Distressing days: Suffering as much from the church as for it (Courier Times, 4/21/11)

Dear Mr. Sullivan,

Whether it appears in the Courier Times or the Times of Trenton, I generally enjoy your writing very much. However, I found "Distressing days: Suffering as Much from the Church as for It" to have some very unfortunate wording and/or to be uninformed by the most current information:

• "In February, a grand jury in Philadelphia released a second report on sexual abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Like the first report issued in 2005, this second report is a disgusting chronicle of sodomy and mendacity. Shortly thereafter, the archdiocese suspended 21 priests who have been credibly accused of sexual corruption or improprieties."

Two distinguished mental health professionals, Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons and Dr. Peter Kleponis, recently came forth to indicate that at least some of those 21 priests were placed on leave unnecessarily and unfairly:

• "The placement of 21 priests on leave shortly after the Philadelphia Grand Jury’s report on the outrageous child abuse by two priests has had a severely damaging effect upon the reputation, good name and future priestly ministry of these priests. This is because the majority of people in the Philadelphia area and around the country believe that all 21 priests were guilty of the same heinous acts as the two priests identified by the Grand Jury.
  
  "In fact, the majority of the 21 priests identified for further evaluations of accusations made against them previously went through such an intensive process in the past conducted by competent professionals without any new charges being filed against them. The result of the investigation was that the charges were not substantiated against many of those 21 priests. Then, these priests were notified and there was no disruption of their priestly ministry....
  
  "In the Church false accusations have related recently to confusion in regard to what is referred to as “boundary issues” which are buzz words arising from the post-crisis programs in the Church. Boundary violations are behaviours that are viewed as being suspicious, but are not directly sexual. Priests are being increasingly accused of so-called boundary issues and of grooming minors while engaging in completely appropriate priestly ministry and behaviour toward youth in Catholic schools, on playgrounds and in parish centres or rectories....
  
  "In our clinical experience many of the priests accused of so-called boundary violations were strong in faith and in loyalty while their accusers often harboured resentment toward them. While accusations of specific sexual behaviours need to be immediately addressed, caution needs to be exercised in regard to the evaluation of so-called boundary violations. Certainly such priests should not be removed from ministry while an accusation is assessed, nor do they necessarily need a mental health evaluation....
  
  "Most Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia do not know that thorough evaluations were done on the majority of the 21 priests and that they were found innocent of the charges against them."

Sincerely,

Good Priests - Be Not Afraid

For all of my 52 years, I have been involved with Catholic parishes and institutions. As a half century affords a chance to see the dark underbelly of anything, I have my share of dark tales. Even so, I found February 10th's Final Presentment by the Philadelphia District Attorney on alleged sexual abuse by three priests and a teacher to be exceptionally revolting.

My own life, as well as that of my family, has not gone uneffected by the actions of miscreant individuals in positions of power - some of whom happened to be priests and nuns. While my dark tales include Catholic parishes and institutions, my non-Catholic friends have similar dark tales from non-Catholic circles. How has the notion taken hold that sexual abuse is a near exclusive specialty of Catholic priests? The time has long passed to wake up, smell the coffee, and read the crime reports!

While our American tradition values the rule of law and cherishes the notion that accused people are innocent until proven guilty, our country has long evidenced a perverse fascination with the alleged sexual sins of Catholic priests. In 1836, Maria Monk first published "The Hidden Secrets of a Nun's Life in a Convent Exposed!" While Monk's tale of the regular rape of nuns by priests was found to be absolutely fraudulent, many people found those lies far more entertaining and interesting than the truth. As per Robert P. Lockwood,

• "Maria Monk was the 19th century woman who claimed to be a nun that finally escaped after years of torture and sexual degradation at a convent in Canada....It was a fabulous tale and also an out-an-out fraud exposed as such almost immediately....it popularized so many of the anti-Catholic stereotypes that would persist in the American consciousness....much of today's secular anti-Catholic stereotypes prominent in the news media, the arts and entertainment are simply Maria's inventions stripped of their religious pretensions" (http://www.catholicleague.org/research/mariamonk.htm).

Sexual abuse is abhorent, disgusting, and vulgar. Bigotry, calumny, and lies are also abhorent, disgusting, and vulgar. We should be revolted by the abuse of minors, young adults, and other vulnerable people by those in power - be they clerics, human service professionals, medical professionals, teachers, or any other adults. Yet, let's first let facts unfold in courts of law (Note to Cardinal Rigali: The archdiocese seems to have passed from an era of alleged coverup to overreaction. If a priest has not been criminally charged and allegations have not been fully assessed for credibility, why does his name appear in the Catholic Standard and Times? Even if he is later found to be innocent, how will he recover his reputation?).

Sexual abuse does not happen in a cultural vacuum. In addition to the internet, the advertising, film, magazine, music, and television industries have promoted a culture in which human sexuality is just one more commodity. Pornography is the most blatant example of the exploitation of human sexuality, and someone is buying it! In fact, $3 billion of the $57 billion in annual worldwide pornography profits come from child pornography. As two of every three men in their 20s and 30s acknowledge being regular users of pornography, that suggests a terrifying level of involvement in child pornography. And by the way, a full third of visitors to adult pornographic web sites are women (Bishop Robert Finn, Blessed are the Pure of Heart, 2007).

Those who kid themselves that adult pornography is "victimless" are merely closing their eyes to the 800,000 human beings trafficked each year across national borders: "Approximately 80 percent of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The majority of transnational victims are females trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation" (U.S. State Department, Trafficking in Persons Report 2007).

Much of the work in combatting sexual abuse has to start with long hard looks in the mirror.