Sexual Violence and the Violence of Silence: Clergy Sexual Abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

By Jewel Lee Herder Ph.D.

Sexual Violence and the Violence of Silence takes a candid look at the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia from a historical and cultural perspective. The author reveals the five veils of silence—the actions or inactions of the church hierarchy, congregation, law enforcement, media, and general public—that shrouded these cases of clergy sexual violence and exposed the internal maneuverings by administrative officials to silence all those involved or who knew about the abuses. This violence of silence had a profound effect on the victims by adding to their pain and suffering and interfering with their ability to heal and obtain justice. The author begins with the history of the founding of the Roman Catholic Church in America and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and leads the reader through the confession and testimony of Father William Hogan, a nineteenth-century priest who acknowledged his role in grooming parishioners in the confessional, attested to the sexually abusive behavior of many of his colleagues, and argued for the pervasiveness of clergy sexual violence in the church.

The reader will also be exposed to graphic grand jury testimony of the victims of a small representative sample of accused sexually violent priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia—Father Gerard W. Chambers, Father Joseph Gausch, and Father Nicholas V. Cudemo—who targeted their victims based on race, class, and gender. The author includes the historical context in which each priest lived and served by presenting these priests to the reader in chronological order based on their date of ordination. To assist the readers in their understanding of the scope of the cover-up by the leadership of the church, the author examines the administration of the bishops or cardinals supervising the archdiocese during the tenure of each of these predator priests.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646283118

Book preview

Chapter One

Priest, Philanderer, or Whistleblower? Father William Hogan (Nineteenth Century)

The story of Father William Hogan (n.d.), a former Roman Catholic priest, and the clerical abuses he has participated in, and witnessed to, needs to be set in the context of the history of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and American Catholicism in the seventeen through the nineteenth centuries. It is only then that it becomes evident that clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church is not a new phenomenon of the twenty and twenty-first centuries, as is often argued today, but had crossed the Atlantic along with the Jesuits and European Catholic priests, friars, and monks. This was attested to by William Hogan in Popery: As It Was and As It Is and Auricular Confession; and Popish Nunneries (1854) and confirmed by the proscriptions and pronouncements of the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Further examination of these texts will be performed later.

Hogan was the pastor of St. Mary Church in Philadelphia from 1820 to 1823. He was suspended and excommunicated because he claimed he advocated for the reading and circulation of the Bible and for his involvement in the trustee conflict at St. Mary. Subsequently, he left Philadelphia and the priesthood. Twenty years later, he published the above texts that intimately allege the most egregious clergy sexual abuses of his superiors and colleagues—particularly the Jesuits. The silence surrounding the abuses at that time share the same sources surrounding clergy sexual abuses today in the Roman Catholic Church. I have identified five veils of silence that cloaked these cases of clergy sexual abuses: church hierarchy, congregations, civil authorities, media, and general public. In this chapter, I will examine the unique history of the beginnings of the diocese of Philadelphia and its hierarchy and the life and ministry of William Hogan and his documented testimony of some of the earliest cases of clergy sexual abuse in the original colonies, including Philadelphia. His revealing books provide a needed foundation to support the unique character of clergy sexual violence in the hierarchical church. In the nineteenth century, clergy sexual abuse negatively impacted the lives of women and children on the East Coast of the new continent. However, to best understand Hogan in his historical context, it is necessary to examine the history of the Roman Catholic Church in America, especially the Jesuits and their relations with the state and people of color—Native Americans and enslaved Africans and African Americans; the beginning of the church hierarchy in Philadelphia; and the issue of lay trustee governance versus episcopal authority.

History of the Roman Catholic Church in America

The history of the Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia actually began in Maryland with the expansive proprietorship of the second Lord Baltimore, Cecil Calvert (1605–1675). His father, George Calvert (c1580–1632)—the first Lord Baltimore—had previously petitioned King Charles I of England (1600–1649) to grant him a charter to found a colony north of Virginia.⁴³ However, George Calvert died, in 1632, shortly before the charter was approved. Therefore, the charter was passed to his twenty-six-year-old son and heir, Cecil, who suddenly found himself among the great landed gentries. The charter granted him sole ownership of a vast stretch of land bounded on the south by the Potomac River, on the north by Philadelphia, and stretching west into the Appalachian Mountains.⁴⁴ It was called Maryland after the wife of King Charles I—Queen Henrietta Marie (1609–1669), who was French and Catholic. It is important to note that both Cecil and George Calvert (George Calvert was previously a member of the Anglican Church from c.1592–1625) converted to Roman Catholicism around the same time in 1625. Their faith, loyalty, and obedience to Catholicism (which was a minority religion at the time) and their commitment to religious tolerance helped to form the cultural and social milieu of this new colony, which was primarily a for-profit business venture, not a sanctuary for