Who's In and Who's Out???



Monsignor Ignacio Barriero of Human Life

International's Rome Bureau. 

 A friend of mine got involved in a conversational thread on Facebook in which several participants were supposedly citing a recent Angelus Message by Pope Benedict, claiming that the Holy Father was telling people who disagree with Church teaching that they should leave the Church. Looking at the sources cited in the thread, this was an interpretation given the Holy Father’s message by a Monsignor Ignacio Barriero, head of the Rome Bureau of Human Life International.  A local priest got involved in the thread with his opinions about Catholics and their obligation to support laws prohibiting civil marriage to same-sex couples. A lot of people were speaking for the Church.  But were they?  Anyway, here is my letter back to my friend.  I am no position, myself, to speak for the Church, of course and make no claims to.  On the other hand, as I point out in the letter, I think that until and unless those who can speak for the Church demand that civil marriage be denied all those (including non-Catholics) entering into second marriages without annulments, there is an inconsistency in any Church policy that would demand Catholics oppose the legalization of same-sex unions.  This inconsistency can be blamed only on political opportunism and/or social prejudice.  But of course the bigger question is how free are we to disagree with Church policies and still be Catholic.          

Hey James

I think fundamental problem is the forum in which these matters are being discussed.  A Facebook thread or a chatroom or some such forum is not a profitable opportunity to discuss Church teaching as by their nature Facebook pages or selective chatrooms tend to draw like-minded people who have their opinions but who are not qualified to speak authoritatively for the Church.  They may cite the Catechism or papal documents or other reliable sources, but invariably they cite them out of context.  It cannot but be otherwise as the “context” of our Catholic doctrines are two millennia of History where there is a very rich and incredibly varied range of theological opinions on practically every issue with only a handful truly resolved by definitive proclamation.  The presence in a thread of a priest such as “Father X” or any other priest—or individual bishop—for that matter is no guarantee that his contribution accurately reflects Church teaching.  I think “Father’s X’s” failure to make a clear distinction between Divine Law (and what it says about same-sex unions) and Civil Law (and its very different role and obligations) is an indication of that.  Father “X’s” position that Catholics must insist that the civil law proscribe same-sex marriage would demand also that we not only outlaw same-sex relations, but adultery, fornication, and masturbation.  It would also demand that we outlaw heterosexual marriages that involve one or both parties having been previously married and not having had their marriages annulled by the Catholic Church regardless of the religion (or lack of religion) of the parties to the marriage. It is based on the presupposition that the civil law is not to provide order in society and protect citizens from conflicts impinging on their rights and clarifying demands on citizens for their duties to the common good, but to reinforce the Divine Law (according to the teaching of a particular religious tradition) and require individuals to conform their lives to a particular set of religious principles.  There have been times and places (Ireland, Italy, Spain, Malta) in the past—and not the distant pass—where the pressure of the Catholic Church has indeed proscribed divorce and thus remarriage but the abolition of those laws with the tacit allowance of the Church—or only the most pro-forma objections—indicate that since the Conciliar Decree, Dignitatis Humanae, the Church sees that coercive power over the consciences of individuals is not in its Divine Mission.  In other words a consensus has emerged in the Church that while the law must protect rights and property, it is not up to the Church to insist that the civil laws legislate morality.

But let’s look for a moment at the broader issue in this thread.  It seems to me that the question is whether or not those Catholics who do not give full assent of their will and intellect to the entire body of magisterial teaching still have a place in the Church or whether they should leave.  What is required of a Catholic to believe?  Historically the essential matters of faith are the Doctrines of the Trinity and the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the one person, Jesus Christ as well as the profession of the three historic Creeds—the Apostles, the Nicene, and the Athanasian.  To this is often (and reasonably) added those decrees of the Councils that bear an anathema for those who deny the particular doctrine defined in the decree. To avoid scandal, of course, we should publically conform, that is not dissent from—the ordinary and extraordinary magisterium but not even assent all these doctrines are required.  It may surprise readers but there are some doctrines taught by the Western Church such as original sin or purgatory on which the Eastern Church (including those parts of the Eastern Church united to the Holy See) remains silent because they are not held in the Eastern Church.   Because the Eastern Church does not hold the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, its understanding of the Sacrament of Baptism is quite different than that of the Western Church.  Yet no one asserts that those Eastern Christians in union with Rome who do not hold to these doctrines should leave the Roman Communion.  As important as the Church’s teaching on the moral deficiency of non-marital sex or on contraception is, is it more essential that our teaching on purgatory or on original sin?   

Let’s look for a moment at the papal statement that is cited.  You can find it at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/angelus/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_ang_20120826_en.html   Is the Holy Father telling people that if they don’t agree with the Church’s teaching in its entirety to leave the Church?  While Benedict has spoken in the past about a “smaller but more faithful Church” claiming that people who do not accept the magisterium in its entirety should leave the Church is one interpretation, but you can’t find it in the text of his Angelus message.   This is, in fact, the interpretation given the Papal statement by Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro, the Director of Human Life International’s center in Rome.  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-suggests-its-best-to-be-honest-and-leave-the-church-if-you-dont-believ   Monsignor Barreiro’s position in Rome is held from Human Life International and not from the Holy See so he is no way qualified to speak for the Church or the Holy Father.    Why does Monsignor Barreiro (or “Father X”) want people who do not accept the magisterium in its entirety to leave the Church?  That is the question.  This idea of a “pure” Church consisting only of the “elect” is another symptom of the survival of Jansenism among Catholic neo-traditionalists.  It certainly cannot be attributed to the Holy Father as it itself violates the magisterium.  I certainly think people should be honest about their failures to accept the fullness of Church teaching and they should be open to exploring more fully the teaching of the Church to better understand it, but that is not going to happen by leaving the Church. At the same time, some of those who would claim to accept the magisterium in its fullness need to look more deeply and honestly at themselves.  My experience is that those who are most anxious to expel others from the communion of the Church, themselves are very quick to dismiss certain teachings of the magisterium as “optional.”  I think in particular of those who supported our entry into the Iraq war which Pope John Paul had clearly and explicitly identified as failing to meet the criterion of a “just war,” or those who support the death penalty as it is used in the State of Virginia which clearly fails to meet the criterion for such punishment as defined in Evangelium Vitae.  I cannot but think that most of those who decry dissent from “Church teaching” mean dissent from their opinions.  But in the end, let us remember that the only ones with the authority to tell someone that they are no longer in communion with the Church are the Holy Father or the local ordinary.   The rest of us should just pray, keep our mouths shut, and our hearts open.      

There Is Always More to the Story . . .

The Cathedral of Saint Thomas More,
Diocese of Arlington

In my last entry I mentioned Father Marcel Guarnizo, the priest who had refused communion to a woman at her mother’s funeral back in February and James Haley,  the former priest who allegedly was defrocked and excommunicated earlier this year.  I had a number of inquiries asking more about Mr. Haley and I only know what I have read about him on a number of right-wing websites posted by friends of his.  All in all it seems a tragic story. 
       James Haley was ordained for the Diocese of Arlington in 1987 and was suspended from priestly ministry fifteen years later.  He fought his suspension in Rome but—at least according to his defenders—ended up being defrocked and excommunicated rather than vindicated. 

      Mr. Haley claimed in a court deposition while he was still a priest that until he was ordained he had no idea that there were homosexuals in the Catholic priesthood.  He sure had that misconception cleared up early on.  According to an article by Mark Fellows on the website Daily Catholic    (http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/2003Feb/febfor1.htm) back in 2003, Haley was assigned to one gay-pastored parish after another.  Now, I’m not saying this couldn’t happen but if Mark Fellows is to be believed, Sodom and Gomorrah looks like a finishing school for young ladies next to the presbyterate of the Arlington Diocese.   And then, as if all these gay pastors wasn’t bad enough, apparently every gay priest in the diocese began going to confession to Haley as he had to see a psychologist for counseling to help him cope with the emotional burden of “knowing what I did not want to know about my fellow priests through confession."

        Let me just take a break here and interject that other priests have told me that the subject of homosexuality in the clergy was discussed in their seminary years and that while it may have been disheartening to hear of this subject, later life experience came as no surprise much less trauma.  Priests have also said that it is highly unlikely that sexually active priests would confess to “such a delicate soul as Haley purports to be.”  In other words, they believe Haley was over-dramatizing his surprise and trauma in the deposition he gave and which Fellows related in his article.
         Deposition—what deposition?  Well that is where the trouble began.  But before I get to the deposition let me continue the narrative.  Haley went to the bishop about his “discovery” that there were gay priests in the Diocese of Arlington.  The bishop at the time was John Keating, aka “John the Good” according to the right-wing detractors of the current bishop.  Nevertheless, as good a bishop as Keating may have been, he told then-Father Haley he was powerless to do anything about the gay clergy and their acting inappropriately.  (“Inappropriately” is, I realize, an understatement if Haley’s stories are true.)  Haley kept accumulating evidence about his fellow priests whom he saw as betraying their vocation.  Now here is where it gets a little weird.  Well, no, it has gotten plenty weird awhile back.  Here is where I get confused.
         Then-Father Haley was assigned to All Saints Parish in Manassas, Virginia, an outlying suburb of Washington DC.  While on the parish computer, he discovered that the pastor had been visiting gay porn sites.  That is a risky thing to do on a computer to which others have access, but hey, we all know about bucks in rut running across eight-lane highways when they get the scent of a doe, or another buck if the first buck be gay.  But that isn’t all.  Apparently the pastor at All Saints wasn’t gay but omni-sexual as Haley also found over 300 love letters from the pastor to a married female parishioner.  And according to Haley the pastor and his lady friend had become a source of scandal to the entire parish, if not to all Loudon County, for their carrying on in hot tubs at parish parties.  (I have yet to go a parish party featuring hot tubs, but then hey I am a Yankee and we north of the Mason Dixon are a bit more, how you say, puritanical?  My parish doesn’t have hot tubs even for Easter baptisms much less for the Altar and Rosary Society annual banquet.   I guess what I am trying to say is that James Haley seems somewhat of a Drama Queen, er, sorry, King.) 
         Well things escalated from there.  The woman in question divorced her husband and like the fork with spoon, ran away with the pastor.  There was an ugly lawsuit from the (justly) aggrieved husband at which then-Father Haley testified and spilled the beans not only about the adulterous pastor-in-rut but about any priest he ever knew of who had a voluntary sexual discharge. Here is where the deposition comes in and if you read the deposition—it is on line—it is a bit over the top but would make a great mini-series.  The Thornbirds looks like the Ave Maria Hour after you read this. 
         But wait, there is still more, between the time Haley discovered the pastor’s combined taste for gay porn and straight sex—which (porn and loveletters) by the way he downloaded onto a disk and gave to the new bishop, Bishop Keating having died—and the deposition, Haley had been transferred to where he could do more “investigating”  Why would any pastor let a man into his house who would go through his computer, his rooms, and his wastebaskets, looking for “evidence” of misconduct? It is one thing to find such material; it is another to actively search. Once the pastor (the guy who likes gay porn and female parishioners) knew the “parish computer” had been raided for the material of his viewing pleasure, it was clear Haley could no longer stay in that house.  So he was transferred to a new parish where the pastor “confided” to him how he was embezzling parish funds and was into gay porn.  My God, is there a straight priest in Northern Virginia???  Or a priest with enough common sense not to tell his associate of his crimes and sins?  Haley reported this pastor too to the bishop and while the pastor was not reprimanded in any way, Haley was transferred to another parish with—you guessed it—another gay-porn addicted pastor.  What are the odds?  Once again, Haley reported the matter to the bishop but this time the bishop demanded Haley resign from active ministry. 
         This is an incredibly sordid affair.  There is no doubt that the pastor in Manassas was carrying on with a married parishioner or that the subsequent pastor had embezzled funds.  The one priest left the priesthood, married the woman (after her divorce); auditors found over $300,000 taken from the second parish.  Some of the other stories Haley related in his deposition seem to be without basis in fact in as that various priests named continue to be in good standing.  Haley has been suspected in some circles of tampering with the evidence he presented to the bishops regarding the alleged misconduct and porn.    
         James Haley had been an engineer before entering the seminary and supposedly had a history of whistle-blowing that led to his loss of employment.  Whistle blowers are not always the heroes of stories.  And sometimes people start fires so they can be the hero who discovers the fires and puts them out.  This pattern of whistleblowing was repeated in the Diocese of Arlington.  Was each and every alarm a genuine fire?  I don’t know.  Father Haley’s defenders are quick to insist it was.
         Earlier this year it was reported that the Holy See defrocked and excommunicated James Haley after a long series of judicial procedures, the records of which are not publicly available.  Haley’s supporters claim that he was framed and railroaded by the Bishop of Arlington in revenge for the deposition he gave regarding the clergy of the diocese.  They also claim that at least one canon lawyer was told that he “would never work again” if he defended Haley in Church Tribunals. While I see why James Haley may have been suspended from ministry, I am sorry to hear that he has been defrocked, but I am curious about the excommunication.  Granted, there was an allegation against Haley that he had, while a priest, absolved a partner (a woman) in a sexual sin and this brings an automatic excommunication that is reserved to the Holy See for lifting.  But that does not seem to be the reason for this excommunication. Such an excommunication is latae sententiae,i.e. automatic, whereas the stories reported seem to suggest that in Haley’s case there was an actual decree of excommunication.  The story is that the woman had taken Father Haley’s hand and put them on her breast to see if he could tell which breast was “the real thing” and which had been reconstructed after surgery.  Father Haley was not a willing participant in this act.  Furthermore, it was not a sin for anyone unless and except in the intent of the woman for it to be sinful and it would thus only be sinful for her and not for Father Haley who actually would be the victim of sexual harassment in this situation.  Third, any first-year seminarian would know enough to tell the woman, if she thought she needed absolution for this act, that is if her intent were sinful, to see another priest.   There has to be something more to incur excommunication, even latae sententiae.  And then—if incurred—excommunication is one of the easiest problems to resolve.  All you need do is repent of whatever you did.  James Haley might not be able to get back into the priesthood for whatever crimen got him defrocked but the excommunication only requires the humility of repentance.  I feel bad for him.  I suspect he is a very disturbed individual.  It is probably good that he is out of ministry but I hope he has friends and a confessor who can help him find the balance to rebuild his life.  It isn’t that he has been persecuted by the Bishop of Arlington and a lavender cabal that runs the diocese.  Like the story of Father Guarnizo and his various “charities” there is more to it that we don’t know.  I am not saying that the machinery of Holy Mother Church is always just, I am only saying that there is more to this story than has been admitted to.  And pardon me for ending a sentence with a preposition.  According to Sister Arrabiata in seventh grade this incurs a penalty worse than latae sententiae.