Coming and Going

Archbishop Cordileone celebrating
Mass in the usus antiquior 

Recently over a hundred prominent San Francisco area Catholics published an open letter to Pope Francis petitioning “Holy Father, please provide us with a leader true to our values and your namesake.  Please replace Archbishop Cordileone.”  The letter was signed by leading lay Catholics from the worlds of philanthropy, business, law, civil service, and education. 

Signers complained that the Archbishop is very much out of touch with his flock and is not providing the sort of leadership requisite to his office as he does not know “who the bedrock of the San Francisco Catholic community is.”  The signers also charge that the Archbishop is responsible for “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”  The loss of confidence in Cordileone’s leadership is not related to a single issue but has been building ever since he was named to the See.  Nevertheless, San Francisco being, well, San Francisco, his attempts to impose a “morality clause” on diocesan employees, including teachers in the Catholic schools that requires not only their adherence to Catholic doctrine but conforming their lives to Catholic sexual ethics has met with considerable resistance.  Later the Archbishop supported local pastor, the Reverend Joseph Illo, in banning girls from serving at the altar during liturgical services at the Star of the Sea parish where Illo is pastor.  Father Illo also distributed a pamphlet to young students listing potential sins including masturbation, sexual acts, abortion, and sterilization.  The pamphlet, designed to help individuals examine their consciences prior to confessing their sins, was deemed by many parents not to be age appropriate to their children.  Illo, a priest of the Stockton Diocese, transferred to San Francisco in hopes of beginning “an Oratory.”  The Oratorians are communities of secular priests who live together in a scholarly and gentlemanly way and generally sponsor churches where there is a revival of the pre-Vatican II liturgy done with great splendor. 

Jesuit Father James Martin, on the editorial staff of America magazine, said that such petitions to remove bishops have not been uncommon over the past few decades but neither have they been effective.  What is interesting in this particular situation, however, is that this past week Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City MO, has “resigned” under pressure from the Vatican.  Bishop Finn had been found guilty of sheltering from legal proceedings a priest whom the Bishop knew to have been guilty of child pornography.  Strangely enough, under Missouri law, that is only a misdemeanor, but a Vatican investigation determined that Finn could no longer function effectively as the spiritual leader of Catholics in the 27 counties of western and north-western Missouri. The question will be does Cordileone have the confidence of his flock to lead.  Conservative Catholics have started a push-back campaign to support Archbishop Cordileone.

Like Finn, Cordileone has a misdemeanor in his background—Cordileone’s for a 2012 driving under the influence (of alcohol) charge.  Perhaps more interesting, both Finn and Cordileone are protégés of Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke who remains a Cardinal in good standing but certainly a prelate in bad odor in Pope Francis’ Rome.  In other words, Cordileone, like Finn, lacks a mediatrix of needed grace at a time most needed. 

Meanwhile, priests and people in the Southern Chile Diocese Osorno continue to protest the installation of Monsignor Juan Barros Madrid as local bishop.  Pope Francis appointed Barros despite the claims of three men that Barros had been present when they had been sexually molested by Barros’ friend Fernando Karadima in the 1980’s and 90’s. Barros denies knowledge of Karadima’s sexual abuse of the men. Although criminal charges against Karadima were dropped due to the statute of limitations, after investigation the Vatican stripped Karadima of his priestly status.  Barros had served as a chaplain to the Chilean military before being named bishop. 

So where will it all end.  It is anyone’s guess, of course, but I will be very surprised if any action is take against Archbishop Cordileone.  It would be a bad precedent to act on a public petition, especially one signed by only one hundred people and a somewhat self-selected group at that. On the other hand, the effort launched by conservative Catholics to support the Archbishop might in turn trigger a more popular response.  There is no doubt that if push were to come to shove, Cordileone would lack the support of the majority of Catholics in his Archdiocese.  This is not only due to his princely ways and dogmatic leadership.  Frankly, many American bishops could not win the support of the majority of their flocks.  People may not mount petitions or get out and demonstrate, but despite the great popularity of Pope Francis, and the loyalty that most give to their local parishes, Americans rarely get much positive energy about their bishops.  At the end of the day, American Catholics are (culturally) Protestants and have never understood the Catholic structure.  While the Popes, even the less popular ones like Pope Benedict, remain a strong symbol of our being Catholic, we really tend to congregationalism and somewhat resent a prelate who usually does not know us well interfering with our parishes and, even more perhaps, taking a percentage of our parish funds for his causes.  Given the size of American dioceses, a parish might only see a bishop once or twice in a year and then in a highly ritualized context.  As long as they are dignitaries they can’t function effectively as pastors.  The fact that so many appointed over the last thirty-some years were chosen not for their pastoral style but for their canon-law ability has not helped their estimation in the eyes of the rank and file.  In Cordileone’s case—as in Finn’s—their penchant for “rings and things and buttons and bows” has certainly not helped them establish the sort of genuine rapport that a few of their predecessors in the episcopal dignity—people like Bernard Topel or Tom Gumbleton or Ken Untener—were able to accomplish.  Archbishop Cordileone is particularly ill-suited for the Church of San Francisco yet I doubt that he will be removed.  On the other hand, as long as Francis is Pope, I don’t expect he will be upwardly mobile either.  But then, Francis is old and Cordileone is still young so que sera, sera.  

Krazies Take Arms: Lanterns in The Steeple.

Monsignor Urrutigoity Celebrating

Holy Thursday Mass in the Old 
Rite  

They say that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you and, in the same vein, just because they’re krazy doesn’t mean that the katholic krazies aren’t right to think that the tide is going against them in the Church where Francis is Pope.  Several of the krazy blogs that I read to get my blood pressure out of the basement have been wailing and whining about Pope Francis this past week removing Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano from his Diocese of Ciudad del Este after an apostolic visitation led by Spanish Cardinal Abril y Castello.  Bishop Livieres was the darling of the krazies on the extreme right.  He was an ardent supporter of the pre-conciliar rites—some sources say that almost every parish in his diocese had a “Traditional Latin Mass.”  His seminary was full—200 seminarians, the majority of whom had been dismissed from other dioceses for various reasons.  He is a member of Opus Dei and has accused the other bishops of Paraguay of being locked into the “Liberation Theology.”  In fact, he went on television to accuse his Metropolitan Archbishop, Eustaquio Cuquejo Verga, CSSR, of being gay.  What most of the krazy blogs didn’t tell you—and I will give Rorate Caeli credit for being honest where others failed—was that Bishop Livieres not only sheltered but made his Vicar General, one Monsignor Carlos Urrutigoity.  Urrutigoity began his career in the Society of Saint Pius X, the breakaway “Traditionalist” group founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in reaction against the Second Vatican Council.  Urrutigoity studied and then served at the Traditionalist seminary at La Reja in Argentina where he was first accused of inappropriate sexual behavior.  Sent to the Society’s seminary at Winona Minnesota, Urrutigoity was next accused of molesting several Winona seminarians under his care.  When Urrutigoity next surfaced in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton Pennsylvania, Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior of the Lefebvrist group wrote Bishop William Timlin, then the Bishop of Scranton, a letter of warning alleging “Our conclusion is that there is a dangerous pattern in Fr. Urrutigoity and we feel obliged to reveal this to you.” This was very generous of Bishop Fellay when one considers the ideological tension between the Society of Pius X and the mainline Catholic Church which has accepted the Second Vatican Council.

In Scranton, Urrutigoity and another priest gathered a group of young men together as the Society of Saint John—a neo-traditionalist group that turned out to be the proverbial barrel where they could shoot the proverbial fish, taking advantage of the trust of several of the younger men to entice them to sexual relations. When this came to the attention of the Diocese, Urrutigoity was sent away for evaluation and the Diocese tried to have him dismissed from the clergy, the Diocesan Review board declaring:

“In view of the credible allegation from the seminarian, his admitted practice of sleeping with boys and young men, and the troubling evaluation by the Southdown Institute, Father Carlos Urrutigoity should be removed from active ministry; his faculties should be revoked; he should be asked to live privately.”  He was suspended from priestly ministry but before the steps for dismissal were undertaken, disappeared only to show up in Ciudad del Este where he was promoted to Vicar General of the Diocese—the number 2 position in the diocese.  Local activists there protested the appointment to Bishop Livieres only to be told that the accusations against Urrutigoity—the whole series of accusations from Argentina, from Minnesota, from Scranton—had all been “false.”   Moreover, according to sources in Ciudad del Este, Urrutigoity was not the only priest refugee from accusations that Livieres had been sheltering.

It is unfortunate that the Vatican has said that his protecting an alleged priest-predator was only a secondary reason for requiring Bishop Livieres’  resignation.  While his inability to work collaboratively with the other bishops in the Paraguayan Conference is sufficient reason to remove him—a Church has to work in unity and if one member blocks that unity it is reasonable for his peers to ask for him to be replaced—surely his protecting Monsignor Urrugoity is an even more serious, and far more serious, reason for removing him.  Moreover while many of the krazies—again, Rorate Caeli (to its credit) excepted—are bemoaning this “injustice,” protesting the removal because of his harboring—and empowering—Urrugoity, only goes to show just how kraaaaazzzzzy the krazies are.  But while that is the end of the Livieres/Urrugoity saga, it is for the krazies only one lantern hung in the bell tower of  the old North Church to sound the tocsin and alert the Americans: Pope Francis is Coming! Pope Francis is Coming!

The second lantern was reported in the New York Times this morning.  The Times wrote that Pope Francis has asked the Archbishop of Ottawa, a fellow Jesuit, Terrence Prendergast, to “visitate” the Diocese of Kansas City/Saint Joseph Missouri and evaluate the fitness of Bishop Robert Finn to lead the Diocese.   Bishop Finn is one of the most neo-traditionalist bishops in the United States.  He also has links to, though is not a member of, Opus Dei.  Because of his failure to report allegations against Father Shawn Rattigan for child pornography, Bishop Finn was found guilty in September 2012 on one charge of failing to report suspected child abuse, a misdemeanor in Missouri.  Both child-protection advocates and church liberals have been demanding his resignation since his conviction.   Is Bishop Finn’s misdemeanor sufficient grounds to require his resignation?  That issue could probably be argued either way.  I guess one would next have to ask about Archbishop Cordileone’s conviction for drunk driving.  It could get ugly.  An investigation of the question do the faithful of his diocese still invest Bishop Finn with the moral credibility to effectively govern his diocese is probably appropriate, but any number of bishops could fail that test—not for a misdemeanor, or even for any fault in particular, but just for their spiritual and moral blandness.  Would Archbishop Myers make the cut with the additions to his vacation home and Jacuzzi rising in the wooded glens of Hunterdon County?   What about Bishop O’Connell of Trenton?  Slattery of Tulsa?  Morlino of Madison?  Paprocki of Springfield?   Lennon of Cleveland?  Sheridan of Colorado Springs?  Olmstead of Phoenix?  Do they have the credibility of the faithful entrusted to them?  Some of our bishops are the best argument against the Apostolic Succession.    But that is the great thing about being a historian.  This is nothing new.  In fact, as disappointing as much of our current leadership may be, the Church has seen worse—far worse.  So pray for the leadership we have and pray that Pope Francis will give us the best bishops in the future and that he will live and reign long enough to make a difference, a crucial difference, in the future of the Church.  

Let's Hear It For Those Swiss Abbots

Mariastein Abbey

A few weeks ago (see entry for January 15, 2013) I published an entry about Martin Werlen, the Abbot of the famous abbey of our Lady of Einsiedeln in Switzerland and his call for radical reform in the Church—echoing the same call of the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini shortly before his death last year (cf blog entries for September 2, 3, 4, and 12, 2012).  A reader sent me a link to an article about another Swiss Abbot, Peter von Sury, Abbot of Mariastein , a Benedictine community in Solothurn Canton.
Like Abbot Martin, Abbot Peter pulls no punches in his estimation of what the Church needs today.  Abbot Peter is trained in the canon law and he sees the problem is that the structures of authority in the Church are broken.  He calls for consistency and transparency in the way decisions are made in the Church.  He thinks that politics have replaced the action of the Holy Spirit in Church administration (ya think?) and that there is a need to return to the ancient system of choosing bishops by involving the local faithful and clergy along with the regional bishops.  The present system is nothing more than turning the local dioceses into “papal fiefs.” 
An article by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt in the National Catholic Reporter quotes the abbot:
Asked why episcopal nominations are so important, he replied: "The bishop has a pivotal position in the church. He is a 'pontifex,' that is, a bridge-builder, and must have a personality that integrates. Unfortunately, we have again and again experienced the opposite, as, for instance, at the moment in the diocese of Chur. There the bishop is obviously not a bridge-builder, but someone who sows discord, and that is disastrous.
"In my opinion, a bishop who sows discord is morally obliged to step down. The same applies to an abbot or a parish priest. If they sow discord, they destroy a part of the church. It is not a case of blame. There are simply situations when people sow discord -- perhaps even without meaning to do so, and then they must step down."
"Church institutions, including the papacy, should have an opposite number as it were. In economics or politics we speak of checks and balances," von Sury said. Parishes have parish councils, dioceses have priests' councils, which the bishops are supposed to listen to. "But for the bishops' conference level and the world church level there is nothing similar. This is a great mistake," he said.
Boy, this guy should visit the Church in the United States and see the damage that prelates such as Bishop Robert Finn (Kansas City), Bishop Robert Morlino (Madison WS), Bishop Thomas Olmsted, (Phoenix)  and Archbishop William Lori (Baltimore, formerly Bridgeport) have wreaked  in their climbs up the ecclesiastical caterpillar pillar.  On the other hand, Rome did get Cardinal Law and then-Archbishop (now Cardinal) Raymond Burke out of Boston and St. Louis respectively before they totally trashed those dioceses with the discord they had caused.    
The Bishops of Switzerland, with the exception of the aforementioned Bishop of Chur, Vitus Huonder, have shown themselves very willing to listen to the faithful in their dioceses and the move for more dialogue in the Church. 

My correspondent wondered what sort of water these Swiss Abbots are drinking and if we can bottle it.  O Please God, let such waters flow in your Church today. 

Help! Sheep Without Shepherds!!!



Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas

City Missouri

Bishop Robert Finn, the Ordinary of the Diocese of Kansas City Missouri was convicted last week of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to authorities.  Bishop Finn has indicated that despite his conviction he will not resign his see.  As he was not sentenced to prison but received a probationary sentence, he will not be impeded in any significant way from carrying out the responsibilities of his office, yet this is the first time that a Catholic Diocese in the United States has been led by a bishop convicted of such a crime.  (Note, the crime of not reporting the suspected abuse is a misdemeanor under the law, not a felony.)   Pressure by victim advocate groups is being put on the Vatican to remove Bishop Finn if he does not willingly resign but the Vatican does not respond well to such ground-roots pressure so it is unrealistic to expect he will be deprived of his Diocese.  In fact, the Vatican (I certainly need to refrain from using the term “Holy See” in this instance as the irony would be appalling) is all but certain to back up the bishop’s decision.  Hopefully they won’t promote him to a higher See.     

For those who think that this is just another case of the secular world harassing the Church, it should be noted that Bishop Finn himself had appointed former United States Attorney Todd P Graves to conduct an independent investigation of Diocesan policies and procedures regarding charges of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy or Diocesan employees.  Graves was the national co-chairman of the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation Working Group.  Graves’ final evaluation was “that Diocesan leaders (read: the bishop) failed to follow their own policies and procedures for responding to reports" of sexual abuse by clergy.”   In other words, not only did a Court find that the Bishop failed in his responsibilities, but the independent counsel the Bishop hired  to investigate the situation found the bishop at fault.  Bishop Finn needs our prayers as to the people of the Diocese of Kansas City in Missouri.  The victims of abuse need our prayers and the clergy whose sins and sickness has led to this debacle need our prayers.  But also the Old Boys Club in Rome needs our prayers that the Lord will open their eyes to comprehend the problem.  In other words, Cardinal Law still doesn’t get it.  Talk about Invincible moral Ignorance! Incidentally, when Archbishop-designate Salvatore Cordileone assumes the responsibilities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco on October 4^th, he will be the second Ordinary to assume the diocese under a legal cloud as he was arrested recently on charges of drunk driving—another misdemeanor.  He is due to appear in court five days after his installation as Archbishop.  I only hope he has the aplomb not to wear his cappa magna to the courthouse.  

My complaint here is not against Bishop Finn or Archbishop-designate Cordileone.  I live in a glass house myself and am not anxious to throw stones.  I am sure that each is a good man within the parameters of basic moral structures; they (and those responsible for their advancement) are simply injudicious.  And injudiciousness at this level is not simply unadvisable, it is immoral.  What I am complaining about is that the American Church not only deserves but is in desperate need of better men for the ministry of Bishop.  The Church is being humiliated not by external enemies who ultimately are unable to wound the Church but by her own hierarchs who can do great damage to the faith.    I know that there are wiser and holier men for the ministry of Bishop than we are getting in many of our Sees—and at some Roman desks.   I have met priests who would make better bishops than Finn or Cordileone or the clique responsible for their advancement (The Burke-Law-Lori axis).  Please just give us the leadership we need.