Sequitur, et Non
The Los Angeles abuse settlement continues to reverberate to a degree that surprises me. There were several powerful letters to the New York Times after their news story and editorial, including one from Anne & Ed Wilson of the VOTF chapter here in Brooklyn, and one from the venerable Msgr. Harry Byrne, who now has his own blog. But there was also a truly brilliant parody that apparently sought to find humor in this dark saga, and at the same time puncture many of the silly contentions and connections made by some advocates of a liturgical silver bullet for the crisis. The letter is from, of all people, the “rite-wing” Catholic polemicist Matt Abbott. In full it reads:
To the Editor:
I am pleased that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has settled with more than 500 survivors of sexual abuse. The settlement is long overdue.
Despite the moral corruption that has permeated the church in the United States over the last few decades, I still believe in the truths of the faith, and I applaud Pope Benedict XVI for loosening the restrictions on use of the traditional Latin Mass and for reiterating the church’s central role in salvation.
Matt C. Abbott
Chicago, July 17, 2007
Or at least I think it was meant as parody. Unfortunately, about the same time, the Vatican came out with a lengthier take on priests and pedophiles that is no more encouraging in its analysis. The text is posted at Zenit and is a pamphlet written by Monsignor Raffaello Martinelli, an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In his self-administered Q&A Msgr. Martinelli repeats many of the defensive argumentations made by other Vatican officials after the Los Angeles settlement. And he plays up the problem of pedophilia outside the Church while playing with figures to diminish the true scope of the abuse:
“There are some 500,000 priests in the world, and the priests who have cases brought against them are a small percentage. Those that have been proven and ended with punishment are even less: Trustworthy, nonpartisan sources say the percentage is 0.3%, that is, three priests out of 1,000.”
He always stresses that acts of abuse “are the responsibility of the individual who carries them out” and of the bishops says:
“Unfortunately it must also be said that some bishops were mistaken when they undervalued the facts and limited themselves to moving, from one parish to another, a priest who was found guilty of pedophilia. For this reason, the Holy See decided in 2001 to claim for itself the judgment on those crimes.”
I don’t want to belabor the point that has been made so many times before, but this sort of testimony is not conducive to the kind of penitence and catharsis on high that the Church needs. Benedict himself, who used to denigrate the scandal as an anti-Catholic media creation, had something of a conversion experience on this issue a few years ago, thanks to the personal pleadings of Ann Burke and the Review Board. But he continues to avoid any examination of the responsibility of the Church hierarchy. This is the kind of evasion that undermines the homilies the pope preaches. It is also an issue on which the pope, and the Vatican, may need to do some hard thinking before Benedict visits the U.S. next year. Boston is supposed to be on the itinerary. Boston Catholics, above all, will want a more honest accounting.
Why do you think this was a parody?
Having read other writings by Matt Abbott, I doubt very seriously that this was a parody!
Sorry, my faculties for humor writing are obviously not my strong suit. I was hoping it was so clearly not parody that my feigned ignorance would stand in for my usual reflex to snarkiness. No, Matt Abbott was serious. I should be, too.
Also, that figure of 0.3% is certainly the lowest I’ve seen anywhere, and is quite suspect. The National Review Board figures were somewhere around 4 to 5 percent, as I recall.
Were it anywhere near 0.3% it would actually be lower than the rest of the populations to which the Catholic clergy are normally compared–that is, teachers, school administrators, youth workers, etc.
Apropos of Father Martin, I’d clarify that this post is not to jump all over priests–on the contrary. The figures are much higher than the Vatican cited, probably 4-5 percent, something that actually coincides (as far as we know) with similar cohorts. What is not kosher is the spinning of stats, and the exclusive focus on the sins of priest-abusers while soft-selling the responsibility of their overseers.
Didn’t know of Matt Abbott, but I did assume that Mr Gibson was taking him to task for an irrelevant response. Granted the wider use of latin is not terribly to the point, but the writer’s main intent was to say in effect, I’m still Catholic in spite of this evil. Which is relevant, whether coming from the left or right.
A reporter for the Los Angeles Times wrote a column last week which got a lot of attention describing his loss of faith as a resut of his reporting the scandal. Everyone knows other Catholics who have lost their faith as a result. I thought the letter’s awkwardness in referencing the latin mass betokened pain.
As to the Martinelli piece, it was hard to see what the purpose of it was. Has the CDF always adopted the question and answer format? It was clearly not designed to be a comprehensive document, assessment of hierarchy responsibility, documentation of abuse incidence,etc. Most of it concerned due process and jurisdictional considerations. And the Vatican’s pointed assumption of jursidiction away from the bishops isn’t exactly an endorsement of the bishops.
The .3% figure was interesting, and is much lower than the 4% figure from the John Jay study for the years 1950 to 2002. One always wishes for citations — perhaps there are footnotes to the official text. (Nothing is posted in the CDF Vatican website.) It was noteworthy as well that this document did not wander into the controversial pedophile/ephebophile distinction.
Isn’t Matt Abbott the guy who enjoys spreading malicious rumors about bishops and cardinals he does not like?
The truth of the matter seems to be that neither the Vatican nor the bishops know how to handle this historic crisis. The clergy are depressed more than anyone realizes and no leaders have emerged to help. The vacuum of leadership problem is mostly due to the fact that the Vatican will minimize anyone who will attempt to lead while the Vatican and the bishops are just hoping it will go away.
This mainly shows that the model of “set apart” does not jive with the reality of behavior. On the other hand people still keep the faith while they know that it is the Spirit who maintains their lives not the clergy.
When the bishops and Rome learn humility the crisis will end. So it will fester for a long time and a new church will emerge. Necessarily so.
addendum — The John Jay figure ( 4.3 percent of the diocesan priests and 2.5 percent of the religious priests) applies to allegations. The 0.3% figure from the Martinelli pamphlet applies to “those that have been proven and ended with punishment.”
Which makes one want to see the documentation all the more.
Neither here nor there the NY Times listed 30 most important blogs and Commonweal was not on it. First things was on it. Is that a blog when it is limited to a few contributors? Perhaps someone should make a separate thread of this.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2007/07/articles-of-fai.html
http://www.bishopaccountability.org/AbuseTracker
is a daily vetted site, listing ongoing matters, globally, with the ongoing scandal, cover-up, and frequent Church embezzlements, reported in the mainstream press.
Mr. Mazella is correct, those across the Tiber, including American William Cardinal Leveda, at CDF, and those in the NCCB here, do not know how to “handle” the continued hemmoraghing in the Church, despiute well over $2 Billion laity dollars spent thus far in the USA.
Apologies remain HOLLOW, and there is no real attempt at a request for FORGIVENESS, as such constitutes GUILT, which requires PENANCE, prior to ABSOLUTION.
One might suggest a mirror for the each NCCB and Curia members, as to where the clear fault, and responsibility, remains, for decades of ‘transfers’ and known obstruction of justice.
‘IT’ WILL NOT “GO AWAY”, because there is no accoutability for clear guilt, and collusion, among many miters, and red hats.
Canon law is broken, or a terminal, and unevenly administered in codification and implementation.
Until a very much increased number of canoncial censorships, life house arrests, or EXCOMMUNICATIONS, occur, among the ranks of current Curia (not disimilar from founder and sanctioned Fr. Marciel of the Legionnaires of Christ) the laity will continue to vote with their feet, and wallets.
Benedict XVI th was correct. We are looking at a shrinking Church, directly as a result of a so-called leadership with no moral authority left.
Russ Bianchi
Lay Member, Diocese of Monterey, CA
russ@adepthq.com
The Vatican still refuses to recognize the reality of the situation Penitence is impossible until there is an acknowledgment of the wrong done and a will to make amends: I have seen no evidence of either on the part of the hierarchy. They hope that the fickle public (including the Catholic laity) will latch on to something else, that big donors will keep on giving, and that business will go on as usual.
Serious and credible allegations were made against about 4.5% of priests in the US; they were usually not prosecuted because of the statute of limitations. The hierarchy hid the abuse, or persuaded the legal system not to prosecute, until the abusers were safe from the criminal law. Clearly there were other abusers who have not been named. In all probability (and this is the figure that Pepe Rodriquez, a Spanish sociologist independently arrived at) about 7% of priests have been sexually involved with minors. Pedophiles, that is those who attracted to pre-pubescent children, have hundreds of victims. Ephebophiles, those who are attracted to adolescent boys, probably have scores.
There is no reason to think that American or Spanish priests are uniquely sinful There are hundreds of thousands of victims of sexual abuse by priests throughout the world, and millions of their family members have had their lives poisoned by the abuse.
The bishops who tolerated the abuse and indeed enabled the abusers (some American bishops, as soon as they got an allegation of abuse, made the accused priest a Boy Scout chaplain) remain in office. Their narcissism makes them unable to feel the pain of the victims. Officials in the Vatican share this clerical narcissism and disconnect form reality, and know that the cries of the victims, including those driven to suicide by the abuse, will die out in this world. The bishops and the Vatican seem unconcerned as to whether God hears the cry of the afflicted poor, the poor whom they have oppressed, because God is always on the side of the powerful – at least so the powerful think. They may have an unpleasant surprise in the next world.
The other factor no one wants to address is that there are a bunch of priests who are in relationships with women and are looking to marry them as priests. They have approached Votf and Votf is trying to advocate for them.
The usual approach by bishops and clergy is keep the lover but stay in.
There is a lot of ignoring going on until the proverbial fan is hit.
Dear Mr. Mazella:
Again you are correct.
Africa is also full of such “Ordained”, as semiaries burst from those seeking a way out of starvation, or as Europe ALWAYS was…
In Italy, we call ‘it’ BELLA FACE, as no doubt you are familiar.
The ancient Romano saying, predating Chrisitanity, “They (clergy) pretend to be pious, we (laity) pretend to believe them” is no longer true Bill, the paying laity no longer believe any clergy, particularly Curia, anymore.
With all due respect to VOTF or SNAP efforts, I get the outside looking in, impression, both are delusional that compromise will alter miter or red hat course, or agenda.
There is but one outlined and proven remedy, by St. Peter Damien, almost 1,000 years ago, that works, cut off ‘their’ monies, even if multiple generations worth, toward a net result.
When a cancer attacks THE BODY, it must be starved, cutout, or KILLED, for any chance of survival of the whole.
It is the same diagnosis here Bill.
Not pretty, but it must be done, and the laity are the only ones left willing, or able, to do it.
May Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on ‘their’ pehaps already sold souls.
Most sincerely & respectfully,
Russ Bianchi
Lay Member Oo The Diocese Of Monterey, CA
russ@adepthq.com
David Gibson has highlighted the open sore in the church today – the refusal of bishops to acknowledge their record of endangering children, failure to report in accord with the law, and obstruction of justice. Even charges of perjury were planned based on the conduct of a NH auxiliary.
Just a cursory reading of bishops’ depositions, grand jury reports, attorney general and district attorney findings on http://www.bishopaccountability.org makes their culpability clear.
Yet, NH’s John McCormack says he did nothing legally or morally wrong, repeating the euphemisms of countless bishops about “mistakes and inadequacies.”
Their wilfull blindness and conscious ignorance is stunning. They have gotten away with everything due to weak laws and the statutes of limitation, and we are expected to accept that.
They count on the deference of laity and law enforcement, and so far are not disappointed. Or is there an aftertaste they cannot banish? There is no justice, no accountability here.
Msgr. Byrne quoted canon 1389 in his NYTimes letter. For a full exposition of all applicable canons with supporting evidence, see http://www.nhcatholics.org for the canon case we filed in 2003, and which sits in exile. It really is instructive. And the correspondence with McCormack is classic clerical evasion; worth a peek to see the full flowering of episcopal spin.
For shame. Benedict’s visit? A non-event.
I don’t personally find these calls for penitence very convincing. It sounds like people are examining other people’s consciences. How penitential is that?
If there are some real solutions that folks would like to propose, such as reforms in seminary formation, now that would be interesting. But anyone who thinks that lay empowerment is the answer to all the Church’s problems shoujld really become more self-aware. It’s not as though sinfulness is a grace of ordination. We all have to do penance.
Bill,
What’s your proof that priests who are in relationships with women are being advocated for by VOTF? That sounds very far-fetched to me.
Kathy,
No one has to examine anyone else’s conscience to know that several bishops and priests (and religious and laypeople) have much to atone for in the abuse scandal. Nor is anyone suggesting that “empowerment” (by which I assume you mean more lay involvement in governance) is “the answer to all the church’s problems.” We have plenty of evidence that when diocesan sexual-abuse review boards go ignored by bishops, young people are at risk. Those groups are lay dominated.
Grant, as my ongoing conversation with you has stated: You apparently cover Votf in a very limited way. Should not you and your editors be in direct contact with Votf?
The word I used above is that Votf is “trying” to advocate for these priests. More correctly “some” Votf members are leaning this way. Others of us argue that this only feeds into the bishops accusations that Votf is just another radical organization. Votf can be helpful in helping priest. The line is a very thin one.
Russ, Votf, in my view, is the most focused of the renewal groups. The problem is that not enough of us support Votf which has made significant gains with limited resources. The renewal is too splintered which might be the main problem.
In my opinion CTA lost some of its focus in the last few years. Now it is, in a terrible move, criticizing Votf which will not agree with all its positions. (In a way Votf has rejuvenated CTA.) This is what hurts the reform. Both have their place and they should work together.
I am with Kathy on this. So many of these calls for “penitence” and the righteous indignation ring hollow. Why?
Nearly every call for accountability almost always devolves into a laundry list of ulterior motives, complaints, and gripes about general Church governance, financial and property issues, and even doctrinal issues. What do married priests and church closings have to do with the abuse situation? Even in this blog, in discussions of abortion or euthanasia or any number of issues concerning Catholics, someone will bring up the abuse crisis. It’s like a Godwin’s Law of Catholic Blogs.
Is it penitence or a pound of flesh that people want? Frankly, if Cardinal Law had crawled down Commonwealth Ave. in sack cloth and ashes over broken glass you would still have many of the VOTF crowd calling it a public relations ploy. I think many in the “evil” hierarchy see it this way, which is why they frankly don’t bother dealing with it – they conclude, reasonably I think, that it wouldn’t make any difference. Here in Boston, Cardinal O’Malley, I believe, is a very holy man and is trying very hard to create an environment of reconciliation, but no matter what he does, he is vilified by those who, frankly, use the abuse crisis as a club to beat up the diocese regardless of what it does. In short, calls for accountability and penitence don’t sound sincere when there is no spirit of forgiveness behind them.
There are plenty of “blind eyes” and plenty of willful ignorance and plenty of blame to go around. It is particularly annoying when we hear complaints about twisting facts or minimizing problems from people who like to call this a pedophilia problem. Certainly many of the abusers were pedophiles, but most were not. We can try to disguise this fact by calling them ephebophiles – a term which is not accepted as a mental disorder or paraphilia under the DSM – but the truth is that the single most at risk group of children according to the Jay study were 13-15 year old boys. If you want to deal with this problem, you need to deal with the whole problem and not ignore a significant aspect of it because it doesn’t fit your politics. If the goal is to stop these sexual predators we need to be honest about who they are. This is why Kathy’s call to focus on seminary formation is so key.
Finally, as I suspect might happen here, when anyone raises these types of issues, or suggests that the obscene amounts of money being offered in settlement may not be appropriate, or that waiving statutes of limitation or charitable civil damages limitations might not be good ideas for society in general, he or she is labeled an apologist for the abusers. I am not apologist for sex abusers. I used to put them in jail, and that is where I would like to see every one of them. But that experience has taught me that these situations are way more complicated than most people understand, and that an awful lot of Monday morning quarterbacking goes on about who knew what and who should have done what. It is very easy to say years after the fact that someone should have done something, but the facts are not always so clear at the time. The focus needs to be on avoiding the problem in the future, protecting kids, and helping victims in ways other than tossing money at them and making lawyers rich.
Very well put and unbiased Sean, thank you. Let’s also remember that Jesus taught us that we need to forgive…7×70. It is then we can go on and take care of this issue in the proper way! Do not be afraid and pray for a new spring time!
Grant, if what is being advocated is lay review boards of sexual misconduct policies, fine.
But that is not what the post or comments are generally asking for. They’re asking for an attitude of perpetual head-hanging by the hierarchy. The bishops of the Church are supposed to grovel and grovel–and then what? Democratize all decisions?
Let’s not exploit these children a second time by using their tragic situation for a power grab. If VOTF could ever get past that agenda, they might be able to actually help the Church discern true solutions to real problems.
RES, I recall reading a gospel passage where Jesus tells us that it’s better to tie a millstone around one’s neck than to lead a little one astray (or something to that effect).
SEAN, I know what you’re saying, and in a perfect world it would make sense (about our constantly berating the hierarchy, etc.). We have to understand, however, that our collective focus is still on the lies, deceit, coverups, etc. of religious leaders who supposedly did not want to “scandalize the faithful. Secret payoffs. Repeated transfers of priest perverts. Threats to victims. Ad nauseum (emphasis on the latter word). And not a single bishop who repeatedly transferred his perverts has resigned as far as I know.
I suspect our church is going through a catharsis at this time in its history. Frankly, I hope the outrage toward, and contempt for, our bishops will continue for a good while — notwithstanding the fact that (if I recall) nearly 3/4ths of American Catholics now think their bishops are doing a good job (!!!).
If the behaviors of some of our bishops are any indication, they don’t give up easy. Hopefully, when they pass on, the Good Lord will take ‘em behind the heavenly wood shed, have ‘em bend over and grab their ankles, and beat the sanctimonious crap out of ‘em!
Too early for anything else.
I think folks who talk about forgiveness and complain about bishops having to grovel are interested mainly in moving on, The problem is that real justice demands truth.\
Bishops are not asked to grovel but to be forthcoming and accountable/
Pl;ease, no more straw men
The straw man is the pretense that the call for accountablity and candor is anything else than a power grab. As Sean suggests, the real problems should be addressed in seminary admissions and formation. If you want to protect children–do you?–that’s where you begin.
I sincerely have no ulterior motive. When I first became truly aware of how individual Church authorities had tried to handle accusations of abuse, and I became aware in a very direct way, my thought was: they probably acted not much differently — no better and no worse — than a lot of other organizations might have, with the caveat that other organizations (like schools) didn’t have the authority to move the perpetrator around so handily. But eventually, that excuse wore kind of thin, especially in light of known serial abusers and the sea change in cultural norms on how sex abusers need to be treated that is, very deliberately kept AWAY from the potential objects of their abuse. Not all bishops and dioceses are equally guilty.
Abuse is not the norm. Abuse occurs among lay people — teachers, Boy Scout leaders, and so on. All of that is true. But that’s not the issue — the issue is, how are allegations of abuse treated when they are made, and how are the victims and perpetrators treated once allegations have been shown to be credible? In this area, the Church’s record is far worse because it hung on for so long to the belief that it could continue doing what it had done in the past long after society at large, including the faithful, expected a response that was aimed at preferring the safety of children, even adolescent and almost grown children, over protecting the privileges of priests and the convenience of their superiors.
There just seems to be almost no acknowledgment of this very specific failure. I don’t hold Cardinal Law responsible for the sins of Paul Shanley, for instance, I hold him responsible for making it possible for Paul Shanley to keep doing what he was doing long after it became clear that he was doing it, that it was harmful, and that he needed to be directed to a place where he could not continue because he certainly was not going to stop voluntarily.
To be very honest, I am still not very confident that all individual parishes and dioceses have adopted serious risk avoidance plans. Yet, even the itty bitty non-Catholic church daycare I counsel has specific measures for preventing sexual abuse even though it has never, ever had an allegation of wrongdoing.
No, Kathy, anybody who has ever counseled a school or a daycare on abuse prevention knows that there are two primary ways to prevent abuse: one is background checks, making sure there is no history of abuse, and the other is just out and out prevention — adopting personnel and physical security measures that prevent not only abuse itself by making it harder to perpetrate in secret, but make it much less likely that false abuse allegations will be made.
The truth is, you can’t know who the abuser will be. Abusers are incredibly adept at “playing” authorities and it is very difficult for a school, seminary, or other institution to weed out a potential abuser at a formative stage. Certainly, no organization can be so confident of its selection process that it could forego other more direct measures and it scares me more than a little that people like you apparently think that it could.
Barbara, while I appreciate the correction–i.e. there can be a critique of the Church’s handling of these matters that isn’t politically/ ecclesiologically motivated–I wonder about your argument. You seem to be comparing the Church to every other organization. But have you seen the way other organizations handle things?
Two points:
1. In the middle of the media frenzy, the Washington Post, which customarily ran front-page above-the-fold with-pictures articles on any priest being investigated for any allegation, they also ran a mention of a principal –a public SCHOOL PRINCIPAL–who had been arrested for sexual abuse of a minor under his care. The article was maybe an inch and a half in the “Metro Briefs” column on page 3 of section B. In other words, I don’t think Catholic bishops have been under any illusions lately about whether they can get away with anything.
2. I know a bishop who when he took over a diocese in the early 90s totally cleaned house. He laicized, gave ultimatums to non-celibates, removed priests from ministry. Now HE is the one who bears the fallout from his predecessor’s negligence.
I think that there is cause for complaint. But it has been focused on one group that doesn’t always deserve it, and for a long time. Whatever good “accountability” has done for kids has been done. Your daycare is not exceptional; every Catholic insitutution I’ve ever been affiliated with has had strict accountability and oversight, fingerprinting, etc.
But have we done enough? No. There are issues to be addressed, and they do not have to do with bishops being “spanked.”
The issues have to do with seminaries.
Kathy–
You’ve constructed a huge straw man with your comment that calls for accountablity and candor cannot be anything else than a power grab.
There are no doubt some who are using the sex abuse scandal as a pretense for other agendas, but it is folly IMO to think that the fallout from the scandal will disappear if some in the hierarchy continue to try to sweep it under the rug. The most serious issues I want resolved are: (1) Was there deliberate concealment by some bishops of the known history of clerical sex abusers from parishes to which the abusers were reassigned?; (2) Was there deliberate concealment of evidence by some bishops after the sex scandal broke open and civil authorities began their investigations?; and (3) Why were most instances of clerical sexual abuse not reported to civil authorities when knowledge of the crimes became known within the hierarchy?
Even if one were to believe but a small part of the 400+ page grand jury report (three years in the compiling) concerning the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, for example, the picture the report paints of deliberate and calculated concealment is a devastating one. And we know Philadelphia is hardly an isolated instance. In the corporate world, a CEO’s head would roll for such conduct, even if he or she were not directly involved in the misconduct. Shouldn’t the Church’s hierarchy be held to an even higher ethical and moral standard than is found in the corporate world? It seems almost incredible to me that not one bishop, as far as I know, has resigned as a result of the scandal, citing either his personal culpability or his recognition that “the buck stops here.”
It’s time to uncircle the wagons and lay out who knew what when. Absent such a catharsis, I fear the sex abuse scandal will be a millstone weighing down the Church for at least several decades to come.
Kathy, regarding the schools: I can think of half a dozen incidents involving teachers that have been well-reported in the last year, so I don’t think the Church is being singled out. When I was a high school student, more than 25 years ago, two teachers were fired for their involvement with students — in one case the girl wasn’t even a minor, and there was no allegation of actual sexual conduct in either case. Schools are not perfect but their practices changed much more quickly, and that’s because they are directly accountable to parents and voters.
Your experience with Catholic schools and parishes is yours. Mine is different (actually, I think the schools are the same, it’s the parishes that are not always as diligent).
There is no doubt in my mind that good and innocent people are being unfairly tarred. They are yet additional casualties of the Church’s overall failure to respond appropriately to the situation.
There are no good and innocent people. That’s part of Christianity.
There will always be people who will go to excess, even in the criticism of bishops. Yet the irrefutable fact is that it took the COURTS not a voluntary decison by the bishops to acknowledge this crisis. Even now it is only the courts that they respond to.
Here is the statement of VOTF
VOTF™
Mission Statement
To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church.
Our Goals
1. To support survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
2. To support priests of integrity
3.To shape structural change within the Catholic Church.
Can someone here show how this is a power grab?
Andrew Greeley has been saying for decades concerning “…. the fact that many of the current leaders of the institutional church are corrupt thugs, from the parish right up to the Vatican.”
Power corrupts indeed.
Bob Nunz:
Thank you for your comments about accountability, justice and truth. I don’t want to see bishops grovel; I’d just like to see truth spoken for a change, and their removal from office as opposed to promotion in light of that truth.
Snip from deposition of Jesuit psychiatrist Edwin Cassem of MA Gen’l hospital re: Bp John McCormack:
“Q. Doctor, Father McCormack represents in this memorandum, does he not, that this was one of your observations (about Father Shanley) in August of 1994, the question “How do we protect others from him,” does he not?
A. Father McCormack is a liar.
Q. So you’re saying that Father McCormack was lying when he sent this memorandum out in August of 1994?
A. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.”
BTW, among diagnoses not disclosed to Dr. Cassem for just six priests: multiple letters and articles by a priest about sex with minors, performing sexual acts on two minors, molestation of boys 13, 14, and 17, diagnoses of schizoid and dependent traits, and sexual disorder not otherwise specified.
How could Dr. Cassem make appropriate recommendations when the truth was kept from him? The National Review Board noted the lack of transparency to treatment centers.
I treasure a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Communicating truthfully means more than factual accuracy…There is a way of speaking which is in this respect entirely correct and unexceptionable, but which is, nevertheless, a lie…when an apparently correct statement contains some deliberate ambiguity or deliberately omits the essential part of the truth…it does not express the real as it exists in God.” Truthful communication goes beyond communicating the truth; it avoids attempts to mislead or deceive.
For those with patience, here is the latest in NH about the state’s audits of the diocese’s implementation of its sexual abuse policy:
http://www.cabinet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070518/MERRIMACK04/70518060/-1/merrimack
and a letter that further proves the ongoing lack of truth:
http://www.cabinet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070524/MERRIMACK05/70523017/-1/merrimack
Kathy,
This has nothing to do with a power grab. It is a matter of fresh air so that we can heal and move on based on truth, not spin. Bishops’ lies to survivors and the authorities should mean something.
In addition to seminary formation, protect children NOW by releasing the names of credibly accused priests (some of whom are involved in new criminal prosecutions), and reform statutes of limitations. As a result of “window” legislation in CA, 300 new abusers were identified to public authorities.
You begin with every measure that identifies past and current abusers (and their protectors), as well as prevents future abuse. Only 20% report.
Bill, I had no idea how transparent VOTF was about their desire to acquire power. Thanks for the info.
Andrew Greeley I’d already guessed.
Bill: you obviously haven’t been reading Commonweal’s coverage of VOTF very closely. Nor are you privy to my communications with VOTF members and leadership. It was precisely that communication that caused me to question your inaccurate claim about VOTF “advocating for” priests in relationships with women (violating their promise of celibacy). It was celibacy that certain members of VOTF urged the leadership to put on the table. There’s been a robust debate about the issue, but no position papers have been released.
Kathy and Sean: rank-and-file Catholics aren’t interested in a “power grab”–an absurd reduction without any basis in fact. They simply want their bishops to be honest about what happened. They want to know, for instance, why a bishop like Cardinal George left Fr. Daniel McCormack in ministry for months after the archdiocese became aware of credible abuse allegations–in 2005. Three years after Dallas. You and Sean want to change the subject to those naughty dissenters–well, everyone has an ax to grind, and you’re right: let’s not debase the suffering of victims by using the abuse scandals to peddle our pet theories about “what’s wrong with the church.” I suggest you follow your own advice.
Grant, you’re out of line. My concern has nothing to do with “those naughty dissenters”. I don’t use terms like “dissenter” and “orthodox”.
Tempted though I was when Jim Post called Lumen Gentium an Italian novel.
My concern is that there are real issues at stake, matters of true importance to the Church, and all I hear is people talking about “catharsis,” whatever shimbob psychopop nonsense that might mean, and “restructuring” of the Church to give more power to me and my kind of people and less power to them and their kind of people.
Mr. Jaglowicz
I did not say we are to lead the little children astray, you miss read my comment. As to your comment I did not realize we were to disregard some of the thing that Jesus said. He did state that we are to forgive did he not? I also did not say that people who committed these crimes should not be punished.
Talking about lies, and not telling the truth are groups like VOTF who are really in this for their own agenda. Read their third goal to: To shape structural change within the Catholic Church. If this is true they really just want another denomination and I should have just stayed a Protestant!
Grant, I am glad that you are covering Votf more than I realized. Here is more info on the subject and Mary Pat’s June 7th letter. Votf like many organizations cannot always control its members.
http://www.votf-sf.org/html/national122005.html
Kathy,
I apologize for mischaracterizing your views. As is by now obvious, I find your interventions on this post unhelpful and frustrating.
You write, “My concern is that there are real issues at stake, matters of true importance to the Church, and all I hear is people talking about ‘;catharsis,’ whatever shimbob psychopop nonsense that might mean, and ‘restructuring’ of the Church to give more power to me and my kind of people and less power to them and their kind of people.”
Phrases like “real issues” and “matters of true importance” are virtually meaningless. What are those “real” issues that we ought to pay more attention to? What should we be thinking harder about instead of going on and on about that pop-psychobable invention “catharsis.” (Hint: it’s a concept with a venerable pedigree.)
You have bizarrely fixated on a rather base notion of power and “power grabbing”–words you seem to deploy with the intent of casting a pall over those who call for accountability. As you must know, there is no governance without power. We have no shortage of evidence that episcopal power has been misused to shield priests who should have been in jail . You sneer at “restructuring the church”–as have several bishops and conservative Catholics–without acknowledging that in many cases, church structures completely failed to protect children from rapists. (RES’s comments are similarly simplistic.)
Grant, I accept your apology.
But you must permit me to frustrate you a little longer. What I mean by “real issues” are those aspects of Church life and administration that could profitably be turned, changed, converted, and made more dependable for the safety of children and the salvation of souls.
Do you really think that the problems of the Church could be solved by embarrassing bishops further? I do not. Perhaps you could explain how that mechanism would work.
Is there need for conversion? Yes. For all of us. Is it going to be accomplished by catharsis? Aristotle said that the way to catharsis is to go watch a play. Not to go around attacking people.
In case I have missed this here, this is the link to Matt Abbott’s column:
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/abbott
Grant,
What “pet theories” about “what’s wrong with the church” was I peddling?
As for the idea that the abuse crisis is still being “covered up” and that there is not an inordinate focus on it by the media, I just did a data search on the Boston Globe, and there have been over 2400 pieces (news, editorials, letters, etc.) that touched on the abuse crisis in some form since the story broke in 2002 – even accounting for some irrelevant hits and repetition, that’s probably more than one per day for five years. No one is ignoring this problem.
I don’t know why Cardinal George is doing what he is doing, but I am not ready to automatically assume bad faith or evil motives just because he is a Catholic Bishop. As I understand it, there are pending a criminal prosecutions, and there are potential law suits as well. Very good reasons not to start explaining yourself. Moreover, having advised organizations involved in scandals like this before, the worst thing the leadership can do sometimes is say something that turns out to be wrong. For example, in Cardinal George’s case, he made a public statement at one point that there had been no accusations against McCormack only to have several people come out of the woodwork to say that they had told someone in the dioceses about him. It may be, and I suspect it is, because he didn’t know about it, but SNAP has painted him as a liar. Would you rather be called a liar or a stonewaller?
As for changing the subject, I don’t want to change the subject – I want to stick to it. That was my point. Sure, let’s discuss the abuse crisis, but let’s not use it as a reason or justification for promoting other agenda.
Frankly, I am not concerned about “power grabs” as you say. Particularly by groups like VOTF. Your last post indicates why. Some members of VOTF are in favor of “putting celibacy on the table”?!?! I am sorry, but who the heck do they think they are? How many people went to the last national meeting – 300 . . . 500? Who cares what they want on the “table”? Perhaps my friends and I should get together and put the ownership of the Red Sox on the table – it would be just as reasonable. The very fact that this is considered at all indicates their focus isn’t what they say it is.
Finally, “church structures” aren’t meant to protect children from abuse – only people can do that. Recently we had a case where a DSS case worker who was supposed to be helping kids was molesting them – that child abuse assistance structure wasn’t much help. Do we really think that having lay boards and financial oversight committees will stop kids from being molested? Do we really think bishops are somehow inherently more likely to cover-up abuse than any other person in charge of a large organization?
I see that you took off my comment, I believe that unless I think as most here I’m wrong I have this same problem on rightwing sites also. I am Catholic and report the truth as taught by the Roman Catholic Church. There is a problem when even though we had a scandal and I say we need to forgive as Jesus taught and this is shameful that it is disregarded . We need to start healing besides taking people and the Church down. Punish the guilty but we need to heal too.
Kathy: ” ….. those aspects of Church life and administration that could profitably be turned, changed, converted, and made more dependable for the safety of children and the salvation of souls.”
But if lay organizations such as VOTF suggest ways of doing this, then it is a power grab?
Oh, I forgot, all wisdom comes with ordination and the rest of us are what … intrinsically disordered?
You are simply promoting the continuation of the sin of clericalism.
RES: I just wish you would quit the ad hominem attacks (calling people liars and such).
Sean: one of your hobby horses is the role of pedophelia in the abuse crisis. I really don’t want to rehash that again. I don’t think the John Jay data say exactly what you think they do. I haven’t claimed there hasn’t been a lot of media attention on the scandals.
The McCormack case has been well reported by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/452305,priest070207.article
McCormack is now in jail. He pleaded guilty to abusing five young boys between 2000 and 2005, and was given five years for each count of abuse–for a total of 25 years–but allowed to serve the sentences concurrently. The failures in the McCormack case were not George’s alone, although he did refuse the advice of his sexual-abuse review board, who recommended removing McCormack from ministry. George commissioned two audits after the story exploded in Chicago. They paint a disturbing portrait of failure all the way up and chain of responsibility.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/03_04/2006_03_21_Brachear_AuditSays.htm
The audits make clear that church structures and policies do matter when it comes to dealing with clergy sexual abuse. That those structures are populated by people doesn’t make them any less important.
Point of information: I never said George had “evil” motives. Whatever their character, they misguided him.
Sean wrote:
“Recently we had a case where a DSS case worker who was supposed to be helping kids was molesting them – that child abuse assistance structure wasn’t much help. Do we really think that having lay boards and financial oversight committees will stop kids from being molested? Do we really think bishops are somehow inherently more likely to cover-up abuse than any other person in charge of a large organization?”
Yes. And the reason is that bishops have an institutional loyalty to priests that is almost familial. This is a good and a bad thing but when it comes to exposing the wrongdoing of priests so that they will be accountable, it’s a bad thing. And really, when all is said and done, I do believe that this is why the Church resisted change more than other organizations. Just as family members are more likely to lie in order to protect one another from prosecution, so to were bishops. In some cases relationships between bishops or others with authority and abusing priests went back for decades.
Barbara, I still don’t think that you have substantiated this claim: “The Church resisted change more than other organizations.”
I don’t know which other organizations you are speaking about or what your basis of comparison is.
Of course the Church is resistant to change – that’s why it’s said “to make haste slowly.” What’s problematic in this is that the pace of change and the accessibility of information is moving at more and more a rapid pace.
Hence, the need for reform and greater voice within – if the VOTF speaks up for a greater layt voice, how can that be a “power grab?’ The term is both derogatory and circular in argumentation/
I am amzed at the intransigence in several posts on this thread – evberybody wants healing and forgiveness, but many see the need for disclosure and accountability as intrinsic to that.
Sean and Kathy,
Please tell us specifically how we can reassure that bishops will act responsibly? I am sure you do not think this will magically happen merely because of ordination.
Secondly, do you agree that the bishops are still stonewalling.
Thirdly, the history of the church shows that the bishops can be responsible for terrible abuses. There has to be things in place that will assure accountability. How will you assure. Please specifics!
Res, no one is saying not to forgive. We forgive. All of us have to demand accountability from each other.
Okay, Grant, I get it you can insult other folks comments but when I know that VOTF have a different agenda then what they are saying I am not suppose to have an opinion! that for some reason when I gave the information hardly any one checked it out. Do you know why, because then they may have to face that there are people in VOTF that just want to change the Church as they quote, some may have to admit it! PLease I am not stupid and exspect to be treated as such. This group should just leave The Roman Catholic Chruch and make thier own. I was a Protestant and they have the same beliefs as Protestants do.
Bob, I’m pretty sure the expression “make haste slowly” originated as spiritual advice, not as a description of the Church.
As for the expression “power grab,” yes, it’s a very strong term and exactly appropriately so in this case. Even the name, “Voice of the Faithful” is a power grab. This organization pretends to speak for the faithful? Well, it doesn’t speak for me.
(Let’s not even get into the “The Church Women Want” conference.)
What precise “healing” is it that you need? Have you found that the sexual abuse crisis has caused you deep and lasting pain, making it impossible for you to work or maintain loving relationships?
Anyone who was not personally and directly wounded by this kind of tragedy really ought to stop minimizing REAL pain by trumpeting up this kind of angsty pain that supposedly requires deep psychological healing and catharsis on a universal (or rather national) scale. “The bishop of OshKoshBigosh is causing me deep pain this week because of that one priest who is in the news.” Please.
“Make haste slowly” was the personal motto of Augustus (not Augustine) — it worked pretty well for him.
I don’t want to claim to be a victim, nor (I 99.9% sure) were my children victims, but I have to say that this crisis, broadly but reasonably defined, and including other manifestations of the culture that produced sexual abuse, had major impact on myself and my children vis-a-vis the church. Is there anyone who did not experience that?
The only scandal here is that 240 million dollars of that settlement is going to the LAWYERS. It seems insidious for people to want to capitalize on the pain and emotional trauma of others. And people wondered what motive aggressive lawyers had to go after bishops with such vigor. Was it merely to expose the unjust and sinful behavior of church leaders and to seek healing and closure for the victims? Sure, but there was also a great deal of money to be made.
Regarding Matt Abbott’s letter and Motu-Mania in general, it seems to me that Pope Benedict has achieved exactly what he has wanted for decades. Vatican II and all it seemed to stand for (expanded lay involvement, theological progression, a radical openness to change, relativism which was masked as ecumenism, etc.) was embodied in a new liturgical expression. In other words, the liturgy became the symbol of all that the Council decided to “change,” “update,” or “throw away” from the pre-conciliar Church. Many Catholics who couldn’t reconcile their own consciences with the Church’s unchanging teachings on homosexual sexual activity, contraception or the unicity of the Catholic Church, were at least able to point to Vatican II as a sign of hope, that the Church was indeed open to change, and unfortunate trappings such as the Church’s moral teachings could also eventually be changed or reversed, just like the liturgy. This profoundly divisive attitude is a trend that the Holy Father has been looking to expose and correct for many years. There are not two churches, the pre- and post-conciliar churches respectively, but one Church, with one Head and one body of teaching. The Council said nothing new about the unique role of the Church (as the recent document from the CDF points out), nor did it change any of the theological principles that underlie the liturgy. The hermeneutic of discontinuity, as the Holy Father has called it, has done a great deal of damage to the faith of the people in the pews and presents a fractured view of the Church. Being the true Pontifex Maximus that he is, Benedict is seeking to do away with discord and division in the Church. Arguing about how Summorum Pontificum represents a step “back” to the “pre-conciliar” church is doing nothing but proving Benedict’s point for him!
Kathy, my view that the Church did not act as quickly in protecting children from abuse as the Boy Scouts of America, most schools, daycare centers and some other churches in terms of how credibly accused perpetrators were handled, is based on the fact that known abusers continued to be placed in close proximity to children through the 80s and sometimes even later, like until 2000, depending on the diocese. I will find examples if I have time, but I really don’t think this should be a point of controversy. It seems to me to be well-documented.
Barbara, I’m not questioning that there were problems (sometimes glaring) in the Catholic Church.
I just don’t understand why you think other organizations did (do) better.
Gene, your comment is answered by Kathy’s post below.
Gene: “I don’t want to claim to be a victim, nor (I’m 99.9% sure) were my children victims, but I have to say that this crisis, broadly but reasonably defined, and including other manifestations of the culture that produced sexual abuse, had major impact on myself and my children vis-a-vis the church. Is there anyone who did not experience that?”
Kathy (perhaps she did not experience that, given this post): “Anyone who was not personally and directly wounded by this kind of tragedy really ought to stop minimizing REAL pain by trumpeting up this kind of angsty pain that supposedly requires deep psychological healing and catharsis on a universal (or rather national) scale. ‘The bishop of OshKoshBigosh is causing me deep pain this week because of that one priest who is in the news.’ Please.”
LA Times reporter William Lobdell was deeply affected despite not being directly wounded, as is true for survivor advocates who have listened and listened to survivors.
His words are powerful (I added asterisks):
“At the time, I never imagined Catholic leaders would engage in a widespread practice that protected alleged child molesters and belittled the victims. I latched onto the explanation that was least damaging to my belief in the Catholic Church — that this was an isolated case of a morally corrupt administration.
And I was comforted by the advice of a Catholic friend: “Keep your eyes on the person nailed to the cross, not the priests behind the altar.”…..
Father Vincent Gilmore — the young, intellectually sharp priest teaching the class — spoke about the sex scandal and warned us Catholics-to-be not to be poisoned by a relatively few bad clerics. Otherwise, we’d be committing “spiritual suicide.”
As I began my reporting, I kept that in mind. I also thought that the victims — people usually in their 30s, 40s and up — should have just gotten over what had happened to them decades before. To me, many of them were needlessly stuck in the past.
But then I began ***going over the documents. And interviewing the victims, scores of them.*** I discovered that the term “sexual abuse” is a euphemism. Most of these children were raped and sodomized by someone they and their family believed was Christ’s representative on Earth. That’s not something an 8-year-old’s mind can process; it forever warps a person’s sexuality and spirituality.
Many of these victims were molested by priests with a history of abusing children. But the bishops routinely sent these clerics to another parish, and bullied or conned the victims and their families into silence. The police were almost never called. In at least a few instances, bishops encouraged molesting priests to flee the country to escape prosecution.
I couldn’t get the victims’ stories or the ***bishops’ lies*** — many of them right there on their own stationery — out of my head. I had been in journalism more than two decades and had dealt with murders, rapes, other violent crimes and tragedies. But this was different — the children were so innocent, their parents so faithful, the priests so sick and bishops so corrupt.
The lifeline Father Vincent had tried to give me began to slip from my hands.
I sought solace in another belief: that a church’s heart is in the pews, not the pulpits. Certainly the people who were reading my stories would recoil and, in the end, recapture God’s house. Instead, I saw parishioners reflexively support priests who had molested children by writing glowing letters to bishops and judges, offering them jobs or even raising their bail while cursing the victims, often to their faces.
On a Sunday morning at a parish in Rancho Santa Margarita, I watched congregants lobby to name their new parish hall after their longtime pastor, who had admitted to molesting a boy and who had been barred that day from the ministry. I felt sick to my stomach that the people of God wanted to honor an admitted child molester. Only one person in the crowd, an Orange County sheriff’s deputy, spoke out for the victim.”
Kathy’s sarcasm does not persuade.
Carolyn, this is a man who took a lot on his shoulders. He was investigating all the cases, and he was pushing a rock of Sisyphus trying to save the Church. And, he was a new convert. That’s a lot to take on at once. Yes, he was more directly affected than most of us.
No, Kathy, he didn’t convert. That’s the point.
If you really think that Catholics who have been clamoring for reform in the face of the abuse crisis are simply seeking to embarrass bishops, I doubt you’ve been paying attention to the story for the last five years. (Not that we should underestimate the motivating power of embarrassment.)
You mock the pain Catholics have experienced in learning of the failure of church leaders to properly respond to clergy sexual abuse. I suppose so long as “most of us” (I have no idea whom you think you speak for) aren’t paying very close attention, then there’s not much to worry about. If only those pesky “power-grabbing” (who’s whining now?) VOTF members–parents and grandparents, most–would turn their attention from the abuse scandal and get with the program you haven’t yet defined beyond going to see a play (heavens, not catharsis!), they wouldn’t be such downers.
I can’t count the number of conversations my family and I have had about the abuse scandal over the years. (Don’t worry, Kathy, nobody cried.) Most of them are Chicagoans. The McCormack debacle has proved a source of anger and anguish for many Catholics–especially ones who are heavily involved in parish life. They have kids. They read the Gospels. They know what spiritual damage has been done by the scandals.
One of the most disturbing moments in all the time I’ve spent covering the scandal came while watching the film Deliver Us from Evil. I’ve written about it before:
“There is a moment near the end of Amy Berg’s disturbing new documentary about clergy sexual abuse, Deliver Us from Evil, that should be burned into the mind of every Catholic bishop: Bob Jyono sits on a sofa beside his daughter Ann, thirty-nine, who was raped by a priest when she was between the ages of five and twelve. He leans forward, bent in anguish, and blurts out, ‘I made up my mind. There is no God. I do not believe in a god. All right?’ Ann instantly bursts into tears, covering her face with both hands.”
The movie has serious flaws, but among its assets is its portrayal of victims and their families. It holds lessons for all of us.
Kathy,
I reread your posts about the inadvisability of embarrassing or “spanking” bishops more, of not attacking them, of fake angst, of a disordered need for “healing” and “catharsis,” of power grabs, and wonder how the facts about bishops’ records can seem so immaterial to you. Not worthy apparently of meaningful response or focus.
These are the same men in power now, who changed only after public exposure and lawsuits, who squandered trust, and now want us to believe in them when they refuse to tell the truth.
Maybe it is my wide reading of the documents, close friendships with many survivors, personal witness to bishops’ ongoing spin and mendacity, but I am affected, and do not apologize for it — your disparaging comments notwithstanding.
Protecting children involves things these bishops refuse to do, like releasing names and documents instead of stonewalling. The truth is vital to survivors, but they hide behind bogus first amendment claims.
The USCCB audits were compromised because auditors had no right to see personnel files, and comparing them against the independent AG’s audits in NH showed how markedly deficient they were.
When we presented certain evidence to the bishops’ auditors, we were told it did not count since we quoted the preamble instead of one of the Charter’s articles. McCormack said one year there were no confidentiality agreements, then changed his mind and admitted there were 26 of them.
In 2005, a priest could not be federally prosecuted for child pornography because the images were only in the computer’s temporary folder, not downloaded. We found out about it only because of the AG’s audit. He had been put back in service earlier after “inappropriate conduct,” but the diocese delayed reporting to authorities for months because no child had been abused. On and on…remember, it is the same people in charge.
So, I shall continue to monitor and speak out. Trust is based on the plain, simple truth, and that is something we never, never get.
Thank you, Grant, for your post above.
Grant. I am in no way mocking the pain of anyone directly involved in being abused. That includes families and loved ones of the victims.
But it does not include me or most of “the faithful.” Disillusionment and worry are part of being alive and being a loving person, and that is the pain I share with you and everyone else who has lived through the past 5 years (assuming for the sake of argument that the last 5 years were remarkable in the history of the Church–but that’s another story). The pain of being alive and Catholic right now is not unbearable. That makes it completely and absolutely different from the trauma of a child being raped by a religious leader twice his size and five times his age. That would be hugely difficult and probably nearly impossible to bear. This is not.
If someone is too knee-deep in this situation that they feel overwhelmed, for example, a canon lawyer or a reporter or a vicar general or a school superintendent, maybe they ought to take a step back and let someone else take the front-line for a while. Shift job responsibilities in the chancery for a couple of months. Because it’s not going to do much good when the people who are trying to help have lost all perspective.
In any case, the problem of child sexual abuse by priests is not going to be resolved by the VOTF program of restructuring, which includes laity electing bishops and lay ownership of Church property. If someone thinks it is, would you please explain to me how that is supposed to work in a cause and effect manner.
There is such a thing as true reform. Why don’t we all start figuring out what that should be?
I am reduced to laughter. Unbelievable. Trust bishops? Chances of other victims from priest’s involvement with youth and sports? Even admit guilt, then go free.
Colombian Catholic tribunal clears priest who confessed to abuse
BOGOTA, Colombia (CNS) — A Colombian Catholic Church tribunal has cleared a priest who confessed to sexually abusing seminarians — including some in the United States — decades ago.
The Ecclesiastical Tribunal of Bogota ruled July 23 that both the church’s and the civil court’s statutes of limitations had expired, “totally exempting” Father Efrain Rozo Rincon from prosecution. The tribunal also found that Father Rozo deserved a “presumption of innocence.”
The tribunal praised Father Rozo for “promoting for almost 50 years a modern and active apostolate with students and youths through sports” and pointed out that “there have not been formal accusations of incorrect behavior in this court.”
Last October, Father Rozo confessed on tape to U.S. lawyers representing his nephew, Ernesto Rozo, who sued the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where some of the alleged abuses occurred. Father Rozo was assigned to Los Angeles and worked at Loyola Marymount University, 1967-69.
Father Rozo admitted to abusing a seminary student and his nephew 40 years ago. In the U.S. civil case, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to compensate Ernesto Rozo.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20070725.htm#head7
I could not resist, even though I have over-posted.
Kathy, I don’t see how you can minimize the effect of the malfeasance of individual bishops. If your neighbor’s house is burglarized, you are affected. You feel less safe, perhaps you no longer trust other neighbors or their children, and perhaps you might even be tempted to move. All of these negative feelings would be magnified many times if you knew the local police shrugged their shoulders, encouraged you not to report the crime or even worse protected the person who did it, and even worse than that, if they actively tried to help him get a job that would make breaking into houses even easier.
All of these have parallels for the Church in its handling of sex abuse by priests. Empathy and feelings of “there but the grace of God go I” go a long way in explaining the intensity of the reaction.
I don’t know what the bishops can do at this point that would help.
As I read the comments I see so much helplessnesss. We need to pray for Jesus’s Chruch, the laity, Priest, Bishops, the the abused and yes the abusers! We also need to pray for any that have lost thier faith, we need to remind them it is all about Jesus. Unfortunately we have had scandals all through history and it might happen agin because we are human and not gods. But we can as JPII said pray for a new spring time! We are doing no good by arguing about this, yes lets take care of this problem which is being done but remember thier are many morethat have been abused by others that Priests!
First of all, Barbara, bishops are not police. They have a role of governance but it is not policing. It is shepherding. There is a difference.
Second of all, I am not saying that they are infallible in their governance. Nor that clerical culture could not stand to be advantageously reformed.
But I am saying that “parents and grandparents” are not infallible either. Abuse occurs in homes, you know, as well as in Rectory kitchens. There is no such thing as an infallible watchdog, and I truly think that VOTF is a corrupt watchdog that is opportunistically pressing an irrelevant agenda.
Unless, please, someone can explain how lay control of Church property is going to protect children.
Kathy, it will not protect children. Parents are the first protectors and sometimes thye can’t as abuse happen much mor in families!
Then bishops should turn over accused priests to the police and stop assuming any role in responding to accusations of sexual abuse.
Kathy, I don’t know your background. I actually put together compliance and governance programs for organizations both large and small, so I do know a bit of what I am talking about. To say that abuse happens everywhere is true; to use that as a reason for not examining how it was handled by a specific organization is a case of denial. Many of the organizations I counsel will say, “you can’t prevent all fraud.” And that IS true. But you sure can make it harder to happen. And notwithstanding that most abuse happens in families, churches, schools and other organizations still have the duty to adopt reasonable abuse prevention measures when children are under their watch.
I am checking out of this discussion, I’ve already overstayed my welcome, but let me just say that what your statements remind me of most is the moral reasoning of the protagonist in La Chute: what’s the point of making distinctions between good and evil when we’re all sinners anyway? I can’t believe that’s what you teach your children and I can’t believe you really want a Church that reflects that reasoning. VOTF is just another excuse for diverting attention from the bishops. Sorry. We will never be on the same page.
A couple of points and questions
No one has yet answered Kathy’s question – By what means will lay governance actually resolve this problem? Are lay people just better people? All I see is “better me than thee.”
Even if greater lay governance helps this problem (I contend it can’t solve it), is it worth all the risks and other problems it entails? Look to our Protestant brothers and sisters. Lay governance has led to division upon division upon division so that there are now thousands of individual denominations. Ask your Protestant friends about what happened the last time they “hired” a pastor or what happens when a pastor tee’s off an important (typically rich and/or socially influential) member of the congregation? Will we be any different?
Have any of you ever been part of a PTA? Here in New England we have town meetings. We have groups of people and families that won’t talk to each other because of how they vote on a library expansion – will Church issues be less contentious? What do you think will happen when a youth minister goes to the lay board to ask for money and permission to bring a group of teenagers to the Walk for Life? I have seen the griping that happens when the priest decides this – just think of the fireworks in a place like Boston where there are fairly equal divisions on issues like these if the laity become the decision makers.
No one is saying the guilty shouldn’t be punished, they should. Their abettors and facilitators should be as well. Victims should be cared for and appropriately compensated. Most importantly, we should promote and support methods to avoid this problem in the future. When we do these things we also have to consider both their immediate and long term consequences.
To follow-up on Barbara’s comment, I don’t think people like me are saying the Church shouldn’t adopt approprite prevention methods. To tag on to your analogy, I have been involved in many fraud investigations, and have followed up a couple with developing fraud prevention programs. While you are right that the fact that fraud can happen anywhere isn’t an excuse not to do something about it, when preventing fraud or any other abuse becomes the primary focus of the organization, it ceases to be effective – it can even cease to become the same organization.
To quote the apocryphal Army officer from the Vietnam War – we don’t want to “destroy the village to save it.”
If the firestarter of this digital conflagration might weigh in here, after 67 comments, I am struck by how the thread has itself confirmed the thrust of the original post, namely the tendency of Catholics (yes, the right side especially, as the comments show) to go off on various tangents. Hobby horses and red herrings cavort together, and serve to lead us exactly where we do not need to go.
The intent of my original post had none of the subversiveness that Team Kathy seems to ascribe to me, and those who tended to agree with me. My aim, and hope, was much more simple: to express a wish that church leaders would voice the true confession, penance, and firm purpose of amendment that they demand of us, their ever-wayward (in their view) flock.
I like to return to the excellent, yet always overlooked example of Newfoundland’s Archbishop Alphonsus Penney, who resigned in contrition and humility in 1990–12 years before Cardinal Law had to be forced out–because of his failure of responsibility in the Mount Cashel debacle.
There was no scape-goating by Penney, or Chicken Littles lamenting how this would undermine the episcopacy. Read Tom Roberts’ column from 2004 about it at http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204b.htm. Unfortunately the 1990 interview Penney gave NCR is not (apparently) available on-line.
I am not saying that Mahony or any particular bishop should resign. Undoubtedly some should. But the worst will cycle out through the retirement pipeline in a few years, and it will be a moot point. But it wll be a lost opportunity to demonstrate a powerful Christian witness by the most powerful in the church.
Penney’s resignation did not undermine or change the authority of his successor, or the hierarchy. Part of a bishop’s portfolio is to govern, and if they don’t do that well, then they step down. They remain a Catholic, they remain a bishop, of whatever rank. The danger is this pervasive fear of losing control that leads too many to conflate the person of the bishop with his office.
That was the limited ambition of my post.
Has anyone here been arguing for “lay governance,” Sean, by which you apparently mean total lay governance? These warnings regarding “our Protestant brothers and sisters” are red herrings.
Grant,
What is “total lay governance”? I don’t remember saying that.
What does VOTF mean by things like – empower, and meaningful, and vigorous, and collaberative involvement by pastoral councils, and financial advisory commitees?
I have served on both of these – I thought it was meaningful, and I thought we were influential. So what needs to change?
The only thing that I can see is that those organizations are, under canon law, ultimately advisory. What does VOTF mean by one of its central goals of “restructuring” the Church if not changing that.
Additionally, VOTF specifically call for – there’s that word again – meaningful involvement in pastoral selections – including it seems Bishops. Do you think you and I would agree on what a good bishop should do?
All I am saying is that the proposed “cure” seems to me worse than disease. Look at the rhetoric – talk of the pulpit vs. the pews – “the bishops” as if there weren’t hundreds of them good an bad – holy and unholy. Division – division – division.
David,
Discussion and debate always lead us in directions we may not want to go. Calling something a “red herring” isn’t an answer to an argument.
David, I actually consider myself to be a designated hitter for Team Sean. He has been on the real front lines. I’m just saying what I see.
And one of the things I see is a remarkable disconnect from reality. Bishops are absolutely boxed in. What would follow a candid admission of guilt? Lawsuits. What follows legally-advised silence? Opprobrium. As Barbara said, nothing bishops do can make things right. So what are they to do? Collectively turn over their miters to New England’s finest pundits and mid-career lay ministers?
Grant, VOTF advocates lay governance. You and David Gibson advocate VOTF. So…
One of Carolyn Disco’s posts included quotes from William Lobdell´s article in the Los Angeles Times. The entire article is worth reading. It can be found at
tp://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-lostfaith21jul21,1,3699127.story?page=1&cset=true&ctrack=1
Later, Lobdell responded to readers’ questions in an online discussion. The transcript can be found at
http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-religionchat072407-transcript,1,1566329,print.story?ctrack=3&cset=true
Sean,
I can’t speak for VOTF, but I can tell you that I’ve never seen anything produced by the group that comes close to suggesting that the Catholic Church adopt Protestant models of governance. That was the example you used to frighten readers into rejecting VOTF; it’s one of total lay governance. To my knowledge, VOTF has never advocated such a position.
Apparently you’re not friendly to the notion of greater lay participation in the selection of bishops. If you’re interested in reading more about the subject, you could consult George Weigel’s The Courage to Be Catholic, which contains a brief section advocating for lay participation in the selection of bishops. I believe he even calls it one of the most serious problems the church faces.
Well-run pastoral and finance councils at the diocesan and parish level are very important to the proper functioning of a diocese–but all too rare. If I were steering VOTF, I’d suggest the group focus on that issue almost exclusively.
Kathy,
Also, if you can point me to a document produced by VOTF that advocates the kind of “lay governance” we ought to be worried about, I’d appreciate it.
But as for the bind bishops are in: who’s denying the difficulty of their situation? Or do you think that public apologies from bishops, which need not be legally risky, are de facto unhinged from “reality”? Who has suggested that bishops “turn over their mitres?” No one has. Nor has anyone said that “mid-career lay ministers” take over? Now you’re out of line: these are rhetorical scare tactics and barbs that move the conversation precisely nowhere.
The national VOTF website’s Structural Change page http://www.votf.net/Structural_Change/index.html
links without comment to the VOTF Bridgeport proposals
http://www.votfbpt.org/html/proposal.html
among which are eleciton of bishops and lay ownership of property.
Ah, I finally get it!
Ordination brings a change (other than ontological, of course) to a man so that, ipso facto, he is immediately imbued with wisdom and knowledge about EVERYTHING associated with running a parish, deanery and eventually a diocese.
Lay folk, on the other hand, still suffer from that lack of something (let’s call it by a very favorite Catholic term …. they are intrinsically disordered) that, no matter what their secular expertise, education or experience, they will NEVER be able to bring a perspective to many aspects of church governance that need help. If they try, that is a power grab. And we all know that power is what is really important in a parish; hence the dictatorship of the priesthood.
Pure unadulterated clerialism.
Team Captain Sean: Yes, debate can lead places we don’t want to go. But ignoring a debate and focusing on something else that you want to talk about is a red herring, and a way to avoid the argument. That is what you do. Neither you nor Kathy are adding anything to the discussion. If you want to return to the subject at hand, I’d be happy to join in.
Just had that in your quivver, Kathy, did you? It doesn’t seem that you read the VOTF Bridgeport (which is not the national VOTF group) document too carefully, since “election of bishops” doesn’t quite capture the complexity of the proposal. In the Archdiocese of New York, you might be interested to know, each parish is incorporated separately, and has its own board of trustees. Two are parish members, one is the pastor, another is the archbishop, and another is his secretary (I believe). Looking forward to your explanation of the kind of lay governance we should all be frightened of and why.
Has any one checked out what is on the Northern New Jersey VOTF web site
http://votfnj.org/
Please read every thing on this site yes, they want to change many things in the Church. Check out the folks who gave talks, authored etc. you will be surprized that many come from women priests married priests etc, in fact one was a Priest who is with Corpus etc. tell me that they don’t just want to change the Roman Catholic Church to a Protestant one.
Here we go again. Robin, you’re repeating yourself. I think going down this path once was enough.
What’s your deal, Grant? Of course I knew where to find the document to back up an assertion like that.
The national VOTF site links to the Bridgeport site without comment, from its own Structural Change page. If they don’t want to be misunderstood, it’s really up to the national organization to make it clear that they do not consider this to be a model proposal.
***
What do you mean, David, by the subject at hand? “Bishops should resign in abject humility”? Is that all anyone is allowed to say?
Kathy, you have not explained any of your positions. You’ve mocked and sneered at those whose responses and commitments you find distatseful. But you haven’t explained why, and you haven’t supplied the views you endorse. You repeatedly mischaracterize people’s positions, which is delightfully convenient for you, since blowing down a straw man takes little effort, but unfortunately for the rest of us doesn’t correspond to the complexity of positions advanced here. Your absurd “resign in abject humility” line (what’s abject humility, anyway?) is a particularly egregious example of this pattern. You should break it stat.
Impugning the motives of people you disagree with rather than addressing the positions and arguments they put forth is an old trick and a very common one. It is a subspecies of the ad hominem fallacy.
During the Clinton years, whenever the Rebublicans attacked the president, the Democrats would accuse tham of being politically motivated. During the Bush years, whenever the Democrats attack the president, the Republicans respond with accusations of political motivation. If you state the truth, and support this with evidence, it makes little difference–except to the state of your character–what your motives are.
I have no idea why you are so upset, Grant. Honestly. By “abject humility” I meant Gibson’s “penitence and catharsis from on high.” That’s all. What exactly is your deal?
Kathy, one easily agrees with Grant. You have uttered generalities and was not even aware of the Votf objectives. Which shows clear prejudice. You also put down Andrew Greeley, one clergyman who has, alas, more integrity than all the bishops combined.
You are asking for specific reforms .We have given them. You reject ours while giving nothing. We are a sinful church. But to have to have the courts get us to treat our children correctly….
We are willing to forgive our bishops and work with them as our brothers. But they are the ones who are refusing. Criminals act like them. Most people in prison do not take responsibility for their actions. They blame everybody else. Regretfully, that is the case with the bishops.
Jesus said if you are the greatest you have to serve the least…yes wash their feet. When the bishops do that they will have all of us supporting them.
Bill, believe me I wish that the solution to the problem of child sexual abuse were as simple as blaming it on one single group of people within the Church. But it is not–and it is not even all of them.
You say it is “the bishops” who are the problem. Perhaps you would like to make a list of the bishops who you think are at fault. Then make another list of bishops who are not at fault, or who you do not know very much about. And then ask yourself, does this man have to apologize to me for the wrong actions of the other bishops?
I belong to a parish in which we have had no financial reporting (other than amounts of each weekly collection) for almost three years–no budget, no nothing. The Finance Committee must meet, but no one knows when.
This parish’s Pastoral Council apparently meets but the parishioners are never notified as to when and have no opportunity to bring items to them for discussion. There are no published agendas and no published reports of actions (much less minutes). The members were chosen by the pastor with no indication of criteria used.
The diocese (Brownsville, TX) has not made any public financial reporting in at least ten years, refuses to release the names of any priests credibly accused of sex abuse of minors, and keeps the names of the members of the Lay Review Board secret.
Somehow, I believe there is a middle ground between the situations in my parish and diocese and the “doomsday scenario” of “lay governance” that has been talked about in this thread.
Thank you, David, for refreshing your “limited ambition” for your post: “to express a wish that church leaders would voice the true confession, penance, and firm purpose of amendment that they demand of us, their ever-wayward (in their view) flock…
But it wll be a lost opportunity to demonstrate a powerful Christian witness by the most powerful in the church. Part of a bishop’s portfolio is to govern, and if they don’t do that well, then they step down…They remain a Catholic, they remain a bishop, of whatever rank. The danger is this pervasive fear of losing control that leads too many to conflate the person of the bishop with his office.”
Yes, it is a missed opportunity for bishops to practice what they preach, and what a balm it would be for many Catholics like myself. BTW, the Penney link does not work.
Interestingly, I find no question of the facts I’ve presented about bishops’ conduct, specifically McCormack and Mahony. The documents speak for themselves.
As for Kathy, Sean, RES’ posts: they leave me drained and dispirited, marked as I believe they are by vitriol, self-righteousness, and condemnation.
You cannot argue anyone into the truth, only love does that. I see mainly accusations about lack of orthodoxy, but it is not necessary to stand sentry at every post here, ready to pounce on any version of supposed error.
It’s become like the wider divisions and dialogue of the deaf in the church, so that even Commonweal does not feel safe for peaceful exchange any more. I say this, fearing some of my prior posts in other threads, exhibit more heat than I wish upon reflection.
Kathy, 2/3 is way too much. http://www.bishop-accountability.org/features/DMN_2002_06_12/page1.htm
Now the 1/3 that may not be involved, should they not openly be advocating that the others stop the coverup?
Kathy,
Please point out the “vitriol” in any comment I have made. Where have I even used the word “orthodoxy”? Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make them hateful or blind.
Gerald,
If that is the situation in your parish, you need to investigate further. The roles of PPC’s and finance committees are addressed in Canon Law and in my experience the Diocese will have guidelines on their selection, composition and rolls. Although they are ultimately advisory, they are typically required to be primarily elected – in Boston only 25% of the membership may be appointed by the pastor (and in my experience the pastor only does this to fill vacancies or gaps in representation – like making sure there is a young single adult on the council). Finance committes are required under Canon Law, and again in my experience they typically require reporting and accountabily under Diocesean standards. If these things are not happening, you have a right to appeal to the bishop to ensure Canon Law and the rules of the Diocese are followed.
Grant,
As for spectifics, it may be hard to do so since the groups, like VOTF who are calling for “structural change” the Church are very vague about what they intend. For example, when I read the groups goals in this area, there is very littel to object to. In fact, they typically site to the rules, guidance, and documents that are already in place. Which leads one to ask, Are you just an education effort?
No, they say – we want fundamental changes in the structure of the Church. Then there are hints regrading pastoral selection and financial control. On top of this, we have statements of members of the group in the media, and for those of us active in the Catholic community in Boston, in person, and they tend to be far more explicit that the national web site. I have been told things like each parish’s membership should own all the buildings and property and decide on all expenditutres over a certain amount, they should have a “veto” over pastoral selections, that the parishioners should review the “performance” of the priests on a periodic basis and be able to “fire” non-performers as a few examples. These are the kinds of things I am worried about, and I don’t think they are “red herrings.”
If the VOTF is about making people aware of their rights under Canon Law, and having good lay involvement under existing guidelines, I’m all for it. But they say they are for “structural change” and their rhetoric implies they are looking for very substantial changes. If they don’t want people to be suspicious of their intentions, and to assume as I do, that many if not most are looking for laity to run most important aspects of the parish beyond the day-to-day, and to hire and fire the clergy, they ought to list specific proposals, not generalities.
My apologies – I meant to address Carolyn not Kathy
Not at all, Sean. I’ve never to my knowledge ever used the word “vitriol” and I’m not about to start now.
Oops.
Otherwise I can only underline what you said:
“If the VOTF is about making people aware of their rights under Canon Law, and having good lay involvement under existing guidelines, I’m all for it. But they say they are for “structural change” and their rhetoric implies they are looking for very substantial changes. If they don’t want people to be suspicious of their intentions, and to assume as I do, that many if not most are looking for laity to run most important aspects of the parish beyond the day-to-day, and to hire and fire the clergy, they ought to list specific proposals, not generalities.”
If you look at the history of Canon law you will see that it is plagued with deceit and forgeries. Nevertheless Canon Law served many useful purposes since it gave the common person some rights in a society that was monarchical. The point is Canon Law can be refined and improved like any other law.
At the same time you are right Sean, about there being in place church laws which demand oversight by the parish council. In practice it takes a lot for people who are involved with family and jobs to confront priests and bishops who openly flout Canon Law by refusing to have meetings, arbitrarily changing parishioners who disagree with them and lambasting them as “dissenters’, etc.
This is why we need Votf and other bodies to help with the reform. Your attitude confirms the status quo which you say you are not happy with also.
It’s different now, then when I was growing up. My parents did not whine I don’t have enough time etc, both my folks worked, dad two jobs both involved with church girl and boy scouts etc and we had a famliy life! It can be done with out groups like VOTF, Call to Action, Corpus who only want to make this a protestant church any way.
Oh my, briefly but finally, without rancor,
Kathy: “I’ve never to my knowledge ever used the word “vitriol” and I’m not about to start now.”
Whether the word itself was used (which was NOT the point), I gently suggest the following qualifies:
”Anyone who was not personally and directly wounded by this kind of tragedy really ought to stop minimizing REAL pain by trumpeting up this kind of angsty pain that supposedly requires deep psychological healing and catharsis on a universal (or rather national) scale. “The bishop of OshKoshBigosh is causing me deep pain this week because of that one priest who is in the news.” Please.”
Sean: “Please point out the “vitriol” in any comment I have made.”
Sean: “Is it penitence or a pound of flesh that people want? Frankly, if Cardinal Law had crawled down Commonwealth Ave. in sack cloth and ashes over broken glass you would still have many of the VOTF crowd calling it a public relations ploy.”
Again, it is not the word “orthodoxy” itself that is the focus (Sean: Where have I even used the word “orthodoxy”?), but the subject of posts focused on VOTF and its supposed goals to institute practices I believe you would consider, perhaps, “unorthodox.”
This becomes an unproductive exchange, so I end it here, with hope for better. The tenor of discussion speaks for itself, and I believe has become numbingly repetitive by now.
Just like Mahony’s latest legal maneuvers –
(http://cityofangels3.blogspot.com/2007/07/church-blocks-production-of-documents.html)
“Church blocks production of documents, hearing August 14th. Crime victims on sidewalk outside cathedral. Haven’t we done this before?” –
the response to the settlement being the thread’s opening focus.
RES, since you like the word, it sounds like you are “whining” about those you disagree with.
Enough already.
The repitition and diviseness in this thread makes me think it’s almost impssible to have reasonable dialogue on the issue when folks tend to repeat their mantras.
Carolyn, just because Sean and I are funny doesn’t mean that we don’t mean well.
We have both repeatedly said, we want to help protect children, but we don’t think embarrassing the bishops is the way to do it. And yes, I do think that the disillusionment of grownups regarding some bishops’ handling of some abuse cases should be put into perspective, for everyone’s sake.
But, we have both said that there are other reforms possible. I think that brainstorming about “what’s next” is where the real conversation could begin.
I want to respond to one point made by Sean, which is that an institution that becomes all about fighting fraud (or abuse) can’t survive to carry out its larger mission. I actually agree with this, however, one of the things that is glaringly clear to me is that bishops viewed priestly abuse in terms of a multiplicity of issues, most notably, the shortage of qualified priests. So while detecting and preventing abuse can’t become the Church’s reason for being, it should be the signal and only purpose of those whose job it is to prevent and deal with it. That is, those individuals should not be conflicted. The parallel with fraud is that fraud often adds to the bottom line; it is nonetheless intolerable and one aspect of any compliance program is to make sure that those whose job depends on the profitability of an organization is not in charge of compliance.
An organization that can’t survive without fraud/abuse doesn’t deserve to survive.
Barbara, I think that is a fair point in terms of whether any practical or organizational consideration should outweigh the safety of children. Of course not.
I think that was the intent of the zero-tolerance policy.
I can’t help but think, though, that zero-tolerance forces us into a certain way of thinking about all the accused priests. “Credibly accused” has become, effectively, the same as “tried and convicted.” And often there is no distinction made (on internet lists of priests, for example) between serial predatory pedophiles and priests who committed (or are accused of) a single hugely wrong act with an older minor. This kind of distinction is part of justice.
I was never abused by clerics, religious, etc., but I was — and remain — very much angered by what I learned — and continue to learn — about bishops’ behaviors as reported in the news. It also alarms me that roughly 3/4ths of polled Catholics are apparently satisfied with their bishops’ performance so soon after the damning revelations of clerical sexual abuse of children and coverups by our religious “leaders.”
To me, all of this points to a greater problem in our church: the persistence of the clerical culture in a nearly 2,000-year-old institution. We have a dysfunctional church because of the still widespread corporate belief that it’s acceptable for the ordained to occupy an elevated place in the pecking order — and for the laity to remain down below. This kind of stratification just lends itself to institutional/ecclesial corruption fed by lack of transparency and accountability.
What I find particularly disheartening and disturbing is the recent papal decision to revive the 1570 liturgy (with its attendant theology and ecclesiology) that would come to perpetuate corporate stratification through Vatican II — and apparently beyond. We have not only lay folks who gravitate toward this misguided “stability” but, sadly, not a few hierarchs more than willing, as I’ve noted elsewhere, to oblige them.
We are going through a cartharsis following the devastating news of sexual abuse of OUR children perpetrated and perpetuated by trusted religious “leaders” who abused the trust reposed in them by the laity.
I think it would be grossly irresponsible for any bishop to allow his clergy — motu proprio notwithstanding — to begin using a stratified liturgy that played so important a role in creating and sustaining a stratified ecclesial community. For the Vatican to give a comparatively small but vocal group recourse to Rome if local bishops are found uncooperative is the height of arrogance. Given all we’ve learned to date about sexual, financial, and other wrongdoing, Benedict’s recent action is simply rubbing salt into the wound.
The pope wants us to trust him. Haven’t we heard that line before? Those who ignore the lessons of history……………
I am SOO confused. Are we going through a catharsis? Or are we waiting for a catharsis? Are we trying to prompt a catharsis? Oh, if only I knew how to handle the crisis!
I’m sorry, that was snarky, even for me.
This is in earnest: I have never thought that the writings of Rene Girard (esp. the theological writings) have much to offer. When he treats the Gospel, for example, or the story of Cain and Abel, Girard tends to leave a lot out; he is selective, and the aspects of the Scriptures that he does not consider raise a lot of questions that go unanswered in his account.
However, he is right about one thing: people tend to scapegoat. And people are scapegoating the bishops. But it is not, as in Girard, an unconscious social purging. It is a willful purging, a “catharsis.” It is not appropriate Christian behavior.
Kathy, don’t be “sorry” for being “snarky.”
I can take it.
As for your contention that “people are scapegoating the bishops,” where in the hell have you been? On Venus? I’m sorry, that was snarky, even for me.
The bishops dumped the crap on us, and we need to dump it back on them. All part of catharsis.
And we could probably use a purging of the bishops, but that wasn’t on my mind earlier.
The bishops have yet to take responsibility in any meaningful way. This is not — to use your words — “appropriate Christian behavior.”
“The bishops dumped the crap on us, and we need to dump it back on them. All part of catharsis”
Yes, Joseph, thank you. That is exactly the passage I’ve been looking for in the Sermon on the Mount.
Carolyn,
I am glad you closed with the cite to the LA document production story because it demonstates exactly what I have been saying. No one cares about the facts, just accusing and blaming, and that it simply doesn’t matter what anyone in the Church hierarchy does at this point. If it’s not what the VOTF and victim’s lawyers want, then it’s wrong.
The diocese didn’t “block” production of documents, it objected to them. A routine action in a case such as this. The court will decide this issue – as it is supposed to.
Don’t get me wrong, Cardinal Mahony is not my favorite character, and I think his lawyers way overreached in their initial attempts to invoke first amendment protections in the discovery process – that was wrong, but does that me that now and forever any time the diocese tries to invoke the same rights and protections as any American person would they are tagged as evil?
We have no idea why they are objecting. Having been on the receiving end of discovery and document production requests it is common, in fact almost a rule of nature, that many requests will (sometimes intentionally) exceed the rules or the mandate of the court. For all we know, the objections are reasonable, and might even be to protect innocent third parties or they may be baseless – we don’t know. Objections like this are how we decide the issue in this country.
My prediction is even if the diocese has its objections sustained (unlikely), the victims bar and its supporters will still complain about it. We have seen it here in Mass. That is what I mean – there is very little sense that they are willing to have a dialogue – that is two parties discussing what they want. Rather, the sense is unless you give us what we want, we will continue to use every means, courts, press, financial, to get it.
Sean,
In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’s arguments for withholding priest-personnel files. And the archdiocese has never been shy about why it objected: it claimed releasing the documents would violate both the priests’ privacy rights and the church’s First Amendment rights. At one point, the archdiocese claimed that communication between bishop and priest was protected by something akin to the seal of confession.
And Kathy, the notion that bishops are being scapegoated is laughable. No doubt “the bishops” is not a precise enough term. But there has been serious misfeasance, if not malfeasance on the part of several bishops. That’s not scapegoating. It’s putting a large portion of the blame exactly where it belongs.
Also, it would be better for this conversation if everyone worked harder to contain the urge to be snarky. I don’t want to see posts that are nothing more than ventilation. Those utterances are best kept to oneself. Robin (AKA “RES”): I’ve been deleting your posts because they add nothing to the thread. You recently called some people on this thread “stupid.” Consider this a warning. The next time that happens, you’ll find yourself banned.
Grant no you not are telling the truth I did not call any one stupid I believe it was thier behavor. I see a problem when I have proof of something and you just don’t check it out. But just as you checked me out I checked you out! I don’t believe I want to correspond with folks that have an agenda and will only dialog with me only if I agree with them and they want to make the Church into thier liking! We are not all our own Popes!
Oh, and by the way, Grant, I don’t hold a grudge and do forgive! I will be praying for you and all of your VOTF, Call To Action etc. friends God Bless!
Grant, what do you call it when an entire group is marked out for vengeance because of the malfeasance of some members of the group? I call it scapegoating.
Frankly, under current circumstances I don’t think that bishops should release the names of those who are accused. A name is released–what happens? SNAP organizes to have every car’s windshield in every parish where that priest ever served wallpapered with his picture and history. That is before hearings and trials.
I also haven’t seen any post here–any, including those of folks I disagree with strongly–that are *only* ventilation. I think everyone has had a point to make. RES, for example, has been trying over and over to make a point that I heard Cardinal Kasper make several years ago at his Common Ground lecture, with his endearing smile and wit. He said something like this: “I don’t know if you have this problem in America, but in Germany we have a problem that when people do not acknowledge the Magisterium, everyone becomes a little Magisterium.”
Every so often some of my comments that I consider perfectly innocuous get deleted.
My only explanation is that the powers that be are unusually sensitive about some matters.
Kathy,
Perhaps you don’t read the magazine or the Commonweal Web site apart from the blog. We published a piece on the problem you point up months ago:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1915
You didn’t see any of the several posts by RES that I deleted. They were devoid of useful content–much like her repeated promise to pray for those of us she believes are trying to turn the church we into which we were born and raised Protestant. Your 7/27 9:01 p.m. comment is pure ventilation, and pushes the conversation in precisely the opposite direction of the kind we’re trying to foster here.
I’ve already pointed out that every bishop doesn’t deserve blame. Some do. So do some laypeople. So do some men and women religious. Since several of these bishops who deserve blame carried out decisions that eventually harmed children without anyone’s counsel but their own (or other clerics, or lawyers), you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t jump at the chance to cry scapegoating.
This conversation has run its course.
Grant,
I am fully aware of the court’s ruling – as I said before in referring to Cardinal Mahony, “I think his lawyers way overreached in their initial attempts to invoke first amendment protections in the discovery process – that was wrong.” In fact, I think the analogy to confession was despicable.
My point was that this is a very good example of my concern. The immediate characterization of the diocese as a powerful force “blocking” release. All parties in litigation object to releasing documents. They have a right to, and a right to get a ruling from the court. Sometimes its obstreperous, but other times it is to protect legitimate interests. In many of the abuse lawsuits here in MA the plaintiffs themselves fought hard, and many times successfully, to keep their own records private.
Should the diocese release anything the plaintiffs ask for just because they ask for it? I am sure the settlement agreement didn’t provide limitless powers to the plaintiffs to do this. Why don’t we just wait for the court to do its job before condemning the diocese.
Cardinal Mahony is probably not the best example to base this on, but it shows a mentality and an approach that leads many, like myself, to conclude that the primary motivation in these cases has less to do with finding the guilty and fixing the problem than with something else. In diocese that didn’t have this type of pervasive problem and in those where the bad actors are long gone and leadership is trying to address it, no one is giving the current leadership a chance.
BTW what is the record for a blog post string here?
Let me clarify something – by “these cases” I did not mean the lawsuits, I meant cases of public criticism like the newpaper reports and blog commentary.
Grant whether you want to believe it or not I do pray for you and all the folks having a hard time with the teachings of the Church. Please, you have asked us not insult others please do the same. Also when was it not a good thing to pray for others, we are christians are we not?
Oh and Grant you did not tell the truth again… I said that VOTF, Call to Action, WE Are Church,Corpus, etc. are trying to trying to turn the Roman Catholic Church into a Protestant church and yes I believe you are also. We are not our own Popes!
(Sigh) Grant, I wouldn’t mention the deleted comments if I hadn’t seen them. Some of them were as you say, and I’m not sure why they were necessarily deleted, but okay. But others were about the necessity of having a hierarchy with real authority, which I personally don’t think is off topic in a discussion about bishops, laity, and accountability.
My comment of 9:01 was not “pure ventilation.”. It was snarkier than I like to be, but I was also pointing out that not only is the psychological meaning of the word “catharsis” very vague in this context, but it isn’t even being used consistently. Joseph J. said that we are going through it, others seem to be waiting for it, others seem to think we must provoke it, like lancing a boil I suppose.
By the way, what is the direction in which you’re trying to push the conversations here? Perhaps a notice might be included in the masthead so others won’t unwittingly make the same mistakes? And maybe each blogpost should include a link to all relevant articles in Commonweal, past or present, so that anyone who may have missed an issue can read exhaustively before commenting?
Kathy: Sigh all you like, there were several comments RES left over a period of about fifteen minutes that were available for roughly two minutes each. You didn’t see those. They were absurd. One was, in its entirety: “Goodbye!!!” (Obviously she didn’t mean it.)
I don’t think you’re operating with a useful, or even correct definition of catharsis. Instead, you have chalked it up to what you obviously believe to be the Oprahfication of the conversation about the sexual-abuse scandal. You have repeatedly failed to offer alternatives to the points of view you deride. And you repeat yourself, as you did in your 9:01 post. I’m not even a little bit convinced that you offered anything useful in that post–anything useful to others, that is.
In the masthead? Of the magazine? The one you don’t read? Maybe instead of assuming the worst about your interlocutors, or ignoring their clarifications, you should restrain yourself before you broadcast your underinformed opinions.
I regret allowing myself to be drawn into this waste of time.
Grant, it’s hard to know how to handle these outbursts of yours. You’ve been threatening and deriding me and you are apparently trying to make me feel unwelcome and like I don’t belong. Is this normal?
Why don’t we just chalk it up to a heated topic and the fact that since my sense of humor (as well as reasonable critique) is aimed straight at something you obviously feel strongly about, I’m coming across as attacking someone’s core values or feelings. I’m really not. I think that loose rhetoric in an accusatory situation aids and abets scapegoating. And the rhetoric about catharsis could not be less exact. It’s not Oprahfication that I’m worried about. Anybody who has feelings, well, those are feelings. They are real experiences. What I’m concerned about is that people (not you) are advocating vindictive behavior based on their feelings. That is really not what we’re here for. It’s destructive and I think it has gone on for long enough.
It’s a serious question whether structural change that effectively results in administrative power sharing between bishops and lay people would protect us from the abuse of children, finances, and various other forms of clerical overreaching.
We can’t know because it hasn’t been tried. I know next to nothing about VOTF so I’m not advocating its positions. However, those whose knee jerk response that structural reform is the equivalent of protestantism need to stop and think about what the scandal wrought: accountable to no one, many (not all) bishops ignored not only the safety of children but what I at least thought was the rather clear moral directives of the church.
It was only through the pressure brought to bear by secular processes (courts, the press) that many did the right thing, and then often unwillingly and in some cases clearly driven by the need to feed public relations (the cringe inducing hothouse histrionics of all involved that resulted in the zero tolerance policy). That same secular society that the current pope so loves to sneer at for its “moral relativism” had little difficulty smoking out the moral relativism at work in our Church.
Reasonable structural reform would protect the Church and its clerics as much as it does children. No, it would not be popular with those who like being Charlie in Charge of everything no matter how disconnected from theology and mission. But just about everyone else might benefit. (And it’s my guess that there are at least a few dioceses where the bishop delegates quite a bit. No doubt, these are the ones we don’t hear about.)
You know Grant you are correct I am not as smart as you or most on this blog . For some reason you continue to insult me and speak as though I am stupid. I see my last posts and think oh my God I am becomming like “them”. God did not intend for us to become so uncharitable. I tried to let you know that there are those that realize what others are trying to do to the Roman Catholic Church. You have told untruthes and you know people cheking out who others are is evil please don’t do this to any one else!
Barbara, I think you are right that there were systems in place that made some of the most egregious errors possible. I think these have to do with culture first of all, though, and not structure.
I haven’t checked the archives, but this seems like a record number of posts for one thread.
Before David Gibson goes into the dotCommonweal record books, however, prudence requires that he be tested for steroids.
Kathy, if you’re looking for the appropriate passage in the Sermon on the Mount, you’re looking in the wrong place.
Go to the “millstone” passage. You might also try the “moneychanger” passage.
No snarkiness here. But Jesus was mad as hell.
Joseph, I agree with you somewhat in this.
But not in the idea that “they dumped, so we have to dump.”
My version would be, “People in leadership made grievous errors and something in the system allowed that. Something has to change.”
We do need to look at the Catholic Church from a systems perspective. That is, the church needs to be scrutinized from all angles, in all its manifestations. Culture. Structures. Authority. Teachings. Offices. Roles. Etc. Etc.
Certainly the pope’s attempt to revitalize the Tridentine service can be seen in systems theory as intimately tied in with such realities as office, exercise of authority, perception of one’s place in the church, different approaches to dealing with bishops who perpetuated sexual abuse of children, etc.
In systems theory, everything is necessarily interrelated because, quite simply, such is fact. The institutional church needs a thorough housecleaning from top to bottom.
If we can learn from our Protestant brothers and sisters in the Lord, I say “Go for it!”
Joseph, I was thinking more in lines of an evangelical response to the problem, in which a) the reality of universal sinfulness is acknowledged, and b) an attitude of generous service becomes characteristic of everyone in the Church, beginning with leaders. Beginning with bishops.
“Something has to change.”
I agree, and anger (properly used) can fuel needed change.
Regrettably, roughly 3/4ths of recently polled Catholics are satisfied with their bishops (!!!).
We apparently are returning to (or did we ever leave?) “pray, pay, obey.”
Perhaps “dumping” was poor word choice, but it appears the bishops will ultimately not be held accountable.
As much as I support VOTF’s general goals of transparency and accountability, I think its approach has been, and will continue to be, seen by the hierarchs as largely ineffectual.
An earlier blogger suggested withholding money from church coffers. I agree. Money talks. I think severe measures will be needed to deal with the deep-seated corruption in our church (and I’m not limiting my thoughts here to the sexual abuse revelations).
I’ll stop my rambling here.
Since this thread continues to attract commentary, thought it might be useful to reference Robert McClory’s article on the last 5 years in US Catholic.
My own perspective is very close to the one of joe Lynaugh cited at the start of the article.
That;s why it’s hard to see how the dual liturgies will bring folks closer together ,,, but that’s another thread above.
Not that this makes it right.
But I can’t help wondering whether The Boston Globe could keep up with the headlines, if, every time it was appropriate, it ran the story “32 Year-Old Man Inappropriately Touches 16 Year-Old.”
Obviously it’s unusually destructive when it’s a religious leader who sins this way. But it is not, unfortunately, rare in human society. It’s a sin, and it’s wrong (unless the 16 and 32 year-olds are married), but I don’t think it’s beyond the pale of what basically normal fallen people are capable of. Priests included.
Demands for complete transparency and accountability and the zero-tolerance policy have the effect, as things are, of putting this kind of sin on the level of predatory pedophilia.
Since it’s not, transparency is a red herring.