In 1996, I quit my full-time sales job so I could return to college in order to learn the methodology of doing quantitative research. Like Karen Silkwood, Erin Brokovich and Rachel Spring to whom I dedicate this and the next two chapters, I felt compelled to investigate more thoroughly observations I had made in the church that did not seem right. It was, however, important for me to do my research in an academic setting so that the findings would not just be anectodal.
Having been a devout Catholic as long as I could remember, I was very overwhelmed by my discoveries regarding the lack of integrity in my church and the fact that I had been unable to raise consciousness about priests leaving to marry, priests secretly married or having affairs. The most egregious of all, however, was the discovery of clergy sexual abuse and I had not been able to find anyone who cared.
Publicity was my forte having previously spent 13 years in advertising and 4 years in television, and by 1996, I had written several news releases and had spoken with several reporters about the church's dark secrets. Whenever anyone contacted me about CITI/Rentapriest (http://www.rentapriest.com/), I would explain the program and then tell them about clergy sexual abuse. The latter was never published by anyone from the Boston Globe to the New York Times to Catholic publications. These were long interviews that apparently never made it past Catholic editors.
I had even witnessed with my own eyes, the first ever presentation given to a group of 300 priests by Fr. Canice Connors, the then director of St. Luke's clergy sexual abuse treatment center near Baltimore, Maryland. The workshop was conduction in May 1993 at the 25th Anniversary National Federation of Priests' Council Conference (NFPC) in Chicago where I had been invited to do a workshop on married priests.
Fr. Connors' goal was to reintegrate into new parish settings, predator priests he said had received treatment and were "recovered" and ready to get back into parish ministry. Fr. Connors' appeal was for sensitivity to St. Luke's "victim" against the "voyeurism of the laity and the press," the reason he was looking to relocate them in unknown parishes.
He explained that "most priest predators are not pedophiles, but rather 'ephebophiles,' that pedophiles have a mental disorder and abuse pre-pubescent children. An ephebophile was described as a predator who was sexually attracted to adolescents up to 19 years of age, indicating that he did respond to treatment and could do normal ministry after "recovery."
Fr. Connors indicated at this 1993 workshop that clergy sexual abuse cases were becoming public in New Zealand, Australia, Africa, Ireland, England, Holland and France, and that St. Luke's representatives were in England that very week, training therapists. (Two months later, Pope John Paul II told the news media that clergy sexual abuse was only an "American problem" [Time Magazine, July 5, 1993].)
I publicized my notes from the NFPC Conference the following October (1993), but they were not picked up by any member of the press. It was obvious to me that the media knew about these church crimes but chose to keep the information quiet. One Washington Post reporter explained to me that most bishops visited press rooms regularly and their presence to Catholic reporters and editors kept them "in tow" regarding bad church publicity.
My curiosity regarding further research also peaked because of the many denials by the church that mandatory celibacy was related to clergy sexual abuse. Sociologist Fr. James Gill wrote several articles including one in American Catholic arguing that the matter "should not be investigated" because there is "no conclusive evidence" that mandatory celibacy is connected to clergy sexual abuse. The July 2, 1993 issue of National Catholic Reported (p.3) reported that when a Canadian Ad Hoc Committee on clergy sexual abuse was named to study the problem and issue its recommendations, the Canadian bishops gave "specific instructions not to study the nature and causes of sexual abuse."
During the question/answer period at the NFPC workshop for priests, I introduced myself, perhaps one of only two women present, and suggested that a scientific study be done to see if there is any connection between mandatory celibacy and sexual abuse since no study had ever been conducted. Fr. Connors' answer was that it "would be a tremendous waste of time and money" because "there is no connection." Yet, in the weeks that followed when the first case of Federal Racketeering (RICO) was made against the church in New Jersey, Pope John Paul II told the news media that "celibacy is not essential to the priesthood." (NYTimes, July 18, 1993)
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported on November 24, 1993 that in a Philadelphia abuse case, the archdiocesan attorneys were counter-suing parents, blaming them for not discovering that their child was being abuse. (Priests of course threatened children with stories of being damned to hell if they told.) The WSJ piece also related stories of other victims being subjected to private investigators hired by the church and wiretaps for use by defending attorneys.
In the very public Fr. James Porter case in Fall River Massachusetts, one of the plaintiffs told the court that the church had held back $5000 from the final settlement in a "hush money" escrow account. There were also numerous unsuccessful gag orders attempted on other Boston attorneys because of the numbers of pending cases and in the $119 million Dallas case, the church's attorneys attempted to have the judge removed prior to his judgment being written.
The Catholic hierarchy then and even today (2010) in Europe is having influential people believe that clergy sexual abuse is no different than sexual abuse among the general population. From the beginning as a bewildered Catholic, I saw "smoke and mirrors," defined as something intended to disguise or distort in order to draw attention away from an often embarrassing or unpleasant issue. It was almost unbelievable to me too.
Because my discoveries were all simultaneous--married priests, priests secretly married, priests in sexual relationships, priests sexually abusing adolescents; the church hiding the fact of married priests, blackballing some from obtaining jobs, suggesting to some that they have affairs instead of leaving to marry, denying that abuse was happening and finally denying that mandatory celibacy was connected--all these reasons made me feel compelled to research the abuse by priests. "Was it indeed the same as general population abuse or did mandatory celibacy make a difference?"
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