EDITORIAL Dallas is only a modest beginning
By any measure, the opening session
of the recent meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops in Dallas was the most
unusual they have ever conducted. During the two days that followed they
managed to pass a national policy that had eluded them for some 15 years. But
much more remains to be done.
The first day of the meeting opened, under the gaze of hundreds of
media representatives, with the kind of apology -- uncluttered and unqualified
-- that the victims of clergy sex abusers, ordinary Catholics and the general
public had awaited for years. Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, repeatedly said We are the
ones, referring to the bishops, who reassigned priest abusers; who did
not report crimes to the authorities; who worried more about scandal than
the kind of openness that helps prevent abuse; and treated victims and
their families as adversaries and not as suffering members of the
church.
The apology was followed by two stinging critiques delivered by
lay people -- Scott Appleby, a historian from the University of Notre Dame, and
Margaret OBrien Steinfels, editor of Commonweal magazine.
The critiques were followed by wrenching stories from four victims
of clergy sex abusers, and the morning ended with the detailed account by Dr.
Mary Gail Frawley-ODea of what happens to a young victim of sex abuse, of
the long, complicated, sometimes treacherous process involved in
recovering from abuse.
Indeed, the bishops had subjected themselves to a grinding
confrontation with the enormity of the sin of sexual abuse by clergy. They were
unmistakably moved, one might even say, chastened. The stage had been set for
some grand gesture. Expectations ran high.
Why, then, hasnt that morning been followed by a sense of
catharsis? Why are so many still so frustrated and discontented?
Perhaps because the expectations ran too high for a two-day
meeting. Perhaps because the purge of emotions and grief, the attendance to
forgiveness and reconciliation were, in the final analysis, incomplete.
The meeting in Dallas will undoubtedly be seen as a marker of
sorts in Catholic church history in the United States, if only for the fact
that the bishops were forced to deal publicly with a deeply embarrassing and
humiliating subject.
Whether that meeting marks the beginning of the kind of
significant change that must precede any rehabilitation of the bishops as moral
leaders remains to be seen. The initial indications are discouraging.
The bishops moral authority has all but vanished in the
wider culture. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, viewed by some as a kind
of super Catholic at war with the heathen culture, within days of the Dallas
meeting would include in a dissenting opinion on a death penalty case a short
but disdainful reference to the bishops lack of credibility on crime
issues.
The implication of such comment by a high-profile Catholic is
clear: The bishops will be easy to ignore in the public sphere for some time.
No matter how tough they get on priests who have been accused or convicted of
sexually abusing children, the bishops continue to hold themselves beyond
accountability, to the astonishment of everyone outside their exclusive
club.
It was galling to see Cardinals Bernard Law of Boston and Edward
Egan of New York joining the debate over details of what essentially became a
zero-tolerance policy for priests when so many questions remain about their own
contributions to the scandal. In Laws case, it is clear from the evidence
unearthed in previously sealed documents that he not only abandoned his
pastoral instincts in ignoring the pleas of victims, in too many cases he also
abandoned common sense and turned his back on the abundantly available wisdom
that told him what he was doing was imprudent, dangerous and quite possibly
illegal. His loyalty at the time was to the clerical club and his own career.
The victims, to whom he has so profusely apologized in recent weeks, were not
part of his consideration then.
In the documents that have been unsealed so far in Connecticut and
in the demeanor Egan has displayed and the statements he has made since the
scandal broke anew in January, it is clear that he is contemptuous of any
process that might hold him accountable for his actions. Deep questions remain
about Egans handling of the situation in Bridgeport, Conn.
Egan, Law and others personify the arrogance that comes with
unchecked power of which Appleby spoke. They would have done far better
to have asked forgiveness of their brother bishops and to have sought the
advice of those among them who had handled the sex abuse scandal with honesty
and consideration for the victims -- and otherwise kept quiet. But such men
apparently suffer from the delusion that they, alone, are still in charge, that
somehow they still command respect and exercise authority.
The bishops may yet, in some circumstances and among certain
constituencies, elicit adulation or be able to apply force. However, relatively
little respect remains except for those few who honestly honor the idea that
the church is the people of God, not just the hierarchy and priests.
The bishops, in the final analysis, were able to please almost no
one -- not the victims, who think they have not gone far enough because some
priests will be allowed to remain priests in the most isolated circumstances;
not the priests, who feel they have been thrown to the dogs, especially those
who have offended once, often years, if not decades ago, and since have been
model priests and pastors; not ordinary Catholics, who feel multiple betrayals,
first in the news of abuse, second in the cover-up and lying, and now in being
told they are not permitted to forgive priests theyve come to know, love
and respect, even in the priests brokenness.
The bishops fell short because they speak from a floating
platform, one anchored nowhere, not in the civil law, which they will
increasingly be dodging as more documents become unsealed and more cases come
to light. And certainly not in the Catholic community, which they essentially
turned their backs on years ago when they decided the community could not be
trusted with the bitter news that some of its leaders had committed awful acts
with children.
When the bishops made the fundamental decision nearly two decades
ago to turn their backs on victims and to seek a purely legal solution in hopes
of keeping the problem a secret, thus sparing the institution embarrassment, a
corresponding breach began to open between the bishops and the people they are
supposed to serve.
The breach widened over the years, and not just because of the way
the bishops handled the sex abuse crisis. The reservoir of trust
has run low, in Steinfels words, for many reasons. Secrecy is one.
Careerism another. Silent and passive acquiescence in Vatican edicts and
understandings that you know to be contrary to your own pastoral experience.
Another is a widespread sense of double standards. One standard for what is
said publicly and officially, another standard for what is held and said
privately. One standard for the baptized, another for the ordained. One
standard for priests, another for bishops. One standard for men, another
standard for women. One standard for the ordination of heterosexuals and what
now threatens to become another standard for homosexuals. One standard for
justice and dialogue outside the church, another for justice and dialogue
within.
The sex abuse crisis has shown how far some bishops were willing
to move from the community to retain status and privilege.
As the days recede from Dallas, the dimensions of what was
accomplished become clearer. The accomplishments are modest. At a time when the
bishops most needed the healing of the community, they have remained distant
from it. They have become, in many ways, a community unto themselves. What has
occurred, in Gregorys words, is a rupture in our relationship as
bishops with the faithful.
The rupture makes for awkward circumstances. It is a bizarre
ecclesiology, indeed, that would allow Law to follow an acknowledgement that he
had become a pariah in his own archdiocese with a defiant assertion that he is
still bishop.
What issued, finally, from Dallas was a policy squeezed from the
bishops, who acted only as the result of public pressure. Many of them are
clearly uncomfortable with it. The policy of zero tolerance has no foundation
in the Christian community or the Christian scriptures. It was a policy,
granted, that had become necessary. But it is a policy, nonetheless, devised
primarily to satisfy public pressure.
It is a policy that deals severely with priests, but does nothing
to hold bishops accountable for overseeing and advancing the scandal.
It establishes a yet ill-defined national board of lay people, led
by Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who has displayed a fervent prosecutorial
spirit, but is still rather vague on what exactly his committee will do, what
power it ultimately will have.
Inside the community, the final irony is that the bishops are left
to look to laypeople for legitimacy and credibility. Laypeople are the only
ones remaining who can rehabilitate the hierarchy and begin to rebuild damaged
trust.
The sex abuse scandal has shown that authority does not
automatically come with an office. It is the result of a human agreement based
on maturity, trust, respect and transparency. In many dioceses, Catholics and
their bishops are far from that kind of understanding.
Dallas, as speaker after speaker -- critics and victims and
bishops themselves -- said, is only a beginning.
The principles underlying the policies you will implement on
sexual abuse -- a return to strict discipline and moral oversight within the
priesthood, a new regime of collaboration with laity marked by transparency and
accountability, a firm resolve to pray together as a body of bishops and as
individuals to root out clericalism in the priesthood and in the seminary --
these principles must be extended to all aspects of the life and service of the
Catholic church in the United States, said Appleby. Otherwise, the
next scandal will come quickly on the heels of this one.
That June morning in Dallas showed the world that the bishops
could be forced to confront some awful truths about the clerical ranks of the
church. What long-term effect that morning will have, what ultimately will come
of the heartfelt apologies, will depend on the self-awareness, work and reforms
the bishops are willing to undertake in their own dioceses, among their people,
away from the medias glare.
National Catholic Reporter, July 5,
2002
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