Monday, April 2, 2012

There Was A Silver Lining: "He Has Never Sinned With Any Woman"

Msgr Lynn's trial is going to be a very interesting mix of triangulating between his defense team, the prosecution, and the Archdiocese.  So far the evidence has been about a world of clerics who are all about themselves, hiding behind the facade of protecting the rest of us from their scandals.


The following is a small excerpt from an article on a new blog covering the Philadelphia abuse trial of Msgr Lynn.  Both the blog and the article are written by Ralph Cipriano.  Mr Cipriano was one of the first religion reporters in Philadelphia to take a critical look at the Archdiocese when he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  He is now a free lance reporter for the NCR.  He brings both a news writer's perspective and insider knowledge about the Archdiocese to his written material.  I have put a link to the blog on my sidebar.

The first week of the trial brought testimony from other priests and the introduction of hundreds of documents into the record.  Two days were spent chronicling the clerical life of one Fr Leneweaver, whose predatory behavior spanned some forty plus years through the reigns of three different Cardinals--Krol, Bevilaqua, and Rigali.

......Father Leneweaver was identified in the 2005 grand jury report on archdiocese sex abuse as a "chronic abuser" of altar boys. The priest had special T-shirts printed up for his victims that identified them as  "Philadelphia Rovers."

The details in the grand jury report are sickening.

Father Leneweaver would repeatedly pull one Rover out of Catholic school and take the boy to the auditorium, the report said. There, Father Leneweaver would bend the boy over a table and rub up against him until the priest ejaculated. The priest also took the boy to his bedroom in the rectory, where he pulled down the boy's pants, applied a lubricant to his buttocks, and rubbed his penis against the boy until he ejaculated. He anally raped another boy. Father Leneweaver assaulted other victims at the church's summer camp, the seminary swimming pool, and even the sacristy behind the church altar.

“Each time the priest’s crimes were reported to the archdiocese, he admitted his offenses,” the grand jury report said. "I know, I admit it, I am deeply ashamed," the archdiocese's chancellor, Monsignor Terrence F. Monihan, quoted the priest as saying in one 1968 secret memo read into the record by Dougherty. But the chancellor saw a silver lining.

"He has never sinned with any woman,"Monihan wrote.

 By 1975, Father Leneweaver had confessed to sexual activity with at least seven children that he admitted he was “seriously involved” with.

In 1976, a new chancellor, Monsignor Francis J. Statkus wrote in one of the files read by Dougherty, "Father Leneweaver should think about resigning ... especially if scandal is a result." "We should maintain an alert status concerning him," the monsignor concluded.......

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Of course, the Archdiocese didn't maintain much of an alert status concerning Fr Leneweaver, transferring him four more times after 1976, and having never reported any of his crimes to the Police, Leneweaver was free to find jobs in ministry or teaching elsewhere.  This following is another excerpt that personally left me speechless:

 In 1980, while he was residing at St. John Vianney, the archdiocese-owned treatment center for sex offenders, Father Leneweaver visited the home of a woman with three sons, and "made sexual advances" to one of the boys, the secret records said. In spite of the priest's continued predatory conduct, and in spite of the priest's continued confessions of guilt, doctors at St. John Vianney found "no compelling evidence of homosexuality."

"Might the testing be faulty?" Msgr. Statkus wrote to Cardinal Krol. But Father Leneweaver got a new assignment anyway, and in his last year of ministry, he was transferred for the fourth time to St. Joseph The Worker in Bucks County, "one of the few remaining areas where his scandalous action may not be known," Statkus wrote in the secret archives. The four transfers of the priest, the monsignor noted in the secret achives, were done "in the hope of avoiding scandal."

In too many respects, the case of Fr Leneweaver demonstrates every single failure in thinking and action by the US hierarchy with regards to clerical abusers. One issue is the whole idea of sending priests to treatment centers run by the Church or, in this particular case, the Archdiocese itself.  I don't understand how any person in authority can think a treatment center you own is going to give you reliable data about your most important employees.  Especially if it's the kind of truth people who share your own culture are not going to handle very easily?  Msgr Statkus asks if the testing might faulty?  I don't think it was the testing. I think it was an inability on the part of St John Vianney staff to give a truthful assessment.  They weren't hired to find clerical dysfunction. They were hired to find, support, and restore clerical health and prevent scandal.  Which is probably why Fr Leneweaver can state much later in his life that St John Vianney did nothing to help him.

Of course the line that really gets me, is the one about never having sinned with any woman.  Wow, that's a statement and a half.  Not that this kind of thinking is just a relic of 1968.  The same sort of thinking is certainly implied in the Vatican's 2010 updating of grave sins against the sacraments, where the attempted ordination of women is listed on the same level as clerical abuse of minors.  When it comes to the sanctity of the priesthood, nothing is worse than the physical or sacramental pollution of said priesthood with anything female.  That is one concept that holds true, whether it's 415, 1968, or 2010.  Until Roman Catholicism is willing to deal with that fact, abuses of all kinds will continue to unfold.

26 comments:

  1. OMG! What has come out so far in the trial is nauseating! That someone who calls himself a Christian, a follower of Jesus who loved little children and had harsh words about millstones for those who hurt them, someone who allowed an obvious pedophile to make a career of abusing boys, and someone who hid his crimes from the public and the police...this simply turns my stomach and makes me feel like vomiting. How many more cases will be revealed? Enough to make one physically ill. Like Trayvon's mother said, "It's all in God's hands," as she seeks Justice for her son, that he may not have died in vain. May Justice be served for each of the boys abused by pedophile priests and neatly covered up by the diocese as a matter of practice.
    Searcher

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    1. I'm waiting to see how all the triangulation finally settles out. I personally think Lynn made a big mistake by accepting Archdiocesan attorneys. It's pretty obvious the current strategy is to hang Bevilacqua with the whole mess, and I think this plays well for both Lynn and the Church. If things change, and fingers start getting pointed at Rigali, I think there will be a sudden change in strategy and Lynn will hang, because at that point we shall see the prosecution and Archdiocese join hands.

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    2. Searcher....."It's all in God's hands."...??!!.....truly something we've all said at one time or another, yes?.....as I read your words something clicked...actually they struck me to the core...I mean no personal offense, but do your words not beg the question: Where was God when the priests of his Church were raping the children!!?? ....pardon my personal digression here but there is some clarity here for me, perhaps a moment of epiphany....we have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, a whole infantile view of GOD perpetrated upon us by a clerical system bent on controlling us by claiming religious infallibility, the keys to the kingdom, the sole ability to interpret who GOD is, what the Scriptures mean, how we should personally understand GOD and what this GOD wants of us...it is the metaphor of the eternal all controlling father and his submissive children....and we have given this control over to the priests, bishops, cardinals and Pope...like all good little Catholic children are taught to...

      I remember a story I read about a woman in Haiti, a Catholic woman, who survived the earth quake of a few years ago along with her children....she said she knew that God loved her because she and her children had survived the terrible quake's destruction....this struck me as a very strange statement at the time because all of her neighbors had perished in the collapse of all of the homes on her block...it begged the question for me at that time - did she think that God did not love the neighbors?...

      It is clear that it is our/my perceptions of GOD that must evolve and mature...I have felt that I've been butting my head against the wall of the Church wanting them to change for so long now...and I do want them to change but I have to realize that I've got to confront and transcend their ideology within me first...that I must embrace the Mystery that is GOD in ways that are authentic to me...this isn't new information...it just feels like this understanding has finally moved from my head to my heart...I am grateful to you Colleen, to Searcher and to all those here on EC and Bilgrimage who have been patient enough to bear with me on my journey....there has been no one in my immediate surroundings who I could turn to regarding these issues.....Michael Ferri

      "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T.S. Elliott

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    3. Mike this a great post. When I actually do a little teaching, I point out that the first real step for most Catholics and other patriarchal Christian believers is precisely understanding the insight you describe. The God of patriarchy is designed to give male leadership an unearned authority. Jesus may have called God his Father, but He also said call no man 'father'. It's like He knew his idea of God as Father was going to be, shall we say, co opted.

      For me when Jesus uses the term Father for God, He is using it precisely to make the point we are all his, this is Jesus's, brothers and sisters. That we are in some very real sense related to Him through God the Father. This metaphor was never meant to keep us children dependent on external authority because Jesus was pretty emphatic about finding the Kingdom with in us. This is one reason I've always felt really following 'the Way' meant you had to go beyond your religious enculturation and institutional view of God because they were way too limiting and counter productive.

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    4. Mike
      Trayvon Martin's mother said ,"it's all in God's hands." She was speaking publically about justice for her dead son, admittedly shot by George Zimmerman. To me she is s type of Mary figure. Martin Luther King told us that the arc of the universe does bend toward justice.
      The Good Book tells us that the Lord said that "vengeance is mine" which implies that justice will be done. Happy Easter!
      Searcher

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    5. One more thought
      Jesus was there with each of the children while they were suffering & being abused.
      But God so greatly
      respects our free will that he will not intervene.
      Jesus called out to his & our father while suffering on the cross.
      Jesus wondered where his Abba was.
      His Abba was with him all the time. The children's Abba was with them all thru their suffering. He loves them divinely & so Justice will be served . Remember too that the Lord loves those who have victimized the children. His compassion is divine not human.
      Searcher

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    6. What an excellent thread, this was time well spent reading this. Peace be with you! Have a blessed Holy Week!

      John Fremont

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  2. Bill Lindsey is correct to note there is an obvious conflict of interest in having attorneys for the archdiocese represent Lynn. This would make a good essay question for a professional ethics exam in law school. Bevilacqua is dead, and so it's convenient for the archdiocesan personnel to hang the blame on him, since he's not around. Chaput seems to be working hard to make this all go away, but it's not going away.

    As a Catholic woman, my jaw is agape with shock at seeing the claim "he has never sinned with any woman." This is what they really think of us women, as if sexually abusing children is no worse than a consensual relationship between a man and a woman. The misogyny that was part of the Greco-Roman world lives on. Absolutely amazing.

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    1. Sexually abusing children is less worse precisely because it doesn't involve a woman. It is just......ten year old juvenile.

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  3. The disdain the Church has for women and children is palpable. It is one of the many reasons my family and I left. It is heartbreaking and I pray and hope for justice for all the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

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    1. I guess I don't find it all that surprising that such a closed male society has little empathy or respect for women and children. Married men would help this situation, but I'm not holding my breath about that one any more than I am for women's ordination. I think the whole system needs a reboot.

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  4. I'd never heard of Msgr Lynn. Serious questions need to be asked of the bishops of that archdiocese...

    Hopefully, the pressure brought by this case will tighten up their procedures considerably, and prevent such outrages in future.

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    1. I hope your right Invictus. We all thought that was supposed to happen with the Dallas Charter back in 2002. In this case, and in some others, we were wrong, and we were wrong because there is no accountability for any bishop to anybody in either the Dallas Charter or in Canon Law. The only choice left for any kind of meaningful accountability is in secular courts of law. That is why this case is big time ground breaker.

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    2. Colleen, I think any effort at reform must come from the laity, as the current crop of bishops are incapable of it.

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    3. Bishop Robinson seems to have a handle on what's needed. I do agree with you that at least in the US, things look bleak indeed, and it would be far more effective if reform did come from the ground up.

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    4. We shouldn't get too carried away by the bleakness of it all. In spite of these appalling failures in the Diocese of Philadelphia,the Catholic Church is not statistically abnormally afflicted by child abusers.

      One's righteous anger ought to be limited by the parameters of context, or else it flows out and fills the whole picture, blinding us.

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    5. Not quite Invictus, I depends on how you want to read the statistics. The Vatican itself estimates 100,000 children were abused between 1940 and 2000. This estimate is that between 4 and 9% or priests had credible allegations. That's a bit of a spread, but what's really sad is the number of those victims that are attributed to serial abusers, in some cases over 100 children. That could never have happened unless bishops were ignoring the complaints and reassigning these priests. That to me is what is so sickening about this whole issue. Sure some guys are going to have their drunken moments and can be rehabilitated to some extent, the priest who abused older teens and seminarians fits here. The priests who were classic pedophiles were a completely different story and everything I've read says bishops acted from some delusional state of denial that thought these guys, ever after repeat after repeat, could mend their ways. It's just all crazy---and utterly destructive to survivors.

      Personal caveat--I work with abuse survivors, so I may have too much emotion invested in this issue. They are survivors though, and sometimes their capacity to survive staggers my imagination.

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    6. Quoted statistics refer to the US alone.

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    7. A lot of it could have been avoided had the bishops acted differently, but you've got to bear in mind that transferring the abuser and giving them psychological treatment/care was the course of action taken by all institutions in the late 20th Century. It was (though we know know it to be profoundly flawed) the standard recommendation by secular psychiatrists to educations establishments, hospitals, social clubs, and - as we all know - religious groups.
      The Church is acting to ensure that things are done better in future, and is doing so carefully and quickly.

      If we're after hard numbers:
      http://www.catholicleague.org/sexual-abuse-in-social-context-catholic-clergy-and-other-professionals/

      http://dannimoss.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/protestant-clergy-abuse-equals-or-exceeds-catholic-clergy-abuse/

      Perspective is always important, but it is so much more important when the matter at hand is so emotive and offensive.

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  5. The 2 lines that most bother me:
    "No compelling evidence of homosexuality."
    "He has never sinned with any woman,"

    I would like the know the Church criteria for evidence in either of the above 2 lines. Further, I would like to know what either of these statements have to do with clearing of charges in matters of sexually abusing CHILDREN.

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  6. The first line came from the Archdiocesan paid shrinks. The second came from the Vicar for Clergy. In both cases it appears it was designed to make child abuse appear to be a lesser sin relative to intercourse with any adult. Of course this also implies that children, not being adults, were not a real threat to any vow of celibacy.

    This kind of thinking is precisely why I find the idea of full personhood being extended to a conceptus utterly laughable when the Church never extended the concept to abused children.

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    1. I understood who was making those assertions. Anybody can assert anything. But these statements were clearly either being used or relied upon by the hierarchs to clear or at least mitigate the charges of sexual abuse of children. I'd really like to see the twists that go from absence of presumably consensual sexual relations between adults to saying that means the charges of sexual abuse of children are less creditable. I sure hope the lawyers for the prosecution hold some people's feet to the fire here.

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    2. I hope the prosecution holds some feet to the fire too. I have to keep reminding myself that none of this makes any sense unless you grant credence to the idea that these clerical men really do consider themselves more than run of the mill human. In other words it's not really about comparing child abuse to adult consensual sex. It's about a mentality that says these guys are priests and there for above the secular law with corollary that any sex these super men might have had didn't count for much unless it was with adult women---which was bad, very bad.

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  7. I don't know Butterfly. Lynn comes across as a clerical black sheep and will undoubtedly be doing some serious bleating before all is said and done. And most of that bleating will be directed at his previous shepherds.

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