Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Boston Archdiocese recently came out and said that the Church is in danger of losing her credibility due to the sexual abuse issues with the clergy:
Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said Tuesday he was “deeply troubled” by the allegations of sexual abuse by one of the most respected US cardinals, Theodore McCarrick — and laid out steps the Roman Catholic Church needs to take to address its continuing clergy sex abuse problems.
McCarrick’s “alleged actions, when committed by any person, are morally unacceptable and incompatible with the role of a priest, bishop or cardinal,” O’Malley said in a statement, warning that the church could lose its “already weakened moral authority” if it doesn’t make changes.
McCarrick was once one of the architects of the church’s policy on sexual abuse. The allegations against him have rocked Catholics.
By Martin Finucane and Danny McDonald Globe Staff July 24, 2018
Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said Tuesday he was “deeply troubled” by the allegations of sexual abuse by one of the most respected US cardinals, Theodore McCarrick — and laid out steps the Roman Catholic Church needs to take to address its continuing clergy sex abuse problems.
McCarrick’s “alleged actions, when committed by any person, are morally unacceptable and incompatible with the role of a priest, bishop or cardinal,” O’Malley said in a statement, warning that the church could lose its “already weakened moral authority” if it doesn’t make changes.
McCarrick was once one of the architects of the church’s policy on sexual abuse. The allegations against him have rocked Catholics.
The Vatican has suspended him after finding he had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager decades ago. Four more complaints have also surfaced. The scandal comes at a time of Catholic sex abuse crises in Chile and Honduras, and church-watchers say Pope Francis, who is deciding McCarrick’s punishment, is at a critical juncture, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
O’Malley said the allegations against McCarrick highlighted a “major gap” in the church’s policies on sexual conduct and sexual abuse.
“While the Church in the United States has adopted a zero tolerance policy regarding the sexual abuse of minors by priests we must have clearer procedures for cases involving bishops. Transparent and consistent protocols are needed to provide justice for the victims and to adequately respond to the legitimate indignation of the community,” he said.
O’Malley’s statement drew a mixed response from the leader of an abuse survivor’s group and two lawyers who have represented sex abuse victims.
“It was a little qualified, but the message was still clear that this was a major problem,” said Eric MacLeish, a Cambridge attorney who has represented hundreds of victims in church sex abuse cases, O’Malley’s statement “was exactly what needed to be said,” he said.
MacLeish said McCarrick has acted as a “leading reform advocate on sexual abuse” in the church in the past. The accusations against McCarrick, said MacLeish, are “really disturbing.”
O’Malley, who was reappointed as the head of a Vatican commission on child sex abuse in February, has once again been put in the position of “being the fix-it guy when it comes to sex abuse” in the church, said Mac-Leish.
Phil Saviano, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a priest in Worcester and founder of the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, commended O’Malley for speaking out.
But he added that the cardinal’s statement “doesn’t negate the fact that these things have been going on for eons.” He agreed with O’Malley that there was a “major gap” in church policies regarding sexual abuse.
He said he was not surprised by the McCarrick allegations.
“It’s not unreasonable to think that some of the cardinals had similar psychological problems we’ve seen in many priests around the world,” he said.
Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who said he has worked on more than 2,000 church sex abuse cases, said O’Malley’s statement lacked substance.
“Actions speak louder than words,” he said.
The church as a whole, he said, has failed to implement meaningful programs to protect children from sexual abuse and help vicitms heal.
In his statement, O’Malley called for, first, a “fair and rapid adjudication of these accusations; second, an assessment of the adequacy of our standards and policies in the Church at every level, and especially in the case of bishops; and third, communicating more clearly to the Catholic faithful and to all victims the process for reporting allegations against bishops and cardinals.”
He warned that if the church doesn’t take steps to address the problem, it could “threaten and endanger the already weakened moral authority of the Church and can destroy the trust required for the Church to minister to Catholics and have a meaningful role in the wider civil society.”
O’Malley also responded to a New York City priest who, the Post reported, said he wrote a letter to O’Malley in 2015, citing “a form of sexual abuse/harassment/intimidation or maybe simply high-jinks as practiced by Theodore Cardinal McCarrick with his seminarians and perhaps other young men” in New Jersey.
O’Malley’s secretary wrote the priest back, saying O’Malley’s job, as president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, was to evaluate policies and procedures and make recommendations, not to review individual cases, the Post reported.
O’Malley reiterated that position Tuesday. (source)
This case is highly ironic, especially considering the state of the Boston Archdiocese.
The Boston Archdiocese is known for being infested with possibly some of the worst abusers in the Church in the US in terms of both severity and scope. The sexual abuse crisis began in Boston and Hartford, and spread around the world from the advent of its reporting in 2002. While I cannot speak for all of the diocese (as there are multiple diocese within the Archdiocese), on the authority of a contact in the Springfield Diocese, he says that approximately 75% of the priests are homosexuals, and that the situation is so dire he does not trust any priest in the diocese unless he knows him or unless he is from another country because of the extensive penetration the LGBT possesses there.
If one wants to learn more about the issues, there are two resources I would recommend.
The first is a website called the Boston Catholic Insider. Started in 2010, the site is mostly archives now but contains many original reports and documents spanning now 72 webpages of stories describing the extensive corruption in the diocese.
Another excellent book is The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture by Philip Lawler. While I have criticized Lawler in the past and questioned some of his associates, the book is an excellent analysis of the Church and her situation in Boston, how it came to be, and the future of the diocese.
As mentioned earlier, I noted that there was a priest who is in prison after being falsely accused of child abuse. While there have been many priests who have indeed abused children (and one is too many), the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae of the diocese of Manchester in New Hampshire (which falls under the jurisdiction of Boston) is a case of abuse in the opposite direction.
Fr. MacRae
His story is maintained on his blog, These Stone Walls, which is run by his supporters as Fr. MacRae does not have access to a computer. Fr. MacRae’s story, which you can read throughout the Internet (see here, and here for starters) is that he was falsely accused of sexual abuse and with the assistance of a detective, James McLaughlin, he forged evidence, tampered with evidence, and outright had people lie during the trial who later came out and said they lied and were paid bribes to lie. Fr. MacRae refused to accept any plea deal because he always maintained his innocence and as a result was effectively sentenced to life in prison. The Boston Archdiocese, who as Fr. MacRae’s blog has noted, has systematically covered up the sexual abuse of children by homosexual priests, but in the case of Fr. MacRae actively helped the state of New Hampshire send him to jail for life on false charges.
Fr. MacRae is still fighting for his freedom.
Meanwhile, the LGBT continues to dominate the Archdiocese of Boston.
The question is not whether or not the Church and the Boston hierarchy in particular are in danger of losing their credibility. They have already lost it, and this applies to both Catholics and non-Catholics.
The Catholic Faith does not depend, thanks be to God, on the proficiency, ineptitude, ignorance, or sins of her priests and bishops. The Faith exists outside of this, and all members are accountable because all are bound by the same unchangeable morality as absolute truth does not change.
The Church needs a massive cleaning out because of the poison that has seeped into it.
The Bible speaks clearly that Peter is the rock upon which Christ would found His Church, and the gates of the netherworld would not prevail against it. It is the reason why the Church has had every sin known to man found within her walls, and why in spite of scenarios that if only 1/10 affected any other Christian denomination that denomination would explode into dust, she manages to survive and recover.
God is patient, and the survival of the Church, the last institution still functioning from the days of antiquity, is a miracle in light of all the troubles she has endured.
But God will not allow His Church to be sullied forever. If the hierarchy refused to clean itself, and if the people will not or are unable to clean it up, God Himself will clean it with Biblical justice.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, who is perfect love, and administers perfect mercy and perfect justice.
May God have mercy on us all.