Full reckoning due for Catholic Church

It is utterly sickening to hear of the explosive revelations last week, from a Pennsylvania grand jury report, that over 1,000 children — and maybe many more — were molested by some 300 Roman Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, and that senior church officials over decades were complicit in covering up the abuses and moving abusers across the nation from parish to parish.

Among the priests: the late Rev. Robert E. Hannon, who ended up in Hawaii after requesting and receiving a transfer in the late 1970s. Over some 27 years here, Hannon was assigned to St. John the Apostle Church, St. Elizabeth in Aiea, Holy Trinity Church in Honolulu and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace; he died in 2006. The Catholic dioceses in Erie, Penn., and in Hawaii knew that Hannon had “admittedly abused at least 20 youths,” the report found, with Hannon acknowledging such while receiving treatment at a psychia- tric facility in New Mexico.

“This report represents a very dark period for the Catholic Church when members of the clergy sexually abused children, including here in Hawaii,” Msgr. Gary Secor, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, said in a statement last week. “The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu remains committed to compassionate resolution and justice for those who were victims of abuse, as well as the continued implementation of multi-level internal safeguards, training programs and mandated reporting procedures to prevent this type of abuse from happening again.”

That commitment to justice for the victims must now include disclosure of Hannon’s proclivities while in Hawaii. Using subpoenas, the grand jury was able to quantify eight known victims acknowledged by the Erie, Pa., diocese — but points out that Hannon himself admitted to abusing at least 20 victims between ages 12 and 19. So it’s frightening to conclude, as the grand jury does, that “there were many more, as yet unknown, victims, both in the Diocese of Erie and in Hawaii.”

The investigation was unable to identify any more of Hannon’s victims, in part, because it did not have access to the pertinent files from Hawaii’s Diocese. That silence must be lifted, via full disclosure and active support for true victims.

For the most part, the priest perpetrators have evaded punishment due to death or statute of limitations. But in Hawaii, partly due to concerns about more priests being identified as abusers, the state Legislature this year extended the law: A victim of child sexual abuse now has until April 2020 to file civil lawsuits in connection with decades- old abuse allegations.

This could well fling open the proverbial door for a long-delayed reckoning.

“In allowing survivors of childhood sexual assault to bring civil claims against perpetrators who abused them and the institutions which employed or were responsible for the perpetrators, (SB 2719) will preserve the rights of survivors who have not yet felt strong enough to face what happened to them,” testified attorney Mark Gallagher in the spring in support of Senate Bill 2719 (now Act 98).

Extending the statute of limitations was particularly apt and profound, passing as it did soon after Kamehameha Schools’ stunning $80 million settlement and acknowledgement that its one-time contracted psychiatrist, the late Dr. Robert Browne, had molested nearly three dozen students in the 1960s and ’70s.

That needed accountability for decades of suffering is top-of-mind today, amid revelations of the Pennsylvania priests’ systemic sexual abuse and cover-up.

Responding to the grand jury report, the Vatican on Thursday decried as “criminally and morally reprehensible” the abuse by clergy who raped and molested children; it expressed “shame and sorrow” over the revelations and said victims should know “the pope is on their side.” That must hold true, from pope to local parishes, as these sordid crimes are sussed out, not further covered up, in the weeks and months ahead.