A piece on the tiresome tag team of Sr. Fran Ferder and Fr. John Heagle from the alternative Seattle Weekly.

And guess what?

It’s not what you would expect. The focus is not simply on their ministry of sharing noxious platitudes untethered from 4000 years of Judeo-Christian morality, not to speak of common sense, but most intriguingly, on their relationship to the Archdiocese of Seattle under Archbishop Hunthausen and their role in dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse.

Of course, they maintain they acted responsibly, and even parrot the very episcopal line that even in the mid-80’s, everyone thought this could be fixed by therapy.

(Note: My best friend in college was a Child and Family studies major who went on to be a counseler in the public health system. For some reason, I remember have a conversation with her – a young woman in her mid-20’s with an MA – in which she emphasized how in her circles, it was understood that sexual abusers were, for the most part, beyond therapy, and needed to basically be locked up. It was tragic and frustrating, but true, in her experience. Oh – and this was the mid-80’s.)

I don’t disagree with everything Ferder and Heagle say about the abuse situation, but the article raises interesting, albeit not damning, questions about the relationship between therapists paid by the Church to deal with abuse situations.

(The occasion of the article is a lawsuit filed against the two, by an abuse victim who claims that they tried to talk her out of suing the Church when she came to the Archdiocese with her story)