Sexual Abuse in the Church

The vital role the Catholic Church has been able to play in the culture and public policy of the United States has been severely harmed by the sexual abuse scandal.

The annual sexual abuse audit report was released March 7, 2008 by the US Catholic Bishops and comments last month by the author of "The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture", a collapse directly attributed to the sexual scandal and the failure of Church leadership to address it, are pertinent, Lawler (February 2008) comments:

"The programs that the US bishops put in place after their memorable meeting in Dallas in June 2002 were designed to curb sexual abuse by Catholic clerics. But the programs did not address the other fundamental problem raised by the sex-abuse scandal: the devastating loss of confidence in the American bishops.

"Only a small minority of Catholic priests were engaged in sexual misconduct with young people, and now programs are in place to identify those predator-priests and remove them from active ministry. But a large majority of the American bishops were implicated in the effort to cover up clerical misconduct, and most of those delinquent bishops remain in office today, with their credibility in shreds.

"Nothing could be more damaging to Church authority than the suspicion that bishops would mislead their own people. Ultimately, we all received the faith from someone else, whose witness we must consider trustworthy if we are to maintain that faith.

"We profess the faith "that comes to us from the apostles" and still speaks authoritatively today through the successors to the apostles, our bishops. A bishop who lies to his people undermines the basis for our faith in Catholic authority, and thus undermines his own position.

"A generation or two ago, Catholics formed a solid, cohesive force in American public life, particularly in the eastern cities like Boston, where the Catholic population was most heavily concentrated. The undeniable political power of the Church reflected the solidarity among the Catholic faithful, who were united in their beliefs, their practices, and their acceptance of Church authority. Catholics tended to think alike, behave alike, and so naturally to vote alike.

"From the perspective of the hierarchy, this unity among the faithful had obvious practical advantages. A Catholic bishop was a figure of considerable importance in the public life of society; even if he had no particular interest in politics, he commanded the respect of politicians who recognized that the bishop could sway thousands of votes whenever he chose to do so.

"Notice here that the bishop's prestige was not derived from his political acumen nor from the force of his rhetoric. He was acknowledged first and foremost as a religious authority, and his public clout reflected the understanding that lay Catholics would follow his lead on practical matters because they were accustomed to accepting his authority on questions of faith and morals.

"To protect that authority, the bishop had to ensure first that the Catholic faithful continued to accept the doctrinal and moral authority of the Church magisterium, and second that they acknowledged him personally as a reliable witness for the Church. With the doctrinal and disciplinary breakdown that followed Vatican II, American bishops began to lose the first of these necessary bases for their authority. With their dishonest response to the sex-abuse scandal, they sacrificed the second. So now the American Catholic hierarchy must restore the authority that was once taken for granted by bishops and laity alike." (n.p.)

Lawler, P.F. (February 2008). A shrewd move: Catholic World Report. Retrieved March 5, 2008