attorneys...
...Let's hope so...
...Yet the relationship between the board and at least some bishops is clearly less than ideal...
...That may just be journalistic hype...
...For example, it may not be self-evident that most celibate seminarians were more sexually immature than the average college fraternity or sorority member...
...The Times ended its story with the strong suggestion that a new wave of revelations is just over the horizon...
...Explanations vary...
...The epidemiological study is expected to take more than a year, and will be directed by Dr...
...He also pressured Kathleen L. McChesney, the executive director of the bishops' new Office for Child and Youth Protection, into canceling a speaking engagement at a church in Manhattan...
...Review Board panelist William R. Burleigh, former CEO of the E. W. Scripps Company, told the Boston Globe that a complete investigation was essential...
...As the Times itself noted, "experts say it is impossible to know whether priests abuse more or less often than people in other professions, or even in the general population, because there are not reliable studies...
...She eventually decided to speak...
Vol. 130 • January 2003 • No. 2
