Pope blames victims; NY archbishop compares pope to Jesus

Now that the Pope himself has been implicated in the growing sexual assault crisis, his kind facade is beginning to crumble. The March 29 edition of the Register carried a story, Abuse crisis casts shadow as Holy Week begins; the story contained misleading information. It stated, "Benedict made no direct mention of the scandal in his Palm Sunday homily." In fact, the Pope came out fighting, not for the victims but to hold on to his power. He said in his homily, "Faith prevents being intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion."

Wow. The truth is coming out, and it's not pretty. Benedict believes people who are reporting sexual abuse and the reporters who are connecting the dots about who knew what, when, are guilty of "petty gossip." Those of us who have worked with, and are, clergy sexual assault survivors, are familiar with the hierarchy's attitude, but it is a bit shocking to see it displayed so publicly. The Pope's apology to the Irish church and victims is rendered meaningless. He was willing to criticize Irish bishops for their part in passing predator priests from parish to parish, but when it was revealed he was playing the same game, he shoots the messenger.

The archbishop of New York's sermon was even more outrageous. The archbishop,Timothy Dolan, came from Milwaukee where more than 200 Deaf boys were molested by Father Lawrence Murphy, one of the cases which the Pope is accused of mishandling; Dolan referred to it as a "re-run of an old story out of Milwaukee." Dolan compared the fact that the Pope is being implicated in the cover-up with the suffering of Jesus, how the crowds turned against him and scourged (whipped) him.

Is this chutzpah or what? Hundreds of thousands of children and young people raped, sodomized, and sexually assaulted, in the US, in Canada, in Australia, in Ireland, in Europe, and God help the third world nations where the truth is still being covered up. People speak up, ask questions, get angry- and all of a sudden, the Pope is the victim.

Don't worry, though- he is refusing to be intimidated.

Well, Rats. I wish we had thought of that. I wonder if that would have worked for Barbara, who was raped at age six by her parish priest. He told her she was an evil little girl and she thought what he did was the punishment for sneaking out of the house in the wrong pair of shoes. I wonder if it would have worked for Mike, who was sexually assaulted by a notorious Eastern Iowa predator whose actions the bishop had pledged to keep secret, a written document available for all to see on the Bishop Accountability Website. I wonder if it would have worked for any of us who were raised to see the priest as "Alter Christi," another Christ, a necessary part of our salvation. And then I remember, no, intimidation is a tool of the powerful against the powerless, and that is what we were.

No more. WE refuse to be intimidated, shamed or stuffed back into the closet. We insist on being heard, and we hope the civil governments take just action to prevent others from suffering the pain of sexual assault by a trusted religious leader. We hope, too, the Catholic people will hold their leaders accountable and insist on sharing the power so this true scourge will end.

(Originally printed in the Des Moines Register, March 30, 2010.)