All the Pope's Men (28 page)

THE STATUS QUO

Though the focus in this chapter is on the crisis triggered on January 6, 2002, with the first
Boston Globe
report about former Boston priest John Geoghan, it should be noted that the phenomenon of sexual abuse by clergy is not new. In the United States, the 1985 case of former priest Gilbert Gauthe in Louisiana, who is alleged to have had more than seventy victims, first brought attention to the issue, to a great extent through the pioneering reporting of the
National Catholic Reporter
. But the roots go much deeper. To take one example, St. Peter Damian (1007–1072) stated: “Vice against nature creeps in like a cancer and even touches the order of consecrated men . . . unless the strength of the (church leadership) intervenes as soon as possible, there is no doubt but that this unbridled wickedness, even though it should wish to be restrained, will be unable to stop on its headlong course." Even earlier, St. Basil (330–379) had stated, “A cleric or monk who seduces youths or young boys . . . is to be publicly flogged. . . . For six months he will languish in prison-like confinement, . . . and he shall never again associate with youths in private conversation nor in counseling them."

The American bishops had commissioned a study from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York as to the overall national dimensions of the crisis. The National Review Board instituted by the U.S. bishops noted in an interim report in July 2003: “A puzzling dimension of the scandal is that no accurate statistical snapshot had ever been taken over decades of the number of offending priests, the number of youthful victims and the financial cost to the Church. This led to mounting accusations of secrecy and stonewalling."

Issued on February 27, 2004, the John Jay report found a total of 4,392 priests faced allegations of sexual abuse that were not either withdrawn or known to be false, lodged by some 10,667 alleged victims during the period 1950 to 2002. This means that some 4.3 percent of diocesan priests and 2.5 percent of religious order priests faced at least one accusation of sexual abuse. The number of accusations peaked in 1970, and there were more accusations from the 1970s than any other decade. In some cases the alleged abuse extended over several years. Two-thirds of the accusations were reported after 1993, with one-third reported in 2002–2003 alone, suggesting that the total scope of the crisis has only recently become clear. The total amount of money paid by the Church as a result of these accusations is $572,000,000. The majority of priests, 56 percent, were alleged to have abused one victim. The 149 priests (3.4 percent) who had more than ten allegations of abuse were allegedly responsible for abusing 2,960 victims, thus accounting for 26 percent of allegations. Therefore, a very small percentage of accused priests are responsible for a substantial percentage of allegations. The largest group of alleged victims, 50.9 percent, was between the ages of 11 and 14 at the time of the incident, while 27.3 percent were 15–17, 16 percent were 8–10, and nearly 6 percent were under age 7. Overall, 81 percent were male. Males tended to be older than females, with over 40 percent of alleged victims being males between the ages of 11 and 14.

Thomas Plante, a lay psychiatrist at the University of Santa Clara and a consultant to several Church review boards, concludes that “research suggests that less than 6 percent of Roman Catholic priests or other male Catholic clergy such as brothers have had a sexual experience with a minor." Plante also said, “When all of the current evidence is examined from police records, treatment facilities, and researchers who investigate these matters, no evidence suggests that Catholic priests are more likely to sexually abuse minors than other male clergy or men in general." The same point applies to other professions that enjoy positions of trust with vulnerable people. For example, Plante said, in mental health professions, a percentage of therapists analogous to rates among priests sexually abuse people entrusted to their care. In that regard, Plante offers one encouraging parallel. In the 1960s and 1970s, he said, studies indicated that up to 23 percent of male psychotherapists had sexual contact with their patients. Within a generation, Plante said, that number was cut to between 1 percent and 1.5 percent, through a combination of aggressive one-strike policies, better training, and changing sensitivities.

The norms adopted by the American bishops in Washington, D.C., in November 2002 envision that when a priest is credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor, two procedures will be launched. First, the accusation will be referred to the police, which could lead to a criminal investigation and indictment. Second, the Church will initiate a canonical investigation that could lead to the imposition of penalties such as permanent removal from ministry, or laicization. The Church understands these procedures as parallel and complementary. At least in theory, the canon law process is intended to be in addition to, not instead of, full cooperation with civil authorities. In 2002, the
New York Times
story reported, 432 priests had resigned, retired, or been removed from ministry. Not all did so, however, because of the sexual abuse crisis. Conventional estimates are that some 325 of the current crop of roughly 46,000 American priests have been removed under the weight of allegations of sexual abuse. The initial determination of credibility is critical, and most bishops are relying upon lay review boards to make it.

Under the terms of a May 18 papal decree called
Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela
, a bishop is obliged to report every credible allegation to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, which has exclusive canonical jurisdiction over cases of sexual abuse of a minor. As of the summer of 2003, some 199 American cases had been reported to the congregation, with most still awaiting action. When a case is submitted to the congregation, it may decide that insufficient evidence exists to proceed to trial, and direct that the priest be returned to ministry. If it decides that the allegation is credible, it can authorize one of three procedures:

Canonical trial

An extrajuridical procedure envisioned under canon 1720. This option allows the bishop, if he is morally certain the priest is guilty, to remove him from ministry without the time and expense of a trial. The canon requires that the accused be notified of the charges and given an opportunity for defense.

Dismissal from the clerical state
ex officio et in poenam
, meaning an involuntary laicization approved personally by the Pope. This is a rare option because it short-circuits procedural guarantees. In most cases, however, the accused priest has already had several opportunities to mount a defense. Sometimes he may already have been convicted criminally.

In October 2002, the Vatican rejected the first set of norms approved by the U.S. bishops in Dallas. The reason was the need to protect due process rights of accused priests; the Vatican insisted that priests receive a full canonical trial, instead of being dismissed through the exercise of a bishop’s administrative authority. The American bishops had opted for this administrative procedure on the basis of perceptions that the Holy See was reluctant to remove abuser priests, based in part on the case of a Pittsburgh priest named Anthony Cipolla. In 1988, Cipolla and the Pittsburgh diocese were sued by a thirty-three-year-old man who claimed that Cipolla had begun molesting him at age twelve and continued until he was seventeen. Bishop Donald Wuerl removed Cipolla from ministry in 1988 but allowed him to remain a priest, settling the civil lawsuit in 1993. In 1991, Cipolla filed a canonical appeal with the Vatican asking that he be returned to ministry. His first attempt failed, but a second appeal to the Apostolic Signatura succeeded. In March 1993, the Signatura ordered Cipolla reinstated. The basis was that by sending Cipolla to St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, for an assessment, Wuerl had denied Cipolla the right to a fair judgment. “St. Luke Institute, a clinic founded by a priest who is openly homosexual and based on a mixed doctrine of Freudian pan-sexualism and behaviorism, is surely not a suitable institution apt to judge rightly about the beliefs and the lifestyle of a Catholic priest," Cipolla’s appeal read. Wuerl fought back, heading to Rome with the case files. In 1995 the Signatura reversed itself, and again ordered Cipolla barred from ministry. Despite the edict, Cipolla continued to act as a priest, leading to a 2002 decree expelling him from the priesthood signed by John Paul II. The experience taught many American bishops that trying to handle cases in Church courts could be long, cumbersome, and fraught with potential setbacks.

Despite the Holy See’s initial insistence on canonical trials, Vatican sources say that as American case files arrive in Rome, in many instances the accused priest’s guilt appears clear to the canonical tribunals in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In such cases, the Vatican is opting for the swifter extrajudicial option, a solution not all that different from what the American bishops had originally intended. This stance is of concern to some American canonists, who worry that the due process rights of accused priests may be sacrificed.

A further reason for the extrajudicial route can be prescription, the statute of limitations in canon law, which for the sexual abuse of a minor is ten years from the victim’s eighteenth birthday. When the American norms were debated, many victims’ advocates worried that prescription would be used to shield accused priests. In fact, however, Vatican sources say such an outcome is more likely in secular criminal law, where the statute of limitations is an absolute barrier to action against the accused. For example, the June 26, 2003, decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Stogner v. California, which struck down a California law restricting the statute of limitations for some sex crimes, resulted in the dismissal of charges against some priests. Canon law’s bias is that a rupture in the community has to be repaired even if penal action is barred, and hence the extrajudicial option remains.

On the other hand, the congregation may review the case file, and any accompanying submissions from the bishop, and conclude there isn’t any warrant for proceeding. In that case, the congregation will direct that the priest should either be reinstated to his position or, in any event, returned to active ministry. In July 2003, Fr. Philip Feltman of the Toledo archdiocese became the first American priest to be reinstated following a finding of insufficient evidence. Most observers expect there will be other such cases, and it’s an open question how public opinion in the United States will react. News reports suggest that Feltman’s congregation cheered his return.

As of this writing, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was preparing a set of guidelines about the ongoing obligations of dioceses to former priests even after dismissal from the clerical state. The idea is that a diocese should not simply dump an abuser on the wider community. The Vatican is also preparing to take another look at the American norms after the two-year review called for by the U.S. bishops. Some officials believe that a quiet, case-by-case relaxation of the zero tolerance stance may result from that review. This is based in part on evidence from therapists. St. Luke Institute claims a 4 percent recidivism rate for priests it has treated and released. Although this figure reflects only instances of abuse reported either to the police or the Church, and the actual number of new acts of abuse could be higher, nevertheless it suggests that treatment and follow-up supervision can be successful in at least some cases. Other observers, however, believe that public pressure and the interests of the broader community will make any relaxation of the zero tolerance standard impossible, even if the Holy See should favor it.

In terms of civil litigation, the damage to the Catholic Church has been enormous. In terms of settlements that are a matter of public record, Catholic dioceses have paid out between $138 million and $173.5 million. This, however, is the tip of the iceberg, because only a couple dozen dioceses out of the 195 in the United States have disclosed how much their settlements have cost.
Forbes
magazine estimated in June 2003 that the Church in the United States has paid a total of $1 billion either in jury-awarded damages or settlements to end lawsuits, and projected that the eventual price tag would be $5 billion. In the Boston archdiocese, personnel have been laid off and fifteen properties are up for sale in an attempt to offset costs related to litigation.

A similar toll is being taken across the country. The Worcester, Massachusetts, diocese acknowledged in January 2003 that it had spent $2.1 million settling lawsuits related to sexual abuse by priests. In June 2003, the Louisville, Kentucky, archdiocese agreed to pay $27.5 million to 243 people who accused priests of child sexual abuse. In 1997 the Dallas diocese was hit with a $120 million jury verdict in the case of former priest Rudy Kos, which was eventually negotiated down to $30 million. To date no American diocese has declared bankruptcy as a result of sexual abuse litigation, but several, including Boston, Dallas, and Santa Fe, have seriously considered the option. They have held back in part in fear of the ripple effects for other dioceses, since insurers and credit agencies might be more reluctant to do business with Catholic dioceses once the precedent is set that they can default on their obligations. The millions of dollars being consumed by dioceses on litigation is obviously money that otherwise could be spent on building church facilities, educating students, or feeding the hungry.

The total number of lawsuits pending against Catholic dioceses in the United States as of this writing was estimated to be 1,500, representing thousands of alleged victims. Attorneys who specialize in this kind of litigation, such as Roderick MacLeish Jr. of Boston, Jeffrey Anderson of Minneapolis, and Raymond Boucher of Beverly Hills, themselves represent hundreds of clients. MacLeish alone has won some $30 million for more than one hundred clients in the past decade. Boucher has a website with a secure form for alleged victims to submit information as potential clients. Moreover, these attorneys predict that success in litigation against the Catholic Church will prompt victims of sexual abuse by agents of other social institutions to come forward, including schools, day-care centers, the entertainment industry, and even the Boy Scouts. Some legal experts believe the eventual impact of sex abuse litigation may be measured in the tens of billions of dollars.