virgins & martyrs

By ( articles ) | May 06, 2004

Here's what the plaintiff alleges: Belleville priest Raymond Kownacki convinced the (admittedly dim) parents of a 15-year old girl to let her live with him in his rectory on the grounds that she'd have better educational opportunities in his town. He abused her sexually while she kept house for him, performed a "manual abortion" on her, and threatened to harm her if she broke silence. When she finally told another priest and the then-bishop, they said her duty was to forgive Father Ray and put the past behind her. She didn't. Now the court wants Father Ray's mental health records to settle the "what did they know and when did they know it?" question. Public Law prof Marci Hamilton is not pleased by the diocese's stiff-arm:

Sadly, this particular diocese is headed by the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops -- Bishop Wilton Gregory, of Belleville, Illinois. He has repeatedly apologized to victims on behalf of the Conference, while cameras rolled. But now those apologies ring hollow, when his own diocese refuses to comply with a court order crucial to a victim's case. This is the leader who was supposed to lead the United States bishops to a new and better policy, and now we have proof of his actual intentions: just more of the same.

Hamilton's article is in part an essay for the abolition of a statute of limitations for sex abuse cases, and well illustrates the new willingness -- born of exasperation with the cynical exploitation of legal safeguards -- to do way with those safeguards altogether. We've seen the Gregory gesture before: the bishops throw back their shoulders and raise their chins and strike a pose of noble intransigency -- "Nay, though mine eyes be plucked from my head, never shall I betray my brethren! -- but it's not brave missionary priests they're hiding from pursuivants, they're covering for the slime de la slime, men that abused their power so as to prey on the weak, men that richly deserve punishment for their crimes. Of course, if they simply spoke the hard truth -- here's what we knew and here's when we knew it -- they could keep the records confidential and preserve the privilege. But that possibility appears to be out of the question.