The Progressive Catholic Voice
An independent and grassroots forum for reflection, dialogue, and the exchange of ideas within the Catholic community of Minnesota and beyond January 2008 |
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 Dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi, who heard and responded to God’s call to “repair my Church,” and, in so doing, emulated the justice-making and compassion of our brother Jesus.
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In this issue . . .
_______________________________________________ Dialoguing with the Archbishop By the Editorial Team Archbishop John C. Nienstedt writes a column in The Catholic Spirit entitled “In God’s Good Time.” We take his public statements as an opportunity to discuss his views with him. Dear Archbishop Nienstedt: We would like to discuss with you your columns of December 6, and December 13 in The Catholic Spirit. In the first you speak of your responsibility to teach and in the second you exercise that responsibility by teaching that the doctrine of Incarnation is linked to some specific sacramental ritual forms. So we will not misrepresent you, we will quote your column:
Obviously, I know that my eternal salvation as well as that of those whom I serve depends on how well and with what clarity I preach and teach the truth. I ought never do so without forethought. But I also ought not do so by way of compromise, no matter how difficult the truth may be perceived by the hearer. We appreciate your sincerity in exercising your duty to teach. We know, of course, that the teaching you refer to, and, in particular, the language this teaching employs, i.e., the “intrinsic disorder” of the homosexual orientation, is not yours alone. As expressed in this way, it has been the teaching of the Church since 1986, and it appears in the Roman Catechism. Nevertheless, we question it and ask you to work with us to change it. We are not asking you, as you fear, to compromise truth. Truth is discovered through time. Tradition evolves. The Church is currently teaching in Section 2358 of the Catechism, that homosexuals should be treated with compassion and sensitivity. That represents evolution of the tradition. There is no reason that the moral teaching on this matter of “intrinsic disorder” should not evolve further, and there is plenty of scientific evidence and moral/pastoral reasoning that it should evolve quickly. Your duty as a bishop to be a stand-in for Christ, which you have quoted from Lumen Gentium, is an awesome responsibility. Doesn’t it stand to reason that a duty of such magnitude requires from you more than insisting on a formulation of moral teaching that is widely questioned by faithful people who are earnestly seeking to live moral lives? Doesn’t a duty of such magnitude include having the imagination and sensitivity to discuss, at least, a moral teaching that many clearly see as being out of line with Christ’s admonition to love one another? Our duty to listen to you is also an awesome one. We think it requires more than just being “yes” persons. We take our duty seriously in trying to reason with you about this teaching that impacts so many lives. These GLBT people are our loved ones, our children. We rejoice with them in their finding partners to support them in living good lives. We believe we also stand as Christ through our baptism and our Christian life. We believe that on every moral issue we have to study the pertinent facts, reason about their implications, and consult the experience of those who are most impacted by the teaching. Do you agree with this method of arriving at moral positions? And if not, why? In your second column you speak of God’s coming to us in the human nature of Jesus, revealing that God is to be encountered in the natural world and in human life. We fully believe this. We get the distinction you are making between private individual acts and acts in and with community. Sacramental life is, of course, communal. But then you say: When a person asks me why we have to confess our sins to a priest, I answer, “because of Christmas.” When someone wonders why he should go to church on Sunday, I say, “because of Christmas.” When I need to explain why intercommunion between Catholics and non-Catholics is wrong, it is “because of Christmas.” … For one to receive the Eucharist unworthily, as St. Paul teaches, is to “sin against the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:27). Intercommunion among those who do not profess the same faith claims one can have full union without full commitment. This is inherently dishonest. It is not right. While we all pray and work for the day when church unity is achieved, we must honestly acknowledge that full communion, that is “union with,” has not yet been realized. This is very puzzling to us: mandatory confession to a priest, mandatory church on Sunday, and denying communion to non-Catholics who are at worship with us. Are these the communal practices that reveal God to us? Is this what Christmas was about? It seems like a reduction of the sacraments to some purely formal requirements. Why is confessing within a community prayer service less incarnational than confessing to a priest? We are often in believing community with people who do not identify as Roman Catholic. Why is it wrong, or not incarnational, to share the Eucharistic meal with them? If a non-Catholic is voluntarily present at the Eucharistic meal with us, s/he must be committed to being with us in some way. Why is not being there a sign of unity? Catholic author Garry Wills says of Eucharist: The Eucharistic transformation is, for Augustine, a change of the community into a single thing, and the symbolism that he finds in the Eucharist is not of the physical body of Christ but of the mystical union of his members under the sign of bread, made a unit from many grains of wheat, and wine, made a unit from many grapes.* What does it mean “to profess the same faith”? What does one have to believe to be in “full union”? There are so many different ways to be Catholic in communities all over the world and even in this country; what does it mean to have “full commitment”? We would appreciate further clarification on this. What puzzles us most is your emphasis on dividing people – those who go to church on Sunday and those who do not; those who confess to a priest, those who do not; those who believe particular faith propositions and those who do not. All faith propositions are attempts by humans to pin down the unfathomable mystery of God with us. Isn’t it important to acknowledge the inadequacy of all such human attempts at truth claims about God? Wouldn’t it be better to allow people more freedom to choose different forms within the sacramental practices of the church so that they could find unity in spirit rather than in uniformity of action and propositional belief? We look forward to working with you to re-think the Church’s moral teaching on homosexuality and its sacramental practices. Yours sincerely, The Editorial Team of The Progressive Catholic Voice: Michael Bayly * Reflections on the Eucharist by Garry Wills, from his book Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit (Doubleday, 2000) What would a Christian priest have done in the original eucharistic meals? It’s hard to imagine any disciple taking on the role of Jesus as his dramatic representation (eikon). (1) Did the disciples reenact the Last Supper, with one of them playing the role of Jesus? If so, did the priest not eat or drink the bread and wine himself? It is hard to imagine Jesus saying that bread and wine were his body and blood and then eating his own body, drinking his own blood. (2) Where did the playacting aspect of this ceremony end? If the priest played the role of Jesus, did someone else play that of Judas, or of the “beloved disciple” who leaned on Jesus’ breast? If the priest has some magic words to say in the persona of Jesus, why do the words of consecration come down to us in different versions in the New Testament and early Christian writings? Since it is the Spirit, acting through the whole community, that consecrates, Western theologians are more and more agreeing with Eastern ones that the actual consecrating words are the call (epiklēsis) on the Spirit to “come upon these gifts and make them holy,” not the words quoted from the Last Supper. (3) In fact, the words of Jesus, “Take this and eat, it is my body,” are, on the face of them, words of distribution, which probably followed on his own prayer to the Father, which were the true consecrating words at the Last Supper. As Bernard Häring says: “It is not we priests who consecrate, such that what was bread becomes the presence of Christ. This mystery takes place on the occasion of epiklēsis by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (4) Even if one does not accept this interpretation of the sacrament, it is clear that the Spirit’s presence in the community is what consecrates, so all those stories of priests changing bread and wine with a magic formula are nonsense. They have no such magic, and the Spirit would not act apart from the community. Since the Spirit consecrates within the community, if one person presides at the Eucharist, it is simply as the community’s representative, not as Christ’s. The first letter of Peter (2:5) refers to Christians as “living stones assembled into a spiritual temple, formed into a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices.” That is the way, early in the second century, Ignatius of Antioch – usually the first witness called for a belief in Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist – talks of the community. Instead of being fenced off from the altar, the faithful are the altar, just as their flesh is the temple: “You sustain God in you, the altar in you, Christ in you, and holiness in you . . . Guard your flesh as God’s temple.” (5) It is more the faithful who become the body and blood of Christ than bread and wine do. Within the congregation there is “a union of the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ.” (6) The faithful are “created again in faith, which is the Lord’s flesh, and love, which is Jesus Christ’s blood.” (7) It makes no sense to form a sacred area away from the faithful, who are the real altars and temples and bearers of Christ’s flesh and blood. They are not distant from the mystery. They are the mystery. For Ignatius, the Eucharist was the full realization of that “one-ing” (henōsis) among themselves he urges on all the communities he addresses. Almost three centuries later, Augustine was still talking of the faithful as the stuff that is transformed by the Eucharist. He never mentions (any more than the New Testament did, or Ignatius did) the power of the priest to consecrate. He says it is the faithful recipients who make the body of Christ present by becoming it. Over and over Augustine places the validity of the sacrament in the recipient’s unity with God and each other, not in any preceding words or magic of the priest. He denied that Christ’s risen physical body could be in more than one place. When Christ is said to be in several different places, it is the members of his body in the Christian community that are referred to. (8) Augustine rejects the idea that teeth and chewing and swallowing make one receive the body of Christ. (9) Augustine says that we cannot take Christ into us. “The symbol is received, it is eaten, it disappears – but can Christ’s body disappear, Christ’s church disappear, Christ’s members disappear? Far from it.” (10) We must be taken into Christ’s body, not he into ours: “We abide in him when we are his members, and he abides in us when we are his temple. And for us to become his members, unity must bind us to each other.” (11) The Eucharistic transformation is, for Augustine, a change of the community into a single thing, and the symbolism that he finds in the Eucharist is not of the physical body of Christ but of the mystical union of his members under the sign of bread, made a unit from many grains of wheat, and wine, made a unit from many grapes. So clearly is the bread a sign of the unity of Christians that it was customary in Augustine’s time to send some of the bread left over from the eucharistic meal to other communities, expressing a general oneness. (12) That would never happen today, when people think the host could be desecrated if handled by anyone but a priest. Candles were not carried alongside the eulogion (as it was called). The only effect of an unbeliever’s eating the bread is that he or she does not become a member of the body of Christ. There is no actual body in the host to bleed or be abused. It has scandalized many Catholics that, as the Augustinian scholar F. van der Meer had reluctantly to admit, in all Augustine’s hundreds of sermons delivered at the Eucharistic meal, “he does not speak of a real presence” in the bread and wine. (13) Augustine in the fourth century, just as Ignatius in the second, would never have thought that reverence to the Eucharist involved removing its mystery from the midst of the believers. They would not have fenced off the altar, since the people were the altar, just as they were the bread lying on it. [Augustine] wanted no adventitious mystification. He did not wear altar vestments at the Eucharistic meal, but his everyday clothes. He had no taste for pomp. He melted down the precious metals of communion vessels to ransom prisoners. His fellows in Christ were the real vessels of Christ’s body. He agreed with Saint Paul, who said that mystery for its own sake, like speaking in tongues that no one could interpret, was not a service to the community. . . Yet the priest muttering in Latin before modern communities was in effect just speaking to himself and God. The original language of the Mass was whatever tongue the community spoke – Aramaic in Jerusalem, Greek in the diaspora, Latin only after a while in Rome. At the Last Supper Jesus did not speak in some exotic tongue his disciples could not understand. The need to keep Latin as a mark of caste was demonstrated at the Second Vatican Council, where bishops could not express themselves spontaneously or with subtlety because they were forced to use Latin, yet many begged to keep the dead language that sealed them off from the laity in their church rituals. It was most telling that Cardinal Spellman of New York got up to defend the use of Latin, but spoke it so barbarously that people could not understand him. Vatican officials feared change in the liturgy for a very real and practical reason. If you take away the magical aura from the Mass, the existence of a priestly caste with ritual purity is hard to justify. If a privileged entrée to sanctuaries from which the laity are excluded is gone, what happens to the rules of Leviticus? That is why Pope Paul VI was forced back on weaker and weaker arguments for preservation of the caste’s celibacy. He tried to say that asceticism is itself a witness to the purity of a person’s dedication. That was true of the desert fathers. But they did not minister to a community – they went off on their spiritual adventure to avoid the duties and entanglements of the priests. Besides, their asceticism was part of an integral life pattern. They fasted, punished their bodies, abstained from company and entertainments and pleasures. The modern priest is not in general terms an ascetic. An ascetic like the Dalai Lama does impress people by the monkish discipline he observes. He is not only celibate. He does not drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, play games, go to the movies. Priests may today be celibate; but – with some honorable exceptions – they usually maintain a comfortable life style, especially compared with the poor they profess to be serving. We all know priests with refined tastes in food and drink, nice cars, expensive stereos. If priests are so ready to indulge in other pleasures, then why is celibacy their one abstention? It is not the witness of asceticism in a broader sense that can justify this, but only the sneaking, no longer confessed heritage of the Stoics and Leviticus that makes sex of itself somehow unclean and debasing. The Pope can no longer say that, but his actions reveal his instincts in the matter. Pope Paul VI says that the priest should resemble Christ. Well, where is Christ to be found on earth these days? A theologian priest I know tells the community when he preaches that he comes to Mass to find Christ, and that he finds him by looking out at the face before him. The Christ to be resembled is there, in the members of his body. That man over there is Christ. So is this woman over here. So, at that moment, are we all. This priest also urges the Augustinian formula when he gives out communion: “Receive what you are, the body of Christ.” 1. Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, paragraph 31.
_______________________________________________ Archdiocese Blocks Bills to Help Sex Abuse VictimsBy Paula Ruddy Catholics may be concerned to learn that the Archdiocese pays lobbyists thousands of dollars to block bills in the Minnesota State Legislature that would give people who were sexually abused as children more time to file civil suit against their abusers. They may question with us the morality of these lobbying efforts. They may also be interested to learn that Representative Joe Mullery has the power to kill the house bill in the 2007-2008 legislative session and wonder why he is doing it. THE PROBLEM How much time does a person have to file suit now? A person who suffered sexual abuse as a child currently has to file suit in civil court for money to cover the costs of his or her injury within six years after s/he “knew or had reason to know” that the injury was caused by the sexual abuse, Minnesota Statute Section 541.073 Subd.2(a). The Minnesota Supreme Court has held that a child can’t know or have reason to know that he or she has been injured by sexual abuse until the age of 18. But, unless another disability is proven, at the age of 18 victims have six years to file suit. That means, in most cases, by the age of 24 the person’s right to sue is foreclosed. The statute of limitations applies not only to suit against an abuser but it also applies in Subd.3(2) to suits against a person who caused the injury by “negligently permitting sexual abuse against the victim to occur.” For example, the employer who was negligent in hiring an abuser and placing children in harm’s way is protected by this statute too. (For further explanation of the law and its construction by the Court, see the endnote to this article.) What does it mean to know that “the injury was caused by the sexual abuse”? Research shows that the experience of abuse can be so traumatic that victims repress the memory of it. In other cases, even though they remember, they are so emotionally disabled by the abuse that they lose control of their lives and thus their ability to make decisions in their own best interests. The injury from sexual abuse in childhood can include failure in school, juvenile delinquency, addiction to alcohol or drugs, attempted suicide, failure to make and keep intimate relationships, failure in jobs, failure in marriage, domestic abuse, a lifelong loss of a sense of self and a need for psychotherapy. Our legal system translates these losses into money, “damages,” awarded in civil law suits. Unless they had the good fortune to be reached by competent adults, few suffering young people under 24 would foresee these costs and know they should sue the abuser and the employer who gave the abuser access to children. Bob Schwiderski, Executive Director of the Minnesota chapter of Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (MN-SNAP) and Region 8 Representative for the national Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), has personal experience of “delayed discovery.” He was sexually abused by the priest in Hector, Minnesota, from the ages of 7 to 12 in the rectory and sacristy of the church. By his estimate so were about twenty-five other altar-boys he grew up with. Only three ever came forward with their stories. One committed suicide. Schwiderski never repressed the memories. In his teen years the memories were present in shame and guilt, but he talked to no one and avoided remembering as much as he could to get on with his life. He married, had three children, and a professional position in which he was successful. Looking back and after much analysis he can see that it was at about the age of 40 when he saw his oldest son in an altar-boy surplice that his life began to unravel. He drank heavily, his marriage came apart. One day in the early 1990’s he read the newspaper story about James R. Porter, who as a priest in Massachusetts and Minnesota had abused many children, and the light went on. “It’s about causal connection,” says Schwiderski. “You don’t see the connection between what happened in your early life and the out-of-control, self-destructive things you are doing.” He began the long process of learning about and coming to grips with what had happened to him as a child. Is there an age when a victim should realize the “causal connection”? In answer to our question about how much time is enough time, psychologist Gary Schoener, licensed psychologist and Executive Director of the Walk-in Counseling Center in Minneapolis, says: The reality is that the discovery of a memory of abuse or the discovery of the impact it had on you can be delayed decades. It is complicated because it has to do with the ability of people to comprehend the impact. Nobody has a magic number for how many years is realistic. For example, most of the Boston cases I worked on involved gaps of 40 or more years. Marci Hamilton, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, says of clergy abuse victims:
(Click here for research on memory loss of abuse as a child. See also books by Victor Vieth for the incidence of child abuse nationally. Vieth is the Director of Child Abuse Programs at the American Prosecutors Research Institute, including the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse and the National Child Protection Training Center. He spent ten years as a prosecutor in rural Minnesota, where he gained recognition for his work to address child abuse in small communities. He is also the author of Unto the Third Generation, an initiative that seeks to eliminate child abuse in the United States over the course of a century.) THE SOLUTION What does the proposed bill provide and where is it now? The bill that could remedy this situation in the 2008 session, (HF 1239), sits in the House Public Safety and Civil Justice Committee, buried under the political weight of Joe Mullery (DFL), District 58A, North Minneapolis. Mullery, elected first in 1996, has held his Committee chairmanship since the DFL gained its majority in the House in the 2006 election. The chief author of the bill to extend the time limit for abuse victims is State Representative Steve Simon (DFL) District 44A, St Louis Park. Simon also sits on the Public Safety and Civil Justice Committee but as yet has not been able to move Mullery. As chair, Mullery has to bring the bill to a vote in the Committee before it can go to the floor of the House. On the floor, Simon believes he has the votes; 30 other House members have signed on to author the bill and he says he has the remaining votes he needs. The Senate bill, SF 1096, authored by Gary Kubly (DFL) District 20, a Lutheran pastor from Granite Falls, is in the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Mee Moua (DFL) District 67, St. Paul. Representative Simon says he believes Moua will bring the bill to a vote when the House bill is passed out of committee. The bills provide that suits would be barred six years after a “victim fully comprehends the causal connection between the sexual abuse and the injury resulting from the abuse.” A jury would determine from medical or psychological testimony when a victim had full comprehension. The bills provide a retroactive right to sue to persons barred by the Minnesota Supreme Court’s previous interpretations of the statute. It would apply to all Minnesota children and all individuals and organizations responsible for putting children knowingly in harm’s way. THE OPPOSITION Who opposes the bill and why? What is Joe Mullery’s motivation for sitting on this bill? Bob Schwiderski, who with MN-SNAP and VOTF is advocating for the bill, says: “Mullery thinks the authors of the bills are out to get his church.” Mullery is Roman Catholic. He lives in St. Austin’s parish in the Victory neighborhood of North Minneapolis. Rep. Steve Simon says he does not know Mullery’s motivation. He says his own advocacy for the bill is not about religious institutions; it is about protecting children from abusers in all professions that have access to children as well as in families and neighborhoods. In answer to my telephone calls asking to talk about the bill, Mullery refused to meet and said he would talk about the bill only to constituents if they called directly. He said the bill would come up for hearing, as he promised Simon last session, but he would not say whether he would ask for a vote to pass the bill to the House floor. The committee chair can hold an “information only” hearing after which the bill still remains in the committee. The Progressive Catholic Voice intends to cover Mullery’s meeting with constituents who have told us they will ask him to explain his reasons for blocking the bill. What is the Archdiocesan connection? One of the chief opponents of the bill is the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The records in the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure office show four Minneapolis attorneys are paid to lobby against the statute of limitations legislation under the auspices of an organization called the Minnesota Religious Council. The Reverend Kevin M. McDonough, Vicar General of the Archdiocese, was chair of the Minnesota Religious Council from 1994 to 2005 and filed the reports of money spent on lobbying efforts each year. The Minnesota Catholic Conference, comprised of all Catholic dioceses in Minnesota, is also a member of the Minnesota Religious Council, listed in the Lobbyist Disbursement Report for 2007. Other religious bodies listed as members of the Council are the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, the United Methodist Church, the St Paul Synod of the ELCA, and the Minnesota South District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. McDonough checked the box designating expenditures between $500 and $50,000 each year from 1994 to 2001. In 2002, he reported having spent $60,000 and in 2003, $230,000. In 2004 and 2005, he reported expenditures of $40,000 per year. In January 2006, McDonough resigned as chair of the Minnesota Religious Council, though he, Dennis B.McGrath, and Andrew J. Eisenzimmer are still listed as members representing the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. McDonough is the current chaplain to the Senate. In a phone call to McDonough on January 3, members of The Progressive Catholic Voice editorial team asked him to clarify the Archdiocese’s position with regard to HF 1239. He said he testified before the legislature against the bill in the 2007 session, and did not know if the opportunity to do so again would arise in the session beginning in February, 2008. He cited other organizations opposing the bill, among them the MN Association of School Boards and the MN Association of Day Care Providers. Why is the Archdiocese against lengthening the time for suit? It is a matter of legal principle. What is the real reason the Archdiocese is working determinedly against this statutory change? McDonough’s answers lead in two directions, one in the direction of legal principle and the other in the direction of dire financial consequences for the Archdiocese. He emphasized the principled direction. He said his opposition to the change in the law is an attempt to protect this rule of law regarding self-defense. He said, “One of the most precious rights our rule of law affords us is the right of a robust defense.” He gave the standard legal arguments for limiting time to file suit. Statutes of limitation are historically meant to be fair to defendants. Evidence with which to defend one-self is hard to discover after years have elapsed, people have died, memories have faded. When institutions like the church are named as negligent employers in old cases, the people who were in charge have moved on, records are sometimes non-existent. It is a matter of finances. When asked for an estimate of the additional cost to the Archdiocese from the number of cases foreseeable if the statute of limitations were changed, McDonough replied that he did not have an estimate but that the result could be bankruptcy. We do not know if this means that the known cases of clergy sex abuse now barred by the statute of limitations are so numerous and the victims so damaged that Archdiocesan liability would exceed its assets. Does the Archdiocese report on the costs associated with clergy sex abuse cases and its prospective liability? THE ADVOCATES FOR CHANGE Survivors groups and child sex abuse prevention groups advocate change. MN-SNAP has been working for bills to extend the time for suits almost as long as the Minnesota Religious Council has been working against them. The history of the bills introduced from 1997 to clarify the statute and to extend the time for suit is given on the SNAP-Great Plains website, under the “Protecting our Children” tab. Bob Schwiderski says that the spike in lobbying costs for the Minnesota Religious Council in 2003 may have been caused by the near success of bills in that year to extend the time for suit. Both the House and Senate passed bills but they could not be reconciled in Conference Committee and subsequently were pulled by their authors. National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children (NAPSAC) is leading the campaign to change the law. Ted Thompson, Executive Director of the national association and also of the Minnesota chapter, says there are efforts to lengthen statutes of limitation in many states, Maryland, New York, Colorado, Wisconsin, Washington D.C. and Delaware. Delaware was a success for proponents in 2007 with unanimous vote of both House and Senate to eliminate entirely a statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases. (See the NAPSAC website for a list of organizations supporting HF1239.) Connie Skillingstad, on the Board of NAPSAC and Executive Director of Prevent Child Abuse-MN, supports the bill. Donna Dunn, Executive Director of Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MNCASA) says her organization generally supports statutory change that would enhance the options available to victims of child sexual abuse who are seeking justice as they become adults. She says: “Very often their ability to understand the harm that has been caused them and the origins of that harm are not fully understood until adulthood. Those adult victims of child sexual abuse should have full access to justice in those cases.” Without specific comment on HF1239, Yvonne Cournoyer, Program Director of Stop it Now! Minnesota, supports a longer period to file suit. John P. Kingrey, Executive Director of The Minnesota County Attorneys Association, says they support the concept of clarifying the statute of limitations for cases involving childhood sexual abuse. THE MORAL CONTEXT What is the moral question here? The conflict over the statute of limitations for sex abuse cases in Minnesota is a story within a story. The big story is the terrible incidence of sexual abuse of children in our nation and state. It is the tragedy of damaged lives. In a telephone survey in 2003 and 2007, Stop It Now! Minnesota called 500 randomly selected adults in the seven county metro area. Of the 500, 110 adults reported having been sexually abused as children. Only thirty-two told anyone and only seven reported the abuse to law enforcement. The big story exposes a moral abscess at the core of our society, national and local. And within that alarming story is the less numerous but very public scandal of predatory Catholic priests and how Catholic bishops covered for them from the 1990’s to the present. (See the timeline here for the sexual abuse scandal. Sixty cases from the dioceses of Minnesota are reported on this website.) Who will be protected, who will be hurt by inaction on HF1239? It seems morally short-sighted for church leaders to focus on the church story when their plea for legislative protection will result in protection for all public institutions that also disregard the safety of children. Ted Thompson of NAPSAC says 80 to 85 % of sex abuse cases are not church related. Despite that fact, the major opposition to statutory reform comes from churches. Abusers can be family members, neighbors, schoolteachers, coaches, social workers – any professional who deals with children. Do we want day care workers and their employers to be held accountable for victims past the age of 24? Do we want teachers and school boards who hire them to be held accountable for victims past the age of 24? In the November 1, 2007, issue of The Catholic Spirit, Archbishop Flynn wrote at length in a column entitled “Let’s Work Together to Eradicate Child Abuse, ‘Come Lord Jesus’”, on the horrific abuse of children in public schools. He ends it with the admonition to survivor groups and advocacy groups like Voice of the Faithful:
In reality, these “well-intentioned people and groups” have been and are working to prevent child abuse by asking the legislature to provide a longer time to sue. The intent of holding employers liable is to ensure that they use rigorous procedures in screening and hiring employees. In light of these realities, we wonder if Archbishop Flynn sees an inconsistency in his working with the School Boards to protect them from civil liabilities. We would welcome his explanation of his opposition to the bills introduced over the years. What will be the effect on the right to defense? With due respect to the principle of the right to self-defense, HF 1239 applies in child sex abuse cases only. If the abuse happened when the victim was 10 and s/he didn’t fully comprehend the causal connection until s/he was 40, the people and records would be 30 years older when the statute of limitations began to run. If s/he were 40 in 2008, that would require discovery of facts from 1978. Would people, memories, and records be undiscoverable? Do dioceses still have records from the 50’s, the 60’s, the 70’s? Given the personal tragedy of sexual abuse, the difficulty of defense is not disproportionate. As Steve Simon, author of HF 1239, points out, plaintiffs’ lawyers have the burden of proof in a child sex abuse case. A time lapse between the abuse and the filing of a case works against the plaintiff’s finding evidence to support a case as well as a defendant’s constructing a defense. Do institutional finances count more than recovery for victims? As to the financial fear factors, we do not know if they are real. The 2007 report on the Archdiocesan finances claims financial strength. Even if the fears are real, does the morality of the situation change if there are so many badly injured plaintiffs out there waiting to sue that the Archdiocese or the other Minnesota dioceses will have to declare bankruptcy? Can the dioceses respond justly to these victims without their going to civil court? Some may be willing to ask the church for help and submit to its conditions, some may not. It seems disingenuous for church leaders to point the finger at plaintiffs’ attorneys. Is the conflict here really between money hungry attorneys manipulating emotional juries and law loving church leaders protecting their institutions from pressured, unjust settlements? No doubt emotions run high in these cases. Attorneys can be out for all the money they can get. The shocking stories of the plaintiffs can inflame juries. Juries can also be inflamed by the perception that a plaintiff or an attorney is gouging an innocent defendant. The bankruptcy of a diocese can cause great grief in the lay people who have paid the bills to build it. But are plaintiffs' attorneys the cause of all the pain? Doesn’t moral honesty require placing the blame squarely on the perpetrators and their protectors and facing up to the consequences? If there is no evidence that a diocese neglected to protect children from predators, can’t a jury be counted on to judge liability justly? Where do you come down on this question of the statute of limitations in civil cases? We think it is reasonable and good public policy to hold accountable in civil law bishops and other institutional leaders who are negligent and, in some cases, intentionally self-protective in allowing predators access to children. Even if the individual leader of the institution at the time of the offense is no longer available, the institutional culture that supported and protected sex abusers for fear of institutional exposure should be held accountable. It generally takes several people, all deliberately looking the other way, to protect an abuser. It also takes an institutional culture in which the moral questions remain unasked. The question is for how many years should a perpetrator or the negligent employer be liable for damage that prevents a plaintiff from recognizing its cause. We think that liability should extend beyond the plaintiff’s reaching the age of twenty-four as the law now provides. Our hope is that a statute that provides a longer time for plaintiffs to come forward will motivate institutions and their insurers to focus on prevention of the sexual abuse of children. We welcome your opinions. THE ACTION ALERT Unfortunately, there was no discussion with the general laity on the moral issue of whether to spend money for the lobbying effort by the Archdiocese over the years against the extension of the statute of limitations. We can write to Archbishop John C, Nienstedt, Coadjutor Archbishop, to give him our opinions on the matter. His contact information is: The Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt Fortunately, Joe Mullery has to listen to his constituency. We can call him at (651) 296-4262 or write to him at: State Office Building, Room 367, St. Paul, MN 55155. If we do not live in his district, we can call or write our own representatives and ask them to talk with Mullery. We can give him our opinions about whether we want House File 1239 to reach the House floor for a vote. We would like to hear what you think. Write to progressivecatholicvoice@gmail.com. Your thoughts and opinions will be published in a future issue of The Progressive Catholic Voice. ENDNOTE What is the difference between criminal and civil statutes of limitation? Statutes of limitation differ in criminal and civil cases. Some states do not have statutes of limitation in criminal cases. In Minnesota law, Section 628.26 (e), the time for criminally charging sex abusers of persons under 18 is generally 9 years from the date of the offense or 3 years from the report to law enforcement. The law in effect at the time of the criminal offense applies and the law has been amended over the years, so the statute of limitations in criminal cases varies. They generally apply to criminal sexual conduct in the first to the fourth degrees. In this article, however, we are focusing on the statute of limitations in civil cases. What does the statute say and how has it been interpreted by the Minnesota Supreme Court? What is a “disability” that stops the running of the statute of limitation? Cases decided under Section 541.15 yield different results. This section delays the running of the statute of limitation during a period of “disability,” enumerated as minority, insanity, citizenship in a country at war with the U.S., and stay by injunction or other statutory prohibition. The delay runs for one year past the ceasing of the disability. “Repressed memory” is held to be a disability under the heading of “insanity.” If the disability is minority, it ceases at the age of 18. In W.J.L. v. Bugge 573 NW2nd 677 (Minn. 1998) the plaintiff did not prove the disability of repressed memory of sexual abuse so her only disability was minority. Consequently, the Court said the limitation period would have begun to run one year after her 18th birthday and would have expired when she turned 25. This is not, of course, an exhaustive explanation of the legal issues with regard to sexual abuse. Any one who is personally interested is urged to consult a lawyer. Paula Ruddy is a founding member of The Progressive Catholic Voice.
_______________________________________________ Children of Iraq By Peter Thompson The following talk was given by Twin Cities-based lawyer and peace activist Peter Thompson at the 10th annual Candlelight Service for the Children of Iraq and Other Child Victims of War, held at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, Friday, December 28, 2007. Why is it that we who oppose war are in favor of children? Isn’t peace the opposite of war? Isn’t adult the opposite of child? When we say no to war, why do we say yes to children? Are we confused? Are we comparing apples and oranges? Let’s look a little closer. All three Abrahamic religious traditions, as well as Gandhian and Buddhist teachings, see children as more than just cute and innocent. A favorite story from the Christian tradition gives us some guideposts to the deeper significance of children. “Jesus took a little child and put it among them, and taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’” (Mark 9:36-37) I hear in this message that the simplicity, truthfulness and powerlessness of children are what are needed to move toward the peace and justice of God’s Reign. What led to this teachable moment? When Jesus put the child ‘among them’ he placed the child among the disciples. What immediately precedes this wonderful teaching is the argument amongst the disciples about who is the greatest among them, and this argument ensues right after Jesus tells the disciples of his coming resurrection from death. The reaction of adults, when they hear about kingdom, is to grab for some of that royal power and prestige. They begin scrabbling for the best spot in the hierarchy. After all, they figure due to their risky association with Jesus they want their rightful reward, now that victory is at hand. This is how adults think. But what Jesus is trying to show them with the child is just the opposite. A child wouldn’t care about a position near the throne, or the values of the dominant culture. To welcome God in this world doesn’t take domination, hierarchy, and power, it takes what children know and yearn for: loving relationship. Children teach us about alternative values such as equality, relationship and nonviolence. To be a child in 1st century Roman Palestine was not idyllic. Children were just below women and just above slaves in the cultural pecking order. They had no power or position. They epitomized, much more so that today, vulnerability and powerlessness. Jesus’ lesson was about those in society who are always last in line and are valued the least. Jesus is asking his disciples to extend their hands and hearts to those who often feel only the back of the hand and the hardness of the human heart.* “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”* (Mark 9:35) I hear in this story the child as the symbol of God’s call to peace and justice through nonviolence. I hear a rejection of the empire’s call to victory by domination. I hear that the child marginalized by culture shows us the way to upside down transformation of the world through the radical but simple way of relationship. Five years ago Steve Clemens and I were in Iraq with a team of international peacemakers. We took pictures of children and showed them at this gathering in 2002. In a few minutes the children here will show you pictures of Iraqi children. When we look at [these] kids and the [pictures of the] Iraqi kids [they’ll be carrying] look for the countercultural message that Jesus was trying to convey to the disciples with the child in his arms. Last night at our home we had a party for friends we’d lived with 5 years ago, some of whom we hadn’t seen since that time. Keesha, an eleven year old girl who lives in Washington State was at the party with her parents and four-year-old brother Cody. In the five years since we saw her, Keesha’s life has changed. She is now a foot taller, she’s strong and healthy, she’s swimming on her school team, she’s matured socially to become an interesting and polite young woman, she’s done well in a good school system. In the five years since Steve and I saw Iraqi children, their lives have also changed. When we saw them they had lived their entire lives under the oppression of US sponsored sanctions and a brutal dictatorship which together had destroyed the dignity of their lives. The past five years have been worse. Undoubtedly some are dead and others are physically or mentally maimed. Most of their families have been scattered, broken, or destroyed. The country is gripped in violence, fear, and hatred. The prospects for decent education, housing, medical care, employment, and living conditions have been shattered by war and domination. The long term prospects for those who have physically survived are grim. Now we are called by these children into equal relationship as sisters and brothers. We are called to be voices calling for an end to political rhetoric of domination and military violence. As Jesus brought the child among the disciples 2,000 years ago, we are called to bring the nonviolence of the child among the adults of our world who are fighting for more power. So as we say No to war, let us say Yes to children. God bless the child in each of us. * Gary Charles, Preaching Mark in Two Voices (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002) 182.
_______________________________________________ Far from “Innocuous”
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