Angry Catholics pack sessions on sex abuse

Hundreds demand archdiocese take action concerning accused priests

By TOM HEINEN and MARIE ROHDE

of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: May 16, 2002

The Roman Catholic laity jammed halls at six southeastern Wisconsin parishes Thursday night in sessions that sometimes boiled over with anger at how the church has handled sexual abuse of minors by priests.

The atmosphere was charged at St. John Vianney Church in Brookfield, one of the sites for the Milwaukee Archdiocese listening sessions. There were boos among the standing-room crowd of 1,100 when participants were told Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland - who was present - would not answer questions.

"This is beyond ridiculous," said Sharon Mutchler, a member of St. Joseph's Parish in Wauwatosa, who later suggested that someone take over the microphone. "We've been reduced to grade school."

Maureen Gallagher, one of the facilitators at the site and the archdiocese's director of education, tried to calm the people by saying, "If people have special questions, I'll meet you upstairs and we can discuss it."

That appeased some people, but not an unidentified man who exclaimed sarcastically, "Yeah right, you've been so forthcoming so far."

Joanne Casey, who attends St. Dominic Parish in Brookfield, was more circumspect. "I just came to hear the concerns of my church," she said. "I have an open mind about what needs to be done."

Release of names urged

At St. Eugene's Parish in Fox Point, there was another torrent of anger as participants called on the church to turn accused priests over to civil authorities, defrock known offenders and immediately release the names of suspected offenders still in the active ministry. About 300 people crowded into the auditorium.

Participants there expressed a range of opinions, from ordaining women and married men to returning to pre-Vatican II positions on sexual issues. Applause erupted several times, most notably following a demand for the removal and prosecution of Boston's embattled Cardinal Bernard Law and the call for the church to ordain women and married men.

The evening there and elsewhere opened with prayer and the reading of a letter from Weakland, which ended by expressing sorrow for anyone who had suffered sexual abuse by a priest.

There were compliments and criticisms at the sessions. The sharpest barbs were ironic for a diocese that appears to have done more than many in setting up policies and programs for dealing with sexual abuse by clergy despite inaction and coverups in the more distant past.

But it also has been slow in allowing the public to assess the effectiveness of those efforts, in sharing statistics, and in revealing that some priests with questionable histories of sexual-abuse allegations have been allowed to continue in active ministries under monitoring.

One purpose of the listening sessions was to get reaction to preliminary recommendations made by a community commission that Weakland appointed to assess how well the archdiocese has performed.

Among other things, the commission recommended zero tolerance for, and defrocking of, any priest found in the future to have sexually abused a minor. It approved of the archdiocese's current policy of reporting allegations of new incidents to district attorneys and said even new allegations of incidents too old to prosecute should be turned over. Weakland has said he will do all of that.

Zero tolerance backed

Many among the 700 people who gathered at St. Gregory the Great Parish on Milwaukee's south side supported the idea of zero tolerance for abusers. Many wanted to know what the financial impact of legal costs and "hush money" was. Some there, and at other sites, were disappointed that the sessions weren't designed to answer questions as much as to gather feedback.

There was a huge burst of applause at St. Gregory when one woman said, "Not only should abusers be banned from the church, but they must go to jail and serve a sentence and be labeled as sex predators."

The night's format called for people at each site to break up into small groups to share their concerns and suggestions, and then reconvene for anyone who wanted to make comments of about one to three minutes.

At St. John Vianney, the entire gathering moved up into the main church early because of the size of the swelling crowd, which by that time nearly filled the 1,100-seat church. Weakland, who never had intended to speak, sat quietly against a rear wall.

Harold Fuchs, 84, of West Bend, a retired president of West Bend Mutual Insurance Co., said he came to the listening session at Holy Angels Parish in West Bend because the scandals are "a test of faith." He was among about 300 people, most of them middle-aged or older, who held lively discussions in groups of 10 to 12.

"People shouldn't form conclusions until they know everything," he said to a reporter, but he added that he wondered whether the archdiocese "is aiding and abetting criminals."

'A radical change'

At St. Mary's Parish in Burlington, Mary Jo Fonstad said she hoped the sexual-abuse scandal would be a cleansing wake-up call for the institutional church.

"Vatican II, it was a breath of fresh air, and now we need a whirlwind of fresh air," said Fonstad, 57, of Racine, a member of St. Rita's Parish there since 1976. "If you really believe the Holy Spirit is working . . . there's going to be a radical change. The church isn't going to be the same as it was in the past."

But Emery Casper, 73, of St. John the Baptist in Plymouth, said at the listening session there that he did not believe the scandal was as big as the media had made it out to be because many of the abuse allegations were decades old.

"I just don't think these guys are guilty," Casper said as he entered a church meeting room where nearly all of the 250 seats later filled.

Inside the school cafeteria where the St. Mary's session was held, Joe Cerniglia of Whitefish Bay, a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was distributing fliers that urged Catholics to take action and promoted a support gathering that SNAP is holding at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Milwaukee at Plymouth United Church of Christ, 2717 E. Hampshire St.

Pat Scharhag, 44, of West Bend was another abuse survivor who was drawn to a listening session even though a separate session for victims has been scheduled for June 11 at a yet-to-be-selected site.

"I am a survivor of abuse by a priest, so I'm here tonight because I want them to hear what I have to say, and I want to hear what they have to say," she said as she was entering the school hall at Holy Angels Parish.

It was, she said, her first time near church since 1991, when she stopped attending Mass because emotional problems from having been sexually abused by a priest for two years as an elementary school child in Waukesha County finally became too great for her.

Choking back tears, she said she had contacted Project Benjamin, the archdiocese's program for helping victims and investigating perpetrators but was disappointed with how she was treated.

At St. Gregory the Great, James Carter, 63, a Milwaukee resident who attends Gesu Church on the Marquette University campus, found the listening session emotionally difficult for other reasons.

"It's like coming to a wake of a loved one or friend," Carter said. "The church should never be in a predicament like this. The church made a bad decision when it covered it up. I want to hear that they are going to put a stop to the hush money payoffs."

As participants filed into St. Eugene's Parish in Fox Point, several said they were there to hear what the archdiocese has to say and how it intends to deal with the crisis.

"I really want to see what the archdiocese stand is going to be," said Jim Lovering, who attends St. Francis Borgia Catholic Church in Cedarburg. "Do we have a problem here in Milwaukee? And if we do, are we going to hide it or take it to the law?"

Lovering said priests should be held to the same legal standard as other citizens.

"They should be responsible to the law just like anybody else."

Though they want disclosure and accountability, some said they don't believe the crisis will fundamentally harm the church. "This isn't going to harm people's faith in the church," said Helen Dressel, 76, of Milwaukee, who attends St. Robert Church in Shorewood. "We're just very upset with the hierarchy, and the church needs to be shaken up."

Seeking input from laity

Weakland's style in the past has been to hold public listening sessions on controversial topics such as abortion and his closing of more than 50 parishes, and Milwaukee appears to be in the vanguard of dioceses that are responding to the national sexual-abuse furor by seeking input from the laity.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a telephone interview Thursday that individual parishes have held such sessions but relatively few dioceses have.

"You know, I think people shouldn't confuse talk with action, though. And the problem is, in the past there was such secrecy that now even a shred of openness seems like a welcome change of pace. But again, we shouldn't deceive ourselves. Talking about the problem doesn't mean solving it. And I think it's incumbent upon Weakland to take more proactive steps."

Tom Kertscher, Felicia Thomas-Lynn, Annysa Johnson, Jeanette Hurt and Peter Maller of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 17, 2002.