Does Ms. Brinkman mention the fact that at the two main treatment centers, the alleged ‘experts’ were almost exclusively ordained priests and religious? Ask Fr. Groeschel.

I doubt that bishops were at fault in disobedience. They certainly didn’t see themselves in that light. By the time one rises to the office of bishop, where is the locus of their day-to-day obedience? Certainly not Rome; the pope and curia will offer consequences to a disobedient bishop on the rarest of occasions.

Mismanagement of predators can strike anywhere. Santa Rosa’s bishop had a lapse of just a few days and because of that, a predator fled the country. Cardinal George, a darling of the Right, also blundered badly in the most recent Chicago case.

I think their fault lies more along the lines of weak administrative ability, delegating too much (personal relationships with all the clergy) and sometimes not enough.

I think I would dispute the interpretation that clergy sex abuse happened over a short period of time. The Jay Study shows an increase over the 50’s through the following decades most probably because some victims and perpetrators have died since then. Any short-term snapshot–which is what the Jay Study was–will show a bell curve of reports and accusations. Fewer after the early 70’s because psychological screening was finally in place to strain out those unfit for ministry.

I don’t know of what Chesterton was speaking when he described optimism or pessimism. I probably am more of a realist: I don’t expect bishops to escape the faults of bureaucracy and more than any other human beings. The post-Charter statements of most bishops I’ve read lead me to conclude they don’t see the problem of their loss of credibility. They assume we’re all ticked off about sex predators. There’s that, but most laity I’ve read and heard understand that some bad (if not rotten) eggs are always in the bunch. We want bishops who can step up, admit their errors and take their medicine like men (so to speak) and not ruffle around blaming others. Or having others do the blaming for them.

Given the numbers of dioceses facing suits and the sizes of settlements, I’m sure that if diocesan legal counsel saw any way to include “experts” in legal settlements, it would have been done. The fact that is wasn’t leads me to a realistic conclusion: either the experts covered their butts better than the bishops or that the ir role was dramatically less than Reisman suspects.

Some bishops have explained their reasoning in this regard but not many. A general over reliance on “expert opinion” as a major cause is a finding of the National Review Board, a board that was led by those who are no friends to the hierarchy.

There were many other causes as well for which some bishops are to blame. These range from disobedience to Church teaching to a motivation to protect their image and/or the Church’s image. But the Review Board findings and the John Jay study both showed that these happened over a short period of time in a relatively small number of dioceses. Thus, I would say your “pessimism” is unwarranted.

I think that Chesterton’s insights are germane here. Loosely paraphrasing him, he says that pessimism and optimism belong to non-believers. Christians, on the other hand, possess healthy realism because they understand the consequences of the fall, but they also have Christian hope knowing what the grace of God can do and they know that in the end, God wins.

Talk of suing people strikes me as giving in to the culture of victimhood. The bishops need to own up to their responsibility.

I am disappointed in this comment. Your skepticism with regard to the reliability of apparently, all “bishops and diocesan PR folks” seems to be painting with a pretty broad brush. This is an admonition that you sometime rightly catch me with, I would hope that you are not as jaundiced toward the hierarchy as this comment makes you sound.

It is clear that this was not the case in many cases, but in talking to priests who were involved in consulting with bishops since many dioceses in the mid-80s set up boards of priests to advise bishops on reinstating priests upon doctor’s recommendations, this was clearly a major source of the problem. The biggest problem is that most priests were treated at Catholic facilities like St.Luke’s Institute in MD, which has an especially sordid history (see this article for example), that in many cases we would be suing ourselves.