Bishop McCormack’s NH Record (continued)
By Carolyn Disco, New Hampshire VOTF

Yes, ‘safe environment’ programs, the screening of personnel, their training, policies and procedures have been implemented. Many people worked hard to bring change.

Yet, the signs of healing are strained, as much negative sentiment still surrounds McCormack. Is that simply a lack of forgiveness, a debasement of his moral authority, or something deeper? What is it many Catholics seek that his presence and example darken?

At heart, I believe the malaise is a thirst for the plain simple truth, the real as it exists in God. This means recognition by McCormack of his personal culpability beyond “mistakes and inadequacies”; to wit, the endangerment of children, the cover-up of abuse, and the pervasive mendacity of untruthful communication. More to the point, as long as such a mindset informs the ultimate authority in a diocese, how safe are the children in its care?

In April, McCormack mentioned that people may be “disappointed" by "whatever role" he had in Boston, and that he is "very heartily sorry for whatever I've done or not done." In 2004, he denied outright that he did anything legally or morally wrong. In 2002, as he accepted applause at a cathedral mass, he reminded attendees of all the good he had done, acknowledging he “did not adequately help” victims with his advice.

These rhetorical evasions mock the pain McCormack enabled. At best, such generalities are unhelpful. At worst, they compound the pain victims already endure. Instead of a complicit bishop welcoming applause, a wounded church needed prostration before the altar in abject penance for flagrant cover-ups of heinous sex crimes.

McCormack complained decades ago about repeated denial by priests who molested minors. Sadly, that denial has its counterpart in his refusal to face reality. Scripture beckons us to be awake, not slide from cluelessness into self-deception, and finally denial.

McCormack’s defensive attitude carried over to New Hampshire. For example, the 2002 non-prosecution agreement he negotiated with the Attorney General called for independent audits of the Manchester diocese for five years. No sooner was the ink dry when he delayed progress by 1½ years by objecting to effective audit practices, and pursued a bogus First Amendment challenge that the court clearly rejected.

Because of McCormack’s recalcitrance, only four audits could be completed in time instead of the five originally planned. Furthermore, he even threatened not to participate in a fourth audit, and backed down only when faced with legal action he would likely lose.

From 2002 through 2006, it was one long battle by the State against a combative diocesan leadership that wanted a week’s notice before audit visits; any interview and follow-up questions passed first through diocesan lawyers; and numerous calls from auditors about lack of cooperation. There was a visceral, clerical reaction against bishop accountability to any external authority, no matter how valid.

Former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte¹, now US Senator, agreed in 2008, “We have dragged them kicking and screaming” into compliance. McCormack acted only at the point of a legal gun to change from a negative to a very belated constructive approach. Why not embrace the child safety process from the beginning?

Even today, McCormack strains credibility. There is a false statement on the diocesan website that claims the 2006 audit report showed the Diocese abided by the “letter and spirit”² of all articles of the Agreement with the State. Actually, the audit said the opposite: that “there are still some critical gaps and issues… it has been almost four years (and) the Diocese is still not in full compliance.”³(p. 6-7). 

One is at a loss to make sense of such disinformation. Truthful communication that denies the hurtful influence of denial is the healing and trust McCormack forecloses. It need not be so: the truth is the gift that sets us all free, even if self-incriminating.

737 words (without footnotes)

1. Sen. Ayotte quote on video of VOTF meeting, 5-19-08

2. http://www.catholicnh.org/child-safety/reports-and-updates/response-to-kpmg-assessment-dated-011707/

3. http://doj.nh.gov/criminal/diocese-reports/documents/20070504-compliance-report.pdf p. 6-7