How much money would it take to make a person whole who was sexually abused as a child by a cleric the child trusted?
Is it $1.3 million, as one Franciscan province agreed with the Catholic diocese of Los Angeles to pay a dozen years ago on average to 22 victims in California? Is it $15,000, which a different Franciscan province paid or offered to three victims from Greenwood in the past year?
Or is it somewhere in between?
This is not a question that is easily settled, whether by a court or through private negotiations. As the Franciscan leader who negotiated the Greenwood settlement said, “no amount of money would ever account for” the psychic and permanent harm done to a child who is sexually abused by an adult, especially when that adult is held up as someone who is doing the work of God.
But those words, coming from the Rev. James G. Gannon, also sound like a bit of a copout. They leave me wondering how hard did he or whoever came up with the $15,000 figure really try to figure out what was fair compensation for such a grievous offense.
It’s fine that the Franciscans offered to pay for counseling, job opportunity programs and other services for the three men who, while attending St. Francis Church and School in the 1990s, were allegedly preyed upon by two Franciscan brothers. It’s right that the Franciscans are ashamed about what they acknowledge transpired, and how it could have gone on for years without being detected.
But the comparatively tiny size of the settlement and the negotiating advantage that the Franciscans brought to the table — authoritative, educated people dealing with poor, less-educated victims — suggested that what was sought here was not so much atonement for the sins of the past but rather an attempt to put a messy situation behind them at the lowest cost.
If that was the intent, it backfired. The Associated Press dug deeply into the settlement and its back story. It released this past week a lengthy investigative report that graphically described what happened to those three boys in the 1990s, raised questions about a possible coverup then and, perhaps most troubling, asks whether the Church today is still more concerned about its image than about cleaning up its act. Even though Gannon said the Franciscans had no intention of enforcing the confidentiality clause in the settlements, why was it left in? Did he not read what he was asking the victims to sign?
It bothers me — it almost feels sinful — to question the honesty of a priest.
I don’t remember Brother Paul West, the former Franciscan and school principal against whom the most damning allegations of sexual abuse and beatings have been leveled. I vaguely remember Brother Donald Lucas, who died in 1999 from what was possibly a guilt-induced suicide over what the Jackson diocese and his own order have said were credible accusations of sexual misconduct.
But I’ve known well or interviewed a lot of other Franciscans since I’ve been in Greenwood. I like and admire them. Priests such as Nathaniel Machesky, who during the 1960s accepted alienation from Greenwood’s predominately white Catholic church in order to show his solidarity with the protesters — including members of majority-black St. Francis — during the civil rights movement. Or Greg Plata, who became a friend to my family, presided over the wedding of our daughter and was there for us during rough patches. And now Kim Studwell and Cam Janas, two kind, warm-hearted priests and inspiring homilists.
The Franciscans, like most religious orders, are not looking for rewards in this life. They take a vow of poverty. They work and live mostly among those who are on the lower ends of the economic ladder. They dress in garb that might seem unusual — the brown robes and sandals — but is a constant reminder to them not only of St. Francis of Assisi, their 13th century founder, but of the humble, unpretentious, sacrificial lives they have chosen to lead. They abide by one of the hardest calls in Christianity — to put the materialism of this world behind and follow Jesus.
It is hard to understand how anyone who felt called to this type of religious life could prey on a child. The incongruity and hypocrisy are so unfathomable.
The clergy sex scandal has produced lots of victims.
Foremost, of course, are those who were abused as children, the numbers of whom we have learned over the past decade are larger than we were led to believe. Also their families, who are left to deal with the trauma that never seems to completely go away. Also Catholics in general, some of whom have left the church over the scandal and been more likely to renounce organized religion than join another denomination.
And then the priests and other religious, who walk under the cloud of doubt created by the egregious misconduct of a small fraction of their colleagues and the missteps of their superiors in dealing with the predators.
The priesthood (and brotherhood) are suffering a crisis of trust. What was once taken for granted — that the clergy, if not perfect, were definitely better behaving than those sitting in the pews — is not taken for granted anymore.
Had the Franciscans been more generous in their settlement offer, it might not have raised the trust level much. But failing to do so has probably lowered it.
• Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
