2002
I received a lot of response from the previous week’s column on accountability and the Catholic Church. Since then, the big summit with the Pope and American cardinals took place at the Vatican. Many others aside from the Catholic community hoped that a zero tolerance policy would emerge from this historic gathering. However, instead of taking ownership of the problem and its inevitable solutions, the Pope and the Catholic Church hierarchy chose to behave like an Enron - get out the smoke and mirrors and accelerate the public relations campaign. Hope and trust have turned into disappointment and anger.
It was the ultimate betrayal of trust and a miscarriage of justice for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The policy that was hammered out dealt mainly with the dismissal of priests who engage in “serial, predatory sexual abuse of minors.” Those first two words bring a certain nothingness to the policy. Serial? Is that two, ten, twenty offenses? Who gets to determine when the behavior becomes serial? Predatory? Does that mean you have to prove intent? Or as I quoted a Holy One last week, no harm is done if there was no “passion” in the act.
More and more dirt is being uncovered or at least being made public. I heard one Catholic nun on TV refer to a scandal some years ago involving priests and sexual abuse of nuns. The incidents were happening in Africa, and when the Church finally finished its investigations, twenty-six other countries were involved. This means that this deviant behavior is institutionalized. In the last twenty years, you could easily have millions of victims, worldwide.
I can’t believe for a second that since most of the victims coming forth are from twenty and thirty years ago that there aren’t current victims, or that since most of those victims who have gone public are white, that there aren’t any black, brown or yellow victims. Almost as disturbing as the acts and conspiracy to cover them up is the response of so-called law enforcement. The issue is being discussed as if it is the sole decision of the Church to determine what should happen to violators. These folks have broken the law!
With few exceptions, no prosecutors have expressed the need to initiate any investigations. They seem to be very comfortable with waiting for the Church to offer up any suspects. Even John “Cover-the-naked-lady-statue-because-my-religious-eyes-can’t-stand-the-sight-of-her” Ashcroft has taken a passive stand on the massive law breaking. He is the chief law enforcer of the land. My strong recommendation to parishioners is to take the matter up at their own churches. Find out who the children are who were made to be faceless and voiceless over the years. Find out who the families are who were convinced that their child was the only child affected and that by moving a priest, the problem had been properly dealt with. Find out who received hush money because they were persuaded that anything else would bring havoc and shame to the whole church.
And who could carry that kind of burden on top of the suffering they were already enduring? The backlash is already unfolding, at least financially. Catholic Charities in Boston is opening up angry refusal letters to their annual Easter drive. The Catholic Church must respond in truth and humility to those who look to it for spiritual rejuvenation, social services and life teachings. No authority can be allowed to destroy lives and break the law, whether it is society’s laws or the holy doctrine in which you believe.
Postscript: The Rev. Msgr. Vernon E. Gardin, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, expressed his concern in response to The Betrayal of Public Trust (July 19, 2007). In his letter to Jamala, the Catholic leader believed the article distorted “a complex situation in an easy, cavalier way” and that the Catholic Church had done their best to address the issue of child sexual abuse.
Unfortunately, the facts don’t bear out that the Church did their best to address the horrendous issue of child sexual abuse. In 2004, a John Jay report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops exposed the tip of a wicked iceberg. It revealed that in a 50 year period, 10,667 allegations of sexual abuse were made involving nearly 4,400 priests. We also know that churches have paid out more than $2 billon (and counting) in victim compensation. To many - victims, their families, parishioners and concerned citizens - the Vatican has not fully and openly addressed sex abuse which will create the environment for continued abuse.
Dumping on Po’ Folks
May, 2004
Bill Cosby, renowned entertainer and philanthropist, took the opportunity to throw some daggers at working class black folks at the recent NAACP event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Some of it may have been taken out of context as the media generally does. Some of it may have been righteous frustration at the state of young black folks. The bottom line is that when someone of Cosby’s caliber says something for public consumption, it needs to be well thought out and responsibly accurate. I, too, get frustrated with the lack of substantial progress of black people. That is because I love my people and want the best for them. I want to see them fulfill their dreams and aspirations. I want them to take their place in the world as empowered and critically-thinking Africans. I am acutely aware that the powers-that-be are also working hard to suppress any vision, independence or quest for power.
Sadly, poor black folks are the most dumped on class in this society. Their status seems to shout out that they are vulnerable to exploitation by any and everyone, including those in their own race. Let’s ask the right questions about the factors that influence the quality of life for poor and working class African-Americans. Do poor folks own and control the drugs, guns and other vices that come into our community? Are they elected to positions that make laws and policies that often favor the status quo? Do they own and control the industry that targets them specifically and pumps out negative images non-stop via movies, TV, music, music videos and the like? Have they ever controlled the dollars supposedly for poor people’s upliftment, starting with the Model Cities program to the current so-called war on poverty programs? Do they control the job market that often spits educated, experienced black folks to the unemployment line in favor of maintaining jobs for white people? Do they control the educational systems that are supposed to prepare them for becoming productive, contributing citizens? Do they control the Prison Industrial Complex which, through the collaboration of the police and courts, sucks in non-violent, misguided youth and returns them to the community as seasoned predators? When was the last time the black middle class embraced a critique of their role in the abandonment of a community that once shared a common vision and values?
When it comes to a perspective on poor folks, too many middle class and rich blacks have adopted that of racist white folks. They have left the black community at warp speed and interact with lower class blacks mainly as consumers in the market place, especially if they are entrepreneurs. To ease their guilt, they give money to programs in the “ghetto” for those poor kids, their single mamas and missing daddies. But when it comes to making a real transformation in the power dynamics that create an underclass, there is little activity by the black folks with the money, positions, power and influence.
Bill Cosby’s son, Enis, didn’t die from a drive-by shooting by Crips or Bloods. His murder was the manifestation of racial hatred produced daily in the USA. When people like Cosby criticize young, black men for choosing $500 Nike shoes over educational programs, he would seem more sincere if he called out Michael Jordan as the so-called role model who single-handedly brought Nike into our community. Maybe he could even start a campaign that said don’t be like Mike, be like Dr. Al. That’s Dr. Alvin Poussaint - his educated, enlightened, industrious buddy that most poor, blacks folks don’t know much about and should.
It Ain’t Over ’til the People Sing
December, 2004
It has been a whole month since the November elections, but the end is not in sight. There has been the endless spinning, the paralysis of analysis and the disinformation campaign to keep us busy with an answer to what the hell happened?
