Deeply frustrated by perceptions among critics that the U.S. Catholic Church has done little to combat a sexual abuse crisis, American bishops meeting here Thursday heatedly defended their response to the scandal.
“People are saying a lot of things. Is there no attempt to judge whether this is a fair statement or an accurate statement or not?” Cardinal Francis George of Chicago asked reporters. “The facts are the bishops have moved, and moved dramatically, in ways that no other group has moved.”
Though the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened its semiannual meeting with a discussion of routine issues facing the church, many private discussions and the keynote address were aimed at the sexual abuse crisis that has confronted the church for more than a year.
In quiet conversations in hallways, small groups of bishops and cardinals, who had hoped they would be able to move forward, expressed frustration and sadness that events of the past week have reopened old wounds.
The resignation of Frank Keating, the outspoken former governor of Oklahoma, as head of the church’s sexual abuse oversight panel and the resignation of Phoenix Bishop Thomas O’Brien after he was charged in a fatal hit-and-run accident last weekend placed bishops under renewed scrutiny and opened them to chafing criticism from those who believe they have not done enough.
Auxiliary Bishop John Manz of Chicago compared the situation to a bruise that hasn’t been allowed to heal.
In the year since the the bishops conference voted in Dallas to institute a series of sexual abuse reforms, it has created a lay National Review Board of prominent Catholic judges, physicians and business people to oversee its efforts; hundreds of priests have been removed from ministry; safe haven training programs have been instituted in the nation’s 195 dioceses; and a handful of studies have begun to determine the scope and causes of the crisis.
“There’s an awful lot that the Catholic Church in the United States is doing, is doing well, is doing effectively and is doing with great spirit and generosity,” said Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, president of the bishops conference, in an evening news conference. “If anything, we would like that to be recognized. I think that would be a fair interpretation.”
But as the bishops met to discuss progress on those reforms Thursday, three dozen members of victims groups and lay activists held a prayer vigil across the street to commemorate those who had committed suicide after falling victim to sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.
Some demonstrators belonged to the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, others to the lay groups Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action. Most held up pictures of children at the age at which they had been abused.
“I was 14. He was 33,” read one. Another: “Maria, Age 15. Abused in Rome, N.Y. He kept repeating `May God Forgive You.'”
Among the bishops, conversations ranged from depression to frustration and mutual support.
“We all know that we are going through a difficult time and that some real problems within the church have been magnified to discredit the moral authority of the church,” Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, a papal representative, said in his keynote remarks at the beginning of the conference Thursday morning. “Nevertheless, it is precisely in times such as these that as bishops we must stand together as men of faith.”
Many in the church believe some groups of lay people with long-standing disagreements with Catholic teachings have exaggerated the abuse crisis as a means to promote such issues as allowing women into the priesthood, marriage for clerics, abortion and lay participation in church oversight.
Voice of the Faithful, which gained national attention in Boston at the height of the abuse scandal last year, has been singled out for criticism by many in the church hierarchy because it has welcomed some of those groups into its fold, said Steven Krueger, executive director of Voice of the Faithful.
The organization has expanded in the last year to include more than 30,000 members, he said, and it has transformed “from an organization into more of a movement” since they confronted bishops in Dallas last June.
“They think it’s all about theology and ecclesiastics. They don’t understand that to have moral leadership, you need to connect with the people,” Krueger said. The increasing organization of lay people is “evolving into something else. I don’t know what that is yet, but people are saying, `This is my church too.'”
The American bishops had hoped they would be able to move forward with other matters at this year’s meeting. Still topping their agenda is consideration of a document that would take American culture into account as the church instructs deacons and another detailing how to present Catholicism to converts.
But the week’s events have fueled interest in a plenary council to address the root issues of the church’s problems in America, said Archbishop Daniel Buechlein of Indianapolis.
The plenary council would “go deeper to see just how deep are these concerns and how complex they are,” Buechlein said. A decision on holding such a synod would not be made until next year.
Nevertheless, the bishops have set aside a day of “prayerful reflection” Friday to consider what items should be considered if such a meeting is held.
“The challenges which we’re facing urge that kind of prayerful reflection,” Buechlein said.
Though not opposed to the idea of such a meeting, George said that as for the early steps of addressing the abuse crisis, “what we have promised to do has been done. What remains is procedural.”
But much still remains, said Gregory.
“It is a serious moment in the life of the church, and only the most naive would have anticipated that it would have been solved in the twinkling of an eye,” he said. “It took time to get where we were. It will take more time to complete the process of healing and the restoration of confidence we promised.”
“They’re not done. Because what have they done to help those thousands of people who think they’re the only ones to be abused?” asked Janet Patterson, 59, a resident of Conway Springs, Kan.
Patterson said her son was one of five people who committed suicide after being abused by the same Wichita diocese priest.
