In keeping with his misconception of his constituency as "members of the laity," Attorney General Tom Reilly has apparently decided to adhere to the U.S. Catholic Bishops' dictate to the faithful to set aside the principles of democracy in order to promote the teachings of the Church. However, unlike other Catholics, who are at least honest about their devotion, Reilly has cynically adopted a pretense of independence in his efforts to keep the Church hierarchy from having to submit to secular power. Reilly's decision to put his religious faith above the laws of our democracy goes beyond his refusal to go after Church leaders for conspiring to protect scores of child molesters and his decision to let Cardinal Law and others lie with impunity in legal depositions. Those actions may attest to Reilly's weakness as a champion for justice, but they could at least be defended by arguments about statutes of limitations and the difficulties involved in perjury prosecutions. Instead, what makes Reilly's response to the sex abuse crisis much more dangerous and duplicitous is his insistence that the Catholic Church's crime spree will magically come to an end now that clergy have been added to the list of people who are mandated by law to report suspicions of child abuse. In assuming this stance, Reilly is taking advantage of public ignorance about the massive failure of mandated reporting as a check on abusive priests. Here are the facts as related to the Boston Archdiocese: During the 1990's, the Archdiocese received over 400 complaints from victims and people who cared about victims concerning priests who had abused or were abusing children. All of these hundreds of complaints either led to an evaluation or were connected to a previous evaluation of the accused priest by a psychologist or psychiatrist who was defined by law as a mandated reporter. However, not one of these mandated reporters ever reported a single priest to authorities. This uniform failure to report is hardly surprising. The mandatory reporting law, designated as Section 51-A of the General Laws of Massachusetts, practically requires predators to supply the names, addresses, and exact ages of their victims before psychological services providers are obliged to act. It is, therefore, also not surprising that there has been only one case in the history of Massachusetts in which a mandated reporter was actually prosecuted for failing to report suspicions of abuse. What is shocking is that Tom Reilly would suggest mandatory reporting as a solution even though he knows that notorious molesters such as the Rev. John Geoghan preyed on children while being treated by mandated reporters at Massachusetts General Hospital under the auspices of Dr. Ned Cassem's still mysterious but highly active "priest treaters" group. Equally demoralizing is Reilly's decision to ignore evidence provided by victims and victims' advocates that when clergy were designated as mandated reporters in other states, this inclusion did not alter the Church's carefully crafted policy of concealment. Like the "priest treaters" in Massachusetts, clergy elsewhere failed to alert authorities about countless cases of child molestation even when required by law to report. In short, within the context of the Catholic Church, mandated reporting has never put a dent in the hierarchy's orchestrated cover-up.
What about the rest of the state? That Reilly approached this crisis from a Catholic perspective is also apparent in his failure to remember that he is the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts rather than a parishioner in the Boston Archdiocese. By focusing only on Boston, Reilly not only made it harder for victims in other dioceses to come forward and get help, he turned public attention away from the murders, sex crimes, and other horrors committed or facilitated by agents of the Church in other parts of the state. There is, after all, no justification for the AG to exclude the dioceses of Springfield, Fall River, and Worcester from review other than the recognition that dealing with all of these places would have forced his office to catalogue an overwhelming ocean of criminal activity. Moreover, had Reilly included dioceses such as Springfield, he would have been forced to abandon his misguided belief that he had been called upon to hold the "Church hierarchy responsible for the actions of others." In fact, as indicated by recent revelations about Bishop Dupre, who was reported without consequence to the AG's office last year, Reilly failed in his duty to hold the hierarchs accountable both for their criminal conspiracy to deprive victims of basic constitutional rights and for their efforts to conceal their own histories of sexually abusing the children placed in their care. Reilly Dials "O" for O'Malley Despite the severe limitations of the AG's inquiry, survivors and advocates met with him last year to urge him to support independent outreach, advocacy, and oversight for victims of predatory priests. In response, Reilly threw us a bone. Specifically, in his report on The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Reilly wrote:
Having issued these strong criticisms of the Archdiocese's indefensible policies and procedures, as well as its history of violating victims' rights, Reilly proceeded to make sure that independent programs would never be put into place. Thus, when victims contacted the AG's office to plead for help in combating the Archdiocese's multimillion-dollar legal and public relations machine, Alice Moore and other staff members flatly refused to assist in any way. When Susan Gallagher, a victim and member of the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors, asked Moore why the Attorney General would not help victims and victims' advocates implement his own recommendations, Moore replied that Reilly wanted to give newly installed Archbishop Sean Patrick O'Malley "a chance to deal with these issues on his own." What do you know about the man next door? Reilly's submission to Church authority might be excused if he were just another wounded Catholic, but, thanks to his cooperation, the Church hierarchy is now letting unknown numbers of known sex offenders loose on unsuspecting communities in Massachusetts and other states. That the public has been exposed to this danger is no accident. Under the terms of the so-called global settlement in Boston, which included only a small minority of victims, the plaintiffs' attorneys walked away with huge fees after having agreed to allow the Church to evade any admission of guilt or liability. Since this outcome exempts the accused from having to submit to supervision, we will not be able to take action until one of the molesters shielded by the settlement finally gets caught. When that day comes, we all should remember Tom Reilly's chilling declaration in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary that "the most effective change is likely to come from within the Church itself." Examples of the kind of misconduct that Reilly chose to ignore or minimize: Providence Journal - February 12, 2004 Priest says he told attorney general of abuse allegations against bishop
NY Times -
February 12, 2004 Newsday - February 12, 2004 Bishop Murphy draws new fire (Murphy "took positive steps" according to Reilly.)
Let’s Not Repeat the Past: Support Independent Outreach, Advocacy & Oversight For Victims of Clergy Sexual abuse
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