Sexual abuse within the church: the never-ending scandal that may finally end

Guest Post by James Hayman

Last month (Monday, June 28, 2010) the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that may just be turn out to be the straw that finally broke the camel’s back in the decades-long effort by the Catholic Church to deny any legal or financial culpability in the priest abuse scandals.

In its ruling, the Court refused to reverse a couple of lower court rulings that said a victim could hold the Catholic Church responsible financially responsible by suing for damages for sexual abuse suffered as a child.

The case involved an Irish priest, Father Andrew Ronan. After Ronan admitted sexually abusing a boy in the Archdiocese of Benburb, Ireland, Church officials did nothing to either punish or keep him away from other underage victims.

Instead, in a classic case of setting the fox among a new group of chickens, they transferred him to an all-boys high school in Chicago where, not surprisingly, he later admitted sexually abusing three male students.

Alas, once again, the Church was more interested in protecting itself against scandal than in protecting the well-being its young parishioners.  Ronan was transferred again. This time he was sent to St. Alban’s Church in Portland, Oregon where, surprise, surprise, he allegedly abused the victim who brought suit, who is identified in court documents only as “John Doe.”

In its defense, the Church claims it has no responsibility for Ronan’s actions because, in the words of Vatican’s attorneys, “Sexual abuse is clearly outside the scope of a priest’s employment.”

The argument would be laughable if its consequences weren’t so tragic.  Over the course of the last thirty or forty years hundreds of priests have admitted to literally thousands of cases of groping, fondling and raping underage boys (as well as a few girls). No one knows how many other cases have never come to light.

Hopefully, the recent High Court ruling will make any continued efforts to cover up cases of abuse so expensive that the Church will finally do what it should have done way back in the beginning, turn pedophile priest over to the proper authorities for investigation and prosecution.

The whole sorry mess of sexual abuse by priests is examined in some detail in a well-documented and beautifully written book called Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in the Age of Scandal (Broadway Books, 2004) by David France, a reporter who covered the Church crisis while serving as a senior editor for investigations at Newsweek magazine.

I bring it to your attention because France’s book was extremely helpful to me in researching the background for the story that ultimately became The Chill of Night.

James Hayman spent more than twenty years as an advertising copywriter and creative director in New York City before moving to Portland, Maine to begin a second career as a novelist and the creator of Mike McCabe. 

The Chill of Night is James Hayman’s second Mike McCabe suspense thriller (after 2009’s The Cutting).  In The Chill, one of the key characters is a former priest named John Kelly who was himself abused as a young teen and who is a key suspect in the murders of a teenage runaway and the lawyer who was trying to help him.