L.A. Priests Anguished, Angry Over Sex Scandals

Roman Catholic priests in Los Angeles expressed frustration and anguish Friday as they attended a mandatory archdiocesan workshop on sex abuse ordered by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

The archdiocese characterized the session as regularly scheduled training planned months ago. But it came at a time when many priests already feel under siege--victims of the national furor over clergy sex abuse that began earlier this year in Boston.

“Catholic priests feel they’re being picked on,” said Father John Raab of the Claretian Renewal Center in Los Angeles, one of more than 200 priests who attended the workshop at St. Agatha Church in southwest Los Angeles. “People feel that, because the Catholic Church has so much centralized money, it gets the lawsuits and news.”

Several priests lamented that the furor has caused them to shrink back from normal gestures of affection, such as hugging children.

Father Roger Labonte of Holy Family Church in South Pasadena said he has found himself hesitating over whether to place his hands on a parishioner’s head during absolution rituals, straighten an altar server’s collar or even take some neighborhood children to a movie. After Mass last Sunday, he said, several children ran to him, hugging his legs, but he kept his arms straight at his side.

Labonte, a Canadian native who said that touch is important in his culture, said the self-imposed restrictions are “just not me.”

“I can’t pick the children up and hug them and squeeze them,” said Labonte, 48, who quit an accounting career eight years ago to become a priest and is particularly popular with children, who are drawn to his youthful energy. “I think we’re guilty until proven innocent and that’s a sad thing.”

Father David O’Connell of St. Frances X. Cabrini Church in Los Angeles said he now simply shakes hands with everyone, children and adults alike, to be safe. While that change saddens him, he said, it is for the good of the church.

“If it will help people trust in us as priests, it’s better that way,” said O’Connell, an Irish native and labor activist who last week helped Los Angeles International Airport workers demonstrate for higher wages.

Mahony ordered all priests in public ministry to attend the workshops, which are being held this week and next week throughout the region. The workshops reviewed the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s sexual abuse policies, offered advice on how to maintain “healthy boundaries” and instructed priests on legal reporting requirements for suspected child abuse. Priests were also asked to sign a statement saying they had received a copy of the sex-abuse policies.

Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg said the signed statements were required by a multimillion-dollar legal settlement last year involving a former Orange County priest and a man who was one of his high school students. The settlement covered both the Diocese of Orange and the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which includes Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The workshops were planned independently, Tamberg said.

For many of the priests, the workshop provided the first time to gather and share their feelings since allegations of widespread abuse in the Boston Archdiocese fanned the issue into a national firestorm. During a question-and-answer period, according to those present, priests raised several concerns, including whether to hug a child on a playground, keep confessions confidential and whether innocent priests would be duly protected with legal representation.

Much of the national debate has focused on the oversight of priests found to have engaged in child molestation who were reassigned instead of fired. The Los Angeles Archdiocese recently dismissed or forced the retirement of a number of priests, sources have said. The archdiocese has declined to comment on those reports. The Los Angeles Police Department this week said it had begun examining whether any of the departed priests may have committed a crime.

Mahony addressed Friday’s training session, according to those present, telling priests he had suffered sleepless nights over the furor, that no suspected child abuser was working in the archdiocese and that any priest found guilty of child abuse would be dismissed and encouraged to leave the priesthood.

The new dismissal rules reflect a consensus among medical experts that pedophilia is incurable. Previous archdiocesan policies, first promulgated by Mahony in 1988, allowed the possibility of treatment and a return to ministry.

Despite the news focus on accountability, several of the priests said they felt besieged by a public perception of rampant sex abuse in the priesthood. Father Greg Boyle, who helps rehabilitate hundreds of gang members through jobs in his Homeboy Industries, said he now feels solidarity with the legions of good Los Angeles police officers who were tainted by a few bad cops in the Rampart corruption scandal.

“You want to say, ‘That’s not me,’ ” Boyle said.

At least one priest said he welcomed the furor. Father Tracy O’Sullivan of St. Raphael Church said the church in general had “made mistakes” in covering the problem up in the past and that the current public outcry would help correct that error.

As society in general has become more open in confronting pedophilia with new laws and better understanding of the illness, the church has struggled to keep up with the changes, O’Sullivan said.

“It’s healthy what’s going on,” O’Sullivan said.