Yet again, grievous moral sin hides behind legal smokescreens to avoid responsibility

 

Regular readers will know of my own struggle with the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.  I've documented it in some detail (see the sidebar for links).

Now comes news that the Catholic Church has once again chosen to behave like a business organization rather than as the Body of Christ on earth, as it is called to be.

On October 1, 2020, with sexual abuse lawsuits piling up, the Rockville Centre diocese filed a “voluntary petition for reorganization” under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

“This decision was not made lightly,” said Bishop John O. Barres in a statement at the time. And perhaps that is true. But as a legal strategy it was a no-brainer, since its primary effect was to undermine the purpose of the Child Victims Act. Bankruptcy gave the diocese the upper hand, while the victims became creditors who will be lucky to get a fraction of what a jury might have awarded them.

As of July, 41 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have used Chapter 11 filings to deal with the decades of horrific crimes committed by thousands of priests. Those filings have stopped lawsuits in their tracks and forced victims to accept pennies on the dollar, a Free Press investigation has revealed. To put it bluntly, long after the Church looked the other way at clergy sexual abuse, it has now found another way to deprive the victims of justice: the bankruptcy courts.

It has long been standard practice for companies facing massive numbers of lawsuits—for manufacturing asbestos, say, or marketing OxyContin—to file for bankruptcy. A Chapter 11 filing does not require companies to be insolvent; they simply need to show “financial distress,” allowing them to restructure their debts while continuing to operate.

Chapter 11 shuts down all litigation, halting discovery, the process by which litigants gather documents and witness testimony to support their claims. It prevents additional lawsuits from being filed. It eliminates jury trials and instead shifts the ongoing cases to federal bankruptcy court, where any settlement requires a process of mediation between the bankrupt company’s lawyers and lawyers for the creditors. That mediation often takes years. Although additional claims can be made, they too are routed to the bankruptcy court, where claimants fill out standard claim forms rather than filing lawsuits.

Early on, said Marci Hamilton, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania who represented abuse victims in many early clergy sex abuse cases, dioceses used some unorthodox defenses to wriggle out of their obligations to sexual abuse victims. “They argued that it was unconstitutional for them to have to provide discovery,” she recalled. “It was unconstitutional to interfere with any kind of exchange between a bishop and a priest. They called it the formation privilege. And they argued that you couldn’t punish them for doing nothing but forgiving. Because forgiveness was what their faith required.”

In court, recalled Hamilton, “I dismantled all those arguments.”

But when states began passing laws like the Child Victims Act—ultimately, 21 did so, as did the District of Columbia—many dioceses decided that their best course of action was to adopt the bankruptcy playbook.

“It was a brilliant tactic because the bankruptcy system makes it about saving the debtor,” Hamilton said. “So they were able to flip the lawsuits from the victims being at the center of it, to them being at the center. And the victims just became collateral damage.”

In New York alone, nearly 5,000 people claiming to have been abused by clergy or staff came forward during the two-year exemption period from the statute of limitations. In September 2019, just one month after abuse victims were allowed to file lawsuits, the Rochester diocese sought Chapter 11 protection. Rockville Centre was second. Overall, six of the state’s eight dioceses have filed for bankruptcy. (The only ones that haven’t are the Archdiocese of New York, based in Manhattan, and the Diocese of Brooklyn.)

“Bankruptcy eviscerates the whole architecture for ferreting out the truth,” Paul Mones, a plaintiff’s lawyer who has represented dozens of victims in Rockville Centre diocese cases, told me. “By removing cases from the civil justice system, there is no cross-examination of church hierarchy, and all the ways to tease out the injurious behavior of church abusers gets whitewashed. It’s all about how much money the entity has to distribute, and nothing else. Lawyers are reduced to being financial managers.”

There's more at the link.

I think this is utterly horrendous in moral terms.  The Church claims to be the Body of Christ, yet uses completely non-Christian secular tactics to avoid accepting responsibility for the damage it has done to so many people.  Personally, I don't care if bankruptcies were to reduce the Church to meeting in private homes and hired halls, giving up all its luxurious properties and accumulated assets.  Isn't that what the early Church did?  Isn't that how it took root and grew?  However, the Church has become utterly focused on itself as a business.  Its bishops (and, to a certain extent, their subordinate clergy) see themselves as "defending the Church against secular attack" when, in fact, they are focused on defending the Church's assets - not its teachings, not its eternal mission, and most certainly not the victims of evil acts on the part of some few of its ministers and other members.

Every time I read reports such as this, I quail inwardly.  Every Catholic - every Christian - knows the judgment that awaits all of us, when we must give account of our lives to the Righteous Judge.  How is it even possible to think of justifying such attitudes and actions to Jesus Christ?  "Oh, I saved your Church a few million dollars, by denying justice to a few of its victims."  How many bishops and priests dare to think of trying to excuse that to the Christ who said, "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones."

I have committed many sins in my life, and I'll have to accept responsibility for them when my turn comes to face the Judgment . . . but I do most sincerely thank God that I won't have to account for that sort of sin.  The thought of trying to plea-bargain my way out of that is just too ghastly to contemplate - and, absent the most radical repentance and conversion, I doubt very much that it will succeed.

Peter

I don't notice the donors being asked for their permission or approval...

 

The latest in a long, long line of expensive headlines:

Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay $880 million to over 1,300 victims of clergy sexual abuse

The archdiocese has previously paid $740 million to victims in various settlements and had pledged to better protect its church members, so this settlement would put the total payout at more than $1.5 billion, the Times said.

There's more at the link.

Insurance policies have doubtless contributed some of that money, but a very large amount of it has come from the contributions, bequests and donations of ordinary Catholics over decades - possibly over centuries.  Investments made generations ago have had to be wiped out to pay these claims.

Has anyone noticed any Catholic donor or contributor being asked for permission to use their donations in this way?  No?  I've certainly never seen or heard of that - and when I inquired about it, back in the day, I was told that the money belongs to the Church, and the Church alone would make the decision on how it was to be spent.  Not a word of appreciation for the "widow's mite" that some donations undoubtedly represented, or the families that contributed so their kids could get "a good Catholic education" but instead were exposed to sexual predators who used the Catholic education system as a private hunting ground.

And still the Catholic hierarchy insists that it's doing the right thing by settling these claims:

After the announcement of the agreement in principle, Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a statement, “I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart.”

“My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered,” the archbishop added.

“I believe that we have come to a resolution of these claims that will provide just compensation to the survivor-victims of these past abuses.”

And yet . . . if the Church had done its job in earlier years by screening candidates for the priesthood more carefully, and supervising their training more rigorously, and insisting that its clergy upheld the high moral standards they preached . . . none of this would be necessary, and countless victims of sexual predators would not have become victims.

Those of you who know my background will understand that I'm feeling particularly heartburn-ish this morning.

Peter

Yet more child abuse...

 

I should be inured to this by now, but the parade of atrocities just goes on and on and on.

‘Ferocious violence’ accompanied ‘shocking’ levels of abuse at Ireland’s religious-run schools, report finds

Nearly 2,400 allegations of sexual abuse across hundreds of Ireland’s religious-run schools have been documented in a new report, marking the latest grim revelations to emerge from the country’s historic Church-State entanglement.

The report, released Tuesday, documented 2,395 allegations of historical child sexual abuse, involving 884 alleged abusers in 308 schools across the country.

Most of the allegations were reported from the records of 42 religious orders that currently run or previously ran schools in Ireland. The scope of the allegations ranges from 1927-2013. More than half the men accused – which include teachers and priests – have died, it said.

Ireland’s Minister for Education Norma Foley said Tuesday that the level of abuse detailed in the report was “truly shocking – and so is the number of alleged abusers.”

She called the report a “harrowing document, containing some of the most appalling accounts of sexual abuse.”

There's more at the link.

Needless to say, the usual suspects are making grave noises about how sorry they are that this happened, and that the Catholic Church will do everything it can to ensure it never happens again . . . but they won't do the one thing absolutely necessary to prevent that - namely, change the way the Church is governed.  As long as what amounts to absolute power is in the hands of a very few "organization men" (and women, when it comes to female religious orders), and delegated to parish priests and other subordinate managers, for just so long this atrocity will continue, because there are few if any practical checks and balances on those in the system.

I should know.  I was a part of that system until the child sex abuse scandal forced me to confront reality, and led me to leave my priesthood and the Church.  That decision has caused me more pain and angst than any other I've ever taken . . . but I felt then, and still do, that I had no moral alternative.  I formally complained to my Bishop that every measure the Church was instituting to fix the problem was no more than pious window-dressing, and would do nothing to resolve the problem.  I was told to shut up and obey orders (in rather stronger language than that).  I was ordered to tell my congregation that they could trust the Bishops to do the right thing, and lead the Church out of this mess, and all would be well in future.  Since I could see with my own eyes that that was a lie from start to finish, it left me with a stark choice;  obey the powers that be, or obey my conscience.  I was not alone in making that decision.

Today, almost a generation after the scandal broke, the situation has not improved to any great measure.  Prelates and priests are still being exposed as pedophiles, some of them of the grossest kind, active in their sin for decades.  They were not exposed until one or more of their crimes broke through the veil of silence and became public knowledge, and even then, many of them have remained relatively unpunished - even defiant, as if their activities were not wrong or evil in any way.  I have no idea how they can square that with the Gospel warning.  I daresay they'll find out one day whether they were right.

I said, when this all blew up, that we'd see Church officials suggesting that most of the problem was in the past, and no longer relevant to today's Church.  Sure enough, a generation later, I'm seeing precisely that defense made.  It's already being raised about the Irish report - "Yes, but most of those cases are decades old, and the perpetrators are dead!"  Doesn't mean that the damage they did has not continued, and permeated into Irish society to a horrifying extent.  How many of those abused kids went on to become abusers themselves, or emotionally so shut-in that they made their spouses' and childrens' lives a misery?  Far too many, I'd think . . . those are known consequences of such abuse.  What's more, there are enough current cases of abuse to give the lie to the claim that "It's all historical!".

I can only suggest to Catholic parents, in the strongest possible terms, that they should be very cautious indeed about entrusting their kids to the "care" of the Church, particularly without constant supervision they can trust.  They certainly can't put their faith in the Church's definition of "trustworthy supervision"!

I did not sleep well last night, after reading that report.  I don't see how any believer can, particularly Catholic clergy - unless they write it off as yet more anti-Catholic spite and propaganda, that can be ignored.

Peter

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

*SIGH* . . . Why am I not surprised???

 

The Catholic Church hierarchy continues to shoot itself in its collective foot (or should that be feet?) on a regular basis.

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Bishop of São José do Rio Preto on Wednesday, five days after a sexually explicit video of the bishop was shared on the internet.

. . .

On Aug. 13, a minute-long video of Bishop Ferreira da Silva on a video call with another man began making the rounds on social media. In the video the bishop, wearing a striped polo shirt, is seen masturbating.

. . .

Bishop Ferreira da Silva reportedly told the Brazilian network Globo that he is the person in the video, and he believed that its release was an act of revenge porn by someone with whom he lives. He told Brazilian media that he would be speaking to his attorney as well as Brazil’s state police force to determine how the video was released.

This is not Bishop Ferreira da Silva’s first brush with controversy, and he has been investigated multiple times by the Vatican for alleged sexual misconduct or for covering up sexual misconduct.

There's more at the link.

If there were previous incidents involving this Bishop, why the heck didn't his fellow Bishops in Brazil insist that he step down or be moved aside while a more thorough investigation was done?  Why did it take a revenge porn video (if that's what it was) to have him removed?  For that matter, why did the Vatican not act more swiftly or more decisively, given such a history?  How many more Brazilian Bishops - and their clergy - are complicit in this sort of behavior?

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church have ducked, and dived, and weaseled their way out of doing something concrete about this sort of behavior for decades (probably for a lot longer than that, if truth be told).  In tolerating that, the Catholic Church as a whole has abdicated its moral authority.  It can no longer condemn anything as immoral, because it has become immoral in itself - at least, from a human perspective.  Theologically, Christ is not and can never be immoral, but the human side of the Church has grown rather too fond of proclaiming that as some sort of excuse for its own collective fallibility.

Faithful Catholics who are trying to live a life of Biblical, traditional morality have my entire sympathy.  I know full well the betrayal they feel when they read reports like this, because I was betrayed as well.

May Almighty God have mercy on his wounded, sinful church, and rebuild her according to His will.  I suspect another, and more thorough, Temple cleansing may have to be involved.  As for those who have betrayed her, and reduced her to this state . . . yes, I'll even pray for forgiveness for them too, because I have enough on my conscience that I'll need forgiveness just as much (albeit for different sins).  I'm just not sure how effective my prayers will be in their case, because I see no sign of repentance.  When a disgraced cleric blames "revenge porn" instead of acknowledging his own guilt, it speaks volumes.

Peter

The rot is deeply entrenched, and has not been cut out

 

Following recent revelations that the General Secretary of the US Catholic bishops' conference had been caught living an active homosexual lifestyle, commenters are emphasizing - as I did at the time - that this is a problem from the top down.  The wrong people were allowed to ascend the hierarchy;  and now, from their officially protected positions, they're allowing the rot to continue.  The situation has been made even worse by criminal charges being brought against former Cardinal (now defrocked) Theodore McCarrick.  George Neumayr notes:

This trial is sure to serve as yet another reminder of the Catholic hierarchy’s complicity in McCarrick’s misdeeds. After all, those who knew of his misconduct remain in positions of power. “[W]e all knew,” Bishop Steven Lopez has acknowledged.

Some close associates of McCarrick have even received promotions since the scandal. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, his former roommate, holds a high position at the Vatican. Two of McCarrick’s cronies, Cardinal Blase Cupich in Chicago and Cardinal Joseph Tobin in Newark, sit on a powerful Vatican congregation that selects bishops for the United States. (According to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio to the United States, McCarrick “orchestrated” the elevations of Tobin and Cupich in the Church.)

Cardinal Donald Wuerl was made aware of an allegation of misconduct against McCarrick at least 13 years before the scandal broke. The formal complaint reportedly concerned McCarrick’s behavior at his New Jersey beach house, where McCarrick has admitted he shared beds with seminarians. Wuerl is now enjoying a comfortable retirement.

Meanwhile, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, a top official at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), resigned due to a report by The Pillar establishing Burrill’s extensive use of Grindr, a gay hookup app.

. . .

These stories illuminate the homosexual ecclesiastical culture which had protected McCarrick for decades. But, of course, the Catholic establishment refuses to make that admission. It is outraged not by that culture, but by its exposure.

Jesuit Father James Martin, who openly contradicts the Church’s teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts, blasted The Pillar for daring to obtain Grindr data. All the usual defenders of the gay culture in the Church chimed in with similar condemnations, including the Washington Post. Suddenly the Post, which published the Pentagon Papers and countless other works of audacious investigative journalism, is fretting over “surveillance-ethics.”

Voices within the Church defending Burrill and tut-tutting The Pillar’s exposes used similar rationalizations to avert their gazes from McCarrick’s misconduct. That is, the post-McCarrick Church looks pretty much the same as the pre-McCarrick Church. The laxity and lack of vigilance that McCarrick exploited is exactly what permitted Burrill to rise to the top of the USCCB. Instead of apologizing to the faithful for yet another demoralizing scandal, the bishops use proxies at heterodox publications such as the National Catholic Reporter to whine about violations of “privacy” and so forth.

. . .

Had The Pillar not exposed Monsignor Burrill, he would undoubtedly have risen higher in the Church. The USCCB has yet to condemn his conduct. He hasn’t even been suspended as a priest by his local bishop, Bishop William Callahan. Just as the bishops played dumb about McCarrick’s misconduct — some bishops insisted his sleeping with seminarians wasn’t sexual, as even the Vatican report on the scandal noted — so Callahan is pretending that Burrill’s extensive Grindr usage doesn’t establish impropriety.

The Church establishment maintains the big lie that a gay priestly culture played no significant role in the abuse scandal, even though most of its victims have been teenage boys. The protégés of McCarrick, such as Cupich and Tobin, refuse to address that issue. Instead, they give their blessing to Fr. James Martin to push LGBTQ causes in the Church.

The bishops act as if the McCarrick scandal is behind them. But it isn’t. Its fundamental causes remain largely unaddressed, as the Burrill scandal proves. The bishops deflect attention from their own derelictions of duty by complaining about intrusive media. But that is simply a function of their own passivity.

Because the bishops won’t reform the Church, members of the laity have taken up that task. To the extent that the Church is changing, that is due more to pressure from outside sources — lawyers, prosecutors, journalists — than any internal accountability.

Churchmen have washed their hands of McCarrick. But his stain is not so easily erased. As his upcoming criminal trial unfolds, the faithful will have every right to ask: If the Church is past McCarrick, why are his “nephews” still running it?

There's more at the link.

Rod Dreher received a message from a friend who is a priest, concerning the resignation of Mgr. Burrill.  It reads in part:

Rod, this is HUGE. In articles he is described as being “responsible for sex abuse cases“ and being a sort of administrator. But he was the equivalent of the CEO of the United States’ bishops’ official organization. In some respects he had more power than many bishops.

Furthermore, priest employees of the USCCB are supposedly subject to very intense vetting. I know of this both first and secondhand. Mostly what the Conference is looking for is what has been termed “French-cuffed moderates.” These are priests who have learned to be smooth, work the system, never say anything that will create controversy, etc. But they also supposedly look into a priest’s background to make sure that he is “suitable” and won’t turn into a source of scandal. Obviously that sort of vetting failed in this instance.

Or perhaps “failure“ is not the correct term. Given that this priest had been engaged in this sort of behavior for so long and so comprehensively (even whilst traveling on USCCB business, for God’s sake!) there’s no way that some of his confreres and even some bishops didn’t know about this. This guy was groomed and prepared and protected to get to his position. Make no mistake. If the church is fortunate, he or someone who know will spill the beans, and other shoes will drop. God send that that will happen!

Bold, underlined text above is my emphasis.  Dreher responds:

This is staggering news. It really is. Almost twenty years after the scandal broke nationwide out of Boston, and after years of Catholic bishops assuring the faithful that the scandal was behind them, a gay pick-up artist was in place as the top non-episcopal USCCB official, and even coordinating efforts to respond to the scandal.

What are Catholics supposed to think? Back in 2002, I got into an argument with a bishop about my writing on the scandal, which he wanted me to stop doing. I finally told him that as a Catholic, one of the reasons I did this writing and reporting was because I did not trust the bishops to clean up the mess. He said to me, “If you don’t trust the bishops, why are you still a Catholic?” Fortunately, I knew that my Catholicism did not require me to believe that particular bishops are moral or competent; I only had to believe that they were validly ordained. But that bishop’s response was truer than I realized at the time. Once I came to believe that the entire clerical institution was honeycombed with sexually active gay men who had no intention of obeying their vows, and by bishops and church officials (straight or gay) who had no intention of stopping them, I began to question the entire Catholic model.

One day I realized that if one of my sons, small children at the time, told me that he felt a calling to the Catholic priesthood, I would throw myself in front of him to prevent him from entering into that pit of vipers. That was a shock. I knew then that my faith was in trouble. And so it proved to be.

. . .

How blind do you have to be to think that the fix isn’t in? Do you remember who was put in charge of the USCCB’s initial 2002 response to the Catholic sex abuse scandal? Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

. . .

And so, in the Year of Our Lord 2021, nineteen years after Boston, and three years after the Church moved against Theodore McCarrick, it fell to faithful Catholic journalists to reveal that the top administrative official at the USCCB, the man in charge of leading the US bishops’ response to sex abuse, is in fact a sexually compulsive closet case.

Shocking, but at this point, not surprising. How are people supposed to trust this organization? I don’t know.

. . .

Popes, patriarchs, bishops, priests, pastors — Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, whatever — shouldn’t make it harder for the faithful to hold on, is all I’m saying. And the Catholic Church should once and for all look hard at the problem of sexually active gay men in the priesthood. The media won’t do it (except for tough, faithfully Catholic journalists like J.D. Flynn and Ed Condon at The Pillar) — but until and unless it is done, nothing will change.

Again, more at the link.

I think that yet again, the media have proved to be emissaries of the Holy Spirit in revealing the corruption that infests the Church.  At the time of the earlier crisis over clergy child sexual abuse, I wrote:

As for the media, I believed (and still do) that there was more than enough justification for a 'witch-hunt' on their part. Because the scandal had been covered up for so long, and because it had been made worse by the bad decisions of many bishops, it was inevitable that its exposure would cause a sensation. Furthermore, the bishops had signally failed in their duty to protect the faithful, instead choosing to protect their own position and authority, and the institution they served. I was taught at seminary that the Church exists to serve Christ by, in and through serving the People of God. If it fails in the latter endeavor, it automatically fails in the former as well. The media attention being paid to the scandal was simply driving home that truth with renewed force, as far as I was concerned.

I also had to ask whether God wasn't deliberately using the news media to accomplish something He'd been trying to get His bishops to do for years – decades! - without success. Since they'd so signally failed in their responsibilities, it seemed to me that the Lord appeared to be using the news media instead – conspicuously less than holy though it might be in many ways – to clean up His Church. Needless to say, my hypothesis wasn't greeted with unbridled enthusiasm by ecclesiastical authorities.

I don't suppose any Bishop paid any attention to what I said then, and I doubt they're paying any attention to it now.  I was one of those "rebels" who would not kowtow to their authority and let them get away with it.  I no longer have anything to say that would interest them, unless I were to surrender completely, and recant my views and my position, and acknowledge that they and the Catholic Church were right all along.

It saddens me more than I have words to say that, almost two decades after my own crisis of conscience and its result, very little has changed.  The Catholic faithful are still being misled by an entrenched "lavender Mafia" that has no intention of giving up its positions of power, or of being faithful to the moral teachings of Christ, or of being shepherds of the flock instead of wolves preying upon it.

Unless and until the bishops of the Catholic Church, jointly and severally, act to root out this corruption in their midst, and among their clergy, the Church will continue to be hamstrung in her mission.  It cannot be otherwise.

As for those bishops who are guilty of active involvement in, or passive tolerance of, such moral depravity . . . they are, indeed, demonstrating that they are successors to the Apostles - but not to all of them.  They're successors to one Apostle in particular.

His name was Judas.

Peter

Aaaannd the Catholic Church shoots itself in the [insert body part of your choice here] yet again

 

If anyone thinks that the upper echelons of the Catholic Church learned anything from the clergy sex abuse scandal, and/or implemented true, effective reforms that would prevent such scandals from recurring . . . think again.

Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, announced his resignation Tuesday, after The Pillar found evidence the priest engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.

. . .

Burrill was elected general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference in November 2020. In that role, Burrill was effectively the highest-ranking American cleric who is not a bishop. 

 A priest of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin, he began to work at the bishops’ conference as associate general secretary in February 2016. In that capacity, the priest was charged with helping to coordinate the U.S. bishops’ response to the Church’s 2018 sexual abuse and coercion scandals.

But an analysis of app data signals correlated to Burrill’s mobile device shows the priest also visited gay bars and private residences while using a location-based hookup app in numerous cities from 2018 to 2020, even while traveling on assignment for the U.S. bishops’ conference. 

According to commercially available records of app signal data obtained by The Pillar, a mobile device correlated to Burrill emitted app data signals from the location-based hookup app Grindr on a near-daily basis during parts of 2018, 2019, and 2020 — at both his USCCB office and his USCCB-owned residence, as well as during USCCB meetings and events in other cities.

There's more at the link.

I'm truly sad for the many faithful Catholics who've been hoping against hope that their bishops and the rest of the Church hierarchy had made serious efforts at reform.  I'm here to tell you, they haven't.  It's all been pious window-dressing.  Since my own experience with such corruption in the Church, it's done - and will doubtless continue to do - nothing whatsoever to address the root of the problem:  namely, that the wrong men were allowed to enter the priesthood, and then promoted to positions of authority and power, where they could corrupt everything and everyone around them.  Far too many such men are still in positions where they can (and do) effectively ignore measures designed to rein in their evil ways.

I fear greatly for the souls of such men.  I do not believe God will allow himself to be mocked like this, and I do not believe those who've done so will escape the consequences of their actions.  That they could act like this while using the Church, the Body of Christ, as a cloak and a shield for their evil . . . that's likely to attract a Judgment that I really don't want to see or hear.

May Almighty God have mercy on us all.  We're going to need it.

Peter

*SIGH* A post-Christian Catholic Church?

 

Two headlines caught my eye during the past week.  Both make me sad, angry and depressed about the once-great institution known as the Catholic Church.  Long-term readers will know why:  for those who don't, see the articles in the sidebar on the subject, particularly this one.

The first report, from the BBC, discusses the ongoing scandal in the Diocese of Buffalo, NY.

New York's Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against the Buffalo Catholic Diocese, alleging its leaders protected priests accused of child sex abuse.

. . .

The lawsuit, which included a 218-page report on the two-year investigation into the diocese, alleges that though leaders found sex abuse complaints to be credible, they protected the accused.

They also failed to properly supervise or monitor these priests, the lawsuit claims.

By instead marking them as "unassignable", the accused were able to retire or take leave, while receiving benefits, rather than being potentially removed from the clergy by the Vatican.

. . .

In addition, the suit seeks to hold the two bishops who oversaw the alleged cover-up, Bishop Richard Malone and Auxiliary Bishop Edward Grosz individually responsible.

They are accused of violating nonprofit and estate, powers and trusts laws.

. . .

Bishop Malone resigned last December amid accusations of covering up abuses, while Bishop Grosz retired this March.

The state report says in a number of instances, priests were allowed to remain in ministry or falsely classified as retired, on medical leave or sabbatical when they were in fact removed over allegations of abuse.

One priest was allowed to remain in ministry out of state even after the diocese learned of eight alleged sexual abuse cases involving young girls, the report states.

Another who was found by the church to have groomed a minor and "engaged in inappropriate sexual misconduct with adults" was also allowed to remain.

Other priests in the diocese were accused of other abuses, including taking minors to see pornographic movies, discussing inappropriate topics, and molesting young girls and altar boys.

There's (unfortunately) more at the link.

Note that both accused bishops resigned or retired only within the last year.  In other words, though the extent of this scandal in the wider Church has been publicly exposed for almost two decades, both are alleged to have continued the cover-up as if nothing had happened.  They appear to have assumed they could get away with it forever.

The second report alleges that an attitude of "so what?" appears to be a lot more common among Catholic prelates than it should be.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

Anybody who bothers to slog through the Vatican’s mountainous report on the McCarrick scandal will not emerge from the experience enlightened. The report’s revelations, to the extent they exist, are inadvertent. The chief one, evident in the feckless epistolary back-and-forth documented in the report, is that McCarrick would remain an honored cardinal to this day were it not for credible accusations against him involving underage teens. Take those charges away, and he would still be popping up at the Vatican for meetings with the pope. That McCarrick had corrupted countless seminarians and priests by pressuring them into his bed simply didn’t shock churchmen, whose standards seemed considerably lower than those of the pagan world.

. . .

The testimony of ... McCarrick enablers only serves to highlight the report’s dishonesty. It is a very selective, self-serving, and above all score-settling document. A great deal of it is directed toward refuting former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who urged the Vatican to cashier McCarrick. But this material isn’t very convincing. Indeed, many of the footnotes in a roundabout way confirm Viganò’s testimony. Did Pope Francis know about McCarrick’s past? Yes. Did he do anything about it? No.

. . .

The report, of course, says nothing about the existence of the gay mafia in the Church that elected Pope Francis and that has been receiving plum positions ever since. McCarrick had been part of that bloc. Though he couldn’t vote in the conclave, he acknowledged “talking” Francis up to other prelates. What role that played in the pope’s ginger handling of McCarrick naturally goes unaddressed.

. . .

The impression left by all the excuse-making for McCarrick (with some bishops pretending that his sleeping with seminarians was non-sexual) is that of a hopelessly decayed bureaucracy, utterly indifferent to holiness or orthodoxy.

. . .

But what does all of this faux-transparency add up to? Nothing. Not a single one of McCarrick’s “nephews” — from Cardinal Cupich in Chicago (his honoring of McCarrick goes unmentioned in the report) to Cardinal Tobin in Newark — has been stripped of any power. If anything, they have gained some since McCarrick’s defrocking ... McCarrick is gone, but his influence remains, even extending through Farrell to the next pope. Don’t be surprised if that future pope is a McCarrick crony, too.

Again, more at the link.

Let me highlight one sentence from that news report.  It's the true heart of the matter.

The impression ... is that of a hopelessly decayed bureaucracy, utterly indifferent to holiness or orthodoxy.

Tragically, I couldn't have put it better myself.

There are undoubtedly some good, Godly bishops in the Catholic Church, but they appear to be far from the actual corridors of power - the senior bishoprics and archbishoprics, the Cardinals, the Roman Curia (the bureaucrats who administer the Church worldwide), and those who have the power and authority to make changes.  Those in charge dithered, dissembled and obfuscated all through the clergy sex abuse scandal as it unfolded in the early 2000's, and it looks very much as if they're still doing precisely the same thing.  Nothing has changed.

During the ordination of a bishop, the open Book of the Gospels is placed upon the candidate's head, as a public affirmation and reminder that "the preaching of the Word of God is the pre-eminent obligation of the office of the Bishop".  Preaching involves far more than words alone.  A famous dictum attributed to St. Francis of Assisi tells us, "Preach the Gospel at all times.  If necessary, use words."  Another time-honored (albeit secular) maxim tells us that "Actions speak louder than words".  What do the actions - or inactions - of Catholic bishops in the face of the clergy sex abuse scandal tell us about their fidelity to their "pre-eminent obligation"?

Many faithful Catholics have wept many tears over the way the Catholic Church has (failed to) respond to this crisis.  Sadly, they aren't in a position to do anything about it as far as the institution is concerned.  As individuals?  Well, some years ago Rod Dreher wrote 'The Benedict Option', to suggest a way for faithful Christians to uphold and live out their beliefs in a post-Christian society.

Perhaps we're going to need the Benedict Option as a way to uphold and live out our beliefs in a post-Christian Catholic Church as well.

Peter

Did the Catholic Church try to interfere in the course of justice?

I was angry to read allegations that the Pope interfered in a clergy sex abuse case in Australia.  They're not (yet) independently verified, but given my experience of such shenanigans (of which more later), they ring true.

A low-ranking parish priest who agreed to give evidence against an archbishop accused of concealing child sexual abuse was mysteriously summoned to the Vatican before he was due to testify and allegedly quizzed by the Pope about what he was planning to say in court.

. . .

The explosive claim about the papal meeting, contained in The Altar Boys, indicates that the pressure brought to bear on priests who betray the brotherhood extends right up to the Vatican, and has prompted calls for a police investigation.

Father Walsh was a Crown witness in the case against Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson when he met with the pontiff on February 9, 2016. Archbishop Wilson was accused of failing to report to police the allegations of two former altar boys who claimed they had been abused by a priest in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese in the 1970s. At the time he was the highest-ranking Catholic ever to be charged with concealment offences.

Father Walsh later told confidants that the Pope asked him why he was involved in a court case against an archbishop, what he was planning to say in court, and who was walking with him on the journey. Father Walsh said he did not trust the interpreter and offered scant detail.

It was the pinnacle of what Father Walsh perceived as a sustained campaign by the priesthood to get him to toe the line on child sexual abuse. He was allegedly frozen out of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese after he defied the bishop to report a fellow priest for child sexual abuse in 2004 and was not welcomed back until early 2017.

But on October 24, 2017 – a little over two weeks before the archbishop's trial was set down – Newcastle-Maitland Bishop Bill Wright told Father Walsh he had no future in the diocese, according to an email Father Walsh sent to a friend. The email didn't say that this decision was because of his giving evidence.

"[Bishop Wright] will look overseas (Third World) where I can live out my days in the service to Christ and his poor, preferably as a contemplative to a leper colony," Father Walsh wrote.

Two weeks later, before he could give evidence, Father Walsh took his own life.

There's more at the link.

As regular readers will know, I left the Catholic priesthood over precisely this sort of misconduct and cover-up.  I've given details in previous articles, particularly this one.  I therefore can't claim an unbiased opinion on the matter - I've seen too much of this sort of thing from the inside to be neutral.

The key point to me in the above report is that Father Walsh committed suicide.  You need to understand that in Catholic teaching, suicide was traditionally considered a mortal sin - something that sunders one from God not only in this life, but potentially eternally, if it were/is not repented and forgiven.  That's been modified to some extent (I think correctly) in the light of what we've learned about the human mind.  We now understand that suicide is seldom fully and freely willed.  There are usually circumstances such as depression (clinical or otherwise), mental illness, and other factors that influence that last and most final of decisions.  Nevertheless, Father Walsh would probably have been raised in the belief that suicide is a mortal sin.  For him to take that step is inconceivable, unless he were under so much pressure, and/or felt so abandoned and betrayed by the Church he served, that he felt he had no other way forward.

I don't know the full circumstances of the situation described in the report above;  but they ring true, in the light of so many other cases around the world, and of course in our own United States.  For example, in Chile a few years ago, Pope Francis came out angrily (and publicly) in defense of one of that country's bishops, only to have to eat his words within a few months when a subsequent investigation proved that the allegations against that bishop were entirely correct.  Too often we've seen a knee-jerk reaction like that from Catholic hierarchies, national and international, defending their church and their own positions and authority against the indefensible.  It seems nothing has changed - and perhaps it never will.  Perhaps the ecclesiastical iron has entered their souls . . . and rusted there.

The Catholic Church's dogmatic refusal to face up to the reality of this scandal has tarnished it almost beyond human redemption.  I don't know a way forward unless and until all those who were and still are complicit in the problem have been removed from office:  but they're selecting their own successors, and making sure to pick "organization men" who'll continue their policies.  Their actions demonstrate that they continue to believe more in the institution of the Church than in Jesus Christ.

Is there a solution to this mess?  Perhaps it'll take the Second Coming of Christ to properly resolve it.  Meanwhile, those of us who believed, who devoted our lives to Christ through the Church, are still left bereaved.  For us, there is no peace, and probably never will be in this life.

May Father Glen Walsh find peace at last in Christ's mercy, and may his sins be forgiven him.  God rest his soul.

Peter

Ornithology, not ecclesiology - thank heaven!

A news headline made me sit up in sudden concern last week:

Cardinal with rare abnormality
discovered in central Texas

However, I needn't have worried.  It didn't refer to yet another sex scandal in the Catholic Church!

According to the Inland Bird Banding Association, the bird shows apparent bilateral gynandromorphism, a rare abnormality that causes it to have female plumage on one side of its body, and male on the other.

Phew . . . (wipes brow to remove beads of sweat) . . . a bird, rather than an ecclesiastical rank, and feathers, not vestments.  What a relief, considering my article last week!




Peter

Is the Catholic Church becoming just another hotbed of secular humanism?

American pentecostal evangelist Bob Mumford, whom I've mentioned in these pages before, once defined secular humanism as "what happens when the world evangelizes the church".  I don't think he was far wrong in that assessment.  More and more often, one sees churches and denominations behaving just like the world around them, ignoring the clarion call from the Divinity, in whatever way they proclaim him, to be a "sign of contradiction" to the world, the flesh and the devil.

I should acknowledge that, as a former Catholic priest, I have a partisan perspective on this issue.  You'll find my story in a series of four articles I wrote about my decision to leave the priesthood (which was solely and precisely over the issue of clergy sex abuse of children, and the way in which the Church handled it - or, rather, failed to handle it).  The core article is here;  it contains links to the other three.  That'll help you understand where I'm coming from.

Two news articles in particular have stung me over the past week or so.  First, there's this report.

Across the country, attorneys ... are scrambling to file a new wave of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by [Catholic] clergy, thanks to rules enacted in 15 states that extend or suspend the statute of limitations to allow claims stretching back decades. Associated Press reporting found the deluge of suits could surpass anything the nation’s clergy sexual abuse crisis has seen before, with potentially more than 5,000 new cases and payouts topping $4 billion.

. . .

This is the day the Catholic Church has long feared.

The church spent millions of dollars lobbying statehouses for decades, arguing it would be swamped with lawsuits if time limits on suing were lifted. That battle now lost, it is girding for Round Two, by turning to compensation funds and bankruptcy.

Compensation funds offer payment to victims if they agree not take their claims to court. They offer a faster, easier way to some justice, and cash, but the settlements are typically a fraction of what victims can get in trials. And critics say the church is just using them to avoid both a bigger financial hit and full transparency.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan set up the first fund in 2016, pitching it as a way to compensate victims without walloping the church and forcing it to cut programs. It has since paid more than $67 million to 338 alleged victims, an average $200,000 each.

The idea has caught on in other states. All five dioceses in New Jersey and three in Colorado opened one, as did seven dioceses in Pennsylvania and six in California, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the U.S.

Such funds, Dolan said in a newspaper op-ed piece last year, “prevent the real possibility — as has happened elsewhere — of bankrupting both public and private organizations, including churches, that provide essential services in education, charity and health care.”

. . .

But bankruptcy has become an increasingly more common option. Less than a month after New York’s one-year lookback window took effect, the upstate Diocese of Rochester filed for bankruptcy, the 20th diocese or religious order in the country to do so, listing claims from alleged abuse survivors and other creditors as much as $500 million. Assets to pay that are estimated at no more than one-fifth that amount.

The Diocese of Buffalo may be next. It has begun paying victims of the 100 priests it considers “credibly accused” of abuse, tapping proceeds from the sale of a lavish $1.5 million mansion that once housed its bishop who is facing pressure to resign.

When a diocese files for bankruptcy, lawsuits by alleged abuse survivors are suspended and payments to them and others owed money — contractors, suppliers, banks, bondholders — are frozen while a federal judge decides how much to pay everyone and still leave enough for the diocese to continue to operate. It’s orderly and victims avoid costly and lengthy court cases, but they often get less than they would if they were successful in a trial.

. . .

Bankruptcy can also leave abuse survivors with a sense of justice denied because the church never has to face discovery by plaintiff lawyers and forced to hand over documents, possibly implicating higherups who hid the abuse.

There's more at the link.

Take note of the methods and techniques the Church is using to deal with the renewed flood of lawsuits.  They have nothing whatsoever to do with the Biblical standards for church leaders.  Instead, they're what lawyers, administrators and bureaucrats do.  They're secular, not religious actions.

Some may say it's disingenuous to expect anything else.  After all, the Church must function as part of a secular society;  therefore, she must employ the tools of that society to defend her existence if necessary.  On the other hand, I can't find a single mention of such an approach in the words of Christ or the apostles.  Instead, I find vehement admonishments to be different from the world.

• Jesus is presented as "a sign which shall be contradicted".  To be a "sign of contradiction" is a cornerstone of Catholic theology.
• To be a bishop, as Paul instructed Timothy, is to "preach the Word ... in season and out of season".  It is not to be a good lawyer or bureaucrat!  Too many bishops see their role as the latter, rather than the former.
• Paul also warns Timothy to beware of men "having a form of godliness but denying its power".  Is that not precisely what bishops who rely primarily upon administrators, bureaucrats, lawyers and insurance companies, rather than the grace of God, are doing?  There's a need for secular specialists, to be sure, but a bishop is not supposed to be one of them, or allow himself to be ruled by them!

Frankly, I wouldn't care if a diocese - or the Church as a whole - were to be reduced to penury by lawsuits and damages.  The Church is not defined by her land, or buildings, or possessions.  For centuries, she existed under oppression and persecution, where to be identified as Christian meant almost certain death, and at the very least the loss of one's possessions and wealth through official confiscation.  The Church survived that.  She can survive this too . . . if her faith grows as strong as it was in the early Church.  That's very questionable.  In the absence of strong apostolic leadership by her Bishops and priests, can she regain that faith?  I guess only the Holy Spirit knows the answer to that question.

This also poses a daunting question for every priest in the Church.  A priest functions at the pleasure, and with the dispensation, of his Bishop.  He receives faculties from the Bishop, without which he is not permitted to administer a parish or celebrate any of the sacraments within that diocese.  He functions as the eyes, ears, hands and mouth of the Bishop within his parish, conveying to his people the guidance received from the diocese, and informing the diocese of his people's concerns.

The question now becomes:  if a diocesan Bishop is so grievously mishandling the situation, and demonstrating a secular humanist approach rather than a godly one . . . how can any priest worthy of the name be willing to be his mouthpiece?  If he tries to act independently, he is no longer being faithful to the Bishop to whom he has promised obedience.  If he falls into line with the secular humanist approach, he effectively betrays his priesthood.  He's caught between a rock and a hard place, with no real alternative but to choose one path or the other.

That's why I decided I had no choice but to leave the priesthood.  I was caught on the horns of a dilemma, with no way out.  I could not, and would not, misrepresent the facts of the matter to my people, or to my Bishop.  It was, and remains, a crisis of conscience for me:  but in all sincerity, if I had to face that choice again, I'd probably do the same thing.  Anything less would have seemed grievously and culpably dishonest, on the level of serious sin.  (No, I'm not trying to play the injured martyr-for-righteousness here.  I'm as much of a sinner as the next man.  I'm simply trying to illustrate the depths of the dilemma confronting me, and every priest in the Church.  Others made different decisions.  We'll all have to live with the eternal consequences of our choices.  May Almighty God have mercy on us all.)

(For another perspective on the role of a Bishop, see "Advice for a new bishop", an article that appeared in 2011.  I can't find much in it to which I'd object!)

This leads directly to the second article that's disturbed me.  It concerns the Catholic Church in Britain, but I've no doubt a similar program is being prepared here in the USA.

Catholics are being urged to divulge their ‘eco-sins’ during Confession as Bishops launch a new environmental campaign.

As part of an initiative to ensure that the Catholic Church plays a role in tackling the climate crisis, it is encouraging congregants to go to Confession, or “reconciliation services”.

. . .

The initiative aims to “create a sense of urgency towards our ecological crisis and those suffering from its ill effects” as well as promote confession of environmental sins.

As a result, it has created a toolkit for church leaders to help Catholics confess their environment-related sins and is sending out its resources to parishes across the country.

Before entering the confessional, sinners will be offered an environmental ‘examination of conscience’. This works like a checklist that people can go through before confession with prompts, such as ‘have you taken flights unnecessarily?’

Again, more at the link.

I'd have no problem incorporating a solid, scientific perspective on climate change in general sermons on our responsibility as Christians to look after the world in which we live.  That would not include doom-and-gloom propaganda that can't be scientifically proven - and by that I mean actual numbers and experiments, not models or assumptions!  To classify an action as a "sin against the environment" is stretching the authority of the Church extraordinarily thinly, particularly because the science is not settled, and there is no true consensus over the causes or effects of climate change.  To jump in and try to force the Church to adopt a politically correct eco-warrior perspective is not theologically appropriate or justifiable.  In fact, it's secular humanism all over again!

I look at these goings-on, and I shake my head in utter disbelief at the current situation within, and of, the Catholic Church.  I still believe that it's the "original" church, founded by Christ through his apostles:  but it seems to have wandered awfully far from those roots.  Can it find its way back?  With God's help, I believe so . . . but in the meantime, millions of Catholics have fallen away from the Church, driven to despair by its inability - or refusal - to conform to the standards Christ established for it.  The people of God are not stupid;  nor are they blind to reality.

As I've said before, I'm irresistibly reminded of Mary Magdalen's experience on the first Easter Sunday morning.

But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the tomb.  And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.  Then they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”  She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

The Bishops, in their collective, determinedly secular administration of the Church, "have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him".  That's the saddest thing I've ever had to say in my life . . . but it remains a reality for me, and for millions of other formerly faithful Catholics.  I certainly don't see His hand in the Bishops' collective words or actions.  Instead, I see only "the world, the flesh and the devil", to quote an old aphorism.  Would that it were not so!

Peter

The Catholic Church's institutional rotten core

Let me reiterate that I'm not opposed to the Catholic faith as such.  I was born and raised in that faith, I became a priest, and I worked hard to be faithful to its teachings.  However, the clergy sex abuse scandal, and in particular the way bishops expected their priests to deliberately mislead and lie to the faithful over what was happening, drove me away.  I've written about the reasons for that on numerous occasions.  There has been no improvement whatsoever in that situation, apart from a few faithful bishops who are setting a personal, individual example.  The institution itself is still ducking and covering, trying to protect itself and its "institution men" rather than truly deal with the issue.

If you doubt that, please consider the following recent headlines.

• ‘Revolution’ in Poland as nation confronts priestly abuse ("Poland’s bishops acknowledged this week they face a crisis and made a rare admission that they have failed to protect the young.")
• Raid on Dallas Diocese inspires Catholics to close ranks or lose faith: 'Enough is enough' ("What angers me more than the evil of it is the lying and the cover-up. That's even more vile than the actual act.")
• US Catholic Church reports big rise in sex-abuse allegations  ("in its latest 12-month reporting period [the Church's] spending on victim compensation and child protection surged above $300 million.")
• Should California force priests to report child-molestation confessions? Church leaders say it violates religious freedom  ("... more recent revelations like a bombshell Pennsylvania investigation in August that found widespread child sex abuse and cover-ups over decades in six dioceses has sparked fresh outrage. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is now investigating the Golden State’s dioceses.)

Those are only a small selection of many that I could have posted.  I think they make the point clear.  The Catholic Church has failed, and is still failing, to put in place any genuinely effective measures to combat clergy child sex abuse.  This is true on a local, national and international level.  No country is exempt from that condemnation, and no prelate who has failed to provide true, effective leadership according to Biblical and orthodox principles of the faith can be exempted from blame.  Through its inaction, refusal to address the issue, and attempts to dodge the blame that is rightfully its due, the church has literally destroyed the faith of millions of its own adherents, and damaged the faith of millions more.  It's a self-inflicted injury, and can't be blamed on the world, the flesh or the devil, as many Catholics still try to do.

Pentecostal evangelist Bob Mumford once defined secular humanism as "what happens when the world evangelizes the church".  This is a brilliant analogy of what's happened to the Catholic Church.  In its attempts to be "all things to all men", to accommodate conflicting views and be seen as open to everybody, it long ago ceased to preach gospel moral values and became more worldly.  The results are plainly to be seen.  When last, in a "normal" Catholic parish, did you hear sermons condemning abortion or sex outside marriage, or defending marriage and family life?  Instead, bishops seeking to increase the overall number of Catholics in the church actively promote unrestricted immigration, legal or otherwise, as a way to achieve that, and have pastoral letters to that effect read in their churches.  (They'll never admit that's the real reason, of course.  Instead, they'll spout pious platitudes about human rights and the like.  Believe me, having listened to some conversations as an insider, I know better.)

Even when a Bishop does, in fact, preach traditional morality, as in Rhode Island last week, some of his own priests will try to undermine his message, and secular and media reaction and condemnation may force him to apologize and make excuses.  Bishop Tobin's original tweet was nothing more or less than the truth as Catholic morality sees it.  No apology should have been necessary.

As for the sanctity of the confessional being violated by secular law, again, the Catholic Church has only itself to blame.  It's brought this crisis upon itself.  Its tepid, timid, ineffectual reforms have utterly failed to address the root of the problem.  They were, and are, no more than pious window-dressing.  The thorough, top-to-bottom house-cleaning that was desperately needed has not happened, and is not going to happen, because there are too many bishops and clergy who see their job as being to protect the institution of the Church, rather than its members.  They're too busy trying to bar the doors against secular invaders to consider that their own actions (and/or the lack thereof) are what has caused the invasion in the first place.

I wrote last year:

I can identify very strongly with Mary Magdalene.

Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.  Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

The Bishops, and Archbishops, and Cardinals, in their collective hierarchy, have taken away my Church . . . and I do not know where they have laid her.  That is absolutely heart-breaking.

I have, as yet, seen nothing to make me reconsider that perspective.  I wonder whether I ever will?

Peter

Catholic bishops and the "action plan" - wrongly focused

Yesterday Pope Francis presented an "action plan" to a summit meeting of bishops, for combating the sexual abuse of children by priests.  I find it woefully inadequate, a mere re-hash of concepts and proposals advanced many years ago, with no new thinking.  I fear it will be completely useless, because it's focused on the wrong problem.  Priests, in general, are a reflection of those who select, train and ordain them - the bishops;  and it's among the Church's bishops that the solution to the problem must be sought.

I wrote some years ago about the problem of "organization men", and how bishops were selected all too often from among such individuals.  That's not the entire problem.  The organization of the Church as such has effectively removed much of their everyday authority and responsibility from bishops, by submerging them in minutiae.  If they're trapped at their desks, reading reports, signing documents, and shuffling papers, they can't be out there among the people of God, seeing at first hand, up close and personal, how they're living and the nature of the problems that confront them.  They can't be in the trenches with their priests, seeing the difficulties they face in "tending the flock of God".  They're cut off, isolated, from that reality - and it shows in the way the clergy child sex abuse scandal has been handled.  All too often, the knee-jerk response from bishops has been to circle the wagons and defend the institution of the Church, rather than the victims of the abuse.  It's almost as if the latter had become an afterthought, a mere irritation compared to the real issue.

Until the 20th century, most bishops in most dioceses had to spend a lot of time on the road, traveling from one end of their see to the other.  In the process, they had plenty of time to spend in parish rectories and the homes of the faithful.  They couldn't help but notice what was going on there.  In the same way, they visited institutions in their diocese much more often - convents, monasteries, schools, etc.  They could keep their fingers on the pulse of activity far more routinely than they do today, where every visit is scheduled weeks or months in advance, usually highly scripted, and time-managed to such an extent that there's little or no opportunity for the bishop to "manage by walking around" and see things for himself.  The advent of technology - travel by train, car and aircraft, the telephone, fax and e-mail, business administration machines and programs - made it easier to travel, but also made such travel less necessary, in that much can be done remotely that previously had to be done in person.  It's been a two-edged sword.

Because of their more office-bound, sedentary, "managed" day-to-day existence, bishops have in all too many cases lost focus on the pastoral aspects of their ministry.  They're glorified (you should pardon the expression) managers rather than apostles, business executives rather than shepherds of the flock, bureaucrats rather than pastors.  They tolerate, even accept this changed role, one that many of their predecessors would regard with horror as not just un-pastoral, but actively anti-pastoral.  As a result, they don't share the day-to-day problems and burdens of their priests, and all too quickly forget what they experienced of them during their own pastoral careers.

In their famous book, "The Peter Principle", Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull point out:

Most hierarchies are nowadays so cumbered with rules and traditions, and so bound in by public laws, that even high employees do not have to lead anyone anywhere, in the sense of pointing out the direction and setting the pace.  They simply follow precedents, obey regulations, and move at the head of the crowd.  Such employees lead only in the sense that the carved wooden figurehead leads the ship.

In my opinion, that perfectly describes what far too many bishops had become by the time the clergy sex abuse scandal reared its evil, predatory head.  They were no longer leaders.  They had become mere figureheads - and far too many of them were content to remain figureheads.  Even worse, as has since become clear, some of them - including some in very senior positions - were active participants in that evil, even as they put on a holy public face and pretended to participate in finding remedies for it.  I honestly don't know whether that sin can be forgiven, even by God.  I suspect it cannot.

This is a major reason why the problem of clergy child sex abuse became so serious.  The bishops abdicated their primary responsibility to their clergy, who are officially defined as their "co-workers" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 893).  All too often, priests were (and still are) treated not as valued co-workers, but as unruly subordinates who have to be kept under the bishop's thumb, distrusted unless they constantly "suck up" to the powers that be.  That's why so many priests, including myself, were so angry at the initial measures enacted by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops to deal with the crisis.  They treated all priests with suspicion, as criminals until proven innocent.  This was completely unacceptable.  It still is.

That's why I don't believe that a conference of bishops is the right vehicle to study the problem of clergy child sex abuse, or find solutions to it.  Many of the bishops taking part in it are guilty of precisely the failings described here.  They will not be able to come up with any effective solutions, precisely because they are not effective bishops.

That's how I see it, anyway.  Others may differ.

Peter