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Archbishop Cordileone talks to people after a listening session Sept. 30 at St. Anthony Church in Novato. It was the first of five listening sessions organized by the archbishop to discuss the church’s response to the sex abuse scandals rocking the U.S. church and local churches in other parts of the world. (Photo courtesy Moriah Stafford)
October 11, 2018
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
The listening sessions hosted by the Archdiocese of San Francisco in the wake of a fresh round of scandals afflicting the church brought together Catholics grateful for a chance to speak with their archbishop but wounded by a lack of hierarchical transparency.
In sessions at St. Anthony in Novato and St. Matthew in San Mateo, a snapshot emerged of a church buffeted by the twin scandals of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Pennsylvania grand jury report revealing historic clergy abuse and leadership cover-up in the state.
The revelations of abuse, and its concealment by bishops, has led to a massive crisis of trust within the church. On Sept. 21, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone announced five listening sessions would be held throughout the archdiocese.
“During this time of rightful righteous indignation among our people, it is more important than ever that we, your leaders, listen to you,” he wrote in a letter.
Prayer has been a central feature of the sessions, as each one opens with vespers. At St. Anthony, the session paused when someone suggested praying the Angelus as the church bells tolled 6 o’clock.
Archbishop Cordileone apologized to victims of sexual abuse during the sessions, and called it a “shameful betrayal” by the people “we trust with our souls.”
The archbishop said an initial review showed the archdiocese has received six allegations of abuse committed during the ‘90s, and three of abuse committed in 2000, with no abuse cases alleged to have occurred since then.
Archbishop Cordileone also discussed archdiocesan policies covering clergy sex abuse. Archdiocesan clergy and teachers are mandated reporters, he said, and must report their suspicions of child abuse to civil authorities and to the archdiocese. Background checks and online training on child abuse are required for anyone in the church who works around children.
Archbishop Cordileone said the archdiocese goes through a yearly mandatory audit to evaluate compliance with sex abuse reporting procedures, and has received nearly perfect reports.
If an allegation is made, the archbishop said, civil authorities begin a criminal justice investigation, and the archdiocesan Independent Review Board conducts a private investigation. Once the Independent Review Board, which is comprised mostly of lay professionals, substantiates the allegations, the archdiocese can then petition the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome for a canonical trial.
For survivors of sexual abuse, the archdiocese has a victim assistance coordinator and offers to provide therapy and counseling.
Archbishop Cordileone said it was a “great success” that the archdiocese has had no new cases of sexual abuse “but we can’t rest on our laurels. One case is too many. One case is a horror story.”
For all the present improvements that have been made, many Catholics had the past on their minds. At the St. Anthony session, Dan Murphy asked when the church would address the historic role of seminaries in the crisis. “There’s a problem and we haven’t been honest,” he said.
Murphy told Catholic San Francisco: “When the hierarchy stands up and says ‘we are shocked’ about seminaries and McCarrick, they are either lying or naive.”
Archbishop Cordileone said seminaries, and how they were infected by the sexual revolution, played an important role in the clergy sex abuse scandal. Across the United States, significant attention had been paid to reforming and improving them, he said. St. Patrick’s Seminary & University has been a “top priority” for the archbishop, and he said it now is “very careful” in admitting candidates to the priesthood. Candidates undergo a thorough process of evaluation through psychological tests, spiritual direction and personal interviews.
Many present at the sessions thanked the archbishop for the opportunity to talk directly with him, and said their trust in the church had been shaken. One speaker who identified himself as a parishioner from Our Lady of Mount Carmel asked if the archbishop was open to an independent review of the archdiocese’s sex abuse files.
“I’m very open to that,” Archbishop Cordileone said. The idea had been previously raised in internal discussions, he said, but he had first wanted to hear from laity about what they thought would help establish trust again.
Marylou Murphy at the St. Anthony session asked what the archdiocese was doing to welcome back people like her who had left the church because of anger over the scandals.
“I don’t feel comfortable going into a parish and just pretending nothing happened,” she said.
John McCord, a survivor of sex abuse and member of the Independent Review Board, responded that “her question is the crux of where we need to go,” noting that people who have been wounded by the church are secondary victims of clergy sex abuse.
Archbishop Cordileone encouraged all Catholics to continue to speak to their bishops and offer concrete proposals to him and others for how the church can move forward.
“There’s a grass-roots effort here, but it has to be in collaboration with the bishops. Keep your voices heard, so you keep our feet to the fire,” he said.
Holly Lemos of Our Lady of Loretto Parish told Catholic San Francisco the listening sessions were “a great step,” but that as a layperson she felt “powerless” to effect change.
“What I heard and what our archbishop heard, it has to be heard at the bishops’ level. They’re the ones who can do something,” she said.
Prayer, Lemos said, was “critical” for moving forward, along with a focus on faith.
“At the end of the day, it’s about God and Jesus, not priests,” she said.
Many of those who spoke at the St. Matthew session discussed issues that went beyond the church’s immediate response to the sex abuse crisis.
One woman said the pope needed to re-examine the church’s discipline of celibacy, and another speaker asked Archbishop Cordileone to allow spiritual directors to help women explore a call to holy orders. A parent asked the archbishop to strengthen Catholic identity in archdiocesan schools.
Questions about Archbishop McCarrick’s career were also raised, as people asked how he advanced through the church despite a long history of abusing and harassing seminarians, and what could be done to hold bishops accountable.
Archbishop Cordileone said that while bishops have no canonical authority over other bishops, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been looking into ways to keep bishops answerable for their misdeeds. The USCCB has also announced it would set up a hotline run by a third party to field calls about sexual abuse of minors or adults by bishops.
A significant concern for many was the decline of practicing Catholics, and the disappearance of youth from the church.
“You could set a cannon off in Mass and not hit anyone,” said one man. “We need to find out how to get today’s Catholics into church.”