USA > History > 2010 > Faith (I)

Pope, in Sermon,

Says He Won’t Be Intimidated

March 28, 2010
The New York Times
By REUTERS

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) — Pope Benedict, facing one of the gravest crises of his pontificate as a sexual abuse scandal sweeps the Church, indicated on Sunday that his faith would give him the courage not to be intimidated by critics.

The 82-year-old pontiff led tens of thousands of people in a sunny St. Peter’s Square in a Palm Sunday service at the start of Holy Week events commemorating the last days in the life of Jesus.

While he did not directly mention the scandal involving sexual abuse of children by priests, parts of his sermon could be applicable to the crisis.

The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.”

He also spoke of how man can sometimes “fall to the lowest, vulgar levels” and “sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty.”

One prayer asked God to help “the young and those who work to educate and protect them,” which Vatican Radio said was intended to “sum up the feelings of the Church at this difficult time when it confronts the plague of pedophilia.”

As the scandal has convulsed the Church, the Vatican has gone on the offensive, attacking the media for what it called an “ignoble attempt” to smear Pope Benedict and his top advisers.

On Saturday, the Vatican’s chief spokesman acknowledged that the Church’s response to cases of sexual abuse by priests was crucial to its credibility and it must “acknowledge and make amends for” even decades-old cases.

“The nature of this issue is bound to attract media attention and the way the Church responds is crucial for its moral credibility,” the Vatican’s chief spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said on Vatican Radio.

Although the cases cited happened long ago, “even decades ago, acknowledging them and making amends to the victims is the price for re-establishing justice and looking to the future with renewed vigor, humility and confidence,” Father Lombardi said.

Sunday marked the start of a hectic week during which the Pope presides over seven major events leading up to Easter.

But while Catholics commemorate Christ’s passion, the 1.1 billion member Church is reeling from media reports on abuse that have led to the pope’s doorstep.

The Vatican has denied any cover-up in the abuse of 200 deaf boys in the United States by the Reverend Lawrence Murphy from the 1950s to the 1960s, after reports that he was not defrocked although the case was made known to the Vatican and to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Church’s top doctrinal official, now Pope Benedict.

The Vatican also said that the pope, while archbishop of Munich in 1980, was not involved in the decision by a subordinate to allow a priest who had been transferred there to undergo therapy for sexual abuse to return later to pastoral duties.

The European epicenter of the scandal is Ireland, where two bishops have resigned over their handling of abuse cases years ago. Three others have offered their resignation and there have been calls for the head of the Irish Church, Cardinal Sean Brady, to step down.

Pope, in Sermon, Says He Won’t Be Intimidated, NYT, 29.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/europe/29pope.html

Pope Opens Solemn Holy Week

Amid Sex Abuse Crisis

March 28, 2010
Filed at 2:27 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI opened Holy Week on Sunday amid one of the most serious crises facing the church in decades, with protesters in London demanding he resign and calls in Switzerland for a central registry for pedophile priests.

Benedict made no direct mention of the scandal in his Palm Sunday homily. But one of the prayers, recited in Portuguese during Mass, was ''for the young and for those charged with educating them and protecting them.''

Jesus Christ, Benedict said in his homily, guides the faithful ''toward the courage that doesn't let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others.''

Palm Sunday commemorates Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and is the start of the church's Holy Week, which includes the Good Friday re-enactment of Christ's crucifixion and death and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

This year, the most solemn week on the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar has been stained by a clerical abuse scandal that has spread across Europe to the pope's native Germany.

In London on Sunday, a few dozen people gathered outside Westminster Cathedral to demand the pope resign. Demonstrators carried placards saying ''Pope? Nope!'' and ''Don't Turn a Blind Eye.''

The Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols insisted the pope wouldn't -- and shouldn't -- quit. ''In fact, it is the other way around,'' he told BBC television. ''He is the one above all else in Rome that has tackled this thing head on.''

In Austria, where several cases have come out in recent weeks, the archbishop of Vienna announced the creation of a church-funded but clergy-free and independent commission to look into Austrian abuse claims.

It will be run by a woman, the former governor of Styria province, and is not meant to take the place of a possible state-run investigative commission, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn told public broadcaster ORF on Sunday.

And in Switzerland, Swiss President Doris Leuthard told the weekly SonntagsZeitung that Switzerland should consider creating a central registry of pedophile priests to prevent them from coming into contact with more children.

Church leaders say about 60 people have reported to be victims of priest abuse in Switzerland.

''It doesn't make any difference if the perpetrators are from the secular or spiritual world. Both violate Swiss law,'' she said. ''It's important that pedophile priests, like teachers and other guardians, don't come into contact with children.''

The Vatican has been on the defensive amid mounting questions about the pope's handling of sex abuse cases both when he was archbishop of Munich and when he headed the Vatican's doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was Munich archbishop when a priest was allowed to resume pastoral work with children even while receiving therapy for pedophilia. He was subsequently convicted of abusing minors. In addition, a case has come to light in which Ratzinger's deputy at the Congregation told Wisconsin bishops to quash a church trial for a priest alleged to have abused up to 200 deaf boys.

The Vatican insists Ratzinger was unaware of the Munich priest's move to the pastoral job and has defended its handling of the Wisconsin case.

Schoenborn, a close Benedict confidante, defended the pope against suggestions that he was behind church cover-ups, including for the late Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer. The Austrian church was rocked by allegations in 1995 that Groer molested youths at a monastery in the 1970s.

Schoenborn replaced Groer as archbishop in 1995; but it wasn't until 1998 that, on Vatican orders, Groer relinquished all religious duties and sought exile in Germany. He died in Austria in 2003.

At the time, the Vatican drew sharp criticism from many Austrians for taking three years to act against Groer. Disgust over how the case was handled has been cited as contributing to the exodus of disaffected Austrians from the church.

Schoenborn said Ratzinger had immediately pushed for an investigative commission when abuse allegations against Groer arose. However, others in the Vatican -- described by Schoenborn as the ''diplomatic track'' -- did not let this happen.

''I can still very clearly remember the moment when Cardinal Ratzinger sadly told me that the other camp had asserted itself,'' Schoenborn told ORF.

''To accuse him of being someone who covers things up -- having known the pope for many years, I can say that is certainly not true,'' he added.

Benedict has only publicly spoken about the scandal in Ireland, writing a letter to the Irish faithful last week in which he chastised Irish bishops for leadership shortcomings and errors in judgment for failing to apply church law to stop abusive priests.

On Saturday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, acknowledged that the way the church responds to the abuse scandal is ''crucial for its moral credibility.''

His comments indicated that the Vatican is now looking at the scandal as a way to purify itself so that it can emerge renewed and strengthened. He pointed to the action taken by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops after the clerical abuse scandal erupted there in 2002, instituting tough norms to protect children.

Separately Sunday, a retired Italian cardinal and one-time candidate for the papacy said in comments published in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that celibacy for priests should be reconsidered.

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, former archbishop of Milan and considered one of the more liberal-leaning princes of the church, was quoted as saying that mandatory chastity for churchmen should be thought over to prevent further abuse cases by clergy and help the church regain lost trust.

The Vatican has rejected suggestions that celibacy caused the abuse and Benedict has reaffirmed it as a gift to God as recently as this month.

------

Associated Press Writer Veronika Oleksyn in Vienna contributed to this report.

    Pope Opens Solemn Holy Week Amid Sex Abuse Crisis, NYT, 28.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/28/world/AP-EU-Vatican-Palm-Sunday.html

Pope May Be at Crossroads on Abuse,

Forced to Reconcile Policy and Words

March 25, 2010
The New York Times
By RACHEL DONADIO

ROME — Even as Pope Benedict XVI, faced with a sexual abuse scandal spreading across Europe, has called on victims to come forward and urged clerics to cooperate with civil justice, those strong words are running up against the complexities of his past.

“He is at a crossroads,” said Marco Politi, a veteran Italian Vatican journalist. “What’s extraordinary is that the scandal has reached the heart of the center of the church. Up to now it was far away — in the States, in Canada, in Brazil, in Australia. Then it came to Europe, to Ireland.

“Then it came to his motherland,” Mr. Politi added of Benedict’s native Germany. “Then it came to his diocese, and now it’s coming to the heart of the government of the church — and he has to give an answer.”

Last weekend, in a heartfelt letter to Irish Catholics reeling from reports of decades of systemic sexual abuse, Benedict apologized but did not discipline any church leaders who had covered up abuses, fueling growing anger in Ireland.

Mr. Politi said the pope in his letter had “set a very rigorous line: The search for truth, full transparency, listening to victims, punishing guilt and deference to state courts. The issue now is how he will handle the past.”

As archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, the future pope approved the transfer to Munich for psychiatric treatment of a priest who had sexually abused boys. The priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, was quickly returned to pastoral work with children. This month, a subordinate took responsibility for the decision, although internal church documents show that Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was copied on a memorandum informing him of the transfer. Benedict has not addressed the issue.

In 1998, top Vatican officials, including the future pope, did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin, according to internal church documents obtained by The New York Times from lawyers who are suing church officials. The decision came after the priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency.

The Vatican has said that the abuse dated back decades and that Father Murphy’s age and ill health were reason enough not to dismiss him from the clergy.

Benedict’s defenders tend to see the crisis as an elaborate personal attack on the pope.

In an unsigned editorial on Thursday, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, criticized The Times for an article published Thursday on the abuse issue. The Italian editorial said that Benedict had always handled such cases with “transparency, purpose and severity,” and accused the news media of acting “with the clear and ignoble intent of trying to strike Benedict and his closest collaborators at any cost.”

Yet as dioceses in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere have opened investigations in recent weeks and set up e-mail addresses where victims can come forward, attention is growing on how the Vatican — and Benedict — will proceed.

“Now he has to decide: either he goes ahead with a policy of transparency, or he goes back to an old line, saying that these are old cases, that not punishing the perpetrators is an act of mercy,” Mr. Politi said.

After sexual abuse cases rocked the American church in 2002 and 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger developed a reputation for investigating such cases more rigorously than his more popular predecessor, John Paul II.

“I find it very paradoxical, because the polemics are against a person who not only today but also in the past consistently fought this with more vigor than anyone else,” said Sandro Magister, a longtime Vatican journalist in Italy.

Mr. Magister noted that in one high-profile case, Cardinal Ratzinger ultimately opened a previously suspended investigation into the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a religious order.

After it emerged that Father Maciel had sexually abused seminarians and fathered several children, the Vatican ordered a rare special investigation into all Legionaries communities, seminaries, and schools worldwide, which was completed just this month. Its findings remain secret. Father Maciel died in 2008, still a priest, but having been ordered by the Vatican to live in seclusion and contemplation.

As abuse cases from the United States flooded across the future pope’s desk a decade ago, advisers said that he was struck by the depth of the crisis. On his first visit to the United States as pope in 2008, Benedict said he was “ashamed” of the sexual abuse scandal, adding, “It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general, for me personally, that this could happen.”

In Washington on that same trip, he cited the top bishop of the United States, who had said the situation was “sometimes very badly handled.”

And he met with abuse victims — something he said in his letter to Irish Catholics he would be willing to do again.

On Thursday, members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an American advocacy group, held an impromptu news conference in St. Peter’s Square, holding up pictures of Father Murphy and calling on the Vatican to take responsibility.

“They’re not holding themselves accountable, and these documents show they were very involved in the case,” said John Pilmaier, the group’s Wisconsin director.

Twenty minutes into the news conference, the Rome police told the group that it did not have a proper permit, and brought organizers in for questioning. They were detained for two and a half hours. “We’ve spent more time in police custody than most of these pedophile priests have,” Mr. Pilmaier said.

In addition to the protest in Rome, the group, called SNAP, demonstrated Thursday in Washington, Chicago, Milwaukee and in the northern Wisconsin town of Boulder Junction, where Father Murphy lived for many years before he died in 1998.

Mary Guentner, director of the Milwaukee chapter, who helped organize the Chicago protest, said, “The two main responses here are shock at the number of victims, and the fact that Ratzinger was heavily involved.

“What’s different here is that Archbishop Weakland did go to the Vatican,” she said, referring to a former head of the Milwaukee Archdiocese. “He did not do enough. He did very little. But what we now know is that the Vatican doesn’t even listen to their own hierarchy.”

But some Catholics said Benedict was being unfairly blamed. On her way into the afternoon Mass at Our Lady of Good Hope, a Catholic parish in Milwaukee, Freida Mueller, 74, said: “I think the pope is a good man. I believe a lot of people are in this because they want to get an extra something out of the church.”

“There are people out there doing pretty disgusting things in other religions,” she added. “They’re only after the Catholic Church.”


Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York, and Susan Saulny from Milwaukee.

    Pope May Be at Crossroads on Abuse, Forced to Reconcile Policy and Words, NYT, 26.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26vatican.html

Pope Was Told

Pedophile Priest Would Get Transfer

March 25, 2010
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS KULISH
and KATRIN BENNHOLD

MUNICH — The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope and archbishop in Munich at the time, was copied on a memo that informed him that a priest, whom he had approved sending to therapy in 1980 to overcome pedophilia, would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning psychiatric treatment. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.

An initial statement on the matter issued earlier this month by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising placed full responsibility for the decision to allow the priest to resume his duties on Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, the Rev. Gerhard Gruber. But the memo, whose existence was confirmed by two church officials, shows that the future pope not only led a meeting on Jan. 15, 1980, approving the transfer of the priest, but was also kept informed about the priest’s reassignment.

What part he played in the decision making, and how much interest he showed in the case of the troubled priest, who had molested multiple boys in his previous job, remains unclear. But the personnel chief who handled the matter from the beginning, the Rev. Friedrich Fahr, “always remained personally, exceptionally connected” to Cardinal Ratzinger, the church said.

The case of the German priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann, has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican, was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children. The German Archdiocese has acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made in the handling of Father Hullermann, though it attributed those mistakes to people reporting to Cardinal Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself.

Church officials defend Benedict by saying the memo was routine and was “unlikely to have landed on the archbishop’s desk,” according to the Rev. Lorenz Wolf, judicial vicar at the Munich Archdiocese. But Father Wolf said he could not rule out that Cardinal Ratzinger had read it.

According to Father Wolf, who spoke with Father Gruber this week at the request of The New York Times, Father Gruber, the former vicar general, said that he could not remember a detailed conversation with Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Hullermann, but that Father Gruber refused to rule out that “the name had come up.”

Benedict is well known for handling priestly abuse cases in the Vatican before he became pope. While some have criticized his role in adjudicating such cases over the past two decades, he has also won praise from victims’ advocates for taking the issue more seriously, apologizing to American victims in 2008.

The future pope’s time in Munich, in the broader sweep of his life story, has until now been viewed mostly as a steppingstone on the road to the Vatican. But this period in his career has recently come under scrutiny — particularly six decisive weeks from December 1979 to February 1980.

In that short span, a review of letters, meeting minutes and documents from personnel files shows, Father Hullermann went from disgrace and suspension from his duties in Essen to working without restrictions as a priest in Munich, despite the fact that he was described in the letter requesting his transfer as a potential “danger.”

In September 1979, the chaplain was removed from his congregation after three sets of parents told his superior, the Rev. Norbert Essink, that he had molested their sons, charges he did not deny, according to notes taken by the superior and still in Father Hullermann’s personnel file in Essen.

On Dec. 20, 1979, Munich’s personnel chief, Father Fahr, received a phone call from his counterpart in the Essen Diocese, Klaus Malangré.

There is no official record of their conversation, but in a letter to Father Fahr dated that Jan. 3, Father Malangré referred to it as part of a formal request for Father Hullermann’s transfer to Munich to see a psychiatrist there.

Sexual abuse of boys is not explicitly mentioned in the letter, but the subtext is clear. “Reports from the congregation in which he was last active made us aware that Chaplain Hullermann presented a danger that caused us to immediately withdraw him from pastoral duties,” the letter said. By pointing out that “no proceedings against Chaplain Hullermann are pending,” Father Malangré also communicated that the danger in question was serious enough that it could have merited legal consequences.

He dropped another clear hint by suggesting that Father Hullermann could teach religion “at a girls’ school.”

On Jan. 9, Father Fahr prepared a summary of the situation for top officials at the diocese, before their weekly meeting, saying that a young chaplain needed “medical-psychotherapeutic treatment in Munich” and a place to live with “an understanding colleague.” Beyond that, it presented the priest from Essen in almost glowing terms, as a “very talented man, who could be used in a variety of ways.”

Father Fahr’s role in the case has thus far received little attention, in contrast to Father Gruber’s mea culpa.

Father Wolf, who is acting as the internal legal adviser on the Hullermann case, said in an interview this week that Father Fahr was “the filter” of all information concerning Father Hullermann. He was also, according to his obituary on the archdiocese Web site, a close friend of Cardinal Ratzinger.

A key moment came on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 1980. Cardinal Ratzinger presided that morning over the meeting of the diocesan council. His auxiliary bishops and department heads gathered in a conference room on the top floor of the bishop’s administrative offices, housed in a former monastery on a narrow lane in downtown Munich.

It was a busy day, with the deaths of five priests, the acquisition of a piece of art and pastoral care in Vietnamese for recent immigrants among the issues sharing the agenda with item 5d, the delicate matter of Father Hullermann’s future.

The minutes of the meeting include no references to the actual discussion that day, simply stating that a priest from Essen in need of psychiatric treatment required room and board in a Munich congregation. “The request is granted,” read the minutes, stipulating that Father Hullermann would live at St. John the Baptist Church in the northern part of the city.

Church officials have their own special name for the language in meeting minutes, which are internal but circulate among secretaries and other diocese staff members, said Father Wolf, who has a digitized archive of meeting minutes, including those for the Jan. 15 meeting. “It’s protocol-speak,” he said. “Those who know what it’s about understand, and those who don’t, don’t.”

Five days later, on Jan. 20, Cardinal Ratzinger’s office received a copy of the memo from his vicar general, Father Gruber, returning Father Hullermann to full duties, a spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed.

Father Hullermann resumed parish work practically on arrival in Munich, on Feb. 1, 1980. He was convicted in 1986 of molesting boys at another Bavarian parish.

This week, new accusations of sexual abuse emerged, both from his first assignment in a parish near Essen, in northern Germany, and from 1998 in the southern German town of Garching an der Alz.

Father Fahr died two years ago. A spokesman for the diocese in Essen said that Father Malangré was not available for an interview. Father Malangré, now 88, recently had an accident and was confused and unreliable as a witness when questioned in an internal inquiry into the handling of Father Hullermann’s case, said the spokesman, Ulrich Lota.

Father Gruber, who took responsibility for the decision to put Father Hullermann back into a parish, was not present at the Jan. 15 meeting, according to Father Wolf, and has not answered repeated interview requests.

Pope Was Told Pedophile Priest Would Get Transfer, NYT, 26.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26church.html

Letters

The Widening Scandal in the Church

March 26, 2010
The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Deaf Boys” (front page, March 25):

I have just read about the Wisconsin priest shielded by the Roman Catholic Church and am weeping at the tragedy of this horrific situation. Is not sexual molestation a criminal act? As soon as such behavior is known, shouldn’t those with knowledge of it turn the perpetrator over to legal authorities for prosecution?

The Catholic Church apparently considers itself above laws that govern society in general, and those holding positions of authority — starting with a parish priest — feel that “repentance” resolves this crime. Would it do the same for a murderer?

Margaret Eysmans
Scottsdale, Ariz., March 25, 2010

•

To the Editor:

I could not open my mouth for 35 years. Being a victim is defeat; it is touching the wood of the cross. It is raw. And yet I am encouraged by the deep humility, courage and honesty of fine men and priests like Rembert G. Weakland, who was archbishop of Milwaukee.

He and many others, human and holy, flawed and gifted, whom I’ve been blessed to know over the years took me under their wing and showed me the peace of Christ.

Simply, it is time for Pope Benedict XVI and all those who have kept abuse secret within the hierarchical and imperfect church to come clean and be open to the truth. By doing do, forgiveness is realized, and life, however dark, moves on.

Mark Joseph Williams
Mendham, N.J., March 25, 2010

•

To the Editor:

Re “The Pope and the Pedophilia Scandal” (editorial, March 25):

While remorse, regret and shame are coming forth from the Vatican in this latest series of child abuse scandals by Catholic priests, another emotion is appropriate — atonement. Reparations for past and current sins and scandals demand nothing less than truth and clarity. Then, perhaps, there can be resolution.

While the Catholic Church is a bastion of faith and spirituality for millions around the world, the cover-ups and evasions that continue to be exposed reflect mortal fear, frailty and failings rather than anything heavenly or holy.

My father’s family — indeed, my ancestors spanning centuries — was fervently Catholic, but even as a child, I witnessed the contradictions between their preaching and practices. And while I still respect the Catholic Church for the comfort it offers millions, not to mention its incredible history and global presence, there are aspects of that history, theology and influence that I find incompatible.

I could relay several examples, but an anomaly in this case is glaring. In contrast to being a very vocal opponent of gay marriage between two consenting adults, it appears that the Catholic Church has been disquietingly silent on the subject of sexual abuse of children — not only of a pedophilic but also of a homosexual nature — when it occurs within its own ranks and household.

Wayne Trujillo
Denver, March 25, 2010

•

To the Editor:

New York State law does not provide adequate protection to children abused by clerics. Doctors, nurses and school personnel are required by law to report suspected cases of abuse to child protective agencies and/or law enforcement officials. Bishops are still not mandatory reporters.

New legislation is proposed yearly, passed in one-half of the Legislature, only to die in the other house. The Legislature should act now to close this loophole.

Francis W. Rodgers
Rensselaer, N.Y., March 25, 2010

•

To the Editor:

Re “Benedict’s Fragile Church,” by Peter Schneider (Op-Ed, March 23):

Celibacy does not cause pedophilia. But what the exclusively male, celibate culture has bred in Roman Catholicism is the obvious lack of awareness that a mother or a father would bring to such a problem or discussion.

The exclusion of the female perspective in particular in this decision-making until very recently and the nearly complete lack of parents involved in such evaluations of exploitative priests left the “clerical culture” to become a hothouse of self-protection and myopic values.

Only as the church is able to incorporate the corporeal experience of “parenthood” into the real decision-making of its hierarchy will it deserve the title it has had for centuries of “Holy Mother Church.”

David E. Pasinski
Fayetteville, N.Y., March 23, 2010

The writer was an active priest for 15 years and is the married father of two.

•

To the Editor:

The child abuse issue presents the Catholic Church with a fundamental dilemma: Christian doctrine is based on the revolutionary concept of forgiveness of sin, and yet how can an adult in authority be forgiven for having taken advantage of innocents?

I would argue that, among all religions, this particular doctrine inspires hope, peace and reverence for life, and should itself be revered. While it makes sense that celibacy may be the villain, it is more likely that secrecy within the structure of the Catholic Church — what we now call lack of transparency — is the culprit.

Enshrouding officials in an impenetrable cloud of holiness, creating a holy “legalese” intended to keep outsiders out and insiders in, can only invite abuse by leaders who are, when all is said and done, merely human.

Charles Kaufmann
South Freeport, Me., March 23, 2010

•

To the Editor:

Re “Pope’s Letter Does Little to Assuage Irish Anger” (news article, March 22):

Given the legal and other strictures that have been attached to the continuing and now international pedophile scandal, the traditional Vatican practice of replacing a prelate only after he has tried to clean up the mess that he has made may well prove inadequate.

Pope Benedict XVI has taken as a mandate to return Christianity to a central place in European thinking, and current events have provided an opportunity as well as an evident challenge.

What is needed now is not only papal action that addresses specific cases, but also a larger pronouncement that deals with what these events have taught Catholics about sin, forgiveness and hope.

John C. Hirsh
Washington, March 22, 2010

The writer is a professor of English at Georgetown University.

    The Widening Scandal in the Church, NYT, 26.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/l26church.html

Vatican Declined to Defrock

U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys

March 24, 2010
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.

“I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood,” Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. “I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.

The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.

Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.

Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest.

Even as the pope himself in a recent letter to Irish Catholics has emphasized the need to cooperate with civil justice in abuse cases, the correspondence seems to indicate that the Vatican’s insistence on secrecy has often impeded such cooperation. At the same time, the officials’ reluctance to defrock a sex abuser shows that on a doctrinal level, the Vatican has tended to view the matter in terms of sin and repentance more than crime and punishment.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, was shown the documents and was asked to respond to questions about the case. He provided a statement saying that Father Murphy had certainly violated “particularly vulnerable” children and the law, and that it was a “tragic case.” But he pointed out that the Vatican was not forwarded the case until 1996, years after civil authorities had investigated the case and dropped it.

Father Lombardi emphasized that neither the Code of Canon Law nor the Vatican norms issued in 1962, which instruct bishops to conduct canonical investigations and trials in secret, prohibited church officials from reporting child abuse to civil authorities. He did not address why that had never happened in this case.

As to why Father Murphy was never defrocked, he said that “the Code of Canon Law does not envision automatic penalties.” He said that Father Murphy’s poor health and the lack of more recent accusations against him were factors in the decision.

The Vatican’s inaction is not unusual. Only 20 percent of the 3,000 accused priests whose cases went to the church’s doctrinal office between 2001 and 2010 were given full church trials, and only some of those were defrocked, according to a recent interview in an Italian newspaper with Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, the chief internal prosecutor at that office. An additional 10 percent were defrocked immediately. Ten percent left voluntarily. But a majority — 60 percent — faced other “administrative and disciplinary provisions,” Monsignor Scicluna said, like being prohibited from celebrating Mass.

To many, Father Murphy appeared to be a saint: a hearing man gifted at communicating in American Sign Language and an effective fund-raiser for deaf causes. A priest of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, he started as a teacher at St. John’s School for the Deaf, in St. Francis, in 1950. He was promoted to run the school in 1963 even though students had disclosed to church officials in the 1950s that he was a predator.

Victims give similar accounts of Father Murphy’s pulling down their pants and touching them in his office, his car, his mother’s country house, on class excursions and fund-raising trips and in their dormitory beds at night. Arthur Budzinski said he was first molested when he went to Father Murphy for confession when he was about 12, in 1960.

“If he was a real mean guy, I would have stayed away,” said Mr. Budzinski, now 61, who worked for years as a journeyman printer. “But he was so friendly, and so nice and understanding. I knew he was wrong, but I couldn’t really believe it.”

Mr. Budzinski and a group of other deaf former students spent more than 30 years trying to raise the alarm, including passing out leaflets outside the Milwaukee cathedral. Mr. Budzinski’s friend Gary Smith said in an interview that Father Murphy molested him 50 or 60 times, starting at age 12. By the time he graduated from high school at St. John’s, Mr. Smith said, “I was a very, very angry man.”

In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse.

However, it was not until 1996 that Archbishop Weakland tried to have Father Murphy defrocked. The reason, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, was to defuse the anger among the deaf and restore their trust in the church. He wrote that since he had become aware that “solicitation in the confessional might be part of the situation,” the case belonged at the doctrinal office.

With no response from Cardinal Ratzinger, Archbishop Weakland wrote a different Vatican office in March 1997 saying the matter was urgent because a lawyer was preparing to sue, the case could become public and “true scandal in the future seems very possible.”

Recently some bishops have argued that the 1962 norms dictating secret disciplinary procedures have long fallen out of use. But it is clear from these documents that in 1997, they were still in force.

But the effort to dismiss Father Murphy came to a sudden halt after the priest appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency.

In an interview, Archbishop Weakland said that he recalled a final meeting at the Vatican in May 1998 in which he failed to persuade Cardinal Bertone and other doctrinal officials to grant a canonical trial to defrock Father Murphy. (In 2002, Archbishop Weakland resigned after it became public that he had an affair with a man and used church money to pay him a settlement.)

Archbishop Weakland said this week in an interview, “The evidence was so complete, and so extensive that I thought he should be reduced to the lay state, and also that that would bring a certain amount of peace in the deaf community.”

Father Murphy died four months later at age 72 and was buried in his priestly vestments. Archbishop Weakland wrote a last letter to Cardinal Bertone explaining his regret that Father Murphy’s family had disobeyed the archbishop’s instructions that the funeral be small and private, and the coffin kept closed.

“In spite of these difficulties,” Archbishop Weakland wrote, “we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church.”


Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome.

Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys, NYT, 25.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html

Giving Up, but Also Taking On, for Lent

March 19, 2010
The New York Times
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

WASHINGTON — In his charcoal trousers and navy blazer, the uniform of decades as an executive, John Hisle waited for his 10 a.m. appointment to arrive. The man’s name was Allen Franklin and he had come for help in devising what would be, at age 44, the first résumé of his life.

Mr. Franklin looked respectable in black slacks and a burgundy shirt, his mustache neatly trimmed. As Mr. Hisle gently guided him through questions about his working life, though, there emerged a biography as notable for its holes as for its solids.

“What happened after 2007?” asked Mr. Hisle, at age 68 four years into retirement from the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

“I got in trouble with the law,” Mr. Franklin answered softly. “I went to a rehab program.”

And those years from 1985 to 1999?

“Hanging out on the street,” Mr. Franklin replied.

And what was your last year in school?

“Seventh grade.”

Over the course of an hour, Mr. Hisle tapped out the fullest résumé he could, with its notations of Mr. Franklin’s years doing construction, factory work, maintenance, grocery stocking and caregiving for a dying uncle. Mr. Franklin, as if reliving every wrong choice, bowed his head and lowered his eyes. He kept calling Mr. Hisle sir, less out of humility than humiliation.

But while Mr. Franklin exuded the aspect of penitence, Mr. Hisle was enacting it. There was nothing coincidental about the fact he was meeting Mr. Franklin on the 25th day of Lent. In volunteering four hours a week at a nonprofit employment service called Jubilee Jobs, Mr. Hisle aspired to more than doing good; he aspired, in the spirit of the season, to approach an understanding of Jesus’ mission and sacrifice.

“I’m hoping that somehow or other by helping with a résumé, treating him with respect, showing him we care, that even though he’s had a hard life, maybe things can get better,” Mr. Hisle said after the appointment. “In doing this work, I try to see what we call in our church, ‘Christ in our midst.’ Meaning I believe that God is with us. And that no matter what we do, God loves us.”

In his act of service, Mr. Hisle stands within rings of concentric circles. He is one of about 45 members of his parish, Holy Trinity in the Georgetown neighborhood, to undertake volunteer work and the study of social justice theology as part of Lent. Holy Trinity’s activists, in turn, form part of a wider number of Roman Catholics across America who are making Lent an occasion not only to give up something, but also to take on something in the form of voluntary labor toward social justice.

“Part of what’s going on is a shift from a privatized piety to a relationship with God that includes all human beings,” said the Rev. Mark Horak, the pastor of Holy Trinity. “That’s a major shift, but it’s fundamental to Scripture.”

The trend, what one might call the rebranding of Lent, has no specific leader, no formal organization. It has emerged as much bottom-up from laity as top-down from clergy members. It does, however, draw on both recent and ancient Catholic sources, and, indeed, from the Judaic roots of the faith.

While Glenn Beck recently expressed the dubious view of social justice as tantamount to Communism and Fascism, the body of modern Catholic teaching on the subject runs from the 1891 papal encyclical on workers’ rights, “Rerum Novarum,” to the 1993 statement by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Harvest of Justice Is Sown in Peace.”

The traditional Lenten practices of praying, fasting and alms-giving date to the Yom Kippur admonition that Jews atone by teshuvah, tefillah and tzedakah — repentance, prayer and charity. When Jesus declared, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” one of the passages most often cited by today’s advocates of social justice work during Lent, he was reiterating words from the Book of Hosea in the Hebrew Bible.

Even so, the Lent norms for American Catholics long tended toward forgoing something (meat, chocolate, Facebook) or heightening observance (attending Mass and making confession more often).

The Rev. James Martin, author of “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything,” said the movement toward social justice Lent began to stir in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. This type of sacrifice offered a way to reconcile the two dueling themes of the council — aggiornamento (bringing up to date) and ressourcement (returning to tradition).

“Since one of the original purposes of Lent was to save money to give to the poor,” Father Martin said in a telephone interview, “doing positive works was a way of updating by going back to sources. It may hew more closely to Jesus’ dictum about desiring mercy. And in terms of spiritual life, anything that can help someone experience God in a new way, a surprising way, is very helpful.”

About 500 miles west of and 52 years younger than John Hisle, Andrew McLaughlin shared the experience of Lenten idealism. His high school, St. Xavier in Cincinnati, transformed its courtyard into a homeless shantytown. Students threw together cardboard shelters and stayed in them for two rainy nights to learn firsthand about the suffering of the dispossessed.

“Although the Shantytown experience happened within the walls of our school, we really felt as though we could be living from one day to the next and never knowing what would come,” Mr. McLaughlin, a 16-year-old junior, wrote in an e-mail message.

“In sacrificing the basic comforts I had known, I really found a way to sacrifice during Lent. So far I had given up something menial like pop for Lent, but in those two and a half days I gave up nearly everything I had — my money, my phone, my computer — all of it to lead a retreat I had never expected to go on.”

    Giving Up, but Also Taking On, for Lent, NYT, 20.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/us/20religion.html

Justices to Hear Case of Protest

at Marine Funeral

March 8, 2010
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether the father of a Marine killed in Iraq may sue protesters who picketed his son’s funeral with signs that read “God Hates You” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”

A federal appeals court dismissed the suit on First Amendment grounds and threw out a $5 million award against the protesters, who are members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., and maintain that God hates homosexuality and that the death of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is God’s way of punishing the United States for its tolerance of it.

The fallen Marine was Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, and his funeral was held in Westminster, Md., in 2006. His father, Albert Snyder, testified at trial in 2007 that the protests continued to haunt and disturb him.

“For the rest of my life,” Mr. Snyder said, “I will remember what they did to me, and it has tarnished the memory of my son’s last hour on earth.”

He added that he became angry and tearful when he thought about the protest and that the memory of it had caused him to vomit.

The protesters complied with local laws and instructions from the police about keeping their distance. They did not know the Snyders, and they had staged similar protests at other military funerals.

Mr. Snyder’s central claim is that the protesters intentionally inflicted emotional distress on him.

In 1988, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment barred the Rev. Jerry Falwell from suing Hustler Magazine for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Hustler had published a parody of an advertisement suggesting that Mr. Falwell had incestuous sex in an outhouse. (Coincidentally, Mr. Falwell expressed views not wholly different from those of the funeral protesters, saying that the nation’s attitudes toward homosexuality and abortion had played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.)

Mr. Snyder contends that the Hustler decision should not apply to suits brought by one private person against another. In libel and other cases, the Supreme Court has limited the First Amendment protection afforded to purely private speech.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., unanimously ruled against Mr. Snyder, though the judges split 2-to-1 over the rationale. The majority said the messages on the protesters’ signs were protected under the First Amendment because they addressed matters of general interest.

“As utterly distasteful as these signs are,” Judge Robert B. King wrote for the majority, “they involve matters of public concern, including the issues of homosexuals in the military, the sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, and the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens.”

The Supreme Court will consider the case, Snyder v. Phelps, No. 09-751, in the fall.

BACKGROUND CHECKS The court also agreed to decide whether a 2004 Bush administration antiterrorism initiative violated the privacy rights of scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a research facility operated by the California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA.

The initiative extended the background checks required for many government jobs to contract employees like those at the laboratory. The employees sued, saying that such government investigations are needlessly intrusive and violate privacy rights.

The employees, who do not have security clearances and are not involved in classified or military activities, objected to answering questions about drug use and counseling, and to signing a form authorizing the government to collect information from schools, landlords, employers and others.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ordered the background checks halted while the case went forward. The full court declined to review that decision, with several judges dissenting.

Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld said the court’s decision was “likely to impair national security” by forbidding the government “from doing what any sensible private employer would do.”

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, NASA v. Nelson, No. 09-530. He said the law in this area had turned into a turducken — a chicken stuffed into a duck that is then stuffed into a turkey.

BANKRUPTCY LAWYERS In a decision Monday, the court interpreted a 2005 bankruptcy law narrowly to avoid a First Amendment challenge. The law forbids some professionals from advising their clients “to incur more debt in contemplation of” a bankruptcy filing.

The first issue in the case was whether the law applied to lawyers, and the court, in an opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said it did. The second, harder question was whether the law violated the First Amendment in forbidding lawyers from giving some kinds of advice.

No one disputed that lawyers could be forbidden from counseling their clients to abuse the bankruptcy system by piling on debt right before filing. But there are also sensible reasons to take on additional debt in the face of possible bankruptcy.

Justice Sotomayor wrote that the law, properly read, prohibited lawyers “only from advising a debtor to incur more debt because the debtor is filing for bankruptcy, rather than for a valid purpose.”

Advice about refinancing a mortgage, buying a reliable car to get to work and paying medical bills are all outside the scope of the law, Justice Sotomayor said.

The ruling in the case, Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz v. United States, No. 08-1119, was unanimous, though Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas did not join in all of Justice Sotomayor’s reasoning.

Justices to Hear Case of Protest at Marine Funeral, NYT, 9.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/us/09scotus.html

Defectors Say

Church of Scientology Hides Abuse

March 6, 2010
The New York Times
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

“Why did we work so hard for this organization,” Ms. Collbran said, “and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn’t understand.”

They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades.

Fifty-six years after its founding by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986, the church is fighting off calls by former members for a Reformation. The defectors say Sea Org members were repeatedly beaten by the church’s chairman, David Miscavige, often during planning meetings; pressured to have abortions; forced to work without sleep on little pay; and held incommunicado if they wanted to leave. The church says the defectors are lying.

The defectors say that the average Scientology member, known in the church as a public, is largely unaware of the abusive environment experienced by staff members. The church works hard to cultivate public members — especially celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Nancy Cartwright (the voice of the cartoon scoundrel Bart Simpson) — whose money keeps it running.

But recently even some celebrities have begun to abandon the church, the most prominent of whom is the director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, who won Oscars for “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash.” Mr. Haggis had been a member for 35 years. His resignation letter, leaked to a defectors’ Web site, recounted his indignation as he came to believe that the defectors’ accusations must be true.

“These were not the claims made by ‘outsiders’ looking to dig up dirt against us,” Mr. Haggis wrote. “These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church.”

The church has responded to the bad publicity by denying the accusations and calling attention to a worldwide building campaign that showcases its wealth and industriousness. Last year, it built or renovated opulent Scientology churches, which it calls Ideal Orgs, in Rome; Malmo, Sweden; Dallas; Nashville; and Washington. And at its base here on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it continued buying hotels and office buildings (54 in all) and constructing a 380,000-square-foot mecca that looks like a convention center.

“This is a representation of our success,” said the church’s spokesman, Tommy Davis, showing off the building’s cavernous atrium, still to be clad in Italian marble, at the climax of a daylong tour of the church’s Clearwater empire. “This is a result of our expansion. It’s pinch-yourself material.”

As for the defectors, Mr. Davis called them “apostates” and said that contrary to their claims of having left the church in protest, they were expelled.

“And since they’re removed, the church is expanding like never before,” said Mr. Davis, a second-generation Scientologist whose mother is the actress Anne Archer. “And what we see here is evidence of the fact that we’re definitely better off without them.”

‘Bridge to Total Freedom’

Scientology is an esoteric religion in which the faith is revealed gradually to those who invest their time and money to master Mr. Hubbard’s teachings. Scientologists believe that human beings are impeded by negative memories from past lives, and that by applying Mr. Hubbard’s “technology,” they can reach a state known as clear.

They may spend hundreds of hours in one-on-one “auditing” sessions, holding the slim silver-colored handles of an e-meter while an auditor asks them questions and takes notes on what they say and on the e-meter’s readings.

By doing enough auditing, taking courses and studying Mr. Hubbard’s books and lectures — for which some Scientologists say they have paid as much as $1 million — Scientologists believe that they can proceed up the “bridge to total freedom” and live to their full abilities as Operating Thetans, pure spirits. They do believe in God, or a Supreme Being that is associated with infinite potential.

Ms. Collbran, who is 33, said she loved the church so much that she never thought she would leave. Her parents were dedicated church members in Los Angeles, and she attended full-time Scientology schools for several years. When she was 8 or 9, she took the basic communications course, which teaches techniques for persuasive public speaking and improving self-confidence and has served as a major recruiting tool.

By 10, Ms. Collbran had completed the Purification Rundown, a regimen that involves taking vitamins and sitting in a sauna (a fixture inside every Scientology church) for as much as five hours a day, for weeks at a time, to cleanse the body of toxins.

By 16, she was recruited into the Sea Org, so named because it once operated from ships, wearing a Navy-like uniform with epaulets on the shoulders for work. She fully believed in the mission: to “clear the planet” of negative influences by bringing Scientology to its inhabitants. Her mindset then, Ms. Collbran said, was: “This planet needs our help, and people are suffering. And we have the answers.”

Christie and Chris Collbran were married in a simple ceremony at the Scientology center in Manhattan. Although she and her parents were very close, she said they had spent so much to advance up the bridge that they could not afford to attend the wedding.

It was in Johannesburg, where the couple had gone to supervise the building of a new Scientology organization, that Mr. Collbran, who is 29, began to have doubts. He had spent months at church headquarters in Clearwater revising the design for the Johannesburg site to meet Mr. Miscavige’s demands.

Mr. Collbran said he saw an officer hit a subordinate, and soon found that the atmosphere of supervision through intimidation was affecting him. He acknowledges that he pushed a 17-year-old staff member against a wall and yelled at his wife, who was his deputy.

In Johannesburg, officials made the church look busy for publicity photographs by filling it with Sea Org members, the Collbrans said. To make their numbers look good for headquarters, South African parishioners took their maids and gardeners to church.

But the Ideal Orgs are supposed to be self-supporting, and the Johannesburg church was generating only enough to pay each of the Collbrans $17 a week, Mr. Collbran said.

“It was all built on lies,” Mr. Collbran said. “We’re working 16 hours a day trying to save the planet, and the church is shrinking.”

‘It’s Everything You Know’

The church is vague about its membership numbers. In 11 hours with a reporter over two days, Mr. Davis, the church’s spokesman, gave the numbers of Sea Org members (8,000), of Scientologists in the Tampa-Clearwater area (12,000) and of L. Ron Hubbard’s books printed in the last two and a half years (67 million). But asked about the church’s membership, Mr. Davis said, “I couldn’t tell you an exact figure, but it’s certainly, it’s most definitely in the millions in the U.S. and millions abroad.”

He said he did not know how to account for the findings in the American Religious Identification Survey that the number of Scientologists in the United States fell from 55,000 in 2001 to 25,000 in 2008.

Marty Rathbun, who was once Mr. Miscavige’s top lieutenant, is now one of the church’s top detractors. The churches used to be busy places where members socialized and invited curious visitors to give Scientology a try, he said, but now the church is installing touch-screen displays so it can introduce visitors to Scientology with little need for Scientologists on site.

“That’s the difference between the old Scientology and the new: the brave new Scientology is all these beautiful buildings and real estate and no people,” said Mr. Rathbun, who is among several former top executives quoted by The St. Petersburg Times in a series of articles last year about the church’s reported mistreatment of staff members.

When Mr. Collbran decided he wanted to leave the Sea Org, he was sent to Los Angeles, where potential defectors are assigned to do menial labor while they reconsider their decision. Ms. Collbran remained in Johannesburg, and for three months the church refused to allow them to contact each other, the Collbrans said.

Letters they wrote to each other were intercepted, they said. Finally, Ms. Collbran was permitted to go to Los Angeles, but husband and wife were kept separated for another three months, the Collbrans said, while they went through hours of special auditing sessions called “confessionals.” The auditors tried to talk them out of leaving, and the Collbrans wavered.

They could not just up and go. For one, they said, the church had taken their passports. But even more important, they knew that if they left the Sea Org without going through the church’s official exit process, they would be declared “suppressive persons” — antisocial enemies of Scientology. They would lose the possibility of living for eternity. Their parents, siblings and friends who are Scientologists would have to disconnect completely from them, or risk being declared suppressive themselves.

“You’re in fear,” Mr. Collbran said. “You’re so into it, it’s everything you know: your family, your eternity.”

Mike Rinder, who for more than 20 years was the church’s spokesman, said the disconnect policy originated as Mr. Hubbard’s prescription for how to deal with an abusive spouse or boss.

Now, “disconnection has become a way of controlling people,” said Mr. Rinder, who says his mother, sister, brother, daughter and son disconnected from him after he left the church. “It is very, very prevalent.”

Mr. Davis, the church’s current spokesman, said Scientologists are no different from Mormons, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Amish who practice shunning or excommunication.

“These are common religious tenets,” he said. “The very survival of a religion is contingent on its protecting itself.”

The Collbrans went back to work for the church in Los Angeles, but Ms. Collbran found the atmosphere so oppressive, the staff members so miserable, that she likened it to living under “martial law” and again resolved to leave.

So she intentionally conceived a child. She knew that the Sea Org did not allow its members to have children, and she had known women who were removed when they refused to have abortions. She waited until her pregnancy had almost reached the end of the first trimester to inform her superiors. It still took two months before the church let the Collbrans go, in 2006, and not before making them sign affidavits.

“All of the auditing that you do, there’s files kept on it,” Ms. Collbran said. “All of the personal things you ever said, all the secrets, the transgressions, are all kept in there. They went through that file, wrote this affidavit as if I wrote it — and I never wrote this affidavit, the church wrote it — and made me sign it.”

They were also handed what the church calls a “freeloader bill” for services rendered, of $90,000, which they later negotiated down to $10,000 for Ms. Collbran’s portion and paid. They now had a child and no money, but they thought they were still in good standing with their church.

Mr. Davis, the church spokesman, said the Collbrans’ exit was not unusual. The Sea Org is a religious order that requires enormous dedication, he said, and leaving any religious order can be a lengthy process. He said the church does require departing staff members to pay freeloader bills and to sign affidavits drawn up by church officials, but he contends that the affidavits never contain confidential information drawn from auditing sessions.

“We have never violated that trust,” Mr. Davis said. “We never have. We never will.” The church in Johannesburg is thriving now that the Collbrans have left, Mr. Davis said.

‘Suppressive Persons’

In 2008, organizers with the Internet-based group Anonymous began waves of protests outside Scientology churches in many countries. Anonymous said it was protesting the Church of Scientology’s attempts to censor Internet posts of material the church considered proprietary — including a video of Tom Cruise, an ardent Scientologist, that was created for a church event but was leaked and posted on YouTube.

“Since Anonymous has come forward,” said Marc Headley, who belonged to the Sea Org for 16 years, “more and more people who have been abused or assaulted are feeling more confident that they can speak out and not have any retaliation happen.”

Mr. Headley, who wrote a book about his experiences, is suing the church for back wages, saying that over 15 years his salary averaged out to 39 cents an hour. His wife, who said the church coerced her into having two abortions, has also filed a suit. The couple now have two small children.

The church acknowledges that Sea Org members are not allowed to have babies, but denies that it pressures people into having abortions. On the pay issue, it says that Sea Org members expect to sacrifice their material well-being to devote their lives to the church.

Scientology parishioners interviewed in Clearwater seemed unperturbed by the protests, headlines and lawsuits.

Joanie Sigal is a 36-year parishioner in Clearwater who promotes the church’s antidrug campaign to local officials. She said the defectors’ stories were like what you would hear “if I asked your ex-husband what he thought of you.”

“It’s so not news,” she said. “It’s a big yawn, actually.”

The Collbrans, despite their efforts to remain in good standing in the church, were declared suppressive persons last year. The church discovered that Mr. Collbran had traveled to Texas to talk with Mr. Rathbun, the defector who runs a Web site that has become an online community for what he calls “independent Scientologists.”

The church immediately sent emissaries to Ms. Collbran’s parents’ house in Los Angeles to inform them that their daughter was “suppressive,” Ms. Collbran said. They have refused to speak to her ever since. Recently, Ms. Collbran received an e-mail message from her mother calling her a “snake in the grass.”

Ms. Collbran says she still believes in Scientology — not in the church as it is now constituted, but in its teachings. She still gets auditing, from other Scientologists who have defected, like Mr. Rathbun.

Mr. Davis said there is no such thing: “One can’t be a Scientologist and not be part of the church.”

Mr. Collbran, for his part, wants nothing to do with his former church. “Eventually I realized I was part of a con,” he said, “and I have to leave it and get on with my life.”

Despite all they have been through together, Ms. and Mr. Collbran are getting a divorce. The reason, they agree sadly, is that they no longer see eye to eye on Scientology.

    Defectors Say Church of Scientology Hides Abuse, NYT, 7.3.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/us/07scientology.html

Salt Lake City Journal

Huge Church Project

Renews Downtown, and Debate

February 8, 2010
The New York Times
By KIRK JOHNSON

SALT LAKE CITY — For many devout Mormons, Utah’s capital city is important mainly as a setting for the jewel that really matters: Temple Square at the city’s center. Brigham Young, the pioneer leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, laid out the urban grid with street numbers starting at the temple. The secular world was thus defined by the sacred core.

But now a hugely ambitious, $1 billion church-financed redevelopment project near the temple, called City Creek Center, and a wave of recent church property purchases in the vicinity are prompting a new debate inside the church community and out over where the line between culture and economics should be drawn.

Some residents say the church, by opening its checkbook in a recession, rescued the city when times got tough. The 1,800 construction jobs at City Creek alone have provided a big local economic cushion. Completion of the project — 20 acres of retail shops and residential towers — is scheduled for 2012.

“City Creek has been a literal and figurative godsend,” said Bradley D. Baird, the business development manager at the Economic Development Corporation of Utah, a private nonprofit group that has no direct involvement with the project.

Other people say that if the new heart of downtown has a strong church flavor, Salt Lake, which has become more diverse in recent years — could veer back toward its roots, for better or worse. About half of city residents are Mormon, according to many estimates, and if many, or most, of the roughly 700 apartment units at City Creek were occupied by Mormon families, the city could have a dramatic new feel.

“Our downtown has become a ghost town in my life — nobody lives there,” said Dan Egan, 55, a lawyer and church member who works near the site but lives in the suburbs. “Having several thousand people live down here will have a big impact, and having many of them L.D.S. would be a very interesting thing to see.”

Church leaders say they have no religious goals in mind for City Creek, or for their other recent acquisitions. Over just the last month, the church has bought three more properties, including a 13-acre parcel a few blocks south of City Creek. A spokesman said the purchases were investments.

“There will be no evidence of the church within those blocks,” said H. David Burton, a former corporate executive who oversees the church’s business interests as the presiding bishop. Mr. Burton said the civic spaces inside City Creek would be private property, but “with all the attributes of a public venue.”

Alcohol, for example — always a cultural flashpoint because of the church’s teachings to avoid it — will probably be allowed in City Creek, Mr. Burton said, under special contracts that will allow a restaurant wanting a liquor license to buy the underlying property. That would keep the church from being in the liquor business or from benefiting from liquor sales while still allowing sale and consumption on the premises.

As for who might want to move in, Mr. Burton said he thought proximity to the temple would make the apartments attractive to church families, but only time will tell. About 40 percent of the available condominium units have been reserved by deposit, but a church spokesman said the buyers’ religious affiliations were unknown.

“If I were making a guess — and I don’t have any empirical data — it might be more attractive to L.D.S. than to others,” Mr. Burton said.

One former Salt Lake City planning official, Stephen A. Goldsmith, who is not a Mormon, said he was thrilled by the thought of people moving back downtown, but feared that the church’s economic concentration would lead to a “Vaticanization” of the area.

“The concern is about having just one owner own so much of the heart of the capital city,” said Mr. Goldsmith, who was director of city planning from 2000 to 2002 and is now an associate professor of architecture and planning at the University of Utah.

Already, Professor Goldsmith said, a buffer zone of about 100 acres of church-owned properties, assembled gradually over the past few decades, rings the inner core. He said the “we/they” divide between Mormons and non-Mormons could widen if even more public space became private or was linked to one group’s cultural values.

Church leaders said the desire to head off economic decline in downtown was their prime directive at City Creek.

“Along with economic malaise comes an element that we were concerned about in proximity to the temple,” said Mr. Burton, the presiding bishop. That the temple area might one day start to feel dangerous was simply intolerable, he said. “With decay, sometimes comes crime,” he said.

Although lots of urban churches worry about those issues, the ones that can write a $1 billion check are rare.

“It’s certainly one of the largest, if not the largest project in the United States funded by a single entity, and the fact that the entity is a church makes it doubly unusual,” said Patrick L. Anderson, the chief executive and founder of the Anderson Economic Group, a Michigan-based real-estate consulting company.

Mr. Anderson, who said his firm had no economic involvement in City Creek, said such megascale urban redevelopment mostly went out of fashion after the 1970s and ’80s. That makes Salt Lake even more singular, he said.

Church officials said, however, that some of what they were doing was a throwback — to the 1930s. In the Great Depression, the church established a food and clothing distribution system for destitute members and bought land all over the state, establishing a precedent for wading in during hard times.

Now, some of those 1930s economic stimulus lands could come back into play. The Salt Lake City Council is considering another huge development project called the Northwest Quadrant near the airport, where the church owns a swath of land used long ago as a Depression-era church farm.

    Huge Church Project Renews Downtown, and Debate, NYT, 8.2.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/us/08saltlake.html

Baptists to Flood Texas

With Bible CDs by Easter

February 3, 2010
Filed at 2:21 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DALLAS (AP) -- How do you get the Gospels into every household in a state with 9 million of them?

Texas Baptists are trying to put multimedia CDs with Scriptures and testimonials in the hands of every potential believer in the state.

With more than a third of households speaking a language other than English, that means casting a wide net: Users can download the New Testament in more than 400 languages, including Hindi, Tagalog (tah-GAH-lohg) and Chinese.

The campaign by the Baptist General Convention of Texas merges a few well-known proselytizing methods.

While some of the CDs are being mailed to the far-flung corners of Texas, other church members are delivering them door-to-door with fresh-baked apple pies.

They hope to complete the project by Easter.

    Baptists to Flood Texas With Bible CDs by Easter, 3.2.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/03/us/AP-US-REL-Religion-Today.html

After Americans Visit, Uganda Weighs Death for Gays

January 4, 2010
The New York Times
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

KAMPALA, Uganda — Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about “curing” homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda’s capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was “the gay agenda — that whole hidden and dark agenda” — and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.

Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.

“It’s a fight for their lives,” said Mai Kiang, a director at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York-based group that has channeled nearly $75,000 to Ugandan gay rights activists and expects that amount to grow.

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.

“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh.

Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.

“Now we really have to go undercover,” said Stosh Mugisha, a gay rights activist who said she was pinned down in a guava orchard and raped by a farmhand who wanted to cure her of her attraction to girls. She said that she was impregnated and infected with H.I.V., but that her grandmother’s reaction was simply, “ ‘You are too stubborn.’ ”

Despite such attacks, many gay men and lesbians here said things had been getting better for them before the bill, at least enough to hold news conferences and publicly advocate for their rights. Now they worry that the bill could encourage lynchings. Already, mobs beat people to death for infractions as minor as stealing shoes.

“What these people have done is set the fire they can’t quench,” said the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who went undercover for six months to chronicle the relationship between the African anti-homosexual movement and American evangelicals.

Mr. Kaoma was at the conference and said that the three Americans “underestimated the homophobia in Uganda” and “what it means to Africans when you speak about a certain group trying to destroy their children and their families.”

“When you speak like that,” he said, “Africans will fight to the death.”

Uganda is an exceptionally lush, mostly rural country where conservative Christian groups wield enormous influence. This is, after all, the land of proposed virginity scholarships, songs about Jesus playing in the airport, “Uganda is Blessed” bumper stickers on Parliament office doors and a suggestion by the president’s wife that a virginity census could be a way to fight AIDS.

During the Bush administration, American officials praised Uganda’s family-values policies and steered millions of dollars into abstinence programs.

Uganda has also become a magnet for American evangelical groups. Some of the best known Christian personalities have recently passed through here, often bringing with them anti-homosexuality messages, including the Rev. Rick Warren, who visited in 2008 and has compared homosexuality to pedophilia. (Mr. Warren recently condemned the anti-homosexuality bill, seeking to correct what he called “lies and errors and false reports” that he played a role in it.)

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. Beyond Africa, a handful of Muslim countries, like Iran and Yemen, also have the death penalty for homosexuals. But many Ugandans said they thought that was going too far. A few even spoke out in support of gay people.

“I can defend them,” said Haj Medih, a Muslim taxi driver with many homosexual customers. “But I fear the what? The police, the government. They can arrest you and put you in the safe house, and for me, I don’t have any lawyer who can help me.”

After Americans Visit, Uganda Weighs Death for Gays, NYT, 4.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html