The suicides.
Priests.
Two days ago, Father James Robichaud, a 56 year old Maine priest was found in his rectory, dead from a self-inflicted gun-shot wound to the head. The day before he had received notice from his bishop that he would be suspended from priestly duties while an investigation into abuse allegations was conducted. The alleged sexual abuse took place 30 years ago in Lowell, Massachusetts. The day the priest was informed of his suspension, an ad placed in the secular newspaper by the diocese ran, asking that anyone who may have been abused by clergy in the past to come forward now. The diocese said it had been an unfortunate coincidence the ad ran on the same day Fr. Robichaud was suspended.
I have no idea if Robichaud was guilty, we can’t really know these things when someone commits suicide - unless one admits to guilt before one pulls the trigger. Locally, another priest hanged himself after he had been accused of murdering two men, one of whom purportedly was going to tell the police the priest was abusing young boys. In fact, since the sex abuse scandal broke, quite a few priests have killed themselves, or, in some cases were found murdered. That said - the recent suicides appear to be more desperate - almost as if the priest felt he was presumed guilty right off the bat, while it was up to him alone to prove his innocence. Of course, this position is the complete opposite of our legal “presumption of innocence” accorded those accused of crime.
“Within the Catholic Church, the relationship between bishop and priest, is essentially feudal.”
Fr. Blake, of St. Mary Magdalen’s, UK posted an interesting reflection last week concerning priests accused of crimes:
“One of the areas where priests suffer is the whole area of unsubstantiated sexual abuse, a single allegation and you are in the desert, possibly, forever. It is obviously important to protect children and the vulnerable but priests too have rights, and still there must, even in 21st century draconian England, and most especially within the Church, that just society, a presumption of innocence.
Bishops can send priests who they simply don’t like, to distant, sometimes difficult parishes. A friend of mind in rather vulnerable spiritual and emotional state was sent to a difficult chaplaincy, to replace a priest who had just been arrested for abusing children. He wondered why people were avoiding him; it took him a couple of months to find out why, the bishop hadn’t bothered. His next appointment was to a parish his diocese wanted to close, again as a punishment, he tripled the congregation, eventually he left the diocese and ended up by joining a religious community.
The point I am making is that clergy and religious live on the whim of their superior. A priest, a religious, can appeal to Rome on a particular issue and although one might win a case, one has to live with the bishop or superior.
The Church’s presumption is that all superiors are the epitome of charity and justice, but what if he or she is a tyrant or mad or simply bad? There is no recourse; one simply has to live with the consequences. Some religious congregations have a mechanism for deposing superiors, but these are cumbersome. I have only heard of one bishop being deposed, and he really was mad. - Fr. Blake
