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	Priest to Speak on How Church Can Prevent Future Sex Scandals By Janine A. Zeitlin Naples Daily News [Naples FL] March 7, 2005 Warding off sexual abuse in the Catholic Church will take breaking down the mystique of the power of priests and making celibacy a choice, says a priest who predicted the scandal 20 years ago. Father Thomas Doyle, 60, a priest for nearly 35 years, was an expert witness in more 150 clergy abuse cases and consulted on at least 500, he said. On Tuesday, local Catholics will host Doyle — profiled in "Vows of Silence," a book chronicling the scandal — in a 7 p.m. speech and question-and-answer session at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in North Naples. The Southwest Florida chapter of Voice of the Faithful — a group with 40,000 members nationwide formed by lay people in response to the unraveling scandals — organized the visit for its third annual speaker's forum. Mandatory celibacy was one factor fueling the crisis, says Doyle, because priests didn't fully fathom the scars abuse left on victims, an understanding that might deepen through parenthood. "Men should be allowed to choose it freely and not have it imposed on them. It supports the mystique that clergy are somehow above, somehow better and removed," he said. "The church should not be about power but about compassion and caring." In the mid-1980s, he and two other men delivered a report warning of a sex abuse crisis of "monstrous proportions" with hundreds of accusers coming forward at a national bishops conference, he said. They suggested a plan for a crisis intervention team that was generally panned. "I felt very sad that it had taken that long for the situation to blow to the surface ... that so many people had to be harmed so deeply and their lives ruined to force the leadership to admit that they could no longer cover up," Doyle said. He calls the sexual abuse devastation the worst crisis in the Catholic Church history since the 14th century Inquisition. Maryland-based Doyle, a canon lawyer with master's degrees in five fields, also counsels victims. Many leave the Catholic Church, he said. Some turn to New Age groups or become Jewish. "They have no faith in bishops and clergy. They're angry at the lay people that are still in denial," he said, noting others refuse to give up their Catholic faith. The crisis forced the church to start listening to lay people and to shoulder accountability. "It's coming painfully, but it is," he said. Peg Clark, head of the local chapter, said she hopes Doyle will acquaint listeners with the other side of the scandal — the priests fighting for the victims and change. William Romero, a former priest and teacher at St. Ann Catholic Parish in Naples during the mid-1970s, was accused of abuse. "People need to hear that the good priests, the very good priests are suffering. ... You can see both ends of the spectrum," Clark said. "The mishandling of the pedophilia scandal has made it obvious to the laity we have to get involved." The group will collect a free-will offering at Tuesday's speech at St. John the Evangelist Parish Life Center at 625 111th Ave. N. For more information, call 417-3077.
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