SNAP of Tennessee

Roman Catholic bishops have engaged in a sinister conspiracy to shun those who make abuse allegations against priests and nuns; file civil suits against the Roman Catholic Church; ask questions about the mindset of the management; or demand full implementation of the accountability benchmarks outlined in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Many early observers of the so-called “clergy sex abuse” scandal assumed that the next wave of this perverted tsunami would be an onslaught of civil litigation by the nation’s 195 dioceses to shift blame to Church-run psychiatric facilities and the Church-employed medical professionals who provided the documentation that keeps pedophile priests out of prison and sexual predators in active ministry.

To date this scenario has yet to evolve.  Instead the American bishops have engaged in sinister conspiracy to shun those who make abuse allegations against priests and nuns; who file civil suits against the Roman Catholic Church; who ask questions about the mindset of the management; or who demand full implementation of the accountability benchmarks outlined in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Shunning is a practice the Roman Catholic Community – in modern times – has not employed against those seeking justice and restitution for crimes committed by clergymen.  This practice today is more likely to be associated with the Church of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and the Amish.

In days gone this highly effective method of silencing anyone who complained about a bishop or the Church was merely the first step in maintaining authority.  Francis of Assisi, for example, was shunned by his family and the Church for a time.  Likewise, Charles VII of France and his theologians shunned Joan of Arc until it became impossible to ignore her faith and skill as a warrior. 

In most cases, though, where complaints were made against the Church, excommunication and interdict were the methods of choice used by bishops to bring into line those who questioned their management skills.  Joan, of course, was burned at the stake as a heretic.

Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis has resurrected these Medieval tactics in his diocese bordering the banks of the Mississippi River in Missouri.  He has threatened an independent Polish-Catholic parish with interdict, because he has designs on the parish’s coffers and real estate.  And, yet, Burke has been reprimanded by Missouri judges for failing to produce letters of apology to survivor/victims of pedophile priests within his jurisdiction, disregarding court-mandated settlements.

David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has captured the sentiment of the American bishops regarding their role as accomplices in the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults in the last 75 years.  He noted recently in the Feb. 22, 2005, edition of St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

“Typically, what we’ve seen around the country is that when bishops are forced to, they will part with money,” Clohessy said.  “But they will fight tooth and nail against any kind of non-economic concession.”

Other Garasene members of the American hierarchy – Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, men with their own personal secrets –have threatened to excommunicate politicians and withhold Holy Communion from legislators who uphold our Constitution rather than bow to Rome.  The Bible defines the term, Garasene, in Luke 8:26-40; Mark 5:1-20; Matthew 25:31-46, 8:28-34.

The bishops’ campaign to shun survivor/victims of pedophile priests and vulnerable adults molested by ordained sexual predators is a callous campaign of disinformation.

Shunning, in fact, has become a nefarious acknowledgment by the American bishops to the laity that survivor/victims should be silenced and expelled from the Catholic Community, inferring that they have challenged the authority of magisterium, vilified the Roman Catholic priesthood, and scandalized the faithful.  When the American bishops mention the rape and sodomy of children and adolescents they whisper that each allegation, each case, is, in reality, a mad grab for the Church’s purse strings.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

Shunning is an insidious reaction toward those asking for justice, charity, and bit of kindness.  Shunning is a damning response by those entrusted with our spiritual lives.

Bishop John R. Gaydos of Jefferson City, Mo., has crafted a dynamic effort to shun survivor/victims.  He has encouraged the practice among the laity by publishing the arcane musings of an obscure so-called mystic in his diocesan newspaper and distributing brochures and cards with her message: anyone who brings a civil action against a priest is the cause of scandal against the Church and cannot be saved from the fires of hell. 

The bishops of Tennessee have conducted an effective shunning campaign.  Bishop J. Terry Steib of Memphis, Tenn., attacks every survivor/victim, even to the point of scoffing openly at the legal community investigating notorious pedophiles such as Father Richard Mickey.  Father Mickey allegedly molested two brothers –Blain and Blair Chambers.  Nonetheless, Steib has codified shunning as viable practice in Memphis by allowing Mickey to return at his parish in Jackson and attending the priest’s first Mass upon his reinstatement. 

Similarly, Bishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Knoxville has employed the practice of shunning as a means of protecting even self-acknowledged pedophiles.  Kurtz has refused to meet with victims of his predecessor, Anthony J. O’Connell, and he has protected O’Connell’s public image by maintaining his portrait in Catholic schools and churches throughout his diocese.  In October, 2004, Kurtz ordered priests in his diocese to denounce from their Sunday pulpits my own speaking engagements in Tennessee about O’Connell at the behest of SNAP of Tennessee.

Other bishops have latched on to his shunning campaign in their own dioceses.

Father Kevin McDonough, the vicar general of the archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, has told survivor/victims in face-to-face conversations that the Church cannot control the behavior of Catholics who are hostile toward survivor/victims.  McDonough has even maligned and slandered female survivor/victims in the archdiocese’s own newspaper the Catholic Spirit.  Anne Bonsee, a young woman who filed a civil suit against the Minnesota archdiocese in 2003, has been a particular target of this arbiter of social justice.

McDonough’s sanguine attacks have been made on behalf of his boss, Archbishop Harry N. Flynn.  Flynn is the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Protection of Children and Young and the chief author of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ so-called Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. 

By remaining silent and utilizing this calculated subterfuge, the American bishops have adopted a maddening mindset that saddens anyone knowledgeable in these matters.  Shunning those who seek healing and restorative justice – as victims of child-rape and sodomy – clearly demonstrates that Roman Catholic spiritual leaders have become pathological in their attempts to quell the abuse scandal.

Would that each bishop would draft a pastoral of letter of apology to survivor/victims who were raped and sodomize by priests, brothers, and nuns.  Would that each bishop would ask forgiveness and do public penance for the damage that they have inflicted on the faithful.  Would that these men would identify and verify all cases involving clergy pedophiles and serial predators so that the Roman Catholic Church could restore itself and heal its soul.

I, personally, would like to see bishops washing the feet of sexual molestation victims at Holy Thursday Lenten services.  In American history, Isabella Stewart Gardner of Boston, Mass., is classic role model for exercising the cleansing power of public penitence.  Perhaps Bernard Cardinal Law would do well to scrub the steps of Holy Cross Cathedral each Lent with a bucket and brush on his hands and knees to atone for the sins he has committed against the children and vulnerable adults entrusted to his care.

Unfortunately, the leadership of the Catholic Church has not taken a single step toward recovery.  Nor will it happen while these men continue to maintain their self-imposed stiff-lipped arrogance and refuse to ask this question:

“How can anyone rapes a child and not expect that child to grow up some day and come looking for their rapist and those who protected their rapist from the criminal justice system?”

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Michael Wegs is the public policy advisor for the Minnesota Chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.  In 2003, Wegs successfully sued his former high school seminary teacher, Anthony J. O’Connell, and the Diocese of Jefferson City, Mo.  O’Connell, who was the first bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., was forced step down as bishop of Palm Beach, Fla.  For more information about survivor/victims and the clergy sex abuse scandal, please visit these websites: www.snapnetwork.org, www.rememberthesurvivors.org, and www.bishop-accountability.org.

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