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23 April 2008

The Pope in America ; Broken Rites on WYD 2008; Kyogle's Three-year Buddhist retreat ends

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US reaction to the pope's apology from the heart; Fr Tom Doyle OP, one of the leading figures who drew attention the abuse crisis, discusses a "break-through moment" for the American Church.

Transcript


Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Tom Doyle OP on the Pope in America
Dr Wayne Chamley of Broken Rites on World Youth Day
Kyogle's three-year Buddhist retreat

Stephen Crittenden: Welcome to the program.

We had to make some tough decisions this morning because we had enough material for two programs. So rather than butcher the interviews we do have, I've decided to hold over our advertised item on the life and times of Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo until next week.

Lopez Trujillo died at the weekend. He was the guy who caused international uproar a few years ago when he appeared on the BBC Panorama program claiming that HIV was small enough to pass through the latex of a condom. Paul Collins has written that 'It is a serious scandal that such a person of ill-repute could be a cardinal ...'

So we'll leave that till next week, and instead this week we're looking at Pope Benedict's extraordinarily successful visit to the United States where he spoke in a very direct and heartfelt way about the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

Pope Benedict: It is in the context of this hope born of God's love and fidelity that I acknowledge the pain which the church in America is experiencing as a result of the sexual abuse of minors. No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse. It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention. Nor can I adequately describe the damage that has occurred within the community of the church. Great efforts have already been made to deal honestly and fairly with this tragic situation, and to ensure the children whom our Lord loves so deeply, and who are our greatest treasure, can grow up in a safe environment. These efforts to protect children must continue.

Stephen Crittenden: Not only did the Pope refer to the abuse crisis repeatedly, while he was in the United States, he also met privately with some of the victims.

Olan Horne: I gave him pictures of me as a child, the innocent child, and said, 'I want you to leave these on your desk. When you come to a point or a decision that you have to make, don't protect me, protect the 9-year-old child in that photo.' And it was obvious that if you were looking at your grandmother or your grandfather, the sincerity in his eyes.

Bernard McDade: And then I told him that he has a cancer growing in his ministry and needs to do something about it, and I hope he hears me right, and I touched his heart, and he nodded.

Stephen Crittenden: Olan Horne and Bernard McDade, speaking after their meeting with Pope Benedict in Washington D.C. at the weekend.

Well to present his perspective on the Pope's apology it is a great honour to bring you one of the few real heroes of this terrible saga, a legendary figure almost.

Tom Doyle is a Dominican priest and a former chaplain and lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force, a canon lawyer who wrote the section on marriage in Pope John Paul II's revised Code of Canon Law from 1983.

Twenty-five years ago he was warning the US bishops and the Vatican about the catastrophe of clerical sexual abuse, but those reports went unheeded. He has been working on behalf of the victims ever since.

His story is told in one of the most important books about the John Paul pontificate, 'Vows of Silence' by Jason Berry and Gerald Renner, which has just been made into a documentary film.

In a recent speech Tom Doyle described the Catholic church in the United States as 'a swamp of toxic waste', and he accused the US bishops of running 'a self-serving public relations campaign by which they continue to try to flip the whole mess around, make themselves look like victims and demonise anyone who has ever challenged their collective stupidity, cruelty and total lack of compassion.'

Tom Doyle, welcome to the program. Do these repeated apologies by Pope Benedict and his decision to meet with some of the victims, represent a real breakthrough moment in the clerical abuse crisis?

Tom Doyle: I think it is a breakthrough moment in a number of ways. I think it's a breakthrough moment because he did more, said more, and communicated more truly human concern in six days that Pope John Paul II did in 25 years with regard to the issue of sexual abuse of clergy, and you have to remember that although this has been front and centre in people's concerns and in the media since 2002, the public awareness of the issue has been going on since at least 1984, starting in the United States.

Stephen Crittenden: You even were involved at that time.

Tom Doyle: I was very much involved.

Stephen Crittenden: Warning the Vatican.

Tom Doyle: Yes. And the Bishops Conference in the United States. And they knew it. And there were several major explosions since then that received a tremendous amount of media coverage over here, but they would always subside, and we'd lose the momentum somehow or other. Boston January 2002, the momentum has not stopped.

Stephen Crittenden: Was this apology something that also had to happen? Because if it hadn't happened, it would have cast a pall over the entire trip.

Tom Doyle: I think that's a good observation and I totally agree. There was a lot of skepticism when the trip was announced months ago, would he say anything about this issue? Would he do anything about this issue? Then even up to just before the trip started, the feeling was that he would probably mention it at least once, possibly once or twice. But there was skepticism that anything concrete would happen.

Stephen Crittenden: I must say I was very surprised that he actually met with victims. I wasn't expecting that at all.

Tom Doyle: I was very surprised myself. I know the people that he met with, they're good people, they were deeply, deeply harmed, they're brave, articulate and I'm sure in private minced no words with him. Which is what we needed. But the hope is, my hope, is that the impression not be given that because the Pope said all these things, and because he met with victims, that this is it, it's now solved, the problem is ended, we can move away from it and stop worrying about it, because it didn't solve, if anything it pushed the reality of sexual dysfunction but even more important than that, the cover-up by the hierarchy pushed it back into centre stage.

Stephen Crittenden: In fact you've accused the American bishops of running a public relations exercise over the sexual abuse crisis, trying to cast themselves as the victims. I mean is there any sense in which the Pope's apology during this visit feeds into that?

Tom Doyle: I read carefully most of what he said. He did say that he felt bad about the effect it's had on the communities, but unlike John Paul II, he didn't say how much it affected him, and how sorry he was for the pain it's causing his brother bishops. Because one of the things, that's one of my criticisms with everything he said, he should have just directly dealt with the intense pain and destruction it has caused to victims, especially, and their parents. And that should have been acknowledged, explicitly and directly.

But again, I realise he is the Pope and he comes from a whole culture where everything stars with and ends with bishops. I mean the whole Catholic culture is based on bishops, and in reality the vast majority of the members of the Catholic church are not bishops, they're not even priests, they're -

Stephen Crittenden: In that context would you agree that perhaps the most dramatic phrase that he uttered about the abuse crisis was when he agreed that it had sometimes been very badly handled.

Tom Doyle: Yes. That was an admission that took a lot of courage for him to say that because it's absolutely true, and my criticism of the American bishops - and they do use very expensive public relations firms to help them craft every move and every word they say about this issue, that is a known fact. And they have tried to turn it around to make it appear that the victims and their attorneys are trying to penalise them as individuals, and that they're causing all these problems for the institutional church, forcing them to have to close down schools and other ministries. None of which is true.

Stephen Crittenden: Is there anything that he said that now becomes a directive in a sense, to the bishops, that all of that that you're describing now has to change?

Tom Doyle: I think what I would hope, and again we'll see how this plays out in reality, but I will tell you that those of us who are strong advocates for victims are going to use certain things he said to remind the bishops that first off, he talked very clearly about a pastoral response to the victims and their families. That's one thing that the bishops have not done, is offered any form of a true pastoral response. Generally, now there are exceptions, there have been some bishops in this country who are really good, and there've been bishops in your country who've been outstanding, and one of them is going to be coming over here, Bishop Geoff Robinson, who has been prophetic. I wonder if they even know how to offer an authentic pastoral response to the people who've been harmed through the sexual and spiritual betrayal. And I've been doing this for 20 years, so I have a little bit of awareness of what's on the other side, what you're dealing with and how to do it. So I think that's one thing. He talked about that.

Stephen Crittenden: Did he sidestep the question of the responsibility of Rome itself? And perhaps also sidestep the fact that this abuse crisis is not just limited to the United States. You know, listening to some of the things he said, you got that impression.

Tom Doyle: I would say yes he sidestepped the very hurtful, destructive reaction of a number of Vatican officials over the years. He sidestepped the responsibility of the Papacy and the official Vatican reaction as well, and he certainly did not even get into the responsibility of the bishops in this country and other countries for enabling abusers, for lying about it, for re-victimising the victims. He sidestepped that completely. The major problem not only in this country, but in other countries, with the observers, the lay people, the victims, is not so much the sexual abuse itself by dysfunctional priests, that certainly isn't a grave problem, but what has caused more anger and more rage on the part of many, has been the lack of adequate and responsible response by the bishops.

Stephen Crittenden: Tom, I read a very interesting comment in one of the magazines just before his arrival in the United States, suggesting that his visit was not so much about a comparison between Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II, as it was about a comparison between Benedict and his former self, Cardinal Josef Ratzinger. A lot of people hold Cardinal Ratzinger responsible for mishandling of the sex abuse crisis, right at the very top in Rome. Is that fair?

Tom Doyle: I think it's not fair, because I don't think he is responsible. What I would say is he ran the Office for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He would have seen many of the cases that were sent over there, but the bishops in their dioceses what they have told the Vatican what they're doing, is almost diametrically opposed in many instances to what they're really doing. In other words, they're not telling the truth. Now a lot of people point to the fact that they said that he was involved in a special document that came out in 2001 of procedural rules and that this was a conspiracy to cover it up. That's not true at all. They've misunderstood that. I'm not covering up for, or making excuses for the hierarchy at all because they're primarily responsible for this nightmare that we've been in. But in Ratzinger's case, he could possibly have taken more direct, decisive action with the Pope. In his favour I will say this much: Pope John Paul II personally did not take any action with regard to this problem, because he didn't want to offend priests, he didn't want to turn them off, or something of this nature. Secondly, he continued to cover for and promote and sponsor Father Maciel Degolado who was the Head of the Legionaries of Christ, who was a known sexual abuser of young men. And Pope John Paul II caused the canonical process of investigation into him to be short-circuited, to be stopped, and people blamed Ratzinger for doing that, but it wasn't Ratzinger, Ratzinger just got the order to cease and desist. After he became Pope -

Stephen Crittenden: Things changed.

Tom Doyle: Things changed. He fired the guy, and he did take some very serious punitive action against him.

Stephen Crittenden: We should say also that Maciel died just a few weeks ago, in the United States, interestingly enough.

Tom Doyle: He died in the United States. He'd been living in Mexico, he died in the United States, and it's also interesting to note that when he died, the Vatican made absolutely no mention, no statement, no nothing.

Stephen Crittenden: Final question, it's the obvious question: You've made the point that what you and the victims want to see now is action, not words. What actually has to happen from this point in the American situation?

Tom Doyle: Well I look at it two ways. One thing that I've been very concerned about in my contacts with victims for many, many years, I don't think the institutional church, the Pope and the bishops, understand the depth of the spiritual damage that has been done to these people and they need to do much more to find out what that is, and to find ways to help heal it. Now most of the victims do not ever want to go near a priest or a Catholic church again. I'm somewhat successful in dealing with the spiritual dimension of it, not because I try to get them back in church, but I simply listen to them and try to help them find some contact, some spiritual contact with something that's going to be able to fill that void. So that's one thing.

Secondly, there are still waves of people coming forward who were abused sometimes recently, but many times most of them many years ago because they can't come forward, and the bishops need to understand this and support these people.

Third, I think what is absolutely necessary is some action. There have been in this country alone 19 bishops who've retired who have been accused of sexual abuse themselves, and nothing has happened to them. They're living in comfortable retirement.

Stephen Crittenden: These are bishops who have been personally accused of sexual abuse.

Tom Doyle: Yes, personally accused, and not only accused, but it's been demonstrated that it's been true. The other thing is that in the United States we're trying to get legislation passed in several of the States that would be more friendly towards victims, and make it much more difficult for sexual abusers to continue to do what they do. We call them Statutes of Limitation, we're trying to get those changed so that people can bring their suits to court and identify the abusers. The strongest opposition to this in every State I've been involved in where we've had a fight, has been the Catholic church, the Catholic bishops. They've done everything they could do to oppose any civil laws that will help victims, and that's hypocritical.

Stephen Crittenden: One last question, and this will really be the last one, and that is, from this distance it seems to me that the priesthood in the United States has borne the brunt of this whole crisis, probably that's justly so. But that the other side of the story is that there was an enormous clamour in 2002 that bishops like Cardinal Bernard Law and Mahoney in Los Angeles who'd moved people around, and there were many, many of those bishops, needed to be brought to justice too. You mentioned a moment ago bishops who had actually been involved personally in abuse, but this is something else. That actually did not happen, that seems to me to be a very big part of this story. What happens there now, if anything?

Tom Doyle: I think that's a massive part of the story, and I fully agree. I think those men are more culpable than the ones who did the actual sexual abuse themselves. Not one of these bishops who was covered, knowingly covered, and who has lied. There are bishops who have lied under oath in civilian courts. Cardinal Mahoney in Los Angeles being a prime example. Nothing has happened to them.

Stephen Crittenden: Have the various State administrations basically walked away from that?

Tom Doyle: Well one of the problems is, there have been several in the United States, there have been several State justice systems where they wanted to bring charges against bishops, and indict them, and actually charge them with negligent supervision and some other charges that we have in our own law, and in each instance there's been tremendous political pressure, brought on the District Attorneys, the civil attorneys, not to do this. But worse than that, there has been no action by the Vatican to force any of these bishops to resign. And that is what I think is horrendous, because if any one of these bishops promoted something that was doctrinal, let's say you get a bishop who publicly says, 'I don't agree with the church's teaching and birth control' he's going to be fired the next day. But if they enable priests to rape and pillage and abuse and sodomise vulnerable children, young boys and girls, or vulnerable adult women which is another major problem, nothing happens.

Stephen Crittenden: Great to have you on the program.

Tom Doyle: Thank you so much.

Stephen Crittenden: Father Tom Doyle.

Well here in Australia the victims support group, Broken Rites, says that when Pope Benedict comes to Sydney for World Youth Day, he should consider a similar apology to the thousands of Australian victims of abuse. Here's Dr Wayne Chamley.

Wayne Chamley: In a few weeks time Pope Benedict XVI will arrive in Australia for the World Youth Day 2008. No doubt he will receive briefings about recent events and changes that have taken place in Australia, including a newly-elected Labor government, and a new Prime Minister, who has already apologised to the Stolen Generation, and recently spoke his mind to the Chinese leadership about their record on human rights and the treatment of the Tibetan people.

Hopefully he will also have been briefed by the Australian bishops about the significant number of Australians who consider that the Pope owes them an apology, or at the very least an explanation for the abuse, sexual, physical and psychological, which they experienced as children at the hands of professed and ordained members of the Catholic church.

Over the past week, during his visit to the United States, Pope Benedict spoke repeatedly about his regret for the abuse suffered by thousands of victims in the United States. He also met and prayed with several victims. This action on the part of the Pope has been appreciated by victims, and the main advocacy groups.

Victims in Australia will be anxious to see if the Pope will make the same gesture during his visit to "Australia.

By now, Pope Benedict ought to have been advised that the victims here in Australia number in their thousands, that the abuse they suffered was allowed to go on for decades, and that there are many people in Australia, baptized Catholics as well as non-Catholics, whose adult lives have been blighted by these childhood experiences. Testimony in several criminal trials has established that in Australia, as in the United States, there were some bishops and heads of religious orders who knew what was going on and either did nothing, or moved the offender to another location, where further criminal activity could be carried out.

The Pope may not have heard of Father Gerald Ridsdale. Over decades, Ridsdale was moved from parish to parish throughout Western Victoria, by Bishop Ronald Mulkearns of Ballarat. The Senior Detective who investigated this case estimated that Ridsdale had abused 1,000 children. The Pope will not have heard of Father Kevin O'Donnell, a parish priest and an active paedophile, for 50 years. He too abused hundreds of boys and girls. Nor will he have heard of Father Frank Klepp, of the Order of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who was transferred to Western Samoa until being deported back to Australia in 2004. He will not have been told about the activities of at least a dozen paedophile brothers and priests of the St John of God Order. They cared for boys with varying degrees of intellectual disability in Victoria, New South Wales and in New Zealand; all manner of criminal acts were carried out in four homes for boys. Amongst the survivors in Victoria, the suicide rate is nearly 20 times the national figure.

In a separate but related issue, because it involves the exercise of power by the strong over the weak and vulnerable, Pope Benedict may also want to apologise to the generations of orphans, children of poor parents, and child migrants who suffered abuse, exploitation and cruelty in homes run by church charities. Included in this number are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of girls and unmarried mothers who were unofficially placed into convent-run homes where cruelty and violence were commonplace, and where some were worked as virtual slaves in convent-run laundries.

Has Pope Benedict been briefed about the Sisters of Mercy Orphange at Neerkol in Queensland, and the group of Irish nuns who conducted a reign of terror against orphan children, some as young as 3 and 4 years of age?

Over the past 14 years, Broken Rites has been contacted by about 3,500 persons. Working with contacts has resulted in about 105 convictions in Australian courts, and we have been informed about many, many more acts against children that have not gone to court. So many people's lives have been destroyed, opportunities and happiness foregone, and faith extinguished.

The Pope should also acknowledge past failure by the Vatican in regard to the situation in Australia. At the Synod of Oceania held in Rome in 1998, Australian bishops raised a number of issues. Bishop Geoffrey Robinson appealed for more work to be done to prevent sexual abuse by priests. Bishop Robinson pointed out that 'Sexual, physical and psychological abuse by priests and religious has become a major obstacle to preaching the Gospel in Oceania.' Writing in his recently-published book "Confronting power and sex in the Catholic church :Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus", Bishop Robinson clearly feels that he was not adequately supported by Rome. An apology from Pope Benedict will indicate to victims and their families, that at last, the one person who can confront the church hierarchy in Australia now knows and understand what has gone on, and has been allowed to go on.

Stephen Crittenden: Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites.

Well less than an hour ago, a China Airlines plane from Jakarta carrying the Olympic torch touched down at the RAAF base outside Canberra, and the city is in virtual lockdown. This of course is just in case there's any more pro-Tibet protesters keen to snuff out the Olympic torch.

Meanwhile, in northern New South Wales last week at the Vajragara Gonpa near Kyogle, 23 Tibetan Buddhists have just finished a three-year long retreat, and yes, I did say a three-year retreat.

Mel McMillan has the story.

DRUMS/BELLS/CYMBALS/RECITATION

Mel McMillan: You're listening to the Tibetan prayer, The White Tara, being recited for the first time in English and Tibetan simultaneously. The prayer marks the end of a 39-month long retreat at the Vajradara Gonpa in Northern New South Wales.

Here at the bush Gonpa, 23 retreatants have spent over three years in seclusion, un der the guidance of Zionzay Khyentse Rinpoche .Today the retreatants are re-entering the world. And to help them in their transition, 180 Buddhists have gathered at the Gonpa.

The temple's founder Kathy Chaudrin, says the ceremony has been going all week.

Kathy Chaudrin: The drubchen or accomplishment practice that we've been doing around the clock 24 hours a day, is being done for the first time in English as well as Tibetan. Originally our teacher Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche felt that it would be good to have it done just in English, but it seemed to be preferable once we tried to have the Tibetan as well, because it adds a lot of richness.

CHANTING/GONGS/BELLS/DRUMS

Mel McMillan: One of the retreatants is a former Sydney psychotherapist, Brigit Gebby who says she undertook the retreat to try and discover what life is all about.

Brigit Gebby: I trained as a psychotherapist so I've always been interested and wanting to know how it is, what actually is it all about. What is behind it all, you know, yes, that's been my interest ever since I was a tiny child, I've asked questions about that.

Mel McMillan: How has it changed you?

Brigit Gebby: I think I came in with an enormous amount of self concern and sensitivity about how I was in the world and about other people, that sort of thing, that's really I could say pretty much fallen away. Sorry, that's a very comfortable, physical, mental emotional place to be. I feel free. I feel free.

Mel McMillan: Three years is a very long time to go on a retreat. Did you ever want to leave?

Brigit Gebby: It just seemed endless sometimes. Because I got up every morning at 3, and I must be asleep by 8 if I possibly can, that sort of thing, and sometimes it just seemed like you're very stuck, and then there'd be a sort of a release, an opening I guess, and then you'd sort of be inspired to continue. But the guru's really always there in the background to be inspiration, and mostly what I came here about was before I met Buddhism, my mother was dying, she lived a really good life. But as she was dying, she said to me, 'What was it all about?' and I was a psychotherapist and I thought I was supposed to know what it was all about, and I realised I didn't know anything. And that's what this is about. And this is what it is for all people, What is it all about? You know, if they actually stopped and they looked at their lives, what is it? This underlying sort of insecurity, isn't it, and fear.

Mel McMillan: What is it all about?

Brigit Gebby: Ah, ha. Freedom. Freedom from that, freedom from that concern.

Stephen Crittenden: That report from Mel McMillan.

Before we go, a brief correction to our story on Scientology last week. I referred to James Packer as the owner of the Nine Network, when of course these days he only has 25%. But my hypothetical question still stands: given his continuing stake in Nine, would it be surprising if we began to see senior managers at Nine converting to Scientology?

Well that's all from me, Stephen Crittenden.


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