Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal Read online

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  For the courageous

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The tragic truth about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church would have remained secret but for the courage of victims who spoke up and pursued justice for themselves and others. Scott Gastal, who was among the very first to speak out when he was still in elementary school, stands as a hero in this pursuit. He is joined in the ranks of truth-tellers by Greg Lyman, and a host of others who generously helped me. Among them were Megan Peterson, Phil Saviano, Arthur Budzinski, Peter Isely, John Pilmaier, Terrance Kohut, Colm O’Gorman, Aidan Doyle, and Andrew Madden. Many of these strong people became activists who powered a vast social movement. O’Gorman founded a child advocacy group called One in Four before becoming director of Amnesty International of Ireland. Kohut has been honored by the deaf community of America for his work on behalf of men who were abused as boys at the St. John’s School for the Deaf.

  Because the court system was often the field of battle in the fight for the truth, attorneys became essential figures in the story told here. They also became valued guides and informants as I sought both understanding and an accurate accounting of events. Among the many officers of the court who helped me, I owe thanks to Raymond Boucher, Theodore Collins, Tony DeMarco, Sylvia Demarest, Larry Drivon, Vincent Finaldi, Michael Finnegan, Marci Hamilton, Michael Hennigan, Tom Krauel, Jeffrey Lena, Roderick MacLeish, Tahira Merritt, Raymond Mouton, Pamela Spees, and Mark Wendorf. Judge Owen Kwong offered much assistance, despite the great demands on his time.

  Among the national advocates in the cause of victims, I received invaluable help and insights from Barbara Blaine, whose life has been lived in service to those in need of a strong voice. Her colleagues Barbara Dorris and David Clohessy deserve my gratitude, as do Terrence McKiernan and Ann Barrett-Doyle. As archivists who safeguard and share vast amounts of information and literature on the Church crisis, Ann and Terry are much in demand and responded to my requests with unending generosity.

  Many people supplied both documentation and recollections of key events. Psychologist Susan Phipps-Yonas, witness Jay Klein, and former activist Jeanne Miller all generously offered their time and input. I also received outspoken and direct answers to my questions from William Donohue of the Catholic League, who is never uncertain in his positions. Minnesota legislator Ember Reichgott-Junge helped me with the intricacies of politics and law in her state.

  Catholicism’s era of scandal unfolded before the eyes of several talented journalists who have chronicled the various stages of the crisis. One, Jason Berry, was there at the beginning and has stayed with the story even beyond the many moments when it was supposed to have ended. In practicing his craft Jason became a part of the history he reported. Recognizing this fact, he agreed to share his personal experience along with many of his records. Without this material and the light shed by Jason’s books I would not have been able to write my account.

  Patsy McGarry of The Irish Times helped me understand the story of the Church and abuse in Ireland and Michael Rezendes of The Boston Globe filled in elements of the story not reported by the paper’s Spotlight Team, who earned a Pulitzer Prize for their work. The book written by the Globe’s investigative team, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church, was one of my essential sources. I also depended on A Gospel of Shame: Children, Sexual Abuse, and the Catholic Church by Frank Bruni and Elinor Burkett, and David France’s Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal.

  A trio of experts helped me understand the workings of the Church. Richard Sipe, author of the very first comprehensive consideration of the clergy’s sexual culture—A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy—offered the frank and friendly inputs of a former priest who became a psychotherapist and social scientist. Another former priest, Patrick Wall, answered every question I could ask about his personal experience as a Benedictine monk and an investigator. And the Rev. Thomas Doyle, Dominican priest and U.S. Air Force major (retired), translated the mysteries of clerical culture into plain terms.

  Tom Doyle, Richard Sipe, and Patrick Wall were also extremely forthcoming when it came to their personal experiences, with faith and human frailty, and it is in this aspect of my work that I was fortunate to encounter some radically honest people. In particular, John Manly explained how work on abuse cases affected him as an attorney and as a human being. Few professionals would possess the grace and generous spirit required to be so candid.

  Remarkably, just about every person I encountered as I gathered the story told in these pages spoke with great candor about experiences and issues rarely discussed in private, let alone for the purpose of making a public record. Their openness is proof of the progress we have made in the struggle against the misplaced shame that keeps people from living honestly. First among them were Jeffrey and Julie Anderson, who shared their stories as individuals, and as a couple, in the hope that they might inspire others. Through hard experience, the Andersons learned the danger inherent in secrecy and the refuge provided by the truth.

  My ultimate thanks go to those who supported me, personally, as I worked on a task that demanded much time, attention, and emotional commitment. My publisher Thomas Dunne is witty, wise, steadfast, and demanding when he needs to be. My editor Peter Joseph is both a gifted critic and ally, and wherever a bit of grace may appear in my text you can be sure he is present too. My lifelong collaborators Amy, Elizabeth, and Toni deserve more gratitude than can be offered here. I can only hope to support them as they have supported me.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1. Clerical Culture

  2. The Church Knows

  3. Sexual Intellectuals

  4. Spiritual Betrayal

  5. The Catholic States of America

  6. A Weeping Priest

  7. Five Brothers; Three Victims

  8. The Angels Had to Cry

  9. “What Did the Priest Do to You, Greg?”

  10. The Measure of the Elephant

  11. Willful Indifference

  12. An Attitude of Resistance

  13. The Meaning of Memory

  14. The Pendulum Swings

  15. Pushback

  16. “Would a Bishop Lie?”

  17. Oliver O’Grady

  18. By Other Means

  19. Paper Chase

  20. Catholic Guilt

  21. The Open Window

  22. A Reckoning

  23. “Don’t Trust Me”

  24. A Rolling Catastrophe

  Postscript

  Bibliography

  Selected Chapter Notes

  Index

  Also by Michael D’Antonio

  About the Author

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  On the morning of September 20, 1870, fifty thousand troops massed outside Rome to engage the Pope’s army and complete the unification of modern Italy. The defeat of the Vatican’s force was inevitable, but Pope Pius IX had rejected negotiations. Preferring to be conquered, and thereby retain some small claim to sovereignty, he had ordered his officers to mount a defense. The Italians, who had moved slowly in order to give Pius a graceful way out, began firing
at sunrise. Cannon shots whistled over buildings and rattled windows as they hit mortar and brick. Smoke and dust filled the air. Debris fell on city streets and red tile rooftops.

  Three hours after the bombardment began, shells breached the wall near Porta Pia gate and elite fighters from the Bersaglieri corps raced through. Dressed in dark blue blouses and broad-brimmed hats, these foot soldiers from Piedmont were followed by a small contingent of cavalry. Inside the wall, the invaders broke past a line of pine trees and came under fire. After a few intense skirmishes, white flags of surrender were raised atop the basilica of St. Peter and other church buildings. When the bodies were counted, officials determined that the Pope’s symbolic gesture had cost the lives of sixty-eight men. Nineteen of the dead were his own guards.

  After the Vatican’s surrender, celebrating Romans poured out of their shuttered homes. The American flag, chosen as a symbol of democracy, fluttered from windows across the city. Dozens of them hung in the Piazza di Spagna alone. People in the streets held small paper signs printed with the word “Si” to show their support for an upcoming vote on a new system of government.

  For nationalists, September 20 would forever mark Rome’s liberation. For the Church it ended more than a thousand years of rule over a territory that once encompassed a third of the Italian peninsula. During this time the Roman Catholic Church had exercised governmental power in every imaginable form. Popes had fielded armies, levied taxes, negotiated treaties, and formed alliances. With Victor Emmanuel II’s conquest of Rome, these tools of state evaporated.

  Pius, who was the last pope born in the 1700s, had been preparing for this day ever since his elevation in 1846. For more than a decade he had supported a conservative “ultramontanist” movement that had consolidated religious power in the papacy, quashed theological debate, and punished liberals. Months before the bombardment at Porta Pia, the First Vatican Council of bishops formally granted Pius a new form of authority: infallibility. This doctrine holds that under certain circumstances the Pope may define the dogma of the Church in a way that must be obeyed by all members and cannot be changed. These declarations need not be ratified and they establish irrevocable positions on matters of faith and morality.

  Nearly sixty years would pass before the Vatican’s civil status would be resolved by a concordat signed by Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Vatican secretary of state. Under the terms, the Vatican would be required to maintain political neutrality and could not develop a true military force. It would, however, gain legal independence and the right to practice diplomacy around the world through a governing authority called the Holy See. Thus, Catholicism became the only religion in the world with the status of a country, ruled by a churchman who was also a monarch.

  Combined with infallibility, the special position of the Catholic state allowed the Pope to become a unique player on the world stage. For generations the influence of the Church grew as it presented steadfast absolutes as an alternative to secular turmoil and change. It was a state based not on the power of its industry or military but on its claim to moral superiority. The Pope defined good and evil and his preferences, whether they pertained to world affairs or the most intimate and vulnerable aspects of human life—sexuality, childrearing, faith—were promoted by a legion of priests operating in the most far-flung and responsive network on the face of the Earth.

  In much of Western Europe the Church also functioned as an adjunct to government, supplying education, health care, and social services, often in exchange for tax dollars. In America it helped waves of immigrants adjust to life in a new land. Tightly controlled, the institution presented itself as a disciplined army in clerical fatigues. Its tough-mindedness found popular expression in the movie priests of the postwar era who were played by Spencer Tracy, Pat O’Brien, and other men with strong chins and confident strides.

  Individually, clergy were assumed to be either humble role models or dynamic leaders who moved in the world without needing romantic love, sex, or family life. Collectively, ordination established them as a class above regular human beings. Within this class, the hierarchy enjoyed escalating status with the Pope, at the very top, ruling with the authority granted by the Almighty. The main price paid for admission to this society was the vow of celibacy. This promise deprived the clergy of many of the deepest rewards of life, including sexual relationships and parenthood. But since they shared this sacrifice, clergymen were bound together by it in a way that made them more devoted to each other.

  In the early 1960s the Church almost turned away from its rigid class structure and toward a more democratic model. The historic Second Vatican Council, called by Pope John XXIII, elevated the role of laypeople. Rituals were demystified as Latin was replaced by local languages. For a moment it appeared that bishops were going to be given a collegial role in the high-level affairs of the Church. At the height of Vatican II excitement, liberals hoped that the institution would recognize its lay members as equals of the clergy. However, John XXIII died before the end of the council and an antireform backlash quickly developed. His successor, Paul VI, disappointed reformers by publishing an encyclical letter called Humanae Vitae, which upheld an all-out ban on birth control in 1968. The document dashed the hopes of those who expected that laypeople might have more to say about church teachings, especially those on sex and morality.

  After Humanae Vitae, conservatives defeated the democratic impulses expressed in the Second Vatican Council to guarantee the one-man rule of the Pope and assure that the priesthood continued to exclude women. At the same time, the political power of the Church reached its modern height under Pope John Paul II. The former cardinal of Krakow, Karol Józef Wojtyła was elevated in October 1978 and immediately showed the charisma and political savvy that would make him the model of modern authority. In his native Poland his operatives worked with the American government to funnel equipment, cash, and strategic advice to the banned Solidarity movement. This aid, and several wildly successful papal visits, led to the end of the communist state and the election of Solidarity’s leader Lech Walesa as the country’s first democratically chosen president. Solidarity’s success was followed by the fall of all of Soviet-bloc communism.

  During the battle against communism, all that the Church accomplished in geopolitics was based on its claim to moral power and its alliances with Western governments, especially the United States. But when victory came, with the end of European Communism, the common cause that superseded every other issue disappeared. In the vacuum, the Vatican and Washington disagreed on everything from family planning to affairs in the Middle East. And in the American public mind, accusations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy gradually became the worldly issue most associated with the Church and its hierarchy. The institution entered the most severe crisis since the Reformation, one that would burn for thirty years and still remain unresolved.

  * * *

  The shift from victory to scandal began with seemingly isolated charges of child rape and sexual molestation lodged against individual priests. Then, as media accounts prompted more victims to come forward, investigations by civil authorities showed that Church higher-ups had been aware of the problem, enabled criminal priests, and covered up thousands of rapes and sexual assaults. Scattered outbreaks of accusation became a firestorm that consumed huge portions of the Church’s resources and reputation. The Vatican’s claim to moral supremacy, the basis for all of its influence after the fall of Rome, became the standard by which it was judged and found wanting.

  In the course of the continuous scandal, more than 6,100 priests were deemed by the Church itself to be “not implausibly” or “credibly” accused of sexual crimes against more than 16,000 underage victims in the United States alone. More than five hundred American priests were arrested and prosecuted. Of these, more than four hundred were convicted and imprisoned. As of 2012, the worldwide church had paid about $3 billion to settle civil suits, but countless claims remained unresolved
. The financial burden, coupled with the flight of disillusioned members, forced the shutdown of nearly 1,400 parishes in the United States. Similar abuse crises erupted around the world, beginning first in Ireland, then spreading to the European continent and beyond. No agency within the Church or outside of it kept track of the number of cases, or the burden they imposed on Catholic institutions, but the public outrage and sense of betrayal were the same, everywhere.

  The leaders of the institutional Church reacted to these crises with denial, defensiveness, dismay, and concern for both the victims and the future of Catholicism. The most assertive defenders of the hierarchy saw anti-Catholic bigotry at work in the press coverage of the crisis. Marginal figures within the institutional Church saw something worse. In 2010 retired bishop Giacomo Babini publicly blamed “the freemasons and the Jews” for the scandal and added that the Holocaust was actually “provoked by the Jews.”

  Days after Babini sparked outrage with his anti-Semitic rant, the Vatican issued a protocol for bishops to follow when handling sex abuse claims. John Paul II’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, promised to take “effective measures” to protect children and described the crisis as “the greatest threat” to the Church in modern times. It was also a threat to the campaign begun by those who hoped John Paul II would be declared a saint. Cries of “santo subito”—Italian for “saint now”—had echoed in St. Peter’s Square when he died in 2005. The odds turned against John Paul II’s immediate elevation as the world learned that he had promoted bishops accused of abuse and blocked an investigation of Austrian cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who had been accused of sexually violating seminarians.

  Before Benedict spoke, pollsters found that more than half of all Americans and 30 percent of practicing Catholics had an unfavorable opinion of the Church. In Germany, where the pope was born, less than a quarter of the people surveyed said they trusted him. In Austria, where Catholics can earmark tax dollars for the Church, more than 100,000 had cancelled such payments. In Ireland, that most Catholic of countries, 8,500 baptized members of the Church publicly renounced their religion in the first eight months of a campaign called Count Me Out. By 2011 the standing of the hierarchy was so low that the Republican leader of the New Hampshire House of Representatives publicly dismissed Bishop John J. McCormack of Manchester as a “pedophile pimp” who had “absolutely no moral credibility to lecture anyone.”