Coming Out and Covering Up
Reviewed by Father Tom Doyle
Why do I think Dr. Reynolds’ book is important? Not because of what it says because the priests various responses are fairly predictable. It is important for what it doesn’t say and for the collective attitude it clearly projects.
Nowhere in the book and nowhere in the responses of the priests to the “scandal” is there one word that shows even the slightest concern for the vulnerable children and young adolescents who have been raped and molested by priests and bishops. The priests are clearly concerned about themselves, their reputations, the impact on their parishioners etc. The fact that this epidemic of sexual abuse has amounted to a horror equal in many ways to the nightmarish Inquisition has quite obviously escaped the men of the cloth.
This book and the survey is reports are yet another proof of the conclusion reached by a steadily growing number of people. This conclusion is that the institutional Church which is, for all practical purposes, the clerical sub-culture, is fundamentally amoral as far as sexual abuse by clerics is concerned. I doubt that most clueless bishops, cardinal, priests and popes chose to be so seemingly oblivious to the true nature of this phenomenon. The question is not do they get it? The answer to this is obvious. The true question is Can they get it? This book shores up the fairly consistent theory that the clerical subculture, for the most part, is tragically incapable of breaking through its thick narcissistic protective shell. The sex abuse phenomenon continues to be a crisis the hierarchy and papacy wring their collective hands over. It’s not because it has ruined the lives of countless innocent Christians but because it has inflicted serious damage to the self-image desperately clung to by so many in the clergy.
This book is better appreciated when it is put into an historical context. I have researched the issue of Catholic clergy abuse for several years. I have studied the Church’s own documentation reaching back to the 4th century. I have also studied hundreds of official statements from popes, bishops and religious superiors over the years and reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of confidential Church files kept on priest-abusers. Not once, in any of this vast body of documentation, have I ever found one word of concern for the victims. Popes and bishops have made the perfunctory “I’m sorry” noises over the past few years but they have only come forth when forced out of otherwise reluctant hierarchs. Yet nowhere has any pope or bishop, upon hearing a report of sexual abuse, asked before anything else, “How is the victim?”
