Reverend Thomas Patrick Doyle
Thomas ‘Tom’ Doyle is a Roman Catholic priest of the Dominican Order and a Doctor of Canon Law. His present status is unclear as he was disciplined by his superiors in 2004 and recently described himself as ‘legally’ still a priest, as though in contrast to his actual status. Within the Roman Catholic Church he is best characterised as a ‘liberal’, with an apparent denial of the ‘Real Presence’ (or at least it’s historicity), an anti-hierarchical view of church structure (he likens ‘clericalism’ to a disease), an opposition to clerical celibacy and a desire to change the church’s teachings on human sexuality. He argues that not only are these changes desirable from a theological perspective, they are also desirable from a public policy perspective as they will ultimately change the church’s culture and minimise or avoid future harm to the laity, whilst giving clergy more fulfilling lives (this speech records Doyle’s views). He has spoken at a number of meetings of Roman Catholic reform groups such as SNAP (primarily a victims’ advocacy group but also reform oriented), CTA and VOTF. He is widely praised by sexual abuse victims’ groups, receiving the “Priest of Integrity Award” from the liberal/reformist VOTF for his work with abuse victims, as well as the “Cavallo Award for Moral Courage” and the “Isaac Hecker Award for Social Justice”. David Clohessy of SNAP said of Doyle: “He is far and away the single greatest ray of hope for many, many victims.” “He is truly a heroic priest,” says Amy Berg, director of the documentary “Deliver Us From Evil”.
Before discussing Doyle further, I want to make it clear that I have no intention of critiquing his stated reform objectives, rather, I want to place his views in a broader context, one that takes full account of his history and ideological perspective.
In 2003, Doyle began circulating a copy of the document Crimen sollicitationis. The document, known in Catholic canon law as an ‘instruction’, operated from 1962 to 2001. Two civil lawyers, Carmen L. Durso and Daniel J. Shea began airing claims that Crimen sollicitationis constituted a criminal conspiracy on the part of the Vatican to obstruct justice in sex abuse cases, a so-called ’smoking gun’. Given both men were involved in litigation against the church (and thus had a strong vested interest in misrepresenting the nature and scope of the document), and neither possessed expertise in canon law, it would have arguably been unethical for a journalist to publish those claims without further consulting experts. Inexplicably, Kathleen A. Shaw, a journalist with the Telegram & Gazette, immediately published them, relying solely upon the lawyers’ assertions (she later became Shea’s communications director during his unsuccessful run for Massachusetts District Attorney). Subsequently, it became clear that the document was no ‘smoking gun‘. Crimen sollicitationis’ significance, if it has any at all, is in it’s potential to offer insights into the culture of the Roman Catholic Church and it’s decision-making processes. Doyle used it this way when he argued Crimen sollicitationis illustrates a culture of harmful and undue secrecy within the church. The sociological explanation favoured by him lost out in the media to the universally rejected ‘smoking gun’ theory. In spite of the lack of evidence, this theory continues to be perpetuated over the Internet by broad range of groups, including atheists, fundamentalists, conspiracists and others too difficult to categorise, largely on the basis of a documentary known as “Sex Crimes and the Vatican“, to which I turn to now.
In this video, Doyle, contrary to his previous claims, says that Crimen sollicitationis is an explicit Vatican conspiracy to cover up child abuse allegations. There is an edit in between the remarks quoted below, but even when this is taken into consideration it does not appear to change the nature of the claims, as Doyle seems to be holding a copy of Crimen sollicitationis as he makes the second claim.
Below is the relevant portion, found on the BBC website in two places, here and here:
“Crimen sollicitationis is indicative of a worldwide policy of absolute secrecy and control of all cases of sexual abuse by the clergy. But what you really have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy [and] to punish those who would call attention to these crimes by the churchmen.”
The key phrase is the second one, where Doyle says “what you really have here is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse by the clergy”. This claim was central to the thesis of the documentary (which can be seen in full here). It seems as though Doyle catches himself mid-statement but rather than correcting himself, he continues on in his error.
Doyle subsequently clarified his view and blamed the documentary makers for the error:
“Although I was a consultant to the producers of the documentary I am afraid that some of the distinctions I have made about the 1962 document have been lost. I do not believe now nor have I ever believed it to be proof of an explicit conspiracy, in the conventional sense, engineered by top Vatican officials, to cover up cases of clergy sexual abuse. I do not believe that the Vatican or any group of bishops needed a conspiracy.”
The key phrase is where Doyle says “I do not believe now nor have I ever believed it to be proof of an explicit conspiracy, in the conventional sense, engineered by top Vatican officials, to cover up cases of clergy sexual abuse.” This statement directly contradicts the claim he made in Sex Crimes and the Vatican.
Doyle’s most detailed account of Crimen sollicitationis can be found in a document (.PDF) readily available from Richard Sipe’s website (downloadable here). That account is consistent with his other published views, making Sex Crimes and the Vatican the odd one out.
Several matters concern me. The first is that such a claim was made in the first place. It’s false, as Doyle later acknowledges. The second is that this misrepresentation remains uncorrected on the BBC website where it’s mentioned twice, including on it’s own separate page. The third is that his claim became the basis of a series of highly dubious, if not dishonest, inferences that culminated in the condemnation of Pope Benedict XVI in the strongest of terms. Doyle should move to have the record corrected regardless of whether the misrepresentation works in his ideological favour by demonising ‘the hierarchy’.
This is not unusual behaviour for Doyle. He was recently cross-examined as part of an inquiry in Canada. The questioning related to an email exchange between him and an abuse victims’ advocate during the year 2000. The questioning shows him to be inconsistent and unwilling to acknowledge his own mistakes. This infuriated the author of this website, who correctly points out Doyle’s inconsistencies (although her strong condemnation of him is not one I support).
I find it hard to explain Doyle’s behaviour. Maybe he is more interested in re-structuring the Roman Catholic Church than he is in cultivating a reputation as a fair and objective expert and he believes that this end is best served by using agenda driven tabloid journalism, such as that seen in Sex Crimes and the Vatican and Deliver Us From Evil. Still, it does not justify his misleading rhetoric.
I’ll conclude with a quote from an article that deserves to be read in it’s entirety:
Regardless of whether Doyle is right or wrong in his interpretation of Crimen sollicitationis, it’s Journalism 101 that anyone so centrally involved in a major litigation process shouldn’t get such [special] treatment. It’s about time to stop giving Tom Doyle a free ride.
Four years later Doyle continues to get special treatment by sections of the media unwilling to critically examine his claims. They do more than damage his credibility. They fuel the hatred of individuals all too willing to generalise and condemn the entire Roman Catholic hierarchy for the actions of a criminal minority. The effect is nicely illustrated here.
Related Posts
- Thomas Doyle on Crimen sollicitationis
- Crimen sollicitationis
- Crimen sollicitationis and the Media
- Jacob Prasch and Moriel Ministries
- Recent Doyle Article
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7 Responses to “Reverend Thomas Patrick Doyle”
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[...] of the victims of Oliver O’Grady by cutting in interviews with four main participants: Thomas Doyle, Patrick Wall, Jeff Anderson, and John Manly. Doyle is a priest who views all transgressions by [...]
[...] and thus would not apply to nuns. Secondly, it did not “protect” priests from anything. As shown in a previous post, not even Thomas Doyle, the priest and Church critic that made Crimen so…. No expert believes that. “Copies of this official Vatican document signed by Ratzinger and [...]
[...] general scope. This is a separate question from whether it is a conspiracy to cover up abuse. As Thomas Doyle, the Church critic that leaked Crimen sollicitationis to Daniel Shea, and a man with no…, says: “The 1962 document [i.e. Crimen sollicitationis] and its predecessor from 1922 are not [...]
[...] Sex Crimes and the Vatican repeated the “smoking gun” view, this time with the apparent support of Thomas Doyle (who took a position contrary to his previous, and later, [...]
[...] these views is beneath contempt, more so if they were to broadcast the discredited ‘Sex Crimes and the Vatican‘ [...]
Apologists for the Catholic Church want you to believe that theirs is a holy institution marred by instances of immorality that are the rare exception. Much could be said or written to argue the contrary, but if ever there was evidence that the very opposite is true, then here it is:
“In Long Island, a Church official, in response to a question about an abused child, responded ‘It’s not my responsibility to worry about the boy. My job is to protect the bishop and the church.’ At the same diocese, which had a team run by two lawyer-priests, one such lawyer- priest explained that meeting the victim was a waste of time because the statute of limitations on the abuse had expired. Monsignor John A. Alesandro, a member of the team, at a meeting with a victim who had come to talk about his abuse, started the meeting with the words ‘You know, the statute of limitations has run out.’
Unfortunately, the legislators had not foreseen the need for laws which would make it a criminal offence for a bishop to transfer child molesting priests from one parish to another. Bishops may be held for obstruction of justice, endangering child welfare or even conspiracy. In Westchester County, New York, a grand jury concluded an inquiry by accusing the Church of cover-ups and urging state lawmakers to eliminate the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases.
‘The grand jury finds the actions of diocesan officials who were responsible for making and implementing policy reprehensible’ is what the Suffolk County grand jury concluded. It spent nine months investigating the Diocese of Rockville Centre, a Long Island diocese - the sixth largest in the US - with 1.3 million Catholics in a hundred and thirty-four parishes in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. According to their one-hundred-and-eighty-page report, Church officials protected at least fifty-eight paedophile priests for decades. To that end they employed sham policies and a bogus ‘intervention team’ to trick and silence victims, cover up crimes, avoid scandals and minimise financial consequences. The report speaks of a Church that purported to help victims of sexual abuse but instead intimidated the victims to avoid lawsuits and publicity. In fact, the Catholic Church ran a deception programme.
The sex-offending priests were shuffled from parish to parish and often allowed to minister to children. Abusive priests were protected under the guise of confidentiality and their histories were mired in secrecy. Thus, when an abusive priest was transferred to a new parish, his records did not go with him. Already in the mid-1980s, the diocese established an Office of Legal Affairs which was internally known as the ‘intervention team’. Victims and their family members were immediately put in touch with a priest who, unbeknown to them, was also a lawyer. An internal memorandum of 1993 specifically instructed all diocesan officials referring victims not to divulge the fact that the priests were also lawyers. This team of three, of which two were high-ranking lawyer-priests, met with victims and their families supposedly to discuss possible avenues of action. ‘In reality, the grand jury said, ‘the office and the intervention team had one purpose, protecting the diocese’. The ‘intervention team’ treated crimes of priests as sins which were not to be reported to law enforcement officials. The team ignored any recommendations for psychiatric treatments. Their job was to suppress legal claims and to do this, the grand jury reported that the team employed aggressive legal strategies… [to] defeat and discourage lawsuits, even though diocesan officials knew they were meritorious. (i.e., their job was to prevent justice from being done.) . . . Victims were deceived, priests who were civil attorneys portrayed themselves as interested in the concerns of victims and pretended to be acting for their benefit while they acted only to protect the diocese.;
Of all cases investigated by the grand jury, they found only one in which, a priest was defrocked. His crime? Having an affair with an adult woman! Suffolk County District Attorney, Thomas J. Spota, added,
High-ranking prelates protected 58 colleagues from disgrace rather than protecting children from these predator priests. … Time after time, and despite overwhelming evidence that priests were committing crimes against children, they were willingly sacrificing the truth for fear of scandal and for monetary considerations.
Joanne C. Novarro, a spokeswoman for the Rockville Centre Diocese called the grand jury report unfair. William A. Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights reacted ‘I resent the fact that …(D.A.) Spota is being awarded medals for engaging in a wild goose chase.’
(Double Cross, by David Ranan, p. 327-328)
This is not a holy system with a rare “rotten apple”. This is a rotten system, an institution that is rotten to its core. And this situation in one diocese isn’t some renegade operation unknown to the Vatican, as is evident from the fact that the Vatican couldn’t respond with shock and revulsion. In a similar situation in nearby Boston, instead of punishing the embattled Cardinal, the “Holy Father” rescued him and gave him a plum position in “the Holy City”, in the bosom of “Holy Mother the Church”.
See much more at my http://JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/ web site.
Mr Dubuque
Thank you for your contribution.
It seems that you are willing to accept the findings of these ‘grand jury’s’ Perhaps they are correct. Perhaps not. Practically every jurisdiction outside of the US considers them an ineffective means of discovering the truth (or even prosecution). I agree with them on that.
You consider the grand jury findings convincing. I do not. That is where we will have to end our discussion. I do, though, respect fair and balanced judicial proceedings, such as the ‘Ferns Investigation’, which, although critical of the Catholic Church, was based on solid evidence and careful reasoning. I suggest that you get rid of your pseudo-judicial ‘grand jury’ reports produced by politician D.A.’s and try tracking down a copy of the Ferns Report. There is a judicial investigation in Canada that will also probably produce findings critical of the Church, but nothing like the anti-Catholic diatribes found in the Philadelphia and other US grand jury reports. That way you can criticise the Catholic Church until your heart’s content, but not compromise your intellectual, and moral, integrity in the process.
I’ve visited your website and I should inform you that I’m not a Catholic or even a theist at all. I have no religious interest in ‘defending’ the Catholic Church.
Once again, thank you for your contribution, and I wish you well.
Tysen