DALLAS – The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas denounced the more than 300 “predator priests” in Pennsylvania facing allegations of sexual abuse.
Bishop Edward. J. Burns also hinted at steps to be taken in the Dallas Diocese to address the far-reaching issue of abuse of power by church leaders.
“What I have read is heart-wrenching and I cringe at the thought that these criminal acts were conducted by men who were to be trusted,” Bishop Edward J. Burns wrote in a statement released through the Diocese communications office Tuesday afternoon. He then spoke to reporters Tuesday evening, saying the report was “nauseating.”
“It makes you sick to your stomach,” he said, adding later that he was “embarrassed and sorrowful.”
Burns is from Pittsburgh and knows some of the priests labeled as predators in the 884-page grand jury report.
“How could some people turn a blind eye to this?” Burns said, when explaining his personal feelings. “How is it that they could allow their own selfish pride to take precedent over the values of the wellbeing and the safeguard of children?”
The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth also released a statement denouncing "the grave damage caused to the lives and health of their purported victims."
"The Church must take immediate actions to remove the immoral offenders, offer all assistance needed to those who have been abused and to report and work with civil authorities to bring justice [to] the offenders," Bishop Michael F. Olson said in a statement. "We must offer our solemn and humble prayers for the victims' healing."
The grand jury in Pennsylvania alleges widespread sexual abuse by hundreds of priests statewide, and an effort to hide the crimes. It compiled information during a two-year investigation.
“The main thing was not to help children, but to avoid scandal,” the report says. "Priests were raping little boys and girls and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing: They hid it all.”
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the report an "honest and comprehensive accounting of widespread sexual abuse" in the dioceses of six Pennsylvania cities that minister to more than 1.7 million Catholics.
While the revelations were disturbing they were not surprising to some in Dallas.
Paul, a 49-year-old father who grew up in East Dallas, sued the Catholic Diocese of Dallas more than a decade ago for alleged abuse at the hand of a priest from St. Bernard of Clairvaux Catholic Church. That is the parish where Paul served as an altar boy in the late 1970’s.
“It started at age 11 or 12,” he said of the abuse. “I’d like to say I was surprised with the news [from Pennsylvania], but I really wasn’t.”
The priest Paul and others sued eventually resigned, but he was never criminally charged.
“Survivors of sexual abuse and in particular clergy sexual abuse, you know – it’s like PTSD,” he said. “Unresolved depression, inability to trust, hypervigilance.”
His attorney, Tahira Merritt, said she has represented “hundreds of male victims and female victims” during about two decades of litigation against the Catholic church in Texas. “And those are just the people who came forward,” she said.
For Paul and Merritt, the only surprise from the Pennsylvania report was that the church turned over decades of documents.
“I have been fought in every single case for the release of documents,” Merritt said. The documents in Paul’s case remain sealed.
She and Paul would both like to see the state of Texas open an investigation like Pennsylvania’s.
“It’s widespread,” Merritt said of abuse. “And I do believe it continues today.”
In his statement, Burns wrote, “I know the anger, betrayal and pain I feel is felt much more intensely by the victims and their loved ones.”
Burns’ statement calls for the church to “do a better job of protecting the people we serve,” and references a plan of action to be put into motion in the Dallas Diocese.
The measures will be “detailed in the near future” after they’re put in front of the Diocesan Review Board – a five-member consultative board tasked with maintaining a safe environment in the church.
“I recognize that my brother bishops and priests will only be able to restore the trust and credibility of our Church by truly being the men we say we are,” Burns wrote.
The Pennsylvania grand jury report details the latest in a decades-long series of claims of abuse and protection leveled against the church across the nation and around the world. As recently as last month, Pope Francis accepted
the resignation of prominent Vatican official Cardinal Theodore McCarrick amid claims of sexual abuse almost 40 years ago.