Women’s Letter to Archbishop Sartain

Below is the text of a letter that I sent to Archbishop Sartain on November 16, 2018. At that time, the letter was printed and mailed with over 130 signatures of women.

                                                                                                                                                      November 15, 2018

To: The Most Reverend J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle

Your Excellency:

               We are Catholic women who feel sickened and betrayed by revelations of the continuing culture of coverup, silence, and inaction in response to the “summer of shame” in our church. We are wives, mothers, sisters, parish volunteers, parish staff, and Catholic women active in our faith who love our church and, with mother’s hearts, are horrified that young men, teenaged boys, children, and girls have been sexually violated and traumatized to gratify the desires of predatory priests. We are equally horrified by the culture of coverup that enables this to continue.

We appreciate your letters to our Archdiocese very much. We are also grateful that our Archdiocese has made the names of clerical abusers public on its own and continues to add to them. We are grateful for the prayer service of Reparation and Healing held at the Cathedral and for the novena in early October. We are grateful that in the Archdiocese ofSeattle, parishes are praying the Prayer to St. Michael after Masses to fight the evil of sex-abuse and coverup in our church. We acknowledge all the time, work, and care you have put towards addressing sex abuse and coverup and hope that these efforts in our Archdiocese continue.

               We urge you to be a strong voice for accountability and transparency among your brother bishops.

While a “thorough investigation”into the McCarrick situation has been promised, we would like to ask you to please use your voice to urge a continuing request to the Vatican for a full apostolic visitation to investigate these matters.

               The measures already announced by the USCCB are indeed “a good start” and need continued focus, energy, and development. We ask you to please continue to press for a good continuation and completion.

               Archbishop, it’s frustrating as a layperson to feel that we have little voice. It’s frustrating that the recommendations by the National Review Board commissioned by the US bishops in 2002 were disregarded. It’s frustrating that the sex-abuse committee formed by Pope Francis was derailed and bogged down, and effectively thwarted. It’s frustrating that the Holy Father has been so slow to respond to the requests of over 47,000 lay women and 11,000 lay men who have written to him asking for answers about Viganò and the McCarrick situation. Please, since you have a voice among your brother bishops, we ask you to please use it tos peak for us and especially for the “little ones,” the children, teenaged boys, and seminarians sexually violated and traumatized by clergy—clergy who were often protected more than the victims were.

            We urge you to use your voice to help create a safer, more welcoming response for those who have been rejected by their own church when they reported abuse or blew the whistle on coverup.  Please use your voice loudly to urge your brother bishops to openness and truth-telling, to voluntarily open up files that would give us answers even before called on to do so by law enforcement or before whistleblowers force their hand by going to the media.

               Further, we ask you to please boldly challenge any presence of priests who have sex with males or unchaste heterosexual priests in our Archdiocese and to call for this throughout the church in the United States.  We are willing to stand by you if this means our own parishes will be without priests. We ask you to clearly and boldly highlight and reiterate the Church’s true, beautiful moral teachings about sexuality and chastity which apply equally to married people, clergy, and single people.

 We ask you to stand strongly against pornography and contraception, which foster the ills of the sexual revolution by distorting what sex is: we need to hear again and again that it is not for the personal gratification of individuals, whether they are clergy, single people, or even married people, but that it is for God’s holy purposes of procreation and union in marriage. We also ask you to highlight, lift up, and promote the valuable work of Courage and Encourage in our Archdiocese to minister to those affected by same-sex attraction, either personally or among those they love. We know this present crisis involves more than unchaste homosexual clergy, but it still seems like an opportune moment to address this “open secret” that many of us are aware of in the church–the fact of some homosexual clergy living unchastely and no one having the courage to call them out on it.  The same standard of chastity applies to heterosexual clergy as well and this should be restated. Why have so few bishops’ responses stated that sexual activity for unmarried priests is sinful and immoral? We truly are scandalized.

         Archbishop Sartain, we ask you and your brother bishops to show the heart of a father to us. Not the lawyer-vetted speech of managers. In times like these, we don’t just want to hear about updating policies and procedures. Policies and procedures did not serve well when Fr. Boniface Ramsey wrote to Cardinal SeanO’Malley with his knowledge of Cardinal McCarrick’s activities with seminarians at his beach house. We need to keep hearing from you all. We need to hear the heart of fathers outraged that their children have been hurt and serious about protecting them. We are greatly edified by the bold letter from Bishop Morlinoof Madison, which is enclosed. Why aren’t more bishops speaking like this?

               We ask you to encourage any brother bishops who have been complicit in coverup and who are on the fence about resigning to please do so. This will go a long way toward reestablishing credibility and trust with our hierarchy. Bishop Malone of Buffalo recently stated that he will not resign, even after his executive assistant Siobhan O’Connor revealed his horrible mishandling of sex abuse cases. He claimed that his diocese needs stability, and that a resignation would be destabilizing. This leads to a quiet, resigned despair and erosion of trust on the part of us faithful. These bishops have lost their moral authority to lead.

               We also ask that our Archdiocese might develop something tangible and sustainable byway of remembrance and reparation that will continue even when the scandal is not in the news as much. (Though with further grand jury investigations underway in many more states, that day may be a long way off!) Perhaps a yearly day of penance or a special shrine as a place to go to pray for healing for abuse victims would help keep the memory of the painful but healing graces of this moment in the church for future generations.

               So many souls are being lost; it grieves us. We feel an urgency and intensity about this whole situation, and we commit to intense prayer, fasting, and sacrifices for souls, for victims, for you and our priests, and for our whole church at this time. We turn to you with hope that you will do all you can. We lay Catholics in the US want the truth, all of it, no matter how bad it is, right out in the open so we can deal with it and begin to rebuild trust.  

               Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Sarah Bartel, Ph.D.

St. Andrew, Sumner

Mother of Four, Moral Theologian

13 thoughts on “Women’s Letter to Archbishop Sartain”

  1. Thank you Dr. Sarah
    I am so glad you and Dr. Tom Curran are living the Gospel.
    Your Letter to our Bishop is spot on
    You may add my name too.

    Maggie Schacht
    Sacred Heart
    LaConner, Wa
    312 Mc Cormick Lane
    Mount Vernon, Wa 98273

  2. I agree and also feel betrayed by the culture of the church to cover up and ignore the abuse of innocents. When can we expect a comprehensive plan to deal with this abomination?

  3. I had to look this up online. I heard you briefly on sound insight w Dr Tom Curran. Thank you for speaking up and writing this beautiful heart felt letter. I feel just as devastated, hurt betrayed by our leaders in our One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I feel very saddened, depressed and embarrassed, however I to perhaps might feel like a victim even tho I do not know anyone involved.

    I am a mother, sister, daughter,aunt, friend and have always been proud of my catholic faith and now feel I am really being tested.

    Thank you for listening. God Bless 🙂

  4. Yes details of this matter for catholic universal church.to fixture of burden and trails victims that are suffering towards their values from priesthood matter from faithful to god acknowledging of this problem to begin fixed. Thank you, god bless matters and trust.

  5. GOD BLESS YOU, SARAH BARTELL!
    Thank you for this well thought out, heartfelt letter. You speak from the hearts of so many of us!
    I pray that every parish will start a “Seven Sisters apostolate” to commit one hour of Adoration each day of the week for 1. The pastor, 2. to ask the Lord’s forgiveness, conversion on a priest in most need. IT IS TIME US LAITY RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS AND THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MOTHER MARY, for our souls, the conversion of the wayward clergy, and the renewal of our Catholic Church!

  6. Thank you Dr. Sarah Bartel.
    Truly CHARITY in Action!
    please add my name. My Parish is Holy Family in Kirkland.
    Will be offering Rosaries, Holy Mass, my Visits to our Perpetual Adoration, etc.
    I agree with you and pray (special shrine as a place to go to pray for healing for abuse victims…). May God bless you abundantely.

  7. I was greatly disappointed at the neutral vote from Seattle. We need our father Bishops to exercise their authority and take a strong stand against evil. Praying…

  8. Thank you Sarah so much for taking the time to compose this empowering letter. Tears come to my heart. It provides hope. I pray it provides Holy Spirit empowerment/ directions for our Archbishop. My he be richly blessed.
    May prayers are with you.

  9. Thank you Dr. Sarah Bartel for taking action.
    I am greatly disappointed in the failure of our Bishops to finally bring about a process to change from protecting Preists who harm the vulnerable and consequently the church itself to rooting out the guilty and shedding a light on the harm done. It is sad to see that even now the work of repairing the church has been postponed. Please stand up for the faithful.

    My prayers for the Pope and our clergy.

  10. Dearest Sarah:

    I cannot find the sign here button. However, this whole situation is so very disheartening. I never dreamed we ( the Catholic Church) would be dealing with such a morally devastating upset. I am upset daily and have been praying for the Pope, the Bishops and Priests. It really is mind blowing to read how many of our Bishops are involved in homosexual activities and taken total advantage of children of all ages, as well as, Seminarians! The Pope seems to be okay with all of it, as he places major players in this fiasco, in top places in the Vatican. I am totally upset and devastated just reading what is happening in our beloved Church. My heart gets torn when I read about these poor victims of all ages and how this total mess has ruined their lives. This should NEVER be happening in the Catholic Church. PLEASE ADD MY NAME to this list.

    Mrs. Mary-Lou Roberge
    2213 NW westridge Ct.
    Silverdale, WA 98383-9509
    Our Lady Star Of The Sea Parish,
    Bremerton, WA 98383-9509

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