| Priests voice range of concerns in effort to
organize in New York
By DICK RYAN
New York
When more than 160 priests and former priests from the New York
archdiocese, the Brooklyn diocese and the Rockville Centre diocese on Long
Island met recently in midtown New York City, it was perhaps ironic that the
meeting was held on the second floor of a private club, the Manhattan Club, and
just above an Irish saloon where the burning issues of the day are discussed
with great gusto.
The large meeting room, along with refreshments, was reserved and
paid for by an anonymous lay club member.
A week before the meeting, priests and former priests were advised
that only priests and former priests were invited so that neither women nor
laymen would be present. Although a few lawyers attended anyway, the laity
might not have been interested, since the program for the two and a half hour
meeting sounded like classroom sessions on canon law and spirituality in the
seminary.
Chaired by a Manhattan pastor, Fr. John Duffell, the meeting began
with a presentation by Msgr. William A. Varvaro of the Brooklyn diocese, a
canon lawyer, on the canonical rights of priests as they relate to the sex
abuse scandal and the U.S. bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of
Children and Young People,” adopted in Dallas last June. The second
presentation was a reflection by Msgr. Bryan Karvelis on the need for a
spirituality among priests that is “solid, clearly defined and
demanding.”
The meeting was hardly under way when a man in his 30s approached
the microphone in the center aisle. “This is a map to cover up
crimes,” he called out, waving a copy of Varvaro’s outline of “A
Canon Lawyer’s Concerns about Dallas” in the air.
Duffell asked the man to leave and when he refused, he was shouted
down by a few angry voices, dragged out of the room by a fireman and a lawyer
and escorted to the street. The man was later identified as Daniel Dugo, who
claimed he had been victimized as a young boy by a Brooklyn priest.
In a similar incident at a meeting of Voice of the Faithful on
Long Island a month earlier, another young man stood up and voiced his
displeasure with the group and some of its aims. At that point, the moderator,
Sheila Pfeiffer, told him he had three minutes to speak, like everybody else,
and then would have to stop. He agreed, continued his criticism and, after he
finished, remained for the rest of the meeting.
A lot to learn from laity
“I was a little uncomfortable with the way that young man was
treated,” Matt Killion said later. Killion, formerly a New York priest
with the rank of monsignor, is a law professor at John Jay College. “It
should have been handled better by maybe giving him five minutes to air his
feelings. That’s why we were there, to hear everybody. We have a lot to
learn from the laypeople.”
Duffell handed out an outline of the goals proposed for the Voice
of the Ordained, which is meant to include not only priests but also those who
left after ordination. The group was described as “an effort to organize
priests (active and inactive) so that we might: draw strength from one another;
have opportunities for prayer and discussion; educate ourselves about the
issues; and have a vehicle through which to give voice to our
concerns.”
When someone noted that concerns for victims of abuse were
noticeably absent, Tom McCabe, a former Brooklyn priest and an organizer of the
Voice of the Ordained, said, “We have concerns about priests’ rights
and reputations but we are also very concerned about the victims. There has to
be that balance in everything we do.”
After the meeting, Fr. Jim Gardiner, a Graymoor Franciscan, said,
“Nobody has yet addressed our needs as priests. And nobody has ever
addressed the fact that priests have rights before the law. It was nice to go
to a meeting where we could deal with a very real problem for priests. The
presumption is there, among all of us, that child abuse is something that is
very wrong.”
Regarding some of those rights, Varvaro placed emphasis on canon
220, which states that every person has a right to his reputation and his
privacy. Some of his other concerns about priests’ rights and the charter
framed by the bishops in Dallas included a better understanding of
“administrative leave”; due process; the definition of “sexual
abuse”; the provision of names to public prosecutors; uniformity of
punishment; a statute of limitations; a belief in forgiveness and reparation;
the confusion of the bishops and the presence of the media.
Each of those concerns, he said, need much more thought and
preciseness.
‘Don’t say
anything’
Because of decisions reached in Dallas and their aftermath,
Varvaro advised the priests not to admit to sexual abuse to their bishops:
“Don’t say anything because of the consequences that have come
about.”
He said, “The father-son sense of trust has been destroyed
and it will take a generation to restore that father-son trust between bishops
and priests and between priests and people. ... The goal is to provide justice
for all, but we haven’t.”
In his brief talk, Karvelis said that priests should have a
spirituality that “motivates us and guides us, that helps us to be patient
but also to speak out and helps us face the problems of the church
today.”
“I thought we were going to organize,” complained Jack
O’Leary, a former New York priest who was the first to take the microphone
after Karvelis concluded his talk. “I didn’t come here for another
session of Abbot Marmion or to hear a lot of spiritual nosegays.” Marmion
was a 19th-century Benedictine spiritual writer.
“Any spirituality needs a prophetic edge,” remarked a
Brooklyn priest. “Our goal has to focus on becoming a Christian community
and not just priests.”
“You can’t have just priests coming together,” John
Gildea, a former seminarian now a lawyer, said later. “It’s too
self-serving. You need the laity.”
“I encourage you in the formation of what you’re trying
to do,” said Jim O’Brien, a Boston attorney who handed out a 9-page
compendium on “The Rights of Priests.”
“What you’re doing is essential, with no leadership in
the church,” he said. “Let’s give the church back to the
faithful. The church today is dying, and well it should, if this is all
we’ve done.”
“I always felt sorry for you guys, not being able to elect
your own bishop,” said Fr. Paul Engel, a Capuchin Franciscan friar.
“As religious, we elect our superior and, if we don’t like him, we
kick him out.”
When a Yonkers priests complained that he didn’t feel
comfortable having reporters present, Duffell agreed. “They’re not
our friends,” he said, “and it’s our hope that they won’t
be here in the future.”
Later Msgr. John Powis, a Brooklyn priest and one of the
organizers of Voice of the Ordained, disagreed. “If it weren’t for
the media, nothing would have been known about the scandal. The media has done
a real service for the Catholic church. The truth should be our main
concern.”
Engel returned to the microphone to say, “My hope was that we
were going to be a prophetic group. … If we’re not a prophetic group,
what’s the point of meeting? To be a voice means being
prophetic.”
During the break in the meeting, Fr. Jim Sullivan reflected on
some of the problems in the church that led to his playing a leading role in
organizing the Voice of the Ordained. “Priests have been the slowest to
speak up since the scandal broke,” he said. Sullivan is a retired Brooklyn
priest, author of several books on psychology and spirituality and director
emeritus of the Religious Consultation Center of the Brooklyn diocese.
“Resigned priests, religious and the laity have spoken but so
far priests haven’t said boo,” said Sullivan, who predicted things
would get worse before they get better. “While much has been written about
abused children, there’s been nothing said about the number of women
abused by the false promises of priests who had intimate relationships with
women, promised they were going to leave the priesthood and get married and
simply took advantage of the women and their hopes.
“But I don’t blame the priests as much as I blame the
Vatican for putting priests in an impossible situation with mandatory celibacy
for life and absolutely no outlet for their sexual desires. Celibacy isn’t
working and Rome knows it but won’t do a damn thing about it,”
Sullivan said. “It’s more a matter of control for the Vatican, even
though it’s aware of the priest shortage and the skepticism of the
people.”
91 priests sign on
Before the meeting ended with a prayer and the singing of the
“Salve Regina,” Duffell raised a few questions of his own: “Do
we know exactly where we are going? No. Will we have a change in direction?
Maybe. Will we be meeting soon? Perhaps. It wasn’t clear for Jesus and the
Twelve and it isn’t clear for you and me.”
Ninety-one of the 2,700 priests in the three dioceses signed on to
become members of Voice of the Ordained. There was no mention of whether women,
the laity and the media will be invited to the next meeting or whether it will
again be held at a private club. There was no mention of whether some bishops
might be invited. For the moment, the group has its goals.
Those who attended had the unique company of priests, both secular
and religious, from all over New York. They had come together for the first
time on a mission that may not be part of their bishops’ agendas.
Karvelis said, “We want to be able to get together where the
priests can feel relaxed and comfortable because some priests are not terribly
comfortable with the laity present. After all, religious communities have their
chapters and nobody outside feels excluded. We want to be able to support each
other as priests and former priests during a very difficult time.”
Out on the sidewalk, a couple of television crews -- never allowed
inside the club -- were interviewing Tom McCabe and any others who wanted to
talk as they walked out of the club and headed for the subway.
Dick Ryan is a free-lance writer living in New York.
National Catholic Reporter, October 25,
2002
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