The First Sign That Rome Is Ready to Face the Sexual Abuse Crisis

When Pope John Paul II belatedly accepted the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law Friday, he may have done the very thing that the Vatican was said to have most dreaded: set in motion a domino effect that will send more U.S. bishops toppling from their sees in disgrace. Law's departure from the chancery of Boston is far more important than the fate of one embattled cardinal. It is the first sign that Rome is ready to face up to the magnitude of the sexual abuse problem in the Church.

The Vatican hadn't seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation. The recent release of a memo from the pope regarding an offending priest was a huge blow to the Vatican's image. Billed as the "smoking gun" in the scandal, the pope's memo seems to show that the Vatican endorsed the policy of merely transferring offending priests to another parish or diocese. The memo authorized a transfer for a defrocked priest but added that the priest in question could remain in his original diocese, where his "condition" was known, if it would not cause scandal.

A disturbing aspect of these scandals for Catholics who, like me, believe that John Paul could be known one day as John Paul the Great is that these horrible events have unfolded in a time when a hierarchy largely of his choosing is in place. With some egregious exceptions (the disgraced Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee), today's hierarchy is not the "liberal" hierarchy composed of men appointed during previous pontificates. Law was the quintessential representative of the John Paul II hierarchy. Something obviously is quite wrong. The next pope must look carefully at how bishops are chosen. They must be men who believe that sin is more deadly than scandal. Holy men who speak the truth are preferable to bureaucrats.

Law is the first domino to fall, but there are many more who must fall if the Church is to reclaim her reputation. If the pope is the instigator of Law's departure, that signals the Church's Watergate may be coming to a head. But there is a lot that remains to be done to clean out the Augean Stable that has taken over the Church. As this is written, Catholics in my area are upset about another bishop, Bishop Paul Loverde of Arlington, Va., who isn't--at least not yet--in the national spotlight. But there is a great deal of trouble in his diocese. When the Rev. James R. Haley, a priest in Loverde's diocese, charged that several Arlington priests were wont to make use of pornographic videos and photos, guess who got in trouble with the bishop? Haley, who was placed on leave. The Arlington diocese was also slow to respond to an anguished husband whose wife ran off with a priest of the diocese who was counseling her about marital problems.

The Church has closed her eyes to the sins of priests. The attitude of the Church seems to have been that it's unfortunate when priests sin, but it would be worse if people found out. The Church's curious reliance on psychiatrists and treatment centers, not necessarily bad as far as they go, to deal with sexual abuse by priests shows a strange lack of faith in the Church's own effectiveness in understanding the darker urges of mankind.

Continued on page 2: »