kopvellen

Charles Lewis Oct 14, 2011

When Sister Nuala Kenny addresses a conference this weekend, which is meeting at McGill University to explore the sexual-abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, her message will be stark and even a bit frightening.

No matter what has been done so far to deal with the crisis, no matter how many new protocols are now in place, it is still not enough, she will tell those in attendance. The fundamental question of how a systemic breakdown came to pass throughout the worldwide Church, she said, has not been answered, let alone properly asked.

“What kind of people are we? How could bishops, priests and lay people allow it to go on as long as we did: the denial, the minimization, the secrecy and even the ostracization of whistle-blowers?

“For a people called to goodness and holiness, with a particular call in the Christian understanding of the protection of the marginalized and vulnerable, how could we have responded the way we did?”

In September 2009 Sr. Kenny was driving to her convent in Nova Scotia when a news flash came on the radio about Raymond Lahey, then the Bishop of Antigonish.

Bishop Lahey had been in the news in the months previously because of a historic and compassionate settlement he had reached with victims of clerical abuse in his diocese. For a short time he was considered an enlightened hero — someone who practised justice instead of deflection.

Sr. Kenny was so stunned by the radio report that she pulled over to the side of the road: Bishop Lahey had been charged with the possession and importation of child pornography.

“I’m a pretty tough cookie,” said Sr. Kenny, who at the time had just retired as head of the department of bioethics at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

“I’m a pediatrician as well as a nun and I’ve done a lot of end-of-life care for children. I’ve been there with a little four-year-old dying in your arms. That’s very tough stuff. But this news about Lahey made me ill.”

Nearly 22 years before, Sr. Kenny was a member of the Winter Commission, the group appointed by the St. Johns diocese to investigate the abuse that had taken place at Mount Cashel orphanage. It was one of the first major reports on the clerical abuse of minors and was considered to be the first step in trying to extinguish a cancer in the Church.

But she said hearing about Bishop Lahey made her realize that for all the analysis that was done, and all the similar reports that later followed in such places as Ireland, Louisiana, Boston and California, the Church was missing the point.

“You need to understand that this is not just an academic exercise for me. I’ve given my life to the Church. My ministry was caring for children. When you bring it all together this is as tough as it can get for me.”

Sr. Kenny said the Church has done excellent work in attempting to solve the myriad issues that came together to create the crisis. The Church has improved the education of priests and the laity about abuse, adopted stringent protocols for reporting allegations to civil authorities and made clear that there is zero tolerance for the abuse of children.

“We didn’t believe children who told us they were being abused. And this was not just the fault of priests and bishops, but of the laity who were also complicit.

“I’m so frustrated by those Catholics who say, ‘Oh my God, Nuala, you’re not talking about that again.’ But by not talking about it from start to finish is part of why the problem went on as long as it did. How can anyone be tired talking crimes committed against our young people?

“Whatever the protocols and policies focus on, if we don’t get to the underlying systemic issues the problem will once again rear its ugly little head in another form.”