Leading up to the meeting of the professional victims’ lobby in Boston, the Boston Globe ran a front-page story on the conference “celebrating” the tenth anniversary of the Globe’s series on the scandal in the Boston Archdiocese.
Many Catholics, including the clergy, have grown weary of those who claim they were victimized by a priest decades ago and are still not satisfied with the Church’s response. No matter what the Church does—doling out millions, providing counseling and therapy, mandating training sessions for every employee to guard against abuse—it’s never enough. It’s time for some straight talk: these people don’t want to move on, and that’s because they have too much invested in maintaining their victim status.
Consider the remarks printed in the Globe by alleged victims.
- “The church has failed miserably, miserably, miserably”
- “I’m very underwhelmed”
- “I don’t think it’s anything [the reforms] to brag about”
- “If anything, it’s worse than we ever thought”
Evidently, facts don’t count to these people, but for the rest of us, they do. Here are two worth pondering:
- Most of the abuse took place over a quarter-century ago, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s
- No institution, secular or religious, has a better record combating sexual abuse today than the Catholic Church
Many of our friends, Catholic and non-Catholic, agree with us on this but are afraid of voicing their sentiments in public for fear of being branded insensitive. However, there is nothing noble about allowing intimidation to skew the truth. It won’t happen at the Catholic League. Indeed, we are more emboldened than ever to get the truth out.
