Shifting blame in the church

Everyday I wear a reminder of the sex abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests. Of course, that's not how I usually think of my favorite piece of jewelry. When people ask, I identify it only as my high school class ring.

You see, in Catholic school there is a mass for everything, and a few years ago my classmates were put in charge of planning our junior ring mass. They selected the music, readings, the prayers for the faithful and, perhaps most importantly, the priest. But three hours before the start of the mass, the priest was arrested for child molestation. As we lined up to process into the chapel that night, I remember my dazed friend, who had personally invited the priest, stammering, "I don't know. He seemed like such a nice guy." Later that year, he was convicted and sentenced.

I bring this experience up not to sensationalize, as some may immediately assume, but rather to make the point that no one within the Church has a clean slate in this matter. It's true that Justin Regali, the Archbishop of Philadelphia has inherited this current scandal and grand jury investigation from his predecessors. But he was also the Archbishop of St. Louis when I was in high school. Just as he is picking up the pieces of someone else's mess here, there's another new archbishop doing the same there.

That's why I'm so disappointed in the Archdiocese's reaction to the 418-page Philadelphia grand jury report on clergy sex abuse. Over the weekend, a letter written by Archbishop Regali was distributed to all area parishes. Here was yet another opportunity to address the members of faith in a forthright manner, admit that mistakes were made and promise to start anew. Instead, we got the same old damage control.

Splitting hairs over whether all the accused Catholic priests were supervised by the Archdiocese or another religious order, gets Regali nowhere. Even if "only" 54 out of the grand jury's 63 accused priests were under the supervision of the Archdiocese, that's still 54 too many. Although the "safe environment training" now provided for everyone who comes into contact with young people is certainly worthwhile, I don't think it'll stop someone who is truly sick. Unfortunately, from the looks of the report, neither will the church hierarchy. There is one example after another of priests, bishops and cardinals doing whatever they can to protect each other.

What's even scarier is the lack of accountability the Church has planned for cases that we already know about. If the statute of limitations has run out on one of the abuse cases when the church defrocks one of these priests, nothing happens. No Megan's law, no place on the sex offender's list. The former priest will become just another member of lay society. Over the past 50 years, too little was done to avoid abuse by these priests and now nothing is being done to prevent future tragedies.

The Archdiocese feels that it's the target of a witch hunt. I spoke with a Roman Catholic priest after mass this week and he wanted to know why priests of other denominations or rabbis or imams weren't targets of the investigation. Considering the rumors that the Vatican may soon ban gay but celibate priests, I guess the members of the Archdiocese learned the tactic of shifting blame from their higher ups.

I was surprised to see that Regali's letter was not read or discussed during the Sunday morning mass at St. Agatha and St. James' on Penn's campus. I talked with Father Zlock, director of Penn's Newman Hall, who wants an open forum of all members of the community, the clergy and faith to discuss a number of different issues intersecting with the scandal. What better place to start than within his own church?

Perhaps the matter wasn't pushed because the majority of the attendees were college students who don't exactly consider Philadelphia their home. But as I've stated before, this scandal unfortunately touches all members of the faith everywhere. In my opinion, the letter should have been used as a starting point for some sort of dialogue. There are far too many of those among us with worse reminders than just some silly old ring.

Amara Rockar is a junior political science major from St. Louis. Out of Range appears on Tuesdays.

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