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Published: April 29, 2007

Why SNAP and Not SNAT?

A person claiming victimhood is not thereby trustworthy nor should a priest accused of sexual molestation be assumed guilty merely because he is accused --- and a priest.

By Christopher Zehnder

Notes from A Cultural Madhouse

Church records have caught Orange’s Bishop Tod Brown “in a lie -- or at least an inconsistency,” charged Gustavo Arellano in an April 24 Orange County Weekly “Breaking News” release. Brown, said Arellano, while promising complete disclosure of all sex abuse cases, kept one under wraps. His own.

In his 2004 “Covenant with the Faithful,” Brown promised, “We will be open, honest and forthright in our public statements to the media, and consistent and transparent in our communications with the Catholics of our Diocese.” A month later, according to Arellano, the bishop released a list of names of priests accused of molesting youth “in the form of a one-page press release,” with the names “bunched together in one paragraph,” and no other information. In Dec. 2004, the diocese reached a $100 million settlement with over 90 victims and promised to release the personnel files of priests and diocesan employees accused of molestation.

But the Weekly says it received documents showing the investigation of one allegation of sexual abuse against Brown. And Brown has said nothing about it.

On July 3, 1997, a man wrote the Fresno diocese claiming that when he was 12 years old, in 1965, Brown, then a priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Bakersfield, molested him. The man said that during psychological counseling he remembered the abuse, which “was not a fantasy but a detailed memory.”

A week later, Bishop John Steinbock wrote the accuser that Brown, then bishop of Boise, “has led an exemplary life, and has never had any such allegation against him.” On August 6, 1997, the Fresno diocese informed the accuser that a preliminary investigation “does not reveal any inappropriate behavior beyond your letter.” Brown’s life “as we know it, has been an extremely public one and subject to scrutiny and investigation. We are confident that should there have been any other complaints similar in nature to your memory, they would have been discovered and addressed.”

Arellano suggests that Brown, in not revealing the allegation against himself, was continuing a devious pattern. After its 2004 settlement with victims, the Orange diocese “still fought with lawyers to block the release of personnel files that revealed church complicity in molestations,” said Arellano. Arellano, however, does not give any more details of this forensic struggle.

The facts of it, however, as I remember it, are as follows. In 2005, the diocese refused to release the personnel files of five priests and two teachers accused of molestation, at their request. The diocese said no court had ruled these seven guilty of any crime and diocesan lawyers said the cases against them were not well founded. One of the priests opposed the release of his file because it contained information unrelated to molestation that would be embarrassing.

Was this a lack of transparency or simply justice and common sense? Journalist crusaders like Gustavo Arellano, it appears, never bother to ask this question. Their assumption is that if churchmen are keeping information from the public they are covering up evidence that would publish their guilt. But is this the only possible explanation? Mightn’t there be just cause to keep private information private?

I admit the priestly molestation crisis has uncovered some rather ugly details of bishops hiding evidence of abuse and shuffling priests from parish to parish, where they could prey on more victims. I confess I myself do not have the highest confidence in the veracity of a good number of men who hold episcopal office. I will even say that many churchmen are getting what’s coming to them, in the lawsuits, the public shame, the growing distrust. Too many bishops have not been shepherds, but hirelings; they have not acted as fathers but as CEOs.

Our anger at the failings of men in the Church, however, must not blind us to justice. I am no fan of Bishop Tod Brown, but, given the evidence against him as detailed in Arellano’s article, I am not convinced Brown is guilty. One man’s claim that he was molested is not good evidence. It is no warrant to ruin another man’s reputation.

Just outrage at priest molestation of minors, though, has clouded too many minds, so much so that they have forgotten basic justice. I have heard victims’ advocates claim that the names of every priest accused should be made public, regardless of the credibility or strength of the accusation. To do otherwise, they say, would be to discourage victims from coming forward. One victim’s advocate told me we needn’t worry about the priest’s reputation; if he is innocent, his name will be cleared.

It’s hard to believe anyone could say this. If the accused priest goes to trial and is acquitted, will this clear his name? How many of us actually trust the verdicts of juries and the decisions of judges? Will not doubt about the priest still linger? And if the priest’s case is settled -- as most of them are -- he will never have a chance of defending himself in court. How will he then clear his name?

The simple fact of ordination should not rob a man of his right to a good reputation. Nor should we lightly overthrow the standard of “innocent until proven guilty” merely because the suspected crime is so heinous. A person claiming victimhood is not thereby trustworthy nor should a priest accused of sexual molestation be assumed guilty merely because he is accused -- and a priest.

It is curious to me that so many anti-molestation crusaders focus their attention on the Catholic Church, as if priests and priests alone molest minors. Molestation occurs in the public schools, for instance; in recent months I’ve read several news articles about teachers, male and female (married and unmarried, to boot), molesting students. Where are the cries calling for full disclosure from the public school system? Why do we hear nothing about the public school molestation scandal? Why aren’t school districts involved in huge financial settlements? Why don’t we have a group called SNAT, “Survivors Network of those Abused by Teachers”?

Certainly, a priest abusing a youth is a worse crime than a teacher doing the same, since, the priesthood being a higher calling than teaching, there is a betrayal of higher good. But the press, victims' advocates, and most everyone else in society do not hold a very sublime view of religion. If anything, education is seen as the higher good. Where, then, is the outrage over the betrayals of teacher/student trust?

We reap what we sow, and churchmen, sowing the wind, have reaped the whirlwind. I don’t mean to minimize in the least the horrible sin of molestation by the clergy. At the same time, I believe too many on the molestation bandwagon have an ulterior motive for their zeal. They want to discredit the Catholic Church.

It is not the public schools that challenge the pleasure-mongering proclivities of modern society. (Far from it.) It is the Catholic Church and her teaching. The Church is the only powerful force in society that tells men not to fornicate, not to commit adultery, not to sodomize. Catholic teaching condemns avarice and calls for simplicity of life. It proclaims the self-control that calls for self-sacrifice. The Church beckons to suffering and glories in martyrdom. And the modern world hates her for it.

Tragically, many churchmen have hated the Church for these very things and in their hate have created scandal. They have cast aside spiritual discipline, surrendered to their libido, denied the cross and fed on the innocence of children. They are to be condemned, most of all by Catholics.

Yet Catholics must not be naïve. Our clerical hirelings have opened the Church to the wolves who seek to destroy the sheepfold of Christ. We Catholics must admit our sins, we must confess the horrors committed among us, we must show charity and act in justice to the victims of our “spiritual fathers.” The victims are not our enemies; they are the scattered sheep of Christ. They are our brothers and sisters.

In acting the simplicity of the dove, however, we must not forget the wisdom of the serpent. In admitting the just claims of the offended we must guard against those who would cynically use them to destroy the Church, our mother. One means we can use to do this is by insisting that an accusation does not prove a crime. A priest, like any other man and citizen, must be deemed innocent until proven guilty.

© California Catholic Daily 2007. All Rights Reserved.