Protesters target Manchester's Bishop McCormack: Boston Catholics join survivors, supporters in New Hampshire diocese for cathedral march

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 7, 2003 by Chuck Colbert

The Sunday Boston Globe's front-page story Jan. 26 couldn't have been more timely. The newspaper's "Spotlight Team," in a follow-up report, wrote: "An examination of thousands of pages of internal church records make clear that [Bishop John B.] McCormack, now bishop of the Manchester, N.H., diocese, [and a key adviser to Cardinal Bernard F. Law], was an administrator whose first sympathies frequently lay with his brother priests. With him, their words often carried greater weight than those of their victims."

The day that Globe story greeted New Englanders, dozens of protesters in New Hampshire were joined by friends and advocates imported from the greater Boston area for a march of protest and solidarity at Manchester's St. Joseph Cathedral. They were a mix of ages and backgrounds: church reformers and victim-survivors, joined by their families and friends. Nearly 250 people braved the morning's bitter temperatures to show support for victims of sexual abuse by priests and to urge McCormack's resignation.

Their message came across loud and clear--in speeches, through placards, with strains of classical music in the background: Support survivors. Bishop McCormack must go. Speak Truth to Power--STTOP McCormack.

"I'm here because I have to stand with the victims and survivors, and I don't hear much at all about them at our local parish," said Maggie Fogarty of St. Thomas More Parish in Durham, N.H. "If I don't physically align myself with the victims, then I don't know what to do with the pain of their stories." The mother of two small children, Fogarty said, "It all feels very personal when I look at them."

Fogarty, like many other protesters, also came to voice opposition to McCormack's staying on as the spiritual leader of the diocese. The jurisdiction of the diocese includes the entire state, with a total Catholic population of nearly 326,000. In other words, approximately 28 percent of the state's population is Catholic.

"Absolutely, he has to go. I can't be a part of the solution here until he is gone." Fogarty added. "His behavior is appalling. He has no moral credibility at all because over and over and over again he took the word of priests over the cries of victims and their mothers."

Other protesters, members of New Hampshire Voice of the Faithful, sounded similar sentiments:

"His name appears way too often" in the church documents, said Lynn Holmes of Durham.

"He can be forgiven but he must be held accountable. And that means losing his job," said Barbara Troxell.

"He's still in denial," said Peg Boucher. "I've written to him four times. In the last letter he said `I always supported children.' "But, she added, "The children came after the clergy."

"Something systemically, surgically needs to be corrected here, maybe Vatican III," said Lynn Holmes' husband, David Holmes.

Yet another protester, Joan Barrett of Manchester, said, "Bishop McCormack had a lot to do with this [situation here in New Hampshire] continuing so long. He has not admitted guilt except under pressure, starting and mounting to get rid of him."

Like Fogarty, Barrett is also a mother; one of her two daughters attends the diocese's Trinity High School. "It's been very difficult," she said. "[McCormack] came to speak at my daughter's school, and some of the things he said were not very truthful."

She added: "I first came three weeks ago [to a protest] when I read in one of our papers that a monsignor in a big parish in town said the [the Massachusetts protesters] had no right to cross the state border. As far as I am concerned, we are all Christians together. I thank them for coming here and being a catalyst to get New Hampshire people moving," she said.

At least one speaker picked up on Barrett's point. "I know that many of you who call New Hampshire home really don't want us here today," said John Vellante of North Andover, Mass. But "clergy sexual abuse has no state boundaries. It happened here just as it happened in Massachusetts and in so many other states across the land," he added. Vellante alleges he was abused not only in Massachusetts, but also once in Concord, N.H., by a former priest.

The Jan. 26 march, cosponsored by the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors and the New Hampshire Voice of the Faithful--representing eight chapters statewide--was organized to demonstrate "grief and support for victims and survivors of sexual abuse by the clergy," according to a flier distributed by the two organizations.

"Marking the first anniversary of the exposure of this crisis, the march enables us to show our unabated support for untold numbers of people who were sexually abused as children by priests," said Anne Barrett Doyle, a spokesperson for the Coalition of Catholics and Survivors. "Their cries for justice remain unanswered."

The march also garnered support from other local church-reform and victims-advocacy groups, including the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP; Survivors First; and Speak Truth to Power, or STTOP.