Ugly Questions Unanswered

The deeper one reads, the harder it gets.

 There have been some who sought to soften the impact or influence of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, by disputing whether rape took place, pointing out media bias, and blasting the fact that this report includes some material inadmissible in court, and without the opportunity of those accused within the report, to dispute it.   However, the sheer weight and cost to the lives of those who testified, and those who testify by their deaths, cannot be sponged away. 

The Catholic Church and her princes are supposed to stand for something better, bigger, more universal.  That so many have been found, that there are so many hidden reports, memos, documents revealing this problem, indicates somehow, those in power felt comfortable with how things were. They could live with themselves and with others, content to justify continuing as is. 

I can't.

Here are the hard questions already formed. I know there are more.  

Why were virtually none of these incidents reported to the police? 

Why were none of these cases and reports investigated beyond the initial moment? 

Why did the process of dealing with complaints become merely a filing procedure?  Not just when first reported by also later *After 2002.

Who saw the notes? 

Who decided to do nothing or to stop investigating at some point and why? 

Who filed the notes away?  Who knew where the notes were? 

Even when cases were investigated, and checks written because of prosecution, did no one within the diocese stop to wonder, if there were others that might be doing the same sort of damage?

Personal note: It is right and just when an injury is done, for the person/institution causing the injury to make restitution. 

However, where did the money come from to pay for counseling, to cover the checks written to victims?  Someone signed off on those checks, so someone knew. 

Those putting into the collection basket each week, did not.  Catholic laity gave in good faith, and would pay for those injured, but we ought to not have continued to support those who broke the faith, those who did the injury, those who perpetuated the silence and the crimes/sins, and who proved themselves over and over and over again, to be unable to restrain themselves from one of the most basic and fundamental acts of abuse/evil known to the Christian and Non-Christian world alike. 

No matter who you are, you do not harm the innocent.   The innocent were harmed.  Their childhoods were aborted, sometimes leading to self-destructive behavior like drug and alcohol abuse and lives of destitution or death. While the victims suffered the aftershocks of the injury, the perpetrators collected pensions, monthly stipends, and treatment for their maladies.  

Our collective ignorance was an additional injury, because we merrily kept on giving and supporting those doing the harm, and thinking ourselves good for giving.   

In the report, why was a priest paid to maintain his silence? 

Why when the scandals broke in 2002, were these incidents not revealed?

Is it because none of us want to look? 

Is it because we naively hoped with policies in place, the problems revealed by the grand jury report, would go away? 

Did people know and just not tell? 

How do we make sure silence doesn’t cover injuries in the future? 

How can we trust the stewards of the Church, if they were unfaithful in large matters, vital matters, matters of the soul, how can we know if were they trustworthy in smaller ones? 

How can we know that those who don’t have these problems revealed by a grand jury, simply don’t have their problems revealed? 

What else is hidden? 

These are ugly questions, which if we’re serious about cleaning and clearing out the mess from our Church, we must ask them and answer them.

I don’t like ugly questions, because they usually involve ugly answers as well.  This report scourges the soul, because it reveals and reminds us, all of us, each of us, how capable we are of sin.   We willingly sin when we perpetuate it, deny it, when we fall asleep in its presence, when we think we can buy off our conscience with thirty pieces of silver, when we disbelieve its existence, or run away from it. 

For those who don't want to see, who don't want to believe, who don't want to know, I urge you, we must read it. We must embrace this cross, with all its ugliness, with all its splinters, with all its thorns, or we will find ourselves nailed to it by the world.   We must be willing to look and do a collective examination of conscience, if we are to do justice to the victims, and begin the process of being the Bride of Christ we’re called to be and save as many souls as possible.

Page 995.   Three-hundred sixty-one pages to go.