"Betrayal hangs like a heavy cloud over the Church today." These words of Cardinal Bernard Law, Archbishop of Boston, cited as the front piece become a self-fulfilling prophecy by the end of this book.
The scandal of clerical child sexual abuse is indeed a sordid chapter of recent Church history in Ireland as elsewhere. This account by the investigative staff of The Boston Globe, which focuses on the Boston archdiocese, makes for sorry reading for all except those whose Schadenfreude extends to the clergy of the Catholic Church and their rulers.
The story begins with the most notorious of the clerical paedophiles, John J. Geoghan, whose depredations in various parishes over a 25-year period were estimated as likely to cost the archdiocese anything from $15 million to $30 million in victim compensation. He was eventually defrocked by cardinal law, whose role in re-assigning him to various parishes, despite knowing his proclivities and the ongoing problems they cause, becomes the sub-plot of this book, to the point of obscuring other important issues associated with the whole affair.
The titles of successive chapters - 'Cover-Up', 'Predators', 'Victims', 'Explosion' and 'Decline of Deference' - are indicative of how the compilers of this account see the story they want to tell unfolding. The culture of clerical secrecy in dealing with the issue until the civil authority eventually became involved - something not unknown here also - sets the backdrop for what the newspaper's investigative staff see as their task to expose. The predators and their victims are described in brief vignettes, which, for all their snappy reporting style, fail to deal with the complexity of the addiction or the pain and suffering of the abused.
Attempts to regard the Geoghans of this world as the exception are dismissed as clerical cover-up, as instances of abuse from all over the country are canvassed to support the claim of an "explosion" of epidemic proportions. The inevitable outcome is described as "loss of deference" for the bishops and their associates, the notion itself an indication of the particular character of the US Catholic leadership and its hold on the faithful.
Three concluding chapters move in a general way towards analysis and critique. Because of the fact that Cardinal Law is the particular target of the writers, possibly echoing popular Bostonian perceptions of him as arrogant, "His Eminence" comes across as a cold careerist, imprisoned in his episcopal compound, with the odd subtle hint of the affluence one associates with the prince- bishop.
A chapter on 'Sex and the Church' raises, but does not deal adequately with such issues as the relationship between paedophilia (or ephebophilia, that is "love of adolescents") and clerical celibacy, especially for priests of a gay orientation; the successes and failures of the various treatment centres sponsored by church-related bodies and their methods in assessing the possibilities of recidivism, and finally, current practice in selecting and training potential ordinands.
A final chapter takes us to a meeting in Rome of the US cardinals with Pope John Paul II. As the ageing bishops met in "the tapestried halls" of the Palazzo Apostolico, a group of concerned Catholics was gathering in the basement of a church in suburban Boston. Thus the scene is dramatically set for the two different churches that are battling for the soul of US Catholicism. The final word must go to a member of that "underground" church: "These sexual abuse victims endured horrific pain and trauma, and the good that is coming out of it is people coming together to support them, and looking for change in the church while keeping faith alive. As always happens, from evil comes good."
Due credit must go to those in the Boston Globe who relentlessly pursued the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse over the years, eventually obtaining the release of the relevant documentation. However useful locally such a service of investigative journalism may be, the critical reader will want to know more about the motives, the prejudices and the competence of the investigators. Because the book is an enterprise of collective authorship, it is difficult for an outsider to assess these aspects of the treatment, even if one has one's suspicions.
The genre and style of the short, snappy newspaper piece does not easily translate into an authoritative, book-length discussion of a complex issue, which is what the accompanying blurb claims for this book. For the Boston experience to contribute to the wider, international debate on clerical paedophilia, a more in-depth treatment is called for, one which would distinguish specific aspects of the North American ethos from the more general issues which are touched on, but not convincingly treated here -
aspects of power and its abuse by an instistution with a unique role in a pluralistic and ethnically diverse society.
Even by Irish ecclesiastical standards, the American Catholic Church comes across in this book as a highly bureaucratic institution run by managers rather than pastors. The violation of the bonds of trust that existed between the faithful and their priests could only result in a loss of respect. However important it may be for people of goodwill to have their confidence in the institution restored, the healing of the pain and trauma of the victims must be the first priority.
This process can begin only when all who have contributed to that hurt - the perpetrators and those who sought to conceal their deeds - acknowledge their shared guilt, whatever the personal or institutional costs. Before that happens, talk of "good" in terms of church renewal coming from the evil that has been done is both premature and hollow, however well-meaning.
Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church. By the Investigative Staff of The Boston Globe. Little, Brown, 274 pp. €19.99