Faith, allegations clash for Catholics
Church members in Houston troubled as abuse accusations continue to surface
Anna Donnelly has trusted the Catholic Church her entire life. But that trust was shaken after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a massive report detailing decades of clergy sex abuse and institutional cover up in the state.
“I think a lot of people throughout the world hold the church as this sort of light,” Donnelly, a senior at the University of St. Thomas Houston, said after Mass this week at the campus’ Chapel of St. Basil. “So for there to be spots of darkness within the light is scary.”
The report — which comes 16 years after the uncovering of widespread clergy sex abuse in Boston — has caused a rift within the Catholic community internationally and in the Houston area. Some members remain committed to and involved in the church, saying that the accused, at the end of the day, are simply human beings.
Others have expressed dissatisfaction with how individual dioceses have addressed the scandals. Nevertheless, the same question has been asked repeatedly: What will the institution do to prevent abuse in the future, or will it do anything at all?
Last week, Pope Francis found his trip to Ireland overshadowed by a former Vatican official’s accusation that the pontiff knew about past sexual misconduct by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick since 2013 and rehabilitated him despite sanctions imposed on McCarrick several years prior.
Francis declined to comment on the claims by former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, which were published by two conservative Catholic news outlets.
“I will not say a word,” he told journalists.
Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation as cardinal last month after a church investigation found “credible” evidence that he had once molested a minor. And the pope issued a far-reaching apology Sunday for the church’s “crimes” in Ireland against women and children who suffered abuse over generations.
The Pennsylvania grand-jury report, which was released two weeks ago, details allegations
against more than 300 “predator priests” and says there were at least 1,000 child victims, and likely far more.
“My first reaction was disgust,” said Joseph Aquila, an alumnus of the University of St. Thomas. “I remember growing up with the 2002 reports and realizing that was a reality, but never judging the priests.”
Aquila said too many good priests have guided him in life for him to “generalize and condemn the entire church.”
“I think it’s important to understand these individuals who commit these crimes, or allow this institution to be one which covers up these abuses, are still fundamentally human,” he said.
Marea Quintero, an alumna and frequent attendee of Mass at St. Basil’s, also made the point that abusive priests are human beings, which she called a “defect.” And while the news upset her, she never thought to leave the Church.
She brought up a scripture they had recently gone through about Jesus asking his apostles, “Are you also going to leave me?”
“And Peter said, ‘Who would we go to?’” Quintero said. “That’s how I also feel — who else would we go to?”
Others aren’t so forgiving. Michael Norris was molested by Father Joseph Hemmerle, a Roman Catholic priest, at a Kentucky summer camp in 1973. He reported the abuse to the Church in 2001, “expecting them to do the right thing,” he said. It took another 15 years — and another accuser from the camp coming forward – until Hemmerle was convicted.
“I found quickly they weren’t going to do the right thing, which forced me to go to the police,” Norris said of church officials.
“They protected the priest; they hired the best lawyer in town. It’s probably the most disappointing thing in my life, how the Catholic Church reacted to my abuse.”
Norris, who is now the leader of the Houston chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says that the entire Catholic Church is corrupt.
“There’s not a bishop, archbishop, cardinal in the world that doesn’t have blood on their hands,” he said. “They’ve been covering this stuff up for years, and every time someone digs into a diocese they find this kind of filth.”
In Houston alone, there are three priests who have been credibly accused of abuse who are still in service, according to Bishop Accountability, a nonprofit group that works with SNAP to track clergy abuse and allegations.
Norris said it’s time for the Church to “open their books up.” He called on attorneys general nationwide to launch similar investigations into dioceses.
The Archdiocese of GalvestonHouston serves more than 1.7 million Catholics, according to church figures. Nationally, about one in five U.S. adults identify as Catholic. However, church attendance has declined sharply since the 1950s, with a recent Gallup survey finding that about two in five Catholics had attended Mass in the past seven days.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, who earlier this month said the handling of the McCarrick case represented “a grievous moral failure within the Church,” released a statement Monday calling for conclusive answers in the matter.
“(The plan of action) includes more detailed proposals to: seek out these answers, make reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops easier, and improve procedures for resolving complaints against bishops,” he wrote.
Mark Vallone, who attends St. Anthony of Padua in The Woodlands, found DiNardo’s letter to be “more of the same.”
“I have not been impressed by the diocesan response, and I have a lot of questions regarding some of the priests that were investigated for very serious accusations that are still priests in Houston,” Vallone wrote in an email.
Back at the University of St. Thomas, the sunlight faded from the chapel with pure, white walls for a moment as Father Chris Valka offered a prayer “in light of difficulties facing the Church” and for “all those who are suffering from abuse.”
At the end of the homily, Donnelly stood firm in her commitment to the Church.
“It’s my responsibility to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and the only way I can do that is by making sure I keep going to Mass,” she said. “Because I don’t stay in the Church for bishops, I don’t stay in the Church even for the Pope, I stay in the Church for God.”