Church in
Crisis
Boston bishop draws fire for move to depose therapists
By GILL DONOVAN
A group of 83 psychologists and victims’ rights advocates
have criticized the Boston archdiocese’s new leader for permitting church
attorneys to depose the therapists of alleged victims of clergy sexual
abuse.
In a letter, the group of practicing therapists, about a dozen
psychology professors, and several rights advocates called the church tactic of
questioning therapists about their patients a revictimization of those patients
who were “already broken members” of the church’s flock.
The Boston archdiocese is now headed by Bishop Richard Lennon, who
has taken over temporarily as apostolic administrator following Cardinal
Bernard Law’s resignation Dec. 13 (NCR, Dec. 27). It faces more
than 500 civil suits alleging abuse by archdiocesan priests. The first
therapist was deposed Jan. 17.
“While the archdiocese of Boston has a legal right to pursue
the depositions of therapists treating abuse survivors in litigation with the
church,” the psychologists’ letter said, “it is crucial for
church officials to remember that these suits have emerged from the sexual
abuse of minors by priests and, often, only after years of stonewalling efforts
by the hierarchy. We hope that you will reconsider your decision to
retraumatize the already broken members of your flock and will choose to pursue
a pastoral rather than corporate and counter-litigious path.”
According to a Jan. 25 report in The Boston Globe,
the church decision to allow lawyers to use the tactic of deposing therapists
comes after several U.S. prelates, led by Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony,
opposed allowing the Boston archdiocese to declare bankruptcy.
The newspaper quoted from an unnamed Boston church adviser
who said the prelates objected to a bankruptcy declaration because it could
lead to a decline in donations nationwide, give the public more access to
private church records, and further hurt the church’s already damaged
image. However, the adviser said, the opposition to bankruptcy by the prelates
has begun to subside as the issue becomes better understood, and the Boston
archdiocese may yet win permission for a bankruptcy declaration.
Archdiocesan spokeswoman Donna Morrissey told the Boston
Herald that the depositions are lawful and necessary in cases in which
settlement hasn’t been reached. “If the victims choose to sue, which
is their right, we feel that we’re obligated to defend ourselves,”
she said. While therapy for victims is essential and has the archdiocese’s
support, she said, the support is “separate and distinct from the
litigation process.”
Another archdiocesan spokesperson, Fr. Christopher Coyne, said
depositions of therapists are common in such cases and that it is unlikely the
archdiocese will change its strategy.
Leading the signers of the letter was psychologist Mary Gail
Frawley-O’Dea, the only therapist invited to address the U.S. bishops in
June at their Dallas conference. She currently heads the Trauma Treatment
Center at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis.
“I am not a hysteric. I don’t think suing is the best
way for survivors to go,” Frawly-O’Dea told the Globe. “I
have a lot of empathy for the bishops who are trying to make things right, and
I don’t consider the church my enemy. But I think that this is very
despicable and deceitful. To say ‘the church loves you’ and ‘we
want to help you’ and then to invade your treatment is really just wrong.
It may be legally OK, but it’s wrong.”
After a brief period of relative quiet in Boston about
Lennon’s initial handling of the ongoing church scandal, victims’
rights groups and many other Boston Catholics have said they are becoming
increasingly disappointed with the archdiocese’s new leader.
James Post, president of reform group Voice of the Faithful, told
The Los Angeles Times in a Jan. 26 report that since the resignation of
Law “there has been no change in policy, no change in practice, and
therefore, no effective leadership. … Bishop Lennon has retained all of
the cardinal’s old advisers. He is staying in the cardinal’s
residence. And obviously he is listening to the attorneys, the canon lawyers
and the auxiliary bishops -- all the old palace guard. These are the last
loyalists that Cardinal Law had, and they are right there, surrounding Bishop
Lennon.”
Victims’ rights advocates have also voiced disappointment of
Kathleen McChesney, the former FBI official now heading up the bishops’
Office of Child and Youth Protection. In a recent trip to Boston, McChesney
said she supported the decision to depose victims’ therapists.
“I understand how [victims] feel, and it’s a very tragic
set of circumstances,” she told the Globe. “But when you get
to the litigation stage, there are certain things lawyers insist on doing to
protect their clients. It’s very sad that it has come to this point,”
she said.
McChesney encouraged anyone abused by a priest to come forward.
“I know it is very, very difficult. I understand that and appreciate that.
But there are processes in place to provide aid and therapy,” she
said.
In response to McChesney’s support, Ann Hagan Webb, a leader
of Boston’s chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
(SNAP) said, “It seems to me, once again, that the church is writing its
own report card, and reporting to her that everything is wonderful, and I am
disturbed and dismayed that she hasn’t reached out to survivors to get a
report card from us about how they’re doing.”
Victims’ rights advocates have said they were further
dismayed at a Jan. 17 attempt by a team of lawyers for the archdiocese to
petition a Boston court to dismiss the 500 civil suits that have been filed
against the archdiocese on the grounds that courts do not have the right to
examine the interactions between archdiocesan officials and their priests.
“It is absolutely our position that when it comes to this
bishop-priest relationship ... the court can’t get into the business of
defining what a reasonably prudent bishop would do,” said L. Martin
Nussbaum, a Colorado attorney brought to Boston to make the argument. He argued
before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Constance M. Sweeney, the judge who in
November 2001 ruled that the Boston archdiocese had to allow media outlets to
view the church records of John Geoghan, the now-defrocked and imprisoned
pedophile priest whose case made national headlines in January 2002.
Victims’ attorneys countered Nussbaum’s argument by
saying that the First Amendment offers protection to religious beliefs, but
does not protect against illegal conduct. Sweeney said she would rule on matter
in about a month.
The Globe quoted unnamed archdiocesan officials who said
that such motions are being made by the archdiocese be-cause they must show
insurance carriers they are putting up a strong defense against the lawsuits.
The paper has said the archdiocese expects the carriers to provide between $60
and $65 million in coverage to settlements with victims.
Four days after that hearing, Sweeney rebuked an attempt by Boston
lawyers to delay a re-sumption of Law’s deposition by lawyers for alleged
victims of Fr. Paul Shanley (NCR, April 19). She rejected the motion,
characterized it as delay and said the archdiocese would be fined for its
attempt at “sandbagging” the procedures. The archdiocese had argued
that Law’s deposition should be postponed because plaintiffs’ lawyers
were likely to comment publicly about the deposition and taint an ongoing grand
jury investigation of Law. The deposition continued as scheduled Jan. 22.
Gill Donovan is an NCR writer. His e-mail address is
gdonovan@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, February 7,
2003
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