John Paul II Abuse of Power: Vows of Silence

Vows of Silence – The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II

Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II

By Jason Berry and Gerald RennerHodder, $35

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/02/1086058913135.html?from=storyrhs

This book should come, like cigarette packets, with a health warning. It is liable to overexcite those with a tendency to high blood pressure: it made my blood boil.

Sexually abusive priests have been and remain a colossal crisis for the Catholic church. Many perceive it as a double crime: the abuse itself and, worse, the official response - covering up, lying, hiding abusers from the law and moving them from parish to parish to reoffend, secrecy, refusal to acknowledge the victims or, when forced to, pressuring the victims to be silent.

In English-speaking countries, the battered church has put in place protocols and processes, and in Australia the change of heart generally seems genuine. But this book is evidence that even now the Vatican hierarchy doesn't really understand either how appalling sexual abuse is to the victims, nor how much the scandal has damaged the church.

Vows of Silence suggests that the Vatican is still into denial, secrecy and cover-ups, and that this attitude starts at the very top with the Pope and the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger.

Veteran American journalist Jason Berry and Hartford Courant reporter Gerald Renner show that John Paul II, a colossus in standing against communism and for human rights, has been a moral pygmy in protecting human rights within the church, that is, the rights of abuse victims.

The Vatican's over-arching concern has been to protect clerical power and authority. Ironically, nothing could so have undermined it.

The book contains two narratives about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church over decades. The first is that of Tom Doyle, an American priest and canon lawyer who became a crusader for abuse victims. It tells of his awakening, his generally futile battles to make the hierarchy recognise the abuse and to act, and his increasing marginalisation, until eventually he became an air-force chaplain, thus changing his superiors from the church to defence officers.

The second narrative is the story of Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ, a reclusive, cultish international order based in Mexico. It is the story of a group of victims, who portray Maciel as a serial abuser over decades, and their futile attempt to get the Vatican to take them seriously.

After years of obfuscation and rebuff, they finally managed to bring the case to the attention of Cardinal Ratzinger. The powerful cardinal called it "a delicate matter". Father Maciel had done so much good for the church by bringing large numbers into the priesthood - was it "prudent" to raise it now? So the case sits at the Vatican, in limbo.

The book lays bare, within its narratives, who knew what and when, what - to quote the liturgy - they did and failed to do. It is often a sordid and unedifying account. Doubtless those who connived to protect the abusers thought they were acting for the best - best for the church, at any rate. Many people come under a shadow, but the most serious concerns relate to the highest officials, the ones blocking reform and ensuring that the important decisions are confined to Rome.

The authors suggest that the Pope's obsessions - opposing communism and the Vatican II left turn towards a more modern and liberal church - blinded him to structural decay. He and the bishops turned a blind eye to a gay-priest culture that arose in the 1970s, "cynical about celibacy, riddled with hypocrisy and narcissistic behaviour". The Pope's response to sexual corruption, they say - adopted by prelates - is "keep quiet, deny, apologise if necessary, and when in doubt attack the messenger".

Catholic apologists have often complained the church has been unfairly singled out, that the media has sensationalised their cases, that they are no worse than the general population. The media is an easy target, and often guilty, but when it comes to abuse many victims must say "thank God for the media". Such advances as have been made, as Tom Doyle observes, have come from the twin shotguns at the church's head of the courts and the media.

Australians appear in passing: Father Paul Collins's run-in with Ratzinger that drove him from the priesthood, the allegations against then-Archbishop Pell, and research by Christian Brother Barry Coldrey into abuse by members of his order. He wrote of a "sexual underworld" - and soon found himself on the outer.

The book is not particularly polemical. The edifice is built of carefully confirmed facts, and interview after interview. That simply makes their conclusion all the more shocking.

"The abuse of power in this papacy has done incalculable damage to pastors, local priests . . . As John Paul leaves the stage, the extraordinary achievements that ensure his role as one of our greatest popes must be weighed against the human suffering wrought by internal corruption on his watch."

Reviewer Barney Zwartz
Barney Zwartz is The Age's religious affairs editor.


SNAP's review http://www.snapnetwork.org/books_section/vows_silence.htm

America Magazine review
http://www.americamagazine.org/BookReview.cfm?articleTypeID=31&textID=3558&issueID=482

Our Fathers
The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal
By David France

Cleanse Us From Our Sins

You’ll need an iron stomach and a leather bottom to get through these two investigative reports, but if you want to know about sexual abuse in the church, they are indispensable. You will also have to put up with cute titles and chapter heads, as well as an occasionally questionable judgment. On the whole, however, both books have ample annotation to help the faltering, incredulous or weeping reader. Given the fact that the principal players are sometimes the same, it is surprising there is not more overlap between the two—one specific example of overlap being the story about Cardinal Bernard Law telling the abuse victim Tom Blanchette, “I bind you by the power of the confessional never to speak of this again.” But the books take different approaches.

Posted: Feast of St. francis of Assisi