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The New York Times April 27, 2002 THE HIERARCHY
PHILADELPHIA, April 26 — Contending that there has been a widespread misunderstanding of the results of the hierarchy’s visit to the Vatican, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Philadelphia declared today that all American cardinals were firmly agreed on a zero-tolerance policy toward any Roman Catholic priest considered guilty of sexually abusing minors.
“All of the cardinals are agreed on zero tolerance,” Cardinal Bevilacqua told reporters. “And by that I mean that we all are agreed that no priest guilty of even one act of sexual abuse of a minor” will function “in any capacity in our dioceses.”
Clearly intent on stemming growing dissatisfaction with the Vatican conference that critics found irresolute and confusing, the cardinal made a point of emphasizing that he had consulted with all his colleagues and was speaking for them.
“All the cardinals are agreed on that,” Cardinal Bevilacqua said before presiding at the American cardinals’ annual Mass and dinner for the Catholic University of America.
In recent weeks, cardinals have spoken separately of zero tolerance as the scandal heated up in a wave of disclosures of priestly abuses. Some diocesan officials have been accused of being criminally tolerant by quietly shifting offenders around parishes rather than calling in law enforcement authorities.
One critical question left unanswered at Cardinal Bevilacqua’s brief news conference was how to deal with past abusers among members of the clergy who are now being identified as still active in parish work. Will they be dismissed from diocesan service or will their separate circumstances be judged individually, as some prelates prefer?
Cardinal Bevilacqua favors zero tolerance “both past and future,” but does not necessarily speak for all the cardinals on it, his office said later. Demonstrating the stand, the cardinal ordered several offending priests previously put in restricted ministries to be cut off fully from diocese service this year, his office said.
On another issue related to the scandal, the head of the Catholic University, the Rev. David M. O’Connell, stepped forward at the news conference to say that he had spoken today with Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston and that the cardinal had said there was no truth to a report that he would soon be transferred to Rome because of the deep criticism of his handling of the abuse scandal.
“It was never discussed in Rome,” Father O’Connell quoted the cardinal as saying, adding that “there is no plan whatsoever” to replace Cardinal Law.
Cardinal Law was here for the Mass and dinner, but he was not available for reporters’ questions. Church officials said the cardinals felt that they had given so many interviews in Rome that there was no need for anyone beyond Cardinal Bevilacqua to speak here.
The cardinal, a lawyer, said the zero-tolerance policy would be presented in June at the national bishops’ meeting in Dallas and was likely to be adopted. After that, it would be sent to Rome and established as a binding national policy that not even dissenting bishops would be free to ignore, the cardinal emphasized.
Normally, bishops are autonomous and are free to demur from enforcing a national policy, Cardinal Bevilacqua noted. “We want something a little bit different” for the abuse scandal, he said, namely a firm Vatican order that all American dioceses will strictly observe zero tolerance.
Asked about the issue of gays and the priesthood that some critics are raising as part of the scandal, Cardinal Bevilacqua said gays were not suitable for the priesthood, even if they remained celibate.
“By his orientation, he’s not giving up family and marriage,” the cardinal said of a gay man who feels called to the priesthood. “He’s giving up what the church considers an aberration, a moral evil.”
The cardinal was comparing the risks of gay candidates to those of priests who become alcoholic under the daily pressures of the ministry.
“The risk is higher, that’s all we can say,” he said.
As the cardinals celebrated Mass this evening, 20 protesters politely demonstrated across the street from the cathedral, brandishing signs that read, “Keep the faith, change the leadership,” and, “Priestly people come in both sexes.”
“The hierarchy has done a terrible job on this,” said Mary Ellen Creamer, a Catholic protester from Blue Bell, Pa. “I’m against all this cover-up. It’s not just Cardinal Law. They’ve moved priests around for years.”
In claiming more unanimity than critics have perceived, Cardinal Bevilacqua clearly sought to deal with the controversy that followed the Rome meeting by shifting the focus to the bishops’ meeting in Dallas.
The bishops were put on notice today by a lawyer for victims of clergy abuse that some will seek to meet privately there with church leaders. In another development, Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who is in charge of a panel on sex abuse, announced that he favored opening the topic to the expertise of laypeople who could be regularly consulted on the reform effort.
As the cardinals returned from their meeting with Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Bevilacqua said, he was surprised to find the impression that there was “less than zero-tolerance unanimity” among the cardinals.
“That’s not true,” he said. “Some of the confusion may arise in the fact that it depends on what you mean by zero tolerance.”
He spoke of three levels of zero tolerance. An offender could be reassigned “away from any kind of youth,” removed from ministries and allowed to say Mass only privately at home or “laicized,” the newer term for defrocked, in which a priest is totally disconnected from diocesan service, much like a disbarred lawyer, by the cardinal’s description.
Guilt under zero tolerance will be a bishop’s judgment, Cardinal Bevilacqua said, adding: “I’m not going to interfere with the civil law on this. But as far as we’re concerned, it’s when he’s guilty in our eyes.”
In his homily, by Father O’Connell described how all Catholics had been “shaken by the revelation of things far beyond our imagination.”
Amid such painful experience, Father O’Connell advised, the faithful should remember Jesus’ words in promising to protect the church, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
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