Laurie Goodstein in the New York Times today:
The founder of a Roman Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the priesthood because they could not be cured.
The letters of Father Gerald M. C. Fitzgerald, founder of the order, Servants of the Paraclete, were made public last week by National Catholic Reporter, the best source of news from the Catholic church in the United States. (Disclosure: NCR once published an article of mine.)
The letters tell of Fr. Fitzgerald's warning of sexual offenders in the priesthood. Local heirarchies were informed in the 1950's. The Vatican was informed in 1962. Pope Paul VI was informed a year later. Goodstein gives credit to NCR later in the article, and supplies some new details.
In defense of the church, Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., chairman of the United States Bishops Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, told the Times that sexually abusive priests were considered to be rare, that Fr. Fitzgerald's views, such as sending sex offenders to a "deserted island," were considered "bizarre," and that psychology, at the time, said that offenders could "go back to ministry." Cupich also told the Times that the bishops came "to regret" that last point.
Helen Zukin, lawyer for abuse victims, responded that the heirarchy could not have thought Fr. Fitzgerald was all that "bizarre" since they continued to send him plenty of business.
“If the bishops thought he was such a bizarre crackpot, they would have shut him down. In fact, they referred their priests to him and sent him financial contributions.”
She also said the psychiatrists who worked at the Servants of the Paraclete’s centers said in legal depositions that they had rarely recommended returning sexually abusive priests to ministry, and only if the priests were under strict supervision in settings where they were not working with children.
Fitzgerald ran a counseling center to which many priests were sent for rehabilitation of various problems. He gave consideration, for a time, to not accepting pedophiles because he considered them "devils." In a letter to the archbishop of New Mexico in 1957, Fitzgerald wrote, "if I were a bishop I would tremble when I failed to report them to Rome for involuntary layization."
In other words, they should have been tossed out of the priesthood. This was rarely done, according to Rev. Thomas Doyle. Doyle is, according to the Times, a "whistle-blower who often serves as an expert witness in cases against the church." Doyle noted that the church's theology of the priesthood is "so sacred" that defrocking was simply not done.
The Roman Catholic church believes in the "indelible character" of the priesthood, which, once conferred, simply cannot be taken back except in the rarest and most egregious of cases. This is yet another instance where the application of heirarchy--bishop over priest over people--undermines the mission of Christ, which was to reject heirarchy and live according to egalitarian partnership.
‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’ (Matthew 20: 24ff)
I can understand in part why the Church discounted Fitzgerald’s warnings. His letters are so full of venom concerning pederast priests – nobody likes child molesters, of course, but Fitzgerald sounds a little nuts – that I can certainly see why some looked askance at his desert island recommendations. Alas, they threw the baby out with the bathwater, with disastrous consequences.
The Reporter also supplied copies of Fitzgerald’s correspondence. Boy, a fellow really has to suck up to those bishops.
Posted by: Hypatia | April 06, 2009 at 03:28 PM
Maybe he's bizarre, but his suggestion is less bizarre than what they actually wound up doing, which was nothing.
Posted by: John Petty | April 07, 2009 at 11:25 AM