It’s easier to hit up the Church than the State

The clergy abuse crisis in the Church has, without question, been devastating. And there’s so much to make up for–lost time, lost opportunity, lost innocence, among only a few–that settlements are reached in almost haste and relief, just to move on. But some people are capitalizing on the Church crisis in a big and ongoing way, and it’s good to see some light on this darkness.

There’s a good piece in the current issue of Crisis Magazine that runs down the incidence of child abuse in the places our children spend their time. In it, Fran Maier makes a point about his own disabled son’s environment that ultimately makes the point about the separate crisis this ordeal has become.

Dan attends a public high school. We don’t actually want him there; we’d prefer to have him in a Catholic school, where he’d be safer. But the law makes this option cost-prohibitive by denying us the opportunity to apply his educational financing in a manner we judge best for our son. We can live with that. But what we won’t live with is the hypocrisy of the news media and lawmakers blaming the Catholic Church for a culture of secrecy and sexual abuse when the same problems—and worse—pervade our public schools. In fact, if Dan ever does experience sexual abuse as a minor, the data suggest that he’s more likely to face it in a public school than anywhere else outside the home.  

Dan is safer serving Mass at our local parish than he’ll ever be in America’s public schools. And yet the Church has been the sole focus of attack since the clerical sex-abuse scandal came to light four years ago. And now, thanks to new legislation cropping up in states around the country, she may pay a heavy price for our nation’s selective blindness.

Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has a good analysis on this in First Things Magazine. He writes about disturbing new legislation that penalizes the Church more than public institutions.

There is an inequity hardwired into the whole national discussion of sexual abuse. Catholics can live with hard laws if they serve the common good—but the laws need to be equally hard for all offending persons and institutions, with the same rules and penalties and no hidden escape clauses. 

He says that what’s happening in the state of Colorado right now is spreading across the country.

The current effort to amend the civil statutes of limitations governing sexual abuse—which really involves an effort to impose retroactive liability and a new wave of lawsuits on Catholic communities—will continue in more states in the coming months. It could easily decimate the remaining resources of the Catholic faithful in the United States and steal the religious future from a generation of Catholic young people. 

No one here is denying the need for restitution and reform. But the call is for honesty and balance in both.

In working to protect the future of the Catholic community, we always need to remember that innocent people and innocent families were hurt in the past by some members of the clergy who did terrible things. Some victims have recovered and moved on. For others, the wounds never heal. All of their lives are precious in the eyes of Jesus Christ, and therefore also in the eyes of Christ’s followers. Helping them, supporting them, praying for them, and seeking to understand their suffering—while also defending the Church—cannot be mutually exclusive, since all these things serve the truth. Caring for the victims of abuse and assisting them sacrificially is a good and urgent thing. So is fighting bad laws. We need to focus earnestly on both.

The Church needs activists, alright. But they should be as well informed as they are well intended.