September 29, 2005

Tom Ferrick, Jr.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Dear Mr. Ferrick,

I think it was unconscionable of you to urge Catholics to withhold financial support from the Church, as in your editorial yesterday ("Among Catholics, sadness and fury, 28 Sept)

In opposing wrongs, it is important to keep the principle of proportionality in mind, lest one fulminate worse evils. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia cooperated with the District Attorney’s investigation at every step of the way. It has been engaging in sharp course correction especially since 2002, and with the publication of the Grand Jury Report it has – while critiquing the tone and tenor of the Report, and its prejudical treatment of the facts – acknowledged the facts and its own mistakes in handling these cases.

But a line has been crossed with editorial writers like yourself and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Not content with exposing the scandal, you have consistently and unremittingly criticized the Catholic Church, as evidenced by your two recent editorials – the one cited and the previous "Reading between the lines" (Sept 24) – and by the continual parade of other editorialists and letters printed in the paper, almost all of them vilifying the Catholic Church. I sent an e-mail to you which unfortunately for some reason was not delivered (perhaps your box was full?) and my letter to the editor of Sunday, Sept. 25 has also been ignored. Given my experience, I don’t think it is fair of you to say there have been no voices of moderation raised in mitigation of the Church’s problems and urging consideration of all the facts.

In a manner of speaking, the very problems the Archdiocese encountered in handling the cases of abusive priests are symptomatic not only of the times in a larger sense, they are also particularly a function of the Church’s commitment to Christian moral teaching. Sexual abuse of minors is a widespread problem in society. According to the Educator Sexual Abuse Statistics, a 2003 study of sexual harassment in secondary schools found that 27% of sexual harassment of students was conducted by adult school employees. Teachers comprised 81% of the offending group. According to best estimates, 15% of school students will be sexually abused by a member of the school staff during their school career. In 1996, it was found that the number of K-12 public and private school students who had been abused by school staff was nearly 7 million (of a total school population of 51,331,000).

Surely the problem of the sexualization of culture and commerce and the widespread dissemination of pornography are evident. So-called "sexual liberation" issues (e.g. abortion, gay marriage, etc.) have formed the mainstay of the American intellectual class – being, in my opinion, the chief reason why Americans have remained divided on important issues of war, peace, economy and governance. I believe it is not stretching the truth to say that the massive sexualization of our culture is the primary reason the United States finds itself unable to cope with the very real problems besetting our nation, from questions of Peak Oil to those of emergency preparedness and the role of government in fostering the public good. As a people we seem to be unable to obtain the kind of vital leadership we need, and I am quite sure that one of the main causes of our political sclerosis is owing to the strategy of certain financial interests, which employs the sexual issues to "Divide and conquer" the American people and render it politically impotent.

I have often thought that it was very revealing, in the Quaker Meeting of which I am a member, that the very sexual liberation issues so many Friends were promoting, was in essence the reason why the United States had no vital anti-war movement. The Friends, however, could not see the connection. It was a brave Catholic mother, Mrs. Cindy Sheehan, who began the true anti-war movement in this country. This is just an aside, however. But it does relate to the larger question of the moral teachings of the Catholic Church on issues of war and the economy – teachings which, in my opinion, it is becoming increasingly disastrous for us to ignore. To properly explore this question would lead too far afield at present, and I have no wish to try your patience beyond what this letter already evidences to do.

Concerning the Christian gospel of the forgiveness of sinners, the Catholic Church which admittedly made so many mistakes in the handling of the priest abuse issues, was, in a manner of speaking, hoist by its own petard. "Zero tolerance," which it now claims to be its policy, is not a Christian concept. The Church certainly erred in believing that errant priests could be cured. In several cases the Church sent such priests for rehabilitation and psychiatric counseling. Obviously in retrospect such measures were insufficient. But, Mr. Ferrick, do you really want to live in a world where there is no mercy, only judgment, and no effort of rehabilitation, only punishment and condemnation?

I will grant that the Catholic Church made mistakes. But in defense of the Church I think it is only fair to point out that at least some of those mistakes arose out of the theology of mercy to which the Church has witnessed for two millennia. The founding text of mercy is the case of the woman taken in adultery. According to Jewish law, the penalty for adultery was death by stoning. Jesus turned to the multitude and said, Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone.

This Christian attitude toward mercy has been slowly incorporated into our Western legal system over the centuries, and no doubt it has led to many abuses. Somehow we have preferred for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to suffer. This tradition in our day, however, is showing signs of being supplanted by a harder and harsher doctrine. I point to the neoconservative doctrine of pre-emptive war, to the many people being held in American prison camps, and the widespread (and underreported) use of torture in such places. All of these things represent an ominous departure from the kind of people we have always considered ourselves to be and from our legal tradition.

The statute of limitations is one of those signs of mercy which many people now decry and call to overturn. District Attorney Abraham did prosecute a case of priest sexual abuse from the 1970’s. She claimed that the priest had fled the state and thus nullified the condition of the statute of limitations. But if the cases of sex abuse are as recent as she claims, why has she not handed down indictments in her recent Report? We have a legal system, and this legal system is presumably operated under certain conditions of fairness and evidence. Why has District Attorney Abraham disregarded such evidentiary fairness in her Report – a disregard more egregious by the fact that she does not indict any priests? Is that because she really does want to convict the church through the press and public opinion? Why is the Philadelphia Inquirer so eager to join this extra-legal campaign against Catholicism?

I think it is legitimate to raise the question of District Attorney Lynne Abraham’s general background. The DA is a member of the Anti-Defamation League, which issued in 2002 a press release denouncing the remarks of a Cardinal Rodriguez, who had been discussing the situation in the Middle East and the sufferings of the Palestinian people. Miss Abraham has been a Philadelphia District Attorney for nearly forty years, and certainly during that time she must have known of sexual abuse cases occurring in the Catholic Church. But why, in 2002, was she moved to convene a Grand Jury to investigate such cases? Does her action have anything to do with the Church’s expressed reservations about the political direction taken by the state of Israel? Perhaps we will never know. But I do think that the view of a Jewish District Attorney’s investigation against the Catholic Church ought to be in turn investigated from the point of view of possible bias. But add to this District Attorney’s imprisonment of eleven Christians who were peaceably demonstrating in Philadelphia last year; add to this her known bias in favor of Planned Parenthood, and to this again her known strongly-held views on the death penalty (which has earned for her, from the black community, the moniker the "Queen of Death") – then questions of prosecutorial abuse and prejudice do indeed become legitimate to raise.

I do not say these things to exonerate the Catholic Church from its current tribulations. But I think that the eagerness with which the Philadelphia Inquirer has jumped on the District Attorney’s bandwagon, and the refusal of the Inquirer and its writers to add a cautionary note, a mollifying word, a mitigating look at all the charities and good works of the Catholic Church, is itself symptomatic of the harsher regime which seems to be our lot these days. I feel that in many instances the District Attorney’s Report put a false or misleading construction upon events. This does not excuse those events, but it ought to serve as a caution against the abuse of the prosecutorial office. All of life comes down to a matter of proportion – you can pat someone on the head, and it is a gesture of approval; but do it too strongly, it is a death-blow.

The Catholic convert G.K. Chesterton once remarked, "I like getting in hot water… it keeps me clean." The same could be said for the Catholic Church, which over the centuries has gotten into plenty of hot water on repeated occasions. But somehow she has pulled herself up to trudge on to witness to the Gospel of mercy. Do you think that Calvin’s doctrine of Total Moral Depravity is really an improvement on this gospel, or that Jewish legalism is really a better remedy against human transgression than taking the risk that the act of forgiveness demands of us? Mr. Ferrick, be careful what you wish for, lest the devil you abhor by the spoonful come back to haunt you by bucket-loads.

I hope that the Philadelphia Inquirer will take the necessary measures for self-examination in this matter and assert the necessity for fairness and the use of reason. I write this letter not only out of respect for the moral teachings of the Christian gospel, which I think that the Catholic Church, despite its faults, has always proclaimed, but because I know first-hand what the "lynch mob" mentality is like. Having grown up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the civil rights era, I am very familiar with how the press can be manipulated in the interests of racial and ethnic divisiveness. I believe that the reporting and editorializing of the Philadelphia Inquirer on this issue has come dangerously close to pandering. Please, in your haste to condemn the mote in the Catholic eye, do not blind yourselves to the beam in your own.

Respectfully,

Caryl Johnston

Copies:

Joe Natoli, Chairman and Publisher

Amanda Bennett, Editor and Executive Vice President

Frank Wilson, Book Editor

Chris Satullo, Editorial Page Editor

Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archdiocese of Philadelphia

District Attorney Lynne Abraham