R. Scott
Appleby '78
Rorschach Test -- Psychology: A test for revealing
the underlying personality structure of an individual by the use
of a standard series of 10 ink-blot designs to which the subject
responds by telling what image or emotion each design evokes.
-- Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary
Prepare yourself, gentle Catholic, even as you attempt to recover
from the most damaging and traumatic ordeal in the history of
the U.S. church. The testing continues. Indeed, the "underlying
personality structure" of our faith community remains a matter
of contention, inside and outside the church, never more so than
now.
The first ink blot to consider is a police blotter -- the figure
of John Geoghan, a former priest, standing in court before a judge
who is sentencing him to nine years in prison for indecent assault
against a 10-year-old boy. Geoghan has been credibly accused of
sexually molesting more than 130 young boys over a period of 30
years. During that period, the archbishops of Boston and their
auxiliary bishops re-assigned Father Geoghan to three different
parishes without informing the parishioners, or the priests assigned
to those parishes, of his background.
The image of the predator priest, alas, may be evoked by dozens
of now familiar snapshots, such as the wire photo of Father Paul
Shanley, whose public advocacy of "Man-Boy Love" was the source
of complaints from Boston Catholics in 1979, shortly before Cardinal
Humberto Medeiros assigned him to Saint Jean Parish in Newton,
Massachusetts. There Shanley allegedly raped a young boy repeatedly
from 1983 to 1990, when the boy was between the ages of 6 and
13. Sadly, such behavior apparently was typical of the priest's
"ministrations." Law, meanwhile, promoted Father Shanley to pastor
of the parish in 1984, wishing him a "zealous and fruitful ministry."
The episcopal cover-up of such horrendous and numerous sexual
crimes prompted claims that Shanley's offenses went unchecked
because he was in a position to blackmail his ecclesiastical superiors.
(Indeed, documents released under court order by the Archdiocese
of Boston in April indicated that in the 1970s Shanley had attempted
to blackmail the then-archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Medeiros,
into reversing his decision to end Shanley's street ministry.
Shanley had threatened to reveal to the media details about sexual
misconduct at Saint John's, the archdiocesan seminary, that would
be "far more shocking than my poor offerings.")
The national media reports of the monstrous behavior of Geoghan,
Shanley, James Porter, Gilbert Gauthe, Ronald H. Paquin, Joseph
E. Birmingham and dozens of other priests who serially abused
children and teens, led to an avalanche of new accusations against
other priests, and to diocese-by-diocese reviews of previous accusations.
In 2002, as a result, more than 300 priests accused of sexual
abuse were removed from active ministry. On November 12, as the
U.S. bishops held their second meeting of the year, in Washington,
D.C., Survivors First, a sexual abuse victims' group, released
a list of more than 573 priests accused of abusing minors since
1976.
Given these staggering numbers, it is important to underscore
the fact that the sexually abusive priest is clearly an anomaly.
Even if a significant number of the accused priests were to be
found innocent, the number of actual cases of priestly sexual
abuse would remain tragically and unacceptably high. But it is
also true that more than 98 percent of the 50,000 priests active
in ministry in the United States over the past 30 years never
aroused even a suspicion of sexual misconduct on their part.
The second "ink blot," not surprisingly, depicts Cardinal Law,
archbishop of Boston (*see note below), who got rid of his Shanley
problem by transferring the molester from Boston to the California
Diocese of San Bernardino in 1990 -- without, of course, mentioning
the minor detail of his reputation to Shanley's new superiors.
In selecting one snapshot to summarize the centrality of Cardinal
Law, who is Pope John Paul II's right-hand man in North America,
it is difficult to choose from among the many images of the cardinal
that were on display during the year of disgrace. In one freeze-frame,
taken in late March, Cardinal Law is selling $33 million in archdiocesan
real estate, 60 percent of the archdiocese's stocks and 98 percent
of its bonds. From a strictly legal perspective, this move seemed
prudent, in light of the $10 million already handed to Geoghan's
victims and the threat of additional settlements that could eventually
cost the archdiocese more than $100 million in damages.
In another snapshot Law is being deposed in civil court and
claims that he is unable to recall reading reports of credible
charges of priestly abuse sent to him by his subordinates; his
memory is particularly foggy regarding an early, unambiguous letter
warning of Geoghan's "history of homosexual involvement with young
boys." (The author of that letter, Bishop John M. D'Arcy, was
subsequently promoted to the episcopal see of Fort Wayne-South
Bend, Indiana.)
Or, we might retrieve the reports of Law's visit to a parish
on March 24, when he seemed to imply that he is somehow a victim,
too, of this mess. "I personally have these past weeks experienced
closeness to Jesus on the cross in a way I never have before in
my life," he told the befuddled parishioners.
If Cardinal Law is too familiar an icon of the compromised Catholic
bishop under siege, let us consider the court artist's rendition
of Bishop Joseph L. Imesch of Joliet, Illinois. In 1995 a lawyer
questioned Bishop Imesch about the wisdom of assigning a priest
to parish ministry who had been convicted of molesting an altar
boy in Michigan. "If you had children," the lawyer asked during
the deposition for a civil suit, "wouldn't you be concerned that
the priest they were saying Mass with had been convicted of sexually
molesting children?" Replied the bishop: "I don't have any children."
Again, sadly, there are several images to choose from in this
category of beleaguered bishop. Here, for example, is Cardinal
Roger Mahoney, archbishop of Los Angeles, caught sending frantic
"damage containment" e-mails to his staff. Who can blame him?
Lawsuits filed by four sexually abused men charged the archbishop
and the archdiocese with the crimes of "racketeering, negligence
and fraud." The plaintiffs claimed that the church under Mahoney
amounted to a criminal enterprise that protected priests who preyed
on young people.
Or, we can pry, as The New York Times did, into Archbishop
Rembert Weakland's personal correspondence with the man who apparently
seduced him for financial gain. If that episode fails to evoke
emotions of despair, try reviewing the story of the fall of two
successive bishops of Palm Beach, Florida, both of whom resigned
after their own sexual misconduct had been disclosed.
The third blot comes into focus in layers: at its core are the
victims of priestly sexual abuse. Like Craig Martin, the survivor
whose talk to the bishops in Dallas was by turns painful, moving,
inspiring and depressing, these are honest, troubled, grieving
people seeking a measure of peace for themselves and their families.
Many of them continue to love the church and want to forgive it
-- and their victimizers. But they have too often been rebuffed
or treated as the enemy.
Such treatment, while deplorable, becomes slightly understandable
as the second and third layers of this image emerge from the shadows.
At the more benevolent level are victim-survivors turned full-time
advocates and adversaries, men such as David Clohessy, executive
director of SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests).
While Clohessy and his colleagues seem to be on the side of the
angels, their cultural role as unofficial prosecutors of the church
leaves them compromised in any other role addressing the various
dimensions of what might constitute "justice" in these cases,
including protecting the privacy of victims and the due process
of the accused priests.
Lingering still in the shadows of this layered ink blot are
the victims' lawyers. This is their pathetic hour. Their image
is blurred because the media have not bothered to bring it into
focus. That would require reporting that many such plaintiffs'
lawyers charge their clients fees ranging from 30 to 50 percent
of the settlement. Thus it is in the lawyers' interest to encourage
litigation, exaggerate psychological and financial damages suffered
by the victims, and soak the negative media coverage of the church
for all it is worth -- and it is worth a considerable amount --
in the courtroom.
Avert your eyes from the fourth ink blot, which seems to be
a seminarian. He appears in profile, drawn from all the dreadful
things that were said of him and of the seminaries he and his
peers inhabit, during the year of disgrace. The profile suggests
an immature, confused young man who could do nothing else with
his life and so entered the seminary to act out his sexually repressed
or sexually aggressive identity. Obviously, the invisible caption
reads, these young men cannot be trusted: consider the kind of
priests these seminaries have produced.
(*Since this was written Cardinal Law has resigned as archbishop
of the Boston archdiocese.)
