Monday, April 29, 2024

When will the Catholic Church ever learn?

 

I've written extensively about the Catholic Church's clergy sex abuse scandal in these pages.  As regular readers will know, the way it was mishandled led me to withdraw from that Church's ministry.  Today's discussion will discuss the latest development in that scandal.  A word of warning:  I remain Christian, and will provide a believer's perspective on the issue.  If you're not Christian and/or not a person of faith, you might prefer to skip this article.

A report from New York illustrates the core of the Catholic Church's problem, which is with us still, and will be unless and until the hierarchy of the Church returns to its joint and several roots and remakes itself in Christ's image, instead of the world's.


On Tuesday, [the New York State] Appellate court’s First Department reversed a ruling dismissing Chubb insurance’s assertion that its policies did not cover child sexual abuse claims that church leaders enabled and covered up for decades... Chubb insured the Archdiocese of New York, which serves 2.5 million Catholics, and its affiliated parishes and schools between 1956 and 2003.

. . .

The appellate court’s decision affirms Chubb’s position that it shouldn’t have to defend the Archdiocese if the organization “had knowledge of its employees’ conduct or propensities,” the company said in a statement.

“The Archdiocese must now disclose what it knew and when it knew about child abuse perpetrated by priests and employees,” the company contended. “That disclosure is critical to determining whether the [Archdiocese of New York’s] knowledge and cover-up precludes coverage.” 

The Archdiocese called the ruling “disappointing” and “wrongly decided,” claiming, “If allowed to stand, the decision will permit insurance companies to evade the contractual obligations of the policies they issued.”


There's more at the link.

The last paragraph cited above illustrates the core of the problem.  The Archdiocese of New York is not responding to the news as a body of faith, as the Body of Christ on Earth.  It's responding as a business organization, just another corporate entity talking to the courts and other corporate entities on their terms.

This is not what the Church is called to be.  It's definitely not Biblical, it's not Godly, and it ignores the calling of Christ for His church to be His bride.

There are those who'll say that of course the Church must respond to corporate issues in a corporate way;  that to do otherwise would be nonsensical.  However, think about it.  Did Christ ever tell His apostles to establish a corporation?  Hire lawyers and managers and administrators, and actually use ordained ministers of faith in those occupations, rather than as messengers of the Gospel?  What's the priority here?

Bob Mumford, a Pentecostal evangelist, once defined secular humanism as "what you get when the world evangelizes the church".  That was a prophetic definition, IMHO, and we see its results in far too many Christian churches today.  They are run as businesses rather than houses of faith;  secular corporations rather than guardians and beacons and emissaries of Christ's truth.  Christ told us to "preach the Gospel to all nations" - not erect corporate entities that would administer the secular possessions of the Church while, effectively, relegating her Divine mission to second place (if that).

That's also what gave rise to the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal in the first place.  Seminaries were allowed to become secular in focus, concentrating on psychology, sociology, anthropology and other approaches to human life instead of inculcating the transformational, transcendental calling of Christ to his followers in their students.  Worse, the seminaries were staffed by those who shared that perspective, including many who were morally degenerate.  Anyone not sharing it was either not appointed to the staff, or removed as quickly as possible.  Furthermore, students were selected for the seminary according to their conformity with secular perspectives and liberal/progressive "spirituality", and again, those who did not demonstrate this were quickly removed.

For a thorough discussion of those issues, see the book "Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church" by Michael S. Rose, published in 2002.



The book documents everything that I've said about seminaries, and goes into a lot more detail.  It might as well be sub-titled "How Satan Subverted Future Priests", because that was the net effect of such policies on so many students for the priesthood.  I suppose we'll never know how many potentially holy, faithful and apostolic priests we lost thanks to those policies.  I'm betting it was a bunch, and then some.  Even worse, American bishops did nothing to stop this corruption.  It was their responsibility under Canon Law:  indeed, even when the seminary/ies in question were run by religious orders, and nominally not under local episcopal control, the local bishop could have suspended the sacramental faculties of professors, reported the matter to Rome and demanded action, and taken other steps to ensure orthodoxy of teaching.  As far as I'm aware, none did.  I would not like to stand in their shoes at their Judgement . . .

(It's with considerable pleasure that I recently read complaints from some liberal and progressive sources that most priests being ordained today are orthodox in their faith and loyal to the traditional spiritual and theological teaching of the Church.  I hope they're right.  If so, I guess it's the Holy Spirit restoring the church and her clergy to what they should be.)

So, the secular approach to the world epitomized in the Church's seminaries carried over to (and may even have originated in) the Church's administration.  Almost every bishop and his deputies (the Vicars General and Chancellors of dioceses, and other positions) were focused on the Church as a business, as a corporate entity, rather than the Church as the living body of believers.  They spent their time in meetings, writing memoranda, allowing accountants and lawyers to "help them" to conform the Church's structure and administration to "good business practices" - without considering their real and primary calling.  That calling became subordinated to their jobs . . . and that's why things went so appallingly wrong with the Church and some of her clergy.

We see precisely that approach reflected in the Archdiocese of New York's statement after the New York appeal court's ruling:

“If allowed to stand, the decision will permit insurance companies to evade the contractual obligations of the policies they issued.”

Not one word about whether or not the Archdiocese knew about any of the claims over which it's being sued.  It did, and we know it did, because that's come out in innumerable reports over the more than two decades that this scandal has been in the public eye.  Chubb is absolutely correct to try to avoid the costs of those claims, as the appeals court has just ruled.  Its insurance policy/ies contained a liability clause:  in so many words, if its clients knew about a potentially harmful or dangerous situation before the incident(s) occurred, and did nothing to prevent or avoid it, their insurance cover was/is forfeited.  That's a stock-standard clause in any and every liability insurance policy I've ever read.  (I might add that I hold a Master's degree in business, and was a manager and company director before I was ordained a priest, so I know what I'm talking about.)

That's also demonstrated in the public reactions of the Catholic Church in America when the clergy sex abuse scandal broke.  They instantly went into a defensive huddle and called in lawyers, psychologists, public relations specialists, and a host of other secular disciplines to help craft a defensive strategy.  Few if any bishops publicly accepted responsibility for the catastrophe, and those that did . . . well, let's say I doubt that all of them meant it whole-heartedly.  Considering the "inside information" that many priests heard at the time, that was not the impression we gained at all.  Indeed, the national programs implemented to "resolve" the issue reflected that insincerity.  Not a single one of the measures proposed and enforced did anything to deal with the roots of the problem.  Instead, they had the effect of making priests feel that their own bishops considered them to be the source of the problem, and that they were seen as guilty until proven innocent!  I've discussed in depth my reactions to the bishops' measures in an earlier article, so I won't repeat them here.

So now we have the Archdiocese of New York protesting because its former insurer is insisting on enforcing the liability clause(s) in its contracts.  As far as I'm concerned, the Archdiocese appears to be trying to force Chubb to pay for its debts and liabilities, despite the Church having failed to keep its side of the bargain.   To me, that's not only legally wrong, but morally as well.  We know the Archdiocese knew more about these scandals than it ever admitted, until it was forced to acknowledge at least some part of that knowledge in previous court proceedings - yet even now, it's trying to avoid acknowledging that reality by simply refusing to talk about it.  Honesty?  Moral uprightness?  Acknowledging sin?  Where are those Gospel realities in the arguments of the lawyers for the Archdiocese?  Non-existent.

As far as I'm concerned, if the Archdiocese of New York is forced to declare bankruptcy and sell off its physical assets, that might even be a blessing.  Perhaps then the Archdiocese and its priests could get back to living and preaching the Gospel, in season and out of season, rather than focusing on banks and lawyers and accountants and insurance policies more than they focus on the mission God has given them.



Peter


22 comments:

  1. The sexual abuse problems are not just a Catholic issue. The Southern Baptists are dealing with it now, and the controversy is not reflecting well on the upper leadership of the SBC. And they are not the only ones, either. I am neither Catholic nor Baptist; I grew up in the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, which have no denominational structure above the local church. And even they are having problems over this issue. I got married in one of their churches in 1970, while I was still attending Bible college. About 10 years later, I found out that the pastor who performed our wedding had been caught having an affair with the church pianist. The divorce trial was so ugly that his own family sat with his wife and kids in the courtroom!
    I think a major part of the problem is that professional ministry is based on taking young people, fresh out of college, and giving them tremendous authority in the local church (and later, above it). From what I have seen, most Bible colleges and seminaries don't do that good a job vetting their students. If you read Paul's epistles to Timothy and Titus, he said that local church leaders should be mature men, with families, and with a good reputation in the community (outside the church).

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  2. Todays church has nothing to do with Christ..

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  3. Short answer, never.

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  4. I am not so well familiarized with the structure of the RCC in USA, but I recall reading that the priests in charge of some parishes need good administrative skills, as those parishes are true corporations, with subsidiaries like one or more schools, kindergartens, etc. Perhaps some parishes are subsidiaries of the diocese, while others are supported by the faithful. I am not aware of the minute details.

    Around here (Spain) the corporation is the diocese, I think.

    On the matter of needing some kind of business structure, I think that is a necessary evil, as financial independence could be necessary for having true doctrinal independence.

    According Mt 10:16 Christs said to His Apostles "Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves."

    Perhaps that corporate structure is a consequence of shrewdness.

    Of course, there are still good bishops in the USA, like Chaput or Strickland, but some others are a bit suboptimal.

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  5. @NobodyExpects: You're quite right - and therein lies the problem. The Church has become such a secular organization in its structure that its pastors and clergy spend an inordinate amount of time running the business of the Church, rather than spreading the Gospel. Much of the administrative overhead could be handed over to non-clergy employees, but the Bishops fear that would diminish their control over the Church, so it's not about to happen. Instead, more and more clergy time is taken up by business issues that they have not been properly trained to manage, and about which they know far too little.

    I saw this as a clergyman, because I was ordained after some years in business, including holding a post-graduate certificate and a Masters degree in management. I could look at the business side of the Church with experience and objectivity - and it was ridiculous! A major overhaul was badly needed, yet it was never allowed to happen, because control by the Bishops was an overriding priority. Also, clergy (despite being relatively untrained in the field) were expected to become part of the structure and support it in the field, no matter what that did to their primary calling of the salvation of souls.

    I know what I'd do to solve the problem, but that will never meet with the approval of the Bishops, so there's no point in going into it at greater length.

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  6. This is nothing new, in the long history of the Catholic Church it has fallen into complete corruption any number of times. After all the Protestant Reformation was brought about by the moral failure of the Catholic Church of the time.
    All bureaucracies, secular and religious, are susceptible to this. Many of the Protestant denominations have their own problems with rot at their core. If the corruption is rooted out this time it will come back, it always does. Good people tend to let others run things as long as they don't have to involve themselves, and the whiff of power will always attract evil.

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  7. The sex scandals happen in all religions and denominations over time. Seems that the larger the organization, the more it ends up being corrupted and starts cover ups.

    The priest and pastor may be the shepherds, but the congregation and church body needs some sheep dogs to keep an eye out for shenanigans.

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  8. The RCC did not have far to go for corruption.

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  9. Just wait until people learn what the American Federation of Teachers has been covering up for years.

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  10. The origin of the problem:

    1st Timothy, 4, 1-3

    1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

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  11. While I admire your principled and moral response to the problem, I think you may be mis-identifying the cause when you say "That's also what gave rise to the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal in the first place. Seminaries were allowed to become secular in focus, concentrating on psychology, sociology, anthropology and other approaches to human life..."

    My own "creepy priest" experience was with a priest who went through seminary in the 1940s and was quite conservative and orthodox. Unfortunately, child abuse is a dirty little secret of humanity that has been going on for a very long time, as "A History of Childhood" by Lloyd de Mause makes clear. Power tends to corrupt, and parents, teachers, clergy, etc. all have power over children. I think what changed in the last thirty years is that people began openly talking about the problem and (justifiably) suing the Church (and schools) over it.

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  12. To only focus on the ones abused by priests neglects/dismisses an old axiom 'Abuse; the gift that keeps on giving'. There are many down line victims of clergy misdeeds that have no recourse or remedy available to them. When victims of molestation become known they don a kind of red letter brand about them. How brutal this mess is.

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  13. Hey Peter,

    I was raised Catholic, old school catholic, Latin masses and so forth, I left the church years ago due to the corruption I could see and nothing was being done to correct it, I mentioned it to my local father of the church because I was well versed in scripturas(those nuns were mean, LOL) and what I was seeing didn't line up with the church of old, it reminded me of the Church before the reformation when there was massive corruption and the paupist were selling " blessings and "Forgiveness" out of a saddlebag wholesale and this got the ire of several reformationist including Martin Luthor. But anyway, I saw thiat and now I see the Catholic charities helping to run the illegals all over the states and through the border, they are one of the NGO's that get our tax dollars to facilitate the travels of the caravans through central America to our southern border. This also doesn't sit well.

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  14. When the pope is more concerned about fake global warming than saving souls, we have a problem.
    https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/pope-calls-world-leaders-end-divisions-fight-climate-change

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  15. I grew up in the Church of Christ and am still a devout member of the Church at age 63, along with my wife. Each one of our churches is an autonomous congregation, usually ruled by a group of Elders. Even with that autonomy, we still have problems with church staff. I have seen several churches split over the years due to crazy problems. Where a minister to the deaf had an affair with a young married woman with two children. He was fired but that rolled through the church, resulting in a divorce when the youngest child hit 18.

    Or when a couple of men came to our small church in the Dallas area in 1987, researched the preacher, and found that he had an scriptural divorce in the 1950s (the elders knew), and started calling the members of the congregation at their homes with the info. Several of the congregation moved to other congregations. These two men purposefully broke up the church. Wolves in our midst.

    Or when a unmarried minister to the youth in a west Texas church had an affair with my cousin's wife and they got divorced when my cousin demanded that she cease seeing him, she refused. The church fired the youth minister but the damage was done.

    We are imperfect people and the bride of Christ, the church, reflects that. In the long run, it is about saving souls and we must continuously renew ourselves to that. Sometimes, tough decisions have to be made to continue that mission.

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  16. As someone who continues to support the Faith, but hasn't been able to support the institution for years now I will say one thing about this matter.

    Until every last shitlib and pedofag is purged from the ranks (both lay and priestly), the problems will only continue, and get worsen.

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  17. Eric S. Raymond wrote about this over 20 years ago. He pointed out in this post that the media has been giving the Gay Mafia in the Church considerable air cover.

    Like you, he also pointed out that there never was accountability. Remember that Bernard Cardinal Law was promoted to the Vatican after this scandal, by John Paul II himself.

    Yours is an interesting take on the financial aspects.

    It makes me wonder if the Orthodox churches (Eastern, Russian, etc) - which AFAIK never demanded celibate clergy - were right after all.

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  18. Peter, thank you for speaking to this. You are an honest man, and a man of moral courage, and there are not enough of those in our world today.

    As an evangelical, we have lots of serious propositions we could argue, but lots we see eye to eye on. One wolf in leadership of any body claiming to be part of Christ's flock is one too many. Men of good will always have a lot to share, and a chance to find all the common ground. Again, thanks.

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  19. I hope that the complaints of orthodoxy in young priests are accurate.

    Boston wasn't a fun place to be a Catholic kid in the 80's. Every single parish had visiting priests now and again, who we all zealously hoped were just alcoholics fresh out of rehab and not ready for a permanent assignment. My church had 2 of the worst predators pass through, and since my pastor and his right hand priest were both locals from Boston, the pass-throughs didn't stay unless they were just guilty of formerly lingering over the unconsecrated alter wine. Still, my friends from other parishes, some got got, some didn't. The ones who got preyed upon are all dead. OD's or suicides.
    Last I heard, the Boston Seminary is still the focal point of the lavender mafia in the US, the same ancient deviants who are now the 2nd generation of predator supporters doing very well for themselves, thank you.

    I concur entirely with Peter's statement about the fact that bankruptcy might be the best thing for the Catholic church in the US.

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  20. Silverfox and Borepatch are right - repressed sexuality rarely produces anything positive.

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  21. My three cents worth:
    I was raised Catholic, 12 years of Catholic School, altar boy, lector, thought of the seminary.
    At 15, the parish priest came on to me in the confessional. He knew who I was.
    I was having none of that.
    As an altar boy, I/we knew he had a drinking problem, often late for mass after we had to go get him at the rectory.
    Family friend who was a priest took over the parish a couple weeks later, after he "retired".
    I don't know who ratted him out, but it wasn't me.
    I am now a Pentecostal, as many charismatic Catholics became.

    Peter, you are absolutely right about church administration. I've been saying similar in the Assemblies of God. Why do we have to make a guy whose a pastor, do all the administrative work for which he is not equipped, setting a good pastor up for failure?

    I am reminded of David Niven in The Bishop's wife.
    He got dragged away from being a good pastor because of the administrative duties.
    God sent him Clarence.

    Thank you for posting on this.

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  22. There is another somewhat similar situation - police officers who are sued for misbehavior/actual crime against a citizen. Rather than have the city or state (i.e. taxpayer money or insurance money) pay damages to the citizen, the damages should come from the pension funds of the police. This might put a sudden stop to criminal behavior by police. It would allow some accountability for their actions. The "qualified immunity" argument could disappear quickly.

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