For those didn’t read about it, the report says that 63 or more priests abused hundreds of minors over the course of decades. The report focuses on the periods in which Cardinals John Krol and Anthony J. Bevilacqua served as archbishops of Philadelphia (1961-1988 and 1988-2003, respectively). The report claims that the archbishops and other diocesan officials covered up the abuse.
It’s ugly stuff. Sin always is, and the 423-page report is as ugly as it gets, especially the graphic descriptions of physical and emotional abuse. I have little doubt that the priest abusers described in the report are guilty of many grisly crimes, and the cardinals are guilty of at least negligence.
But two things stood out:
First, there is the question of why the grand jury was convened. The report recommends a variety of law changes, but none of the suggestions involve prosecution. I’m not licensed in Pennsylvania and I have never worked with a grand jury, but it’s my understanding that grand juries are convened to determine whether criminal charges should be brought. In this case, there was no chance that prosecution could occur: the abuse occurred from the 1960s to the 1990s, the grand jury didn’t start until September 2003, and the applicable statute of limitations is three years. Why, then, was the grand jury convened?
Second, there is the inconsistent way that the ages of the victims are handled in the report. The report provides graphic details of abuse, but the minors’ ages aren’t always revealed. In the Introduction, for instance, the report describes ten cases. In five of them, the age is reported. Four of them involved what I call “little” kids: twelve or under. One involved a “teenager.” The other five case summaries don’t mention ages, but a detailed search of the entire document shows that the “age anonymous” incidents outlined in the Introduction involved a youth in “eighth grade,” “teenagers,” and a fifteen-year-old, and the facts surrounding one incident indicate that it involved a youth in the 14-15 year age range.
There’s a big difference between seducing a 15-year-old and seducing an 11-year-old. Both are disgusting, don’t get me wrong, but the latter crime isn’t pedophilia. It’s ephebophilia, and the difference between the two attractions are as different as a heterosexual who likes little girls and one who likes teenagers. Neither attraction is proper, but the teenager is a lot closer to womanhood physically and emotionally than an eleven-year-old girl. Indeed, many experts don’t consider attraction to sexually mature teenagers a disorder at all. Leaving aside the experts though who often have to bend to the political correctness of the day when the attraction is to a teenager of the same sex, it is the objectively disordered condition of homosexuality that we are dealing with.
So the grand jury was largely pointless from a prosecution standpoint; its report seems to blur some distinctions that could help us understand what happened and it has some tabloid-like characteristics. Does it really matter? After all, a disgusting injustice apparently took place for decades and no one stopped it. At least the crimes have been brought to the public’s attention. The grand jury report performed a valuable service, even if prosecution isn’t possible.
But still, one has to wonder what triggered the process in the first place. It was apparently a highly-intrusive investigation, undertaken, according to the diocese’s attorneys, in an abrasive and invasive manner. At one point, the supervising judge even warned the D.A. that the whole thing had the potential of turning into a “proverbial witch hunt.”
I’m not writing this piece to exonerate the Philadelphia diocese, but I think the grand jury report has an element of unreliability and exaggeration. That’s too bad. When something this atrocious takes place, it would be good to have a balanced report of it.
Quite frankly, I suspect the grand jury, at the urging of the D.A., had something else in mind besides the administration of judicial remedies. Some suggest it is just another shot at Catholicism. Perhaps the D.A. has higher political aspirations (my guess). Maybe the investigation started out as a balanced inquiry, but then the grand jury grew furious when it saw the evidence and became aggressive and lost a measure of objectivity.
The diocese alleges that the D.A. did, indeed, perform that proverbial witch hunt.
When I first saw that comment, I smirked with disgust, but after reviewing the documents and thinking about it, I began to wonder: does Philadelphia have a little Salem in its blood?
Well, no. Because you see the whole Salem thing that made “witch hunt” proverbial is that there really weren’t any witches. But here, there were real atrocities, no doubt about it.
Maybe some day we’ll get a fully objective look at them.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.