Today, Explained - Saw something, said nothing

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

A Pennsylvania grand jury has released a 1300-page report on child sex abuses within the state's Catholic Church. Jack Jenkins from Religion News Service peels back the curtain on 70 years of heinous assaults. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On Tuesday, a grand jury in Pennsylvania issued a 1,300-page report detailing sex abuse within the Catholic Church. Over 1,000 child victims were identified by our investigation, though the grand jury notes that they believe that number was in the thousands. As the report reads, we should emphasize that while the list of priests is long, we don't think we got them all. The report is graphic, it's horrifying, and it names names. Father William Presley gave a boy sedatives to relax him before his abuse, then told him it was okay because he was a priest. Father Edmund Parico told altar boys not to wear any clothing underneath their cassocks

because God didn't want clothes on their skin as they served mass. The report also calls out the church as a whole. One of the lines from the report was, priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing, they hid it all for decades. Jack Jenkins is a reporter at the Religion News Service. I mean, this is one of, if not the largest collection of allegations of sexual misconduct in one area. Dating back to the 1940s, there are decades of allegations of abuse by Catholic priests, over 300 of whom are named in the report, and that there was, according to the report,

there are accusations that there was a widespread systemic cover-up by Catholic leaders, bishops, etc. in the state of Pennsylvania. It lists specific abuses that occurred during that time period against children, the rape of children, young boys and girls, and it details how. It alleges that these Catholic leaders would reassign priests who were predator priests to protect them and would participate in this system that would shield these priests from public accountability. What did this grand jury do for 18 months? It looks like they were hearing the testimony of a lot of abuse survivors and reading over some pretty horrific accounts of abuse that, you know, starting back in like 1947 at the hands of church officials. And, you know, they also were looking through documents that the apparently church officials, according to the report, refer to as secret archives that the church keeps themselves of allegations of abuse

against priests. And they were sifting through those as well. And it's important to note, there's an ongoing legal battle because some of those who were accused in the report pushed for redactions before it was published. And the attorney general promised when they unveiled the report that he will continue to fight for those redactions to be, you know, removed as it were, so that those names and those allegations can be exposed in the final version of the report. Could you tell us what is in this report from the grand jury? I mean, it looks like there are roughly a thousand victims of abuse of children over the past few decades. And of course, the leadership that they allege shielded them for decades. Predators in every diocese weaponized the Catholic faith

and used it as a tool of their abuse. It is horrifying. You have instances where there's an allegation that two priests had a boy stand in front of them, and then they would encourage the child to strip, and in doing so, you know, reference Christ and the cross, and that he should strip more because they wanted him to further resemble Christ. And they began taking Polaroids of the child. Father Robert Malsiner groomed his middle school students for oral sex by telling them how Mary had to lick Jesus clean after he was born. You have an instance where a priest is accused of visiting a seven-year-old girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils

taken out and raping her there. One boy was forced to stand on a bed in a rectory, stripped naked, and poses Christ on the cross for the priests. You have an instance of a priest raping a girl, impregnating her, and then facilitating her abortion. They took photos of their victim, adding them to a collection of child pornography which they produced and shared on church grounds. You had instances where a priest is accused of having a child perform oral sex on him and then afterwards washing the boy's mouth out with holy water to purify the child. Are these priests still alive? washing the boy's mouth out with holy water to purify the child, quote unquote. Are these priests still alive? Some of them are. And these victims are still alive?

A lot of them. When they unveiled the report, they began with a video of some of the victims talking about the scarring reality of this. And some of the victims were very old. My name is Robert Corby, and I'm 83 years old. Sean Docherty, 48 years old. Carolyn Fortney, 37. We were taught, I mean, the priests and the nuns are God.

Just think, like, the word God makes me think of him and I just... I was very unaffectionate. I couldn't show any affection with my wife. I had no desire to have children. None because of this. My children I couldn't hold or hug. I didn't feel comfortable at all. I still don't feel comfortable now in relationships.

This is a lifelong issue with survivors. It's very lonely. Especially when it's your word against God's. You know, it's a big deal that they're able to talk about this because, you know, to hear them say it when they were abused, there was no cultural mechanism for them to be able to discuss this. I mean, people would have dismissed it out of hand. But not anymore, right? I mean, the awareness of this has changed so dramatically, especially after the spotlight investigation in Boston.

They made a movie. It's time, Robbie! It's time! They knew, and they let it happen to kids! Okay? It could have been you. It could have been me. It could have been me. It could have been any of us. We got to nail these scumbags. We got to show people that nobody can get away with this,

not a priest or a cardinal or a freaking pope. How are these two investigations different? The spotlight investigation was the press seeing a pattern of abuse by the church and protecting of abusers by the church structure and trying to document it. And this is not led by the press in Pennsylvania. This was led by law enforcement. And that matters in a big way. It's not the press compelling the world to pay attention. It's law enforcement paying attention on their own and then publishing

a report saying this is stuff that we as the enforcers of law need to be taking seriously and looking at and acknowledging, not just as like, you know, culturally horrific, but as like illegal and, you know, things that if we are able to enforce the law against some of these alleged abusers, we should. Are there going to be charges? Two priests are actively being charged right now. What are the accusations in those cases? Sexual abuse of children.

And one of them pled guilty last month. But one of the things that they want to change, and one of the things they noted in the report, is that the overwhelming majority of the priests that are named in this report cannot be held legally accountable according to Pennsylvania state laws for their crimes. Because of statute of limitations? Statute of limitations, right. So right now in Pennsylvania, victims of child sex abuse have until they're 30 to file civil suits and until they're 50 to file criminal charges. So they want to change the laws, right? So they have four specific proposals. And those four things include the elimination of the statute of limitations for sexually abusing children,

right? The creation of a larger civil window in the state so older victims can sue for damages. Okay. Right? The clarification of the penalties for continuing to fail to report child abuse. So they want those penalties actually outlined so that they can be better enforced. Okay. And the fourth one is disallowing civil confidentiality agreements from covering communications with law enforcement. And so, they want those things altered. I mean, there's other elements that impact this as well.

Outside of those four recommendations, many states have what's referred to as confession carve-outs, which means that for, in the Catholic Church, a priest, but in other religious traditions, you know, a pastor and a mom, a rabbi. A lot of these states mandate that religious officials are mandated reporters. So, if you come to them and they hear about allegations of abuse of children, they are mandated to report it. And many of those laws were formed in the wake of the spotlight scandal. And, you know, there are instances in which priests might confess their sins of abusing a child to another priest. And if those confession carve-outs exist, then that priest is in no way legally obligated to report that abuse to authorities. And so, there's a lot of things like that.

And the Attorney General called on the church to endorse and support changing those laws and really kind of called the question in Pennsylvania of saying, if you really want to enact change, then you should endorse these alterations to law. And have they? Not yet in terms of endorsing all four that I've seen. But a lot of these victims are really, really looking for some sort of shift. And those are the tangible ways that it can happen. But a lot of these victims are really, really looking for some sort of shift. And those are the tangible ways that it can happen.

The Catholic Church has had months to prepare for this report. How the church has responded, that's next on Today Explained. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't personally have a Quip electric toothbrush. They sent me one when the show was getting started, but I already had a toothbrush, so I gave it to our editor, Bridget McCarthy. She really seemed to enjoy it. She still uses it. Quip eventually sent me another one because I asked for one for another colleague and she was really happy. I can't tell you how much going to getquip.com slash explained and picking out a toothbrush will change your brushing habits and lifestyle and whatnot. I can just tell you that if you go to the site

and buy one for someone else, from my experience, they will smile. And isn't that what brushing your teeth is all about? How did all this abuse go uninvestigated for so long? The abuses themselves are a big part of this, but just as important, I think, isn't just the abuses, it's the power structure that they allege supported it. They accused that these bishops specifically citing these, you know, secret Catholic archives, et cetera, that they would move priests around and shield them from any sort of systemic accountability. And that's a big deal. So one of the biggest names that appear in

the report is Cardinal Wuerl, who's actually, you know, here in D.C. now. Wuerl is an interesting case because it is true that Cardinal Wuerl also fought pretty hard to change the Catholic Church's approach to abuses and actually went to the Vatican to try to prevent a priest who is a predator priest from being reinstated in ministry. And the report includes that. But it also includes instances in which he did the opposite, where they alleged that he did move priests around and, you know, participated in the same system. Which is just essentially cover-up.

You got in trouble here, let's move you to California or something. Right. The Archdiocese of Washington actually published a website after the report dropped called the World Record, basically defending him saying, look, here's his actual record and trying to push back on certain phrases and things that are in the report. What's interesting is last time I checked, and that might be changed now, that website didn't make it for very long. It was taken down and now redirects to the press release section of the archdiocese's website. This grand jury report came out Tuesday afternoon. Did the

church know it was coming? Yes, absolutely. The website that Cardinal Wuerl's people put up isn't something you would put up in a day. It definitely looks like something that you would have spent at least a few hours on beforehand. And, you know, some of these priests were already trying to push for these accused priests for having their names not appear in this report. I mean, the church was well aware that this was coming. Wow. They had been called in to discuss the allegations already. Does this go all the way up to Pope Francis?

I mean, I don't know if it goes up to Pope Francis specifically because of the timeline of when these events occurred. It definitely reaches the Vatican, and the Attorney General said so in the opening remarks when he introduced the report. But it definitely reaches Pope Francis in the grander sense because this is not the first abuse story to come up during his papacy. You have Colonel McCarrick, who also is in Washington, D.C., who just recently resigned from the College of Cardinals due to allegations of sexual abuse. Do you believe there's a special place in hell for men who represent Christ on earth and abuse their flock? There is certainly a special terrible judgment on someone who would abuse the trust that a priest must have, that a priest does have. In Chile, you have prosecutors and law enforcement

raiding the offices of the Catholic Church to try to unearth new allegations. And you had a group of bishops offer their resignation to Pope Francis en masse, all the bishops in the country. We want to announce that all of us bishops present in Rome, in writing, have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father so that he can decide freely for each of us.

34 bishops offer their resignation. And Pope Francis has accepted some of those resignations as a result of this. And there was a big controversy because initially has accepted some of those resignations as a result of this. And there was a big controversy because initially he defended one of those people. The scandal has devastated the credibility of the church in a once staunchly Catholic Chile. You also have Cardinal Pell in Australia who is facing potential criminal charges related to sexual misconduct. The most senior Vatican official to be charged in the church's sex abuse scandal will have to stand trial.

That's Australian Cardinal George Pell, who appeared in a Melbourne court this morning. He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. And so this is becoming a big part of Pope Francis' papacy, whether he wants it to or not. This wave of allegations that isn't just in the United States or on the continent, but it's truly global. Is there a reason it's all happening right now? I think that's one of the questions that a lot of us relation reporters are wrestling with. And the truth is, I think accountability at this scale takes time. People have talked about how the country of Ireland,

after a rash of abuses were uncovered in that country, a lot of the political actions that have taken place there recently, for instance, the same-sex marriage vote, etc., have been seen as a great rejection of the church's power in the wake of the sex abuse scandal. And that didn't happen until relatively recently. And so what we're seeing is it looks like in the same way that the church,

the Catholic church often takes a while to do anything. They work on decades and century timelines as opposed to weeks or months. It seems that the accountability structure from the planet is also working slowly to try to, you know, unearth the massive amount of allegations and abuses that seem to have been enacted by the church and church officials. Have you spoken to any Catholics about how they feel about what they're reading, what they're hearing? Yes. I had friends who were saying and sources who were saying that this past weekend, nobody was talking about this when they were coming out of mass. And people knew it was coming.

There were some stories. Now, I'm curious if that'll be the same thing this coming weekend. It'll be interesting to see if not only if there's a shift in terms of church attendance or outcry among the lady, but also funding streams for major Catholic organizations. Will that dry up as a result of this? As we've been noting throughout this conversation, the fact that this was an attorney general and a grand jury investigation is interesting. And if other states replicate this process, will that result in this kind of sea change across the country and potentially the planet? I mean, when you talk about, I don't know,

just to bring it back to the grisly details of this report, when you talk about priests forcing kids to strip and taking pictures on a cross, it's just like they were abusing these kids for sport. I can't see how a report that alleges that priests were basically enjoying abusing children doesn't have ramifications outside of Pennsylvania. Part of the ramifications might take a while to see, right? Like in many ways, this report is a result of spotlight, you know, because of spotlight and they reference it. I mean, the attorney general referenced it when he unveiled the report, but it's 2018, right? That happened in the early 2000s, the spotlight report. So

I think it'll take a while for it to kind of come down. But when polls are conducted, parish priests are often, you know, ranked higher in terms of favorability than any other catholic official by catholics with the exception of nuns because everyone loves nuns people love their parish priests so much and the the culture of catholicism is so strong that i think it's often difficult for folks to read one of these reports and immediately transfer that outrage into a local context. Do you get any sense whether or not there are Catholics out there who find these allegations too beyond the pale to even believe?

I think we've hit a point in the church's history where, if anything, I'm hearing the reverse, which is that Catholics are like, yeah, yeah, that's something that happens. I remember when I started as a religion reporter years and years and years ago, I was tasked with trolling local religion stories, right? And what surprised me is that abuse stories were constant. Nobody was reporting on them in the national level, but the local level, these kept coming up. This was like five or six years ago. And I think a lot of Catholics in the United

States are now familiar with that reality. And so I don't think they see this as beyond the pale. If anything, they see this as something they've heard a lot about. What can you imagine a priest saying on Sunday at church? How does a priest put on his collar and go in front of a congregation and recover from from these kinds of stories you know some of the victims have remained catholic despite it all one of the things that keeps coming up is that the victims would really like to hear some recognition of the horrifying events and some dedication towards rectifying or at least addressing these systemic problems,

but also in the very human, personal, and theological sense of just recognizing that it happened, acknowledging the horror of it, and just being willing to say that it's sinful. Jack Jenkins is a reporter for Religion News Service. We spoke this morning. Late this afternoon, the Vatican responded to the Pennsylvania report, writing, there are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes,

shame and sorrow. The statement goes on to say that the Pope is taking the investigation in Pennsylvania seriously, that most of the abuses occurred before the early 2000s, before the Catholic Church instituted reforms to reduce incidences of clergy child abuse, and that the The statement closes with this. I'm Sean Ramos for him. and the church wants to listen to them to root out this tragic horror that destroys the lives of the innocent. I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. Thanks again to Quip Electric Toothbrushes for supporting the show. I recently found out that Quip offers a family pack. So if you have a family of four or are just in a household of four and want to revolutionize how everyone brushes their teeth,

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