On Sept. 30, the Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell released a 203-page report finding that more than 270 Catholic priests abused at least 1,000 children over several decades in the dioceses of Springfield, Worcester and Fall River. The report focuses on how bishops and other church leaders perpetuated child sexual abuse in the past and — shockingly — how they continue to circumvent policies and procedures designed to protect children from sexual abuse by priests.
The report details how bishops and other church leaders:
- transferred abusive priests to new dioceses or parishes without warning parishioners in the new location.
- accepted abusive priests from other dioceses or parishes without notifying parishioners.
- placed abusive priests in unsupervised parish settings.
- failed to properly investigate sexual abuse allegations against priests, and
- failed to notify law enforcement of reports that priests had sexually abused children.
As a result of these actions and failures to act, abusive priests were able to victimize additional children. The AG’s report calls this behavior “intentional, reprehensible, and morally wrong.”
The report identifies ongoing weaknesses in the Catholic church’s response to child sexual abuse, including “lack of independence and authority of the Review Boards charged with evaluating sexual abuse allegations” and deficiencies in “training, investigation of allegations, recordkeeping, and auditing.” In recent years, church leaders have failed to consult Review Boards set up to assess sexual abuse complaints and permitted accused priests to retire rather than investigate and disclose abuse allegations. Bishops failed to defrock abusive priests and didn’t notify the public of their locations to ensure they couldn’t endanger additional children. Instead, the Church financially supported these priests and allowed them to violate restrictions with little, if any, consequences.
The AG report contains 30 pages of victim impact statements. Here is one example: “I was an altar boy. Picture a nine-year-old, a fourth grader, smiling and walking to school. Not a care in mind, thinking of nothing but playing with his friends in a world that was safe and trusting. Now think of that nine-year-old, face down in a mattress, being repeatedly raped by priests. Imagine that boy having his bones broken, sodomized, raped, punched, bit, tortured, brutalized, threatened. Imagine that boy having his soul ripped to pieces by monsters hiding under the cloak of their so-called god. For almost 3 years. I was NINE! A small, innocent, terrified fourth grade child.” Many more horrific stories are at BishopAccountability.org, the largest public library of information on Catholic clergy abuse.
The Catholic Church has evaded accountability for these crimes because of laws in Massachusetts limiting how long after an event a legal case can be filed. In her report, Attorney General Campbell calls for the elimination of these limits for civil claims involving child sexual abuse and an indefinite lookback period to give survivors whose civil claims have already expired an opportunity to file lawsuits. Additionally, the report called on Massachusetts legislators to eliminate the $20,000 “charitable immunity cap” for civil claims involving child sexual abuse. This cap has allowed the Catholic church to dodge financial responsibility for its systemic role in the abuse of children.
The Catholic Church has fought against these kinds of reforms designed to help survivors of sexual abuse. Between 2011 and 2019, the Church spent $10.6 million in eight Northeastern states to lobby against such laws. Another strategy the Church uses to avoid accountability is to file bankruptcy so they don’t have to pay court-ordered penalties to victims of clergy sex abuse.
Instead of taking responsibility for priests’ sexual abuse of children, bishops are campaigning for a ballot referendum to criminalize abortion in Massachusetts, which would greatly harm women’s health and lives. Church leaders are trying to impose their religious doctrines by law on people with different beliefs, while evading responsibility for their ongoing, decades-long scourge of child sexual abuse of children by priests.
Lauren Bailey with Catholics for Choice said, “Faithful Catholics in Massachusetts deserve church leaders dedicated to pastoral care, not partisanship… Instead of tending to survivors, the bishops are spending their time and our money actively opposing abortion and reproductive health access. These priorities are gravely misplaced. It is beyond time for the church’s leaders to center people’s lives and well-being over political crusades.”
I think the bishops should reflect on why their patriarchal institutions and religious doctrines have supported horrific child sexual abuse for so long — and engage in fundamental reforms to end this abuse and the cover-ups that have perpetuated it.
When releasing the report, Attorney General Campbell said, “No institution should ever put its own reputation and interests above the safety and wellbeing of its constituents, especially children.”
Passing laws to hold organizations liable when they cover up child sexual abuse is a critical step toward ending child sexual abuse. Please contact your legislators now and ask them to support the legislation recommended by the Massachusetts Attorney General.
Carrie N. Baker is a professor in the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Smith College and a regular contributor to Ms. Magazine.