Catholic Church in Dilemma Over Where to Put Ousted Priests

When America’s Roman Catholic bishops decided that any priest guilty of molesting a youth should be ousted from active ministry, they left a major loose end hanging: what to do with those priests.

During the June meeting in Dallas at which they approved a toughened clerical sexual abuse policy, bishops remarked that erring priests could be assigned to live in special “houses of confinement,” or monasteries.

However, those ideas are problematic. The few “houses” in existence can take only a handful of men, and religious orders say monasteries simply are off-limits.

The Rev. J. Cletus Kiley, the abuse specialist for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said there have only been “some preliminary conversations” about assignments for such priests, but “it is a challenge, and it’s one of the things we have to face.”

One problem, he says, is that nobody knows how many men might need special housing.

About 300 of the roughly 46,000 U.S. priests have resigned or been taken off duty this year because of abuse allegations, including at least 50 since the June meeting. What happens next to those men now falls into three categories:

* An abuser can request “dismissal from the clerical state,” commonly known as defrocking.

Each case requires Vatican approval, but under the current circumstances bishops expect this will occur readily. Since this is the simplest solution, bishops hope many molesters will leave voluntarily.

* The bishop can forcibly dismiss an abuser from the priesthood without his consent.

That leads to cumbersome procedures involving U.S. and Vatican church tribunals. Since 1989, the U.S. bishops have wanted Vatican permission for a streamlined administrative process and may revisit this topic at their Nov. 11 meeting in Washington.

* A molester can be barred from functioning as a priest without dismissal from the priesthood. The June policy says this will apply especially “for reasons of advanced age or infirmity,” and such men will lead “a life of prayer and penance.”

With either voluntary or involuntary dismissal, a man “no longer has any priestly obligations to the church or the church toward him,” says Msgr. Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the bishops’ conference. But those in the final category still are priests, and thus are the church’s responsibility.

Religious orders have insisted that monasteries cannot serve as dumping grounds.

The Rev. Canice Connors of Rensselaer, N.Y., president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, said that a man needs a vocation and the right personal characteristics to live under the regimen of a monastic community, and “a vocation doesn’t come from being an offender.”

“Monasteries simply won’t be open to such things,” he said. “It would wreck the monastic structure.”

The other option is special long-term residences, sometimes called “houses of confinement,” for those, as Kiley puts it, who are “removed permanently from ministry” and yet want “in some way to live their life out as priests.”

Connors says five religious orders cooperated in the 1990s on a small, experimental residence for their own members near Washington, but shut it down after three years.

The house didn’t work and had low morale because of insufficient planning, he said. In particular, “we have to do a lot more research on activities for the men to feel useful.” The major superiors will discuss the need for such institutions during their annual meeting in Philadelphia this week.

Kiley said the Chicago Archdiocese operates a retreat house where it put recently removed priests, and other dioceses might make use of retreats or priests’ retirement homes. He said there have been initial talks about providing a special wing for permanent residents at St. Luke’s Institute, a Maryland therapy center.

The best-known example of long-term housing, Kiley said, is provided by the Servants of the Paraclete at Jemez Springs, N.M., an order founded in 1947 to help priests in trouble.

Jay R. Feierman, a psychiatrist who started working at Jemez Springs in 1976, said the facility “used to be called an ecclesiastical jail, because it was the end of the road for priests who had serious problems,” usually alcoholism.

Feierman introduced professional therapy, and gradually the facility treated an increasing number of priestly molesters. But bishops and religious superiors returned many patients to active ministry against the advice of therapists, Feierman said. After a spate of lawsuits, the Paracletes ended the program in 1996.

The facility then was converted to Villa Louis Martin, a long-term residence for troubled priests. The Paracletes operate a similar house at the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Mo., but last year shut a third house in Cherry Valley, Calif.

The Rev. Raymond Gunzel, a Paraclete priest, said that some residents cannot leave unaccompanied.

The daily regimen consists of worship and private prayer, group meetings, upkeep of the house and grounds, reading, writing and exercise.

The two Paraclete houses are small, providing for 10 men or so, which hardly begins to meet potential demand.

Kiley noted that it’s difficult to plan new institutions until the bishops and religious orders find out how many men will want to remain priests even though they’re unable to function in the role. And no one knows how long it will take the church to determine those numbers.