Foreign-born priests ease shortage
Foreign-born priests ease shortage
Date: Friday, June 14, 2002 1:07 PM
*** H-1B NEWSLETTER ***
Get the Facts on H-1B at
www.ZaZona.com
I was very surprised that about 20% of the Catholic priests in the US
are
imports. The LCA database contains some H-1B and Green Card requests
from
clergy but the numbers are very small. They must be using R visas to
bring
in the priests. R visas are for aliens who have been a member of a
legitimate religious denomination for at least two years and also have a
job
offer in the U.S. to work for an affiliate of that same religious
organization.
Note that the Catholic church uses the same argument for importing
foreign
labor that corporations use.
High Tech Argument:
There is a shortage of programmers because there aren't enough Americans
that enter engineering computer programs.
Catholic Church Argument:
There is a shortage of priests because there aren't enough American men
entering the priesthood.
http://www.dallasnews.com/religion/bishops/stories/061402dnmetforeign.2a945.
html
Foreign-born priests ease shortage but pose accountability challenge
06/14/2002
By MARK WROLSTAD / The Dallas Morning News
Inside the Catholic crisis, the known and alleged abuse by one segment
of
the clergy - in Texas alone - forms its own indictment.
A priest imprisoned for preying on boys in rural San Antonio parishes.
A seminary student accused of fondling a young boy in San Angelo but
allowed to leave the country.
A priest charged with sexually assaulting a girl in Tyler; freed on bail
by
churchgoers, he disappeared.
A pastor who pleaded guilty to molesting a girl in his South Dallas
parish;
he'll be deported when he gets out of prison.
The offenders had more in common than their positions with the Catholic
Church. They are among the thousands of men who have come from foreign
countries to serve the faithful in the United States and make new lives
here.
Foreign-born priests have been a critical answer to another growing
crisis
in the church: the shortage of priests throughout much of the world.
But with American bishops considering a "zero tolerance" policy for
sexual
abusers and many dioceses instituting criminal background checks and
stricter standards for employment, people inside and outside the church
have raised concerns about a lack of screening and controls in a system
that imports large numbers of foreign priests.
Most international priests - as they are often called - fulfill their
duties and deserve their parishioners' trust. But according to victims'
advocates, pre-immigration background checks are lax and inconsistent,
priests are inadequately monitored and, if accusations arise, their
foreign
origins can afford them an escape beyond the reach of American justice.
The same can hold true in reverse, they said, when American priests are
sent abroad. Some critics suspect that members of the Catholic hierarchy
in
the United States and other countries have deliberately exported and
reassigned problem priests while withholding histories of alleged sexual
misconduct from their peers and parishioners.
Nationwide, foreign-born priests have been implicated in scores of abuse
cases - perhaps 200 - though no complete statistics exist.
"There's a significant problem with foreign-born priests," said the Rev.
Thomas Doyle, who co-wrote a 1985 study of priest sexual abuse for U.S.
bishops and has helped hundreds of alleged victims pursue abuse claims.
"It's hard to say how many priests are sent to the U.S. because they
have a
problem with sexual abuse.
"That's chilling, and it's also a true fact. It has happened."
Those who find such machinations unthinkable, he said, need merely look
to
the daily revelations about accused U.S. priests who were moved to avoid
publicity and scandal.
"Honesty and integrity haven't exactly been heavy-duty commodities in
this
whole mess," said Father Doyle, formerly a Vatican Embassy lawyer in
Washington and now a military chaplain in Germany. "Why would a bishop
send
an offender from one country to another, from one diocese to another,
from
one parish to another? Because they want to get rid of them."
Putting numbers on that problem is as difficult as figuring out how many
priests overall have committed sexual abuse.
There's not even an accurate count of foreign priests in the United
States,
according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National
Federation of Priests' Councils.
David Early, a spokesman for the conference, said he didn't know if
bishops
would "single out" foreign priests in their policy discussions this week
of
clergy sexual misconduct.
Numbers vary
Of the nearly 46,000 priests in the United States, more than 20 percent
may
be foreign born. Their numbers vary widely by diocese.
In the Dallas Diocese, 30 of 182 active priests are foreign-born, a
relatively low percentage.
Near the other end of the scale, the Tyler Diocese in East Texas has 61
foreign-born pastors out of 85.
The Fort Worth Diocese has 33 foreign-born priests - about the same
number
as Dallas but among the smaller total of 116.
Viewing immigrant priests with specific suspicion would be wrong, said
the
Rev. Joe Schumacher, the No. 2 official in the Fort Worth Diocese.
"I don't think we can say off the top of our heads that they're a
danger.
That's guilty until proven innocent," Father Schumacher said. "I would
say
the whole world has had problems like this, and that's true of every
profession."
As for thorough criminal checks, he said, "It's kind of hard to get that
out of Rwanda."
Recent cases of native priests in the Philippines, Hong Kong and
Australia
indicate that abuse is more than an American problem.
Immigrant parishes
Other voices warn that, in the United States, the risks involving
foreign-born priests may be magnified because they often serve immigrant
parishes that hold a more exalted view of the church hierarchy and
stronger
loyalty toward it.
"Abuse by foreign priests may be a particularly underreported
phenomenon,"
said David Clohessy, head of the national Survivors Network of those
Abused
by Priests. "Because of cultural differences and the added vulnerability
of
immigrant Catholics, a foreign-born priest probably has greater power
over
his victim and less chance of being detected.
"Kids are less apt to tell of abuse. Parents are less apt to believe
them
and less apt to call law enforcement."
That's the scenario described in a lawsuit accusing a priest of sexually
abusing four boys in a Chicago family in 1998-99 - in the wake of
repeated
abuse allegations against him in South America.
Like one-third of the priests in the United States, the Rev. Carlos
Peralta
is supervised not by a diocese but by one of many independent religious
orders - another factor complicating accountability in abuse cases. When
police were eventually notified, the priest's order had moved him out of
Chicago on his way to Mexico.
"These guys are moved around and let loose on unwary and unsuspecting
parishioners," said Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul, Minn., lawyer who has
litigated about 600 clergy sexual abuse cases.
The Peralta lawsuit is one of the first to name the Vatican.
"I became alarmed at the international movement of offender priests, the
refusal to remove them [as priests] and the secret record-keeping," Mr.
Anderson said, referring to canon law that instructs bishops to keep
incriminating material confidential.
Four years ago, he won a $30 million verdict against a California
diocese
for its handling of the Rev. Oliver O'Grady. The native of Ireland,
already
accused of molestations, had been moved to another church where he
abused
two young brothers for a decade.
For generations, Catholic priests immigrated by the thousands to the
United
States from Ireland.
America's dependence on foreign priests has broadened and deepened
during a
nearly 40-year downturn in the number of men entering the priesthood.
Priests now come in sizable numbers from India, Mexico and South
America,
Africa, Spain and Poland, Vietnam and the Philippines, in addition to
Ireland.
Catholic officials said they've built more safeguards into their foreign
hiring procedures, which vary by diocese, and they reject more
applicants.
Mostly, they ask more questions - usually in writing - of the priest,
his
bishop and others recommending him.
"It used to be a foreign-born priest would come by the chancery and say,
'I
want to stay here and work,' " said Bronson Havard, a spokesman for the
Dallas Diocese, which installed a five-member oversight board in 1997
for
such hires. "We're much more careful about who we let in."
Tough questions
In addition to more mundane concerns about how a priest would adapt to
American culture, dioceses now typically ask if he has shown signs of
alcohol or drug abuse or sexual misconduct.
"The bishop would have to outright lie and deceive us," Mr. Havard said.
That has happened, critics said.
"I have a feeling there's an interchange going on," said Sylvia
Demarest, a
Dallas lawyer who has represented many abuse victims, including some in
the
landmark Rudy Kos case of five years ago.
"I think we send our problems to other countries, and they send their
problems to us.
"These people rarely are caught because they just skip and are never
heard
from again."
The Tyler Diocese had that experience in 1997 with the Rev. Gustavo
Cuello,
a priest from Colombia still wanted in connection with a child sexual
assault.
Bishop Edmond Carmody, who settled a lawsuit that claimed he ignored
warnings about the priest, said officials do their best to check
backgrounds and have learned not to move offenders.
"Nothing is foolproof," said the bishop, now in charge of the Corpus
Christi Diocese. "We've realized moving a priest from one parish to
another
opened a new group of victims and ... the damage a bad priest can cause
anywhere in the church, the scandal."
'Whatever it takes'
Of nine recent abuse cases in the Dallas Diocese, one involved a foreign
priest; Anthony Nwaogu of Nigeria received a five-year sentence for
child
molestation in 1999.
"That to us was not an example of someone who slipped through the
system,"
Mr. Havard said. "He did not have a history of that."
Father Doyle flatly discounted foreign references. "Are you kidding?" he
said. "If they've got a guy who's been an abuser, they're not going to
tell
anyone."
That street runs both ways, said the Rev. Gary Hayes, a Kentucky priest
who
founded Survivors of Clergy Abuse Linkup.
"I don't think I'd believe them any more than I'd believe us," Father
Hayes
said of church officials in the United States and abroad. "Maybe you
just
monitor the priests very well."
Priests coming to America often must take psychological evaluations.
Steve Rubino, a New Jersey lawyer for abuse victims, said a candidate
should be checked out in his home territory.
"Whatever it takes to verify, you do it," he said. "Spend the time.
Spend
the money."
Bishop Carmody offered another solution: Priests should say their
prayers
and live their vows.
"The protection of children is our sacred duty," he said. "We must,
must,
must protect our children."
E-mail mwrolstad@dallasnews.com
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