When you look closely at her credentials, if anyone in the Canadian Catholic Church is equipped to take on the huge challenge of re-establishing confidence in the credibility of the church around the clergy sexual abuse crisis, she (or he) would have to look a lot like Nuala Kenny of Halifax.
    A pediatrician by training and a Sister of Charity of Halifax by choice, Nuala Kenny served on the Newfoundland Archdiocese of St. John’s Commission of Inquiry following the Mount Cashel revelations of the 1980s.

When you look closely at her credentials, if anyone in the Canadian Catholic Church is equipped to take on the huge challenge of re-establishing confidence in the credibility of the church around the clergy sexual abuse crisis, she (or he) would have to look a lot like Nuala Kenny of Halifax.
    A pediatrician by training and a Sister of Charity of Halifax by choice, Nuala Kenny served on the Newfoundland Archdiocese of St. John’s Commission of Inquiry following the Mount Cashel revelations of the 1980s.
    She did this well respected work for some five years then had to move on to other aspects of her life and career after 1995, thinking, she said recently, things were in good shape and in good hands. She was hopeful if not fully confident that the many recommendations and ways of responding to the problem the commission had outlined and put forward would be acted upon by the Canadian Catholic Church if not beyond. Such was the praise that the Commission’s work had received.
    Things were otherwise she learned in a very abrupt way. She was driving when she heard the news on the radio of Bishop Lahey of Antigonish being charged with having child pornography on his laptop, discovered when he was re-entering the country at Customs.
    She said she had to pull over to the side of the road and be sick to her stomach from the shock of the realisation the work had not been done.
    Her talk at St. Joseph’s parish in Victoria, February 24 on the theme of ‘Healing the Church’ was motivated by the rejuvenated desire to implement the program that needs to be in place; but hers seems only a solitary effort.
    What is apparent is that, to be successful, to have any chance it needs to be a full scale commission and fully funded program of truth and reconciliation by the whole church if it is not going to be too little and too late.
    We may be past that point, from the low turn-out to the kick-off lecture for the weekend workshop at the parish where Father Philip Jacobs served in the late 1990s and is now facing trial on four charges of sexual misconduct starting October 8 in Victoria.
    I was struck by the fact that the church was only half full and that there was no mention of this recent history and current situation which has so badly split the parish during the past decade. I was not able to attend the Saturday workshop but a colleague who attended said again there was no mention of the case.
    Nuala was introduced by local media personality Joanne Roberts, also a parishioner who said Nuala was the sort of Catholic that made her proud to be one herself. And she is that sort of star quality personae and personality.
    She said right off the top that humility and structural causes are at the root of the issue. She had all the facts and figures at her fingertips – how 5-6 per cent of clergy are offenders, half are circumstantial offenders – loneliness, alcohol etc including isolated living situations – and they give in to their tendencies while the other half are classical permanent habitual predatory offenders, fundamentally un-redeemable.
    When she visited the two most notorious offenders in the Newfoundland scandal at the prison in Dorchester, New Brunswick, she experienced one of each kind.
    The circumstantial offender was totally repentant and considered himself unforgivable by God, the Church, the families of his victims and himself, she said.
    On the other hand, the other individual was the classical charismatic clergyman and classical sexual predator who was full of energy and self-confidence. She said he had already worked his spell in the system, holding a prestigious job in the library of the prison and could be seen to be fully operational again in his new circumstances and situation.
    The problem with classical sexual predators is there in no effective way of screening them out due to their intelligence and cunning, adaptability and absence of deep conscience. It is the classic case of attrition – sorry that they got caught – rather than contrition – sorry for what they have done.
    She mentions that due to the attractiveness of the priesthood as a position of privilege to this predatory type personality behaviour and the church’s unrealistic attitude about this psychological proclivity in its ranks, the Catholic Church is on a disastrous pathway.
    It does not exactly help that the official church has turned officious in its response and had been caught in its consistent if not systematic attempt to deny and hide the effects and the culprits. At present nine American Diocese and four religious Orders have now filed for bankruptcy under the pressure of the abuse crisis.

2.

    In the Times Colonist of the weekend of March 10 appeared a display ad (see boxed item this page) that must be in many newspapers in North America of a Bankruptcy Hearing in the Court for the Southern District of New York State. The indictment of the church goes on.
    On Vancouver Island, the trial of Rev. Philip Jacobs, formerly of St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Saanich, is scheduled for October 8 at the court house in Victoria. He is charged with four counts of sexual misconduct, charges that were brought forward in 2010 but in alleged incidents that took place in the 1990s.
    I sat through the two days of preliminary hearing held to determine if the charges were of sufficient weight to warrant a trial. There was a publication ban in place due to the nature of the hearing and to protect the integrity of the process where the witnesses must be precluded from hearing each other’s testimony so as to not prejudice the case.
    The second day was partially taken up with complications from a breach of that ban. It was an interesting dynamic to observe and the judge made sure that all other reporters were fully aware of the implications and the extent of the ban. I could tell he was not amused.
    Father Jacobs needs to have a fair and full trial. ICN is dedicated to following this trial and reporting on it and its broader implications for the whole church. But we won’t be rushing to judgment.
    These cases are like a many layered onion which needs to be carefully peeled back. It is not a case of attaching blame but of recognizing for the purpose of future prevention the true dynamics at play, such as Dr. Kenny has articulated so excellently in her work if only to a limited audience.