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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Catholic Church Struggles With Child Sex Abuse Cases; Cheney Leaves Mideast But Gives Arafat Incentives

Aired March 19, 2002 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening again everyone. As we said last night, and as the CNN promotion machine has been saying all day, we're going to spend a lot of our time tonight on the tragedy of sexual abuse by priests, and how the Roman Catholic Church has responded.

As a non-Catholic looking in, these issues are sad and difficult. I can only imagine what it must be like to be Catholic and trying to make sense of the abuse and the settlements and the secrecy and all the rest.

This is a profoundly important point. Those of us who are non- Catholics can look at this and shake our heads and say "oh how terrible" but the stakes are much higher for those of you who are Catholics. It is your church, your beliefs, your priests, your trust, your bishops, and your money.

We know some of you see this all as Catholic bashing, and we know others of you see it as a long overdue exposure of what one therapist calls soul murder.

Here are a couple of facts to lay out clearly. The number of priests who abuse children and teenagers is small compared to the priesthood at large, and of course, Catholic priests are not the only ones accused of abuse here in New York. The cantor of the largest reform synagogue in the city is facing similar charges.

But where the Catholic Church is involved, there is an additional layer to explore. No other religion is organized in quite the same way, and it is the organization, decisions made by the leaders, that are perhaps the most troubling questions of all.

So much of the program will look at why these decisions were made. We'll look at how the church is dealing with these issues now and we'll look at the cost, not the dollars, but the cost of this scandal for the church and for the people who love the church.

Before we get there, we do have some news of day to report, and so we'll begin a quick whip. In the Middle East, Christiane Amanpour is in Jerusalem tonight, Christiane a headline please.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the vice president was here in Israel but has left, and when he left he took with him no cease-fire but incentives for the Palestinian side to abide by a cease-fire and pledges that the U.S. would meet with Yasser Arafat if indeed that happens.

BROWN: Christiane thank you, back to you shortly. To Los Angeles, the latest from the jury deliberations, the dog mauling case, Thelma Gutierrez has been covering the story, Thelma the headline.

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, jury deliberations began today in an emotionally charged trial that has gone on for five long weeks. As the case wrapped up, tempers flared and a passionate defense attorney received a stern warning from the judge -- Aaron.

BROWN: Thelma. And an interesting part of the priest scandal, whether in fact they can be treated or cured, Beth Nissen has been working on that. Beth a headline from you please.

BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, for those priests who are identified as sex offenders, can anything be done by way of treatment? We visit a psychiatric center that has had experience and some success in treating priests with sexual disorders.

BROWN: Beth, thank you, back to all of you shortly. Also tonight, we'll take with a man in line to become the bishop of Dallas, Bishop Joseph Galante, also Father Michael Duca of the Holy Trinity Seminary will join us, as will Sister Jane Kelly. She's been a whistle-blower in this and we'll get her perspective on the scandal, and we'll end it tonight with two prominent Catholic writers, C.J. Dion and Rod Dreher.

There is much for us to do, many people to talk to, and we begin with a quick stop in the Middle East, where all the carrots and all the stick and all the envoys seem to be having some impact. Both sides are moving closer to a cease-fire. They are saying the right things and more importantly, they seem to be doing them.

So our first stop tonight is Jerusalem and Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, good evening.

AMANPOUR: Well, Aaron, the violence is dramatically down, although there are reports that two Palestinian gunmen were killed on Tuesday, late Tuesday after filing into a village that's not far from Jerusalem. But in general, after the heaviest Israeli invasion in 20 years, there is a dramatic down scaling in the violence and talks, as you say, of a cease-fire possibly ahead.

The U.S. vice president was in Jerusalem on Monday and Tuesday. Of course his trip was primarily to shore up support for any intervention in Iraq, but he became well and truly diverted into trying to bring an end to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. He held a press conference with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and he said that he would become the first American administration official to meet with Yasser Arafat if Arafat abided by the principles of the cease-fire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can not emphasize enough how important it will be this week for Chairman Arafat to take the steps to get the cease-fire started and to start implementation of the Tenet work plan, namely to speak to his own people personally about the importance of ending violence and terrorism, to issue clear instructions to his security services to enforce the cease-fire, and to follow up closely these efforts to insure implementation of the Tenet work plan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now the Israelis on Monday night started pulling out their tanks and other heavy armor and troops from areas that are due to be and should be controlled by the Palestinians, tanks that were put in there over the last two weeks. Palestinians saying there still needs to be more withdrawal, but after a Palestinian cabinet meeting last night, they too saying that they would work towards immediately implementing a cease-fire.

Ariel Sharon also saying that Yasser Arafat, if the cease-fire is implemented, will be able to travel outside the West Bank where he is now, and that implies that he may go to the Arab Summit in Beirut next week, where a Saudi initiative on a final peace accord with Israel is due to be adopted, but only if Arafat goes.

Of course, Ariel Sharon also hinting darkly that if there was violence during the week that Arafat was out of Israel, out of the territory, there would be no guarantee that he would be allowed back. So, this is the -- these are the cards on the table at the moment here in the Middle East, Aaron.

BROWN: Complicated deck of cards they're working with, Christiane, thank you. Christiane Amanpour in Jerusalem for us. In Los Angeles, the jurors in the dog mauling case ended part of a day of deliberations without a verdict. They began deliberating after the defense and prosecution got in their last shots, made their last arguments. It was a feisty affair as it has been from the beginning. Here again, Thelma Gutierrez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUTIERREZ: As the case against Marjorie Knoller and husband Robert Noel went to the jury, tough words from the prosecution.

JIM HAMMER, PROSECUTOR: You don't get one free bite. You don't get a free mauling. You don't get a free death.

GUTIERREZ: But an even tougher exchange between the judge and defense attorney during the prosecutor Jim Hammer's closing argument.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I can do whatever I God damn please. I can be in any park I want with the dog off the leash.

NEDRA RUIZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Objection, your Honor. The dog -

GUTIERREZ: It was the second and final time defense attorney Nedra Ruiz would interrupt the prosecution.

JUDGE JAMES WARREN: Ms. Ruiz, please take your seat now and not get up again, or your next objection will be made from the holding cell behind you.

GUTIERREZ: Minutes after the case went to the jury for deliberations, Ruiz complained Judge James Warren unfairly reprimanded her.

RUIZ: Marjorie has a right for me to challenge a misstatement of the evidence made by prosecution in closing argument.

HAMMER: To come out here in front of the press and attack Judge Warren behind his back, I think is cowardly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GUTIERREZ (on camera): Jury deliberations resume tomorrow morning. Jurors have five separate decisions to make on two defendants. Marjorie Knoller and Robert Noel are charged with Involuntary Manslaughter and owning a mischievous animal that killed. Knoller faces an additional charge of Second Degree Murder. If she's found guilty, she will be the first person in California convicted of Murder for the actions of her dogs. Aaron.

BROWN: Thelma, thank you. Thelma Gutierrez tonight. A quick look at the news of day now ahead on NEWSNIGHT. Sins of the fathers an overview, and a top leader in the church, that's next as NEWSNIGHT continues from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: If we had any doubt about devoting much of tonight's program to sex abuse and the Catholic Church, the morning papers today were a real eye opener, front-page news again today in both New York City tabloids, as well as the New York Times.

The same is true in Dallas, in Hartford, Connecticut, and in a lot of smaller communities too, and the stories all fit the same pattern, not a pattern, we say this again, having anything to do with Catholicism per se but with the hierarchy. The stories concern a few people and whether the institution to which they belong did more to protect them than it did the children of their flocks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It always hung over me. I don't think I've ever preached without being conscious of it.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think the archdiocese there is acting swiftly enough to deal with the issue of pedophilia among the ranks of the priests?

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm confident the church will clean up its business and do the right thing. BROWN (voice over): For the Roman Catholic Church, it has been expensive, perhaps a billion dollars in settlements paid, and it has been embarrassing and sad. It is not longer simply about abused children, but more and more about how the church protected the abusers, because to do otherwise would damage the church itself.

Since January, 55 priests in 17 dioceses around the country have either been removed, put on leave, or suspended. It's happened in Los Angeles and Dallas, in Santa Fe and St. Louis, Connecticut and Boston.

LAURIE GOODSTEIN, RELIGION WRITER, "NEW YORK TIMES": Literally, I mean if you were to do a map of the United States and put pushpins in states where there are cases right now coming to light, it would be, the map would look speckled because there are so many cases right now.

BROWN: Long before the case of former priest John Geoghan emerged in Boston, before his trial for molesting a 10-year-old a decade ago, before 86 others came forward to say he abused them too, long before the church paid $30 million to settle the Boston cases, the stories of abuse from around the country were seeping out.

DAVID GAGNON, ALLEGED VICTIM: If the diocese were worried parish and worried about pastoral ministry and worried about the people, they would have the courage to admit they've made a mistake and they would have the courage to institute a zero tolerance policy.

BROWN: But the Geoghan case has become the model for how the church Protected the abuser, sent him to treatment then to new parish after new parish and in each new place, new victims.

Today, the archbishop of Boston apologizes and acknowledges the mistakes of the past, but they are the past, he says, and he won't resign.

BERNARD CARDINAL LAW, ARCHBISHOP OF BOSTON: It's about the need to insure that never happens again, to learn from the past, which we are attempting to do. The policies that we have in place, we had in place thinking that they were sound and responsible. Others thought the same thing. But in retrospect, I see that they were lacking.

BROWN: And in retrospect, no one imagined how public it would all become.

GOODSTEIN: The reason this has become a public issue is that in some cases the Catholic Diocese refused to do what those victims were asking, refused to you know, refused to remove the priest and instead of helping the victim, tried instead to protect the priest.

BROWN: It was a policy mandated at the top.

EUGENE KENNEDY, AUTHOR, "THE UNHEALED WOUND": I believe one of the problems is that there have not been clear policies. I think they were acting more as CEOs than as pastors. I believe they were poorly advised. CHRISTOPHER BELLITTO, CHURCH HISTORIAN: It looks like, just as the bishops stonewalled for many years, now they're giving anyone's name up, even if there's the remotest chance of an accusation. Maybe it's not so ironic that "The Crucible" is on Broadway right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And with that, I will introduce Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell.

BROWN: So now, a once respected bishop in Palm Beach, Florida has been forced to resign, after admitting he too was an abuser, and ironically Bishop Anthony O'Connell was brought in to Palm Beach to replace the former bishop, who also had been the subject of a sex abuse scandal.

Sexual abuse inside the priesthood was once considered a moral issue, not a criminal one. Get the treatment you need and then get back to work. That is no more, but it will be a long time before the church has paid of its last claim, uncovered its last secret, and regained the lost trust that are the legacies of the sins of the fathers.

GOODSTEIN: I've seen that the victim, the alleged victims says "this priest told me that this was - what they were doing to me was acceptable to God, and it took me years to figure out that that wasn't true." So that's why being abused by a priest is different than being abused by a schoolteacher. It's fraught with all the spiritual and familial violations that being abused by say your Boy Scout leader or your teacher is not. It's a harder question. It's harder psychologically to overcome. This is devastating in a different way.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And we'll hear how devastating it can be at the end of the program. A man abused by a priest, who has tried to rise above it, he's gone on to become a priest himself.

First a bit of news since we started putting this all together today, tonight New York's Archbishop Everett Cardinal Egan, broke his recent silence on the issue in a statement, written statement delivered late today. He called sexual abuse an abomination and promised to investigate all allegations of abuse.

As far as notifying authorities, Cardinal Egan writes: "If such allegations are made first to the archdiocese, we will encourage the person making the allegation to report that allegation to the proper civil authorities."

That stopped short of what Manhattan's District Attorney wants, which is notification by the archdiocese of any and all allegations involving child abuse, and Cardinal Egan was silent on accusations about how he handled such cases when he was the archbishop in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He said an answer to those charges would come later.

A priest today here in New York described what life has become for him lately. He said walking around in his collar feels like being a cop after (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was shot. People give them a lot of uncomfortable stares. That seems so unfair and so understandable.

Joining us now, a Catholic leader to talk about how the church has handled and is handling the scandal, Bishop Joseph Galante of Dallas. Welcome to you, sir. Thanks for joining us.

GALANTE: Thank you. Thank you, Aaron.

BROWN: We've heard this a number of times, so let me throw it at you first, that the churches, whether this was individual bishops making these decisions or it was policy, if you will, that its first instinct was to protect the priest and to protect the institution. Is that in your mind a fair criticism of how the church handled this?

JOSEPH GALANTE, BISHOP OF DALLAS: First of all, I want to say that it was not handled well. Hindsight is 20/20. I don't know that the real operative motive was to protect the institution. As you said earlier, most bishops up through to the end of the '80s dealt with these issues as though they were moral failures, and we obviously know it's more than a moral failure.

We've had to learn very bitterly the difference between a sin and a crime. While all crimes may be sins, all sins are not crimes and we should be turning over crimes to the proper authorities. We don't - that's not our competence. Our competence may be in dealing with sin, and the problem has been that it was always looked at as a moral lapse up until, I would say, the middle '80s, towards around that time. But I don't think the operative motive was to protect the institution. I think the operative motive was, how do you real with somebody who has violated his promise of celibacy.

BROWN: Can, do you think, the church get beyond this moment? And obviously it's not - I mean maybe this is self-evident. It's not important that it gets beyond it to me or to the media or to non- Catholics, but it has to get beyond it with its parishioners. Can it get beyond it without opening the files, if you will, without the names, the amounts, the settlements, the whole thing that in many cases as you know remains locked up?

GALANTE: Well, and part of that I guess has been because the sealed settlements I think in a sense benefited both parties, the offender and the victim, because in many cases, parents did not want their children to be stigmatized unfortunately by what had happened to them.

I think to build trust is very, very difficult. But you know, I really do believe that in one sense, trust has to be earned and I was ordained a priest in 1964, and it bothered me that as a newly ordained priest, I was given trust.

I was given reverence and respect, and I never earned it, and I realized as a newly ordained priest that I could not take that for granted, that I would have to earn it, and I think for us now in the church for bishops especially, we have to continue to work at earning the trust of our people, not just to presuppose it and take it for granted as our due.

BROWN: And how do you go about doing that in the instance or in dealing with the issues that we're talking about here?

GALANTE: Well, I know for most bishops and especially ones who have before this time, who have experienced the problem of abuse in their dioceses, I was not in Dallas when we had the problem here, but absolutely from that time on. There is no equivocation about it. Any charge is immediately reported to the police. There is a tremendously strong and enforced safe environment program.

Everybody - when I came to this diocese in January of 2000, I had to sign a release so that a background check, a criminal background check would be done on me. It's done on every - the bishop, on every priest, every employee of the diocese or of a parish and every volunteer.

All we can continue to do is to keep working at providing safe environment. Our first concern has to be the safety of children and the vulnerable.

BROWN: Well, I assume we both hope that we never have to talk about this again, and I assume that we're both smart enough to realize that we probably will.

GALANTE: Yes.

BROWN: I hope that when we do, you'll join us again.

GALANTE: Thank you for having me and I would be very happy to come back. I just - if I could say one last thing, I think one of the other ways in which we are trying to earn trust is how we are forming our future priests, our seminarians, and you'll have somebody later with you to talk about that, but it's very important.

And lastly, I really feel tremendously pained for the overwhelming majority of good priests.

BROWN: Yes.

GALANTE: Who are devoted, who are dedicated, who are generous, and who never make the news because they're good, and they're faithful, and I hope that in them the people will see what the ideal and what the overwhelming reality of priesthood is.

BROWN: Bishop thank you again.

GALANTE: Thank you, Aaron. Thank you.

BROWN: I'll interrupt almost anybody, but I won't interrupt a bishop. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: The abuse question is not just an American question. Ireland has been dealing with it, South and Central America, Africa. It is a church problem and all such church problems eventually find their way to the Vatican.

So we asked Correspondent Alessio Vinci to take a look at how the issue is being seen and dealt with at its center.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESSIO VINCI, CNN ROME BUREAU CHIEF: Inside the Vatican walls, the problem of clergymen accused of sexual misconduct is hotly debated, with church officials trying to contain the damage.

"It is evident the pedophilia case exists and with today's media coverage, the case becomes immediately public domain," says Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone. "The church is worried about the problem" he says "but also worries about the scandals provoked by news reports."

But pedophilia scandals involving priests happen in many parts of the world, not just in the United States where the media seem to pay greater attention and the local churches are more open to debate.

JOHN ALLEN, NATIOINAL CATHOLIC REPORTER: There was a case in France recently where a bishop actually received a sentence, a suspended sentence of three months for failure to exercise sufficient oversight over a sexual abuser. There's a case in Poland today of an archbishop who's been accused of sexual misconduct by seminarians.

VINCI: And the Vatican can no longer ignore the issue. Pope John Paul II has recently distributed a series of new guidelines, requiring bishops to report probable cases of sexual misconduct directly to the Vatican, where a church tribunal made up of priests only would hear the case.

But the rules impose strict secrecy on any investigation, and observers say the process fails to produce a uniform solution.

ALLEN: At the moment, the pressure is certainly growing, both on the U.S. Bishops Conference and on the Vatican, to put in place certain uniform principles having to do with things like zero tolerance for abusers of children, having to do with the necessity of reporting to police and to civil authorities allegations of sexual abuse of children.

VINCI: What the Vatican refuses to discuss is priestly celibacy, saying there is no proven link between pedophilia and celibacy, pointing out there are many pedophiles who are married.

VINCE (on camera): So far, the Vatican's strategy to deal with the problem has been to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle various sex abuse cases around the world, mainly hoping to keep the issue out of the public eye. But this strategy failed on two fronts. It hasn't kept the issue secret and it hasn't solved the problem either. Alessio Vinci, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: We want to point out, we don't want to be seen as too technical here but rarely in these cases are we talking about pedophilia. Most of the abuse cases involve teenage victims, and psychologically at least that is a totally different problem. We're joined now by Sister Jane Kelly. Sister Jane has been a nun for half a century. Also joining us, Father Michael Duca who is director of the Holy Trinity Seminary responsible for teaching students at the beginning of their training for the priesthood. Welcome to both of you.

FATHER MICHAEL DUCA, HOLY TRINITY SEMINARY: Good evening, Aaron.

BROWN: We need to talk about two different things. Sister Jane, let me start with you because you became a whistle-blower. I think that's the word in the news business we use.

SISTER JANE KELLY, SANTA ROSA PARISH: Right.

BROWN: Tell us why.

KELLY: I think, Aaron, this is an extremely important statement that I want to make, and it's this. This whole crises is an opportunity and the laity, good priests, good bishops are standing up and they're not saying yes anymore. They're demanding accountability. They're demanding responsibility. And I would have to disagree with Bishop Joseph.

The basic canon law is the worst thing that can happen is to bring scandal down on the church. I work in the Santa Rosa diocese and have been for 28 years. Gary Timmons (ph) was known to be a pedophile. I had reported it, but Bishop Mark Curley and he stated this on public television, it's more important that the reputation of the church be preserved than we protect our children.

BROWN: And you went public. And then you went public.

KELLY: Now when I went public was in 1998, I was supervising this Jorge Hugh Solace that Zeemen asked me to. And I felt he was conartist in the beginning.

BROWN: Yes.

KELLY: And I tried for two years through the church channels get Jorge Hugh Solace relieved of active ministry. I failed in every account. I went to Monsignor Keys. This is final. I went to press Democrat, Mike Ginella (ph). And I said Mike, I have a story, and it needs to be told.

BROWN: And you told the story.

KELLY: I told the story. And in two days, Jorge Hugh Solace was put on administrative leave and within, as you well know, July of the bishop himself, resigned because of sex.

BROWN: All right, now let me turn to Father Duca here for a second. You're in an interesting role here because you're getting young men who are joining the priesthood. And I have a couple of questions on that. Do you believe that some people who might otherwise be inclined are scared away because of the scandals that have gone on? DUCA: I think there's no doubt that the more the church responds to this issue openly, and the more that they encounter the kinds of examinations and interviews on entering the seminary, that yes, that they will find that this is not a safe place to be, and they will find it a place not to tend to go towards anymore.

I think that's proven to be the case in many different organizations as well. As you put up more and more barriers, as you put up more and more safe environments, then the candidates that you attract tend to be less and less -- have a problem in this regard.

BROWN: Let me approach something we haven't yet. Donald Cousins, Father Donald Cousins in Cleveland written a good deal about his concern that the priesthood is becoming a gay occupation, that for perhaps reasons that obvious, and perhaps some that are not. Do you see that as a problem?

DUCA: I think the problem is always in whether a person has developed a mature and chaste sexual identity and sexual lifestyle. That is, that they truly have matured in their psychosexual development and are able to enter to adult loving, intimate relationships that appropriate to their vocation.

I think that's our goal in the seminary is always to try to, at every level, at every step along the way, to try to foster that kind of maturity in our candidates. And when they show they cannot achieve that within the seminary, then we ask them to leave, to do other kinds of programs or formation outside.

BROWN: And have you done that? Are there have been people who have said, "Sorry, got to go?"

DUCA: Oh yes, certainly.

BROWN: OK.

DUCA: Certainly, that's part of the...

BROWN: For these reasons.

DUCA: For these reasons and many reasons, yes.

BROWN: Yes. Thank you both for your insights in this. The clock keeps ticking much too fast tonight. Thank you both for joining us.

DUCA: Thank you.

BROWN: Coming up, can you treat an abusive priest? This is a most complicated question, and we'll take a look at it in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: There's a pattern in how the church has been dealing with abuse cases. On the legal front, it has been as tough as any corporation under legal attack. When it has settled, and it has settled a lot, it has required the record to be sealed.

There is also a pattern in how it has treated the suspected abuser. Often, they're sent to treatment centers and then put back in the parishes, where they were so desperately needed. But too often they would abuse again because this sort of crime is not something that can be easily cured, if it can be cured at all. It can be treated, however, though it is very complicated.

Here's CNN's Beth Nissen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NISSEN (voice-over): Over the past 10 years, the Institute of Living, a psychiatric treatment center in Hartford, Connecticut, has treated some 60 sex-offender priests, most referred to this non- religious facility by their bishops.

LESLIE LOTHSTEIN, DIRECTOR, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY: 95 to 98 percent of the allegations against Catholic priests have to do with teenagers and male teenagers. So that the highest risk group are boys between the ages of 13 to 18.

NISSEN: Institute therapists say most of the priests they treat are themselves immature in crucial ways.

LOTHSTEIN: The group that we see in the priesthood are basically men who are psychosexually underdeveloped, who have never gone through a socialization process of dating, or having any types of relationship with either sex, who wind up after their ordination working in a youth ministry, and for the first time in their life, dealing with a population of unbridled excitement and fun and games and pizza and movies. And all of a sudden, boom, you know, something happens.

NISSEN: What happens? These priests develop powerful attractions, emotional, psychological, then sexual, to their young charges. The goal of treatment: help priests to no longer act on those attractions, a daunting task.

HEIDI MCCLOSKEY, DIRECTOR, PROGRAM FOR PROFESSIONALS: It's extremely difficult for any human being to change their object of desire. It's very difficult to modify what turns you on sexually.

NISSEN: How difficult?

HAROLD SCHWARTZ, PSYCHIATRIST-IN-CHIEF: Imagine that you are a heterosexual adult with a healthy, enjoyable sex life. And you're told, "Well, this sex life of yours is immoral and illegal, and you've got to just change it, tomorrow. Stop acting on it."

NISSEN: To help those with sexual disorders stop acting on their impulses, therapists use drug therapy. Antidepressants often lower sex drive. Other medications diminish arousal. But the cornerstone of treatment at the Institute is intensive psychotherapy, especially group therapy sessions to help these priests develop empathy for their young victims, realize how devastating sexual abuse is. LOTHSTEIN: It's very difficult for them to empathize on these matters, because they're ignorant about them. They're taught to avoid sex. They're not taught about sex.

NISSEN: Most patients with sexual disorders stay in the Institute's program for three to six months, then continue treatment in after care programs, ideally for the rest of their lives.

SCHWARTZ: Most are treatable. But we have to distinguish between treatment and cure.

MCCLOSKEY: When we're dealing with sexual disorders, the goal is not to cure the problem, but rather to manage a chronic long-term problem.

LOTHSTEIN: We know that if, over a 10-year period, if people aren't in constant treatment, that about half the people who sexually act out will sexually act out again.

NISSEN: The Institute has no way to officially track priests or other patients treated for sexual disorders. But many stay in touch, for years after treatment here. Most, according to Institute therapists, have not been readmitted to a psychiatric program, have not re-offended.

LOTHSTEIN: People do change. And people become aware of the harm they've caused others. And they stop causing harm.

NISSEN: If they get proper treatment. If they commit to lifetime treatment. If they learn how to manage their urges and desires, and control their ruinous actions.

Beth Nissen, CNN, Hartford, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Coming up next on NEWSNIGHT, what's next for the Catholic church? What needs to be done? We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We're joined tonight by two writers who've devoted a lot of thought to the church and the recent events. E.J. Dionne's is a columnist for "The Washington Post." He joins us from Washington. Here in New York, Rod Dreher, senior writer for "The National Review" and "The New York Post" and other things.

Nice to have both of you here. Let me start, Rod, with you and little news of day. There was an item that we saw today out of Omaha that would tend to suggest that maybe the message is not yet been received.

ROD DREHER, "NATIONAL REVIEW": No, no, no. It's incredible the arrogance some of these bishops have. The archbishop of Omaha, Elden Curtis, a conservative bishop, my kind of bishop. Turns out he left a priest in a parish or in ministry who had a problem with child pornography, left him for a year until the cops arrived.

And the people of Omaha wanted him to explain. Why have you done this? This is awful. A couple of them wrote to Omaha paper to complain about it. The archbishop has sent them letters denouncing them for being a disgrace to the church, for daring to criticize him in public. He even assigned them a penance.

This is a guy who doesn't get it. This let them eat cake attitude just will not fly anymore.

BROWN: And what he doesn't get it is?

DREHER: What he doesn't get is the seriousness of this crisis. And he doesn't get that these bishops are there to serve Christ and to serve the laity. It's our church, too. It's not just their play thing.

BROWN: Let's talk about things that need to be done. E.J., as you've thought about it, you've written about it. Your column in the impact on priests, I thought was an extraordinary piece of work and painful to read. Where does the church need to go?

E.J. DIONNE, JR., COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: Well, I think the -- one of those priests I talked to for the column made the obvious and essential point, which is if a long time ago, when some of these decisions were made to move priests around, to keep priests who had engaged in pedophilia in parish work, if any of these committees had had even one parent on them, it probably would have made a difference in the decisions they made.

And in fact, after I wrote that, somebody I know called me, and said, "Look, I was on one of those committees. I was the one parent. I said no, you can't put this guy in another church." And he prevailed as a majority of one, as the argument went forward.

So I think one of the issues is about the role of the laity in the church. I think the problem here is a kind of institutional problem, whereas a priest friend of mine, Phil Murny -- Monsignor Phil Murny in New York said the church's idea was to protect the priesthood, but it was protecting the priesthood at the cost the individual priest.

And the lesson to be learned is that in the long run, you don't protect either the priesthood or individual priests by pushing this under the rug. Bishop Galante said earlier, he talked about the mid 1980s. And I think one of the reasons this has hit so hard is we've been through this since the 1980s. This isn't the first round of this.

BROWN: Right.

DIONNE: It's really the third round. And I think that that's why Catholic lay people, loyal Catholic lay people, are so frustrated. And they say why didn't they learn more 15 years ago?

BROWN: Rod, you've written a lot -- it's been hard to find out. You've written a lot about the need for, to use the word of the time, transparency to open the files. Any signs that you see that the church is willing, any more willing today to that than it has been?

DREHER: Well, not the church in New York. Cardinal Egan has been absolute stonewaller about this. He issued a statement today saying that he was going to cooperate with authorities when he hears about something. But the fact is, he did not say that he was going to tell the people of New York how many priests we've had in the past, who have gotten in trouble like this, and how much money has been paid our.

BROWN: Why does that matter?

DREHER: Why does it matter? Because we have to know how bad the problem was if we're going to fix the problem. We have to have accountability. And I think that we're not going to get past this crisis until we know exactly what was done in the past and how bad it was.

BROWN: Both of you, E.J., press beginning to you here, talk to me about how this has an impacted parishioners? We've talked a lot about priests. We've talked a lot about the organization. I don't think we've talked much about people in the pews. Is it profound?

DIONNE: I think it's profound. And in fact, I do think it's actually a more serious problem for loyal Catholics than for anybody else, for the people who want to raise their children in the church.

You said it nicely earlier when you said I'll interrupt almost anybody, but I won't interrupt a bishop. And that's how a lot of Catholics have felt about the church leadership. And so, it's a question of a kind of broken trust.

And you know, I must say from my own experience, I've known a lot of great priests all my life, never encountered anything remotely like this in my own life. And so, I was sort of raised with and my experience, reaffirm the basic trust.

And when that trust is broken, people in the pews become very sort of in a combination of sad and angry and upset. And I think it's very deep.

In our parish, when this came around a few years ago, one of the priests gave a very moving sermon, a deep sermon of apology, not for himself, but for the church. And that spoke to a lot of people. But it is a sense of broken trust by the leadership of the church.

BROWN: Rod, let me give you last word here. We ran into each other in the hall the other day. And we started to talk about celibacy. And you were telling me about priest and his reaction to all of that. Tell the story and finish it this time.

DREHER: Priests are terribly demoralized. I spoke with a good priest friend of mine, a priest who married my wife and I. And he said that if the bishop comes around and makes them sign a piece of paper saying that they won't molest children, which has happened in one diocese, or if celibacy has ended, that he's just going to go sell computers, because it will seem to him like a capitulation to the culture.

Celibacy has nothing to do with the crisis. It really doesn't.

BROWN: There's just so many things. Come back again. E.J., come back again. Unfortunately, the story will come back again. We'll keep talking about it. Thank you both. Good to see you both. And we'll wrap it up, a survivor's story in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Finally from us, a survivor's story. It seems like the right place to end it all. It's hard to read about what's happened to some of the kids abused by priests. One commits suicide. Another charged with murder.

And there are all those mundane stories, or more mundane, but still sad, someone compelled to take three showers a day. Others, many others, suffering anxiety and depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce.

But we'll end tonight with one man's nearly miraculous recovery, finding peace where he suffered trauma in the first place.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): For as long as he can remember, Gary Hayes wanted to be a priest.

GARY HAYES, FATHER, HOLY GUARDIAN CHURCH: I've wanted to be a priest since I was a kid. My brothers and I used to play mass at the house. And we'd fight over who would get to be the priest.

BROWN: But he is not shy about telling parishioners that his dream was nearly shattered before it began.

HAYES: The faith that God asks us to have is faith that he wants the best for us in our life. But sometimes, before we get to the best, we experience the worst.

BROWN: Father Hayes, whose parish is in rural Kentucky, is the victim of a sexually abusive priest.

HAYES: Depending on how drunk he got, you know, he'd come over and sit closer. Or put his hand on your leg. And put his arm around your shoulder. And you know, try to kiss you. It's just, and then it's just times of trying to fight him off.

BROWN: It started, Father Hayes says, when he was 15, a sophomore in high school and did not stop until he graduated. At first, he told no one.

HAYES: Who do you tell? Who'd believe you? And if Father was doing it, I'm figuring the answer would be, "Well, it must be okay because Father wouldn't do anything wrong." BROWN: And he says, that drove him away from his dream.

HAYES: For a long time, I didn't go to church, couldn't go to church. It's hard for me to go to church when I go home because I've never been able to deal with those people honestly about this. And so there's still some sense of violation when I go home.

You heal the blindness of sin and hypocrisy. Lord have mercy.

BROWN: When Father Hayes did go home a dozen years ago and sought to become a priest in southern New Jersey, his superiors gave him an answer in this memo. "Not here," it reads. His abuser was still active, unpunished. The priest has since resigned.

HAYES: They said that they were sure that the negative input in my growth and development was attributable to this priest and others. And since those priests would still be in the diocese, it would not be a healthy place for me to work.

STEPHEN RUBINO, ATTORNEY, MARGATE, NEW JERSEY: Oh, I don't think that there's any question that the standard procedure for this type of activity was to keep it quiet.

BROWN: Stephen Rubino is a New Jersey lawyer who represents Father Hayes and who says he's filed more than 300 abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church.

RUBINO: Is there a motivation to report better now? Well, yes, there is. But the problem with that is, they do not want to account for the past.

BROWN: Like many others these days, Rubino believes the church hierarchy in the United States has engaged in a deliberate pattern of secrecy. Not surprisingly, the church disagrees.

JOSEPH GALANTE, BISHOP, ARCHDIOCESE OF DALLAS: It would be amazing to get all the bit of 194 diocesan bishops to really be in concert about things like that, because everyone has used his own judgment, and tried to make his own decisions about those things. And at times, as some bishops have admitted, they were mistaken. They made decisions that they regret bitterly.

BROWN: At Holy Guardian Church, Father Hayes is making plans for a retreat center in the Kentucky Hills, a place for all victims of priestly abuse. And he is ready, he says, to move on.

HAYES: The path to freedom is telling the truth. And then see, that's where forgiveness comes in. Forgiveness is readily there when you tell the truth. Forgiveness can't be given when you continue to lie.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: A survivor story. We'll see you tomorrow. Good-night for all of us.

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