BALTIMORE — A group that has been advising the U.S. bishops for
50 years on multiple issues chose to speak to the bishops in Baltimore Nov. 13
on just one issue: the clergy sexual abuse crisis itself and ways to move
forward from it.
“We are facing painful times as a church,” Father David
A. Whitestone, chair of the bishops’ National Advisory Council, told the
bishops at their fall general assembly. This sense weighed heavily upon the
council members during their September gathering, he noted.
“The depth of anger, pain and disappointment expressed by
members of the NAC cannot begin to be expressed adequately in words,” he
said.
The priest, who is pastor of St. Leo the Great Church in Fairfax,
noted that progress has been made since the bishops developed the 2002
“Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” but he
stressed that more needs to be done. “We can never become complacent. We
must recommit to the ongoing care of all victims in their healing.”
“Wounds inflicted, even many years ago, are no less real because
of the passing of time nor are the demands of justice less urgent,” he
said.
Father Whitestone said the depth of the anger expressed by NAC
members in the current church climate is “also an expression of our love
for the church.”
He said the abuse crisis has done great harm to the faith of many
Catholics, particularly as it has come to light that the crisis is more than
just sexual abuse committed by priests but predatory behavior of bishops
against seminarians. The priest said Catholics should demand more of the
clergy, deacons, priests and bishops than that they simply not break civil
laws.
The response to this crisis needs to be more than issuing
statements of regret and even establishing new mechanisms and procedures, he
said, stressing instead that there should be a “new and radical
recommitment to personal and institutional purification” and true
repentance of past sins and facing consequences of these sins.
Members of the NAC did not vote on any other issues facing
bishops as way of saying: “There is no single issue more pressing as a
church than the crisis we are now facing.”
All 35 voting members of the committee attending the September
meeting agreed that the current scandal is of such urgency and importance that
it must be the highest priority for the bishops’ fall assembly to begin to
restore trust and credibility.
Retired Army Col. Anita Raines, an NAC board member, said
the group approved of some action items the bishops were discussing at the
assembly. They did not vote on these items, per a request from the Vatican’s Congregation
for Bishops.
In particular, the advisory group supports the development of
third-party system that would obtain confidential reports of abuse by bishops,
Raines said, as well as the development of a code of conduct for bishops; an
audit of U.S. seminaries to investigate possible patterns of misuse of power;
establishment of special commission for review of complaints against bishops;
and an independent investigation of allegations against former Washington Archbishop Theodore E.
McCarrick.
Father Whitestone stressed that while the advisory group
recognizes the significance of this scandal in the church it also knows that
the church is “more than this crisis” and has a mission to continue
to preach the Gospel.
He said Catholics have gone through a range of emotions as this
crisis has unfolded but those committed to the church want to help it move
forward.
“The bishops needn’t bear the burden of setting the course
of the way forward alone.” He said the lay faithful want to help and urged
the bishops to let them.
“We as a church will move forward,” he added.
The speakers received an extended standing ovation from the
bishops.
