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Media Coverage of Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church
In her introductory remarks, Vincentian Sister Mary Ann Flannery,
Communications Chairperson, noted the significant number of graduates the university sends into the media and explained how she and her colleagues thought it important to help these students critique their faith and their profession.
"You can critique what you love and then love it all the more," she said. "because the Church will return your love with grace, forgiveness and growth, and the media will serve the public more truthfully, more compassionately because you cared."
Peter Steinfels began by quoting from articles he wrote nearly a decade ago, articles that could have been written this year. His criticism of his own profession centered on the tendency of the media to reduce a complex situation into too-simple statements and to pursue the story too much of the time from the accuser's point-of-view.
Doug Clifton described his newspaper's responsibilities with four metaphors: The PD, he said, is a "mirror," primarily to what happens in the region; a spotlight that shines brightly on one small area of the stage, very often an area of failure, leaving everything else in the dark; a watchdog that pays close attention when people in authority don't behave in the way expected of them; and a "surrogate citizen," taking the time to perform the research and other study that the average person does not have the resources to do. He said he thought
Cleveland's Bishop Anthony Pilla responded in a way "that was respectful of the Church, respectful of the people who worship there, respectful of the victims and respectful of the priests who had been accused."
Dick Russ, describing himself as a faithful Catholic, called the story the "most difficult challenge I've had in 30 years of broadcast journalism" and one that generated more viewer reaction to him personally than any he'd ever covered. He noted the difficulty in covering a complex story with a limited staff especially when the available facts on the story ranged from too few to too many.
Sister Sharon Euart referred to the recent decisions made by the U.S. bishops to prevent this scandal from happening again, adding, however, that the success depends not on the words they spoke but on the actions tht flow from those words. She criticized the media for failing to acknowledge the complex responsibilities borne by the bishop.
"A bishop cannot fire a priest," Sister
Euart stated, but the bishop can remove him from his duties only by strict adherance
to the prescribed canonical law. She also noted that, prior to the
scandal, civil authorities often shied away from investigating cases of
alleged misconduct by priests. There also was a lack of clear evidence in
many cases. "What is clear in hindsight may not have been so clear when
the bishops were trying to sort out the facts."
She also explained that the Conference of
Bishops is not the legislative body it has often been portrayed to be,
having had, in the past, no direct authority over the dioceses. Among the
steps the Conference took in response to the emerging scandal was to ask
the Vatican to extend the canonical statute of limitations in cases of
sexual abuse to minors from 5 years to 10, and to raise the "age of
majority" from 16 to 18 years, in order to apply to priests who previously
would not have been subject to Church discipline. She noted the Conference
has asked the Vatican to approve the so-called "Dallas norms" requiring
every U.S. diocese to establish a written policy for assistance to
victims, to appoint an individual charged with that responsibility, to
appoint a largely lay review board to oversee these cases, and to
permanently remove from the ministry any priest guilty of even a single
act of abuse to a minor.
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