Anti-Catholicism is the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” -Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.
Catholic baiting is the antisemitism of the Liberals.” -Author Peter V. Ereck
INTRODUCTION
The media feeding frenzy that swirls around the sexual abuse of children-provided it applies solely to Catholics, and more particularly to their clergy, and even more so to their bishops-has persisted on a scale that is well-nigh indescribable in its scope, enmity, and vitriol. Of particular interest is the part played in the seemingly endless assaults on the Church’s clergy, and more so on their bishops, by so-called Catholic journalists who speak and write for Catholic news stations and publications. Some patently strain to be the first kid on his block to express, more passionately and abusively, how “vile” (perhaps their favorite epithet), “disgusting,” “horrible,” and “unimaginable” the findings of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury have been to that indignant reporter. Each goes out of his way to endeavor to outdistance his colleagues in his “shame” with his Church, and his clergy. One professor at Catholic University actually told a reporter that the accusations of the Grand Jury were “worse than Dante’ Inferno,” a sure sign that this academic possesses not even a primary-school understanding of just how horrid the eternal suffering endured by the damned in hell, described graphically by St. Faustina, actually is–but, more importantly, it got him a melodramatic soundbite on a popular Catholic news program. The purpose of this article is to endeavor to bring some reason and moderation to the mounting madness that has permeated the mob-mentality that has ruled since August 14 when the seemingly infallible accusations of the Pennsylvania “40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury Report” were released.
THE GRAND JURY
The grand jury system was begun in England in the twelfth century. It was ultimately abolished in that country in 1948, in Canada in 1984, and in Ireland in 1922. Indeed, all grand juries have been abolished in every country on earth with two exceptions: Liberia-and the United States. While abolition in each nation has been predicated on different bases, one common denominator existed in virtually all: the proceeding was deemed a farce. The fundamental flaw in the grand jury system was expressed decades ago by New York State Justice Sol Wachter, head of that state’s highest court: a grand jury, if requested to do so by the prosecution, would “indict a ham sandwich.” It has been called by the American Bar Association a “rubber stamp” for the prosecution. The success rate for federal prosecutors in securing indictments from grand juries is 99%, or about the percentage of people who supposedly routinely voted for Stalin while he led the Soviet Union. When one examines its proceedings in America one can more readily discern the workings of the USSR than the US. There is no judge. The defendant has no right to be present. No defense attorney can be present. The media cannot be present. It is rather ironic to reflect on the criticism of the “Secret Archives” within the Catholic Church (a seemingly sinister term in the media but which simply means highly protected and sensitive archives which exist in every large organization) when it is discovered that grand jury proceedings are conducted in secret and are not open to the public, though in this instance it was made certain that its findings would be published in a book that rivals “Gone With The Wind” in its size of 884 pages. Both hearsay and illegally obtained evidence are admissible. The grand jury is guided in its proceedings by-the prosecutor! It sees only those documents he wishes its members to see and hears only those witnesses he wishes for them to hear. Its decisions, unlike a regular jury, require no unanimity, but rather a simple majority vote. Documents and witnesses favorable to the defense are rarely seen or heard. This is why, although all 50 US states have laws that allow for grand juries, only half of the states actually use them. In Cook County (which includes Chicago), Illinois, for example, grand juries receive most problem felony cases in which there is a possibility that a judge in a preliminary hearing, with defense counsel and the defendant present, might be capable of showing no probable cause. By sending the case to a kangaroo court in the form of a grand jury, the government knows it will obtain its indictment, no matter what.
The so-called “Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report” was of course not written by anyone in the grand jury, which is composed of laymen who can range from college students to laborers to retirees. No expertise in the subject investigated is sought in impaneling a grand jury. While it is true that documents from the six dioceses investigated were subpoenaed by the prosecutor, it was also the prosecutor and not any judge who decided which of them would be viewed by the grand jurors and, more importantly, which would not. And as any attorney familiar with documents in a criminal case knows, such papers oftentimes are unreliable, or incomplete, or can contain exaggerations, distortions, or outright untruths (ask any defense attorney about many police reports when compared to DVDs of a crime scene). Other documents such as transcripts of persons under oath can be riddled with perjury, and the grand jurors would never know unless the prosecutor told them.
THE PENNSYLVANIA 40th STATEWIDE INVESTIGATING GRAND JURY REPORT
It is the aforementioned mockery that produced the famous Grand Jury Report released on August 14 that is viewed with virtual reverence by the media, and by those common Americans who have no clue as to how a grand jury works, and does not work. Its allegations that 301 clerics sexually molested in excess of 1,000 minors in six dioceses are perceived by the media as sacrosanct. Of course, as we all know from Mrs. Hillary Clinton’s statement in 2015, any woman who makes any accusation of sexual assault should be believed (save those made by women against her husband, where each person was viciously attacked by Mrs. Clinton). But the application of common sense dictates otherwise, whether the victims be male or female. No reasonable person could possibly believe every “victim’s” allegations, particularly with the number of clergy ambulance-chasing attorneys at large today. Nor, when pretending that a grand jury holding secret proceedings with no defense witnesses or judge or defense counsel is a real jury, could one be expected to accept that every one of the 301 clergy accused is guilty, as these are, after all, merely accusations. Ironically, as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro admitted, there are going to be hardly any charges brought as most of the alleged sex offenders are, conveniently, dead, and thus incapable of defending themselves, or beyond the statute of limitations. Yet, despite this shameful procedure, according to Mr. Shapiro, the real number of victims “might be in the thousands.” Or it might be in the hundreds. No one can really know based on the type of system which he and his colleagues employed here.
It boggles the mind to reflect on what the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania approved in this matter. This was no panel of experts including judges, lawyers, psychologists, experts on child sex abuse, etc., such as were included in the board that investigated clerical sexual abuse that produced in 2004 the “John Jay Report.” It was a group of simple laymen led by the nose by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. Even the Report’s Introduction reads more similar to a clarion call to arms of almost mystic righteousness to join in the crusade led by the prosecutors rather than a legal report: “We, the members of the Grand Jury, need you to hear this. There have been reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale.” And, one might have added, rarely by using a system so inherently unfair that it has been ridiculed by jurists for decades, and banned by every country on earth save America and Liberia. Mr. Shapiro’s rather aberrant presentation of the findings more befit Hollywood, including a horde of sobbing victims sitting near him, and even a professionally produced video, as he literally roared self-righteous indignation at the Catholic Church.
It is useful to reflect that this grand jury consumed almost two years to insure it could place the Church in the worst light imaginable, with the taxpayers subsiding this discredited system. Contrast this with the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial of the 24 major German war criminals after World War II. There were eight judges present from four nations, over 20 attorneys represented the defendants, over 50 lawyers aided in the prosecution, with instant translations required in four languages (English, German, French and Russian) for every word spoken, thus adding significantly more time to this real investigation. At the conclusion of one of the most complicated trials in history, 19 men were found guilty (of whom 12 were sentenced to death), three were acquitted, one committed suicide, and another could not be found. The entire case, from beginning to hanging the condemned men, consumed but 11 months, from November 1, 1945-October 6, 1946. This was one-half the time that the Pennsylvania taxpayers were compelled to fund for only one side of a case, the prosecution, to present its witnesses and documents in one language, with no judge present and no one to argue with the government, to a compliant grand jury. This process reeks of inequity: while taking literally years, it can bring charges against practically no one, notwithstanding Pennsylvania’s criminal statute of limitations on child sexual abuse which enables an offender to be charged if the victim brings his accusations up to the age of 50, sullies the names of dead men incapable of defending themselves, attacks the Catholic Church in almost every manner possible, and expects accusations, most made before President Reagan had taken office, to have been investigated by bishops with the same thoroughness and methodology as if they were brought a month ago. And it must be remembered, as Mr. Shapiro clearly has not, that sexual abuse was throughout much of this time regarded as an illness that could be cured by psychiatrists, and that many bishops were simply following the advice provided in their respective eras by individuals far more knowledgeable of sex abuse than they were, including lawyers and mental health professionals.
Today, in the passion that has eclipsed thought when it comes to child sexual abuse and the Catholic Church (though not child sexual abuse when the innocents are attacked by any other group, as shall be seen shortly) it is easily forgotten that “victims” sometimes lie. One need only return to November 1993 to recall the most infamous such incident when Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago was accused by a Steven J. Cook (age 34) of molesting him at age 17 while he was a seminarian and Cardinal Bernardin was then archbishop of Cincinnati. Mr. Cook maintained “I want to see the Church rid itself of this kind of vermin, this kind of evil.” It fit the Pennsylvania stereotype of child sexual abuse perfectly: victim comes forward 17 years later, and 16 years after reaching adulthood, because of his “fear” of doing so earlier, and his primary desire is simply to remove “vermin” from the Church, while coincidentally enriching himself at the same time in a US District Court lawsuit in Cincinnati. But when Cardinal Bernardin announced himself ready to proceed to trial in February 1994, Mr. Cook replied on February 24, 1994, that he could no longer continue his case “in good conscience” despite claiming up till then that his was another instance (in a seemingly endless series of instances) of “repressed memory” which had been galvanized by hypnosis and “guided visualization.” He had been aided in his quest against the cardinal by therapists, lawyers, and other seeming altruists. Later in 1994, shortly prior to his death from AIDS, Mr. Cook acknowledged his memory had played tricks on him and apologized to the cardinal. (Of course under today’s standard of guilty-till-proven-innocent it is difficult to see how the Pennsylvania prosecutors could accept that someone such as Steven J. Cook could even exist among their bevy of victims.)
“SO WE THINK THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS A PROBLEM?”
-Professor Carol Shakeshaft
Hofstra University
In response to the first deluge of media publicity regarding child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in 2002, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice was commissioned to undertake a meticulous investigation into the prevalence of sexual abuse of minors by priests in active ministry between 1950-2002. It began its work in March 2002 and concluded in February 2004, or about the same amount of time consumed by the Pennsylvania Grand Jury while covering most of the same time frame, and issued the John Jay Report in June 2004. However, that is where the resemblance ends. Unlike Pennsylvania, which investigated merely six state dioceses, the John Jay Board’s inquiries extended throughout the Catholic Church in America, and thoroughly investigated 195 dioceses, or 98% of those in the US. It was one of the most remarkable social science studies in American history. And the panel was not a group of laymen chosen at random. Rather, it included attorneys, judges, and psychologists, with JDs and PhDs from schools such as the University of Arizona, Rutgers, NYU, Harvard, Fordham, and Cambridge (England). It found that during the 52 years examined, there were 109,664 priests ordained, of whom 4,392 were accused of child sexual abuse. This is a mere 4.4% of the total number of priests in America during the time. (Pennsylvania’s Grand Jury does not even bother to mention what small percentage of priests is accused of wrongdoing. After all, that might allow the public to realize that what is being reported relates to a tiny fraction of the good priests in the dioceses being investigated.) The John Jay Report found that there was a marked increase in these heinous acts during the 1960s, that they reached a pinnacle during the 1970s, underwent a significant decline in the 1980s, and then dwindled back to 1950s-levels by the 1990s. The majority of abuse took place during the midst of and immediate aftermath of the glorious “Sexual Revolution”: 68% between 1950-1979. And a mere 10.7% occurred after 1980. A prominent Jesuit abuse counselor, Augustin Cardinal Bea, declared that “approximately 4% of priests during the past half century (and mostly in the 1960s and 1970s) have had a sexual experience with a minor.” Even Newsweek magazine acknowledged that this number is comparable to the rate of abuse in the general population.
Thus the massive Catholic clerical sexual abuse scandal seemingly unearthed by the Josh Shapiros and the media now becomes more clear. The existence of any sexual abuse by any priest is a tragedy and can never be condoned or rationalized. But the extent to which it has been hysterically dramatized, exaggerated, and manipulated more recently by Mr. Shapiro, and for decades by the media, in order to undermine the Catholic Church, and ipso facto its authority to speak credibly and creditably on sexual morality, is now becoming, to use one of the media’s favorite terms, “transparent.”
Let us endeavor to restore some semblance of realism and sanity to what has become for the media and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania a gleeful obsession in over-reporting Catholic priests’ sexual crimes. The sexual morals of liberal state governments and the mainstream media, to the extent they possess any, are in contradistinction to those of the Catholic Church. For the latter, homosexual acts, “same-sex marriage,” premarital sex, adultery, the blackmail of poor countries by the Obama Administration to accept the mass distribution of birth control or not receive food from the US, ordination of women, and above all the holocaust of the unborn by which any mass murder system pales in numbers, all constitute grave sins, with abortion bringing automatic excommunication for any Catholic involved. But for the mainstream media and their left-wing friends in state capitals, homosexual acts are normal, “same-sex marriage” is to be “celebrated,” premarital sex is absolutely normal, adultery is the subject of jokes, birth control-for-food blackmail represents the supercilious intellectual superiority of the West over their darker brothers, the refusal to ordain women is not an imitation of Christ but an example of Catholic misogyny, and murdering tens of millions of babies is “reproductive rights.” The Catholic Church remains the single greatest bulwark against liberal government and media morality as most mainline Protestant churches would do anything rather than incur the hostility of the television and print industries. In combating the Church on the greatest fundamental issues of right and wrong, anything is fair for the media and politicians, and what greater whip could possibly be used against a religious institution than the incessant references to its clergy’s propensity to sexually abuse children in such large numbers–not 4.4% over half a century, but “301 priests with over a 1,000 victims.”
Mr. Shapiro belies his genuine interest in helping sexually abused children, as contrasted with attacking the Catholic Church, in many ways. He has, for instance, created a 800-hotline for sexual abuse victims. But this is not for all such victims, but rather only those abused by clerics, and even then only by Catholic clerics. And whom are the victims contacting when they phone? Child abuse experts? Psychologists? Social workers? Why, no. They are phoning the Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. One must have one’s priorities straight here: first make certain that the body count against priests increases as much as possible, then see if something might be done to aid possible victims.
Were Mr. Shapiro and his media friends honestly interested in pursuing the mass of sexual abuse of minors where it really exists, they would naturally begin with an investigation where it most frequently occurs. Darkness to Light has become one of the premier organizations in America dedicated to advocacy for child sexual abuse victims. They have disclosed, for years, that some 30% of minors who are sexually abused are the victims of members of their own families. Any felony prosecutor in any major city in the US who deals with significant numbers of child sex abuse offenders knows that by far the largest number of perpetrators are live-in boyfriends, stepfathers, stepbrothers, uncles, and other relatives of the youngster. Only too often, their acts are covered up by their wives or lovers, until there is a rupture in the relationship at which time these women can be found running to law enforcement authorities, often with true stories of their children being attacked, and sometimes with pure fiction uttered to gain revenge on men leaving them. When was the last time one of them was prosecuted for her coverup? Indeed, when was any of them prosecuted for such disdainful behavior? Yet Mr. Shapiro, obviously aware that the family is what to investigate if he wishes to halt the plethora of attacks in his state on children, has not a word to say about this.
Professor Carol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, has written extensively, and almost pointlessly, on the great home of sexual abuse of minors which dwarfs that of the Catholic Church–the public school system. A mandate of the federal No Child Left Behind Act signed into law by President Bush in January 2002, ordered a “study regarding the prevalence of sexual abuse in schools, including recommendations and legislative remedies for addressing the problem of sexual abuse in schools.” The deadline for the study was “not later than 18 months” after January 2002. Professor Shakeshaft was appointed to conduct the study and submitted her findings in 2004 in a 156-page report entitled Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature.” Her conclusions were devastating-for detractors of the Catholic Church. “So we think the Catholic Church has a problem?” she opined. Her report specifically emphasized that the sheer breadth of sexual abuse in US public schools vastly exceeded child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, using the recently issued John Jay Report as her benchmark. The professor estimated that some 290,000 (not a 1,000 as in Pennsylvania) students were sexually abused by US public school employees in just one decade, from 1991-2000. This as opposed to the five decades examined by the John Jay Board. She continued that “the physical sexual abuse of students in public schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests [emphasis added].” In particular reference to the New York public school system, she noted that in “Only one per cent of the [sex abuse] cases did superintendents follow up to insure that molesting teachers did not continue teaching elsewhere. In 54%, superintendents accepted the teachers’ resignations or retirements. Of the 121 teachers removed this way, administrators knew for certain that 16% resumed teaching in other districts…. Moving molesting teachers from school district to school district is a common phenomenon. And in only one per cent of the cases do superintendents notify the new school district. The term ‘passing the trash’ is the preferred jargon among educators.”
Well now, where have we heard these complaints before? Covering up for predators? Moving them from district to district? “Passing the trash?” No police involved and no prosecutions? Those in charge enabling molestors to be transferred elsewhere so they might molest again? Oh, yes, it really cannot be that significant because it does not involve the Catholic Church.
This was not Professor Shakeshaft’s first foray into the underworld of child sexual abuse in public schools. In 1994, she had published a report derived from a study consuming four years of 225 sexual abuse complaints made against teachers to the federal government, including 184 in New York state. Therein she found “All of the accused admitted sexual abuse of a student, but not one of the abusers was reported to the authorities, and only one per cent lost their licenses to teach. Only 35% suffered negative consequences of any kind, and 39% chose to leave their school district, most with positive recommendations. Some were even given an early retirement package.”
That Professor Shakeshaft’s reports are so isolated, and becoming so aged, is a real tribute to the insincere interest of governments such as the supercilious Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in protecting little children entrusted, not to the care of the Catholic Church, but to themselves.
In 2007, demonstrating an extraordinary if minimal interest for institutional child sexual abuse that did not involve the Catholic Church, the Washington Post reported on the movement of child molesting teachers: “It’s a dynamic so common it has its own nickname of ‘passing the trash’ or ‘the mobile molester.'” “Maine…has a law that keeps offending teachers’ cases secret.” Ultra-liberal and self-righteous Hawaii, noted the newspaper, had a fascinating history in dealing with its child-abusing educators: “No educators were disciplined by the state in the five years that the AP (Associated Press) examined, even though some teachers there were serving prison sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically remained teachers, even behind bars.” And the Post continued, “Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there’s no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore. School officials fear public embarrassment as much as perpetrators do. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don’t want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don’t want to face a challenge from a strong union.”
Yes, no point in offending the National Education Association or the Chicago Teachers Union. After all, these liberal organizations are in no way involved in the culture war with the media and many state governments, so why make enemies over something so paltry as child molestation?
Amazingly, a 2004 editorial column in the Washington Post had revealed that the report of Professor Shakeshaft was the very first of its kind. Obviously when there is no investigation pertaining to the Catholic Church involved, the subject of child sexual abuse seems to evoke little interest by either the government or the media.
The Associated Press, expressing an interest in sexual abuse of children it rarely displays for any youngsters save those victimized by priests, declared, following a seven-month investigation, that between 2001-2005 more than 2500 teachers had lost their teaching certificates in the US due to child sexual abuse.
CONCLUSION
What the aforementioned makes patent is that the sexual abuse of children warrants years of investigation and millions of taxpayer dollars only when Catholic clergy are involved. Its existence on a large scale is outrageous to Josh Shapiro and the media only when it involves the Catholic Church. Had these “investigators” any genuine interest in pursuing the lamentable plethora of most such abuse, they would have begun in the home, and followed the poor child to his school. But child sexual abuse is quite clearly not their first concern; getting the Catholic Church is. The anti-Catholicism that dominated much of America from its inception has abated. But anyone who really believes it has ended need look no further than the myriad TV specials and headlines of the past week. The disgraceful absence of anything remotely comparable to the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report pertaining to that state’s public school system, which could have yielded a veritable treasure trove of victims and perpetrators in a decade that would dwarf what the Grand Jury found in 70 years in the Church, reflects tragically on the agenda being pursued here by that governmental body, and the media.
Is there any state body in Pennsylvania that might be interested in investigating its own government schools to “protect the children” there?
Perhaps we could at least interest them in impaneling one more grand jury if it were charged with investigating the Catholic schools.
-MARTIN DOORHY
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Martin Doorhy is a former prosecutor and current criminal defense attorney in the Chicago area. He has also taught history at St. Xavier University, and history and constitutional law at DePaul University. He is a former officer in the USAF where he both prosecuted and defended hundreds of cases, including 21 child sexual abuse cases, as a JAG officer while also teaching criminal law and procedure. He is a member of Opus Dei and of St. John Cantius Parish.