Reports
of abuse cases settled by a moral leader behind closed doors, with the
terms of settlement hushed up--was this today's news on the Catholic
Church sex scandal? No, this story targeted the chairwoman of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, who had just quietly settled three of seven
charges that she discriminated against Hispanic employees. The facts
emerged only after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ordered
Mary Francis Berry, who is African-American, to pay one of the claimants,
Emma Monroig, $160,000 and to reinstate her as CCR staff solicitor.
Seven charges in a staff of 75 represents one in six employees claiming
abuse, in an agency charged with using its moral authority to right
civil rights wrongs!
What, you missed this in the news? It certainly had the same type of
man bites dog appeal as the church expose, with a government anti-discrimination
agency discriminating on a massive scale. So, what happened? It sank
in the news oblivion. Clearly, the story did not fit the liberal media
stereotype of how to appeal to popular prejudice. Favored minorities
are in and religious peoples are out, especially conservative ones.
A recent poll of 550 American non-Catholics by sociologist Rev. Andrew
Greeley, himself not especially traditionalist, found that 52 percent
believed that American Catholics really are not permitted to think for
themselves. A remarkable 73 percent believed they did "what the Pope
and bishops tell them to do." A strong majority of 57 percent thought
Catholic statues and images were "idols," making them good candidates
for news demonization.
As in the CCR cases, there was serious abuse by some Catholic priests
and that was simply horrible. Unlike the CCR cases, remedial action
was taken. In the first place, only one half of one percent of 45,000
priests have been accused--compared to twelve percent of civil rights
commission employees. Second, according to a survey of 178 dioceses
over the past two decades, 232 abusive priests have been removed from
the ministry. Four-fifths of dioceses already rely upon oversight committees
with lay representation. Over half already automatically report all
abuse charges to state authorities. Third, like the political map of
conservative red and liberal blue, charges are overwhelmingly from the
later areas. Finally, contrary to what the liberal National Catholic
Reporter has been labeling for 15 years as the "pedophile priest" problem,
a Chicago study of its 2,200 priests, found 40 identified as sexual
abusers, only one of whom was a pedophile. The predominant problem was
homosexual abuse involving teenagers.
In the old days, homosexuality was a sin, an American Psychiatric Association-recognized
abnormality, and a crime. Then we all got sophisticated and it was ok--except
for these antediluvian priests. After years of being called unsophisticated
bumpkins by secular and religious media alike, the bishops finally relented
and agreed it was simply disease. Well, diseases have cures, see, so
when a psychiatrist says one is cured, why not put him back in service?
Every example of a priest put back in parish work by a bishop was at
the recommendation of a psychiatric doctor who certified the abuser
as cured. The poor bishops should have stuck with the old sin approach
and recognized that evil is not so easily treatable. Since September
11, evil and sin are back in the public lexicon.
Liberal Catholics have long pressed an agenda that the secular media
have been happy to advance. At the recent meeting of bishops in Dallas,
these were not subtle in pushing their cause. As reported, they demanded
an end to celibacy for the priesthood, control of church decision-making
by the laity rather than bishops, and independence from the Pope. The
fact that Church authorities allowed Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, editor
of the very liberal Commonweal magazine, and R. Scott Appleby, a senior
fellow at the Joan B. Krock Institute for International Peace Studies,
to make their case on the official program shows the continuing and
enormous left-wing influence upon the Church bureaucrats who selected
them, as well as the fact that the bishops still do not understand the
source of their difficulties.
Fortunately, the Catholic laity do get it. Ordinary members love their
priests, support celibacy as long as the Vatican says it is necessary,
want the bishops to lead, and they positively revere the Pope. A recent
story in The Washington Post, reporting upon its own poll, headlined:
"Sex Abuse Policy Dissatisfies Catholics." Well, of course, they were
upset with the scandals but a close reader had to persevere to the penultimate
paragraph to find what Catholics really thought--67 percent said they
trusted the Church to handle these problems for the future. One cabdriver
told NPR Radio, we have survived bad popes and schisms, and worse, and
we'll survive this too and be stronger for the test.
Donald
Devine, former director Of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management,
is a columnist and a Washington-based policy consultant and a Vice Chairman
for the American Conservative Union.
