Cardinal George on the John Jay report
[Read part one and part two of the full interview.]
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the recent past president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, was in New York last Thursday to talk about his latest book, God in Action: How Living with God in Faith Can Help Us Meet the Challenges Facing Us Today. I sat down to speak with him in a conversation that ranged over a variety of topics, and we’ll have the rest of that interview in the near future.
But I asked him about the John Jay report, released a day before, and want to share his responses given the immediacy of the topic. The exchange speaks for itself, though I thought it notable that it seems the bishops will be talking about tightening up review board procedures when they gather for their spring meeting June 15-16 in Seattle:
Q: Have you read the study?
A: I’ve read the executive summary; I’ve looked at the study. I haven’t read it.
Q: What do you think of it? Do you think it rings true?
A: Yes, I think it rings true. It’s not a whitewash. It shows where the bishops were derelict in attending to the full scope of the tragedy. I think what it points to is in the beginning years of this – I wasn’t a bishop when it began, I became a bishop in 1990 and there was already a sub-committee [of the USCCB] dedicated to this. They did begin the discussions in the 80s.
But what was missing, often, was the voice of the victim. They [the bishops] talked to the priests. They tried to come to terms with what had happened, more or less in the therapeutic era, treating it not just as a moral failing – they knew that – but as a psychological sickness, forgetting that there is a justice issue here, vis-à-vis the victim, who was often crushed. The longstanding consequences of this are things we are still trying to come to terms with as we try to speak to victims and help victims.
I have found that is the voice that has to be brought forward. Because when I listen to it I am always grateful and always pray for the grace of conversion to stay with that voice as the primary voice in this whole conversation. That’s new, and I think the bishops do attend to it now. I hope so. But the analysis of the years when this was most prevalent rings true to me. I was gone from this country during those years. I lived in Rome [1974-1987] and when I came back I had a sense that something had happened but I didn’t understand very well – not about this but about a lot of things.
The report hasn’t received a lot of attention, and in some ways that is surprising, unless it doesn’t say what people want it to say. Because there’s a meta-narrative in all this. It’s the usual meta-narrative: individuals harmed by institutions and authority, particularly religious authority, that is a priori oppressive. That’s a media mandate, sort of, for every story. And while there are elements of truth to that story, that’s not the whole story. Facts that don’t enforce that story, don’t corroborate it, tend not to be reported.
Q: I thought it was a very interesting report, I thought a lot of it rang true, that there was plenty in the report to discomfit left, right and center.
A: The point is it was not the bishops’ report. It was a report from a reputable research organization. So if people don’t like it they should go to the John Jay people and say, “Why didn’t you do this, why didn’t you do that?” We [the bishops] didn’t. I read it for the first time last week.
Q: And your sense of it, again, is that it rang true?
A: I think so, yes, sure. It opened up a certain number of areas that I wasn’t aware of.
Q: What areas?
A: I hadn’t given much thought to what is a central thesis, as I understand it, that is, the changes in the society and their repercussion on priestly discipline – the relaxation of protections for celibate living that had been taken for granted as part of priestly life for so many generations. That struck me as something I should have given more thought to. I’m grateful for that.
The researchers do talk about the bishops’ record over these past decades in terms of patterns in institutional change – comparing the church to police departments dealing with brutality, for example – which can be an explanatory thing but also a very damning thing in the sense that the church all too often acted like any other organization.
That’s right, that’s the sorry part of that kind of conclusion – we were the same as everybody else, and we shouldn’t have been. But it also points to the problem of authority in the church. When the church is a voluntary organization sociologically, as it is here, we don’t have police powers, as bishops. Charles Borromeo did when he reformed the church in Milan. [Laughs] So perhaps it was a little easier! Not that we would want that. But it [the church] is a voluntary organization.
Furthermore, the new code [of canon law] was designed to protect priests against oppressive bishops because John Paul II distrusted administrative law as an instrument for punishing people. He saw how it was misused in communist regimes where things were done legally but the law didn’t respect individuals. And so there were a lot of canonical difficulties in disciplining priests that now, in the case of this particular sin and crime, we can address more easily with the zero tolerance policy.
It took a long time, in the discussions over there [in the Vatican], to accept the principle of zero tolerance in a code that said there are reasons why this penalty shouldn’t be imposed on people even for this kind of crime because you had to look at culpability in terms of moral intention and things like that. Our laws now are very behavioral. If you did it, you’re out. We have to prove that you did it. But if you did it, you’re out, no matter what excuse or what culpability you think there might be.
Q: The John Jay report does talk about how much has been done, about the great gains made by the church in this area. But it also talks about the importance, moving forward, of bishops developing uniform policies with accountability and transparency. Do you think there are next steps that can be taken by the bishops?
A: There always are, aren’t there? But before I would want to say what they should be I’d want to consult with a lot more bishops and see what the consensus might be. Because it’s important that there be greater uniformity, obviously. We’ve learned, I suppose, that review boards are very different, sometimes, from place to place. So we should look at that, certainly, and I think we are.
But beyond that we’ll have to talk, I think. Because it’d be good to act together. This is a national problem and the more we can act together and find consensus the stronger the church will be.
Q: You also have the issue of the autonomy of bishops – you have a couple of bishops who opt out of audits, for example. Are these two things that are increasingly going to butt heads?
A: They do now. Whether increasingly, I don’t know. For example, the matter of the eparchies [territories of the Eastern Catholic Churches]. The eparchies sometimes extend across the whole nation. They go from state to state to state to state, with different laws. To put together a lot of the infrastructure that the charter does call for in that kind of situation would be extraordinarily difficult and extraordinarily expensive. And the eparchies are poor. So a lot of it is just simply administrative. So they simply piggy back – I think this is something the report doesn’t recognize – they’ll piggy back on the Latin diocese, depending on where they are.
So while they’re not the primary agent, I think it’s being attended to, in some cases anyway.
“The researchers do talk about the bishops’ record over these past decades in terms of patterns in institutional change – comparing the church to police departments dealing with brutality, for example – which can be an explanatory thing but also a very damning thing in the sense that the church all too often acted like any other organization.
That’s right, that’s the sorry part of that kind of conclusion – we were the same as everybody else, and we shouldn’t have been.”
Cardinal George STILL doesn’t get it. The report didn’t say that the Church was “the same as everyone else” — the report said that many Catholic priests and bishops were like brutalizing police departments whose members abuse their power then cover-up their abuse. C. George then goes on to complain facetiously that bishops don’t have police power as they used to, so they can’t clean things up easily anymore. He seems to have totally missed the report’s point about policemen and the clergy. Sad.
This was posted by Joe Jaglowicz on another article of a similar nature and bears reposting in light of this sad interview:
Eugene Kennedy’s “U.S. Bishops: The Great Inertia” at http://www.ncronline.org/node/2535
Oh man. The jokey bit about the good old days of absolute power? Awkwaaarrd!
In one of the times he reminds us that he wasn’t around (!), he says, “I lived in Rome [1974-1987] and when I came back I had a sense that something had happened but I didn’t understand very well…” David, do you have any sense of what exactly he’s talking about, there?
“I had a sense that something had happened but I didn’t understand very well”
Maybe he is referring to the fact that a lot of the formerly slack-jawed pew potatoes had started to say: “uh, excuse me — what in the HELL is going on here?’
“C. George then goes on to complain facetiously that bishops don’t have police power as they used to, so they can’t clean things up easily anymore.”
That’s about as uncharitable a reading as possible. Here are the words of C. George that you paraphrase above:
“When the church is a voluntary organization sociologically, as it is here, we don’t have police powers, as bishops. Charles Borromeo did when he reformed the church in Milan. [Laughs] So perhaps it was a little easier! Not that we would want that. But it [the church] is a voluntary organization.”
Which is hardly a facetious sighing for the good old days of police powers by church authority. Sheesh.
Then C. George goes on to point out the institutional perspective that worked against granting bishops extreme authority to deal with the crisis when it burst open:
“Furthermore, the new code [of canon law] was designed to protect priests against oppressive bishops because John Paul II distrusted administrative law as an instrument for punishing people. He saw how it was misused in communist regimes where things were done legally but the law didn’t respect individuals. And so there were a lot of canonical difficulties in disciplining priests that now, in the case of this particular sin and crime, we can address more easily with the zero tolerance policy.”
I can only imagine that the same people who seem to bemoan the bishops not authoritatively cracking down from the very start without mercy on sexual abusing priests are the very same people who on the other hand castigate the bishops for daring to critique a dissident theologian’s book or for removing a bishop in Australia after unsuccessfully trying for three years to get him to come to Rome to discuss his public positions on church doctrine.
As always at CW, “heads we win, tails the bishops lose”.
“John Paul II distrusted administrative law as an instrument for punishing people”
Yeah,so then in the name of protecting priests, people who were sexually assaulted by said priests were treated like so much dirt. So administrative law punished someone, just not priests. This sounds like special interest group talk to me and that is precisely why the bishops have lost my confidence. I could see this confusion for a couple of years but it went on and on and on and the only thing that made a difference was the bright light of exposure. I am all for that. And let law enforcement agencies deal with the perpetrators. The bishops have demonstrated that they are clearly unable to do so and that is my most charitable reading of what looks like Bishop Finn’s abject failure to report a crime in Kansas City, Missouri last December. Other people would be arrested for this because I believe that it is, in itself, a crime.
P –
If you look carefully you might notice that C. George *laughed* when he talked about the old police power of bishops. if he wasn’t being facetious, then why was he laughing?
Face it, P. You’ve been bamboozled.
Mary, I believe he was talking about the post-60s cultural shift, the sexual revolution and then the hangover, as it were — the whole megillah of social change.
“I can only imagine that . . .”
P — you’re very good at imagining. Now if only you’d learn to deal with real evidence.
“This sounds like special interest group talk to me and that is precisely why the bishops have lost my confidence.”
That would be the bishops in charge 30 years ago when all this happened. Why would you not have confidence in the bishops of today, who have established a zero tolerance policy that has nearly eradicated sexual abuse reports in the last few years?
“Bishop Finn’s abject failure to report a crime in Kansas City, Missouri last December.”
Not true. http://www.kctv5.com/news/27971815/detail.html
[Borrowing following summary from a commenter at Vox Nova]
First, upon receiving the computer with the images of children, the diocese contacted the police along with their own legal counsel. Niether the police nor the legal council thought the images constituted child pornagraphy so there was nothing legally the diocese could do. At this point, the Bishop still believing there was a problem, imediately removed Fr. Ratigan from ministry. After he recovered from a coma, which was brought on by a failed suicide attempt (carbon monoxide poisoning) he was placed with some Francisican Sisters nowhere near children.
Within a few months Fr. Ratigan began disobeying the Bishops orders and was found at events and places where children were located. This was the ammunition needed to gain a search warrant. This time the police discovered more explicit images for which to build a case, and this is when Fr. Ratigan was placed under arrest.
What Mary said: And let law enforcement agencies deal with the perpetrators. The bishops have demonstrated that they are clearly unable to do so
I am done being angry. I am much more at peace now that I have finally given up on our bishops in that role. After the frustrations of the past two years, I can say that it is a big relief to finally have reached some degree of clarity. I used to feel powerless, but now, for me the way forward is clear: remove those responsibilities from the bishops’ hands. It will be better for everyone, including the bishops themselves.
Claire –
Somebody linked to an article about research done on the psychology of American Catholic bishops. Sorry I can’t find it (It was in the last couple of days, and the author’s last name is Kennedy.) Anyway, one of the main points is that the bishops typically have little confidence in their own decision-making abilities, are very afraid of making mistakes, and look to the Pope both for approval and instructions on how to handle problems. Because of their lack of confidence, their typical m.o. when not being directed by Rome is simply to play the paternalistic father and do nothing or to shift responsibility to somebody else when they can, preferably to the Pope. At Dallas they shifted responsibility for the predators to the civil authorities.
So you’re right. If we want anything to be done, it must be done by the cops.
@Ann, was the Kennedy cite the link given by Jimmy Mac, 6:58 above?
@Claire, it was Molly, but I wish I’d said it, and what you said, too.
@Pflan, the summary you provide is contested. Not the least in that there was no initial call to “the police” in any collective or formal sense; there was an unofficial conversation with one cop who serves on a diocesan committee. Regardless, there was no need to seek advice. This ain’t complicated. You see a bunch of skeevie pics including one of a naked kid? Just make the freaking formal report, already.
Sorry Molly! Thanks Ann and Mary! What beautiful names you all have!
Mary — Yes, that’s it. I thought it was on another thread. Very interesting, if discouraging. Kennedy’s thesis certainly seems to explain a lot. He doesn’t mention the bishops always agreeing with the pope about celibacy, married priests, etc., but I bet their agreement must also have a lot to do with their longing for papal approval and papal direction.
“but I bet their agreement must also have a lot to do with their longing for papal approval and papal direction.”
Good grief. The bishop bashing descends into embittered farce and pretentious psychology.
Weren’t these the same bishops who not long ago expressed their concerns with the Republican-proposed budget? Were they also simply whimpering for the approval of their Papal Puppeteer then, too?
P –
Why do you always seem to agree with the bishops? Aren’t they ever wrong?
“Why do you always seem to agree with the bishops? Aren’t they ever wrong?”
Can you make a rational argument against the cases recently where I have defended their actions? Or just the emotional one that I should not be on their side every time?
I may be somewhat partisan on occasion, but that is only in reaction to the incessant anti-bishop slanders posted here on each and every subject that involves them. And those occasions where I might go beyond absolute objectivity certainly do not go very far to move that partisan pendulum back to a reasonable center.
P –
Why do you assume that the center is the reasonable place to be? Sometimes it isn’t. Remember what Jesus said about being lukewarm? “So then, because thou are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold I will spew the out of my mouth”.
Virtue is not defined as being nice. Sometimes to be virtuous you need to complain bitterly about-wrongdoing and make accusations, especially wrong-doing against children. Also remember what Christ said about that: “And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”
Face it, P, Jesus is talking about the bishops there. Most of them *still* haven’t completely repented. If they were thoroughly serious about protecting children they would be calling for the immediate removal of Cardinal Rigali, Cardinal George and especially Cardinal Law from his positions of great honor, and they’d call for the immediate removal of the two bishops who refuse to follow the Dallas Charter at all. Only two bishops (of New Orleans and one of the New Jersey ones) have publicly condemned the actions in Philadelphia even mildly. No, P., they still need to be called out — loudly — until their actions become truly become transparent and accountable.
Your charges against the bishops are completely unsubstantiated. If your emotional outrage were true, there would have been a lot more than seven instances of sexual abuse throughout the US church in 2009. You seek revenge for abuse occurring decades ago, and, as you might say, that’s definitely not something “Jesus would do”.
P, there is a problem with this narrative:
“First, upon receiving the computer with the images of children, the diocese contacted the police along with their own legal counsel. N(ei)ther the police nor the legal council thought the images constituted child porn(o)graphy so there was nothing legally the diocese could do.”
1. The computer images weren’t shown to the single police officer, and only one was described.
2. I find it fascinating that despite a diocesan effort to combat pornography (an effort, which I am sure you will join me in commending, P) that the bishop and associated personnel had difficulty identifying it when they saw it. Do these guys follow their own program? Or is it seen as a problem of non-celibates looking at undressed women?
I’m concerned about guys who are insufficiently imbued with the culture of those they are ordained to serve. Guys who stonewall victims and let predators prance around free are in no position to make jokes about the rack. Instead of sucking down Vino da Tavola for thirteen years of Tiber-side dining, maybe a stint as the pastor of an American parish would have been better formation.
Let’s keep in mind that by far the most criticism is being leveled at bishops for mismanagement, not for revenge. It might be that Bishops Finn, if he professes ignorance of pornography or the nature of abuse, should appoint a lay person or persons to oversee that aspect of diocesan governance. Cardinal George might also want to consult Second City to write his jokes for him.
Cardinal George says: “And so there were a lot of canonical difficulties in disciplining priests that now, in the case of this particular sin and crime, we can address more easily with the zero tolerance policy.” It’s not clear to me what period of time he’s talking about. Perhaps he means prior to 2002, when zero tolerance was adopted by the U.S. bishops. If he means that canon law made it difficult to suspend an accused priest, he is mistaken (that’s the theory he floated immediately after the McCormack case came to light). A bishop can place a priest on leave pending a canonical investigation. That could mean as little as issuing a memo ordering an investigation (or referring it to the review board). Even in the revised code of canon law, bishops had great discretion in their power to suspend a priest from ministerial duties. If George means that it was difficult to mount a canonical criminal case against a priest, he’s not wrong–very few canon lawyers had the training to conduct criminal trials. But the scandal isn’t a scandal because too few priests were found guilty in a court of canon law. The scandal is a scandal because too few bishops acted swiftly to remove credibly accused priests.
How about a blog post with proposals for some changes that bishops could decide on when they meet next month? Here is a change that would help diminish the bias a little bit and that might be acceptable to bishops: that cases in a diocese be reported to and evaluated by a bishop other than the bishop of the diocese of the accused priest.
As Mollie’s earlier blog asked, is the crisis (or “crisis,” as the JJ report has it) over? And will Cardinal George and his episcopal colleagues take the Report as a ground for saying the crisis is now history? It would be mistaken to assume that even if we could guarantee complete safety for all children and adolescents in Catholic surroundings. the larger problems have been solved. It will take a lot more than that to restore any sense of real trust in Catholic leadership, whether in the North America, or in the world at large (including Rome). Chapter IV of the JJ report does something to describe the failings of the leadership to deal with such issues, many of them not so much to help protect priests who may be wrongfully accused, as by a desire to maintain secrecy, and to protect the imagined reputation of the church at large. But I didn’t find any real analysis of why this should be.
Here. of course, we get into questions of structure and governance and culture that the report does not directly address. The word “clericalism” never appears (save in a bibliographical reference), though p. 16 does speak of a “clerical subculture,” which is perhaps the same thing, and p. 29 of an “institutional culture.” There are other mentions of institutional culture as well, particularly on p. 91, which looks at cultural similarities between the church and police, for instance. But (perhaps I’ve missed, and I’ve not read the whole report through) there is little or no linkage between this culture and the structures of governance.
That, it seems to me is one of the most important issues, and it is one that the church’s leadership is still at pains to avoid. A letter from Mark Horak, SJ, in the May 6 Commonweal, says that the crisis will not be over “until we manage to move beyond the clerical culture that sets priests above and beyond the rest of the church,” and until seminarians are no longer taught a theology promoting this culture.
I think he’s right.
PS I like Claire’s idea for a blog proposing some changes for the bishops to consider.
“I find it fascinating that despite a diocesan effort to combat pornography (an effort, which I am sure you will join me in commending, P) that the bishop and associated personnel had difficulty identifying it when they saw it.”
It was not a matter of identifying pornography, but of defining a given set of pornographic images as ILLEGAL. The determination of the police officer and legal counsel that Bp. Finn consulted was that the pornographic images were not ILLEGAL. That’s why Bp. Finn was limited in the action he could take against the offending priest.
On the Jay Report in general, a very detailed and well-argued summary by your arch-enemy George Weigel here, feel free to debate the merits of his arguments:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/267600
Obfuscation fail.
The. Cop. Did. Not. See. Any. Picture. There was no “determination” by “the police,” merely an informal opinion based on a description given over the phone.
Finn was not limited in his ability to make a report. There was NO barrier, legal or otherwise, to taking that action when he first became aware the priest had the photos on his computer–including the one of a naked child. As repeatedly mention, and ignored by you, the mere presence of those photos could have been evidence of child abuse in the taking of the pictures. The police should have been officially informed from the git-go.
“What Mary said: And let law enforcement agencies deal with the perpetrators. The bishops have demonstrated that they are clearly unable to do so”
Hi, Claire and Mary,
For good or ill, this won’t happen, and shouldn’t be allowed to happen. I say “shouldn’t” because criminal statutes of limitations would prevent law enforcement from taking action against old allegations that, for the sake of the victims, and that of possible future victims of the offender, should not be ignored.
I also say “shouldn’t” because the aspect of the problem that we’re focusing on in this conversation is bishops who failed to act responsibly when confronted with cases of abuse. I am not in favor of letting bishops off the hook by absolving them of all pastoral responsibility by saying, in effect, ‘it’s not our problem, it’s a law enforcement problem.’
I also say “shouldn’t” because to reduce the act to a crime is to ignore important dimensions of what transpired and what needs to be done. Certainly, whatever else abuse is, it is a crime, and all allegations should be reported to the civil authorities (as is already required in virtually all states – clergy are mandated reporters).
But there are many dimensions to abuse. That is one of the good things that Cardinal George said in this interview: “But what was missing, often, was the voice of the victim. They [the bishops] talked to the priests. They tried to come to terms with what had happened, more or less in the therapeutic era, treating it not just as a moral failing – they knew that – but as a psychological sickness, forgetting that there is a justice issue here, vis-à-vis the victim, who was often crushed. The longstanding consequences of this are things we are still trying to come to terms with as we try to speak to victims and help victims. I have found that is the voice that has to be brought forward. Because when I listen to it I am always grateful and always pray for the grace of conversion to stay with that voice as the primary voice in this whole conversation. That’s new, and I think the bishops do attend to it now. I hope so.” We need more of this from our bishops – reaching out to victims, listening to them, apologizing on behalf of the church leadership that failed them, praying with them, doing what they can to help the victims heal.
I say that it won’t happen because it would contradict the church’s understanding of the office of bishop as shepherd and father. Those of us who are parents know that it’s easy to be a good parent when our kids are well-behaved. We’re put to the test when our kids do something wrong. When they do something seriously wrong, God forbid, many of us aren’t even sure what to do, or, much worse, lack the courage to do what needs to be done. That’s my view of bishops who have failed specific instances: they’ve failed to be the brother and father that they’re supposed to be. They’ve extended compassion – to the perp! – when tough love was called for.
Re: the George interview:
Cardinal George’s focus on the period when most abuse has been reported to have occurred, when he was “in Rome” and stress on the fact that he only became a bishop in the early 90s are the sort of evasive responses that might have led a more curious reporter than John Allen to press him with harder follow-ups about the problem presented by bishops who ignore or actively impede the work of review boards. George’s own record includes ignoring the Chicago Review Board’s advice in the case of Fr. Daniel MacCormack, mentioned by Grant, above. (Fr. MacCormack went on to do more damage.) It would have been interesting, for example, to hear what Cardinal George might have to say today about Cardinal Rigali’s apparently dysfunctional interface with the Philadelphia review Board.
Re: Claire’s idea. It would be a good way to get some fresh perspectives for them to consider. It was so painful to see the Vatican come out with recommendations for an even less responsive and transparent kind of review system in which the buck starts and stops with the Bishop. A system of apparent oversight that can be used to legitimize “business as usual” is a recipe for disaster. But this was made obvious by the disclosures forced by the civil authorities in Philadelphia. While distressing, those disclosures were a blessing, a breath of fresh air, in that they showed how easily the review system could be gamed.
I don’t see the need to pile on but I find the Cardinal’s statement about police power to be very strange. The fact is, the church has all the power it needs to discipline and if necessary remove priests from the active ministry, and certainly, from serving in parishes or any other capacity where children are present. You don’t need police power to fire someone (either de facto or constructively). What he admits is that the “police power” it did have (church administrative disciplinary process) was exercised in such a way that priests received the overwhelming benefit of the doubt, apparently because JPII distrusted any kind of administrative apparatus as a disciplinary tool.
Think about that and let it sink in for a moment. Now, I understand the concept of regulatory inertia or capture, and do believe that in nearly any context the machinery of process can take on a life of its own and take positions (e.g., punishing priests) to justify its own existence. But this was the administrative apparatus that was set up and staffed by people who, by and large, were answerable to JPII. There are many ways to avoid the pitfalls that JPII feared, for instance, audits, staggered and time limited appointments, clear standards, and so on. This “fear of the communist bogeyman” is raised in other contexts — for instance, the tolerance for brutal right wing dicators in Latin America and wears thin as a justification for what appears to have been a strongly held predilection for protecting priests and rulers willing to allow a complicit church to participate in the spoils of an authoritarian regime.
“The determination of the police officer and legal counsel that Bp. Finn consulted was that the pornographic images were not ILLEGAL.”
Not images. Image. One image was described, though acknowledged as “one of the worst.”
The questions remain:
1. Why didn’t Bishop Finn sit down with Fr Shawn and the computer and ask for an accounting?
2. Why wasn’t the computer turned over to experts at the start and let the professionals determine the legality of it all? Judges and courts determine legality. Not bishops.
3. Why did Bishop Finn admit he erred? Was it more about getting caught? Was it being duped by someone who seems to be a sex addict and was just grooming his boss? Why would Fr Shawn report he was “completely cleared?”
I see Mr. Donahue has chimed in that it’s really homosexuality is the problem.
The Cardinal also doesn’t get it. He and his colleagues live in the too encapsulated world of their own importance to see the culture issue noted above.
(Speaking of authoritarian dictators, a piece on the internet abou tMugabwe bein gin Rome for JPII beatification, greeted warmly and taking communion.)
It would be so nice if we could rewrite history, have a more Bernadin listening hierarchy that valued common ground.
Instead, it is truly command/control, power, institution first.
And the loss of credbilitythat’s caused will not be recovered by defenders like P. or intellectual nudges toward a more balanced and centrist Church.
We can’t rewrite what’s happened, but prospectively, we ned a better hierachical mose to deal with sex abuse and a lot of other issues!
I thought the interview was informative and I’m glad the Cardinal gave it. The question must have crossed his mind, knowing that the most innocent and offhand remark can be misinterpreted, why am I doing this? A lawyer would probably recommend a “no comment” stance.
Progressives might take the cue and also subject themselves to questions in less than welcoming venues. Dialogue may only lead to further polarization but there’s a slim chance for mutual enlightenment and that’s an opportunity to be seized.
@ 12:07 a.m. “Your charges against the bishops are completely unsubstantiated. If your emotional outrage were true, there would have been a lot more than seven instances of sexual abuse throughout the US church in 2009. You seek revenge for abuse occurring decades ago, and, as you might say, that’s definitely not something “Jesus would do”.
P –
If you truly are willing to face facts, you will check out the evidence against these men at bishops-accountability.org. It is an archive which includes such things as articles from respected newspapers, Court papers, victims accounts, and other primary data and secondary data. It is overwhelming. There are even official depositions from these three men themselves.
There you will find evidence of how even in very recent years Cardinal George (who is still bishop of Chicago) did not removed a clearly dangerous priest, Fr. Daniel MacCormick. The data on Cardinal Law is massive. He left Boston in disgrace, but was given or allowed to continue in 5 important jobs in the curia including head of the dicastery that recommends priests to be bishops around the world (this after having been a failure as a bishop himself)w, and how he was then honored by being made pastor of one of the most important churches *in all of Christendom*. (And if you think Rome doesn’t behave like that, just remember how JP II treated Fr. Maciel in spite of overwhelming evidence of terrible malfeasance.) If you read the newspapers at all you have already seen some accounts of Cardinal Rigali’s rotten behavior in Philadelphia.
Just use the search function. Type their names in and hit “search”.
Notice that these issues are about prelates in office *right now*. This is not about thirty years ago.
In spite of these men’s malfeasance in their particularly high offices, you do not hear the other bishops crying for these disgraceful men to be removed from their current offices. No, the American Catholic bishops’ mode of operation has been to remain silent — and let the scandal of the three cardinals’ continuance in office continue. These men disgrace Christ’s Church, yet the other bishops don’t raise their voices against them. By remaining silent, the bishops teach the world that you can allow children to be abused and the American Catholic bishops will tolerate your remaining in high places as models for others. They will stand by and watch silently, not as you are censured and condemned, but as you are honored. Shame, shame, shame.
I hope you will have the courage to do the reading.
P –
You are impresed that there have been only 7 reports of current abuse in recent years. If that were true, it would be good news indeed. However, the system of control adopted in the Dallas Charter does not include any way to be sure that the bishops are reporting cases and acting on them as the bishops claim. Because we have learned that most of these hierarchs have been known to lie and cover up facts,, and because we cannot be sure they’ve changed, we really don’t know what is going on. See Philadelphia as an example of more terrible lying and enabling and covering up. It was only because the Grand Jury there persisted in checking out some old data that the Jury was led to new, appalling revelations.
A particular problem with the Dallas Charter is that the review boards it calls for operate at the discretion of the bishops. If a bishop choses to hide stuff, as they used to do, the review board won’t know it, and it won’t be reported. Again, see Philadelphia There is no real over-sight of the bishops — no one or group who can demand data and provide censure if it’s not forthcoming. We really don’t know what is going on.
Tom Roberts has a critical piece at NCR today that raises questions about data.
Here’s a link to Tom’s NCR piece:
http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/critics-point-john-jay-studys-limitations
Re: the NCR piece: I think we can all accept that the John Jay study had limitations, and that it didn’t purport to answer every question to which every reader would like an answer. It’s not impossible that new evidence could come to light that would change the substantive conclusions of the study, although it seems pretty unlikely.
What has now changed is that any grand theories about sexual abuse that simply ignore the evidence and conclusions of the John Jay study are no longer entitled to being taken seriously.
Barbara writes that she “. . . finds the Cardinal’s statement about police power to be very strange. The fact is, the church has all the power it needs to discipline and if necessary remove priests from the active ministry, and certainly, from serving in parishes or any other capacity where children are present.”
Agreed. Since when did the church lack the power to police itself? Look at the case of Bishop Morris in Australia, or the many others who have been told to keep their views to themselves. Even Cardinal Schönborn of Vienna was apparently told to get lost when he suggested the time had come to reform the Curia.
Jim wrote: “criminal statutes of limitations would prevent law enforcement from taking action against old allegations that, for the sake of the victims, and that of possible future victims of the offender, should not be ignored.”
I would say that it’s a problem with law enforcement. The criminal statutes of limitations are defective if they prevent action against possible future crimes. I don’t think that the bishops are necessarily the ones who should step in when the law is defective.
Reaching out to victims — now, that’s pastoral, it’s for all of us to do, and I don’t see why bishops in particular should be expected to do it. We can try to comfort one another. If a bishop does it too, great. If not, never mind, we don’t need a bishop for that, we can do it ourselves as a community.
Regarding “tough love” etc., you are holding bishops to a high moral standard, but they are just as weak as the next person. Again, if they can be good leaders and friends for their priests, great. If not, we should probably take upon us the responsibility of taking care of our priests anyway, including with “tough love”.
In short: if you don’t expect anything from the bishops, you won’t be disappointed and everything that will come from them will be like a gift. You can love your bishop, but you can’t count on him, and you have to take into your own hands the things that you really care about. If your bishop helps, encourages, inspires, wonderful. If not, it’s not critical.
I wrote, “criminal statutes of limitations would prevent law enforcement from taking action against old allegations that, for the sake of the victims, and that of possible future victims of the offender, should not be ignored.”
Claire replied, “I would say that it’s a problem with law enforcement. The criminal statutes of limitations are defective if they prevent action against possible future crimes. I don’t think that the bishops are necessarily the ones who should step in when the law is defective.”
I certainly agree that it’s a problem with criminal statutes of limitations laws in that the window closed on reporting far too quickly. We know now that ten years is far too little time. But even for those states that have enacted longer windows, the problem isn’t solved for those crimes that were committed while the too-short limitations were in effect, because those crimes are bound only by those defective limitations. Crimes that occurred outside the limits just aren’t prosecutable.
“Reaching out to victims — now, that’s pastoral, it’s for all of us to do, and I don’t see why bishops in particular should be expected to do it.”
We all can and should do what we’re able. But it’s particularly appropriate for the bishop to reach out to victims, because of who the bishop is. He symbolizes the entire priesthood of his diocese, and symbolizes the pastoral care for the flock that the church is supposed to provide.
Of course, in addition to all of that, there are times when the bishop is himself personally and directly responsible because he is the one who personally ignored allegations and put the victim at risk.
“Regarding “tough love” etc., you are holding bishops to a high moral standard, but they are just as weak as the next person. Again, if they can be good leaders and friends for their priests, great. If not, we should probably take upon us the responsibility of taking care of our priests anyway, including with “tough love”.”
We don’t have any way to control priests. I agree with much of the comments made above regarding police powers, but want to note that the people have absolutely no control, formal or informal, over what a priest does, where he is assigned, and so on. We have no way of preventing him from abusing.
“I don’t see the need to pile on but I find the Cardinal’s statement about police power to be very strange. The fact is, the church has all the power it needs to discipline and if necessary remove priests from the active ministry, and certainly, from serving in parishes or any other capacity where children are present. You don’t need police power to fire someone (either de facto or constructively).”
I agree. I’m not sure exactly what he meant about police power, but he may be referring to the fact that, even after a priest is removed from ministry, so long as the church is still responsible for him, the church is still liable for his misdeeds. I’ve commented in the past that this is the flaw in the ‘send ‘em all to a monastery to live out a life of penance’ plan. There is no monastery, or jail, where a bishop can send abusing priests.
Personally, I continue to believe that bishops and Rome need to be very vigorous about pushing abusers through the expedited process to remove them permanently from the priesthood as quickly as possible, so that the liability doesn’t extend any further than is necessary. An exception could be made for priests who are clearly harmless, e.g. those who are now in nursing homes.
To say Bishops are as weak as anyone doesn’ t mean by position they shouldn’t (and haven’t been) held to a higher standard.
We let (as Ann rightly argues) these cardinals stay on and their colleagues and supporters stand by silently -shame indeed! And shame on minimizing that record!
I’ve been following this thread for the past day or so from a respectful distance, as I’m still reading the various responses to the Report and responses to the responses, etc.
I’m troubled by the immediate jump to castigate Card. George and “the bishops” (as if they were all of one cloth) for various and sundry things. I think we need to keep in mind, for one thing, that “the Bishops” HAVE responded to the crisis, and the Report shows a dramatic DECREASE in the instances of abuse. Indeed, in some ways its amazing that the Church as an institution moved as quickly as it did (beginning with Dallas) to address these problems; I can think of no other large institution in American life subject to scandal that has reacted as quickly. For example, its taken accountants years to address the loopholes that led to Enron. Second, we keep saying “the Bishops”, but point to a statistical minority of high profile bishops, like Law. This ignores, to me, the large number of bishops who did act correctly, or at least the fact that as Card. George points, the number of current bishops who weren’t even bishops at the worst of the abuse (or even a mere 9 years ago). This is not to say, obviously, that their response has been flawless or that we should ignore the real breakdowns in administrative oversight that caused this abuse, but it often seems that larger battles get thrown into the “Bishops just don’t get it” narrative (basically every other doctrinal issue today). I’m not sure that’s conducive to the dialogue on how to correct the past mistakes.
Finally, one voice seems missing to me in some of these debates, and that’s the massive percentage of priests who go about their business in good faith. On the basis of my friendship with 2 or 3 of my local diocesan priests (all readers of Commonweal I would add), the represent that there is a real broken-ness in their spirit, that they feel, in a sense, battle-worn, and that the reality of the minute percentage of abusers among their number is being lost in these larger battles. For example, recently here in my local Diocese in La, a very well-known, respected pastor was falsely accused of sexual abuse. Before the news was even made public, he was stripped of his faculties, vacated the rectory, and placed in a mental clinic somewhere unknown. Meanwhile, the purported victim was front-page news and lead the nightly newscasts (albeit anonymously), while the priest’s name was public. A year later this Easter, when the priest was re-instated, the story was a “feature” in the Saturday religion section (buried deep in the fold), and not even on the front page of that section. According to my friends,there are many priests who are traumatized of this happening to them, and they feel as though there is no sense of balance and fair play.
Anyway, just my 3 or 4 cents; now everyone can tear into me for white-washing the Bishops and defending clericalism, and, by proxy I guess, justifying child abuse.
Well, Jim and Bob, I know you agree with me that with responsibility comes accountability. Let me take this and turn it around to give you a logically equivalent statement: since bishops are not accountable, they have no responsibility.
Whatever comes from them that is good is a gift from God, but we should not expect anything.
Jeff -
Re: high profile bishops, US members of the Congregation for Bishops, who evaluate and nominate to the Pope new candidates for appointment as bishop are Law, Rigali, Levada, and Burke. All have thoroughly documented histories of having concealed and facilitated crime-related behavior by priest abusers. Their task is to form up the next generation of bishops. Do you suppose their long-established values and standards flip when they do that task? If there were a group to leave, they should lead it.
Given his performance _after_ Dallas, Card. George can join the group.
The missing voice of priests is worth considering. Out of about 40,000, guess how many favor child sexual abuse and its coverup, and guess how many are opposed. I don’t believe there is at present any other way to get a rough idea except guess. In 2002, 58 Boston priests wrote publicly to Law calling for him to go and telling him why.
http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories3/121002_letter.htm
Have there been 58 since then with similar courage and commitment to what is right? Joining up is critical since, one by one, they can be squelched by their bishop. Some are probably in too complicated positions to do much. The 1st Grand Jury report in Philadelphia found:
(p.8) “Finding 10. Many non-offender priests have remained silent in the face of clear evidence that a brother priest is sexually molesting a minor, and in some cases have actually covered up the abuse. The Archbishop and his appointed administrative managers foster this silence in order to avoid scandal in the Church and do not encourage priests to report suspected abusers.”
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2003_09_25_First_Philadelphia_Grand_Jury_Report.pdf
It could make a big difference if a few more were to speak up, in Philadelphia or elsewhere.
Jeff –
I don’t know how old you are, and you might not remember. But I remember very well the national outcry about the case of Fr. Gauthe in 1984. After that the cases of abuse started to snowball. So don’t tell me that the hierarchy acted quickly. I also remember reading that even *before* the Gauthe case, Cardinal Bernardin was so concerned about such abuse that he tried to get the bishops’ organization to start acting on the problem, but they refused.
I’m the one who brought up Cardinals Law, George and Rigali on this thread. They are NOT a statistical misrepresentation of powerful cardinals who have been involved in conspicuously bad cover-ups, unless you think I should have also included Cardinal Mahoney who ended up paying hundreds of millions of dollars to victims because of his egregiously bad handling of the cases in his diocese. But he is retired, unlike the other three.
“US members of the Congregation for Bishops, who evaluate and nominate to the Pope new candidates for appointment as bishop are Law, Rigali, Levada, and Burke. All have thoroughly documented histories of having concealed and facilitated crime-related behavior by priest abusers. Their task is to form up the next generation of bishops. Do you suppose their long-established values and standards flip when they do that task? If there were a group to leave, they should lead it. ”
Yet despite this, I think it is a consensus view that the quality of the men appointed to the episcopacy under Benedict has dramatically improved than the quality of appointments under his predecessor, so I’m not sure what this shows, except perhaps that Benedict has an independent mind.
Ann, I’m referring to the report and the numbers. Attack it if you want, not me.
Not to excuse anything here, but in my humble view, it seems that:
Society began loosening up morally (rattling apart) in the late 1950’s and by the 1960’s the sexual revolution was sin full roar and it continued until about 1980. Before the 1950’s, because societal norms and sexual mores were strong enough, robust enough to keep most folks in line, even a priest that had a tendency for deviancy would likewise have effectively been more restrained in any acting out of desires.
Those norms and standards were lowered of course, and priests were caught up in the 1960’s changes. Seminaries began to loosen things up a bit as well, some gay men were ordained, and everyone was in general more relaxed about all these matters. Also, the widely held notion that “everything was changing” – in both society and the Church – that everything was up for grabs, allowed some Catholics to maintain a certain cognitive dissonance regarding their own notions of sexuality. Humanae Vitae notwithstanding, these sorts of Catholics assumed that even though they were currently not in-line with Catholic teaching, that the Church would soon catch up with their more modern views, and that all would be Ok.
By the mid 1970’s and into the 1980’s most modern, “forward-thinking” types and the psychology folks promoted the notion of therapy, no guilt or shaming of course, and so when priests from that era began to exhibit problems, the local bishops – probably horrified by the accusations and socially inept about how to handle the whole situation – handed the problem priest off to therapists. The therapy crowd assured the good bishops the predator priests could be cured and so when discharged from treatment, the bishop re-assigned the man, sadly with little or no oversight.
The individual deviant priests’ failings in all this are manifest of course, and the effect of changes in societal norms and degenerating social mores of the 1960’s is also obvious.
It seems the bishops’ main failing during those days (years) was in their not wanting to deal with this head-on, their handing sexual deviants off to therapists and whistling in the dark, basically putting their own heads in the sand, hoping it would all just go away.
It is good the USCCB commissioned this report; hopefully the bishops and all concerned will learn something from it.
In short then, while there are several factors involved in how the deviance developed, the Bishops’ reactions involved:
Pride
Excessive secrecy and,
Looking for the easy way out
All of which usually lead to a mess; in this case a big mess
“By the mid 1970’s and into the 1980’s most modern, “forward-thinking” types and the psychology folks promoted the notion of therapy, no guilt or shaming of course,”
Ken,
I agree with a great deal of what you say up to this point. I don’t doubt that the loosening of moral bonds probably had some effect on all sorts of people, including gays and those who just want to experiment. (I think there are a goodly number of the latter.)
But your estimate of what therapy is like is off-base. Therapists generally do not assume there is no guilt. There is a new meme among the conservatives in the American Church that therapy is a cause of our troubles. Look again On the contrary, a lot of the therapeutic process is getting people to *face* their own responsibility for their behavior, then giving them help to change.
By the way, yesterday I got hooked on Dr. Phil’s program, a documentation of the intervention of a family one of whom is on drugs and killing herself. It will end today. Take a look, and you’ll find an extremely loving family trying to force this pig-headed young woman to really look at herself and her self-destructive problems. No way can you accuse Dr. Phil of not insisting on personal respeonsibility. You really need to read up on what therapy is generally reall like.
Thanks Ann; point taken. I am not familiar with psychological therapy and how it has evolved. I will read up on it sometime.
I was trying to point out that while today we understand that returning sexual deviants or predators to normal duties after psycho-therapy (after they have “taken the cure” so to speak) is not reasonable, in those days most experts considered it to be a more reasonable practice.
Another problem with that narrative is that it doesn’t comport with the evidence, notably that many of the cases involved priests being reassigned without getting any therapeutic intervention at all. As for blindly following the advice of therapists (too bad that never extended to other social issues, btw), that also doesn’t hold up: as early as 1948 Fr. Fitzgerald from the Holy Paraclete treatment facility was warning church leaders that there was no treatment, nothing that could ensure against recidivism, and no moral justification for transferring a priest or relocating him to another parish.
There is a fascinating article from the NYT about one of the psychologists who worked closely with the church to treat abusive priests. It’s here if you are interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/10beliefs.html?scp=85&sq=pedophile&st=nyt
Basically, the “treatment” for abusers is often comprised of redirecting their interest to a more appropriate sexual partner (which can’t be done for pedophiles because there is no appropriate partner). In many cases, it seems to me, the “solution” would have been to acknowledge that a priest is incapable of celibacy and support him to transition to a different career and redirect his sexual interest to potential adult partners. This isn’t exactly something the Church would have seen as a great outcome, but it was probably the most likely way of stopping abuse and allowing the priest to live openly without engaging in sexually deviant behavior.
Frankly, I am assuming that in a lot of cases in which heterosexual priests left to get married, they came to this conclusion on their own, but that there are and were a great many impediments to implementing this kind of solution for homosexual priests — both within and outside the church — and lacking support, they were thus less likely to leave to pursue adult male relationships.
Barbara – I think there is a lot of sense in what you say.
FWIW – quite a few members of the permanent diaconate are former seminarians who realized before ordination that a lifetime of celibacy was not what they were called to, so they left the seminary, got married and had a family and career. With the advent of the permanent diaconate, some of these former seminarians have now discerned that the diaconate is what they’ve been called to, or are called to now at any rate.
(In case there are any idly curious out there, I will add that I have never been a seminarian :-))
ps – Barbara – very good (and disturbing!) article. Some straightforward talk about these sick men.
“(In case there are any idly curious out there, I will add that I have never been a seminarian :-))”
Your mother wasn’t of Irish extraction, was she?
Claire said: “Whatever comes from them that is good is a gift from God, but we should not expect anything.”
Some time ago I read this and have never forgotten it:
“Blessed are those from whom you expect nothing; you shall not be disappointed.”
Ken said: “Seminaries (in the 1960s)began to loosen things up a bit as well, some gay men were ordained, and everyone was in general more relaxed about all these matters.”
I’ll let you in on a little secret: gay men have been ordained into the priesthood LONG before the 1960s! Most of them have, and continue to be, good holy men, dedicated to their vocation and living it out in a life of integrity, celibacy and pastoral leadership.
Don’t forget that massive disillusionment set in between V2 and 1970s and THOUSANDS of men left, a great many to get married. So much for their dedication to their calling. But, I will give them credit for haing a proper sense of integrity and walking away from what they couldn’t support any more.
Mark Silk opines and poo-poohs the “swinging sixties” defense:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/may/25/woodstock-defence-abuse-catholic-church
Whew Jimmy Mac, I am glad you cleared that up – wow.
Of course gay people have been around throughout history and no doubt occasionally became Roman Catholic priests, albeit without officialdom noticing.
However, as I think I also mentioned, prior to the 1950’s, societal norms and sexual mores were strong enough, i.e., relatively strict and robust enough to keep most folks in line, even a priest who had a tendency toward homosexuality or other deviancy would likewise have effectively been much more restrained in any acting out of his sexual desires.
In any case, prior to the 1960’s, I doubt seminaries knowingly ordained gay men.
For what it is worth, in future the seminaries will no doubt, continue to unknowingly ordain gay men to the priesthood; that simply is not the issue at hand.
Seminaries now have guidelines in place to filter out various personality types that are incompatible with being a priest and thankfully, bishops now have better guidelines on how to handle problematic priests.
It was good the bishops commissioned this report; hopefully they will glean useful information from it.
I don’t believe the authors of the John Jay study use the term “Woodstock defense”, nor do they mount one.
They do report what Mark Silk recaps: that reported cases of abuse in the US rose throughout the ’50s and ’60′s, peaked throughout the ’70s, then declined sharply beginning in the early ’80′s.
I’m not sure what that purports to “defend”. Buried under that mountain is an enormous human toll.
Mark Silk’s point seems to be that the report doesn’t say what he wishes it would.
Ken -
ONe of the problems with the whole field of psychotherapy is that it is extremely difficult to measure results. I understand from a young psychiatrist friend that psychiatrists more and more use pills to cure people, and I wonder i this is because the results are more easily measurable. But there is evidence that drugs plus talk therapy sometimes works better, e.g., for very serious depression.
It used to be you had to be an MD to be a therapist, but now social workers and clinical psychologist also do therapies of many kinds except, of course, drug therapy. So what really works? I suspect it will be a long time before we know exactly, but therapy is certainly popular though expensive, so I trust that at least some kinds work well, and experience will eventually tell us which ones work best.
Pedophilia seems to have presented a special problem by its very nature — the acts are usually hidden and the victims’ experiences are also often covered-up. Small wonder that understanding of that topic lags behind some of the others. Even Freud, with all his over-emphasis on sexuality, wouldn’t admit the frequency of certain sorts of sexual problems, and if I remember correctly, it was the frequency of sexual abuse of children by parents that he denied.
Ken –
Some men don’t discover/admit/realize until they are past 25 years old that they prefer men. I’m quite sure that there were young priests in that group, and that most became good priests. No doubt some of them became bishops and knew from their own experience that gay priests can be fine priests, so they didnt mind ordaining some more.
In fact it wasn’t until the 19th century that people even started to think of homosexuals as a separate group. There wasn’t even a *word* for homosexuality. So they couldn’t have been consciously excluded from ordination.
“Of course gay people have been around throughout history and no doubt occasionally became Roman Catholic priests, albeit without officialdom noticing.”
Mercy, what a navie little world in which you live, Ken! “Occasionally?” Without officialdom noticing — as if the totality of “officialdom” was 100% heterosexual!
You obviously have not spent much time in and around St. Peter’s Square and Basilica and noticed the coming and going of some of “officialdom” in their finery.
Denial is no longer only the river in Egypt, but has found its way right here in dotC.
I just do not think it correct to cast aspersions on all priests on account of a few deviants, when the fact of the matter is the vast majority of priests are very fine men.
I have know priests throughout my life; as an altar boy, when I was in choir and later as a stand-in lector, and as an adult when I did some lighting upgrades for several priests, and I can honestly say that to a man, all of the priests with whom I have come in contact with over my life (I am in my forty’s) have been decent men. They have my respect; I am glad to have met and gotten know each of them; it is my pleasure and moreover, I am grateful each one accepted his particular vocation.
How these good men so patiently tolerate all the unwarranted berating and the routine whining about this and that at the parish level I do not know; they are better men than I.
Ken –
Not all of the priests I’ve know have been good men, but most have — so far as I can tell. I have even know one priest (my old pastor) who turned in a conspicuously bad one and made the case public when our bishop was initially inclined to keep it secret and treat it like a minor matter.
There have not been many priests like that one, unfortunately, and those of us who have known victims do get very impatient with the priests who have been silent about predators they have known. But they have to deal with their bishops, and it’s the bishops, you’ll notice, who are the ones wecomplainer are particularly incensed at. They have not done everything that needs doing. even though this whole stinking mess went public in 1985.
Until those bishops are willing to do what needs doing, many of us think that we mustn’t remain silent about them. It’s their own secrecy that has been one of the worst enabling mechanisms throughout the scandals. They must change. Justice for the children requires it.
“How these good men so patiently tolerate all the unwarranted berating and the routine whining about this and that at the parish level I do not know; they are better men than I.”
I cannot agree more with this statement based on my friendships. In my opinion, most of these priests feel “trapped” between a rock and a hard place, namely between their bishop (who usually finds himself in his own pickle), and a parish/lay persons who, while good-intentioned, often make demands that any human would find difficult to meet and who are quick to slap them with a label for their every failing. On top of all this, in my opinion, is the toxic environment that now fills the Church. In some ways, our Church is no different than the large political culture. We have groups whose sole purpose is to gin up conflict and stoke the flames of anger. It is all quite sad in my opinion, but then again as they say, “thus was it ever”. Nonetheless (and I know I’ll get pilloried for suggesting thus) I found the data in the study encouraging re: the declining incidents of abuse. Yes, there are still breakdowns, but overall, I think we have to say we’re heading in generally the right direction. Of course for those who think the problem is hierarchy itself, or episcopal authority itself, or whose only view of “progress” requires the wholesale re-making of the Church from its present form, this will never be sufficient. This is where the example of long-suffering Catholics such as Congar, Danielou, Rahner, etc. are useful to me; they had faith that the Church was bigger than their single insights, and trusted the overall guidance of the Spirit exercised in the Church’s institutional means, imperfect as that was/is.
Sound familiar? “One of America’s leading ultra-Orthodox groups has reaffirmed that its followers must consult a rabbi before going to law enforcement authorities with suspicions of sexual abuse committed by community members.”
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/138131/#ixzz1NZJgmmbs
Thanks for the web link Margaret. It is worth noting that the article is specifically about an Orthodox Jewish community.
Perhaps all sexual abuse cases do not all lead to Rome?