"Discussions to begin in Rome on ways to handle the current crisis in the Catholic Church"

Prof. David O'Brien, director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture

NPR's "Morning Edition," Tuesday, April 23, 2002

With host Bob Edwards and reporter Tovia Smith

Listen to the story

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Bob Edwards.

American bishops are in Rome today for a rare meeting with Pope John Paul. It was called to deal with the Catholic Church's ongoing clerical abuse scandal. It also may consider the future of some bishops who allowed pedophile priests to keep working with children. The current crisis also has exposed long simmering tensions around other issues, including celibacy. Pressure is being placed on the Vatican to respond to an increasingly restive American church. NPR's Tovia Smith reports on what led up to today's meeting.

TOVIA SMITH reporting:

The reports in the Boston Globe that ignited the current crisis in the Catholic Church were hardly the first to expose clerical abuse. Nearly 20 years ago, a Louisiana priest pleaded guilty to molesting 11 boys, and 19 others were also accused. By 1985, there were national reports of bishops ignoring complaints and moving molesters from parish to parish. And in the early 1990s, in one of the biggest cases, Massachusetts priest James Porter admitted to having nearly 100 victims. But still, even then, victims were doubted and stories were often dismissed.

Ms. LAURA BARRETT: You know, it used to be that when we had survivors who would come forward and, you know, talk about the fact that father had abused their child, people were spit on.

SMITH: Laura Barrett is with a group of survivors of sexual abuse by priests called SNAP. She says the scandal didn't resonate until earlier this year when the Boston Globe and then others published vivid accounts of a systematic cover-up in the church, including copies of the church's own memos and notes.

Ms. BARRETT: It was kind of like Watergate when we finally got the tapes and we could actually hear what Nixon said. That's what--people now have an insight into Cardinal Law and his motivations and what he was thinking about. Protecting it certainly wasn't protecting little children.

SMITH: But in many ways, some say the church was already a tinderbox ready to ignite. David O'Brien is director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He says the outrage erupting now is fueled, in part, by tensions that have long been simmering just below the surface around the issues of celibacy, gay priests and the role of women and lay leaders in the church.

Mr. DAVID O'BRIEN (College of the Holy Cross): There are many other issues that have not been faced directly and honestly by the whole community and have been divisive, have been under the surface kind of building up a lot of tension between the people and their leadership that are now going to be out and are going to demand attention.

SMITH: Indeed, some of the US bishops who are in Rome this week carry along years worth of baggage and frustrations from unfulfilled promises of reform that date back to the Second Vatican Council. Since then, there's been a growing rift between reformers on one side and those like Cardinal Law who are known for their loyalty to the Vatican and strict conservative doctrine. Between the two poles is what Boston College theology chair Stephen Pope calls the complacent majority. He says part of the reason the clergy abuse scandal has caused such upheaval in the church now is because it has finally mobilized that middle.

Mr. STEPHEN POPE (Theology Chair, Boston College): I think it's something like maybe the crises of civil rights that took place in the early '60s, where a lot of people vaguely uneasy with race relations thought that things will eventually change and they'll work themselves out in time and don't rush things, don't be an agitator. And then seeing riots on the streets and protesters being attacked by guard dogs galvanized a lot of people who otherwise weren't going to be out trying to change it. I think this crisis in the church is really galvanizing some folks that tend to be somewhat complacent.

SMITH: The scandal has also galvanized opposition to Cardinal Law. The archbishop is known for a kind of imperial style and isolation even from his brother priests. Holy Cross college's David O'Brien says Cardinal Law has become such a lightning rod because he's seen as a symbol of the secrecy and strict obedience within the church hierarchy.

Mr. O'BRIEN:You get a sense that there's a little bit of a price being paid for not really sharing responsibility and building a kind of transparency of policy, a kind of trust relationships within the kind of structures in the church, you know. You get a sense of some real anger there at the top.

SMITH: But others says some of that anger may have more to do with some opportunists who are trying to exploit the current crisis to advance their own agenda of reform.

George Weigel is senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC.

Mr. GEORGE WEIGEL (Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center): It's clear to me that there are some people who are, unfortunately, having something of an ideological joyride in the midst of this crisis.

SMITH: Weigel says the pope will try to limit discussions this week to the immediate issue of sexual abuse by priests, but that means even if the bishops leave Rome with a solid plan for dealing with clerical abuse, they would still return home to other divisive issues that are now simmering out in the open.

Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.

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