Michael Fein, The Boston Herald
Reverend George Spagnolia has been suspended from his ministry pending
the outcome of a sexual abuse allegation and a review of his admission
to having had homosexual relations outside the priesthood.
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George Martell, The Associated Press
Bernard Cardinal Law is fighting to
restore order in his archdiocese, one of the most influential in the
United States.
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BOSTON - For supporters of Reverend George Spagnolia, a
Roman Catholic priest who is vigorously denying accusations he is a
pedophile, the Boston archdiocese's new policy of zero tolerance toward
sexual misconduct has descended into a witch hunt.
It's an emotive claim in the state where the Salem witch
trials of 1692 led to the execution of 20 people based on flimsy and
sometimes vengeful claims they had practised witchcraft.
Imposed by Bernard Cardinal Law, head of the Archdiocese
of Boston, the policy aims at calming outrage over the diocese's failure to
long ago stop John Geoghan, a defrocked priest who has been accused by more
than 130 people of sexually abusing them over more than 30 years.
Geoghan, 66, has been sentenced to nine to 10 years in
prison for abusing a 10-year-old boy. He faces two other criminal complaints
and more than 80 civil suits based on other allegations.
It also emerged during his trial that Cardinal Law and
other senior clergy ignored Geoghan's abuses as they shuttled him from
parish to parish -- including one where he had access to children -- before
defrocking him in 1998.
"This has made life very difficult for Catholics, who now
have to contend with the label that their community leaders are sex
abusers," said Tom Roberts, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, an
internationally circulated weekly based in Kansas City, Mo. "And regular
priests must contend with the suspicion that they are all child abusers,
which they are not."
Accusations of sexual abuse by clergymen have hit the
headlines at an alarming rate across the United States and beyond lately.
In Poland, allegations that the archbishop of Poznan
sexually harassed seminarians and priests have spawned a Vatican inquiry and
shocked residents of the famously devout and predominantly Catholic country.
The fact that abuse occurred to the extent it did in
Massachusetts is shock enough for Catholics. But heightening their
consternation is the venue of the scandal and the standing of Cardinal Law.
Massachusetts contains one of the most Catholic communities in North
America, a legacy of poor Irish immigration followed by waves of other
Catholic immigrants, including Quebecers moving south in search of work. The
Boston archdiocese is one of the most influential in the country, while
Cardinal Law is the leading Catholic clergyman in the United States, with
close ties to the Vatican.
"There is no way for me to describe the evil of such
acts," said the Cardinal in an apology to Geoghan's victims. He said the
clergy and volunteers would now be required to report allegations of abuse
against minors to the police, and issued a directive to scour 40 years'
worth of Church records to identify priests who have been accused of sexual
impropriety.
But the change in policy has been interpreted as hypocrisy
by some.
The Cardinal "needs consequences for his actions," said
Ellen Meehan, a catechism teacher who is calling for the prelate's
resignation.
Some priests, meanwhile, are privately expressing alarm
that any one of them may now be suspect if someone misinterprets a past
innocent gesture of affection.
"Anybody can call up and say, 'Well so-and-so patted me on
the butt in 1967,' and it becomes a cause clbre," one priest confided.
Further confusing the picture this weekend was a twist to the case of Father
Spagnolia, 64, who, along with nine other priests, has been suspended by
Cardinal Law based on complaints contained in the archives.
Father Spagnolia is the only one of the group to have
defended himself publicly. While the evidence against some of the other nine
has already resulted in compensation payments to the accusers, the
accusations against Father Spagnolia are based on testimony of just one
person who says the priest molested him twice when he was 14, in 1971.
Large sections of the priest's congregation at St. Patrick
Church in a rundown section of Lowell, a town just north of Boston, have
rallied in his support.
But this weekend, he was having to field questions about
his credibility after he admitted that his claim to have led a celibate life
was a lie.
Information emerged during the week that showed he
indulged in two homosexual relationships over several years during a leave
of absence from the priesthood from 1973 to 1992.
"Being gay does not mean you are a pedophile. Being gay
does not mean that you cross-dress," he said at a press conference. "They're
apples and oranges. So I am saying, 'Yes, I've had gay relationships.' But I
have never harmed a child."
The sexual abuse problem is not new for the Catholic
Church. Since 1985, as society has encouraged people to increasingly speak
out about sexual abuse, priests in various Catholic dioceses throughout
North America have been exposed as pedophiles.
On some occasions, it has emerged that Church leaders knew
of the abuse, but decided -- like Cardinal Law did for years -- to deal with
the priests concerned quietly without involving law enforcement officials.
The National Catholic Reporter is now calling for the
Catholic hierarchy to offer a complete accounting of why the problem
persists.
"The Catholic population has remained faithful despite all
we have been hearing for 15 years," Mr. Roberts said. "But we have had
enough. We have to get beyond the secrecy and the apologies, and get to the
harder questions, like why is this happening. For the leading Cardinal to
transfer [a pedophile priest] around long after every prelate in the country
knows that this is dangerous, it is not enough to simply issue an apology
when he is caught."
Some archdioceses around the country have emulated
Cardinal Law's archive review and brought other old cases to light.
The Boston archdiocese has given police the names of more
than 80 priests and former priests accused of sexual abuse since the 1960s.
"What we have to deal with at this point and what my
colleagues have to deal with are decades of unreported crimes against
children," said Thomas Reilly, the Massachusetts Attorney-General.
Some allegations state that priests organized trips for
children to neighbouring New Hampshire, where they abused them.
But many will never be prosecuted because the statute of
limitations of six years on criminal abuse charges has expired.
The larger issue of whether the disclosures signal the
start of a transformation of the Church's culture of secrecy to one of
greater openness is unclear.
"I reserve judgment on the end result," said Kevin
Gourley, president of a victim-support centre called AdvocateWeb, which
offers help for victims of abuse by any authority figure from its base in
Austin, Tex.
"It seems like a step in the right direction, but it is
being taken while everyone is watching. I am more interested in what the
Catholic Church will be doing about the problem 10 years from now."
Mr. Gourley said he is unimpressed by the Catholic
Church's record.
It has been a decade since the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops issued "The Five Principles" for dealing with sexual abuse
accusations.
Among the guidelines, which are voluntary, are the prompt
removal of alleged offenders from ministerial duties and adherence to civil
laws.
"Policies haven't stopped the abuse from being swept under
the rug," said Mr. Gourley.
Analysts say the Church has continued to view sexual
impropriety among the clergy as a sin, rather than a crime.
That is now supposed to change. "The law makes it clear
that sexual abuse of minors is a crime," said Bishop Wilton Gregory,
president of the National Conference, in a statement. "We have all been
enlightened [by events in the Boston archdiocese]. We continue to learn from
our experiences and, hopefully, even more from our mistakes."
Defenders of the Catholic Church say sexual abuse scandals
transcend all denominations and religions. In Australia, the Most Reverend
Peter Hollingworth, the former Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane and currently
the country's Governor-General, is fending off claims he covered up child
abuse allegations against clergy while in his old job.
Last month, police in New York arrested a cantor of one of
the country's most important synagogues and charged him with abusing his
three-year-old nephew.
The Mormon Church last year paid US$3-million to settle a
sexual abuse case involving a high priest.
But with one billion members worldwide, the Catholic
Church is more visible than most.
Again being asked is whether the demand of celibacy among
Catholic priests is linked to the incidence of sexual abuse.
Some suggest that a disproportionate number of people who
suffer from sexual disorders seek to enter the priesthood because they see
the celibacy vow as a way of controlling their sexuality.
But people suffering from sexual disorders exist in all
professions, and so a non-celibate priesthood "would not eliminate" the
problem, according to Reverend Thomas Doyle, who studied church pedophilia
cases in the 1980s.
In the Boston archdiocese, Cardinal Law's offices are
operating like the war room of a political campaign, trying to put the right
spin on every new piece of information that emerges.
"Phones are ringing constantly and we're faxing
information and explanations to priests and the media non-stop," said one
embattled official.
A telephone line that records callers' comments has been
filled each day with a mixture of supportive comments, but also abuse,
another official explained.
But the Cardinal is not without supporters. Raised in
Mexico, he is fluent in Spanish, and is credited with helping recent
immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries. Many in the Hispanic community
are returning the favour by sticking by him.
"We believe he made a bad decision, but he did not make it
alone," said Manuel Beltran, 50, a mechanical engineer and father of four
who arrived from Peru 11 years ago. "Everyone is suffering: the victims, the
priests, the parishioners. We have to come together as one and pray."
Mr. Beltran helped stage a candlelight march to the
Cardinal's three-storey Italianate residence in Brighton, a suburb of
Boston, on Saturday night.
The litter-strewn streets surrounding St. Patrick, where
Father Spagnolia has been pastor since 1998, have been just as busy.
On the day the Cardinal sent a personally signed letter to
the priest ordering him to vacate the rectory and find other living quarters
while under suspension, journalists were being ushered into the home one
after the other to conduct interviews.
From the pulpit, before hundreds, Father Spagnolia has
declared his innocence, and criticized the Cardinal for denying the 10
suspended priests a public hearing.
"I do not hate the Cardinal or hold any ill will toward
him," he said sitting alongside the pews at the back of his church. "But I
am unhappy with how he decided to apply his policy and abrogate due
process."
The accused priest says he expects to take his case to the
Congregation of the Clergy, a review body of the Vatican.
But he insists he also looks forward to a time when he and
the Cardinal "can embrace and exchange the priestly kiss of peace."
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