Decades ago, Rev. Martin Luther King spoke these words. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” Rev. King, did not speak from the safe distances of beaches of Malibu. Rev, King spoke from the steps of Washington DC, and he also spoke from the jails of Alabama, and from the streets of Detroit. As a leader he didn’t choose to speak from a safe distance, he chose to speak words that mattered, in places that needed it. Rev. King did not take the easy path. He took the path that made a difference.
An opportunity missed.
The decision by Pope Benedict to bypass Boston during his impending visit is an opportunity missed.
Over the past six years, more than 5,000 priests have been accused -- and some convicted -- of sexual abuse. Thousands of victims have come forward; hundreds of thousands of documents have been released; arrests have been made; sentences have been handed down and over $2 billion dollars has been paid out in settlements. There is no longer a question of “Did it happen?”
It happened.
Pope Benedict’s decision not to come to Boston simply reminds some of us of what some church officials said over 6 years ago, “It never really happened”.
As the moral leader of a faith I once called mine, Pope Benedict has not only an obligation but a genuine responsibility. He is not only the leader of the good Catholics, he is the leader of every catholic. He cannot afford the liberty of choosing to lead only the most willing of followers in the easiest of times.
As a moral leader, he needs to accept the responsibility of addressing challenges the church has faced in the past and in the present. He cannot afford the liberty of facing only the easy issues. He must be willing to lead on the tough issues. He must accept the fact that while some of us no longer consider ourselves Catholics, we still have the need to believe in something good, something true and something real. While the Catholic Church may never again be that for many of us, some of us still have the strong desire and longing to believe in something more.
I am not looking for someone to erase the memories, restore my innocence or restore my faith. A visit by Pope Benedict to Boston would accomplish none of that. The Pope's visit might, however, lend to aid my faith in humanity if he were willing to acknowledge that the church is taking a headstrong, life long approach to protecting generations to come.
As a survivor, as the brother of a survivor & as the son of a survivor, I came forward to make sure that I would never have to say "I am the father of a survivor of clergy abuse".
What I am looking for today, is the same thing I was looking for when I first came forward over 6 years ago, to protect tomorrow generation by having direct and constructive dialog with today’s generation by breaking the cycle of silence. A visit by Pope Benedict to Boston, could have certainly helped to accomplish that.
Years ago, survivors began speaking these words in Boston “I was a victim of Clergy abuse”. Words that I know well. I am not proud of that statement, however I am no longer ashamed of it. Those words have enabled survivors to pry open a door which had been closed for decades. As the moral leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict can not look at that door from a distance, nor can he simply stand on the threshold. He must walk through it.
This weekend, as it has been for the past 6 years, the door to Boston remains open. I welcome Pope Benedict to walk through it.
Contact :
Gary M. Bergeron
garymbergeron@gmail.com
Gary Bergeron, an outspoken survivor of clergy abuse, is the author of “Don't Call Me A Victim, Faith, Hope & Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church”
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Friday, April 8, 2005
Trip to the Vatican
New England reflections
He was the pope who traveled the world, reached out to other faiths, inspired the young and the old. He led the Catholic Church during the fall of communism and the clergy sex abuse scandal. Pope John Paul II touched thousands of lives, many of them directly. Here are some New Englanders' stories.
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | April 8, 2005
Andrew Demaio
A gentle touch from someone 'genuinely holy'
His palms were uncalloused, so soft that ''it felt like he was wearing a velvet glove." The cross around his neck was bright, pure gold. The blue eyes were soft and direct.
But mostly, Andrew DeMaio remembers the hand: the way it rested gently on the right side of his head, as Pope John Paul II offered a quiet blessing, for healing.
It was 1998, and DeMaio, then 32, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. A doctor in Virginia had told him he had a year to live.
The trip to Rome came up by happenstance: A neighbor of DeMaio's sister worked for the Flying Hospital, an airplane outfitted with an operating room, then owned by evangelist Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. The hospital's patrons were headed to Rome on a fund-raising trip, and invited DeMaio and his sister. Sometime before the pope's public audience that week, someone had sent word to the Vatican that DeMaio could use a blessing.
So DeMaio and his sister gathered, with nearly 1,000 others at a huge auditorium at the Vatican. They marveled at the people who had come from across the world, the electricity that rippled through the room when the pope appeared.
''I don't know if everybody's jaws just dropped like mine did," DeMaio said.
And when, after waiting in a long, long line, he finally reached the holy man, the pope, without a word, pressed his palm on one side of DeMaio's head. The tumor was right there. And that brief blur of a moment, DeMaio says, left him with a lasting thought: This man was ''genuinely holy, something that I have not experienced from meeting any person other than him before."
DeMaio returned to the United States, where his health improved. In 2003 he moved to Boston, where he works as a docent at the Old North Church. The tumor is still there; he receives treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. But he said he feels good.
''I don't discount the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit," he said. ''I don't discount any of that. I like to believe that the pope had something to do with the fact that I'm still here today. It certainly didn't hurt, going to see Pope John Paul II."
Gary Bergeron
'Incredible man' though paths never converged
He never managed to meet the pope, though he got close. Gary Bergeron spent the better part of a week inside the halls of the Vatican, meeting with administrators, waiting in well-appointed chairs, asking for an audience, and asking again.
It was March 2003, and Bergeron, then 40, wanted Pope John Paul II to understand. Bergeron says he is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, a victim for years of the Rev. Joseph Birmingham at St. Michael Church in Lowell. Since the scandal had broken, Bergeron had met with accusations and cold responses from the Archdiocese of Boston. The Vatican seemed no different.
But Bergeron knew this pope's life story, the way he had fought communism and sought reconciliation with the Jewish and Orthodox communities. And he believed that if he sat with survivors face to face, if he heard their stories, John Paul II would understand, and would respond.
So Bergeron went to Rome uninvited, along with Bernie McDaid of Salem, another man who says Birmingham abused him, and Bergeron's father, Joseph ''Eddie" Bergeron, who said he had also been abused by a priest. For days, they went to the Vatican and knocked on doors. They went to church officials' homes. The Swiss Guards at the Vatican said they had made bets on how far the trio would progress. The staff at the cafe across the street from their hotel took messages when the hotel phones failed.
The evening before the Bergerons and McDaid were scheduled to return to the United States, the Vatican sent two officials to Bergeron's hotel suite. The group spoke for more than two hours. The next morning, a package arrived at the hotel: a note from the Holy Father, wishing for safe passage, and offering a gift of rosary beads.
It was something, but not enough.
''I would have liked to have given him the opportunity to know who we were and what we were about, and it was an opportunity missed," Gary Bergeron said. ''However, I judge a man by the sum of his life, and not by one deed. I still think of him as a pretty incredible man."
And he has spent the past week reflecting on two paths that -- despite his fiercest efforts -- never converged.
''Many people think the journey that, as a survivor, I've taken has been about vengeance," Bergeron said. ''You know what? This has really been a journey of peace for me, making peace with my past and finding the inner peace that I've never had in my entire life. This man was able to die in peace. My journey continues."
Thaddeus Buczko
He ate lobster at Jimmy's - and gave a lesson
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had never eaten lobster.
He may have been a scholar, a skier, a poet. But when Wojtyla, then archbishop of Krakow, arrived in Boston in 1969, on one leg of his good-will tour of Polish-American communities, he had a hole in his culinary repertoire -- before Thaddeus Buczko got involved.
At the time, Buczko was state auditor and a friend of Monsignor Stanislaus Sypek, the Polish pastor of St. Adalbert's Church in Hyde Park. Sypek was guiding the cardinal through Boston, and asked Buczko to arrange for a luncheon with local leaders.
It was a fitting choice; like the cardinal, Buczko had managed to maintain a Polish identity in a firmly non-Polish milieu. The American-born son of Polish peasants, he had won a City Council seat in an Irish-Catholic district in Salem, served as state representative and, in 1964, was elected auditor statewide. He knew how to work the system.
But this was a new political problem: where to have lunch with a cardinal?
Buczko asked his administrative assistant, Jane Kelly, who suggested Jimmy's Harborside.
Two weeks later, Wojtyla, in dark cassock, joined politicians and local clergy in an upstairs room at the waterfront restaurant. He had two entree choices: beef or baked stuffed lobster. He chose the lobster. And as he sat beside Buczko, speaking in Polish with English interspersed, he offered a gentle lesson.
Buczko told him that his mother had always referred to lobsters as ''raki." Wojtyla explained that it was the word for crayfish or crab. Lobster, in Polish, was ''homar." From Latin, he said. Quite close to the word in French.
It was a gracious explanation, Buczko recalled -- almost as gracious as the speech Wojtyla gave, thanking Buczko for the gathering and making a cheerful prediction. Someday, he said, the state auditor might become governor, or senator, or even president of the United States.
When Buczko rose for his closing remarks, he had to return the compliment. ''Someday," he announced, ''Cardinal Wojtyla may actually become pope."
At the time, ''it was all in good fun," said Buczko, now 79. Everyone smiled, applauded, and laughed, certain it would never really happen.
Leonard P. Zakim
Papal blessing came with sneeze, knightly honor
Among the things Leonard P. Zakim wanted to experience before he died was a visit, in Vatican City, with Pope John Paul II.
Zakim had spent his tenure as New England director of the Anti-Defamation League working to improve interfaith relations. He and the pontiff shared a desire for reconciliation and cross-cultural understanding.
They also shared the need to be strong in the face of illness.
By November 1999, when the Catholic-Jewish pilgrimage -- which Zakim had helped to organize with his friend, Cardinal Bernard Law -- was scheduled to leave Boston for 10 days in Israel and Rome, Zakim's bone marrow cancer had worsened. He skipped the Israel leg of the trip and met the group in Italy. He wore a neck brace and brought a friend to help with medication. But his spirits were high, recalls Christy Jackowitz, the league's acting director.
And on a bright-hot Monday, he went with the group to St. Peter's Square. They sat beneath an open-air tent as the pope -- who stayed seated, his head bowed -- addressed the teeming crowd in 16 languages.
Then they drew close to receive a papal blessing.
Zakim brought the pope a book, ''And I Still See Their Faces: Images of Polish Jews." The pope laid a hand on Zakim's head and prayed for his health. The pontiff sneezed. Zakim said, ''Gesundheit." Both of them smiled.
Afterward, the group was led to a private room inside the Vatican, where an official described, for them, the highest lay honor the church bestows: the Knight of St. Gregory. In front of the group, Jackowitz said, the official pinned a medal on Zakim's lapel and made him a knight.
''This is a kid from Wayne, New Jersey, who tried to play football," said Zakim's friend, Harold W. Schwartz. ''It's mind-boggling. No one's blowing this up bigger than it was."
Zakim sat behind Schwartz on the plane ride home. ''He was thrilled and proud," Schwartz said. ''He was beaming. But you could see that he was tired."
Zakim died a month later, at 46. His funeral, at Temple Emanuel in Newton, was attended by 1,800 people from various faiths.
The girls of Our Lady of Nazareth Academy
Young singers won't forget his 'peacefulness'
Patricia Tamagini saw the ad in a Catholic magazine, in 1994. It was a contest, seeking high school groups to sing original contemporary Christian music. At the Vatican.
This was a perfect opportunity, thought Tamagini, the director of performing arts and theology at Our Lady of Nazareth Academy in Wakefield. Her daughter Lora, a teacher at the school, had written contemporary Christian songs. The chamber singer choir had recorded a compact disc. Tamagini sent it along with her application.
Patricia Tamagini received an invitation to Rome. And 44 girls from Wakefield started furiously raising money, so they could sing for the pope in St. Peter's Square.
''It was never an option not to go. We had to go," said Jennifer Fontana, a sophomore at the time, now 24. ''I mean, Italy. To see the pope. My God."
They held concerts and bake sales and collected sponsorships. They planned a singing tour at churches in Rome, Florence, Sienna, and Assisi. On the flight to Rome, the crew asked them to sing from their seats.
And on April 16, 1996, they put on their school uniforms -- sweaters, plaid polyester skirts -- and headed to St. Peter's Square. They stood at the foot of the basilica steps, with groups of young singers from Poland, Spain, Austria, and France. The pope, still healthy and vibrant, stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the music. When the singing was over, the girls climbed up to him, and he walked over to thank them.
In English, he praised their voices, recalls Patricia Tamagini, now 66. He thanked Lora Tamagini for her beautiful songs. ''God bless you," she told him. ''No," he said. ''God bless you."
For a teenage girl -- Catholic or not -- he left a firm impression.
''He had amazing presence, just this feeling of kindness," said Laura White, a Congregationalist, now 24.
''He had this fantastic peacefulness about him," Fontana said.
But what struck Patricia Tamagini most was that this elevated man, the leader of his faith, had taken the time to linger with a group of girls.
''He was so gentle and down to earth. Just really down to earth," Tamagini said. ''Holding our hands and talking with us eye to eye."
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
He was the pope who traveled the world, reached out to other faiths, inspired the young and the old. He led the Catholic Church during the fall of communism and the clergy sex abuse scandal. Pope John Paul II touched thousands of lives, many of them directly. Here are some New Englanders' stories.
By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff | April 8, 2005
Andrew Demaio
A gentle touch from someone 'genuinely holy'
His palms were uncalloused, so soft that ''it felt like he was wearing a velvet glove." The cross around his neck was bright, pure gold. The blue eyes were soft and direct.
But mostly, Andrew DeMaio remembers the hand: the way it rested gently on the right side of his head, as Pope John Paul II offered a quiet blessing, for healing.
It was 1998, and DeMaio, then 32, had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. A doctor in Virginia had told him he had a year to live.
The trip to Rome came up by happenstance: A neighbor of DeMaio's sister worked for the Flying Hospital, an airplane outfitted with an operating room, then owned by evangelist Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. The hospital's patrons were headed to Rome on a fund-raising trip, and invited DeMaio and his sister. Sometime before the pope's public audience that week, someone had sent word to the Vatican that DeMaio could use a blessing.
So DeMaio and his sister gathered, with nearly 1,000 others at a huge auditorium at the Vatican. They marveled at the people who had come from across the world, the electricity that rippled through the room when the pope appeared.
''I don't know if everybody's jaws just dropped like mine did," DeMaio said.
And when, after waiting in a long, long line, he finally reached the holy man, the pope, without a word, pressed his palm on one side of DeMaio's head. The tumor was right there. And that brief blur of a moment, DeMaio says, left him with a lasting thought: This man was ''genuinely holy, something that I have not experienced from meeting any person other than him before."
DeMaio returned to the United States, where his health improved. In 2003 he moved to Boston, where he works as a docent at the Old North Church. The tumor is still there; he receives treatment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. But he said he feels good.
''I don't discount the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit," he said. ''I don't discount any of that. I like to believe that the pope had something to do with the fact that I'm still here today. It certainly didn't hurt, going to see Pope John Paul II."
Gary Bergeron
'Incredible man' though paths never converged
He never managed to meet the pope, though he got close. Gary Bergeron spent the better part of a week inside the halls of the Vatican, meeting with administrators, waiting in well-appointed chairs, asking for an audience, and asking again.
It was March 2003, and Bergeron, then 40, wanted Pope John Paul II to understand. Bergeron says he is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, a victim for years of the Rev. Joseph Birmingham at St. Michael Church in Lowell. Since the scandal had broken, Bergeron had met with accusations and cold responses from the Archdiocese of Boston. The Vatican seemed no different.
But Bergeron knew this pope's life story, the way he had fought communism and sought reconciliation with the Jewish and Orthodox communities. And he believed that if he sat with survivors face to face, if he heard their stories, John Paul II would understand, and would respond.
So Bergeron went to Rome uninvited, along with Bernie McDaid of Salem, another man who says Birmingham abused him, and Bergeron's father, Joseph ''Eddie" Bergeron, who said he had also been abused by a priest. For days, they went to the Vatican and knocked on doors. They went to church officials' homes. The Swiss Guards at the Vatican said they had made bets on how far the trio would progress. The staff at the cafe across the street from their hotel took messages when the hotel phones failed.
The evening before the Bergerons and McDaid were scheduled to return to the United States, the Vatican sent two officials to Bergeron's hotel suite. The group spoke for more than two hours. The next morning, a package arrived at the hotel: a note from the Holy Father, wishing for safe passage, and offering a gift of rosary beads.
It was something, but not enough.
''I would have liked to have given him the opportunity to know who we were and what we were about, and it was an opportunity missed," Gary Bergeron said. ''However, I judge a man by the sum of his life, and not by one deed. I still think of him as a pretty incredible man."
And he has spent the past week reflecting on two paths that -- despite his fiercest efforts -- never converged.
''Many people think the journey that, as a survivor, I've taken has been about vengeance," Bergeron said. ''You know what? This has really been a journey of peace for me, making peace with my past and finding the inner peace that I've never had in my entire life. This man was able to die in peace. My journey continues."
Thaddeus Buczko
He ate lobster at Jimmy's - and gave a lesson
Cardinal Karol Wojtyla had never eaten lobster.
He may have been a scholar, a skier, a poet. But when Wojtyla, then archbishop of Krakow, arrived in Boston in 1969, on one leg of his good-will tour of Polish-American communities, he had a hole in his culinary repertoire -- before Thaddeus Buczko got involved.
At the time, Buczko was state auditor and a friend of Monsignor Stanislaus Sypek, the Polish pastor of St. Adalbert's Church in Hyde Park. Sypek was guiding the cardinal through Boston, and asked Buczko to arrange for a luncheon with local leaders.
It was a fitting choice; like the cardinal, Buczko had managed to maintain a Polish identity in a firmly non-Polish milieu. The American-born son of Polish peasants, he had won a City Council seat in an Irish-Catholic district in Salem, served as state representative and, in 1964, was elected auditor statewide. He knew how to work the system.
But this was a new political problem: where to have lunch with a cardinal?
Buczko asked his administrative assistant, Jane Kelly, who suggested Jimmy's Harborside.
Two weeks later, Wojtyla, in dark cassock, joined politicians and local clergy in an upstairs room at the waterfront restaurant. He had two entree choices: beef or baked stuffed lobster. He chose the lobster. And as he sat beside Buczko, speaking in Polish with English interspersed, he offered a gentle lesson.
Buczko told him that his mother had always referred to lobsters as ''raki." Wojtyla explained that it was the word for crayfish or crab. Lobster, in Polish, was ''homar." From Latin, he said. Quite close to the word in French.
It was a gracious explanation, Buczko recalled -- almost as gracious as the speech Wojtyla gave, thanking Buczko for the gathering and making a cheerful prediction. Someday, he said, the state auditor might become governor, or senator, or even president of the United States.
When Buczko rose for his closing remarks, he had to return the compliment. ''Someday," he announced, ''Cardinal Wojtyla may actually become pope."
At the time, ''it was all in good fun," said Buczko, now 79. Everyone smiled, applauded, and laughed, certain it would never really happen.
Leonard P. Zakim
Papal blessing came with sneeze, knightly honor
Among the things Leonard P. Zakim wanted to experience before he died was a visit, in Vatican City, with Pope John Paul II.
Zakim had spent his tenure as New England director of the Anti-Defamation League working to improve interfaith relations. He and the pontiff shared a desire for reconciliation and cross-cultural understanding.
They also shared the need to be strong in the face of illness.
By November 1999, when the Catholic-Jewish pilgrimage -- which Zakim had helped to organize with his friend, Cardinal Bernard Law -- was scheduled to leave Boston for 10 days in Israel and Rome, Zakim's bone marrow cancer had worsened. He skipped the Israel leg of the trip and met the group in Italy. He wore a neck brace and brought a friend to help with medication. But his spirits were high, recalls Christy Jackowitz, the league's acting director.
And on a bright-hot Monday, he went with the group to St. Peter's Square. They sat beneath an open-air tent as the pope -- who stayed seated, his head bowed -- addressed the teeming crowd in 16 languages.
Then they drew close to receive a papal blessing.
Zakim brought the pope a book, ''And I Still See Their Faces: Images of Polish Jews." The pope laid a hand on Zakim's head and prayed for his health. The pontiff sneezed. Zakim said, ''Gesundheit." Both of them smiled.
Afterward, the group was led to a private room inside the Vatican, where an official described, for them, the highest lay honor the church bestows: the Knight of St. Gregory. In front of the group, Jackowitz said, the official pinned a medal on Zakim's lapel and made him a knight.
''This is a kid from Wayne, New Jersey, who tried to play football," said Zakim's friend, Harold W. Schwartz. ''It's mind-boggling. No one's blowing this up bigger than it was."
Zakim sat behind Schwartz on the plane ride home. ''He was thrilled and proud," Schwartz said. ''He was beaming. But you could see that he was tired."
Zakim died a month later, at 46. His funeral, at Temple Emanuel in Newton, was attended by 1,800 people from various faiths.
The girls of Our Lady of Nazareth Academy
Young singers won't forget his 'peacefulness'
Patricia Tamagini saw the ad in a Catholic magazine, in 1994. It was a contest, seeking high school groups to sing original contemporary Christian music. At the Vatican.
This was a perfect opportunity, thought Tamagini, the director of performing arts and theology at Our Lady of Nazareth Academy in Wakefield. Her daughter Lora, a teacher at the school, had written contemporary Christian songs. The chamber singer choir had recorded a compact disc. Tamagini sent it along with her application.
Patricia Tamagini received an invitation to Rome. And 44 girls from Wakefield started furiously raising money, so they could sing for the pope in St. Peter's Square.
''It was never an option not to go. We had to go," said Jennifer Fontana, a sophomore at the time, now 24. ''I mean, Italy. To see the pope. My God."
They held concerts and bake sales and collected sponsorships. They planned a singing tour at churches in Rome, Florence, Sienna, and Assisi. On the flight to Rome, the crew asked them to sing from their seats.
And on April 16, 1996, they put on their school uniforms -- sweaters, plaid polyester skirts -- and headed to St. Peter's Square. They stood at the foot of the basilica steps, with groups of young singers from Poland, Spain, Austria, and France. The pope, still healthy and vibrant, stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the music. When the singing was over, the girls climbed up to him, and he walked over to thank them.
In English, he praised their voices, recalls Patricia Tamagini, now 66. He thanked Lora Tamagini for her beautiful songs. ''God bless you," she told him. ''No," he said. ''God bless you."
For a teenage girl -- Catholic or not -- he left a firm impression.
''He had amazing presence, just this feeling of kindness," said Laura White, a Congregationalist, now 24.
''He had this fantastic peacefulness about him," Fontana said.
But what struck Patricia Tamagini most was that this elevated man, the leader of his faith, had taken the time to linger with a group of girls.
''He was so gentle and down to earth. Just really down to earth," Tamagini said. ''Holding our hands and talking with us eye to eye."
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Debate continues over pope's reaction to sex-abuse scandal
Debate continues over pope's reaction to sex-abuse scandal
Alan Cooperman - Washington Post
Apr. 2, 2005
During his long reign, Pope John Paul II apologized to Muslims for the Crusades, to Jews for anti-Semitism, to Orthodox Christians for the sacking of Constantinople, to Italians for the Vatican's associations with the Mafia and to scientists for the persecution of Galileo.
He apologized so often, in fact, that an Italian journalist compiled a book of more than 90 papal statements of contrition.
Yet the pope never apologized for the most shocking behavior that came to light on his watch: sexual abuse of children by priests and the church's attempts to hush it up. To some alleged victims, that is a puzzling omission and a deep stain on his legacy.
"I would hate to see all the good works this pope has done over his lifetime be overshadowed by this scandal. But that's what may happen," said Gary M. Bergeron, of Lowell, Mass., who says he was molested in the 1970s by Rev. Joseph Birmingham, a priest accused of abusing more than a dozen altar boys. Birmingham has since died.
John Paul's defenders contend that sexual misconduct by priests is a worldwide problem that began before he became pope in 1978. They say once it came to light, he reacted decisively. Summoning America's cardinals to the Vatican in April 2002, he declared that "there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young."
Those words became the basis for the "zero tolerance" policy adopted two months later by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Over the following year, hundreds of priests resigned, retired or were suspended as the bishops pledged to remove any clergyman who had ever abused a minor.
But victims' advocates argue that John Paul could have done more, and they hope his successor will set a new tone, beginning with a straightforward apology to victims.
Bergeron and other Boston-area survivors of clergy abuse traveled to Rome in 2003 to try to persuade the pope to meet with victims, issue an apology and condemn coverups. The small delegation included Bergeron's father, Joseph, who said that he, too, was abused as an altar boy but kept silent until he discovered many years later that the same thing had happened to two of his sons.
For five days that March, the Bergerons literally knocked on Vatican doors. Eventually they saw an official from the papal secretary of state's office. John Paul never met with them or any other known victims.
Still churchgoing Catholics, the Bergerons said they believe the pope was kept in the dark by his aides. "It's almost like a movie star complex where they don't let them read the bad press," Gary Bergeron said.
Others are more harsh in their judgments.
"I would say there's a significant amount of responsibility in the lap of the papacy for the sexual abuse crisis, not only in the United States but around the world," said Rev. Thomas Doyle, a former Air Force chaplain who has counseled many victims and advised them on lawsuits against the church. "Given that the Vatican insists on hierarchical authority and micromanagement, I think they have to take responsibility."
As a young canon lawyer in the mid-1980s, Doyle worked at the Vatican's embassy in Washington during the first major sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. church, which centered on a Louisiana priest, Gilbert Gauthe.
"Reports went over there, detailed reports," Doyle said. "I can tell you for certain that it reached the Vatican early in 1985, because I was working at the Vatican Embassy and I know that communications about the Gauthe case were sent to the Vatican - and they were seen by the pope."
But John Paul did not speak publicly about sexual abuse by priests until eight years later, after a furor over another pedophile priest, James Porter, who had more than 100 alleged victims in Fall River, Mass.
Addressing a group of visiting U.S. bishops in Rome in 1993, the pope said he shared their "sadness and disappointment when those entrusted with the ministry fail in their commitment, becoming a cause of public scandal." Much of his message, however, was an attack on "sensationalism" in the news media, leaving the strong impression that he believed the sex abuse problem was exaggerated in America.
"Woe to societies where scandal becomes an everyday event," he said.
Nevertheless, at the request of U.S. bishops, the pope in 1994 changed church law in the United States to lengthen the statute of limitations on accusations of sexual abuse to 10 years from the victim's 18th birthday. Previously, it had been five years from the date of the offense.
In 2002, a fresh scandal erupted when a Boston judge released church documents showing that Cardinal Bernard Law and his assistant bishops had secretly shuffled abusers from parish to parish. In response, John Paul amended canon law again by accepting the bishops' zero tolerance policy, though only after Vatican officials insisted on changes to protect the due process rights of accused priests. Law later resigned under pressure.
In recent years the pontiff also condemned sexual abuse more directly and forcefully. In his address to U.S. cardinals in April 2002, he said it was "rightly considered a crime by society" as well as "an appalling sin in the eyes of God."
"To the victims and their families, wherever they may be, I express my profound sense of solidarity and concern," he added. It was the closest he came to an apology.
To many victims and their families, however, the pope's actions fell short. Under John Paul, they contend, the Vatican was more aggressive about stamping out dissent within the priesthood over birth control than it was about protecting children.
"Everyone blames the bishops, but the pope's the one who picks them," Doyle said.
Papal biographer George Weigel argues that the critics' portrayal of an uncaring John Paul is wrong. He said John Paul was "deeply, deeply grieved" by the unholy actions of supposedly holy men.
Other Vatican officials have echoed the papal denunciations. As recently as March 25, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the church's theological watchdog and one of John Paul's closest aides, made an apparent reference to clerical sex abuse in the meditations he provided for Good Friday observances in Rome. In a Vatican translation, Ratzinger assailed "how much filth there is in the church ... even among ... the priesthood...."
Like many traditionalist Catholics, Weigel contends that the origins of the scandal lie in the 1960s, under previous popes who tolerated dissent and allowed a gay subculture to develop in the priesthood. The solution, in his view, is to continue down the path set by John Paul: strict fidelity to church teachings that support celibacy for priests and condemn homosexual activity.
In his 2002 book, "The Courage to Be Catholic," however, Weigel acknowledged that the Vatican was slow to recognize the crisis in the U.S. church, tending to view the scandal as a creation of the secular news media, opportunistic lawyers and the church's enemies.
Debate over the pope's degree of responsibility for the scandal appears likely to continue for years.
Richard R. Gaillardetz, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of Toledo who has written several books on authority in the church, said that neither John Paul nor any church leader "consciously encouraged" clerical sex abuse.
But Gaillardetz said he would assign the pope some indirect responsibility for the hierarchy's attempts to hide the problem.
"He encouraged an ecclesiastical culture that emphasizes vertical accountability - priest to bishop, bishop to the pope - and very little horizontal accountability" of bishops to one another and to the laity, Gaillardetz said.
"In general that is going to be one of the most serious criticisms leveled against this papacy, that he turned away from the direction many people saw in Vatican II, which is the principle of subsidiarity or decentralized control," Gaillardetz added, referring to the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. "That is a disturbing pattern, a larger pattern of this pontificate."
David Gibson, author of "The Coming Catholic Church," a 2003 book about long-term change in the church, also attributes the coverup partly to John Paul's insistence on central control.
"The bottom line is: Cardinal Law was the pope's favorite son in America, and Cardinal Law's sense of a corporate church that he ran, with everybody else on a need-to-know basis, was very much an attitude that came from Rome. Rome did not want scandals. Rome under this papacy was focused on exalting the iconic image of the priest," Gibson said.
Rightly or wrongly, Gibson contends, the sexual abuse scandal and John Paul will be inextricably linked.
"After so many years as pope, people have almost begun to forget what a heroic figure he was and how close he came to being martyred on St. Peter's Square," he said. "The scandal is not going to define his legacy, but it does mean that every obituary, every discussion of his legacy, will have to say, 'But ...' "
Alan Cooperman - Washington Post
Apr. 2, 2005
During his long reign, Pope John Paul II apologized to Muslims for the Crusades, to Jews for anti-Semitism, to Orthodox Christians for the sacking of Constantinople, to Italians for the Vatican's associations with the Mafia and to scientists for the persecution of Galileo.
He apologized so often, in fact, that an Italian journalist compiled a book of more than 90 papal statements of contrition.
Yet the pope never apologized for the most shocking behavior that came to light on his watch: sexual abuse of children by priests and the church's attempts to hush it up. To some alleged victims, that is a puzzling omission and a deep stain on his legacy.
"I would hate to see all the good works this pope has done over his lifetime be overshadowed by this scandal. But that's what may happen," said Gary M. Bergeron, of Lowell, Mass., who says he was molested in the 1970s by Rev. Joseph Birmingham, a priest accused of abusing more than a dozen altar boys. Birmingham has since died.
John Paul's defenders contend that sexual misconduct by priests is a worldwide problem that began before he became pope in 1978. They say once it came to light, he reacted decisively. Summoning America's cardinals to the Vatican in April 2002, he declared that "there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young."
Those words became the basis for the "zero tolerance" policy adopted two months later by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Over the following year, hundreds of priests resigned, retired or were suspended as the bishops pledged to remove any clergyman who had ever abused a minor.
But victims' advocates argue that John Paul could have done more, and they hope his successor will set a new tone, beginning with a straightforward apology to victims.
Bergeron and other Boston-area survivors of clergy abuse traveled to Rome in 2003 to try to persuade the pope to meet with victims, issue an apology and condemn coverups. The small delegation included Bergeron's father, Joseph, who said that he, too, was abused as an altar boy but kept silent until he discovered many years later that the same thing had happened to two of his sons.
For five days that March, the Bergerons literally knocked on Vatican doors. Eventually they saw an official from the papal secretary of state's office. John Paul never met with them or any other known victims.
Still churchgoing Catholics, the Bergerons said they believe the pope was kept in the dark by his aides. "It's almost like a movie star complex where they don't let them read the bad press," Gary Bergeron said.
Others are more harsh in their judgments.
"I would say there's a significant amount of responsibility in the lap of the papacy for the sexual abuse crisis, not only in the United States but around the world," said Rev. Thomas Doyle, a former Air Force chaplain who has counseled many victims and advised them on lawsuits against the church. "Given that the Vatican insists on hierarchical authority and micromanagement, I think they have to take responsibility."
As a young canon lawyer in the mid-1980s, Doyle worked at the Vatican's embassy in Washington during the first major sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. church, which centered on a Louisiana priest, Gilbert Gauthe.
"Reports went over there, detailed reports," Doyle said. "I can tell you for certain that it reached the Vatican early in 1985, because I was working at the Vatican Embassy and I know that communications about the Gauthe case were sent to the Vatican - and they were seen by the pope."
But John Paul did not speak publicly about sexual abuse by priests until eight years later, after a furor over another pedophile priest, James Porter, who had more than 100 alleged victims in Fall River, Mass.
Addressing a group of visiting U.S. bishops in Rome in 1993, the pope said he shared their "sadness and disappointment when those entrusted with the ministry fail in their commitment, becoming a cause of public scandal." Much of his message, however, was an attack on "sensationalism" in the news media, leaving the strong impression that he believed the sex abuse problem was exaggerated in America.
"Woe to societies where scandal becomes an everyday event," he said.
Nevertheless, at the request of U.S. bishops, the pope in 1994 changed church law in the United States to lengthen the statute of limitations on accusations of sexual abuse to 10 years from the victim's 18th birthday. Previously, it had been five years from the date of the offense.
In 2002, a fresh scandal erupted when a Boston judge released church documents showing that Cardinal Bernard Law and his assistant bishops had secretly shuffled abusers from parish to parish. In response, John Paul amended canon law again by accepting the bishops' zero tolerance policy, though only after Vatican officials insisted on changes to protect the due process rights of accused priests. Law later resigned under pressure.
In recent years the pontiff also condemned sexual abuse more directly and forcefully. In his address to U.S. cardinals in April 2002, he said it was "rightly considered a crime by society" as well as "an appalling sin in the eyes of God."
"To the victims and their families, wherever they may be, I express my profound sense of solidarity and concern," he added. It was the closest he came to an apology.
To many victims and their families, however, the pope's actions fell short. Under John Paul, they contend, the Vatican was more aggressive about stamping out dissent within the priesthood over birth control than it was about protecting children.
"Everyone blames the bishops, but the pope's the one who picks them," Doyle said.
Papal biographer George Weigel argues that the critics' portrayal of an uncaring John Paul is wrong. He said John Paul was "deeply, deeply grieved" by the unholy actions of supposedly holy men.
Other Vatican officials have echoed the papal denunciations. As recently as March 25, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the church's theological watchdog and one of John Paul's closest aides, made an apparent reference to clerical sex abuse in the meditations he provided for Good Friday observances in Rome. In a Vatican translation, Ratzinger assailed "how much filth there is in the church ... even among ... the priesthood...."
Like many traditionalist Catholics, Weigel contends that the origins of the scandal lie in the 1960s, under previous popes who tolerated dissent and allowed a gay subculture to develop in the priesthood. The solution, in his view, is to continue down the path set by John Paul: strict fidelity to church teachings that support celibacy for priests and condemn homosexual activity.
In his 2002 book, "The Courage to Be Catholic," however, Weigel acknowledged that the Vatican was slow to recognize the crisis in the U.S. church, tending to view the scandal as a creation of the secular news media, opportunistic lawyers and the church's enemies.
Debate over the pope's degree of responsibility for the scandal appears likely to continue for years.
Richard R. Gaillardetz, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of Toledo who has written several books on authority in the church, said that neither John Paul nor any church leader "consciously encouraged" clerical sex abuse.
But Gaillardetz said he would assign the pope some indirect responsibility for the hierarchy's attempts to hide the problem.
"He encouraged an ecclesiastical culture that emphasizes vertical accountability - priest to bishop, bishop to the pope - and very little horizontal accountability" of bishops to one another and to the laity, Gaillardetz said.
"In general that is going to be one of the most serious criticisms leveled against this papacy, that he turned away from the direction many people saw in Vatican II, which is the principle of subsidiarity or decentralized control," Gaillardetz added, referring to the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65. "That is a disturbing pattern, a larger pattern of this pontificate."
David Gibson, author of "The Coming Catholic Church," a 2003 book about long-term change in the church, also attributes the coverup partly to John Paul's insistence on central control.
"The bottom line is: Cardinal Law was the pope's favorite son in America, and Cardinal Law's sense of a corporate church that he ran, with everybody else on a need-to-know basis, was very much an attitude that came from Rome. Rome did not want scandals. Rome under this papacy was focused on exalting the iconic image of the priest," Gibson said.
Rightly or wrongly, Gibson contends, the sexual abuse scandal and John Paul will be inextricably linked.
"After so many years as pope, people have almost begun to forget what a heroic figure he was and how close he came to being martyred on St. Peter's Square," he said. "The scandal is not going to define his legacy, but it does mean that every obituary, every discussion of his legacy, will have to say, 'But ...' "
Monday, February 7, 2005
CLERGY ABUSE SURVIVOR RESPONDS TO THE CONVICTION OF REV. PAUL SHANLEY
CLERGY ABUSE SURVIVOR RESPONDS TO THE CONVICTION OF REV. PAUL SHANLEY.
The conviction of Rev. Paul Shanley on all counts today in Boston should serve as notice that no person, regardless of his position or the institution he represents is immune to prosecution for abusing a child.
The painful door which survivors of childhood sexual abuse have opened has allowed society to begin to shed light on the horrific abuse which children have endured for decades. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse continue to hope that society will have the courage to walk through that door.
I take this opportunity to ask judicial leaders throughout the United States to strengthen the existing child endangerment laws and to make the necessary changes in the statute of limitations laws. This change would allow all victims of childhood sexual abuse an opportunity to find justice.
Today’s conviction should also stand as a reminder to society that no person or organization is more powerful than one person having the courage to stand up and tell the truth.
Gary M. Bergeron
Boston MA
garymbergeron@gmail.com
Gary Bergeron, a survivor of clergy abuse from the Boston area, is also the author of “Don’t Call Me a Victim, Faith, Hope & Sexual Abuse in The Catholic Church”.
The conviction of Rev. Paul Shanley on all counts today in Boston should serve as notice that no person, regardless of his position or the institution he represents is immune to prosecution for abusing a child.
The painful door which survivors of childhood sexual abuse have opened has allowed society to begin to shed light on the horrific abuse which children have endured for decades. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse continue to hope that society will have the courage to walk through that door.
I take this opportunity to ask judicial leaders throughout the United States to strengthen the existing child endangerment laws and to make the necessary changes in the statute of limitations laws. This change would allow all victims of childhood sexual abuse an opportunity to find justice.
Today’s conviction should also stand as a reminder to society that no person or organization is more powerful than one person having the courage to stand up and tell the truth.
Gary M. Bergeron
Boston MA
garymbergeron@gmail.com
Gary Bergeron, a survivor of clergy abuse from the Boston area, is also the author of “Don’t Call Me a Victim, Faith, Hope & Sexual Abuse in The Catholic Church”.
Saturday, February 5, 2005
Clergy Abuse Survivor Responds
Clergy Abuse Survivor Responds to the Conviction of Rev. Paul Shanley
Market Wire, February, 2005
The conviction of Rev. Paul Shanley on all counts today in Boston should serve as notice that no person, regardless of his position or the institution he represents, is immune to prosecution for abusing a child.
The painful door which survivors of childhood sexual abuse have opened has allowed society to begin to shed light on the horrific abuse which children have endured for decades. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse continue to hope that society will have the courage to walk through that door.
I take this opportunity to ask judicial leaders throughout the United States to strengthen the existing child endangerment laws and to make the necessary changes in the statute of limitations laws. This change would allow all victims of childhood sexual abuse an opportunity to find justice.
Gary Bergeron, a survivor of clergy abuse from the Boston area is also the author of "Don't Call Me a Victim, Faith, Hope & Sexual Abuse in The Catholic Church."
Gary M. Bergeron
Market Wire, February, 2005
The conviction of Rev. Paul Shanley on all counts today in Boston should serve as notice that no person, regardless of his position or the institution he represents, is immune to prosecution for abusing a child.
The painful door which survivors of childhood sexual abuse have opened has allowed society to begin to shed light on the horrific abuse which children have endured for decades. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse continue to hope that society will have the courage to walk through that door.
I take this opportunity to ask judicial leaders throughout the United States to strengthen the existing child endangerment laws and to make the necessary changes in the statute of limitations laws. This change would allow all victims of childhood sexual abuse an opportunity to find justice.
Gary Bergeron, a survivor of clergy abuse from the Boston area is also the author of "Don't Call Me a Victim, Faith, Hope & Sexual Abuse in The Catholic Church."
Gary M. Bergeron
Monday, July 26, 2004
Clergy Sex-Abuse Survivor Shares His Story of 'Hope'
BishopAccountability.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lowell's Gary Bergeron:
Clergy Sex-Abuse Survivor Shares His Story of 'Hope'
By Matt Murphy mmurphy@lowellsun.com
Lowell Sun
July 26, 2004
LOWELL In his first interview three years ago, after going public with news that he had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest in Lowell, Gary Bergeron cautioned a Sun reporter not to call him a victim.
"I hate that term," said Bergeron, 42, an outspoken "survivor" of the sexual-abuse scandal. "A victim is what I was for the last 30 years. I don't use that as a crutch anymore."
Bergeron is now publishing a book titled Don't Call Me a Victim detailing his life, his abuse and the process of fighting the Catholic Church that brought him to the steps of the Vatican and led to a landmark $85 million court settlement with the Boston Archdiocese.
Publishing the book himself under the name Arc Angel Publishing, Bergeron will release the 340-page memoir Sept. 9 a year to the day from when the archdiocese settled the civil suit with Bergeron and about 550 sexual-abuse survivors.
"I think the public will be interested in knowing what a couple of guys from Lowell accomplished," Bergeron said sitting down for an interview. "There's a lot of questions that still haven't been answered."
Bergeron, an altar boy at St. Michael Parish in Lowell, says he was repeatedly molested by the late Rev. Joseph Birmingham in the 1970s, when Bergeron was in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades at St. Michael's. The book explains the nature of sexual abuse without getting overtly graphic, he said.
"It's palatable," Bergeron said. "I got just enough in so that people will understand what happened."
Bergeron said he also reveals details of many of the behind-the-scenes meetings and late-night conversations survivors had with church officials leading up to the settlement and a public acknowledgment that the church had ignored allegations of sexual abuse. Included are 12 pages of church documents showing that the Boston Archdiocese was aware of Birmingham's abusive past as early as 1964, when Bergeron was 2 years old.
A percentage of the proceeds from book sales will be donated to the TRUST Foundation, set up by Bergeron for sexual-abuse survivors, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, and the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
Bergeron declined to specify the value of his portion of the settlement but writes in the book that he did not receive the maximum amount $300,000 nor did he receive special compensation for the public role he played in the lawsuit.
"It's not about the money. It never has been, and I actually used my settlement to set up my foundation," Bergeron said.
Bergeron said he found the process of writing the book therapeutic, drawing much of it from journal entries, but added that he faced "tremendous pressure" not to write it.
"Twenty-six publishers told me not to write it, but I had also had 2,600 people telling me I'd never meet (Cardinal Bernard Law) or go to the Vatican," Bergeron said.
While some publishers were unwilling to take on the Catholic Church, Bergeron said others wanted him to steer the book toward his abuse or toward his meeting with Vatican officials.
"They were interested in a book about condemning the Catholic Church, and that's not what this book is about. This book is about hope," he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lowell's Gary Bergeron:
Clergy Sex-Abuse Survivor Shares His Story of 'Hope'
By Matt Murphy mmurphy@lowellsun.com
Lowell Sun
July 26, 2004
LOWELL In his first interview three years ago, after going public with news that he had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest in Lowell, Gary Bergeron cautioned a Sun reporter not to call him a victim.
"I hate that term," said Bergeron, 42, an outspoken "survivor" of the sexual-abuse scandal. "A victim is what I was for the last 30 years. I don't use that as a crutch anymore."
Bergeron is now publishing a book titled Don't Call Me a Victim detailing his life, his abuse and the process of fighting the Catholic Church that brought him to the steps of the Vatican and led to a landmark $85 million court settlement with the Boston Archdiocese.
Publishing the book himself under the name Arc Angel Publishing, Bergeron will release the 340-page memoir Sept. 9 a year to the day from when the archdiocese settled the civil suit with Bergeron and about 550 sexual-abuse survivors.
"I think the public will be interested in knowing what a couple of guys from Lowell accomplished," Bergeron said sitting down for an interview. "There's a lot of questions that still haven't been answered."
Bergeron, an altar boy at St. Michael Parish in Lowell, says he was repeatedly molested by the late Rev. Joseph Birmingham in the 1970s, when Bergeron was in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades at St. Michael's. The book explains the nature of sexual abuse without getting overtly graphic, he said.
"It's palatable," Bergeron said. "I got just enough in so that people will understand what happened."
Bergeron said he also reveals details of many of the behind-the-scenes meetings and late-night conversations survivors had with church officials leading up to the settlement and a public acknowledgment that the church had ignored allegations of sexual abuse. Included are 12 pages of church documents showing that the Boston Archdiocese was aware of Birmingham's abusive past as early as 1964, when Bergeron was 2 years old.
A percentage of the proceeds from book sales will be donated to the TRUST Foundation, set up by Bergeron for sexual-abuse survivors, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, and the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
Bergeron declined to specify the value of his portion of the settlement but writes in the book that he did not receive the maximum amount $300,000 nor did he receive special compensation for the public role he played in the lawsuit.
"It's not about the money. It never has been, and I actually used my settlement to set up my foundation," Bergeron said.
Bergeron said he found the process of writing the book therapeutic, drawing much of it from journal entries, but added that he faced "tremendous pressure" not to write it.
"Twenty-six publishers told me not to write it, but I had also had 2,600 people telling me I'd never meet (Cardinal Bernard Law) or go to the Vatican," Bergeron said.
While some publishers were unwilling to take on the Catholic Church, Bergeron said others wanted him to steer the book toward his abuse or toward his meeting with Vatican officials.
"They were interested in a book about condemning the Catholic Church, and that's not what this book is about. This book is about hope," he said.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Our Fathers by David France
'Our Fathers' Figure: Author David France
by Gregg Shapiro
2004-05-12
Journalist David France, whose work first appeared in Gay Community News and later in the New York Native, the Advocate and Out, covered the crisis in the Catholic Church as a senior editor at Newsweek. In his book Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal (Broadway Book, New York, NY, 2004, 656pp, $26.95) he expands on his writing on the subject to create an expose' is as gripping as a first-rate page turner.
Gregg Shapiro: Were you aware that the timing of more allegations would coincide with the publication of your book?
David France: When the bishops first realized, back in 2002, that they had to do something affirmative to try to regain the initiative over all of this, they held a conference in Dallas and adopted several measures. One of them was this study, commissioned through an outside research facility (the John Jay College of Criminal Justice), so I knew that it was going to happen. The book was supposed to come out in December (of 2003), so the timing now is great. It's the only favor the bishops have given me, so far. Interestingly, the study covers the Catholic Church in America from 1950 to the present, and so does my book. The exact same ground, the exact same series of events. In my book, I conclude that the numbers are much higher than they are now talking about.
GS: An especially appealing aspect of the book is the style in which it is written—it reads like an intrigue novel, but, of course, the story is true.
DF: I made a couple of decisions that all played into this. My first thought was that none of the priests who did this, and none of the bishops who enabled them, went into the priesthood for those reasons. That something had happened to them and I wanted to find out what that was. So I decided that I had to locate everybody in this narrative from a period of innocence, original innocence, kind of an anti-Catholic concept or Catholicism on its head. Then I felt like I had to hear their voices really tightly and really closely. The first model that I chose was Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. The theory behind Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, like the commissions that went on in South Africa and Guatemala and Chile and Argentina, those places, was that an awful history had taken place. It involved people from all sides of the community and in order to get beyond that, people had to be able to speak their truths about what they think got them there. I wanted to let people to talk, without judging them. I got gay priests and guilty priests and angry priests and criminal priests and totally innocent priests, including the gay priests. I tried to understand the bishops, like Cardinal Law in Boston, who allowed this to happen and seemed to encourage this to
Read more story below....
happen and seemed to take such an adversarial stance towards ordinary Catholics. The actual architecture for the book comes from Randy Shilts's And The Band Played On. I was a friend of Randy's. I edited Randy at the New York Native all those years ago. It's a brilliant structure that's never been used since, and I found out why. It's incredibly difficult to know that much. Randy was so brilliant and his instinct for reporting was dead-on. For me it was a lot of work to try to do that. That structure tells (the story in) vignettes and builds vignette upon vignette and it allowed me to understand the emotional journeys that the priests took into abuse, into the recognition of their abuse, into their efforts at penance. It was surprising to me because it made me kind of like some of these guys. I developed a kind of human respect for Cardinal Law, for example. I felt sorry for him. The tragedy of his life—the arc is so pure and dramatic.
GS: I'm glad you brought that up, because on page 220, you wrote that in 1992 'American Catholics still bought into the clerical system, which presumed that priests were somehow different and apart from ordinary humans.' And Law is certainly in that category. Do you think that in the dozen years that have passed since that time, that that attitude has changed or do people still hold them in such untouchable esteem?
DF: I think it has changed among the lay Catholic. I don't think it's changed among the old guard in the church. I think that Cardinal Law's struggle and the tragedy of that struggle is that he tried to shed himself of that. We see that in the closed discussions that he had at the end, when he was besieged and reviled by everybody in his archdiocese and by everybody in America, really. He was the face of the ogre priest. And he was meeting with this group of victims —nobody knew about these guys—who were saying to him, 'You've got to do to better. You've got to come out here and do something for us. You've got to save your church.' And I really believe that he tried, from recreating those scenes. But he couldn't shed this heavy carapace of the clerical robes, of the cardinal's mane. He was stuck with it.
GS: When in reality, he's just a man. Good or bad.
DF: Absolutely, and part of him knows that. It was like a radio signal coming in and out. You'd see a flash of recognition, and it was almost human. These guys who were counseling him, they had become his confessors in a way, and they thought they had a string on him and he kept falling away from them. Then finally, that last night when they met with him and they tried one last time and he stood up, knowing that he had to resign, and left the room.
GS: Do you think that there has been a change in the mind-set of the public, as well as those who were compelled to do things under religious duress, thereby becoming victims of sexual abuse, in regards to this matter?
DF: The priests who were ordained from 1960 to 1968 or 1969, and the people that they ministered through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s—when most of this crime spree took place … since then I think that all of American culture and society has become less reverential for authority; even religious authority. The priesthood has changed dramatically. There are still the great old priests who tend to their parish in really admirable ways. Most of that teaching about the priest being transformed by ordination into God on earth, most of that teaching has gone by the wayside. That's not necessarily to say that they've stopped believing that or that it's been dropped from the theology of Catholicism. In fact, the priesthood itself has acknowledged that these guys are sexual beings, and that they have to be counseled as such, who are trying something really difficult with celibacy. They changed that rule in 1985. Before that, there was no discussion among the priests, or between the priests and their supervisors. I think we look at priests now as being more ordinary. It's not just because of the abuse crisis. I think it's just the way we deal now, in our culture, with most authority.
GS: As a reader, I found myself in a constant state of shock with each new revelation. One of the most shocking events occurred on page 424, with Gary Bergeron's elderly father's admission of being abused by a priest when he was a boy.
DF: I was there for a lot of this reporting. I was there when the dad said that. I was there when these things unfolded. It blew me away. I kept saying, 'I'm shocked.' And I kept thinking, 'How could I be shocked?' I mean, with all I've learned.
GS: Were there things that occurred in your research and writing that shocked you more than others?
DF: There was the case of Father Foley. Late in the crisis in Boston, the attorney finally convinced the archdiocese that they had to release not just the files on priests accused of molesting minors, but also the files on priests accused of any sexual impropriety. Dozens of names were produced. Not one of them involved a consensual sexual act. Most of them also involved minors who grew up into adults, but the abuse continued. Father Foley was the most shocking of those cases. He had had an affair with a woman who had had a lobotomy. From visit to visit, she had trouble recognizing him. He fathered two children with her. He was there, in her bed, when she overdosed on drugs, and left her in the bed to die, with her children in cribs in the apartment. And he was still a priest! In the Boston Archdiocese. Ten or 12 months ago, he was still there. It's shocking. (There are priests who) are infantilized adults. They are unsocialized. They are taught that the world exists in confined, theological patterns and when things don't fit in those patterns, they just disregard them. The world of theology, devoid of the secular world, is a dangerous place.
GS: As the author, how did writing and researching a story of this nature effect you and your own faith?
DF: I'm not a man of faith. I'm not at all religious and never have been. It's not that I had a bad experience with my church. My parents were Episcopalian. It just never clicked for me. I never got it. It's not that it gave me any more or less faith, but ironically I learned respect for faith. I think it's a book about faith. You mentioned Gary Bergeron. That guy had this soaring strength of, if not faith, then hope, or belief in himself. There was something about all that against all odds stuff that he goes through in the course of his life that taught me something about faith itself. Maybe in a generic or secular way, I think I learned about the human soul. If spiritual faith isn't connected to the human soul, then I think it becomes dangerous. I think I've tried to find the places where they were connected and those were the dramatic narratives that I tried to braid together in the book.
by Gregg Shapiro
2004-05-12
Journalist David France, whose work first appeared in Gay Community News and later in the New York Native, the Advocate and Out, covered the crisis in the Catholic Church as a senior editor at Newsweek. In his book Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal (Broadway Book, New York, NY, 2004, 656pp, $26.95) he expands on his writing on the subject to create an expose' is as gripping as a first-rate page turner.
Gregg Shapiro: Were you aware that the timing of more allegations would coincide with the publication of your book?
David France: When the bishops first realized, back in 2002, that they had to do something affirmative to try to regain the initiative over all of this, they held a conference in Dallas and adopted several measures. One of them was this study, commissioned through an outside research facility (the John Jay College of Criminal Justice), so I knew that it was going to happen. The book was supposed to come out in December (of 2003), so the timing now is great. It's the only favor the bishops have given me, so far. Interestingly, the study covers the Catholic Church in America from 1950 to the present, and so does my book. The exact same ground, the exact same series of events. In my book, I conclude that the numbers are much higher than they are now talking about.
GS: An especially appealing aspect of the book is the style in which it is written—it reads like an intrigue novel, but, of course, the story is true.
DF: I made a couple of decisions that all played into this. My first thought was that none of the priests who did this, and none of the bishops who enabled them, went into the priesthood for those reasons. That something had happened to them and I wanted to find out what that was. So I decided that I had to locate everybody in this narrative from a period of innocence, original innocence, kind of an anti-Catholic concept or Catholicism on its head. Then I felt like I had to hear their voices really tightly and really closely. The first model that I chose was Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. The theory behind Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, like the commissions that went on in South Africa and Guatemala and Chile and Argentina, those places, was that an awful history had taken place. It involved people from all sides of the community and in order to get beyond that, people had to be able to speak their truths about what they think got them there. I wanted to let people to talk, without judging them. I got gay priests and guilty priests and angry priests and criminal priests and totally innocent priests, including the gay priests. I tried to understand the bishops, like Cardinal Law in Boston, who allowed this to happen and seemed to encourage this to
Read more story below....
happen and seemed to take such an adversarial stance towards ordinary Catholics. The actual architecture for the book comes from Randy Shilts's And The Band Played On. I was a friend of Randy's. I edited Randy at the New York Native all those years ago. It's a brilliant structure that's never been used since, and I found out why. It's incredibly difficult to know that much. Randy was so brilliant and his instinct for reporting was dead-on. For me it was a lot of work to try to do that. That structure tells (the story in) vignettes and builds vignette upon vignette and it allowed me to understand the emotional journeys that the priests took into abuse, into the recognition of their abuse, into their efforts at penance. It was surprising to me because it made me kind of like some of these guys. I developed a kind of human respect for Cardinal Law, for example. I felt sorry for him. The tragedy of his life—the arc is so pure and dramatic.
GS: I'm glad you brought that up, because on page 220, you wrote that in 1992 'American Catholics still bought into the clerical system, which presumed that priests were somehow different and apart from ordinary humans.' And Law is certainly in that category. Do you think that in the dozen years that have passed since that time, that that attitude has changed or do people still hold them in such untouchable esteem?
DF: I think it has changed among the lay Catholic. I don't think it's changed among the old guard in the church. I think that Cardinal Law's struggle and the tragedy of that struggle is that he tried to shed himself of that. We see that in the closed discussions that he had at the end, when he was besieged and reviled by everybody in his archdiocese and by everybody in America, really. He was the face of the ogre priest. And he was meeting with this group of victims —nobody knew about these guys—who were saying to him, 'You've got to do to better. You've got to come out here and do something for us. You've got to save your church.' And I really believe that he tried, from recreating those scenes. But he couldn't shed this heavy carapace of the clerical robes, of the cardinal's mane. He was stuck with it.
GS: When in reality, he's just a man. Good or bad.
DF: Absolutely, and part of him knows that. It was like a radio signal coming in and out. You'd see a flash of recognition, and it was almost human. These guys who were counseling him, they had become his confessors in a way, and they thought they had a string on him and he kept falling away from them. Then finally, that last night when they met with him and they tried one last time and he stood up, knowing that he had to resign, and left the room.
GS: Do you think that there has been a change in the mind-set of the public, as well as those who were compelled to do things under religious duress, thereby becoming victims of sexual abuse, in regards to this matter?
DF: The priests who were ordained from 1960 to 1968 or 1969, and the people that they ministered through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s—when most of this crime spree took place … since then I think that all of American culture and society has become less reverential for authority; even religious authority. The priesthood has changed dramatically. There are still the great old priests who tend to their parish in really admirable ways. Most of that teaching about the priest being transformed by ordination into God on earth, most of that teaching has gone by the wayside. That's not necessarily to say that they've stopped believing that or that it's been dropped from the theology of Catholicism. In fact, the priesthood itself has acknowledged that these guys are sexual beings, and that they have to be counseled as such, who are trying something really difficult with celibacy. They changed that rule in 1985. Before that, there was no discussion among the priests, or between the priests and their supervisors. I think we look at priests now as being more ordinary. It's not just because of the abuse crisis. I think it's just the way we deal now, in our culture, with most authority.
GS: As a reader, I found myself in a constant state of shock with each new revelation. One of the most shocking events occurred on page 424, with Gary Bergeron's elderly father's admission of being abused by a priest when he was a boy.
DF: I was there for a lot of this reporting. I was there when the dad said that. I was there when these things unfolded. It blew me away. I kept saying, 'I'm shocked.' And I kept thinking, 'How could I be shocked?' I mean, with all I've learned.
GS: Were there things that occurred in your research and writing that shocked you more than others?
DF: There was the case of Father Foley. Late in the crisis in Boston, the attorney finally convinced the archdiocese that they had to release not just the files on priests accused of molesting minors, but also the files on priests accused of any sexual impropriety. Dozens of names were produced. Not one of them involved a consensual sexual act. Most of them also involved minors who grew up into adults, but the abuse continued. Father Foley was the most shocking of those cases. He had had an affair with a woman who had had a lobotomy. From visit to visit, she had trouble recognizing him. He fathered two children with her. He was there, in her bed, when she overdosed on drugs, and left her in the bed to die, with her children in cribs in the apartment. And he was still a priest! In the Boston Archdiocese. Ten or 12 months ago, he was still there. It's shocking. (There are priests who) are infantilized adults. They are unsocialized. They are taught that the world exists in confined, theological patterns and when things don't fit in those patterns, they just disregard them. The world of theology, devoid of the secular world, is a dangerous place.
GS: As the author, how did writing and researching a story of this nature effect you and your own faith?
DF: I'm not a man of faith. I'm not at all religious and never have been. It's not that I had a bad experience with my church. My parents were Episcopalian. It just never clicked for me. I never got it. It's not that it gave me any more or less faith, but ironically I learned respect for faith. I think it's a book about faith. You mentioned Gary Bergeron. That guy had this soaring strength of, if not faith, then hope, or belief in himself. There was something about all that against all odds stuff that he goes through in the course of his life that taught me something about faith itself. Maybe in a generic or secular way, I think I learned about the human soul. If spiritual faith isn't connected to the human soul, then I think it becomes dangerous. I think I've tried to find the places where they were connected and those were the dramatic narratives that I tried to braid together in the book.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)