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CNN Sunday Morning

Poll Shows Catholics Think Church More Concerned with Image than Abuse

Aired April 07, 2002 - 08:22   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A new Gallop Poll finds the majority of Catholics feel their church has been more concerned with protecting their image than handling the abuse by priests. CNN's Jeff Flock takes a look at the first public of alleged priestly abuse in a Denver archdiocese where a recently instituted Get Tough Policy is drawing mixed reviews.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARCHBISHOP CHARLES CHAPUT, DENVER DIOCESE: Any sexual misconduct By any priest in the church...

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They've talked about It's in the pulpits, have a longstanding policy of how to handle it and have even refused to restore an accused priest to ministry when a lawsuit against him was thrown out.

CHAPUT: I believe that no priest dangerous to children serves in any ministry in the archdiocese in Denver.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it was something that was extremely necessary to be done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're taking a stand and I think that is wonderful.

FLOCK (on-camera): How do you think they're doing?

(voice-over): "Pretty good," says Denver DA Bill Ritter, who asked Catholic Church leaders to meet with him and talk about priest sex abuse.

BILL RITTER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, DENVER: Look me in the eye and tell me that you're doing all you can to protect the kids of this community by reporting those incidents that come to your attention. They did that.

FLOCK: Ritter was concerned because while Colorado law makes it a crime not to report cases of sexual abuse.

(on-camera): The law applies to psychiatrists, other doctors, social workers. The only people it doesn't apply to are priests and other clergy.

(voice-over): But Denver archdiocese policy adopted over a decade ago mandates that sexual abuse by priests be reported to authorities. Every priest must sign their acknowledgement as a condition of service.

CHAPUT: Any violation is grounds for immediate termination or suspension.

FLOCK: The archbishop here, Charles Chaput, ordered a letter he wrote about the policy to be read in every pulpit.

TOM KERWIN, CATHOLICS FOR THE SPIRIT OF VATICAN II: And the archbishop's letter was a nothing.

FLOCK: Tom Kerwin, who heads a church reform group, reviewed the policy with us and says it has a loophole, exempting priests who hear the confessions of other priests.

KERWIN: They want to keep it in-house. I call it Cosa Nostra -- our thing, their thing. They don't want the press involved, they don't want me involved, they don't want the parents involved.

FLOCK: And that, say other critics is exactly who should be involved.

KATHY COFFEY, AUTHOR, "DANCING IN THE MARGINS": Open it up to women, married people, parents.

FLOCK: Kathy Coffey, who wrote a book for people who don't agree with church policy, wants people other than celibate men to be priests.

FLOCK (on-camera): Why will that make it better?

COFFEY: I suspect that if a parent had been involved in Boston from the get go they would not have reassigned that man.

FLOCK (voice-over): The Denver archdiocese has refused ours and other's requests for an interview but the facts of the only public case of alleged priest sex abuse here speak for themselves.

This priest, Father Marshall Gorely (ph), was removed from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church when someone accused him of abuse. But even though no criminal charges were ever filed and a civil lawsuit was thrown out, Gorely (ph) still hasn't been restored.

(on camera): While still fighting for his ministry back, Gorely (ph) tells CNN he partly understands the church's position. Having done too little for too long church officials apparently believe erring on the side of caution is its best bet for salvation.

I'm Jeff Flock, CNN, in Denver.

(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIPS: Well, let's look at the impact of those abuse scandals on the Catholic Church. We're joined now from Washington by Chester Gillis, a professor of theology at Georgetown University, Scott Appleby, a history professor at Notre Dame University and Harry Crocker, who's in Washington. He's the author of "Triumph: The Power And The Glory of The Catholic Church."

Hello, gentlemen. Good morning.

CHESTER GILLIS, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: Good morning.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about Jeff Flock's piece there just for a moment. He makes an interesting point. Maybe, Scott, we could start with you, about lack of accountability and elitism overriding the purpose of the church, which is Christ's teachings.

SCOTT APPLEBY, NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY: Well, unfortunately that's been the case in too many of these episodes where priests had been protected. We want to emphasize, this has been the minority of cases around the country, but there's still too many to be acceptable. And the church has to change kind of this policy. It's in the process of doing so, but many Catholics are disgruntled because this should have been done many years ago.

PHILLIPS: Your book addresses just -- the long history of how much good the Catholic Church has done. Do you think the recent media attention; all of this has been overblown?

HARRY CROCKER, AUTHOR, "TRIUMPH: THE POWER & THE GLORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: To a certain degree, yes. I mean as far as we have reliable, statistical data, which it's sketchy; there are no more cases of sexual abuse among catholic clergy than among Protestant clergy or among lay people. So, I mean, granted these are heinous, horrible cases. They have not been handled well, but we need a sense of perspective here.

Moreover, I mean, we know that the best statistics we have, 90 plus percent of these cases aren't the headline of pedophile priests. They're incidents with post adolescent boys.

So I think this argument that celibacy is the answer or liberalizing the church rules or weakening discipline, you know, it's -- these are false solutions to a fall crisis. I mean the real -- the real solution is to reinforce the old disciplines, the old standards and we know that we have orthodox parishioners. Like just across the river in Arlington, you have no scandals, you have a wealth of priests. There's no priestly shortage. I think that's the answer. It's liberal, more relaxed. Either they got us into this problem. It will -- it's the old, conservative, orthodox, catholic discipline that will get us out of it.

PHILLIPS: So Chester, what do you think? Celibacy itself, it's not the true issue here?

GILLIS: Well, I think celibacy is certainly part of the issue. And I tend to disagree with our other guests. I think that the fact that there was such a cover-up for so long is very problematic for the church and the church needs to come clean and very swiftly. I agree with Scott on that and they're doing that. They're putting detailed and very strong policies in place, but it's a little bit -- the horse is out of the barn and they're closing the door and returning to very traditional policies may work to some degree, but it may alienate people from the church more when layiety disagreed with several of the policies of the church.

PHILLIPS: What type of policies are you talking about that are in place now, Chester, specifically?

GILLIS: Well, I'm saying for one, most issues of sexuality within the church, American lay Catholics have pretty much turned a deaf ear to the church. And if the church continues to pound these issues and to separate their positions from the way people live their lives, I think that people will ignore the church's teachings.

PHILLIPS: Scott, what about bishops? Aren't they key here in making change and directing the way the church is going to go now?

APPLEBY: They certainly are and there are a number of things that the bishops now have to do. They have to practice full disclosure, as Cardinal Mahoney has done in Los Angeles. Any kind of accusations that are made, the person being accused must come forward, especially if it's a bishop, and deny the charge as he's done vigorously, show it to be lacking in credibility and also report any cases in the past of priests in the diocese that have been accused. So there has to be full disclosure.

Secondly, the church has to find a way to have the national conference of Catholic bishops, the U.S. Catholic Conference, to implement nationwide policy so that these procedures are standardized and they have to do so in a way that doesn't make them vulnerable to every lawsuit that will come along in years to come.

And also, finally, the church has to look ahead. Apart from the question of celibacy, ministry in the Catholic Church today is going to be terribly affected by this, the priesthood as well as lay ministry. And I think to look ahead to the short-term even, the...

APPLEBY: And also, finally, the church has to look ahead. Apart from the question of celibacy, ministry in the Catholic Church today is going to be terribly affected by this, the priesthood, as well as lay ministry. And I think to look ahead to the short term even, the church has to ask how are we going to fill the pastoral needs, how are we going to respond to this crisis in terms of both recruiting new young men to the priesthood, reforming that process, but also welcoming lay people into the ministry in larger numbers than has been the case in the past.

PHILLIPS: You mention the word reform, very interesting.

Harry, could we see the Pope stepping to the plate here in talking about reform or not in this lifetime?

CROCKER: Well no. I think the reforms are already coming. I mean a lot of these reforms were instituted in the late 1990s, it's to clean out some of these seminaries that they were having serious problems. We also know that the Pope, the Vatican at least, last month, issued a directive to the American Church saying it had to remove homosexuals from ministry, this wasn't working. So I think reform is on the way, and I think the reform will come from a more conservative direction.

PHILLIPS: Do you think there's indications that the church can survive all this without problems? I'd love for all three of you to comment on that.

CROCKER: Well obviously, it's a serious problem. And in the short term, it's going to be a very painful, painful process. I think in the long term, I think the argument that we're facing a new reformation or a divorce from Rome is hugely overblown. I mean the "Washington Post" had a survey just a couple of days ago that showed that most Catholics in the pews understand perfectly that the church is a divine institution run by fallible human beings. Surely there's much room for improvement, but the church in its history has been through far worse crises than this.

PHILLIPS: Go ahead.

GILLIS: I would agree that the church will certainly survive this. It has survived far worse. And also that Catholics tend to relate to the church on the local level, and what they see, generally, is a very hard-working priest in their parish. Often priests are overworked; they're taking care of more than one parish. And they're very dedicated and they're very faithful to their vows, and people relate to that very well. So on the local level, I think they understand and relate to the church well, they embrace the church and they're not about to move out of it.

APPLEBY: The church will certainly survive, but we can't minimize the impact of this scandal, and I don't think anyone is minimizing it.

Just on financial terms alone, the archdiocese of Boston, it's not implausible to consider the church could face bankruptcy or at least selling off property. And to the extent that this affects the financial structure of the church across the nation, it could terribly weaken a church that has provided the largest private nonpublic healthcare, educational system and a variety of social services.

This is part of the tragedy that the Catholic Church has been the leading private institution in caring for the poor, the marginalized, educating people, providing health care and doing so with a compassion, mercy and great wisdom. But because of this mismanagement by a few and because of the legal system and the climate of litigation, the church could suffer in the short term and in the medium term incredibly.

And so it's all the more important that the bishops take very vigorous leadership to work this out in a way that restores credibility right away.

PHILLIPS: Well, short-term, long-term and medium-term, we'll definitely continue to follow everything that's been developing.

Chester Gillis, Scott Appleby and Harry Crocker, thank you so much, gentlemen.

CROCKER: Thank you.

GILLIS: My pleasure.

APPLEBY: Thank you.

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