Popes Can't Afford To Be Tone-Deaf

According to news sources, the Holy See is instructing bishops that it is “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that ultimately victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.  The document, produced by the Pontifical Council for the Family, advises bishops that while they must be aware of local laws that require allegations to be reported to civil authorities, as far as the Holy See is concerned the only duty of the bishop is to deal with the matter internally. 

Now, despite the impression the news agencies are giving, the Vatican isn’t telling the bishops that they can break the civil law in those places where it is required for social workers, teachers, and other authorities to report abuse cases. And I can understand the dilemma of a bishop who becomes aware of an allegation against a member of the clergy or a Church employee but also is confronted with a victim or a victim’s family that is reluctant for the matter to be made public.  But the directive obviously shows that some people in Rome are still tone-deaf to the crisis of credibility that is facing the institutional Church. 

And, of course, this story follows up on the the suspension of clerical sex-abuse survivor, Peter Saunders, from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.  Saunders was “voted off the island” by an all but unanimous vote of his fellow commission members.  (There were sixteen votes against, one abstention, none for Saunders.)  Now, again, this was not an executive decision from above but a decision by peers.  And we have all served on committees where one member keeps gluing up the works with his or her own agenda.  But again, however justified the commission members might be, it is a matter of tone-deafness that brings considerable scandal on the Church and undermines our credibility. 

And now we have the president of a Catholic University, fortunately in this instance a layman and not a priest, comparing under-performing students to “bunnies” who “should be drowned.”  Boy, where in the Gospel do you get that????    I realize that good academic management requires weeding out those who will not succeed so that more viable candidates can take their space—but again, how does the murdered bunnies image play in Peoria?

Why is the Catholic Church on a suicide mission?  If there is a failure in regard to implementing the mandate of the Second Vatican Council for the Church to take its place on the modern world, it is this: the presupposition that we, as Church, are not accountable to the larger human community among whom live and work.  How can we be that “light of revelation to the nations” if we maintain that we are somehow exempt from the standards of behavior we ourselves set with our Christian ideals? 

And I must admit that as much as I admire Pope Francis he too seems at times to have become bogged down in protecting the institution rather than witnessing to the integrity of the Gospel.    The Pope’s appointment and defense of Juan Barros Madrid as Bishop of Osorno, Chile, despite Barros’ ties to notorious priest-abuser Fernando Karadima, is another case of Rome being tone-deaf.  Barros’ installation in his cathedral church turned into a huge fracas as the vast majority of the faithful made their rejection of their bishop public.  Moreover, the vast majority of his brother bishops in Chile, including the two Chilean Cardinals, refused to attend the installation, signifying that few, if any, supported the Pope’s appointee.  Francis allegedly referred to those who opposed Bishop Barros Madrid’s appointment as “lefties” and “dumb.”  Holy Father, we know you can’t carry a tune in a basket, but get to a hearing-specialist and get your ear canals cleaned out.  We can’t afford to have a tone-deaf Pontiff sitting on the chair of Peter. 

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that hearing confessions desensitizes the clergy to the evil of certain sins.  This isn’t just a Catholic problem.  I suspect that many Protestant clergy  and rabbis after years of pastoral counseling ministry, also become somewhat immune to the impact of evil.  The problem is that most of the evil encountered in confession or counseling is done by basically good people. Bad people—and there some—generally don’t come to see the priest or rabbi.   Most people sin to, in some way or other, escape the pain they feel in life.  (Pardon the split infinitive in the above sentence; I too am a sinner.)  The husband who finds himself continually rejected by his wife (or the wife, by her husband), turns to an illicit relationship. This is not right but the sin is most often the result of the pain and anger of rejection.  Beneath the abuse of alcohol or drugs is often a huge amount of psychological pain.  And when it comes to physical or emotional or sexual abuse: how many abusers have themselves been the victims of abuse?  None of this justifies the evil we choose,  but the priest or minister, becoming aware of the complexity of people’s lives, puts sin in a context that not only involves judgment but compassion.  In pastoral care that is most probably a good thing.  But it can’t leave us, as a Church, in a world of moral ambiguity.  It is a difficult balance to achieve, especially without risking the sin of phariseeism ourselves, but we need to find it.   Our integrity as a Church demands that while we deal compassionately with sinners we keep true to the moral compass of the Gospels. 

Perhaps the problem is, at least in part, that the bishops and clergy have no idea that they are in any way accountable to us, the People of God.  We are still an overly hierarchic Church rather than a true community of the faithful.  There are still too many working on the pyramid model of Church where the Pope is over the bishops, the bishops over the clergy, and the clergy over the people.  In this model, communication is one way—top down and the role of the laity is still perceived to be “to pay, pray, and obey.”  And need I say that for many of us, those days are over. 

We need to develop an ecclesiology in which we—and I mean all of us, not just the laity—see ourselves  not in a hierarchic pyramid but in a communal model of concentric circles with the bishop at the center, the clergy around the bishop, the faithful around the clergy.  In the same way the larger perspective is viewed with the Bishop and Church of Rome at the center surrounded by the communion of local Churches with their bishops at their center.  This model of Church is far from new and was the predominant ecclesiology in the patristic period from the second century through the thirteenth. 

To a certain extent we have already begun to move towards this model of Church.  The decrees of the Second Vatican Council, particularly Lumen Gentium (the dogmatic Constitution on the Church) and Christus Dominus (the Decree on the Bishops), and to a lesser extent in Apostolicam Actuositatem (On the Apostolate of the Laity), actually lay out this theology.  Unfortunately, as we all know, John Paul II didn’t much care for this model and pretty much smothered it in its post-Paul VI cradle.  Francis has given us hope of reviving it, but the above-mentioned actions on the part of the Holy See show not only some back-pedaling but even the Pope’s failure to see the implications of his actions.  Hopefully his remarks about “lefties” and “dumb” is only another case of a live-mike picking up an indiscreet comment from a world leader, but it is still troubling that the Pope doesn’t see the profound theological issue when not only the faithful but the regional episcopate reject a candidate for bishop. 

Today’s adults are not going to continue to belong to an organization—even a Church—that doesn’t take them seriously.  I am not advocating a democratic Church but one in which there is genuine communication so that those whose ministry it is to speak the faith of the Church know what is in the mind and the hearts of the Church’s members.  The consensus fidelium needs to be restored as an essential part of the dynamic of the Church’s teaching and governing mission. 

A Contemporary Reflection on the Becket Controversy

A Becket-in-the-making?

Cardinal Francis George

of  Chicago

Cardinal George’s dire forecast that his successors would die martyrs for the faith triggered me to write these reflections on the contemporary Church in the United States the martyrdom of Thomas Becket—who died not for the faith but to preserve the Church’s privilege of exemption from the Law.  Ironically I am  and have long been a devotee of Becket.  Given the understanding of the Church’s position in the 12^th century, I realize that Becket acted on a principle he cherished as a matter of faith.  However in the 20^th century none of us would hold to that same principle—well probably Cardinal Law would—that the Church is not answerable to any authority but its own when it comes to crimes by the clergy.  Of course Becket lived in a time when the Church was consolidating its power; today we are somewhat more suspicious about power and reluctant to see it go unchecked, even (and especially) in the Church. 
I have referred several times before to the insight offered by the late Cardinal Avery Dulles in his book, the Catholicity of the Church, that the first thousand years of the papacy were about witness; the second thousand about power; and the third thousand will be about service.  I agree with Dulles but I think the paradigm can be extended from the papacy to the Church itself and this would mean that Catholicism is at one of those great shifts in the theological tectonic plates as we move from the template of power to the template of service.  Little tremors have signaled the shifting ground ever since Bishop Emil de Smedt of Bruges declared in the opening session of Vatican II that the Church had to renounce the “clericalism, juridicism, and triumphalism” of the past and meet the modern world on its own terms.  Paul VI abolished the papal court, drastically simplified the costuming of prelates to be rid of the princely accoutrements.  Religious women, moving out of their large motherhouses, put aside their medieval garb and institutional ministries to undertake hands-on service of abused women, abandoned children, the homeless, the aged, the immigrant, and the mentally ill.  Jesuits and de la Salle Christian Brothers opened up inner city Christo Rey Schools to give the children of the poor an educational leg-up that would let them compete successfully for placement in the academies run by their orders.  Religious Orders of both men and women started NGO’s and Institutes and outreach centers that would interface them with the rank injustices that underlay our social structures on the local, national, and international levels.  New model bishops, noted for their simplicity of style and humble service, emerged in the Church in such figures as Dom Helder Camara of Recife Brazil, Remi de Roo of Victoria,  Bernard Topel of Spokane, Oscar Romero of San Salvador, and Thomas Gumbleton (auxiliary) of Detroit.   But it was an Albanian nun who most personified this new attitude, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and captured the attention of the world by her devoted care of the poorest of the poor.  But it has not been a highway without its detours, roadblocks, speed bumps and potholes. 
There has been a strong current among social conservatives pushing a restorationist agenda in the Church to preserve the privilege and power of past centuries.  Recognizing that the liturgical changes introduced under Paul VI in the 1970 missal have probably been the strongest factor in awakening the social consciousness of the Catholic faithful, some bishops, many priests, and about five percent of the active laity have pushed to restore the pre-conciliar rites along with the elaborate costuming of prelates abolished by Paul VI.  There has been a revival of neo-traditionalist art and architecture in many Catholic parishes that focuses on splendor and material display.  Restorationist prelates such as Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Bernard Law, and Archbishop William Lori pushed for measures to rein in the religious sisters who have devoted themselves to the service of the poor and disenfranchised in our society.  Ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation have come in most places to a grinding halt as Pope Benedict XVI changed the ground-rules from a tone of mutual cordiality and respect to a high-handed arrogance combined with a disdain for any whose understanding of Truth differed from the Catholic norm. 
Most troubling is that, at least on the American scene, the institutional dimension of the Catholic Church ceased speaking up for the least of Christ’s brothers and sisters and began shrill denunciations of those in our society who disagreed with the Church on two issues, abortion and same-sex marriage.  Catholic voices—some bishops, many priests, and a bloc of laity have called for the civil law to enshrine Catholic moral doctrine on these issues regardless of the fact that the majority of Americans do not agree with the moral principles on which the Catholic Church builds her case.  Catholics in public life have been threatened with Church censures if they did not do their jobs according to the directions of the hierarchy.  Catholics who voted for politicians who would not cave in to hierarchic pressure were threatened with censure and punishment if they did not follow the directions of the clergy in casting their ballots.  The Church was seen as using its moral authority to enforce a political agenda and that is not playing according to American Constitutional tradition. 
Fifty three years ago, a Catholic running for President spoke to a group of Protestant clergy declaring

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President -- should he be Catholic -- how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accept instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials, and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

At the time that man spoke, the Catholic voice stood behind him. It would be our first—and to date only—opportunity to have one of our own in the White House.  But today, many voices in our Church think that prelates should tell politicians how to act; Catholic pastors have no difficulty in telling their parishioners for whom to vote.  Today we see a religious body seeking to impose its will upon the general populace and the public acts of our elected officials. 

I don’t believe this means that Catholics need to be silent about abortion or about same-sex marriage—or about gun control, capital punishment, universal health-care, immigration, or the host of other hot-button political items that have religious implications.  I do believe, however, that our role is to educate and convince the electorate of the truth of our position, not to unilaterally impose our values on the larger society.  We can, as can any citizen or group of citizens, use the political system to further our convictions but we have no right to hijack it, even for the good ends we desire. 

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. 

One Way to Atone for Our Sins

The coffin of Jimmy Saville, papal knight

and sexual predator, awaits being brought

to Leeds Cathedral for funeral Mass last

year.

I never knew who Sir Jimmy Saville was until the news broke about his history of alleged sexual abuse of minors—with over three hundred accusations against him he is reported to be one of the worst sexual predators in the history of Great Britain.  When you consider the history of the British monarchy that is quite a distinction.  Saville was a radio and television personality over the last fifty years or so who parlayed his fame from a media personality to being a major fundraiser for British charities.  For his charitable work he was knighted first by Queen Elizabeth and later by Pope John Paul.  Archbishop Nichols of Westminster has petitioned the Vatican to posthumously remove the papal honors and the Royal Household is considering rescinding the Imperial honors.  It is, of course, an embarrassment that a man who was such a prominent Catholic have this sort of disgrace pinned to his name.  But there is another side of this that we as a Church should look at.

In the last few weeks Americans have been made painfully aware of the rampant sex-abuse scandals in the organization of the Boy Scouts of America.  Their recent release of files has shown over 500 cases that were swept under the rug but some sources, including Wikipedia, claim that there were two thousand cases of sex abuse in the Boy Scouts of America since since the mid 20^th century.  All the time that the Catholic Church was being excoriated for its handling of abuse cases, the BSA kept smugly silent about the secrets in its own closet.  But then that is human nature, I would suppose. 

And of course the problems of Penn State in the Jerry Sandusky matter show that this same desire to protect the institution at all costs and regardless of the safety and suffering of others is not a Catholic matter or a Scouting strategy but that it is endemic in our society.  
The Catholic Church has undergone—finally and not without great pain—a revision of protocols to insure that the welfare of the vulnerable will not be subordinated to the good of the Institution again.  Of course such individuals as Bishop Bruskewitz, former Bishop of Lincoln, rejected such protocols for their jurisdictioncs, but the acceptance of the “Dallas Accords” has been all but universal and seems to be securely in place.  This is perhaps due more to the strictures of the companies the insure the various dioceses than a genuine desire for reform and protection but whatever the reason the Church is to be commended on its clean-up of a horrible mess.  But I think that we, as Church, can do more and that is my point in this posting. 
The Catholic Church has learned some valuable lessons in dealing with its sex abuse crisis.  I personally do not believe that sex abuse is a topic for Sunday morning sermons any more than I believe abortion, birth-control, homosexuality, or other sexual issues belong in Sunday sermons.  I do think they need to be addressed in other fora however.  Without resorting to the pulpit, I do think the Church could play a very important role in bringing this problem—a widespread problem in our society—out into the light.   In particular I think the Church could do a great service in educating parents of children enrolled in Catholic schools and in religious education programs of danger signs for which to watch in protecting their children.  I think the Church could sponsor programs in which people who have been victims have an opportunity to heal together and I think many of these same people could be encouraged to speak in consciousness-raising fora in parishes and Catholic institutions.  The topic of sexual abuse and how to recognize its danger should be incorporated at age-appropriate levels in curriculum of Catholic education.  (And we must remember that while this is a difficult balance, this particular issue needs to be addressed while children are still quite young because that is when they are particularly vulnerable.)    Finally since most abuse is in the context of the family—not the Church and not the Scouts and not Little League—we need to provide support for parents who fear that a spouse or close relative is in danger of harming a child. 
As a Church we have failed and failed miserably but now we have an opportunity to redeem that failure and make it work for good.  Let’s not pass it up. 

A Once Christian People

Most Reverend Richard Clarke, DD, Anglican

Archbishop-Elect of Armagh and Primate of all

Ireland

Some years ago I was doing a series of workshops in Ireland and I found the book A Whisper of God: Esssays on Post-Catholic Ireland, by Richard Clarke, Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare and now Archbishop-elect of Armagh and Primate, most helpful in comprehending the state of the Church in Ireland.  My first visit to Ireland was 1971 and I remember when Ireland was a seriously devout country.  Recent visits show a very different country and a very different Church.  Vocations have dried up.  Congregations have grayed and the next generations have other plans for their Sunday Mornings—golf, brunch, or just a lazy day in bed.  The clergy are openly despised.  And the faithful, or formerly faithful, have moved on from the Church.  There are those who blame the materialism of the Celtic Tiger era for the alienation but the honest truth is that the Church brought the Temple down on its own head much like Samson.  The Irish finally had enough of the abuse of clerical power and the arrogance of generations of parish priests; the sex-abuse crisis and the disastrous handling of the same has pushed the Irish over the ledge and caused a huge sociological revolt. 

     We do have had a sex-abuse crisis in our country and our bishops have handled it no better than did the Irish, and we too are seeing a defection on the part of regular Churchgoers, but it does not seem to be for the same reasons.  Oh yes, there are some who attribute their new-found Sunday leisure to pederasts and their protectors, but as the defection is not limited to Catholics—or even any more strong among them than among the general population—we need to look for other reasons.   

       According to a recent Pew survey, one in five Americans now identify themselves as “unaffiliated” when it comes to their religious membership.  Part of this shift has been the loose boundaries among American mainline Protestants where people shifted from Presbyterian to Methodist to United Church of Christ more according to neighborhood convenience than doctrinal commitment.  Women no longer being confined to the home and its duties, and children having a multitude of activities ranging from Tai Kwan Do to ballet to sports, has reduced time available for Church activities just as the expansion of American social life in the years since World War II with gyms and clubs and civic organizations has reduced the need for the Church to be a social center.  In this Catholics are no different than their Protestant neighbors and few look to the Church to be more than a place for worship.  An exception to the general trend is the number of Catholics who see their Church not only as a place for worship but an opportunity for volunteerism.  Catholic parishes seem to be more active than ever—and in terms of numbers more involved than Protestant Churches, mainline or evangelical—in outreach to the homeless, in food pantries and soup kitchens, in adult education and awareness programs, in community service projects, work camps, and other outreach programming.  Yet, at the end of the day, there is an increasing number of former Catholics among the “unaffiliated.” 

      Some simply leave the Church and formal religion altogether for the same reason that others find new Church homes among Protestant Churches—mainline or evangelical.  Not being able to come to Holy Communion because of their being in a marriage not recognized by the Catholic Church leaves them feeling cut off and second-class.  Others feel rejected due to their LGBT status—or their disagreement with the Church’s stance towards the LGBT community has led them to think that they have moved on and left the Catholic Church behind.  While the majority of American Catholics disagree with the Church’s teaching on contraception that issue has not driven many from the Church—they have just learned to find themselves comfortable with the fact that they disagree with doctrine.  Knowing that the majority of clergy are not committed to that particular doctrine probably helps them over any discomfort they might otherwise feel.  Similarly women who have had an abortion find they often can reconcile with the Church and still feel at home in her, while those men and women who are more vigorous advocates of “abortion rights” find themselves very uncomfortable even in progressive parishes. 

       The state of Sunday morning in many Catholic parishes has not helped.  One Sunday recently I was walking with a friend when he got a text message from an acquaintance whom he had recommended that she should try a particular parish.  His friend was ecstatic: “I finally went to a Mass where the priest was not telling me that I was on the road to hell.”  Priest after priest today tends to tell his congregation what the Church is against without any idea how wearying to the soul this message can be.  We all know what the Church is against.  That doesn’t inspire us.  Can you tell us what it is for? 

      Sermons are not only invariably negative they are too often ill prepared with the preacher just following his stream of consciousness as it trickles down to a rivulet or runs dry all together.  Some of the younger priests in particular have more confidence in their seminary training than their education merits and it is embarrassing to hear them pontificate on subjects they know nothing about to congregations who are often better educated and certainly more experienced than the preacher.  These same priests have often reintroduced liturgical styles that are stuffy at best and often just turgid in their mind-numbing tedium.

       What is to be done?  Well one thing is we need leadership that wakes up to this problem, doesn't blame it on someone else, and is concerned about it.  To many bishops and priests today say “a smaller, leaner Church is good” with no concern for the spiritual welfare of those very people who are being made to feel unwelcome.  The smaller leaner Church answer is only a cop out for “shepherds” who are too lazy to look after the flocks entrusted to them.  We need good shepherds—that is the first step. 

Holy Father, It Ain't No Mystery!

Quinn Abbey, Co. Clare; not only

the Irish Church is in ruins--it is

time for a new Reformation and

the faithful must demand change. 

Yesterday I mentioned Father Martin’s blog about DeLaSalle Brother Louis DeThomasis and his book Flying in the Face of Tradition: Listening to the Lived Experience of the Faithful.  There was a day, and it was a day exalted by Newman, in which the consensus fidelium—the lived experience of the faithful—played a role in the development of doctrine and the governance of the Church.  Brother DeThomasis says in his book, according to Father Martin,

“Sexual abuse, corruption, authoritarianism, lack of transparency, and cover-ups have all been collapsing into and on top of the institutional church….The 'tipping point' has been reached, and the moral authority, honor and respect that the institutional church once elicited from most peoples and secular institutions around the globe no longer exists.”

Now, according to press reports, the Pope, addressing the Catholics of Ireland during the Fiftieth International Eucharistic Congress being hosted in Dublin, said on Sunday that  it is a mystery why priests and other church officials abused children entrusted in their care, undermining faith in the church "in an appalling way."  I don’t mean to challenge the Holy Father’s infallibility but the sex-abuse crisis is no mystery—in Ireland, here, or elsewhere.   It is the lack of transparency, the authoritarianism that leads people like the former Cardinal Archbishop of Boston to think they are above the law, the corruption that comes from influence pedaling and raw ambition in the Church (Archbishop Lori and Carl Anderson, take note), and the hypocrisy that thinks that all one must do is sweep the dirt under the rug and it’s gone that has led to the alienation from the Church of millions. 
As a historian, I sincerely doubt that the institutional Church is capable of reforming itself.  The faithful need to exercise their responsibility in holding the leadership of the Church accountable and with their feet to the fire of reform.  I haven’t read Brother DeThomasis’ book and am not sure if I will have time to, but it seems to me that, at least in the passage quoted, he is saying no more than that.   The boys in the red dresses had better wake up and smell the coffee that “the moral authority, honor and respect that the institutional church once elicited from most peoples and secular institutions around the globe no longer exists.”

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.  

Hello, The Building Is on Fire, Anyone Noticing?

Quin Abbey in County Clare--a fitting symbol of the

fact that The Irish Church is in ruins, but this time

because of its own abuses of power.  Will the American
Church be far behind?

One gets into the most fascinating conversations here in Rome.  A Vatican friend of mine was discussing his hopes that the new Nuncio to Dublin, the American Archbishop-designate Charles Brown (Charlie Brown? An Archbishop’s name?  amusing) would be able to smooth things out a bit with the strained Dublin-Vatican relations.  Ireland recently closed its embassy to the Holy See.  While the reasons given were “cost cutting,” observers could not but note the diplomatic crisis that had led the Vatican to recall its ambassador several week earlier.  Moreover the Irish government has apparently said that it will not issue a formal invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to attend next year’s Eucharistic Congress in Dublin and that if the Holy Father wished to come he could do so “as a private citizen.”  Who would have foreseen such a turn of events that once Catholic Ireland would turn on the papacy?  Well, Daniel O’Connell for one who in the 19^th century, when the Holy See was supportive of British colonial policy towards Ireland, warned that “Ireland will always be Catholic but may not always be Roman.”  But even O’Connell could not have—nor would have wished to have—foreseen the day when the Irish all but gave up their faith.  This “national apostasy” is not about the sex-abuse crisis—that is just the “frosting on the cake.”  This is the result of a long tradition of the Irish clergy trying to exercise power and control over public life.  The Irish have long resented clerical interference in their lives.    During the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century many of the Irish clergy, and especially the friar orders, were very supportive of the Irish people in their struggles to free themselves from colonialism but the episcopacy and prominent secular clergy invariably favored the British upper classes.  Once Ireland won its independence from Britain, (1921 or 1949, depending on one’s (Irish) political views), the Catholic Church dominated public life to the point where the Irish Constitution prohibited not only divorce but even contraception.  These sectarian features were done away with in the 1970’s but the clergy continued to exercise undue influence in the most minute of local matters such as the appointment of village school masters or the opening and closing of pubs.  Clerical interference in secular matters built up a huge sea of resentment towards the institutional Church.  The situation of the Church in Ireland now is desperate with very few vocations and rapidly dropping Mass attendance.  This is not just a Catholic problem however as attendance at Church of Ireland parishes, and Methodist and Presbyterian chapels is no better.  The issue is secularization, a disillusionment with religion.  You may recall from my posting this past Tuesday about the gentleman on the plane and his not wanting his children to be exposed to religion which he saw as a negative force in society.  And there are reasons why people have such strong feelings on this matter; it may be worth our while as Catholics to look at those reasons and examine our collective conscience. 

       Speaking of secularization, another tidbit that got dropped this afternoon from a Dutch friend of mine is that Dutch dictionaries no longer carry “Catholic” words such as tabernacle, thurible, miter, font, or confessional.  This is perhaps even more alarming as it represents a clear pushing of religion to the margins of society when you take its vocabulary out of public use.  It is hard to believe here in Rome with a church on every corner and votive shrines in the alleys between but secularization is fast overtaking European society—and America is not long behind.    Wise church leadership would look at the reasons and forces that are pushing religion out of the public square and do something about it, but then a Church as fractured as the American Church has allowed itself to become is having its energy drained by internal squabbles and is in no shape to face external crises.  Que peccato as they say here in Roma.