Editorial: A list of names, and a long-needed reckoning for the church

How much of a stain does a priest’s garment carry? How much of a stench of shame?

Certainly not much for most priests, not for “good priests,” not for those who go about their daily walk ministering, first and foremost, to humankind and to the faithful who look to them for spiritual and emotional guidance.

And yet not all priests are good, and we are staggered by the sheer number of priests in New Jersey, past and present, who allegedly abused the trust, sexually abused children under their watch, and, shamefully, were protected by the Roman Catholic Church.

On Wednesday came a long-awaited reckoning for Catholic priests in New Jersey, some of the "bad ones," believed to have abused young boys and girls, priests who too often were allowed to keep their cassocks and to keep performing Mass — even after their terrible secrets were known to the church hierarchy.

On Wednesday we at last saw the names, 188 of them, from New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses, who the church said had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children. The Newark Archdiocese posted its list shortly after 9:15 a.m. — a total of 63 names that included 33 priests who are deceased. Some of the priests had one alleged victim, but 33 had multiple victims. The Paterson Diocese list includes 28 clerics.

The release of the lists came after Cardinal Joseph Tobin announced last year that the dioceses were in the process of reviewing clergy sex abuse cases. The lists, he said, were compiled during an “extensive review” of records dating to 1940.

The length of the lists and the length of years covered by the lists speak directly to the depth and breadth of the abuse, but it cannot speak to the horror of it.

It cannot speak for long-ago victims who were subjected to abuse by men of God, men who were supposed to be their protectors — not their predators.

It cannot speak for all those who were abused, who had no lifeline to which to turn, save the church, and who had, in the end, neither the strength nor the wherewithal to speak up or cry out for justice.

Tobin wrote a letter to Catholics across the region on Wednesday, asking for forgiveness, saying that the publishing of the names was part of “an effort to do what is right and just,” and noting the establishment of a new Independent Victim Compensation Program designed to “allow those sexually abused as minors by clergy to seek compensation in a compassionate, expeditious and transparent manner.”

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Tobin indicated that the release of names was just a first step. It is a needed first step, but by no means should be the last. As much as is practically and legally possible, those abusers must be brought to account for these sins against the flesh and the soul.

“It is our sincerest hope,” wrote Tobin, “that this disclosure will help bring healing to those whose lives have been so deeply violated.“

The cardinal’s seeming sincerity is appreciated, and the act of release of the names is surely an attempt to begin a reckoning far too long in coming. 

Yet the story here is not wholly the lists of names of allegedly abusive priests and other clerics; it is the list of names behind the names, the names of the innocent and the trusting, and the scared.

And all the names of the abused we will never know.

WHERE TO GET HELP:Catholic sexual abuse crisis: Where to get help

PRIEST:What does it mean for a priest to be laicized or defrocked?