Truth and Justice Award to
Attorneys General and Their Staff in New Hampshire
Carolyn Disco of New Hampshire presented the award for VOTF. Here's what Carolyn said as she made the presentation:
The prophet Amos tells us, “Let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” And on March 3, 2003, that is exactly what happened. A group of us went to the Attorney General’s office to pay $450 for cartons of 9,000 documents in an investigation of the Diocese of Manchester. In relative terms, that was a bargain for the privilege of learning the truth of the sexual abuse of minors over a half-century or more. The real cost is incalculable, though the Diocese has paid over $21 million dollars in settlements to date.
We are here to express our appreciation for all that led up to that day. The decision to investigate the Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester, a corporation under state law, could not have been taken lightly. What those staff discussions must have been, weighing the risks against the imperatives of seeking justice for criminal conduct. Undeterred, you convened a grand jury, and subpoenaed secret archives. After receiving documents blacked out to the point of uselessness, you filed a motion to compel production of unredacted versions. For certain, researching and writing those briefs, arguing them, and not backing down, meant anxious days and nights.
When the successful court decision came through, you organized a Task Force of law enforcement professionals across the state to go through more than 4,000 church documents. Where to begin? Then came the task of locating and contacting survivors about very painful periods in their lives. Just reading the material is a sickening, infuriating experience. The emotional toll for everyone was no doubt sharp.
You added over 4,000 pages yourselves to the record in interviews with survivors, perpetrators, administrators, therapists and clergy. You tried to interview bishops and diocesan leaders, but they refused without grant of immunity, which you wisely refused. Facing a one-year deadline to conclude your investigation, you narrowed the focus to eight priests, eventually selecting three as the basis of an indictment.
Your solid commitment led to finding the evidence for a criminal indictment of the Diocese. That takes courage, my friend, and the negotiations that followed must have been strenuous. Because you painstakingly gathered the facts, researched applicable case law, and were willing to follow through, you wrested a virtual admission of guilt from the Diocese. Your strong case also gained agreement to release documents; bishops know when to respond at the point of a legal gun.
Specifying State oversight of the Diocese’s implementation of its sexual abuse policy for five years was another remarkable milestone geared to protecting children in the future. The troubling record of the last five years of state audits shows the wisdom of that focus.
Other attorneys general, district attorneys and grand juries in various states have done similar investigations and released reports, but you were the first. New Hampshire led the nation, and you are often sought out for advice and expertise. We salute and thank you deeply.
SNAP Executive Director David Clohessy made the following statement for the presentation:
It is a distinct pleasure to be here today celebrating those who brought justice alive for me as a survivor of priest sexual abuse, for all survivors, for all Catholics, indeed for all the people of New Hampshire. Your oaths of office find fulfillment in your historic achievements.
My focus is on the meaning of your search for the truth; what it means to bear witness to it, as the necessary precursor to justice. Is the common good promoted by secrecy, especially when those secrets put the most vulnerable among us at risk? By what right do we as survivors and the people in general have access to the truth? You used the rule of law to answer those questions, and reveal the falsehoods we were given to protect the reputation of the church over the protection of children. This means we can now live in the truth, grow from it, and affirm the experience of thousands of victims, who wanted only and always to hear from someone, anyone, “Yes, I believe you.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian executed by the Nazis, often quoted by survivors and advocates, wrote, “there is a way of speaking which is in this respect entirely correct and unexceptionable, but which is, nevertheless, a lie…when an apparently correct statement contains some deliberate ambiguity or deliberately omits the essential part of the truth…it does not express the real as it exists in God.” In other words, attempts to mislead or deceive can be cloaked in the pinpoint language of legalisms, or evasions, and dissembling of spin.
What you as New Hampshire attorneys general, their associates, assistants and investigators did, was expose what Bonhoeffer calls lies, and what I call the evasions, dissembling, and distortions of corrupt bishops. Can you possibly appreciate what it means to survivors to see the verbal gymnastics of the hierarchy revealed?
There are four pages of text here (read them, folks) comparing what bishops said, versus what they actually did. The contrasts are striking, and there is nothing wrong in pointing them out. The Diocese said, we abided by all New Hampshire child protection and reporting laws. You found evidence that, no, it did not. Bishops said, we restricted and monitored the ministries of accused clergy. You found evidence they did no such thing. Bishops said they never lied. You found reason to charge perjury and false swearing as part of a planned indictment.
I do not assume that decades, indeed centuries, of ingrained habits to protect the institutional church have somehow miraculously ended since 2002. Already the return to secrecy is clear: names of perpetrators are not released, and scorched earth legal tactics by bishops still keep documents sealed. The radical cultural shifts necessary to be accountable and fully transparent are somewhat in process largely because law enforcement and legislatures have the power to force change. You are forcing change for the better, and we are profoundly in your debt. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the healing your search for the truth brings.
We rightly honor you today with these Truth and Justice awards in the names of the thousands of survivors our organization represents.
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