Real reform eludes American Catholics

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/86009

 

March 17, 2007

Real reform eludes American Catholics

 

American Catholics who want the Vatican to adopt reforms won't beeffective until they find an ear in Rome, says an investigative writerwhose books about clergy sexual abuse were a factor in Pope BenedictXVI's removal last May of the founder of the Legion of Christ.

Bishops across the U.S. are working hard to ensure that procedures arein place to prevent abuse and catch abusers, said Jason Berry,co-author of "Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of JohnPaul II."

"The greater problem is in Rome, and I think the greater challengeto the reform movement of Catholics in the United States is toestablish dialogue with officials in Rome and get the right informationto them so they will be forced to reckon with the flawed responses thatthey have made," he said.

Berry will speak March 24 in Tempe to Catholics involved in Callto Action, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP,and Voice of the Faithful, all of which have criticized the RomanCatholic Church, at all levels, for ineffectively stemming sexual abuseof children, primarily by priests, going back decades. Some groups havepressed for an end to mandatory celibacy, a greater role of lay peoplein decision-making, permitting priests to marry and allowing women inthe priesthood.

At the five-hour event, the investigative writer from New Orleanswill show a rough cut of his new documentary film, "Vows of Silence,"which examines the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, now 87, whom Benedictexpelled from the priesthood and ordered to spend the remainder of hislife in "prayer and penitence." The Mexican priest founded the Legionof Christ in 1941 and saw it grow to an order of 650 priests and 2,500seminarians in 20 countries, plus 50,000 members of the lay affiliateRegnum Christi. Degollado, called a "favorite of Pope John Paul II,"was accused of abusing at least 20 victims between 1943 and the early1960s.

"That is a lot of people for a priest to abuse," Berry said. "TheVatican created Marcial, sheltered him and, in the end, had to ease himout by trying to minimize, in the media, the damage that he had done."

The case "reached closer to Pope John Paul II than any otherscandal or canonical proceeding within the church that any of us areaware of," said Berry. "The allegations were made known, both in themedia and canon law cases themselves in 1997 and 1998, and for sixyears, John Paul did nothing. He refused to take action on it.

"The Vatican has not come to terms with what this crisis means andthe kind of systemic reforms that are necessary," he said.

Berry's first book in 1992, "Lead Us Not Into Temptation: CatholicPriests and the Sexual Abuse of Children," had its roots in his owninvestigation of a priest named Gilbert Gauthe, who was indicted in1984 by a Lafayette, La., grand jury on 34 counts of sexual abuseinvolving nine boys.

"The film goes into some depth on the way the Vatican investigatedMarcial, and it profiles the men, primarily from Mexico," Berry said.It also follows the process that a canon lawyer, Monsignor CharlesScicluna, took to investigate the powerful priest. Berry calls theLegion of Christ a "money machine within the church," with an annualbudget of $60 million and ownership, since 1995, of the influentialNational Catholic Register weekly newspaper, a tool of fundraising.

Berry said he was disappointed that when Pope Benedict removedDegollado, he "did not put hard scrutiny on the Legion itself andRegnum Christi, so the film addresses that as well."

In the book "Vows of Silence," he writes about abuse scandals inArizona. They tell of the Rev. Robert Trupia, who began his priest workin Yuma in 1973. There, he "almost immediately began molesting 11- and12-year-old altar boys in the rectory after Sunday services." Thepriest, who would later serve as judicial vicar, was charged in Yuma in2001 with seven counts of child molestation. Trupia was briefly jailed,but the charges were dropped after his lawyer argued that the five-yearstatute of limitations on sex crimes committed before 1978 had expired.He was defrocked in 2004.

He also wrote about sexual misconduct by the Rev. James Rausch,one-time general secretary of the National Conference of CatholicBishops, who was bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix from 1977until he died in 1981. Investigations found that Rausch had paid astreet hustler for sex. In 2003, the Boston Globe's PulitzerPrize-winning investigation reported on unsealed court documents, inconnection with 11 lawsuits, that Rausch, Trupia and a third priestengaged in sex in the early 1980s with a Tucson teenager who was latergiven a chancery job to ensure his silence. "Rausch was quite a symptomof the crisis to come," Berry said.

While there were widespread reports of abuses in local dioceses,he said, the Boston Globe's investigation and many lawsuits finallybrought the scandal to national attention five years ago, forcing theU.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to establish safeguards againstabuse.

"I think it is hard for people to appreciate how extensive thiscrisis is," Berry said. "Church leaders understandably want it to goaway, but it does reflect on systemic problems on the governing of thechurch. The fact is that bishops do not have a tradition ofaccountability, and there's the Vatican's aversion to removing bishopswho blunder or who abuse themselves."