Opinion-less Opinion Column

Column: Mary, Mother of the Redeemer pastor met the controversy head on, but may have missed an opportunity to lead
Published: Tuesday, March 29, 2011
By Mike Morsch
Executive Editor

Not "Outta Leftfield" - "Column." Like he's actually trying to write a serious opinion piece. Like he's in any way qualified (or able) to express an opinion on a serious issue.

Editor’s note: Mike Morsch is executive editor of Montgomery Newspapers. He has family members that are members of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer Parish in North Wales and was at this meeting Monday evening. What follows is strictly an opinion piece with some analysis on what he observed.

The "Editor" is, presumably, Borsch himself. This begs the question: has he ever reported on a news issue in which he was not personally involved?

Parishioners at Mary, Mother of the Redeemer in North Wales are angry and upset at the scandal now gripping the Philadelphia Archdiocese in the wake of the most recent grand jury report that has forced the archdiocese to take 21 priests out of active ministry for allegedly sexually abusing young boys.

Yes, that was all one sentence. We're off to a good start.

And on Monday evening, MMR’s pastor, Monsignor John T. Conway, put himself squarely in the congregation’s collective crosshairs in front of what at times seemed like a pitchfork and flaming torches kind of crowd looking for answers and guidance.

Mix metaphors much? Not only did he put himself in the crosshairs, he did it in front of a crowd armed with pitchforks and torches! And yes, that, too, was all one sentence. No much-needed hyphens in "pitchfork and flaming torches kind."

For Monsignor Conway, it was a lose-lose situation. And although he met the situation head-on — and for that he deserves a lot of credit — he didn’t necessarily have a lot of answers that people were seeking.

Imagine Borsch taking command during such a crisis! Truly one of our great leaders is he.

Conway’s name appears in a 2005 grand jury report involving priest abuse. He isn’t accused of committing any of the abuse, but it is strongly alleged that as regional vicar for South Philadelphia back in the late 1990s, he knew about and was part of the hierarchy that transferred priests with a history of sexual abuse into other parishes, where they would be in direct contact with adolescent boys.

Thus far, not a whole lot of opinion OR analysis. More like - surprise! - boring summary of an already-reported issue.

Conway denies the charge, saying he wasn’t privy to any information of past abuse in any priest’s personnel file and he wanted MMR parishioners to hear that directly from him.

Does Borsch credit the reporters who actually gathered all the facts he's repeating?

“All I’m asking you tonight is to hear what I have to say,” said Conway to approximately 200 parishioners at a meeting the monsignor said was being held with the full knowledge of the Philadelphia Archdiocese. “I wish more people were here.”

Wow, you gotta love using "said Conway" and "the monsignor said" in the same sentence.

He’s right about that. MMR is approximately 6,000-members strong — one of the 10 largest parishes in the archdiocese — and only around 200 of those were interested enough in the subject of priest abuse to come and hear what this man had to say? It’s not like there are a lot of priests out there who are standing up publicly and taking any kind of heat on this. The very least concerned parishioners could have done, if they were available to attend, was hear Conway out.

Yeah, come on, parishoners! It's really you who is to blame, you know.

You can go online and look at the grand jury report (www.bishop-accountability.org/2005¬¬_09_21_Philly_GrandJury). It’s pretty ugly stuff. Conway is mentioned on pages 218-219 in regard to Father David C. Sicoli, one of the accused priests, who, according to the report, “had in his secret archives file a long history of abusive and manipulative relationships with adolescents.” Sicoli has a local connection as well, as he was assistant pastor at St. Joseph in Ambler for a few months in 1975 before being transferred reportedly because of a tiff with the pastor.

Borsch loves these "local connection" angles, no matter how obscure. Sicoli was in Ambler! John Oates was from North Penn! Be interested!

“I come across [in the 2005 grand jury report] as some kind of monster and I’m lumped together with horrible people who have covered up those ugly sins,” Conway said. “I jumped out of bed the other night and realized that this [grand jury report] is on the Internet and it will be there forever. Someday I won’t be around to explain it.”

Conway is quick to point out that his name is not mentioned in the 2011 grand jury report, the details of which were released in February. “You can draw your own conclusions on that,” he said.

If the meeting was as boring as Borsch's story, it's no surprise more people didn't show up.

In addition to offering his explanation, Conway said the other reason he wanted to speak directly to parishioners was because the MMR community doesn’t know him all that well yet. He came to MMR in late summer 2010 to replace the much-loved and popular Monsignor Philip Ricci, founding pastor of MMR, who had retired.

Following Monsignor Ricci to MMR is a difficult enough task. The guy built the parish. There will probably be a statue of him on the church grounds someday. So having one’s name associated with a grand jury report about priest abuse could make the task of moving MMR forward next to impossible for Conway.

Opinions like this are sure to fire people up. You know how excited people get about the "Monsignor Ricci statue on the church grounds someday" issue.

“For some reason, the regional vicars knew nothing about any sexual abuse history,” said Conway, who has been a priest for 34 years. “We thought we were doing good things. We were talking about guys going to different parishes without knowing their backgrounds.”

That's a really, really lame excuse, by the way. That's something an opinion piece might call attention to...

Another reason the MMR folks are so touchy is because they’ve faced the issue of priest abuse in the past.

... but nope! We breeze past it for more dull, repetitive reporting!

From 2000 to 2002, Father Francis J. Gallagher was assistant pastor at MMR. He was involved in the capital campaign committee that raised funds for the school, which eventually was built and opened in 2003. But in 2002, Monsignor Ricci made an announcement at Mass one Sunday that Father Gallagher had left, without elaborating. Gallagher is named in the grand jury report as an abusive priest.

Does this vague story count as "facing the issue in the past"?

Also, when Monsignor Ricci retired in 2010, the archdiocese announced the appointment of Monsignor Joseph Logrip to MMR, but he never officially took over and parishioners were informed that he wasn’t coming for personal reasons. Logrip was one of the 21 priests removed from active ministry after the release of the 2011 grand jury report.

I'm including this entire story to emphasize just how terrible it is. "Also"? Do real journalists start their paragraphs with "also"?

By the end of the evening, Conway had urged parishioners to make their voices heard in Philadelphia and beyond, even in Rome if that’s what it took to effect change. Church members asked Conway to make a request to Cardinal Justin Rigali that the cardinal come to MMR and speak to the concerned parishioners.

The amount of raw, unfiltered Borsch opinion here is staggering.

That’s not likely to happen. My sense is that Cardinal Rigali likely wouldn’t face the public in this situation and would prefer that the front-line soldiers in the Philadelphia Archdiocese like Monsignor Conway be the tip of the spear. Besides, it would be a media frenzy if Rigali showed up to a local parish ready to publicly answer questions about priest abuse.

What a shrewd observer of the patently obvious!

Monsignor Conway has walked a fine line here. He’s got 34 years invested in his career as a priest. To keep his job, he’s likely still got to take his marching orders from the archdiocese. But to protect his name and reputation, he obviously felt it was necessary to take his case directly to the people.

Wow. That's right, folks - he went there. He actually pointed out that Conway appeared at the meeting.

Would he have stood in the house of God in front of angry parishioners he just met for the first time less than a year ago and lied to them? I think not. That would be unwise. He may have been naïve about priest abuse issues, as he claimed, but he doesn’t strike me as stupid.

This is the dumbest reasoning I've ever seen. "Conway is smart. Therefore, he would not lie. Lying is unwise."

People want to know who knew what and when they knew it when it comes to priests abusing children. There is no middle ground there. It’s a heinous crime and it’s just as heinous to go to great lengths to cover it up.

So abusing children is bad. Bold words, sir.

Conway admitted that those close to him had advised that Monday evening’s event — while initially designed for Conway to explain himself to the parishioners — could and likely would turn angry at some point, which it did. Emotions ran high.

It seemed to me, though, that many of those in attendance — but not all — were mostly satisfied with Conway’s explanations and respected the fact that he had stood in front of them and tried to answer their questions. And although parishioners now appear to be looking up the chain of command above Conway for answers, they all seemed to be looking for guidance and leadership, and Conway may have missed an opportunity there.

"...looking up the chain of command above..." Nice. If only Borsch was a Catholic priest faced with an abuse scandal, eh? No doubt he'd provide flawless guidance and leadership in the face of adversity. This is the fourth-to-last sentence, and we finally have opinion and analysis. Sort of.

“I’m not trying to start a campaign here, I’m just trying to make a point,” said Conway.

Given the circumstances and the lack of clear answers, maybe Monsignor Conway is right when he says he just doesn’t know what to do now. At this point, maybe nobody does.

And that's it. "What's my opinion? I don't know. Probably nobody does." Can you believe this cop-out? And this is supposed to be "analysis"? "I don't know"? Just further proof that, no matter the genre... Borsch just can't pull it off.