The Fontanas are Heading to Rome
By Robert Fontana
No, it is not a vacation. Oh, we will take a few days to visit a quaint Italian village with hot springs and ancient Etruscan relics and history.
However, our reason for going is to join an international group of activists on a pilgrimage walk to pray and advocate for greater protection of children, youth, and vulnerable adults in Catholic Church law and practice. We are also asking for changes in Catholic Church law and practice concerning the treatment of people like us, whistleblowers, who sound the alarm when something is amiss!
I know you are so tired of hearing from us about another case of sex abuse and/or cover-up of that abuse by Catholic leaders. And if you think you are tired of hearing about it, believe me, we get it. So are we.
AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Please, if you have fatigue with the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, take a deep breath, let it go, and ask the Holy Spirit,
“What is mine to do to in response to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults by ministers of the Church, clergy, religious, and lay, and the cover-up of this abuse by Catholic leaders?
Shortly after the abuse crisis became public in 2002, when practically every diocese in the country was implicated in revelations of clergy sex abuse and cover- up by bishops, When Fr. Ron Rolheiser spoke on this topic at Seattle University, a presentation I attended, he said something to the effect of:
“We as a church must correct this and get it right; otherwise, how can we ever help the world deal effectively with the pandemic level of sex abuse of minors happening in our world, in homes, at schools, and in any organization that serves children and youth.
That was true in 2002, and it is true today. The place where children are most at risk for abuse is not in the Catholic Church; it is in the home. Children are sexually abused by parents, stepparents, relatives, babysitters, and unrelated boyfriends/girlfriends at a far higher rate than they are abused by clergy.
I have a friend whose young teen daughter was sexually abused by the father of the children she was babysitting. Another friend’s young child was abused by an active youth group member. Another friend was abused by a parent; and another friend…
You get the picture. Sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults is epidemic in our culture. Sexual predators of youth and children are here to stay. They are in all institutions that serve children and youth, including the Catholic Church. If we as a church are going to help solve this crisis in society, we must address it in our church. All of us have a responsibility to do what we can to help this Church we love respond honestly and effectively to the sex abuse crisis.
For Lori and me, what we did for the first 15 years we knew about clergy sex abuse was to trust that the bishops would take care of the problem. Thinking that, we became part of the problem. We were complicit in the cover-up of sex abuse because we trusted that bishops, some of them our close friends, would effectively deal with the crisis. But they did not. They protected predator clergy by moving them from parish to parish; they protected themselves from their deliberate cover-up of the abuse; and they often hid their own secrets of sexual abuse and misbehavior. It took the awful stories of Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionnaires of Christ and friend to Pope John Paul II, and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, also a friend of popes, to expose how deeply embedded in the hierarchy is corruption connected to clergy sex abuse.
Sadly, we learned the hard way that the most effective route for change on the sexual abuse front is to expose the criminal and immoral behavior of sexual predators and the church leaders protecting them. We faced painful choices: we could ignore the facts and continue to be part of the problem; leave the Church all together; or remain Catholic and work for change. We chose this last option. This, we discerned through prayer, is what was “ours to do” in Christ.
As part of that decision, made over 20 years ago, we are going to Rome to participate in a 120-mile pilgrimage walk with participants from around the world. Walking and carrying a large wooden cross, we will join in prayer for changes in church law and practice that will strengthen rules to prevent sexual predators and those who protect them from ever serving as clergy again.
Activists also want the Pope to make it clear that any church member, clergy or lay, who exposes sexual abuse and coverup will be protected. To this end, the organization sponsoring the pilgrimage walk, Ending Clergy Abuse USA, will hold a series of meetings, a candlelight prayer vigil, and a press conference.
Please pray for our pilgrimage, and we will bring each of you and your intentions in our hearts along our walk. We have even written Pope Francis a personal letter asking to meet with him to share our story and suggest actions to promote healing and holiness in our church. (My thinking is, if you don’t buy a lottery ticket, you can’t win the lottery, so I wrote directly to our Pope.)
