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Accusations of Abuse in
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The Evening Post
May 21, 2002
Catholic Church and the sex abuse virus
Allegations
of a coverup in the Roman Catholic Church's dealings
over sex abuse in its New Zealand ranks will give no comfort to the Church
hierarchy. Or to the faithful who will be wondering how trusted priests behave
when mums and dads are not looking. The hidden sex abuse virus, exposed most
dramatically in
All the best will in the world will not disguise the fact that a minority of
priests and other clergy - Catholic and Protestant alike - betray the trust of
youngsters and adults. Yesterday, disclosures by counsellor Brent Cherry, of
Lower Hutt, that he had worked with eight male victims abused by six priests or
members of Catholic religious orders was just the kind of news Cardinal Tom
Williams would not want to hear. The cardinal's position is unenviable. He is
in charge of diocesan priests but does not run religious orders - they appoint
their own leaders and keep their own counsel - and they are not duty-bound to
expose perverted members to his scrutiny, let alone put them in the public
arena.
In an interview last month, the cardinal ventured the opinion that the ratio of
priestly abuse would be in the order of 2 percent, not that it gave him any
pleasure to run that estimate. There should be none at all if priests were true
to their obligations, he observed. The cardinal is absolutely right. The
expectation of the faithful is that clergy do not abuse trust, but the truth is
that some of them have done so. Mr Cherry said the eight victims he counselled
were aged between 11 and 17 when they were abused between 12 and 36 years ago.
They were sodomised or raped and then sworn to an insidious penalty - silence.
Out-of-court settlements were made on condition of lifelong secrecy. The upshot
was that in these cases individuals still carry deep emotional scars. The
Church's investigation procedures had the effect of "revictimising"
these men, Mr Cherry said - though it is hard to imagine how an inquiry could
do anything other than that when the men had to relive their experiences. That
they had to seek help outside the Church reflects badly; no wonder the Church
is running scared of further exposure.
The Church does take the allegations seriously. Its Path To
Healing document details procedures on dealing with abuse and the steps needed
to protect everyone concerned until such time as guilt is established.
At the weekend, an influential Vatican-approved journal, Civilta
Cattolica, published an opinion that bishops are not
necessarily responsible for child abuse by priests. The implication is clear -
the Church is desperate to distance its leaders from creeps in dog-collars,
even when, in the
In