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.  

Real Threats to Religious Liberty

Cardinal Law--whose mishandling

of the abuse crisis may provide the

greatest danger to religous liberty

There is a lot of kerfuffle in some pulpits these days about a threat to religious liberty posed by the Affordable Health Care Act.  Personally, I think it is a red herring.  The Church does not have to pay one red cent to supply contraceptives to the employees of various Catholic institutions.  The insurance companies have to absorb the costs which they are willing to do as it is more cost-effective to supply contraceptives than to pay for pre-natal care and child-birth and the new children who will be added to policies.  What some Churchmen object to is that the Church has to permit its employees—Catholic and non-Catholic—access to contraceptives.  That is a very different issue and one which I think the Church just has to “suck up” and accept.  Having to provide contraceptives is one issue; trying to bar access to contraceptive care for others is another.  HaHJContraceptives may be morally wrong—and while the Church has a strong teaching on this point—there is no consensus either in our society or in the Church. The Church is not the magisterium.  The Church is the community of all the faithful.  And while the magisterium has given its teaching, that teaching cannot be said to reflect the faith of the Church.  This is not a theological blog and I don’t want to get into the theological issues about “reception of doctrine,” but from a historical perspective one can say that a teaching that is not accepted by the faithful does not persist in the “faith held by the Church.”  But I don’t want to get stuck on this point because I do want to move on to two items that we had better prepare for and which will provide a far more real threat to the Church’s freedom.

The first and less serious—only by comparison—of these threats will be the taxation of Church property.  Currently houses of worship, schools, charitable institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes, administrative offices such as chanceries, living facilities for religious such as monasteries, convents, and rectories are not subject to property taxes.  Trust me, that will change in the next thirty years—or at least efforts will be made to change that as localities become more and more anxious to increase their income without putting the burden on businesses and private ownership.  I also would not be surprised to see that while religious—nuns, monks, friars, brothers—are not normally subject to income tax as their income goes not to them personally but to the communities to which they belong and those communities are registered charities, that at some point the religious orders themselves will be taxed for the income of their members and for other income that comes to them through bequests, donations, investments, etc.  I am not saying that this should happen but it is inevitable that some of the forces in our society that are opposed to religion—not simply Catholicism but religion in general—will challenge the tax-exemptions of religious organizations.

The second danger which is far more perilous is the probability that the traditional respect for the secrecy of the confessional will be challenged legally.  This is due in part, in great part, to the poor handling of the sex abuse crisis by the hierarchy.  Ireland is already challenging the right of clergy to remain confidential in court.  Moreover, physicians, psychologists, counselors and others have been called to violate patient-client confidentiality.  When it comes to the secrecy of the confessional there will be no choice but for the clergy to take the consequences as no matter the law the secrecy cannot be abridged.  Do not doubt, however, that this will be a major issue within the next few years.  This isn’t about Obama and his “threat to religious liberty.”  It won’t matter which party is in power –this will be a decision of the courts.  Hopefully with such a strong presence of Catholics on the Supreme Court this danger will not be realized but I will be surprised.  Moreover, while I expect secularists to be part of the challenge to the Church and the secrecy of the confessional, I think liberals in general will see the threat to personal freedom that it would represent and in fact, I think conservatives will be a bigger danger to maintaining this important principle. 

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. 

Reformation Today! 7 --Needed: Leaders Who "Get It"

The Late Cardinal Anthony

Bevilaqua--what is there about

Pennsylvania that people just

don't get it?

According to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports:

As penalties go for Penn State, death would've been preferable.

The NCAA hammered the Nittany Lions football program Monday for its role in concealing Jerry Sandusky's sexual molestation acts, leveling coach Joe Paterno's once revered team with stiff penalties and unprecedented fines that will hurt in ways that suspending play for a season or two might not have.

They include:

• A $60 million fine, with the money going to an endowment to benefit the welfare of children.

• A four-year ban on postseason play, including the Big Ten championship game, bowls or the playoffs coming in 2014.

• A reduction in the maximum allowance of scholarships offered to incoming players from 25 to 15 a year for the next four years.

• Any entering or returning player is free to transfer without restriction (such as sitting out one season). Others can maintain their scholarship at Penn State and choose not to play.

• The vacating of all victories from 1998-2011, which strips Paterno of his title as the winningest coach in college football history (now Grambling's Eddie Robinson) and Division I-A (now Bobby Bowden). Paterno, for the record, loses 111 wins and now ranks 12th with 298.

Mark Emmert took unprecedented measures to punish Penn State. (Getty Images)There’s more, such as a five-year probationary period and the hiring of an academic monitor of the NCAA's choosing and so forth. Penn State will not appeal the sanctions. School president Rodney Erickson signed a consent agreement with the NCAA and "accepts the penalties."

A harsh punishment, perhaps a fatal wound for a much cherished feature of Penn State’s collective life, but for some not harsh enough.  And yet, at the same time there are massed crowds chanting “We are Penn State” and demanding the return of Joe Paterno’s statue as well as life-as-normal on the Penn State campus.  “Don’t punish Penn State for the crimes of Jerry Sandusky,” they cry.  “We need to pick up the pieces of Penn State and put them back so that we can go on to a future even brighter than our past—that would be Joe Paterno’s legacy,” one campus orator repeatedly declaimed at a rally encouraging Penn State enthusiasts to “move on and move forward.”       

(Reuters) - Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranking clergyman convicted in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church scandal, was sentenced on Tuesday to up to six years in prison for covering up child sex abuse by priests in Philadelphia.  Judge M. Teresa Sarmina told Lynn, 61, the former secretary of the clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, that he protected "monsters in clerical garb who molested children."

I have to admit that I don’t get satisfaction out of seeing anyone, especially a sixty-something overweight guy in a shabby black suit, go to prison, but that is not the issue.  The complaint has been made that Monsignor Lynn “is being held responsible for all of the abuse that occurred over 30 to 40 years, none of which he participated in.”  The Archdiocese of Philadelphia issued a statement saying "fair-minded people will question the severity" of what it called a "heavy" sentence. "We hope that when this punishment is objectively reviewed, it will be adjusted."  According to the Reuters report, the Archdiocese continued saying that the Church has changed since the events at the center of the trial.   But has it?   Maybe Lynn is taking the fall for decisions made by his boss, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilaqua and Bevilaqua, splendidly entombed in the chapel at the Philly seminary, is beyond the call of human accountability, but Cardinal Law—the most notorious protector of clerical malfeasants is splendidly ensconced in luxury apartments in Rome where he has enough time to meddle in niggling accusations against the good Sisters of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. 

And this is the problem—whether it is the Church or Penn State or a thousand other institutions, too many organizations put their corporate good over the good of the individuals who comprise them. 

Joe Paterno and William Lynn (and their Eminences Law and Bevilaqua and Penn State officials) and how many others have desired at all costs to protect the institutions they represent rather than to see that institutions are here to serve—and protect—those entrusted to their care. 

Penn State lost its way.  The University does not exist for Football. The University exists for the men and women who go there to find the truths and an education is meant to offer.  And the Church has lost its way.  We, the faithful, do not exist for the Church.  The Church exists for us, and our well-being cannot be sacrificed for the good of some “Church” that exists only in theology books and the minds of hierarchs.  The Church exists for us—for our well-being in this life so that we can safely travel the path that leads us from today’s finite existence into the Infinite Reality which is the ultimate destiny for which we humans are created.  Our well-being in this life—spiritual, physical, emotional, mental well-being—are the first steps on the journey into what we Christians believe is the Fullness of Life which is our destiny.      

For too many people today—and especially for those whose life has become a full-time dedication to an institution that calls itself “the Church”—that institution which confuses itself for  “The Church” is more important than the men and women—and children—who comprise the flesh and blood reality of the Church.  The ultimate reality of the Church is not the Pope and Bishops and clergy and religious and laity in some pyramidal hierarchy (with its corresponding lower-archy), but it is the living Body of Christ with its diversity of members each with his or her own function and each with his or her key importance to the welfare of the whole.  In other words, when we talk about Church Reform today we need to vision it no longer from the top down but from within to see the network of individuals whose being woven together in a seamless unity of mutual respect and appreciation for the intrinsic worth of each member from the least to the greatest comprises the mystical Body of Christ.  In such a Church, there is no room for the arrogant triumphalism and self-aggrandizing clericalism of those who are trying to bring back the Church of the previous five centuries.  We need new models that display service rather than power and we need new leaders who have the spirituality to make those new models realities.  It appears that such new leadership would require a whole lot of housecleaning.    

Reformation Today! 4

A friend of mine sent me a news release about the Freeh Report on the Penn State/Sandusky child abuse scandal.  He found it interesting that the report spoke of “a culture of reverence for the football program.”  Given the pedophilia scandals with the Church, “a culture of reverence” is a pointed choice of words.  Yesterday, while listening to NPR (yes, I am a liberal—NPR is the obvious station to which my dial is set) a commentator was speaking of the difficulties facing Penn State and when asked how something like this could happen, the speaker—without ever mentioning the Catholic Church by name—repeatedly spoke of “various other institutions” that have had similar scandals and similarly inadequate—which is to say, criminally neglectful—responses. It was pointed out that institutions defend themselves and define “themselves” not as the people whom they serve but as those who hold power in the institution.   As I said, the speaker never even suggested he was referring to the Catholic Church, but I doubt there was a listener in America who did not immediately think of the Church. 

Now I see that Penn State is radically reevaluating the legacy of Joe Paterno—to the extent that they are seriously considering renaming the University library and removing his statue from the campus.  Will that happen?  I don’t know.  Should it happen?  I don’t have an opinion.  What is important is that Penn State is—despite the cries of protest by some alumni, trustees, and supporters—doing a thorough self-examination of its identity, its “culture,” and its structures of administration. 

It is time that the Catholic Church do the same.  We need a thorough examination of how power is exercised in the administration of the Church.  Power—in the sense that we are using it here—is not one of the attributes with which Jesus endowed the Church, it is a product of historical evolution.  Jesus certainly would not have expected the “successors” of his Apostles to be able to facilitate the levels of human suffering that prelates like Cardinal Law and Cardinal Bevilaqua and various other bishops imposed on the people entrusted to them by their valuing the institutional security of the Church over the spiritual, psychological, and moral health of the faithful. 

There is much that is dysfunctional with the way power is exercised in the Catholic Church and an essential component in Church Reform must be to install certain checks and balances at every level. The Apostles were told by Jesus that they were called for service and not to act as “the princes of the Gentiles who lord it over those under their people and whose officials flaunt their authority” (Matt 20:25).  Jesus warned the Apostles that “it cannot be that way among you; whoever wishes to be great among you must be servant to the rest.”   Not only Cardinals like Law but bishops and pastors and priests and deacons and Religious Education Directors and School Principals and anyone else in a position of ministry must examine themselves seriously as to how they exercise authority.  But self-examination is not enough.  The last twenty years and the cover-ups have made it clear that this responsibility for integrity cannot be left to individuals but that there is a need for systemic change where accountability is not an option and where continuance in positions of authority for everyone from the top (and I mean THE TOP) down is dependent on responsible exercise of the authority entrusted to them.

Silenced Shepherds --Can They Please Find A Voice?

Enda Kenny, the Irish Prime Minister

whose frank challenge of Vatican policy

has sparked some controversy and a

recalling of the Vatican Nuncio.

I don’t watch much television, especially during the slower hours of the midday, but a colleague of mine who is a bit of a TV junkie—he keeps the television on in his office even when he is interviewing students, told me about watching the debate in the Irish Dáil Éireann (the Irish “House of Commons”) when the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) delivered a scathing rebuke of the Holy See for the conduct of the Irish Bishops in the sex abuse scandal that has plagued Ireland as it has the Church in the United States, Canada, and various other nations.   The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, a Catholic himself responded to the Cloyne Report—a government investigation of the clerical pedophilia scandal in the Diocese of Cloyne where nineteen priests have been accused of sexual abuse and where the Church failed to follow its own guidelines of reporting these instances—by an attack directly on the Vatican.  Kenny said that “the dysfunction, disconnection, and elitism that dominates the culture of the Vatican to this day” was responsible for the failure of the Church to protect young people and he apparently did not spare Benedict XVI in his attack.  In 1996 The Irish bishops had put in place a policy that accusations would be reported to the police but the Papal Nuncio at the time Archbishop Luciano Storero, instructed the bishops not to follow their own policy.  In some regards it is unfortunate that Benedict has had to bear the brunt of the Taoiseach’s wrath as when he served as the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then Cardinal Ratzinger was one of the few Vatican voices that wanted to get to the root of the abuse problem.  Nonetheless, “sow the wind and reap the worldwind,” as they say and the Holy See is being drowned in guano as the chickens come home to roost.    
      Two weeks ago I attended the installation of our new pastor.  I had not seen this ceremony  before.  It was disheartening.  Like so much that is wrong with “the new liturgy” it was way too long on words and not very rich in ritual action.  Words, words, words, words, words…we really don’t need so many words.  But what was particularly bad about all the words is that the”rite” (if you can call it that) speaks not of mission or evangelism or even shepherdly care.  It is all about protecting the status quo—maintaining the discipline of the church, looking after the property, affirming the teaching of the magisterium, safeguarding the faith, etc. ad nauseam.  How do you like that ad nauseam—there is some Latin for you.    Now I am the last person who wants a heretic in the pulpit or a spendthrift with the parish credit card, but we have more important things to worry about.  70% of our folks aren’t darkening the door of the Church, most of our youth think the whole thing is outdated, hundreds of parishes across this country don’t have a priest for Sunday Eucharist.  Moreover, some of us are really excited about the Gospel and think we need to find new ways to bring it to ears that have grown tired of and deaf to the “same old same old.”  Some of us believe that despite the best efforts of this new translation to make the mass unintelligible, that the Eucharist is something really wonderful and we want to not only make its celebration even more wonderful but make sure every Catholic can have access to it.  Some of us are worried about that old lady down the street who can’t afford her property tax anymore and even more of us are worried about that guy that is sleeping out behind the garages because he has no place to go.  Some of us think the Church has a mission in the world and we are more preoccupied about that than we are about who washes the chalices after communion or whether we say “I believe” or “We believe.”  
     So my point both in regard to installing pastors and reporting pedophiles is this: dissent is not the biggest sin we have to worry about and loyalty is not the greatest virtue we need.  Please Lord give us Shepherds, both here and in Rome, who are so enraptured by your Kingdom that they can forget about their own.  Amen.

Church Reform Today: The Political Ties of Bishops, 1

One of the goals, indeed the chief goal, of the Gregorian Reform was to free the Church from political entanglement with the Empire.  The purpose was not create the two separate spheres, or I should say separated spheres, of Church and State which our American mythology values so highly because the Church, with its mission to proclaim the kingdom of God, cannot act as if the State—or any other institution—simply exists in a universe parallel to itself.  The Gospel demands that we take an appropriately critical, critical according to the norms of the Gospel, stance towards the world and all that is in it.  By critical I do not mean negative.  A negative critique of creation slides too easily towards Gnosticism.  By critical I mean that we as Church must critique the world as to where it does and where it doesn’t match up to the Gospel.  Note: we as Church.  It is not the role of the “Institution” alone to do this.  Indeed, the Institution, which is not the Church but only one aspect of Christ’s Church, itself must stand under the critique of the Gospel.  That itself is a lesson that most people in the Institution seem to have forgotten these days.   But to critique with integrity we must not only have stood under the judgment of the Gospel ourselves, we must not be indebted to the institutions we critique.  I am not sure that as the Catholic Church we are equipped to critique our society.  The sex abuse scandal has revealed the lack of gospel integrity in the Church, not because of the sinfulness of certain clergy or religious (though that does not help), but because we, both as Institution and as Community of the Faithful became complicit in the abuse by our failure to address the issue honestly and openly.  We will always have sinners in our midst.  There will be sexual predators of all varieties because human society, and we are a human society, will always have sexual predators.  We will have adulterers and fornicators of both gay and straight sorts. We will have drunks and druggies, thieves, embezzlers, abortionists, those who practice euthanasia, who bear false witness, who cheat their employees, who don’t give their employers an honest day’s work, and who pollute the air and water.  We will have people who take us to wars that cannot be justified, and those who sell bonds that are junk.  Sinners are what makes the world go ‘round and moreover Jesus died for them.  They belong in Church.  indeed, they—or rather we—are the Church.  Don’t get on your high horse about “those” or “that kind of people” or “them.”  We have met the sinner and he is us” to paraphrase Pogo.  That being said, however, it is not our task as Church to bless sin by tacit complicity in remaining silent.  Acknowledging our own sins and failings, individually and collectively, we need to be able to speak out about injustices in the world around us—from sexual abuse of minors to abortion to the death penalty to unjust wars, to human rights abuses, to whatever is wrong and unjust in the ways that we relate to one another whether individually or societally.  Because I sin, there are fundamental wrongs in the way I myself and an individual treat people around me.  I need to be reminded of that and challenged to take responsibility for that.  And there are fundamental wrongs in the way that I, not as an individual but as a member of our American society, treat people around me.  I—and other Americans—need to be reminded of that and take responsibility for that.  And there are fundamental wrongs in the way that I, not as an individual but as a member of the Church, treat people around me.  I—and others in the Church with me—need to be reminded of that and take responsibility for that. 
     One of the ways that I, as a member of American society, am guilty of fundamental wrongs in the way I relate to others around me is that I tolerate the murder of the unborn, hundreds of thousands of the unborn.  I don’t approve of it but I am as complicit in it as any bishop has been complicit in the sexual abuse of minors.  I know it goes on.  I confess it is wrong.  I lament it.  But I go about my day; I eat my meals; I go to work; I hang-out with my friends; and I sleep at night in spite of it.  “I wish we could do something about it.”      But that is only one of the sins I am complicit in as a member of our society.  I stood by while Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield led George Bush like a pig with a ring in his nose to war—and led us to war along with him—a war that cannot and never could be morally justified and a war that was energized by a knowing web of lies about WMDs.  And I see the coffins come home and the mothers and the wives and the children trying to make heroes of those who are in fact victims because these deaths must have some significance more than the loss of pawns on a chessboard to make the Vice President and his friends even richer than they are.  And I watched while hundreds of thousands of senior citizens were robbed of their retirements by the Savings and Loans Debacles.  And I have no idea how many people are put to death—legally but not morally—in Texas and Virginia and wherever else while I sit down to dinner, or have a drink on the patio, or sleep undisturbed at night.  And Latinos who just want a chance for them and their children to have a better life die in the desert night after night while I dream undisturbed.   And I know that racism didn’t die with Miss Hilly Holbrook when I hear Sunday Mass goers say “Well, he isn’t my president.” 
     There was a time when our bishops gave moral leadership.  There was a time when our bishops wrote a pastoral letter warning us about the fundamental moral evils beneath “Reaganomics”—you know that system that made some people rich before it made a lot of people poor when it imploded back in 2008.   There was a time when our bishops gave moral leadership and wrote a pastoral letter on War and Peace.  They didn’t make these letters up out of whole cloth.  They took the scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, papal pronouncements, the Documents of Vatican II—they mined the whole tradition to give leadership in our day and age.  But today?  Where are they today?

     “When a Baptist gets money, he becomes a Presbyterian,” a friend told me a few years back. “And when a Methodist wants to join the country club, he becomes an Episcopalian.  When a Catholic priest becomes a bishop, he becomes a Republican.”  One of the senior bishops in the United States, a man who has been a bishop since the “old days,” even before the Apostolic Delegation of Jean Jadot and his crop of liberal Vatican II bishops, told me “The problem with the bishops today is that they are the sons of doctors and lawyers and professionals.  They have no connection with the working class—they were raised to see the working class people as a threat—they come from ‘management’ families.”  Yes, I think that is part of the problem.  The bishops know only a segment of society, they have lost touch—as most white Americans—with their own roots.  But I think the problem is far more serious.     You have men as bishops who have lost their socio-political autonomy and who see the challenges facing society not from the perspective of a Gospel critique but from a political ideology.  More to come.   

More on the Need for a New Reformation

Two views of what the Church is about.  Which

one do you think has a greatercredibility in

bringing the message of Jesus into the world today,
the nun working with the poor, or the Cardinal in all
his glory?  

Yesterday I began an entry on why the Church stands in need of Reformation today just as it has in other periods of history.   I began with the axiom Ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda—the Church, always reforming and always in need of reform but promised that I would look at some more concrete examples of why we need to have a modern Reformation—and my list is not meant to be an exhaustive list.  I am sure there are other reasons beyond the one’s I am going to enumerate.

     The first and most obvious is the sex-abuse crisis that has rocked the Church not only in the United States but throughout the Western world.  Even more indicative of the need for Reform than the sex-abuse itself, was the almost universal behavior of bishops attempting to “cover-up” the scandal rather than address its root causes.  And why this cannot be effectively reformed from within the ranks of the papal administration is that it is becoming increasingly clear that the bishops’ policies of cover-up were directed from Rome.  After the recent reports (The Cloyne and Murphy Reports) regarding  clergy sex abuse in several diocese of Ireland, the Taoiseach, Enda Kerry, issued a stinging condemnation in the Daìl (the Taoiseach is the Prime Minister; the Daìl is the Irish Parliament) of the Vatican for its role in orchestrating a policy of cover-up.  This problematic policy is not unique to Ireland.  The papacy of John Paul II was particularly unable to understand the crisis and deal with it openly and effectively and while Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, pressed for more effective policies to get to the roots of the problem, the obstructionist prelates in the Roman Curia who neither understand the seriousness of the problem nor are willing to effect the radical structural change that is needed to heal it are still in place. Probably the single most critical area for Reform in the Catholic Church today is the Roman Curia which has moved far from being an extension of papal power into an organization with immense power of its own, a power that transcends and even supersedes the authority of the pope himself.  (Sometimes when we do a series of entries on the Second Vatican Council we will look at how the Curia survived the Conciliar attempts of Reform and has emerged even more powerful than it was before the Council.) 
      A second reason indicating the need for a Reformation is the loss of prestige which the Church has suffered in the world over the last forty years.  This loss is due not to the Second Vatican Council.  Indeed those of us who remember the Council recall the immense boost of credibility and energy the Church enjoyed from that fateful January day in 1959 when Pope John XXIII announced he was convoking a Council.  The Catholic Church moved from being perceived as an arcane and cultic relic of the bygone days of monarchic absolutism with its millions of enthralled and docile adherents to being a vital and engaged participant in the world community.  The remote and other-worldly visage of Pius XII was replaced by the kindly and humane “Good Pope John.”   Part of the loss of prestige, and I believe a great part of it, has been the deliberate policy of a secular society and its advocates to push to the margins of public life any and all religion, but especially any religion whose influence could undermine the post-religious agenda of secular liberalism.  Again, those of us who remember the times of the Second Vatican Council remember that magazines like Time, Newsweek, and Life covered not only the Catholic Church but religious topics of all sorts with great regularity and a respectful tone.   One can search modern newspapers and journals, including the aforementioned Time and Newsweek, and will rarely find religious topics covered except for such topics as the ubiquitous sex-abuse scandal or some other story which can be viewed only from the critical perspective. This does not betray an anti-Catholic bias as some bishops have claimed, but an anti-religious slant.   Even non-Catholic churchmen of considerable repute such as Anglican Archbishops Rowan Williams or Desmond Tutu, or evangelical Jim Wallis are almost never in the pages of the press, though the more erratic such as Billy Graham’s son, Franklin,  or John Hagee occasionally show up because they reinforce Christianity as something eccentric or even hateful.   And of course, speaking of hateful,  one sees with some regularity the “God hates Fags” placards of the so-called Westboro Baptist “Church.”  Nevertheless, I don’t want to blame secularism for pushing  religion in general and Catholicism in particular from its once privileged position in the public eye.  The Church itself has contributed to its position of ridicule and contempt not only by its gross handling of the sexual abuse crisis, but by its increasing return to the authoritarianism of past epochs and the revival of so much archaic pomp as Cardinals Burke and Pell  strut around swathed in yards of watered silk and  Benedict himself seems to raid the Vatican attic for the most curious accoutrements from ages past.  I am not suggesting that Catholics should convert to Presbyterian drab, but rather we need to pay attention to the world in which we live and not attempt to inhabit a parallel universe of red queens, mad hatters, and protonotaries apostolic.  A Reformed Catholicism that focused on the Church’s mission of making the Gospel a force in the modern world, a Church that continued the Mission of its Founder ”to bring glad tidings to the poor….to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord" would recover the prestige that has  been squandered with the lack of transparency and the return to an arrogant and pretentious authoritarianism that is leaving the church “naked unto her enemies.”   well, more reasons in the next entry.   

    

Celibacy--Today's Situation

The Changing Face of the
Priesthood by Father Donald
Cozzens--certainly worth the

read

Professor Daniel Maguire of Marquette University wrote today in the New York Times “Letters” that   “The root of the problem (clerical sex abuse) is mandatory celibacy. There is a reason religions with a married clergy have no comparable problem — not that they are problem-free. Celibacy is not a bona fide occupational qualification for ministry.” I am a bit surprised at this because Dr. Maguire is usually better nuanced in his observations.  In the first place his claim that religions (or at least other Christian Churches) with a married clergy have no comparable problem.  I am not sure what parallel universe that Professor Maguire lives in, or perhaps it is just the rarified air of his ivory tower—and theologians have the more rarified air of all academics, allowing angels to have danced on the heads of pins for centuries—but he needs to talk with any Episcopalian or Lutheran Bishop or meet with the officials of any presbytery in the country to know that the problem of clerical sex abuse is not unique to celibate clergy.  On the other hand, he may want to visit a few Buddhist temples and inquire why their celibate monks (seem, at least to) stay out of the limelight in this disheartening problem.  Don’t misunderstand me, I am not defending mandatory celibacy. To the contrary:  I think it is sick.  Not  because it has to do with sex, but because—and here is where Maguire is on to something though he misdiagnosed it—celibacy and sex abuse (whether of minors or vulnerable adults) does have a common root.  Power. 

      The most common motivational issue behind sexual abuse is the need of one person to dominate another who is in a position of inferior power.  An adult incapable of healthy peer relationships seeks to control or otherwise dominate a person whose youth and naiveté leaves him (or her) vulnerable.  An employer or a person higher up the power chain in a corporation or an institution (for example the United States Military) has a need to flex power by exercising control over a subordinate, and what control is more total than demanding sexual favors.  Even in what might appear—and the operative word is appear—to be a healthy peer relationship, one person often has a need to dominate the other. 

      Celibacy too is about power and the need to dominate.  In 2000 Father Donald Cozzens of the Cleveland diocese published a book that “hit the nail on the head,” The Changing Face of the Priesthood.  This is one of the most insightful, indeed I think it is the single most insightful, analysis of the issues facing the Catholic Church in North America.  It deals with far more than celibacy or the sex-abuse crisis.  I think it is particularly insightful on reasons for the vocation crisis in the Church today and why parents, unlike fifty years ago, do not want their children to be priests or nuns.  It deals with how the abuse of power is structuralized in the Catholic Church. 

     In the last several posts, I have shown that celibacy historically was used to protect Church property against alienation to the families of priests in the medieval period.  That is not an issue today. Today I would suggest that celibacy is a key factor in creating a psychological dependency of the clergy on the hierarchy.  The priest is never allowed to achieve a full social maturity.  He is required to live in Church-owned housing.  With housing provided, he is paid a less than professional salary—enough to live on but not enough to give him any independence.  While some priests are able to supplement this dependency-income with family money or are canny enough to successfully transform their resources into something of a fortune sufficient to let them buy a home and have an income sufficient for independence, most clergy remain for their entire lives dependent on their diocese or religious community for housing, meals, automobile, and an income just sufficient for clothing and relatively modest vacations.  Such dependency creates a relationship with the Institutional Church and its representatives not unlike that of the abuse victim afraid to break the ties with his abuser.  Where can he go?  What choices does he have?  He comes to see himself as powerless over his life and life choices.  Who will have him if the abuser (or in this case, the Institution) turns him out?  The abuser (or the Institution) is someone that everyone esteems.  While he, the abused (or the priest) finds himself unhappy with the situation, it must be him and not the situation since the abuser (Institution) is so highly respected that they can do nothing wrong.  Or perhaps the victim (the priest) feels “honored” to be the recipient of the reflected glory and power of the abuser (Institution).  And there are rewards.  Just as an abuser might take his victim for a nice vacation, buy him or her some clothes, even a car, or give him access to money or a career.  So too the priest has the hopes of being sent on for higher studies, given a better parish, maybe even being made a monsignor, or—dare he think it?—a bishop! 

      This is not to say that that there are not good priests, sincere priests,—there are, hundreds, even thousands.   There are many men who have found an interior freedom that lets them function effectively in a dysfunctional institution.  They give generous service to others and have found strategies to maintain their own emotional and spiritual health despite the unhealthiness of the system in which they work.  On the other hand, many good priests have come to realize just how dysfunctional the system is and for their own welfare have chosen to find other vocational paths.  And, tragically, the Church has more than a significant share of men who have drunk the clerical Kool-Aid and live not in the freedom of the Gospel but in enthrallment to an Institution that is in dire need of Reform.  More on this in the next posting.