Can the Church Be Saved?

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Thousands of Frank Martinellis and hundreds of Father Bretts cast a dark shadow over the Roman Catholic Church this Eastertide--and so have the U.S. bishops who let the crimes fester. The crisis gathers steam day after day, with perhaps 2,000 priests accused of abuse across the country and hot lines jamming with more victims' calls. It is not just what Boston's Bernard Cardinal Law called "a tragic error" but a spiritual and financial body blow to church authority as well, demoralizing to every man who wears a Roman collar. Lives have been hurt, trust damaged and the credibility of the church to speak on social issues tainted.

How long does it take powerful institutions to learn that it's not just the crime, it's also the cover-up that damns you? The Roman Catholic Church kept silent for decades about the immoral, even criminal betrayal of its children, but in this era of openness, that just won't do. When priests stand in their pulpits this holiest week of the Christian year, what are they going to say to congregations shamed, in pain, frustrated, angry that so much was so hidden for so long? As the Roman Catholic faithful in America are bidden to rejoice that a risen Christ will save their souls, they now want to hear how their church is going to save itself.

After weeks of silence, Pope John Paul II issued a vague Holy Week message, saying, "As priests we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination" and offered "concern" for the victims. But the muted words would not satisfy those looking for a concrete course of action. In a Palm Sunday pastoral letter, Egan reiterated his policy of overseeing abuse allegations himself but urged victims to bring them to the attention of police. And he defended his Bridgeport conduct like a lawyer: every case disclosed had occurred on his predecessor's watch; he took the word of experts when he recycled abusive priests back into the ministry.

CULTURE OF SECRECY

Many of us may have just awakened to the stunning extent of priestly pedophilia since January, when the Boston Globe exposed the predations of John Geoghan and the habit the diocese had of systematically concealing them. But the U.S. church has known all about it--how deep sexual misconduct ran, how widespread, how frequent--at least since the first big abuse scandal broke at a Louisiana trial in 1985, when the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe was sentenced to 20 years for molesting dozens of children, who were awarded a combined $18 million in damages.

In the years that followed, there were more big cases and big financial settlements--an estimated $1 billion or more--but only halfhearted efforts to adopt firm guidelines on how to handle the problem. Early on, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, then a canon lawyer at the Vatican embassy in Washington, drafted a 100-page report advising that offenders be moved away from kids, that victims be succored and that the public be told the truth. But whenever a fresh case erupted, the church said it was an aberration, an isolated example, one bad apple. Or media bashing by an anti-Catholic press.