Catholic Sensibility

Hiding in the back of the boat Don't misread me. I like bishops. I really do. I've met about a half-dozen. (Maybe I'll post some good bishop stories after my retreat.) I've always been impressed with their spirituality, their generally outstanding ability to preside at Mass and preach, their ability to remember my name. (Of course on the last point, I'm sure St Bloggers believe they keep a dossier on us radical types -- of course they remember me; they just read the file before Confirmation last night!) Joe Feuerherd of NCR breaks this news and we've been getting into it the past day at Amy's place. I'd like to take a step back and assess where we are. It's my sense that episcopal cover-up of predator clergy is what has angered Catholics more than any other issue. We've known that some small percentage of priests and religious have abused children for centuries. (What Catholic brought up before the Council doesn't have some horror story about Sister Mary Knuckleslapper or an unkind confessor?) Most often it's a family member that abuses. Abuse is tragic, but it's not news. Liberals and conservatives can quibble about same sex abuse being a crime of pre-Vatican II gender separation opportunity (which I think is an overlooked consideration), a crime of seducing teens into a gay lifestyle (which I doubt is happening in great numbers), or "just a few bad apples" doing it because they can (the power thing is my pet theory) or because they themselves were abused (but the study doesn't find this to be prevalent). It's most likely there are as many reasons as predators themselves. I wouldn't underestimate the complexity of addiction, sex, guilt, and religion getting stirred into the same troubled pot. The fact remains that bishops knew about abuse. The bishops took the easiest advice they could find (rehab the offenders, then reassign). The bishops played the legal game to a minimum financial loss. The bishops hid information and encouraged (sometimes intimidated) people to keep quiet. They compromised their lackeys and consultants to do their dirty work (not an insignificant sin). Now they are trying to convince the Church the problem is in the past. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. About ten years ago or more I think most Catholics would have believed a bishop's ignorance if an offending priest was caught for the first time. One much pilloried bishop I know reassigned a sex offender (whom I also knew) to chancery duty. I think the Catholic regard for the clergy was recently high enough that lay people would have accepted an offending priest serving the Church in a non-ministerial role, or living in a monastery. Ten years ago, I think some laity might have even hoped in the possibility of an offender's reform. Though even then, the best professional advice was telling us sexual addictions are the hardest from which to recover. Tom Doyle brought that to the USCCB in 1985-88. And was ignored. And he was both a priest and an addiction counsellor. With the repeated offenses of a predator priest, a bishop is then implicated in the crimes for being an incompetent shepherd of the innocent. Covering up further deepens the sin by obfuscating a proper and just resolution. Telling us the problem is solved and it's time to move on to other issues is received with skepticism. And bishops are surprised? Lay people probably have no canonical recourse here, but that will harm the bishops as a body far more than it will protect them. It really will. They will find it very, very difficult to recover lost credibility. They've damaged -- and continue to damage -- their authority more than any wild schismatic group ever could. I think it fair to implicate the curia in this as well. In the 1980's, they investigated Archbishop Hunthausen for lax annulment procedures and other irregularities. Whatever one's opinion of Hunthausen was, most anyone will concede the current cover-up crisis is far more grave for the bishops as a body that the Seattle bishop's ever was. I can appreciate the canonical concerns of giving the lay review board "too much power." Fine. Are there bishops or clergy in the house we can trust? What would it take to find them? Has the Congregation for Bishops lifted a finger in this regard? What's that you say? A new document on the ministry of bishop? What makes you think documents like this are read, prayed about, and really worked on? It seems that the "fidelity, fidelity, fidelity" mantra has hit the Vatican like the reality show craze. We're seeing a new wave of conservative/orthodox/faithful bishops in the Mold-of-John-Paul-II (TM). This is going to help? Read Feuerherd's story. Here's a list of bishops who want to bury the issue: Cardinal Edward Egan, Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop John Myers, Archbishop Elden Curtiss, Archbishop Charles Chaput, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz: all Darlings of the New Right. "I do believe that, after such a storm for two years, the bishops need a bit of a break to reflect on all that has happened so that we can move ahead, thoughtfully and prayerfully, instead of rushing in and making a lot of mistakes that we later regret," writes Cheyenne Bishop David Ricken. Bishop Ricken and his colleagues are insufferably naive if they think episcopal authority can calm a storm. Jesus was the last to do that, and too often these days we see little enough of the Lord Jesus in Church leadership. Whether they realize it or not, the bishops continue to fumble over this. They have lost much moral authority to speak on pro-life issues. Their administration of dioceses comes into question. They want the storm to be over, but their actions continue to work at odds with their desire for calm. We could well be seeing one of the biggest crises in Church history. It's easily in the top-five of all time, but if it emerges more in Europe and the Third World, I'd be hard-pressed to consider Arians, Protestants, and the Schism as threats more grave. Remember, the Church kept splitting after these last two failures. Do we have a prayer on this one? And the bishops still don't get it. They're still in the mode of "last Sunday was Mother's Day and now it's time to move on to Vocations Awareness Weekend." The NRB is just last month's garage sale. "We've got your report. Now can we just go play a round of golf?" A ministry of calm and maintenance is fine enough for a country pastor concerned about bake sales, the parish softball team, and VBS. But even the small town churches suffer calamities such as flood, tornado, vacating businesses, and the like. We need bishops who are more than benevolent, beloved country pastors. Are they ready to lead by example and charism and not by authority? Doesn't look like it to me. Feuerherd's column really worries me. It shows our bishops are cowering in the back of the boat, covering up in blankets and hoping the storm will go away.