Spotlight

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Podcast: That Baltimore Catholic clergy sexual-abuse report is a big, but complex, story

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Podcast: That Baltimore Catholic clergy sexual-abuse report is a big, but complex, story

The inevitable clergy sexual-abuse report from the Archdiocese of Baltimore is a major news story, for legions of valid reasons.

Baltimore is this nation’s “premier see,” the oldest diocese in the United States. This city at the heart of a once-thriving Catholic region that now in a demographic death-dive that is extreme, even by the standards of 21st century America.

To move closer to issues discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), we are also talking about the city and Catholic culture in which the Sister Catherine Cesnik vanished in November of 1969. This is the murdered nun who left behind friends, colleagues and former female students who were convinced that she was about to blow the whistle on serial abuser Father Joseph Maskell, one of the villains at the heart of the famous Netflix who-done-it “The Keepers.”

Yes, the former chaplain at the famous (now closed) Keough High School was mentioned 200 times in the 450-page Maryland Attorney General report on child sexual abuse by clergy (and others) in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

But here is the key point that I want to make — as part of a broader discussion of the hellish, I would argue demonic, sexual-abuse sins and crimes being committed against children, teens and adults in many different secular and religious institutions. Most journalists see this abuse crisis through a specific lens, and it’s a narrow Catholic lens with events beginning with the The Boston Globe and it’s pivotal Spotlight investigations that went public in 2002.

But, as “The Keepers” series on Netflix makes clear, Father Maskell had already abused children in Baltimore, abuse that was reported to superiors, before he was transferred over to Keough.

Note that this was long before Father Gilbert Gauthe was assigned to St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Henry, La., where he began abusing young boys — creating a landmark 1984 case that opened the modern era of media coverage of clergy sexual abuse in America. That media coverage took place early in my own journalism career and I’ve been covering this story ever since.

The whole point of this week’s podcast is that journalists need to think all this over. Do we want to keep painting the sexual abuse of children, teens and adults as a “Catholic” story that began a decade or two ago, or do we want to broaden the lens and look at the bigger picture — which would be an even bigger, more important and, yes, more difficult story?


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20 years later, the Boston Globe clergy sex abuse revelations show why journalism matters

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20 years later, the Boston Globe clergy sex abuse revelations show why journalism matters

The date Jan. 6 means different things to people. For me, as a Catholic, it is the Feast of the Epiphany. It marks the date on the liturgical calendar when the Magi, according to the Bible, brought gifts to the baby Jesus.

This year, the date became a polarizing remembrance of the 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection, riots or whatever else one calls it depending on their political affiliation. For me, this Jan. 6 marked a special anniversary — the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking Boston Globe Spotlight team’s investigation into predator priests. The series of articles won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 in the Public Service category.

I must admit that the anniversary went by without much fanfare. It’s surprising given that the ramifications from those original series of news articles reverberates within the church, both in the U.S. and globally, and that it was even made into a 2015 movie “Spotlight” that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Even the Vatican gave the film two thumbs up at the time.

Maybe the events of a year ago in Washington were just too compelling for the news media — even though they love anniversaries — to make room for coverage of anything else.

That’s a shame because the stories remain so very important to both the craft of journalism as well as how the Catholic church failed to police itself in the decades following the Second Vatican Council and the betrayal of trust of so many people over a period of four decades.

The question, for GetReligion readers, is this: What are the elements of this story that are still alive, important and worthy of coverage now and in the future?


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Tough question? Some obits included how priestly sexual abuse shook Phil Saviano's faith

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Tough question? Some obits included how priestly sexual abuse shook Phil Saviano's faith

If you have seen the movie “Spotlight” — especially if you are a journalist — you know that it’s one of the two or three best films ever made about the picky, high-stakes work involved in investigative journalism.

But there was another layer to this film that I found especially powerful.

Obviously, the subject of clergy sexual abuse is painful and divisive. Every now and then, I still hear from angry readers who believe this whole hellish scandal — which began creeping into headlines in 1984 with the Gilbert Gauthe case in Louisiana — was a media plot against the Church of Rome. It’s important to note that there were conservative Catholics who dug down to the roots of this scandal (see the scathing book “Sacrilege” by Leon Podles), along with the efforts of many Catholic liberals and many ex-Catholics.

The scandal affected many people in different ways. The movie “Spotlight” stressed how the shock and anger unleashed by this scandal affected the faith of some of the Boston Globe journalists. Then there were the shattered victims. It’s amazing that any of them emerged with their faith intact. Some did. Many did not.

This brings me to some of the major-media obituaries for Phil Saviano, a victim who became one of the most important activists who tirelessly worked for justice. Saviano served as a consultant for the “Spotlight” screenwriters and his character appeared in the movie, played by actor Neal Huff.

As I read the coverage, I kept wondering: Would anyone include information about Saviano’s faith? Did he leave Catholicism? Did he convert to another faith?

As you would expect, the Globe obituary is long and detailed. I thought this detail was exceptionally powerful:

When the advent of protease inhibitors to treat HIV/AIDS prolonged Mr. Saviano’s life, he kept speaking out until the end through a series of health issues. Not least among them was a crisis on that night in 2016 when “Spotlight,” the movie based on the Globe’s clergy sex abuse coverage, won the Academy Award for best picture.


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What a minute: What do New York Times editors think Pope Francis believes about Grindr?

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What a minute: What do New York Times editors think Pope Francis believes about Grindr?

Yes, faithful readers, I saw the New York TImes story that ran under this headline: “Catholic Officials on Edge After Reports of Priests Using Grindr.” Why didn’t I write — pronto — about this story?

I guess because it seemed like an echo of an echo of an echo, fitting neatly into the template established by numerous articles in progressive Catholic media. It was an investigation of the methods and motives of a conservative Catholic blog — The Pillar, of course. TheTimes was not (#DUH) all that interested in the phenomenon that concerned The Pilliar, as in evidence that some Catholic priests have been using Grindr, that smartphone ap that a Vanity Fair feature once called “The World’s Biggest, Scariest Gay Bar.”

In a way, this Times story was yet another example of an old truth: Conservatives are wrong — simplistic, at the very least — when they claim that elite mainstream news publications are “anti-religion.”

In this Times piece, it’s clear that there are good Catholics and bad Catholics and that the Gray Lady gets to tell readers who is who. This is not the same as saying that there are Catholics who want to defend church doctrines and those who want key doctrines to evolve and we (the editors) will offer coverage in which readers read accurate, fair-minded discussions about why people on each side believe what they believe.

So yes, for Times editors this is clearly a story about bad Catholic journalists. But it’s clear that the Times is not an anti-Catholic newspaper; it totally approves of the Catholic left. It’s using the same basic doctrinal lens as progressive Catholic newspapers. Click here for a famous Times op-ed explaining the basics on this: “Is the Pope Catholic?”

There are, however, two things I would like to note in this Times feature. First, read the following carefully:

The reports by the blog, The Pillar, have unnerved the leadership of the American Catholic Church and have introduced a potentially powerful new weapon into the culture war between supporters of Pope Francis and his conservative critics: cellphone data, which many users assume to be unavailable to the general public.


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USA Today hunts for 'The Priest Next Door,' in sex abuse feature that breaks little new ground

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If you follow mainstream news coverage of clergy sexual abuse cases in the Catholic church, you know that there are two common errors that journalists keep making when dealing with this hellish subject.

First, there is the timeline issue. Many editors seem convinced that the public first learned about this crisis through the epic Boston Globe “Spotlight” series that ran in 2002.

This may have been when Hollywood grasped the size of this story, but religion beat reporters and many other journalists had been following the scandal since the Louisiana accusations against the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, which made national headlines in 1984. Jason Berry’s trailblazing book “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” was published in 1992. Reporters covering the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops chased this story all through the 1980s.

Does this error matter? I guess it only matters if editors care about accuracy and they truly want readers to understand how long these horrors have poisoned life for many Catholics. After all, the cover-ups are as important as the crimes.

Thus, it’s disappointing to dig into the new USA Today feature on this topic — “The Priest Next Door” — and hit the following summary material:

During its nine-month investigation, the USA TODAY Network tracked down last known addresses for nearly 700 former priests who have been publicly accused of sexual abuse. Then, 38 reporters knocked on more than 100 doors across the country, from Portland, Oregon, to Long Island, New York, with stops in Philadelphia, Chicago, Indianapolis, Miami and more. They talked with accused priests, as well as neighbors, school officials, employers, church leaders and victims. They reviewed court records, social media accounts and church documents in piecing together a nationwide accounting of what happened after priests were accused of abuse, left their positions in the church and were essentially allowed to go free. 

Since the scandal first exploded into public view in Boston almost 20 years ago, the church has financially settled with thousands of victims, claimed bankruptcy at parishes across the country and watched disaffected congregants flee its pews. The church has promised change, with parishes posting guidelines aimed at protecting children and dioceses releasing names of credibly accused priests — many of whom were defrocked, or laicized, meaning they no longer work with the church.

The second problem that keeps showing up in stories of this kind? That would be covering sexual-abuse scandals among Catholics without mentioning that similar issues exist in other religious flocks — as well as in public schools, sports programs, nonprofit agencies (think Scouting) and other secular settings.


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Think piece on SBC sex abuse scandal: What Baptists and Catholics can learn from each other

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In today’s San Antonio Express-News, there’s a front-page story on Southern Baptist leaders promising reforms after a bombshell newspaper investigation into sex abuse within that denomination.

In a three-part series last week, the Express-News and its sister newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, revealed that more than 700 people had been molested by Southern Baptist pastors, church employees and volunteers over a span of two decades. (See our previous analysis of the Texas papers’ reporting here, here and here.)

Sadly, the Baptists aren’t the only religious group making sex abuse headlines this weekend: On the same Express-News front page, there’s the breaking news — via the New York Times — of Pope Francis’ decision to expel Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, D.C., from the priesthood.

As noted by the Times, the decision announced by the Vatican on Saturday “came after the Catholic Church found him guilty of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians over decades.” My GetReligion colleagues Terry Mattingly and Julia Duin have been following the McCarrick story for months. Look for additional commentary this week.

But since this is Sunday, when we like to delve into think-piece territory, I wanted to call attention to a Religion News Service column by Jesuit priest Thomas Reese that seems especially timely in light of today’s headlines.

In the column, Reese writes about “What Catholics and Southern Baptists can learn from each other about sex abuse crisis.”


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Faith struggles of young D.C. Catholic women? Washington Post says it's all 'politics'

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For millions of Roman Catholics, the world began changing in the 1980s — with waves of headlines about clergy sexual abuse cases that eventually led to reporter Jason Berry’s cathartic 1992 book “Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children.”

The National Catholic Reporter wrote article after article about the scandals. A crucial moment came in 1985, when The New York Times published a brutal article about the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, who admitted that he abused dozens of children in parishes in rural, southwest Louisiana. HBO eventually made a movie — “Judgement” — about the Gauthe case.

Mainstream news reporters, including me, covered stories linked to the emerging scandal all through the 1980s, as the U.S. Catholic bishops met behind closed doors to discuss how to solve this hellish puzzle.

As a series of documentaries by Minnesota Public Radio stated, “It all began in Lafayette.”

I offered this brief flash back as context for an important, but stunningly faith-free, Washington Post “social issues” feature that ran under this headline: “What it’s like to be a young Catholic in a new era of clergy sex abuse scandals.” Here is the features crucial summary material:

In an era when the church is frequently perceived as behind the times on matters of importance to them, some young Catholics have responded to the latest setbacks by pulling further away from the beleaguered institution, while others have drawn closer.

This generation of Catholic college students has grown up amid the stain of the sexual abuse crisis, which was first exposed by The Boston Globe in 2002 and has since implicated clergy around the world. Most can’t even remember a pre-scandal church.

At the same time, they and young people generally are a critical demographic for the future of Catholicism, which has an aging parishioner base and has struggled to attract and retain young people.

Catholicism has seen the largest decline in participation among major religious groups, according to a report in 2016 from the Public Religion Research Institute.

For starters, the Post does need to run a correction stating that the first national exposure of the clergy sexual abuse scandal did not come in 2002 in the Spotlight work published by The Boston Globe. The Globe work was stunning, and crucial, but it is simply inaccurate to ignore the nearly two decades of work that came before that.

However, the heart of this article consists of interviews with young Catholic women in Washington, D.C., along with experts who describe how their views illustrate the faith impact of the ongoing scandals. There are, apparently, no young Catholic men inside the Beltway.


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Good news and bad news: The role of online journalism in the Catholic sex-abuse scandal

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“Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.”

Those words by Saint Catherine of Siena appear most fitting this summer as the Catholic Church in the United States grapples with allegations of widespread sex abuse by priests going back several decades.  

In July, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after it was revealed that the 88-year-old former head of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., had allegedly abused a teenage boy for years starting in 1969. It was also made public that McCarrick had been accused in three other sexual assault cases involving seminarians.  

Last month, a Pennsylvania grand jury released a shocking report filled with decades of allegations regarding sexual abuses by clerics with children and teenagers — and cover-ups by bishops — that reopened a wound within the church regarding pedophilia and homosexuality among the clergy. It also sparked debate for reform regarding whether priests should be allowed to marry like clergy in other Christian denominations.  

The incidents came on the heels of sex-abuse scandals that rocked the church in Chile and Australia.

If that wasn’t enough, a whistleblower named Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano released an 11-page letter (full text here) on August 25 describing a series of events in which the Vatican — and specifically Pope Francis —  had been made aware of McCarrick’s immoral behavior years ago.

Vigano claimed Pope Benedict XVI had placed restrictions on McCarrick, including not allowing him to say Mass in public. Vigano alleges Pope Francis reversed those sanctions. In the letter, Vigano, a former papal ambassador to the United States, said Francis “knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator. He knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.” 

Unlike in 2002 — when an investigation by The Boston Globe unearthed decades of abuse by prelates never reported to civil authorities — accusations of wrongdoing within the Catholic Church these days are mixed with sacred and secular politics.


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That Theodore McCarrick crisis: New York Times started this nasty poker game. Now what?

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That Theodore McCarrick crisis: New York Times started this nasty poker game. Now what?

Step into the journalism Wayback Machine for a moment, please. 

So how did this wild game of Vatican news, commentary and rumors get started? While reporters continue to jump up and down on Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (his infamous letter is here), U.S. papal nuncio from 2011-2016, it may help to look back at the first card that was played in this poker match.

Well, let's say that this was the first card played in public.

I am referring, of course, to the New York Times piece that ran on July 16 under this headline: "He Preyed on Men Who Wanted to Be Priests. Then He Became a Cardinal."

I realize that there were stories in June, when McCarrick -- one of the most powerful Catholic media figures for decades -- was hit with charges that he abused a male teen-ager. Our own Julia Duin began writing posts about McCarrick's shady reputation and how reporters had never been able to get the right sources, on the record, that would allow them to nail down reports about McCarrick that had circulated for many years.

But the Times report on "Uncle Ted" and his years of abuse and sexual harassment raised haunting questions: Who had protected McCarrick and promoted him throughout his career? How many men in red hats were loyal to him, because he helped them? How high did these connections go, in the Catholic hierarchy in America and in Rome?

This is the deeper background behind this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to tune that in), which focuses on what I believe is the core story linked to the Vigano letter. Yes, Vigano said that media superstar Pope Francis should resign -- a sure headline maker under any circumstances. But the real story here remains McCarrick and the network that surrounded him.

Was Francis part of that network, in recent years or in the past? If Vigano is telling the truth, then the odds are very good that all the details will be in church files in Washington, D.C., and Rome. Vigano is saying what a five-star source would say, as a story like this unfolds: Open the files. Prove me wrong. Make my day, pope.

Meanwhile, what about the news media? It the Times -- the ultimate game changer -- played a key card in this game, what will the media do next? 


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