Inside
NCR
By the time I got to Boston --
through a weather delay in Philadelphia, a change of airports and attempts to
track down a missing bag -- it was late morning on July 20, the day of the
Voice of the Faithful meeting, and things were in full swing. Fr. Tom Doyle had
just given his speech, a moving and powerful affirmation of all of those who
helped to surface the truth in the sex abuse scandals.
In his view, the aftermath of the scandal marks the
beginning death throes of the medieval monarchical model that was based on the
belief that a small select minority of the educated, privileged and
power-invested was called forth by God to manage the temporal and spiritual
lives of the faceless masses on the presumption that their unlettered status
equaled ignorance. But that was 1302, said Doyle. In 2002, one of the
founders of Voice of the Faithful is a Nobel prize-winning cardiologist. Those
who have nurtured the group through its formative months include professionals,
well-educated Catholics who are used to performing to rigorous standards in the
wider world. The last thing they need in their lives is another commitment, yet
they have been moved to spend enormous amounts of time because of the level of
betrayal and incompetence they have seen on the part of the hierarchy.
I have always been mystified in these kinds of gatherings -- and I
have been covering all manner of lay gatherings for several decades -- at how
seldom church officials have chosen to tap the rich resources of such lay
members. So few bishops seem willing to walk amid the wide swath of Catholics;
too many feel content to surround themselves with comfortable coteries who know
all the right answers and signs of deference.
What a waste. One can only conclude that a group like Voice of the
Faithful came into existence because bishops simply dont trust or really
know the lay authorities in their midst.
I heard the story that one Boston archdiocesan official smirked
that he wasnt too concerned about Voice of the Faithful because
they dont have the numbers. I wouldnt bet the rectory
on that hunch.
About that missing bag. Actually it
got trapped in Philadelphia (where fierce thunderstorms the night before the
meeting cancelled most flights) as I flew to Bedford, Mass., the closest I
could get to Boston the following morning. I was assured that the bag would
catch up to me the next day. It didnt. I did some emergency shopping for
a change of clothes in Bostons Back Bay area. I finally retrieved my bag
when I returned to Kansas City, about 20 feet from the ticket counter where I
had checked it two days before. The upside is that I had no problems with
security.
The story regarding new appointments
to the national clergy oversight board headed by Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating
came across too late to include in the body of this issue. In addition to the
three members already on board (see Page 4 for an interview with board member
Justice Anne M. Burke) the new body will include William R. Burleigh, former
chief executive of the E.W. Scripps Co. in Kentucky; Nicholas P. Cafardi, dean
of Duquesne University Law School, Pittsburgh; Jane Chiles, former director of
the Kentucky State Catholic Conference; attorney Pamela D. Hayes of New York;
Paul R. McHugh, chairman of the department of psychiatry and behavioral
sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and Ray H. Siegfried II, board
chairman of NORDAM Group, an aviation manufacturing firm in Tulsa, Okla.
By any measure, it is a distinguished group, but David Clohessy, a
founder of Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, raises some
essential questions. Clohessy has been raising essential questions for years.
This time he questions how independent the board can be and how independent its
deliberations can be when it is, first, appointed by the bishops it is intended
to oversee and, second, includes only one survivor of clergy sex abuse, Michael
Bland, who is a former priest and currently works for the Chicago
archdiocese.
The board is in a difficult spot. Skepticism runs high that it can
accomplish anything. Keatings every remark is measured against the last,
and people perceive that he has been slowly backing away from the tough stance
he took at the time of the bishops June meeting in Dallas.
It does seem a bit odd that the committee overseeing the
bishops activities on the sex abuse matter should not include some
representative from the organizations that have been tracking the matter since
the start.
Parting thought: Has anyone else
pondered what wed do this summer without the phrase just a few bad
apples? From the chancery office to the corporate boardroom, all the
troubles that are rocking institutions are the result of a few bad
you know. What would we do? How would we explain this era? A rather serviceable
few words, Id say.
-- Tom Roberts
My e-mail address is troberts@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, August 2,
2002
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