Years ago, before I started investigating the sexual abuse crisis, I had a series of dreams in which I encountered the souls of boys who had died and did not know that they were dead. They had to make the final step into death but they were afraid. I tried to comfort them as best I could, knowing that they would never become fathers, one of our great consolations in this world ruled by death. Then they left me, and passed out completely out of this world into the next.
When he was a Christian Brother , the Rev Robert Charles Best with his fellow abuser Brother Gerald Ridsdale would hunt boys at their school and abuse them.
Among the victims are 26 suicides, victims who were assaulted as boys by Best and his associates such as the convicted pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.
Twenty-six suicides, twenty-six known suicides, twenty-six known suicides to date.
There will be more. The detective investigating the cases is worried about the fallout from his investigation.
Detective Sergeant Carson also feels a particular guilt of his own.
As he has investigated Best and his friends, he has questioned himself.
“When you have blokes the same age as me coming in here and crying their eyes out as they give their statements you know there are more important things than just me,” he said.
“If we hadn’t done the investigation we might not have uncovered what these blokes did.
“But there are times when I wonder about it all.”
The anguish of one of Best’s victims who suicided after talking to police is particularly haunting.
“I talked that kid into making a statement,” Detective Sergeant Carson said.
“I said, ‘We’ll do something about this.’ So who’s responsible for his death, me or Best?
“Another fella said to me that as soon as his mum dies he’s going to kill himself.
“I can’t do anything about it. I’d rather see people live rather than me come along and take a statement from them and upsetting them more.”
And the sole focus of the hierarchy was the abusers:
“Best got convicted for earlier crimes last December and the church knew that,” he said.
“Yet the Catholic Church spent millions of dollars on this bloke’s defence in his latest trials and did nothing for the victims.”
The man who says he was one a “fairly strong Catholic” does his best to be charitable in his view of the church he grew up in.
But he doesn’t always succeed.
“So many people in the Catholic Church do so many good things, yet the hierarchy of the Catholic Church go and do all they can for this bloke knowing full well there are victims at three separate schools over an enormous period of time,” he said.
If I had accidentally killed a child, if I had inadvertently driven someone to suicide, I would mourn the rest of my life. I would do penance and plead night and day for forgiveness and pray for the person. If I had been responsible, I would find it hard to go on living – yet the bishops are far more troubled by any criticism leveled against them than by the hundreds of victims who committed suicide. Is it possible for men suffering from such hardness of heart to be saved?
Yet Christ died for the worst of sinners. Every day when I was on the Camino de Santiago, I prayed for the victims, that they would be healed; I prayed for the abusers, that they would repent; and I prayed for the enabling church officials that they would acknowledge their responsibility and repent and make such amends as they could. So far the latter two prayers do not seem to have been answered.
The church culture we live in as lay people in this crisis is like that of a Mafia family. We keep praying for our relatives to repent but we are too enmeshed to force their arrest.
We should pray for and forgive every last heinous criminal in jail but it shouldn’t stop us from putting them in there in the first place.
Narcissism is characterized by a complete lack of empathy. Repentance with that type of personality comes after years of forced behavior modification, if at all.
Bishops who allowed men to continue to abuse must not only step down but face criminal prosecution, and if states are unwilling or unable to prosecute, then they should face the world court for crimes against humanity.
But we can’t expel the poisons of the tolerance of child rape in the clergy if we are unwilling to face our own demons of complicity. A friend of mine’s grandmother left the Church when a priest in her German village got three girls pregnant. The entire town showed up at the rectory and drove him out of town with pitchforks.
We need to organize to symbolically run complicit bishops out of their palaces. First, we form a truth commission, then we recommend judged offenders step down, then, if they don’t, we boycott. If we don’t do this now, in the spirit of unity, then schism will follow, as it has already begun in Germany and Austria.
One of your best entries ever Leon. I have often thought the same things and wonder how these guys (both abusers and enabling bishops) live with themselves.
I know Christ has merited forgiveness for all sin, so long as we repent. But there’s the rub, how many of these abusers and enablers have repented from the heart? I cannot help but think of those terrible words that came from the mouth of love incarnate: “Woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed, better for that one had he never been born.” May God have mercy on them all and grant them the grace to repent and make whatever reparations He requires.
I can’t help but think that the so-called Culture of Death has always been with us, and very often perpetrated by the very men who give lip service to preaching against it.
In my heart, I think this, more than anything, is why the moral authority of the Church has crumbled away to almost nothing. Nowadays, the masses have access to information and know what is actually going on.
I keep on keeping on because I know this can’t be of Christ, and I believe that real Catholicism is lived out by the humble men and women in the trenches who care for the abused, the downtrodden, the unwanted, the sick, and the suffering. And I believe in the Eucharist.
“I believe that real Catholicism is lived out by the humble men and women in the trenches…” Rainey, you’re right. Christ is there in the trenches. So often when I bury a man or woman who lived the faith, and see the impact that person had on so many others, I think “That’s the Catholic Church!”
Leon, sometimes I wonder when I hear “the heirarchy” blamed- is that like blaming child abuse on “the priests.”? Is it really all , or a majority of them?
Thomas, there’s a difference between the level of responsibility of the priests and the hierarchy. Part of that has to do with numbers. There are so many priests in the world that the odds of all of them being involved in sexual abuse are astronomical. In addition, not all priests know of what other priests have done. The hierarchy, though, is a different matter. The number of bishops and archbishops is far smaller and the group is far tighter. More importantly, the bishops have responsibility for oversight of priests within their respective jurisdictions. Add to this the inherent sense of entitlement, institutional arrogance and isolation that pervades the hierarchy, and you have a systemic failure of massive proportions.
Leon, I would like to answer the challenge posed by these statements:
“I said, ‘We’ll do something about this.’ So who’s responsible for his death, me or Best?
“Another fella said to me that as soon as his mum dies he’s going to kill himself.
“I can’t do anything about it. I’d rather see people live rather than me come along and take a statement from them and upsetting them more.”
The officer is not to blame because he didn’t cause the original condition that motivates these victims to contemplate suicide. Nor can he be blamed for asking questions in trying to protect others and serve justice.
All too often, people fail to distinguish between false guilt and true guilt. In false guilt, we attribute to ourselves (or to others) a responsibility that really is not ours (or theirs) to assume. True guilt involves legitimate, appropriate moral responsibilities within our power that we fail or refuse to assume.
In this case, the true guilt for the suicides belongs to Best, Risdale and their superiors who protected them. Their recompense from God will be far worse than anything the Irish police could do to them.
Joseph- that doesn’t really answer my question. Instead, you are just banging your drum. None of the bishops I have known have been isolated , arrogant, or acted like they were entitled.
Thomas, have you ever confronted a bishop with serious charges of misconduct on the part of one of his priests? If that misconduct had so seriously harmed you that it could result in a financial settlement, then his attitude toward you could be very different. The late bishop of the diocese in which I live had a very pastoral and caring public image, but the mother of an elementary school victim of one of his priests described him as cold and uncaring. Again, read the accounts on BishopAccountability.org.
Basically, the statistics say that 2/3 of the Roman Catholic Bishops in the United States did not think that they had to report child abuse
to the police. Some of them were prosecuted for this and plead guilty, e.g. Pilarczyk. For some reason, perhaps a sense of the entitlement of the clergy to be tried only in church courts (the issue in the England of Thomas a Becket) is the reason these bishops felt they had the right to conceal clerical crimes. I read that Bernard Cardinal Law did not think that he had to abide by US laws. Does anyone know if that is true? (I do not believe everything that I read.)
BTW the worst attitude toward lay people that I have ever read about was expressed by Richard Cardinal Cushing at a retreat for seminarians in Boston. It can be read online by googling Vanity Fair Richard Cardinal Cushing Maureen Orth. Then click on The Silence We Keep: A Nun’s View of the Catholic Priest Scandal. If this is true, then the view of women as receptacles for lust was very prevalent in the 1960s. No wonder a feminist movement arose at that time. Again I am sorry to make people search in this manner, but no one has ever showed me how to post a link.
In the year 2000 I told people that I was sure that the church organization of bishops, priests, deacons was divinely ordained by Christ. After reading about the financial and sexual abuses in these churches and about how the bishops did nothing constructive about it until they were forced to do so when the abuse was exposed to the public, I no longer hold that opinion. Any church polity will work if the people in it are actually practicing Christians. If the people running the place are not in reality practicing Christians, no polity will succeed.
Our bishop is quite a humble man and makes himself very available. The Archbishop of our region sold off the fancy bishop’s residence and lives with a group of priest in the cathedral rectory and is noted for his poverty of spirit and humility. He wished to make himself so available that he was going to publish his cell phone number. Fortunately, his aides talked him out of it. In an archdiocese composed of millions he would have had no peace.
I suspect that like most any human group, Catholic bishops vary a great deal from one to another. Blanket statements are rarely helpful. Christ does not view any of us as part of an impersonal mass or category. He sees us each as unique persons, maybe we should try to do the same.
Thank you Leon. Very, very moving. Moved me to tears. I realize from your post that I who would consider myself prolife generally don’t want to hear about these things or don’t bother to read about them. I personally would like to apologize for all the times I believed that most abuse charges against clergy etc. were just false allegations and attacks against the Church. Until I experienced it personally (2nd party), I would not see. Lord, have mercy on me and all those who walk away or cover up. Lord Jesus, Grant those poor victims eternal rest. May their souls and the souls of all the Faithful departed through the Mercy of God rest in peace.
God bless you and thank you.
I just saw this blog and am reminded of what our Cardianl George said recently, “it used to be that nothing was permitted but everything forgiven but now everything is permitted but nothing forgiven”.
That single statement explains the pathology of professional victimhood, today a treasured and seemingly permanent state.
I am sorry to hear that Cardinal George made such an ignorant remark. Sins my be forgiven, but crimes have to be paid for. Victims become survivors by forcing perpetrators to become accountable for the crimes they have committed. Bringing criminals to justice also reduces the chances of more crimes being committed against new victims. It is time for Cardinal George to retire.
Sins may be forgiven, but crimes have to be paid for.