As many of you know, the Boston Globe is credited with taking the priest-abuse scandal to the nation and thus galvanizing the bishops of the American Church to make sweeping reforms and to institute the Dallas Charter.
But there are many untold stories that rival this scandal in other ways. And again the Boston Globe is writing the story.
We all know that there are accusations against priests that go back three, four and more decades. Some of these accusations are from what is euphemistically called "recovered memory." Therefore a significant number of these accusations are false, and if true could not be tried in court because of witnesses failed memories or they are dead.
But the most pernicious part of this scandal concerns lawyers like the one mentioned in the Boston Globe article below and like Jeffrey Anderson and his minions in Minnesota. It is all about money and crucifying the institutional Church and making her pay. But where does the money come? From the widow's mite and the generosity of the laity.
Read it and weep:
Collateral Damage
By Brian McGrory
Globe Columnist / June 15, 2011
The first time the Rev. Charles Murphy was cleared of accusations that he improperly touched a minor, a girl 25 years earlier, everyone who ever met him said they had never doubted his innocence.
It was 2006 and priests were all over the news for every awful reason, most of them deservedly so. But Father Murphy swore his innocence, the archdiocese ruled the allegations lacked substance, and the woman dropped her suit on the eve of trial.
When Murphy triumphantly returned to the pulpit of his sun-splashed church in South Weymouth, the applause could be heard across the South Shore. Father Charlie, as he was known, was back — back cracking cornball jokes from the altar, back as a fanatical hockey fan, back as the mad plow driver clearing the parking lot at the hint of snow. He was also back ministering in prisons and helping the deaf, a man of the cloth to his core.
“He was just the same guy as before the accusation, a bubbly guy, fun, a little bit of a jokester, but a diligent priest,’’ said Joe Corcoran, the developer who befriended Murphy decades earlier at St. Agatha in Milton.
Amid so much joy, it would have been impossible to imagine the turn that Murphy’s life would eventually take.
That turn came in April 2010, when lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who had lodged the first unfounded complaint, brought another. This one involved a man, not a woman. It went back 40 years rather than 25. It centered on accusations of fondling at the old Paragon Park in Hull and on a ski trip up north.
When the charges hit, Murphy canceled a long-planned party celebrating his 50th anniversary as a priest. He cleaned out his room in the church rectory and went to live with his brother. Two accusations in four years, he knew, did not look good.
But it didn’t matter to the prominent friends and everyday parishioners who refused to give up their faith. They hired a lawyer, who in turn brought in a private investigator, who discovered that the alleged victim was mired in financial problems, had a long list of liens placed against him, and faced massive credibility issues even within his own family.
It took nearly six months — about five months longer than it should have — before an archdiocesan review board cleared Murphy of the allegations in September and Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley restored him as a senior priest. But this time, there was no triumphant return to the pulpit. In fact, when Murphy reappeared at St. Francis Xavier in South Weymouth to say Mass, he couldn’t summon the strength to deliver a sermon.
“He would say to me, ‘I just can’t preach. I just don’t have it in me,’ ’’ said Jack Pender, his longtime confidant. “It was so frustrating for him.’’
His spirit was evaporating. His antidepression medicine kept him up at night. He moved to Regina Cleri, a North End residence for retired priests, where he continued his tortured descent.
Garabedian is a talented lawyer who has done vital work on behalf of hundreds of victims of abusive priests, but in terms of Murphy, what he did is a disgrace. Garabedian told me this week his Milton client was “credible.’’ He wasn’t. He lashed out at what he described as a “kangaroo court,’’ the respected, independent archdiocesan panel that cleared Murphy. He didn’t utter the only words worth hearing: I made a mistake.
They brought Murphy to a hospice in Haverhill a couple of weeks ago after doctors determined there was nothing left to be done. There was no cancer, no apparent physical disease, just a broken 77-year-old heart that refused to mend.
And that’s where he died Saturday evening, a wisp of the man he once was. Garabedian lost his compass on this case, and thousands of people all over Massachusetts lost a truly wonderful priest.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.
My Comments:
There are reasons in civil and Church law for statutes of limitation. What good does it do to accuse someone of a crime that happened decades ago and apart from the accusation there is no real evidence or living witnesses to corroborate what happened.
Greed is the source of all evil.
16 comments:
In this this case there is the question as to why there were no other offenses. Typically, there are several instances of abuse in the career of the priest and I am not aware of any proven abusive priests that actually ended except through health or advanced age. So the fact that these accusations were 40 years ago with no intervening cases should be considered. Yet, for this reason I am ambivalent about the use of statutes of limitations in these cases. What was wrong then is wrong now and that the event was hidden for a number of years does not make it OK. Rather, I think the issue is that the person, priest, has not repeated it and acknowledged the error. This can be the case with an indiscretion with another adult. It is almost never the case with a child or vulnerable parishioner.
As bad as this is for Father Murphy, and it is terrible, it is not the fact that he was accused baselessly, but that the accusations were plausible, if even for a moment. That the lawyer could imagine, even in his most greedy moments, that a priest, simply for being a priest, might be a molester and should be investigated. Those doubts were planted and tended by Catholics who turned a blind eye for any reason to the scandal.
This is how Father Murphy is like Christ, we have helped kill him by ignoring what we know is the right thing to do. We discuss here how to lovingly discuss what appears to be bad theology with our clergy. That is touchy and precarious ground. This, on the other hand, is easily accessible for the layman at any level and it is a disservice to our clergy not to help them remain on the straight and narrow. Recent findings about the sex scandal discovered an elephant in the parlor: the laity wanted relaxed sexual mores and spent enormous energy developing 'evidence' that it is a good thing. Now we are reaping the wind and our clergy are enduring a gale.
rcg
Statutes of limitation should be tailored to the crime and should be identical for all persons and legal entities. We should be dilligent and fight any attempts to single out the Catholic Church for longer statutes of limitation.
What about all the children and their families who years later still weep for their children and for the children themselves who have been wrongly abused. They lost thier innocense to people they were to trust. Read and weep.
You're not suggesting that two wrongs make a right are you, or revenge on the innocent is a form of justice are you?
No, definitely not!
It saddens me that this priest may have been wrongly accused.
However, the Church should and must admit that the Church knowingly moved "bad" priests where they ultimately hurt more children.
No one would knowingly put a bad apple in a bushel of good apples because all the apples would rot. Wouldn't you agree?
The Church should wholeheartedly weep for the children abused and their families. It seems many more children, than priests were harmed. Many left the faith and sadly do not benefit from the Sacraments and the Grace from them. Those harmed felt betrayed and mistreated by the Church and its cover up.
Ironically, to show the Church understands the problem; it takes a "pro active" approach and implements Virtus training. The training is required for parents who drive their own children on a class trip.
I do believe that God is the ultimate judge and He will judge fairly and justly on these and all actions by priests and the laity as well.
In the mean time, though, the Church, like all good parents should have corrective discipline given to its children when it is needed for bad behavior. Being a good parent demands consequences given to its children for such behavior.
May Our dear Lord comfort and heal ALL the broken hearted!
Bishops should own up to their part in this horrible debacle and of course guilty priests should be prosecuted. However, as an American, I believe there should be due process and I believe in the statue of limitations to preserve that especially after so much time has elapsed and it turns into one person's word against another.
I agree, but Fr. so much of this was caused by the Church's own bad actions and its cover up. Many of those harmed went to the Church and were labeled "troublemakers" etc. and were wrongly treated by the hierarchy.
The "whistleblowers" were maligned and once again hurt by those they placed thier trust in. If the Church would have admitted the wrong and took constructive discipline in the beginning much of this could have been stopped.
I will continue to lift up all priests and our Church in prayer. Prayer heals all wounds; even those deep, deep wounds.
That's only part of the story, not all the whistle blowers went about this in the right way and falsely accused people of mischief and didn't fully understand the whole thing. Boston and other places are experiencing healing and reconciliation not through continued vitriolic casting of accusations, but working with the bishop, clergy and laity to get things back to normal. It's when parallel structures and groups with an agenda opposed to the unity of the Church under the bishop that one has incessant and almost obsessive compulsive back biting and the like. That is doomed to failure in the Catholic Church.
Just wondering...have you read the Philadelphia grand jury and its scandal? Weep when you read it, Fr.
When I read it, I was filled with utter sadness how the Church behaved. Enough said about the subject, prayers and more prayers are obviously needed.
Yes, I did read it and it gives new meaning to the term "diabolical." There are many reasons for this scandal, the failure to screen candidates for the priesthood properly, to begin with, lack of supervision, naivete of the laity in trusting these priests to be in the presence of their sons without supervision, lack of supervision by bishops and a lack of an ability to suspend from ministry those who engaged in this behavior. But the one area where you would think the Church has some competence is in the area of "spiritual warfare" and the influence of Satan--that has not been discussed or expounded upon. After Vatican II belief in Satan certainly diminished and there is very little theological reflection on his influence and possession. I lay all of this at Satan's feet.
Fr., I have waited awhile to respond to your post in which you question recovered memories of sexual abuse. It upsets me to see someone make a blanket statement that just because a memory is recovered decades later, it is probably false.
While there certainly have been cases of "false memories" those cases have involved the use of hypnosis by therapists who either accidentally or intentionally planted the false memory in the subconscious of the patient.
I will tell you my story. Something happened to me between the ages of 7-9 that turned me against the Church and God completely. Up until that time in my life I had accepted religion and enjoyed going to Mass with my parents, but after that I changed. I did not know why. I just knew I wanted nothing more to do with the Church.
I left the Church when I was 15 and stayed away for 27 years. When God called me back, His call was so strong I had to go, but I was afraid. Within two weeks of returning to the Church I began having nightmares during which I woke up literally screaming.
I think you know where my story is going. I began recovering memories of being molested by several people, one of them a priest. I was not in counseling at the time (although I am now), and these memories came out of the blue. I had no prior memory of any of it. I have never undergone any type of hypnosis because my therapist thinks it's dangerous.
I haven't filed a complaint with my diocese because the memories are a bit hazy and I am not 100% sure which priest molested me.
I do know that the priest I think molested me did molest other children during the same time period and that my diocese has made settlements with those people. If I were to ever file a complaint with my diocese I would mostly be looking for an apology from someone.
At this point, some 40 years later, I'm not interested in revenge or any type of cash settlement. I just want to heal and get on with my life.
I appreciate your insights and grieve over your experiences. But you hit the nail on the head, you are still hazy as to whom it was that did this to you. For example, when I was a seminarian living in the very rectory I am now (1978) there were four priests and myself. Now there weren't any problems at that time, but let's say that one of the priests molested a child the age you were and after the adult now much older recovers her/his memory and it is still hazy, one can remember in 1978 there were five men living in the rectory. Which one gets accused with this hazy memory. That's the danger, an innocent priest might get accused. That doesn't mean the person making the accusation wasn't abused and only recently recovered their memory of it, the memory is hazy and there is no corroborating evidence not even subsequent charges against the one whom the person might think did it.
Which is why I won't file a complaint. I would never risk accusing the wrong priest (even though in my case the one I suspect is deceased).
I believe innocent priests have been accused and that is as bad as the abuse itself because that also ruins lives.
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