Perhaps it was an inevitable result of years of litigation with the Catholic Church concerning the priest sex abuse scandal.  Yet, the news that David Clohessy, the national director of SNAP, will be forced to give a deposition in a case involving a priest accused of sexual abuse has caught some by surprise.  Others are outraged that abuse survivors’ correspondence with him about their abuse will be revealed during the deposition. 

The decision to depose Clohessy duces tecum (he has to produce documents in his possession concerning communications he’s had about abuse cases) is a high stakes gamble for Catholic Church lawyers who appear desperate to stop the flow of civil litigation that continues to erode the integrity and reputation of the Church.  While the move may indeed intimidate some survivors from pursuing civil justice, it may turn the tide of public opinion even further (if that’s possible) against the Church.  It reminds me of another bullying tactic employed by these same Church lawyers a few years ago when they tried to force “John and Jane Doe” survivors into publicly revealing their identities as if they were on trial rather than the perpetrators of sex crimes. 

It’s my sincere hope the truth will win the day against such bullying tactics by defense lawyers.  In the end, it’s a legal tactic that reveals desperation rather than any real desire to defend innocence.

Today’s news about the media reports concerning the Catholic Church in the Netherlands should not “shock or dismay,” despite what the Church PR people say..  As a sex abuse lawyer, I’ve seen similar scenarios play out in Portland, Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, not to mention the numerous occasions I’ve witnessed it with the Boy Scouts of America, the Mormon Church or the Seventh Day Adventist Church. 

An investigation has determined thousands (I’m talking tens of thousands) of children were sexually abused by priests, nuns, brothers, and sisters in the Dutch Catholic Church for the past sixty years.  Officials in the Dutch hierarchy knew about the abuse and turned a blind eye.  Now, they are “shocked, dismayed, and saddened” by the news.  That’s quite frankly a bunch of bull.

 The “sorry but” approach to dealing with this scandal by Church officials is way too little and woefully too late.  Certainly,  it’s what some PR spin firm told them to say, but supposedly these church officials are folks who are men and women of faith.  If they are, then they should remember the ancient prayer, wherein humble people of faith pray for “and for a good account before the fearful judgment seat of Christ, let us ask of the Lord."  Have they no holy fear?  Have they forgotten that, though they may escape our civil statutes of limitations, yet there is another, deeper and more eternal reckoning awaiting us all? 

Perhaps, I’m angry at this rote, mechanical response that shows no hint of belief or faith.  As a Christian struggling with my own defects of character and sinfulness, I am quite aware of Christ’s admonition that we take care the log in our own eyes before we point to the speck in our brother’s eye.  But I also recall that the Master also said:  “It were better for a man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble,” referring, of course, to little children, always and especially beloved of God.”

We have for a decade now heard various expressions of regret from Church officials.  I have written about this before, in a series on apologies and forgiveness.  But what we have not seen or heard is anything like biblical repentance—metanoia: an about face, a turning around and a complete change.  When we witness that, the Church will begin to recover from this terrible scourge it has inflicted upon herself, and upon thousands and thousands of children.

Portland, Oregon, Dec 9, 2011.

The nation’s two top lawyers for those sexually abused in Scouting today applauded the apology issued yesterday by Canadian Scout officials to all who were sexually abused in Scouts Canada, as well as the announcement that Scouts Canada would do a comprehensive review and public airing of all its internal records on abuse.

Attorneys Kelly Clark and Paul Mones of Portland, Oregon, who are handling nearly three dozen sexual abuse lawsuits against Boy Scouts of America in over a dozen states in the US, and who last year won a jury verdict against the BSA for nearly $20 million on behalf of an Oregon man sexually abused in Scouting in a case that featured for the first time ever the introduction of 20,000 pages of secret “perversion” files—internal records kept by BSA concerning child abuse in its organization—issued the following statement:

“That Scouts Canada recognizes the need of many survivors of abuse for a direct and unconditional apology, and sees the value in public airing of the internal records concerning abuse is noteworthy and laudable.  True apologies can help healing for those abused as children, and so this apology is welcome.  We also hope and expect that the records review and public airing will be done in a straightforward and open manner.  Child abuse thrives in secret, and secret systems are its soil, and so opening the records to the public is an important first step in public accountability.

Yet, in the weeks after the Penn State scandal has once again showed the world what happens when child abuse stays secret, we note today the utter irony of the contrast between what Scouts Canada is doing to open its secrets, as opposed to what Boy Scouts of America is doing to keep its secrets.  Even as Scouts Canada announces its plans to do a review and public airing of its records, Boy Scouts of America continues to fight the public release of its own internal files—the very same evidence that was introduced into evidence last year in Portland, and which the Portland jury used to render its verdict—by maintaining its appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court of the trial court’s ruling that the secret files are now public record. So we call upon the Boy Scouts of America to follow in the footsteps of Boy Scouts Canada, issue an unconditional apology to all who were abused in Scouting, and open the secret files to the public.” 

As so often happens in sexual abuse cases, more survivors come forward as they summon the courage to come forward and publicly face their accuser who sexually abused them.  This scenario is now beginning to play out in the Jerry Sandusky matter as he has been arrested again on two new charges stemming from the sexual abuse of two more minors.  These two boys were also involved in his former charity work Second Mile.  According to news reports, the boys were given gifts as part of the sexual abuse grooming process prior to Sandusky abusing them in the Sandusky residence.

The local ABC news affiliate reported, “The man, now 19 and identified as Victim 9, met Sandusky at a Second Mile swimming event when the boy was 11 or 12, according to new information in the grand jury presentment. Sandusky asked for his phone number, which he then used to ask the boy’s mother if he could spend more time with the boy, and then proceeded to pick the boy up from school and take him to Sandusky’s home for sleepovers.

At the Sandusky home, the boy said he was forced to stay in the basement at all times, and was even brought his meals there by Sandusky and told not to leave. He testified that he had little contact with Dottie Sandusky, Jerry’s wife, and that she never came to the basement. Sandusky allegedly sexually assaulted the boy in the basement bedroom numerous times, including forcible rape. On one occasion, the boy screamed for help, hoping Dottie Sandusky would hear him from upstairs, but she did not come downstairs, he said.

We will stay tuned to see how this all plays out, but those last few sentences tear at the heart, and should reignite our commitment to fighting child abuse and those who allow it.

The decision to compel the Cardinal’s testimony was a hard-fought victory for prosecutors who’d argued that Bevilacqua’s testimony is crucial in their criminal case against Monsignor William Lynn who is the first Philadelphia priest ever to be criminally charged with failure to protect children.  Lynn had been in charge of all sexual abuse reports as well as the investigation of such allegations.  In prior grand jury deliberations, Monsignor Lynn was the target of much grand jury criticism for his handling of sexual abuse cases against Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests during Cardinal Bevilacqua’s tenure as archbishop of Philadelphia. 

Monsignor William Lynn is charged with child endangerment for allegedly transferring priests accused of sexual abuse of minors. Three priests and a former teacher are charged with raping boys.

This is not unlike what we have seen before in different contexts: 

–in 2002, when the Boston Globe broke the story of widespread abuse and cover up in the Boston Archdiocese, very quickly after that we saw abuse survivors stepping forward around the country:  Chicago, Milwaukie, Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, and other places.  Soon, so many victims—literally thousands of them—had come forward that, within two years, the bankruptcies started: Portland, Tucson, San Diego, and elsewhere, as Church officials struggled to comprehend and respond to the massive scope of the problem.  Representing survivors of abuse at the hands of Catholic priests all around the country, and then representing more than 40 claimants in the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy, I saw this first hand.

–last year, in Spring of 2010, when for nearly two months Paul Mones and I tried the Kerry Lewis case against the Boy Scouts of America in Portland—resulting in a nearly $20 million verdict against BSA for its decades-long practice of ignoring child abuse in its programs—my office received over 650 phone calls—yes, that’s right, 650 phone calls in about 10 weeks—from men abused as boys in Scouting, all over the country, from the 1960’s to the 2000’s.  And now, as we are handling cases against the Scouts in over a dozen states, I see the same thing happening elsewhere.

–any child abuse lawyer who does very much of this work will attest that as the scandal at Penn State broke over the last three weeks, more victims have come forward to tell their stories: abuse in the Mormon Church, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, schools, athletic leagues and elsewhere. Indeed, so prominent has been this dynamic that Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR’s fine religion reporter, did a story on it (in which I, along with Mitch Garabedian, a fine Boston lawyer, was interviewed), pointing out that the Penn State story was prompting abuse survivors in other contexts to come forward.

All of this is what I call “the Avalanche Dynamic,” and it is something I have thought a lot about.  I’m sure the mental health professionals in the child abuse field can explain the psychological dynamic, but what I have seen is that, for most child abuse survivors to come forward and break their silence, to tell someone—their spouses or parents, their counselors, a lawyer—what happened to them as children, there has to be some sort of a triggering event.  It can be, and often is, a news story about abuse, it can be an unexpected (and often unwelcome) confrontation with some reminder of the abuse, it can be watching a child, often their own, at the same age as was the victim at the time of the abuse.  But most child abuse survivors need some trigger, some precipitating event, to embolden them to come forward.

Now, cynics, of course, often assume something else is going on: that the survivors are “jumping on the bandwagon” or “reaching for the money” or other ignorant ideas.  To see these in action, just scroll down to the “comments” section anytime you read a new story about “more victims” coming forward to name their abuser, or anytime a new civil lawsuit is filed for monetary restitution and justice.

But what is actually happening is that survivors are realizing, in a flash, in an explosive moment, several things at once, things they might have vaguely known but never allowed themselves to consider:  “maybe I wasn’t the only one”; “I guess it wasn’t really my fault”; “maybe they’ll believe me now”—and similar sentiments.  Remember that when a child is abused, there is a kind of “splitting” that goes on in his or her mind, and the trauma and shame of the abuse often gets “parked” or “shoved away” into the recesses of the conscious mind, and some part of the child “decides” that the safest way to handle the fear, trauma, guilt and shame, is simply not to think about it.  And they don’t.  For decades, often.  And then, some triggering event happens, like the child abuse scandals in the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, or, now, Penn State.

Which brings me to the other fascinating thing I have noticed in “the Avalanche Dynamic: the closer to home is the triggering event, the more likely it is that the victim will break silence.  So I have had survivors come see me when their own abuser was publicly named, but not before, even if there has been much publicity about abuse in general. The Kerry Lewis case was one of those, where eight men eventually came forward to name their Mormon Church ward and the Boy Scouts for their abuse, after the first two brothers broke the silence of how they were abused by a Boy Scout leader in their Mormon Church troop.  One man came to see me in the midst of the Catholic scandals, when he took a job in a building across the street from the parish where he had been abused, and every day he had to listen to the churchbells ringing. He had been reading about priests abusing kids in Boston, and Chicago, and elsewhere, and he was not triggered.  But setting up professional shop across the street from the scene of his abuse, and he was jolted into breaking out of his silence. I have had Mormons come see me only when a story broke about abuse in the Mormon Church—despite any amount of publicity about abuse in the Catholic Church, or in the Boy Scouts.  I have had Boy Scouts call me, not when some event about abuse in Boy Scouts broke open, but when they read a story about their own abuser.  For whatever psychological reason, the fact is, that the closer is the trigger to their own story, the more likely survivors are to come forward and break their silence.  And so the Penn State story brought forward first, other Sandusky victims, then the victims at the Citadel, Syracuse, and the gymnastics context: all either related to sports, to academia, or both.  The trigger was close to home.

So, next time you read about an “avalanche” of survivors coming forward in response to a breaking new story of abuse in some new context—for instance, a major American University’s football program—don’t be surprised.  That’s how it happens.

Then, it hires a credible outside source to do an investigation and make recommendations.  And so now that Penn State has hired former FBI director Louis Freeh to investigate how Jerry Sandusky was apparently able to abuse kids right under Penn State’s nose for a decade, we have one more thing in common between  Penn State and the American Catholic Church.  Many will remember at the height of the Catholic scandals the Church hired the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to do studies on the extent of the problem within the Church, and the extent to which the various diocese and Archdiocese around the country were in compliance with the new “protocols” for child abuse cases created in Dallas amidst the media frenzy of the exploding scandals in 2002.  Fewer will remember that that project has foundered over and over again either because the Catholic hierarchy has not fully cooperated with John Jay—many dioceses failing to provide data—and because the questions that John Jay was asked were artificially narrow, something I have written about before.

So now Penn State has hired a certified tough guy with impressive law enforcement credentials—FBI Agent, Federal Judge, FBI Director—to come in and do an investigation.  But the devil will be in the details, again.  Buried deep in the stories about Freeh’s selection has been comments to the effect that “the scope and budget for the investigation has not yet been determined.”  Aha, I see.  We don’t know what Freeh will be allowed to investigate, or whether PSU will give him enough of a budget to do a credible job.  Well, until we know those things, no one should assume that Penn State is really serious about getting to the bottom of all this. 

After all, we’ve seen half-hearted measures like this before.  Just ask the folks at John Jay.

Sound familiar?  It should.  It’s basically the same excuse given by Catholic Bishop Robert Finn, the Boy Scouts of America officials, and Joe Paterno and others at Penn State.  Unfortunately, this is how institutional leaders explain their failures to report child sexual abuse. 

This latest report concerns a now closed summer camp at The Citadel.  It’s clear after more than a week of reporting on the Penn State scandal and now CNN’s report on The Citadel failure, our society’s institutions are experiencing a systemic failure when it comes to reporting child sexual abuse.  No one can claim that the tragedy is isolated to one institution or demographic.  It’s clear to this writer that the legal community has to step in and change reporting laws across the country.  The problem has become epidemic and the victims are our own children.

At Penn State, Mr Paterno’s actions have led to a lot of justifiable outrage, along with a lot of less-justifiable claims that anyone else in that position would have done things differently.

"All of us over-estimate our likelihood of being a hero, and the ease with which we would go ahead and do the right thing," says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. "Faced with the unbelievable consequences that the disclosure might have, their will collapses, and they are unable to do the right thing."

This is why society must have behavioral safeguards in place to ensure that when it comes to the protection of children we all act correctly.  That means our legislatures need to enact tougher laws and our community leaders need to talk about these issues and then support their talk with concrete action.  We can’t afford another Penn State.

The other set of heroes that must not be forgotten in this story are those who paved the way for the kind of unequivocal moral outrage that has greeted this story by the press and the public.  I refer to the hundreds and thousands of men and women who came forward in the last decade or so to speak out about what happened to them as children in the Catholic Church, in Boy Scouts, in the Mormon Church and in other institutions of trust where so much sexual abuse occurred.  Without their determination and courage, society would not be as informed as it is about the nature and devastation of child sexual abuse.  It occurs to me that we have not heard, from the media or pundits, even the sports media, ignorant or uninformed comments and questions that were common only a few years ago: “well, if this was happening, why didn’t the boys say something to stop it?”  “Why did they wait so long to speak up about what happened to them?”  We just haven’t heard that sort of thing very much in the coverage of this scandal.  And I submit that this is because of the courageous men and women who in the past decade have told their stories of child sexual abuse—to the media, in courtrooms and lawsuits, and in personal testimonials.  They often said that one reason they decided to speak out about their childhood abuse was to educate society and to try to prevent child abuse.  And although Sandusky was still able to abuse those boys for decades, he ultimately did not get away with it, and those who enabled him to abuse as long as he did have not gone unaccountable.  And so we owe these thousands of survivors of Catholic, Boy Scout, Mormon and other abuse our gratitude.  They, too, are heroes.

Joe Paterno, affectionately called "JoePa" by his admirers–is, by all accounts, a good and decent man.  He has faithfully coached the Penn State University football team for 46 years and created a clean program in the midst of the cesspool of college football. To my knowledge, no one has ever questioned his integrity. Now, however, it appears he has made a terrible mistake, and it looks as if he will be rightly held accountable for it.

As an advocate for survivors of child abuse for two decades now–as well as a long time fan of Coach Paterno’s–here is what I wish JoePa would say:

"I come before you to admit that I have made a terrible mistake. I acknowledge that mistake and I apologize unconditionally to the boys abused by Jerry Sandusky as well as to my players and to Penn State fans. I humbly ask forgiveness from all these people.  I will do whatever I can do to try to account for my misconduct.  When I leave this press conference, I will tender my resignation as head coach of the Penn State football program and then I will walk over to the Police Department in State College, PA and turn myself in to the police for failing to report child abuse. Now, I have heard some pundits say that I had no legal obligation to report; but I will let law enforcement make that determination.  Certainly I had a moral obligation, and I failed miserably.  Once I do those two things, I will then make arrangements to pay for the counseling needs of every boy harmed by Jerry Sandusky for as long as each boy needs it.

For 46 years, I have tried to instill in my student-athletes a sense of integrity and morality.  That integrity includes acknowledging wrongdoing and accepting the consequences of one’s actions.  Consequences in a situation like this first and foremost mean making an unconditional apology, without excuse or explanation, and taking steps to right the wrong.  That is what I am trying to do now. I reiterate that I apologize unconditionally to the young men involved and to the community and I will do whatever I can to make this right. I offer no explanation or excuses.

Because I care about kids, however, and because I do not want other kids to be abused in other institutions of trust, I want the world to understand how something like this happens, with hope that other institutions like Penn State, respected by society and given its trust, might learn from and not repeat my mistakes.

I love Penn State University.  I love our football program.  I have poured 46 years of my life in trying to create a place where young men are well-formed, with high integrity and deep convictions about right and wrong, compassion and love.  I take great pride in the program that we have built here.  I believe in our mission, and I would do anything to protect it.  And that, my friends, is the problem.

I did not think about and I did not reflect upon what my failure to act could mean for youngsters who were under Coach Sandusky’s spell.  I instinctively reacted with the most short-sighted and narrowest of visons, to protect Penn State and our football program.  In this sense, I am no different than Cardinal Bernard Law, former archbishop of Boston, who chose to protect the institution of the Catholic Church over the safety of children when he transferred abusive priests over and over again.  I am no different than the top leadership of the Boy Scouts of America, who for decades ignored mounting evidence that their organization was being infiltrated by pedophiles, and did nothing to warn parents or Scouts. And I am no different than the leadership of numerous other churches, schools, or other institutions of trust who have a responsibility for young people.  I chose to protect my beloved organization rather than to protect children.

I was completely, totally, and unconditionally wrong.  For this, I am deeply sorry, and I apologize unconditionally. I will have nothing further to say on this matter, for I need now to go spend some time searching my conscience and asking my God for forgiveness."

That’s what I wish he would say.

——–
Kelly Clark is an attorney in Portland, Oregon, who represents survivors of child sexual abuse.

For, as a trial lawyer having represented over 300 men and women sexually abused by trusted adults in contexts such as churches, the Boy Scouts, schools and , athletic leagues, I have seen the way that such organizations respond to child abuse allegations.  Almost always there is an element of denial and often cover-up.  And such conduct always rightly shocks the public.  But, how is it in the first instance that such respected institutions—we can now apparently add Penn State University to the list—act in a way so contrary to their ideals and reputation? What is going on here?

The only way to understand situations like the one at Penn State is to recognize that in all such institutions of trust and respect, there is a perhaps understandable sense of pride, even uniqueness,  that is dominant, and that often colors all else. Organizations such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts and others—even governmental entities such as public schools and law enforcement, itself not immune from child abuse in its midst—think of themselves as special, their work as wholly righteous.  The organizations have noble purposes, their supporters are fervent and earnest, their workers tireless. The attitude in such places can be so strong that, when confronted with an ugly reality like child abuse, it produces a feeling that we are unique, our mission is so important, our work so noble, that ‘those kinds of problems’ could never happen here, and if they do, well then, we must first of all protect our good name and good work—even if that means we ignore, interpret, or sometimes even violate the rules applicable to the rest of society. 

The social philosophers have a name for this dynamic, of course: it is the belief that the ends justify the means. You can read about it in any history book.

And so when an institution like Penn State University is faced with something so threatening to its work and reputation, so foreign to its ideals and self-understanding, as child sex abuse in its midst, the first instinct is to ignore it or try to make it go away.  That cannot be happening here. We have worked too hard for excellence. We have too many people who believe in us. We are Penn State, and we are special.  This thing did not happen.  
And so bishops transferred sexually dangerous priests, Scout officials ignored an obvious cancer of abuse in their midst, and football officials from a prestigious and storied university looked the other way when a boy was raped in their midst.

 I suspect this—what I call the curse of being special—after all, is what was really going on at Penn State.  At one level, of course, it is outrageous, shocking, and devastating.  But to allow ourselves to stop with those emotions would be to let ourselves off too easily.   No one at Penn State—except perhaps Jerry Sandusky—woke up one day and decided to allow child abuse to occur. We must understand this if we are to learn from what happened. What happened was a product of the curse of being special.  Now, this is not to let anyone off the hook–all those responsible for this abuse should be held accountable.  But for those of us who care about kids, if we stay focused on the outrage of the moment, we will miss the point. For the point is to take these lessons—including the institutional grandiosity that resulted in such denial and cover up—and make sure that other institutions of trust learn them well, so we don’t have to keep reading this story over and over again.
 
 

The secretive nature of the abuse often leads to self-doubt and self-loathing.  In my many years as a sexual abuse lawyer, survivors have recounted to me how they feel lost and alone.  They tell me how they’ve tried to mask those feelings with drugs, alcohol, or unhealthy relationships.  Unfortunately, very often they blame themselves for the actions of the one who abused them.  Tragically, some have ended their lives rather than continue the dark struggle.

Yet, there is a way out.  Some courageous men and women have transformed what happened to them and have begun the long process of healing.  They tell their stories.  They report the abuse to civil authorities.  They demand change for the sake of future children.  They confront the institutions that protected these adult molesters.  

If there’s any good that can come out of the Penn State sex abuse case, I suspect it will be when the community rises up and demands accountability from those who knew and should have done the right thing and reported Coach Sandusky to law enforcement.  There is nothing more damaging to those who’ve survived such abuse as when institutions such as Penn State, the Boy Scouts, the Catholic Church and many others hide behind lame excuses.  I’ve read too media reports trying to argue that the University officials, including Coach Joe Paterno, weren’t really required to call the police.  But this is the worst kind of denial.  Paterno and the other officials at Penn State who were told about Sandusky had a moral obligation to tell law enforcement.  Perhaps it wasn’t a legal requirement, but it’s surely an ethical requirement for men in such positions of trust and confidence.  As the head of the Pennsylvania State Police dryly remarked to the press, all of the administrators should have called the police; as he put it, “it isn’t a high standard.”   

At this point, no one should give a damn about the future of Penn State football, Coach Paterno’s legacy, or the next football game.   The fact is children were abused right under the noses of a prominent and respected institution, which sat idle, choosing to pretend the problem did not exist, so that its pristine reputation wouldn’t be sullied.   Well, now: that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Here’s the story as we now understand it.  Jerry Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator for the famous Penn State Nittany Lions football program, had retired in 1999.  However, he was still a respected figure on campus and continued to enjoy the privileges of access to the campus facilities after retirement.  Sandusky, who had served as the assistant football coach for decades under legendary coach Joe Paterno, had founded a non-profit for at-risk kids called Second Mile.  According to news reports, it was these boys that Sandusky abused over the last 15 years.  The charges range from inappropriate touching to anal rape. 

According to media reports, just three years ago, a Penn State graduate assistant witnessed Sandusky sodomizing a young boy in the school’s showers and reported it to Coach Joe Paterno.  Paterno then reported it to the athletic director of the school—but not to police.  Two weeks later, the school’s Athletic Director and a Vice President of the school met with the graduate assistant who related what he had seen. Then, apparently—and incredibly—neither of these men called the police.  Now, both the Athletic Director and the Vice President face criminal charges for failing to report this abuse, and for lying to the grand jury investigating the Sandusky matter. 

Of course,  there are patterns of behavior in the Penn State abuse case  that are very similar to the patterns of sexual predators in other sexual abuse cases in which I’ve been involved—Catholic priest abuse, Mormon Church abuse and, most recently, Boy Scout abuse.  In most instances, the predator ingratiates himself into a community, association, or organization where he has access to the young, vulnerable children—just like this case.  In most cases, he is in a position of trust, authority, and responsibility over the children—just like this case.  Finally, he is able to lure these kids through his charismatic presence or by buying gifts or presents, for in some situations, the promise of a better life is all the predator needs to gain access to the young child—again, just like this case.  The parallels are striking. It just seems to happen over and over again in setting after setting. 

I’m never particularly surprised to see the new and novel ways that adults manipulate kids into abuse.  What I am surprised at here—stunned would be a better word—is that, in this day and age, sophisticated professionals like an Athletic Director and a Vice President at a major university would not report such a blatant incident of child abuse—let alone that they would apparently lie about it in front of a grand jury.  What is it going to take to get people to report child abuse?  What is it going to take to get institutions of trust to stop covering it up?  How many times, and how many institutions, do we have to go through this before adults start acting like adults?

Finally, I need to lodge a stiff protest concerning the public reaction thus far concerning the Sandusky abuse case.  This morning on National Public Radio I heard the Penn State Alumni President go on and on about how this scandal should not hurt the great Penn State football legacy.  And over at ESPN or on various sports radio talk shows, I see and hear nothing but speculation about Penn State, its reputation, and the future of its football program. That seems to be the exclusive focus of the media reports.  Now, I’m as much a fan of college football and Joe Paterno as anyone else.  But, I am simply appalled that we are not hearing any concern for the victims of abuse.  We know there were eight: I’m guessing there were eighty.  Somebody tell me what Penn State has done to try to help them? What has Penn State done to protect them in this process?  What has Penn State done to let them know that no one blames them for this scandal?  Where is it?  I just haven’t seen any of it.  To say the obvious, what should concern anyone who cares about kids is not how this scandal might affect Penn State’s college football program—for crying out loud—but, instead is what is happening to the victims, and what lessons can be learned from this whole mess.

Somebody please tell the folks at Penn State to wake up and smell the coffee. Hard as it may be for them to believe, there are more important things than college football. Geepers.

Some readers will recall that, last year, I, along with lawyers from my firm, as well as my co-counsel attorney Paul Mones, won a jury verdict in Portland against the Boy Scouts on a sex abuse case, the total award being nearly $20 million– $1.4 million in general damages and $18.5 million in punitive damages—the largest single child abuse verdict in American history.  In that trial, Paul and I were able—for the first time ever in any courtroom—to get introduced into evidence the entire BSA Perversion Files system, some 20,000 pages of records, reflecting over 1000 instances of child abuse within Scouting from 1965-85.  For articles on this trial and on the Perversion Files, click here.  For previous posts of mine about the trial and the files, click here. 

What the IV/Perversion Files showed was a remarkable similarity to what we have seen in other contexts. As a child sex abuse attorney who has represented over 300 victims now, of abuse in the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, the Boy Scouts, and other youth organizations, I can see the way that the abuse dynamic has played out in all of these contexts.   Here, then, are some of the similarities in abuse cases in those three settings:

1.    The abuse was shrouded in secrecy.  Child abuse thrives in secret, and abusers know this.  So they almost always threaten or coerce their victims into silence and secrecy.  This is one of the most damaging aspects of abuse for children, that they feel trapped and unable to do anything or say anything.  At the same time, the institutions involved, whether the Catholics, the Mormons or the Boy Scouts, also shrouded their abuse problem in secrecy: the Catholics with their “secret archives” in which reports of abuse were hidden (for stories about the Catholic problem of secrecy, click here); the Boy Scouts and their Perversion Files, and even the Mormon Church’s still-secret internal system for tracking abuse and keeping it hidden from members (for stories about Mormon abuse, click here)

2.    The abuse arose out of relationships of trust.  Almost always in these three contexts, children were abused because they trusted their priests, Scout leaders or LDS leaders implicitly.  And always, the organizations had taught these children and their families that they should trust such men: the Catholic Church with its emphasis on the power of the Church and the supposed holiness of priests, the Mormon Church and its theology that every person assigned to a specific calling was placed there by God, and the Boy Scouts, with their oaths, emphasis on duty and honor, and the high esteem with which Scouting was held by society.  And so, for a victim of abuse, up until the time the abuse began, the trusted adult was doing the exact kinds of things that a child would expect a trusted adult to do: building a relationship with the child, spending time with him or her, teaching, mentoring, playing the role model.  The fact is, most molesters are nothing less than geniuses when it comes to understanding children and winning their trust.  And so, naturally, when these relationships progressed to the point of absolute trust, abuse was possible.   The fact is, that the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and the Boy Scouts all received tremendous benefit from these trust relationships—families were loyal members and supported the organization generation after generation.  And so their protest these days that they should not be liable for abuse arising out of these relationships of trust rings hollow.

3.    When abuse became public, the organizations opted to protect themselves and not the children.  One of the main lessons that came out of the Portland trial last year was that  juries are outraged when they believe that a child-trust organization responds to an abuse problem with cover-up, denial, minimization and blaming the victim.  All of these responses are ones that the Portland jury saw from the Boy Scouts in child abuse cases, and are consistent as well with what we know about the response to child abuse from the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church, the only difference between these latter two organizations being that the Catholic Church child abuse problem has been in the process of being cracked open now for almost ten years, while the LDS/Mormon Church has managed to escape the kind of public scrutiny brought to bear on the Catholics.  But all three organizations—Boy Scouts, Catholic Church, and Mormon Church—have responded to child sexual abuse problems in their midst by keeping secrets, tolerating abusers in their organization, and avoiding reporting allegations of abuse to law enforcement, almost always in an effort to avoid bad publicity for the organizations. 

The public, parents and law enforcement are rightly indignant when they learn the extent to which these three organizations, which still enjoy great social prestige and status, to this day do not require mandatory reporting of child abuse allegations to law enforcement without exception.   Likewise, when stories like the Richard Turley story, mentioned above, break, the public is stunned to see the way an organization like the Boy Scouts of American operates in the face of a clear danger to children. 

As a child sex abuse attorney who has been representing victims of abuse for well over a decade, against dozens of institutions of trust in dozens of states all over the US, I would like to believe that the work that has been done by child abuse survivors over the last decade has made these organizations safer for children than they were twenty or thirty years ago.  And while I still think this is true, I also know how far we have to go.  But I am not yet an old man, and while it is true that I am sometimes tired, sometimes discouraged, and sometimes angry, yet it is also true that I am not going away anytime soon.  Nor are the hundreds of other fine attorneys around the country who do this work going away, nor the thousands of prosecutors working to put pedophiles away. Nor, finally, are the adult survivors of childhood abuse—some of the most courageous and resilient people I have ever met—going away.

Finn’s indictment marks the first time a Catholic bishop has been indicted for failure to report one of his Catholic priests who stands charged with the sexual abuse of a minor child.

The failure to report sexual abuse indictment stems from Fr. Shawn Ratigan’s arrest in May 2011 for the possession of computer child pornography.  Ratigan remains in jail and faces additional charges filed in August for the production of child pornography. 

According to media reports, the Diocese discovered the computer pornography in December 2010 but didn’t report it to the police until May 2011.  Approximately one year prior to Ratigan’s arrest, a Catholic school principal had written a letter to Bishop Finn outlining her concerns about Ratigan’s strange behavior and inappropriate interest in the minor children at St. Patrick Catholic school.  When questioned about the letter this summer, Bishop Finn admitted he never read the letter. 

Several civil sex abuse lawsuits have been filed against Fr. Ratigan, Bishop Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

Survivors of abuse and those who support them have for years wondered why, in the face of overwhelming evidence of child abuse cover up by bishops and other church officials, there has never been anyone from the church hierarchy ever indicted.  Well, it seems that day has finally arrived.  Of course, the bishop and diocese are presumed innocent until proven guilty, but it will be interesting to see what sort of defense they put up. 

According to archdiocesan officials, the sex abuse allegation against Fr. Altstock is the first one lodged against him.  He retired from active ministry in 2001.  The abuse in this case began during the last year Archbishop Cornelius Power led the Archdiocese of Portland and continued during the leadership of Archbishop William Levada, presently Cardinal and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

This week’s filing continues the now over 15 year history of Kelly Clark and O’Donnell, Clark and Crew of representing victims of priest abuse against the Archdiocese of Portland.  Links to past articles and presentations we have done on this topic can be found here.

With all due respect to Mr Lena, who is a good attorney, there’s more to the legal and ecclesiastical stories than simply whether the documents show a “smoking gun” kind of knowledge by the Vatican of Ronan’s history of abuse.  The question is one of “principal-agency” under Oregon law.  This is something I know more than a little about, since it was one of my cases—Fearing v Bucher and the Archdiocese of Portland—in 1999 before the Oregon Supreme Court that shaped this law, especially when it comes to sexual abuse of children by trusted adults.  So let’s look more closely at the case, and at Lena’s claims.

While it seems plain that the Sacred Congregation for Religious (the former name of the Vatican agency) did not directly make the decision to transfer Rev. Ronan from Chicago to Portland, this fact alone does not answer the central legal question in the case: whether Ronan, under Oregon law, can be considered an “agent” of the Vatican.  If so, then the Vatican, like any “principal,” can be liable for the acts of its agent, even intentional wrongdoing, such as sexual abuse.  And the test for “agency” under Oregon law is whether the principal has the “right to control” the agent in the means and manner by which the agent carries out his duties.  And here, of course, it is plain to anyone who has ever spent five minutes thinking about it, that the Vatican Congregation for Religious of course would have had the right to control—and did in fact control—the means and manner of Ronan’s priestly duties, as it did for all priests:  requiring him, for example, to live a celibate life and not to marry; setting out in great detail how and what he was to teach his parishioners in terms of Catholic doctrine and catechism; when and under what conditions he could marry a young couple, and when and under what conditions he could not marry an older couple with previous marriages;  how and in what manner he would celebrate the Eucharist or conduct baptisms—the list goes on and on of how, under canon law, the Vatican, through its Congregation for Religious, had the right to control the details of Ronan’s work.   Perhaps the most important fact is that it was the Vatican Congregation, and no one else, who had the sole power to decide whether Ronan would even remain a priest.  Indeed, one of the undisputed points in the case is that Ronan himself petitioned the Sacred Congregation for Religious to leave the priesthood.  Obviously, Ronan, his superiors in the Servite Order, the bishop in Portland, and the Vatican all understood that the power to grant such a leave remained solely in the hands of the Vatican Sacred Congregation for Religious. 

So if the legal question in the Ronan case is “agency” as understood in Oregon law—and I think it is—then in my view as a sex abuse attorney for hundreds of men and women abused as children by Catholic priests, Boy Scout leaders, Mormon Church leaders, and other trusted adults, the Vatican could be lawfully held liable by a federal jury in Portland for the acts of Ronan. 

Nor should those who claim that the Church has come in for special or discriminatory treatment under the law be taken seriously.  The Church gets the same analysis under civil law as any business or nonprofit organization.  In any large organization, a mid-level manager has the authority to monitor and perhaps transfer agents and employees from one department to another.  However, hiring and firing policies, and orders about how to carry out the work,  come from a higher source, namely, the top level administration of the company—the principal. The analysis is no different for any nonprofit organization or church—including the Catholic Church.

The question before US District Judge Michael W. Mosman concerns this principal-agent relationship.  If Judge Mosman rules that the evidence presented to him is sufficient to show that the Vatican had the right to control Ronan in the means and manner of his priestly duties, then Judge Mosman would allow the case to proceed to a jury, which would ultimately be called upon to decide if Ronan was under the direction and control of the Vatican.  Stay tuned: the case could get very interesting.

 It’s a sad reminder of the enormous harm done by the sexual abuse of minors.  Twenty-five years after Dyer’s death, there is still pain and suffering.  Hopefully, today’s lawsuit filing is the first step in the quest for justice and healing for one courageous young man.

POSTED: 1:42 pm PDT July 6, 2011

PORTLAND, Ore. — Nine former students of one of Oregon’s best known “tough love” boarding schools, a facility east of Prineville that was shut by the state two years ago, filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging emotional, physical and sexual abuse.The suit is being brought by attorneys Kelly Clark, Steve Crew, Gilion Dumas, Kristian Roggendorf, Peter Janci and the Portland law firm O’Donnell Clark and Crew, who often bring child abuse cases in Oregon and around the nation.The suit alleges claims of battery, negligence, and infliction of emotional distress against Mount Bachelor Academy and its parent companies, Aspen Education Group and CRC Health. The suit seeks more than $14 million in compensatory damages, and punitive damages will be sought as well.An attorney for the school’s operator later issued a statement denying the charges. That statement is in full below, after the rest of the release about the lawsuit’s allegations:Located 26 miles east of Prineville, the controversial “therapeutic boarding school” known as Mount Bachelor Academy was closed by the state of Oregon in November of 2009 based on the findings of an investigation related to charges of systemic abuse and neglect.According to a report by the Oregon Department of Human Services, Mount Bachelor Academy reportedly used “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing” tactics as “treatment” 00– an approach some say stems from the Synanon self-help group of the 1960′s, which was rejected as a cult by mainstream mental health community by the late 1970s. At the time of its closure in 2009, Mt. Bachelor Academy reportedly had more than 75 staff supervising approximately 90 students who were being charged a tuition of $6,400 per month.“The so-called ‘treatment’ that these children were forced to endure on a daily basis at Mt. Bachelor Academy is obscene. Not only did the program ‘break kids down’, it did nothing to build them back up,” said Kelly Clark, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “We intend to prove that this wasn’t education, it wasn’t treatment and it wasn’t ‘tough love’ – this was abuse.”The plaintiffs in Wednesday’s suit, who all attended Mount Bachelor Academy in the late 1990s, allege: that they were subjected to regular psychological abuse and shaming, including being required to reenact traumatic experiences (such as prior instances of child sexual abuse) in front of their peers; that they were subjected to extreme isolation and prolonged deprivations of food, water, shelter, and basic medical care; that students were required to go days with little or no sleep and were also regularly forced into “chain gang” style labor; that phone calls to their families were limited and were monitored by Mt. Bachelor Academy staff; and that parents were instructed by staff not to believe their children if they claimed malfeasance or abuse – i.e., the children will lie, it is all part of the treatment process, parents were told.The allegations in the lawsuit are consistent with the findings by the Oregon Department of Human Services. In late 2009, following a seven month investigation, DHS found multiple incidences of “abuse and neglect” and “serious violations of Oregon’s licensing standards.”The DHS report cited nine substantiated claims of abusive practices, including “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing” activities such as “sexualized role pay and reenactment of traumatic events, such as prior physical or sexual abuse.” The state also found that these were not isolated incidents; instead, “many of [the abusive] behaviors fell within the range of behavior expected, encouraged or condoned by the Mount Bachelor Academy program itself . . . .”DHS determined that “MBA poses a serious danger to public health or safety of children . . . [and] should not be permitted to continue operating as a therapeutic boarding school for children.” Thereafter, in November of 2009, the state gave Mt. Bachelor Academy 72 hours to shut down its program and remove students from its facility. The facility closed on November 3, 2009. Later, in October 2010, as part of a settlement of a suit by Mt. Bachelor against the state contesting the DHS findings of abuse, Aspen Education Group and CRC Health Group (the parent company’s of Mount Bachelor Academy) agreed that DHS had reasonable cause to believe that abuse or neglect had occurred at the school, and that DHS had a reasonable basis to investigate and to seek corrective actions.The lawsuit names Mount Bachelor Academy and its parent companies as defendants. Those include Aspen Education Group – a national conglomerate of therapeutic boarding schools which, at its peak had nearly 40 youth programs throughout the United States – as well as Aspen’s parent company, CRC Health Group. CRC Health Group is a large national healthcare corporation owned by Bain Capital, a private equity firm with $65 billion in assets.4Wednesday’s lawsuit is part of a larger response to decades of abuse and mistreatment in so-called “tough love” facilities – both inside and outside of the Aspen Education Group.According to previous news reports, at least four children have died in Aspen-owned facilities since 2004. One of those incidences occurred in Oregon in 2009 – the death of student Sergey Blashchishen during a wilderness hike in the Redmond-based Sagewalk Wilderness School.Blashchishen, a minor at the Sagewalk facility, collapsed in August of 2009 while hiking on his second day Aspen’s Sagewalk program. Staff had reportedly ignored repeated signs of a serious medical problem, and the boy died at the scene. The lead sherif’s investigator on the Sagewalk case recommended that the Lake County district attorney file homicide charges. Sagewalk had previously been the subject of the nationally broadcast ABC television series “Brat Camp” in 2005.As Peter Janci, one of the Plaintiffs’ attorneys explained,“Many ‘tough love’ schools have been a breeding ground for abuse – isolating vulnerable kids and subjecting them to debunked so-called ‘treatments’ by unqualified staff, while their parents are kept in the dark and bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars.”Problems of abuse, injury and even death are present throughout the “tough love” industry. Some reports indicate that more than two dozen teenagers died in such facilities between 1990 and 2001.The lawsuit is one in a growing number of actions by individuals who survived these facilities, only to be left with serious, long-term psychological injuries. Several weeks ago, a civil suit was filed against Silverado Academy in Utah for claims related to a staff member’s sexual abuse of at least 10 boys.Previously, in 2006, attorneys for another group of individuals filed a major lawsuit alleging neglect, fraud and abuse against the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools and related entities. That suit is still pending in federal court in Utah, and now includes 353 plaintiffs who allege they were wronged by therapeutic boarding schools and their related entities.“This is a watershed moment in exposing organizations that have profited from broken promises to desperate families,” said Clark. “We believe that institutions like Mount Bachelor Academy need to be exposed for what they are and held accountable for the permanent damage they have done to the lives of vulnerable teenagers entrusted to their care.”Clark and his firm are among the most prominent child sexual abuse attorneys in the nation, having brought over 300 claims against such organizations as the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, the Boy Scouts of America and dozens of other youth-serving organizations.Clark has twice won landmark child abuse cases at the Oregon Supreme Court, and last year was lead counsel in a six week sex abuse trial against the Boy Scouts of America resulting in a jury verdict of nearly $20 million.—A response from Greg Chaimov, a lawyer with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, on behalf of client Mount Bachelor AcademyWhile we have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the allegations in the complaint filed today, we would like to go on record that Mount Bachelor Academy was successful in resolving the dispute with the Oregon Department of Human Services last fall after abundant evidence was collected that showed the allegations of abuse made to the Department were unfounded.DHS initially took action based on students’ allegations, but withdrew its orders, including the suspension of Mount Bachelor Academy’s license, after further information became available. Given the favorable terms of the settlement agreement, we agreed to dismiss our various legal proceedings against the state. We also independently decided to leave Mount Bachelor Academy closed due to the fact that the sudden and erroneous closure of the campus effectively shut the program down the year prior.For over two decades, Mount Bachelor Academy (MBA) positively changed the lives of over 1,000 troubled young people. MBA was a program specifically designed for troubled students who had failed to progress in other settings. It was designed to help kids confront the worst of their behaviors and take ownership of them, whether that be substance abuse, sexual acting out or other issues. This approach proved successful at producing positive, life-changing – and, in some cases, life-saving – results. The numerous positive testimonials provided by families and students over the years further attest to the success of MBA.MBA and its parent companies never condoned or participated in the mistreatment or deprivation of any students. As we understand, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit attended MBA prior to its acquisition by a nationally recognized network of therapeutic schools and programs that espouse comprehensive best practices and safety protocols. While we cannot comment on specific allegations from individual students due to HIPAA privacy regulations, we vigorously deny any and all charges of mistreatment.

Reading about a recent criminal sex abuse trial in Medford, Oregon recently, I was stunned at what I learned.  A child was asked to "demonstrate" how she was abused by her stepfather, complete with a mattress being brought into the courtroom.  Now, of course, I have no right to an opinion about whether the man is guilty or not.  But, as this well-written Mail Tribune editorial points out, assuming that the child was abused– which is what any judge must do in such a situation– did no one in the courtroom, judge, prosecutor, victim’s advocate, see what this was likely to do to a child who has been abused?  It is the worst kind of re-creation of trauma: done in public with hostile adults standing by ready to shame the child!  I don’t of course question the motive of the judge or prosecutor: I do question their judgment.   It tells me how far we still have to go in helping even the legal profession understand the life-scarring impact of abuse.

As a child sex abuse attorney who has represented many, many victims of priest sexual abuse, Boy Scout sexual abuse, Mormon sexual abuse, and child sexual abuse in a variety of other contexts, I have seen firsthand the deep need that survivors have for a genuine apology from those who harmed them—the perpetrators of the abuse and those in institutional positions of responsibility who failed to protect children from abuse. In my last blog, I posted on the nature of a true apology, and examined some pseudo-apologies, explaining why such half measures do not achieve any healing or forgiveness.  In this post, I want to tell a story of one of the very few true apologies I have ever seen in doing this work, and one of the most genuine apologies I have ever seen in any context.

A number of years ago, the parents of a four year-old little girl came to me deeply distraught at having learned that their daughter, along with several other children, had been repeatedly molested by an employee of a large athletic club, part of a national chain company. This 22 year-old man, who was soon after convicted of multiple counts of child sexual abuse, would often worm his way into the child care area of the club, and was allowed by unsuspecting childcare workers to play with the children.  During this play, he would frequently abuse these small children, as a hidden video camera later showed.  As the situation became clear during the criminal investigation, the parents became convinced that the club had been badly negligent, both in failing to do a full background check on this man, but also in failing to supervise the child care area, as the videos made plain.  The parents wanted accountability and they wanted change, so that this did not happen to anyone else, but they did not want to file a lawsuit if they could avoid it. So we made an out of court claim against the athletic club and they offered to mediate the claim. 

A few months later, after a day with a skillful mediator, we settled the claim—for a confidential amount of money for the future needs of the child. We also secured an agreement that the organization would do a comprehensive review of their child safety policies, bring in outside experts to assist with this project, and include my clients in the process every step of the way, allowing them to have input and to make suggestions.  And—most important of all to the parents—we negotiated that an executive of the company would come to Portland and meet with them face to face, to make a personal apology for the company’s mistakes. “An apology,” I said to the mediator, “not some meely-mouthed statement of regret.” I was thinking of all the half and pseudo apologies I had heard from so many people in positions of responsibility for the safety of children at the end of cases, so many bishops and bureaucrats and insurance executives.

So it was that a few weeks later we had a meeting in my office—the parents, me, two lawyers for the company and the executive.  I must admit, when I was first introduced to the executive, I was disappointed.  I guess I had expected some silver-haired CEO with an air of “top guy”—but instead here was a young woman, not much older than my clients, perhaps in her mid-thirties.  She introduced herself as the “Vice President for Human Resources”—meaning she was in charge of writing policies regarding the supervision of employees.  So, clearly she was the one who would head up the “policy review” process outlined in our settlement.  But who was going to make the apology? I wondered.  It didn’t take long to find out.

(Now, I should say at this point that I recreate this conversation from memory, not notes, which I did not keep, and so I might not have all the dialogue just right. But I remember it like it was yesterday, such an impact it had on me.)

”I’m so glad you agreed to meet with me,” started the young woman, clearly nervous and unsure of herself, “for I am absolutely committed to changing our policies so that nothing like this ever happens again, and we will do whatever it takes to make sure of that.”  Hmmm.  A little blunt, I thought, but so far, so good. 

She was then silent for a long time and looked down.  Her voice changed, she shook her head and looked directly at the parents.  “No, wait…Before we start that process,” said she, “I want to say something first.  I want you to know that I’m a parent, too. I have a five year old, a beautiful five year- old little boy”—at this her eyes started to well with tears– “and I just want you to know that, if this ever happened to my child, I would be so upset, so angry, so enraged, I don’t know what I would do.  I cannot even imagine what your life has been like for the last several months.  So I am here to say how very sorry I am at what happened to your daughter.  I just cannot imagine your pain and anger….”  Now, at this point I expected her to stop, as I had seen happen with so many other organizations, after a representative had given some version of “I’m sorry this happened to you.”   After all, though this young woman was obviously sincere, so far all she had really done was to show deep empathy for what had happened to this family. Now, don’t get me wrong– deep empathy is great, and I wish more organizations would practice it as genuinely as did this executive.  But so far, it wasn’t an apology. It was just an expression of empathy. 

But not for long.

“And I want you to know that I know, and my company knows, that we completely failed you here,  and we failed your daughter”— by now, real tears flowing down her face and her voice breaking—“ and I am so, so sorry. I would give anything if we could go back and prevent what happened to your little girl.  I know that we can’t do that, and so all I can offer you, on my own behalf and on behalf of my company, is a genuine, deep, unconditional apology.  I am and we are very sorry and apologize to you and your daughter.”

You could hear a pin drop. The parents were still. The mother slowly started to speak.  “You know,” she said, “that is all I really wanted to hear.  What you said really matters to me, and I believe you that you and your company are sorry….Thank you.”  “Yeah,” echoed the father softly, “I appreciate your kind words, and I accept your apology.  Now we can all go to work to change things so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”   And so we did, and the organization is now significantly safer for children than it was before.

The power of an apology is an amazing thing, if it is given sincerely and without equivocation, as this story shows.

I agree with the professor that more needs to be done in terms of organizational oversight and accountability within the Church. I also agree that the John Jay Report was by all fair measures an independent research project that was not “rigged” as Plante puts it, by the Catholic bishops.

However, in his article, Professor Plante makes some conclusions that do require clarification and at times, correction. For instance, the John Jay Report is not comprehensive in the sense that it covers every aspect of the priest abuse crisis. It clearly passed over in silence the role the clerical culture played in the sexual abuse of minors. Plante states definitively that celibacy and homosexuality are not causally related to the crisis. While this is true as far as it goes, yet, celibacy, for sure, is an integral part of the Catholic clerical culture. Richard Sipe, perhaps the leading expert in the world on priest abuse and the clerical culture, has done extensive research on the subject of celibacy. As a former priest and a therapist, he has completed a 25 year study on the subject of celibate/sexual behavior of priests specifically.  Thomas Doyle, an ordained Catholic priest is also an highly learned expert on the subject. He has noted that, “…the influence of mandatory celibacy and the sub-culture of which it is an integral part play a major role in the socialization and maturation processes of the men who will eventually violate minors. The clerical culture should have been the subject of the $1.8 million venture because if looked at closely and honestly it would have yielded information that not only provided believable reasons for the abuse nightmare but valuable though radical steps to take to avoid similar travesties in the future.”

Professor Plante also claims, “The study also shows that the vast majority of abuse cases occurred between the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s. Ninety-four percent of all cases happened before 1990 and 70 percent of offenders were ordained before 1970.” This is simply not true. How do I know this? Certainly, it is well documented that the problem of child sexual abuse has haunted the Catholic Church for centuries, even millennia. (Interested readers will want to read “Sex, Priests, and Power,” written by Sipe, Doyle and canon lawyer and former priest Patrick Wall. ) So, for the study to pretend that the “problem” is one that arose in the last decades of the 20th Century is simply disingenuous. Moreover, I have seen too many Catholic Church documents that prove that Church leaders, at least some of them, knew full well the scope of the problem in the US back before 1950.. For example, Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, founded the Paracletes in 1947 in order to deal with those priests who are abusing minors. In 1964, Fitzgerald wrote a letter to a bishop acknowledging that 3 out of every 10 priests he counseled were there for the sexual abuse of minors. In the early 1960’s the same Fr. Fitzgerald wrote a letter to then-Pope Paul VI warning him about the prevalence and sinister nature of priest sexual abuse of minors. Beyond that, I have seen candid letters from the 1950’s from bishops to heads of religious orders making clear that at least some bishops knew only too well about the abuse problem. Even the Vatican issued a letter to the world’s bishops in the early 1960’s about how to deal with the phenomenon of priests abusing minors.

In the Huffington Post article, Professor Plante states that the American Church has received the majority of sexual abuse claims that it will ever receive, because those who’ve been abused have had “incentive” to come forward recently. This statement is somewhat surprising from a psychology professor. For it is virtually beyond serious dispute in the mental health fields that most children aren’t capable of coming forward to talk about their abuse for long periods of time, even decades, because of the traumatic and confusing nature of the abuse itself.

Finally, Plante makes the following comment regarding the sociological make-up of priest abusers, “Let’s also be very clear that the report found that the vast majority of clergy sex offenders are not pedophiles, but rather situational generalists violating whomever they had access to and not seeking out young pre-pubescent children of either gender. They violated whoever was available to them at the time.”

So…. What’s the point? Is a “situational generalist” who abuses children better than a pedophile who does? Should Catholics breathe a sigh of relief about this? I think not. For what remains clear is that priests who abused minors took very specific and calculated steps to target them. These priests groomed their victims by showering them with attention, gifts, special favors, and a certain sense of specialness. The resulting damage—emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually—was profound. So, no matter what label Professor Plante wants to give these priests, they abused children.

I appreciate Dr. Plante’s willingness to share his insights concerning the John Jay Study. However, with respect, I do believe he raises more issues than he answers. The problems with the John Jay study cannot be simply explained away so easily—nor can the problem of priest abuse of children in the Catholic Church.

Now, it may come as a surprise, but I do not think the study is wholly wrong in its basic conclusion– that the pedophilia problem was not "caused" by celibacy or homosexuality. I have written on this very topic before. To state the obvious, the modern problem of abuse of children by priests was caused by extraordinary high numbers of pedophiles in the priesthood– either drawn to the priesthood because of their pedophilia or as "products of the system." Less obvious, the problem was made worse by the Church’s abysmal system for selecting, training and monitoring priests; by a systematic failure of the Church to educate priests about how to live a celibate life and yet still be balanced and whole persons; and by bishops who made the problem worse by recirculating dangerous priests. My friend Richard Sipe, a former priest who has studied and written about the abuse problem in the Church for forty years, and who has testified on behalf of victims in hundreds of cases, has written about all of this extensively– most interestingly that the "cause" is not celibacy.

But the question that the John Jay Study does not answer– indeed the question that John Jay was not apparently asked– is how did the pedophilia "problem" become a full on "scandal," one that not only devastated thousands of innocent children, but also deeply, irrevocably scarred the image and credibility of the Catholic Church? For I take it as a given that society would not have been wholly shocked over the last ten or fifteen years by revelations that the Catholic Church had an active pedophilia problem. Indeed, similar revelations have come out about the Boy Scouts of America, the LDS (Mormon) Church, and other such organizations, and as of yet no great national scandal has resulted. I say this because, as of yet, the public has not yet been saturated with story after story of how the hierarchies of these organizations engaged in a systematic and calculated cover up of the problem. But the "problem" of abuse in the Catholic Church became a worldwide "scandal" once it began to become clear that this was not just a problem of the actions of a number of sick and twisted priests, but was fundamentally a problem of disintegrating spiritual integrity, and the actions of too many bishops, cardinals and others in high places who, over and over again, here, there, and seemingly everywhere, refused to act in the Spirit of Christ and do the right thing. This is the "cause" of the scandal.

And it is truly tragic: not only did it visit unfathomable suffering upon the most vulnerable and innocent members of the Church, the children, but it scarred, perhaps permanently, the respect that society once bestowed upon the Catholic Church. As a Christian, when I hear radical secularists ridiculing Christianity, especially Catholicism, because of the child abuse scandals, I cringe at the knowledge that it was the actions of the Church leadership– at least if not moreso than the actions of the pedophiles themselves– that provided the ammunition for the Church’s enemies to use against it.

So the John Jay study is perhaps not so flawed, at least as far as it goes. The problem is that it does not go far enough. It does not ask the biggest question– not what caused the "pedophilia problem," but rather, what caused the "pedophilia scandal?" It is not John Jay’s fault that they did not answer this question; after all, they were not asked.

"Whether the Church is subject to the laws of civil government" is a strange question as phrased. Granted, there may be a fair question about the extent to which the Church–or any private organization of goodwill– is subject to an unjust law of civil government. But that is not one that can be fairly