Cardinal Levada: No sanctions for bishops
At a lunch meeting today with journalists sponsored by Time magazine, Cardinal William Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who Joseph Ratzinger named to replace himself at the CDF when Ratzinger was elected pope, answered a number of good questions about the papal visit so far. But in addressing the sexual abuse crisis, he rejected any suggestion that Benedict’s statements and meeting with victims was opening the door to disciplining bishops.
In fact, the cardinal seemed to bristle at a suggestion that some bishops had “aided and abetted” priest-abusers by not acting to remove them.
“I don’t believe that,” Levada said. “I know bishops who have said to me, if I had known then what I know now, I would have acted differently.” But he said the bishops who moved abusers around to other parishes or did not remove them from ministry were acting on bad advice from experts and psychiatrists.
“So it [the scandal] has been a learning experience for bishops,” the cardinal said.
“I personally do not accept that there has been a broad base of bishops guilty of aiding and abetting pedophiles…If I thought there were, I would certainly want to talk to them about that.”
Those quotations are from my notes; video of the Q&A will be posted at Time’s website later this evening. I have written more over at “Benedictions.” Levada also told some good stories and displayed a droll sense of humor. But his remarks about accountability for bishops are not likely to please many Catholics.
Spin is on ever so rapidly. Clearly, SNAP was pretty prescient with this press release issued before Levada’s talk:
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
April 18, 2008
For immediate release: Friday, April 18, 2008
Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, CA, the Survivors Network of
those Abused by Priests (949-322-7434 cell)
Read here…
AUTHOR NOTE: Bill I just inluded a link to the SNAP release so as to save on space in your post. Thanks. David.
What C. Levada meant about the ‘bishops knowing… if I knew then what I know now’ was the 2 billion bucks and bankruptcies! He and the other bishops thought they could cover up. As far a heeding bad advice from psychiatrists , when was the date that Catholic hierarchy changed their minds that psychiatists/ psychologists were all kooks? It took till the mid sixties before any Catholic school gave a major in psychology. I’d say about 1978 was the date when the first bishop even spoke to a psychiatrist [and ignored him]
When we [San Francisco VOTF laity]met with him in 2003 he bristled at all suggestions that anything was wrong. After the 1 billion California payout he left for Rome.
For one brief shining moment, there was hope. So, maybe a change or two in the technicalities of canon law, but no facing the open sore in the church about unaccountable bishops. Bella figura rules. The bleached language of public relations that issues from chanceries about “we didn’t know” finds currency most places.
Look, bishops hid full abuse histories from treatment centers, misused diagnoses, and shopped for compliant professionals. And even when told by four experts about compulsive recidivism, it made no difference. (Meeting with Law, McCormack and Harvard/BU medical experts in 1993 – tops in the field, but their recommendations excluded from first policy McC developed. “I felt betrayed,” said one.)
I can post many URL’s to prove allegations, but am left with the dispiriting conclusion that the facts really do not matter. Time to “move on,” but we cannot do that based on falsehood.
See Levada’s history – The Man Who Keeps Secrets at http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/man-who-keeps-secrets by Jason Berry
Blind Eye Unto the Holy See at http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2005-07-13/news/feature_print.html
I think the most dangerous trap was fallen into by the bishops. “Beware the man who listens to a talk and thinks of another man”. I think the pope did the best he could on a trip like to stress the importance of the sexual abuse. I think all the bishops listened and said I know who he’s talking about, but cetainly not me. This is exactly what Levada expressed, which is why all things in the church change and remain the same. God help all those who are waiting for the Bishops to change. None of us are young enough to live long enough to see that.
David, I hope you’ll tell us more about what it’s like to cover this gig.
From my vantage point as a mere news consumer, the pattern seems to be that the Pope give homilies and makes speeches (which, ironically, are posted on the Vatican site as if he’d never even left Rome), and then meets behind closed doors where the real stuff happens, apparently without reporters present. Or am I wrong?
Except for the surprise meeting with the sex abuse victims, how have Catholics benefited from this trip? What has the Pope said or done here that he could not have said at a distance with the same impact?
It strikes me as very choreographed, with a flood of clerics rushing in behind every day’s events–Levada at your Time lunch; last night Reese and Fessio on PBS smiling and nodding at each other like they were best buds; and tonight yet another one proclaiming on NPR while I was making supper that “Americans are warming to the Pope’s message!”–to make a lot of happy noise about the whole thing. (Well, except for Neuhaus’s grumbling about the musical selections at one of the liturgies.)
I realize we live in an age where messages are carefully controlled in many aspects of public life, so I don’t mean to harp on the Pope and his handlers specifically–only that all the glitz seems more appropriate to a figurehead like Queen Elizabeth who carries an empty purse, than the spiritual leader of a billion people.
It’s clear why the pope chose Levada for his old job as CDF head. The pope plays the role of the good cop by meeting with victims–finally, after 7 years. In counterpoint, Levada plays the role of the bad cop bringing us the bad, but not surprising, news: the pope’s words don’t implicate the bishops in wrongdoing and no bishops will face sanctions.
The cover up, the whitewash, continues.
Why would anyone with a sense of realpolitik be surprised? There is no other way. This is organizational hardball. This is the real world. To admit the bishops were, and are, guilty of wrongdoing would topple the whole house of Vatican cards built on the flimsy foundation of “apostolic succession.” Better to shed a tear or two, blow smoke at the faithful, and let them go home with a nice warm feeling about their papal “leader.”
Besides meeting with some victims, what has been accomplished?
I watched the Pope’s speech to the bishops and because I couldn’t hear well, I started to watch the reactions of the bishops intently. I was struck by their uniformly grim expressions. They obviously realized that they were being called down severely (though not harshly) and, most humiliating of all, they were being called down before the whole world Bishops rarely receive that sort of attention, much less from a pope. It was a good lesson, I think, for them to learn that they *can* make grievous mistakes for which they are responsible.
It’s still a mystery to me how they could have behaved as they did. How could they *not* have realized the devastation the children suffered? How could they have ignored the anquish of thousands of parents? Unless I assume that they are all evil men (which I cannot believe), then the only explanation I can think of is that they are that rather common sort of person who can convince themselves that things are as they *wish them to be*. They aren’t all liars, They have been in severe denial, and they seem to reinforce each other! They’re like the cult mothers on TV this week who have convinced themselves that none of their children have been abused. Perhaps the bishops’ behavior is the typical behavior of cult members. people whose judgments can fly in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Here’s something new and good which Pope Benedict said: analysis of issues must be on the basis of faith *and evidence*. Is thi something new coming out of the Vatican? Yes, I think the emphasis is new. we have too often seen bishops ignoring the overwhelming evidence of history in judging what the truths of the faith and morals are.
So back to my old chant: the Church needs an expanded theological epistemology, one that requires us to take into account *all sorts of evidence from all sorts of sources*, not only in matters of faith and morals but also in making prudential judgments.
In my experience we all block out evidence that makes us uncomfortable or fearful. What can the Church do? Well, for starters the Vatican Office of Penance (or whatever its name is) can add ‘ignoring evidence’ to its recently published list of new sins:
Bishops often appointed known or accused abusers as Boys Scout Chaplains. This does not look like an error of judgment, but aiding and abetting.
Nor has the problem ended. The bishops of Regenburg, where the Pope taught, let a convicted child molester work in a parish with children, for a time contrary to his probation order and completely contrary to what the German bishops had promised. See the Peter Kramer case study at podles.org. Kramer abused again. Benedict not only did not criticize Bishop Mueller of Regensburg, he appointed Mueller to the CDF.
Bishops know they will never suffer any consequences in the Church even if they let priests abuse children. They have only the secular arm to fear, and no district attorney will go after a bishop for being an accessory to a felony. As for the monetary damages – they do not come out of the bishops’ pockets. The overall cost of abuse is a few mills on the dollar of contributions to the Church in the past decades, and in fact overall contributions are up.
Lee and Andy hit the nail on the head!
Jean, of course the entire visit has been choreographed and stage managed down to a tee.
Tha’s OK if the mesage is positive (which BXVI has worked hard at) and crdeible (which the case of Levada indicates it’s probably not going to be anything but busines as usual.)
Expect more cherry picking of quotes from BXVI to salvage his “affirmative orthodoxy” but many will look to see if he is practicing what he preaches.
If the bishops behaved so badly, what does this suggest for Fr. Thomas ["Tom"] Reese’s most recent advocacy of bishops’ synods? Will the bishops suddenly improve? Can they be trusted? Or will we end up with something like the U.S. Congress?
There seems to be, on the one hand, a call for the Holy Father to intervene. And on the other for him to stay out of involvement with the Church in the U.S. This reminds me of the man who jumped on his horse, and rode off in all directions.
[...] Federico Lombardi sought to quell speculation in news reports (including yesterday’s posting here) that Rome was considering changes in the canonical statute of limitations to make it easier to [...]
Can there be any doubt that Pope Benedict and his trusted appointee Cardinal Levada are on the same page?
The head of S.N.A.P. was on MSNBC this morning. He said (if I heard him right) that the abuse victims who met with the Pope had the definite impression that he would establish a “rule” for holding bishops accountable. Let’s hope this isn’t wishful thinking.
To Andrew Savarese:
You wrote, “I think the pope did the best he could…to stress the importance of the sexual abuse [issue].”
Can I respectfully ask, “Why do you think that?” I’d say he could have done more. He acknowledged, in his talk to the bishops, that the abuse crisis “was sometimes very badly handled.” Given the tactics some bishops resorted to, couldn’t Benedict have added, “We will sanction those bishops, just as we sanctioned the priests who they enabled, and who abused children”?
More specifically, why couldn’t he do something along the lines of what was done here in El Salvador when its 12-year civil war ended? On the question of impunity for top-ranking authorities, there are parallels between what happened in El Salvador and what has happened in the church.
“No more impunity!” had been the cry in El Salvador since the pre-war years — no more impunity for those at the top who flagrantly violated human rights (or permitted or ordered others to do so), and who were never held accountable. Even in high-profile cases — for example, the rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen in 1980, and the murder of six Jesuits and two co-workers in 1989 – only the underlings were punished. Thanks to cover-ups and obstruction of justice (sound familiar?), the higher-ups were never brought to justice.
Salvadorans insisted that this be stopped, and that steps be taken against the victimizers — if not criminal trials, then at least a gesture in which the government acknowledged that some of its own — operating at very high levels — had done things that were terribly wrong, so wrong that a house-cleaning was called for. This demand was taken into account in the war-ending peace accords, which mandated the naming of a special review board. Called the Ad Hoc Commission, its job was to critically examine the records of the highest-ranking army officers, and to decide who should stay and who should be dismissed. As a result, some officers were removed from their posts. True, they’ve never been prosecuted, but the families of their victims drew some solace from seeing that, at long last, the generals and colonels had been stripped of their impunity.
Why couldn’t Benedict appoint an Ad Hoc Commission to review the records of the bishops in question? And why couldn’t that commission remove the bishops against whom the evidence was clear and convincing? Or are there good reasons why this shouldn’t be done?