TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/081991/0819610.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.0 KB | 129 lines

                                                                                RELIGION, Page 51

Sins of the Fathers


A Honolulu bishop is accused of sex abuse in a federal lawsuit as
Catholic scandals keep spreading

By RICHARD N. OSTLING -- Reported by Barbara Dolan/Chicago with
other bureaus


    Without doubt it is the worst wave of moral scandals ever
to beset Roman Catholicism in North America. Dozens upon dozens
of priests have been accused of sexually abusing underage boys.
Cases have erupted in most U.S. states and two Canadian
provinces since the 1985 conviction of Louisiana's Father
Gilbert Gauthe, who had molested 35 youths. So widespread are
the cases that by one informed estimate, Catholic institutions
have paid $300 million in settlements -- with no end in sight.
"We could be sued out of existence," says Notre Dame philosophy
professor Ralph McInerny.

    Worse than the loss of money are the feeling of betrayal
and the erosion of esteem for priests among many parishioners.
The potential for such spiritual devastation escalated
considerably last week, as a federal civil lawsuit was filed
against Honolulu bishop Joseph A. Ferrario, 65, the first member
of the U.S. hierarchy to face a sex-abuse suit. A spokesman for
the bishop said in response, "These are old allegations, made
by the same people. The bishop has denied them every time."

    The bishop's accuser is David Figueroa, 32, a cook living
in Florida who has tested HIV-positive. He first made charges
against Ferrario anonymously in 1989 and went public on Geraldo
Rivera's TV show last year. Now he has decided to try to make
his charges stick, in detail and under oath. "No amount of money
will make up for what he's taken from me," says Figueroa. "He
used me. He ruined my life."

    Figueroa's sordid account runs as follows. Beginning in
kindergarten at St. Anthony's church in Kailua, Hawaii, he was
continually molested by the parish priest. When the boy was in
his teens, the priest died, but Ferrario, his successor,
continued the sex abuse for years, paying Figueroa for odd jobs
in return. Ferrario also aided Figueroa in quitting high school
just before graduation and joining the gay community in San
Francisco. Figueroa alleges that the sexual entanglement
continued even after Ferrario became a bishop, with trysts at
church residences in Honolulu and Menlo Park, Calif. Figueroa's
lawyers claim other witnesses will corroborate his version of
the bishop's conduct.

    Last week three Canadian scandals also made news. A judge
in Newfoundland sentenced Edward English of the Christian
Brothers to 12 years in prison, declaring, "You are a disgrace
to the order and to humanity." A separate scandal involves six
present and former diocesan priests in Newfoundland. Also last
week, a trial was ordered in the first of the abuse cases
involving 19 Christian Brothers at a school in Alfred, Ont.

    One attorney in the Hawaii suit, Jeffrey R. Anderson of
St. Paul, has become a specialist in civil damage suits
involving alleged priestly sex abuse and is pursuing more than
100 cases at present. Last December he won the biggest award to
date, $3.5 million (reduced to $1.04 million on appeal) in the
case of Father Thomas Adamson. Allegations against Adamson
spanned 22 years, but two Catholic dioceses kept shuttling him
into new assignments.

    Such developments have thrown a harsh spotlight on the
performance of Catholic leadership. Says Jason Berry, the
freelance journalist who broke the Louisiana story and is
completing a book on the outbreak of clerical scandals: "The
real shock was not that a priest could be capable of molesting
children but the mendacity and the duplicity among church
officials who had harbored and recycled him so many times."

    David Clohessy, a St. Louis political consultant who has
a lawsuit pending against a priest, asserts, "The sexual abuse
was terrible, but I think the response of the hierarchy is
almost as bad." He says that when Bishop Michael McAuliffe of
Jefferson City, Mo., learned of the case last year, the bishop
turned the matter over to his lawyers without confronting the
priest. Since then, the priest has been put on administrative
leave, pending review.

    Higher authorities played a role in the Hawaii case. As
early as 1985, Figueroa's mother informed the then Vatican
pronuncio, Pio Laghi, of the allegations against Bishop
Ferrario. Figueroa contends that Laghi sent an investigator, who
did a cursory check while staying in the bishop's residence.
Apparently on this basis, the U.S. hierarchy declared the 1989
accusations to "lack substance." Ferrario's spokesman said last
week that the Vatican Congregation for Bishops had judged them
to be "baseless."

    Catholic administrators insist they have responded as well
as can be expected to the legal and pastoral tangle confronting
them. A common complaint is that the U.S. bishops' conference
has not set up a detailed nationwide policy and action plan. But
Mark Chopko, the chief lawyer on the bishops' staff, says
treatment of priests' problems is the business of each diocese.
As a result, some bishops have handled the cases well, while
others have not.

    Legal strategies aside, what should the church do?
University of New Mexico psychiatry professor Jay R. Feierman,
who has treated 500 abusive priests over 15 years, concludes
that the priesthood inevitably attracts a certain number of
potential molesters because of the celibacy rule. He thinks one
preventive measure would be to require priests to live in
religious communities where there are personal warmth and mutual
support. Psychologist Eugene Kennedy of Chicago's Loyola
University says that the large number of priests suffering from
sexual conflicts "constitutes a pastoral problem of the first
magnitude" but that bishops by and large have refused to
investigate the issue seriously. As the lawsuits and ruined
lives keep piling up, such lethargy will no longer do.