February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Jim Smith
BOSTON — Amid calls for frank discussions about celibacy and whether men of homosexual orientation should be allowed into the priesthood, a “blue-ribbon” panel formed by embattled Cardinal Bernard Law of the Archdiocese of Boston has taken up the task of formulating policies designed to protect children from sexual abuse by priests.
The 15-member (eight women and seven men) panel held its first meeting March 16. It was created by Cardinal Law in January amid the then-burgeoning scandal involving John Geoghan, the defrocked priest who has been accused of molesting more than 130 children in parishes around the archdiocese.
The cardinal, who is named in civil suits as having negligently allowed the accused priest to continue as a clergyman despite his history of molestation, has repeatedly apologized for having made “tragic mistakes” involving his reliance on clinical evaluations that had concluded that Geoghan was unlikely to reoffend.
The publicity about Geoghan’s abuse and the cardinal’s admitted mistakes ignited a firestorm of shock and outrage that has now spread throughout the nation. On a near-daily basis, reports are surfacing in cities across the country about the victimization of young boys by priests.
Geoghan was sentenced to nine to 10 years in jail last month for fondling a 10-year-old boy. A more serious charge of rape of an older boy will not go to trial because of a judge’s recent ruling that too much time had lapsed between the alleged abuse and the indictment. Geoghan still faces two more molestation charges and about 90 civil suits.
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The new archdiocesan panel, which is called the Commission for the Protection of Children, will focus upon the following areas of concern: making improvements to policy and protocol regarding allegations of abuse; developing educational and outreach initiatives; developing screening policies, and dealing effectively with victims and alleged offenders.
The commission is expected to steer clear of larger issues, such as celibacy and the ordination of women, issues that are being raised in the public arena as Catholics wrestle with the widening scandal.
In last week’s special edition of the Pilot, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston and the nation’s oldest Catholic newspaper, the issue of homosexual priests was raised in a news account that a top Vatican doctrinal official had spoken last year of the negative effects of homosexuality on the priesthood. The Pilot said further that the same issue was raised again earlier this month when Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told The New York Times that “people with [homosexual] inclinations just cannot be ordained.”
Also in last week’s 28-page special edition of the Pilot, Dr. Frederick Berlin of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine drew a distinction between pedophilia, an attraction to prepubescent children, and ephebophilia, a condition in which the offender is attracted to teenagers. He said that his clinical findings suggest that offending priests involved in the current scandals are less likely to be pedophiles than homosexual men attracted to adolescent boys.
Berlin is one of the members of the archdiocesan commission. At a press conference following the first meeting of the panel on March 16, chairperson Maureen Bateman said that she hoped that the group’s work will have positive ramifications for the Catholic church, but most importantly for children.
“We’re hoping not only to bring the church up to a certain standard procedurally,” Bateman said. “We also think we can be trailblazers.”
Among other prominent members of the commission are the Middlesex County district attorney, Martha Coakley, whose office is investigating some of the abuse allegations, and Dr. John Harrington, dean of Tufts University School of Medicine.