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The U.S. government has yet to take a serious stand against
Catholic church officials in relation to child sexual assault allegations
within the church. (AP file)
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By DAVID CLOHESSY • 9/21/15 6:41 AM Washington Examiner
We all need to read this article and contact our Congress person! Thank you David.
It's ironic that Pope Francis will soon speak to the United
States Congress, because the U.S. is one of the western democracies that was
most hard-hit by the priest sexual abuse crisis and also lacked any federal
response to it whatsoever. No federal legislation or regulations or even
resolutions were proposed or adopted. There were no congressional hearings.
There was no Justice Department investigation. Nothing. Abroad, a number of national and regional
governments have conducted investigations and issued reports about this
continuing crisis, including Ireland, Australia, Canada and Belgium.
Non-profits, like the Child Rights International Network and
Amnesty International, have done investigations. International bodies, like the
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee Against
Torture, have done investigations,
But since the first U.S. pedophile priest made national
headlines 30 years ago (Father Gilbert Gauthe of Lafayette, La.), the federal
government has done virtually nothing. There have been two statewide
investigations launched by attorneys general in Massachusetts and New
Hampshire. There have been 8-10 local jurisdictions that have done grand jury
probes. But there's been no action by federal officials at all.
Individual members of Congress have commented on the crisis.
In 2005, then-Sen. Rick Santorum, for instance, cited Boston's
"liberalism" as a cause of the crisis: "When the culture is
sick, every element in it becomes infected," he said. "While it is no
excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic,
political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the
storm."
But as a body, no federal U.S. institution has ever taken
action about — or even investigated — this horrific, on-going scandal. So why
should they now?
Because predator priests are still on the job. (With minimal
effort, we've found a dozen.)
Because virtually no bishop who has concealed child sex
crimes has been punished.
Only four U.S. bishops have resigned over the past few
decades because they've endangered kids. They retain their salaries, titles,
honor and power. None have been defrocked, demoted, disciplined or even
publicly denounced by top church officials. When wrongdoing is ignored,
wrongdoing will likely be repeated. And because these two factors alone mean
that children are still not safe inside the church.
What could Congress do? For starters, they could hold
hearings and force bishops to answer tough questions under oath about how much
they know and how little they're doing about child molesting clerics. That
alone might give abuse survivors and their families hope. And it might help
deter employers in churches and elsewhere who are hiding predators now or may
be tempted to do so in the future.
Federal officials and agencies might tie crime-related
funding to state reform of child safety laws. For instance, Justice Department
monies might be denied to states that give child sex abuse victims little time
to expose predators in court. (We tie highway funds to driving safety measures,
like reasonable speed limits. We can do the same with child safety measures.)
Years ago, under George W. Bush, the DOJ established a
special unit to pursue charges against hard-core Southern racists who beat and
intimidated African-American voters in the 1950s and 1960s. Why not a special
task force now targeting predator priests who have hurt kids in one state only
to be sent elsewhere, even abroad, to do so again?
The only reason a few predator priests have been charged,
convicted and imprisoned is that abuse victims and secular authorities have
been courageous, creative and persistent. We in the Survivors Network of those
Abused by Priests are convinced that if the federal government shows even a
scintilla of the bravery that thousands of victims have shown, and a bit of the
resourcefulness some local law enforcement staff have shown, real progress
could be made in making the Catholic church a more healthy and safe institution
— no matter what Pope Francis does or does not do about this continuing crisis.
David Clohessy of St. Louis is the executive director of
SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He can be reached at davidgclohessy@gmail.com.
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