Let’s Not Be Proud

7 “Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table’? 8 Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished’? 9 Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’ ” 

(Luke 17 NABRE)

It’s no secret that this blog offers religious submission of intellect and will to the Church under Pope Francis. I’m not alone in this view, and we recognize that the attitude of dissent against the current magisterium must be opposed. However, I notice a trend on social media that we should beware: the attitude that we are holier than the rest—whom we look down on with disdain. But our obedience doesn’t mean we’re saints. It just means we haven’t rebelled yet, and we should be praying that we never do fall into disobedience.

In addition, the temptation to look down on those who rebel is incompatible with the message put forth by the Pope we claim to defend. In reaching out to the divorced/remarried, the people with same sex attraction, etc., he seeks to call them back into right relationship with God. We recognize that the Catholics who oppose him are behaving like the Pharisees who preferred ostracizing to evangelizing. But in refusing to reach out to these Catholics, we become what we denounce.

In addition, when we denounce the dissenting Catholics, are we dissenting ourselves? For example, I have seen some “defenders” of the Pope agitating for a change in Church teaching on homosexual acts and “same sex marriage” even though the Pope has rejected these things:

251. In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” It is unacceptable “that local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.”

(Amoris Laetitia)

Are we willing to entertain doubts about the binding nature of the Pope refining Church teaching on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in this time? If we are, we are guilty of what we denounce in others. Are we willing to accept at face value the accuracy of a Catholic—who consistently misrepresented the words of the Pope—when he or she approvingly cites a member of the clergy he or she thinks is opposed to the Pope? If we are, we are guilty of the same rash judgment that they are.

The point of all this is, we must not be proud. If we are faithful to the Church, giving religious submission of intellect and will to the Pope when he teaches, we are only doing what we are obliged to do. And if we choose to disagree with the Church under Pope Francis, we are no better than his dissenting critics.

Let us move forward in carrying out the mission of the Church without praising ourselves for doing what we must do. Let us continue to pray we are not subjected to the tests that might break our faith. Let us continue to reach out to those who reject the Pope (overtly or through behavior).

Otherwise, we’re failing to what is required of us.

Enough Already! Reflections on the Need to Reject Emotion Based Response

As the abuse scandal goes on, we’re constantly bombarded with blogs, editorials, and commentaries that amount to saying “I’m angry and I’m going to tell everyone about everything I dislike about the Church and why I think it failed me!” I am not talking about actual victims here. They’re right to be angry over the pain suffered. I’m certainly not qualified to judge when they’re healed and would not dare to presume to tell them they should “get over it.” 

Instead, I’m talking about Catholics, not personally affected, who are letting their emotions drive their understanding of the situation. I get it that shock and anger are natural reactions to becoming aware of this wrongdoing. But if our response is led by emotion, we will not achieve any meaningful reform. Instead, we will only respond in a way that satisfies the emotion. We see this in the rush to judgment. Yes, certain bishops did conceal wrongdoing. Yes, we had a predator work his way up to the rank of cardinal. These things should not have happened and we need a reform.

The problem is, a meaningful reform requires us to be rational. We can’t just accuse our usual suspects, demand they be gotten rid of, and expect things to fall into place. But if you read the endless articles out there, you usually learn about the writer’s politics by the “reforms” they propose. We’re constantly bombarded by calls for women priests and the ending of celibacy on one hand, accusations against Vatican II and the “lavender mafia” on the other.

But when you think about these arguments, they don’t really make sense. Women priests won’t eliminate sexual abuse. It seems like every other week there’s a story in the news about a female teacher who sexually abused a student. Ending celibacy won’t end it. Protestant denominations have similar rates of sexual abuse, and schools—an institution that emphatically does not require celibacy—have higher rates of sexual abuse. Vatican II didn’t cause it. A high percentage of cases preceded Vatican II or involved priests ordained before Vatican II. As for the “lavender mafia,” that’s an ill-defined term that basically amounts to saying that some corrupt people in the Church with same sex attraction have received positions of authority and work together in some manner.

Arguing that these things be “changed” is not a blueprint for reform. It’s just assuming that everything would be fine if we just got rid of what we dislike. True reform requires an investigation into how these things could have happened and what could be reasonably done to prevent it from happening again.

Unfortunately, when we let emotions get in the way, we demand instantaneous fixes and think “reasonably” is a code word for “token reform.” But to avoid a “feel good” bandaid that achieves nothing or possibly to assume guilt until proven innocent, we need to evaluate the situation with the willingness to understand both what has happened and what the Church can do in response.

A reasonable reform (by which I mean a reform established by reason, not “the minimum reform we can get away with”) involves looking at the facts of the matter, determining what worked, what failed, who did their job, and who failed to do so. It means we think about the long term fix and don’t settle for scapegoats.

For example, consider the Pope’s words during the September 25 press conference, (ZENIT translation) for which critics accused him of being “tone deaf”:

I take Pennsylvania’s Report, for example, and we see that up to the first years of the 70’s there were so many priests who fell into this corruption. Then, in more recent times, they diminished because the Church realized that it had to fight another way.  In past times, these things were covered up. They were covered up also at home when an uncle violated a niece when the father violated the children. They were covered up because it was a very great shame. It was the way of thinking in past centuries, and of the past century. There is a principle in this that helps me very much to interpret history: a historical event is interpreted with the hermeneutics of the time in which the event happened, not with today’s hermeneutics. 

He’s right. To understand the behavior—and to understand is not to condone—we must understand the mindset that made it possible. In the past, things were hidden out of shame. That doesn’t justify the silence. But it does help us understand why things were tolerated in the past. If we understand them, we can try to change them. But if we don’t try to understand them—if we think being angry is enough—we will never overcome the evil.

I think we have a tendency to “fill in the blanks” when we have partial information. We insert the motives we think explain an evil and treat it as truth, demanding we be refuted even though the onus of proof falls on us to prove our angry assumptions true. Moreover, when proof is given to the contrary, we claim it is part of a coverup—because we “know” it must be false. Why do we “know” it’s false? Because it contradicts our preconceived notions about what happened. “Innocent until proven guilty” becomes “presumption of guilt that can never be disproved.”

This kind of emotional response will not reform the Church. It will instead lead people to assume that any solution that doesn’t immediately satisfy their need for vengeance is a coverup or attempt at stonewalling. That kind of mistrust eventually leads to schism while the problem goes on... and probably continues to exist in the rebellious group that thinks they eliminated the problem by rejecting the Pope.

If we want to truly reform the Church, we need to recognize when our emotions are interfering with seeking out truth. As St. Paul warns (Ephesians 4:26-27), “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger, and do not leave room for the devil.”

I think at this point, we’re leaving plenty of room for the devil and he’ll take advantage of it as long as we let emotion take first place.

Reflections for the Struggling

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Fault Lines in Finding Fault

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Ten Reflections on Combox Comments on Abuse in the Church

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They Ended in Schism

(Preliminary note: it’s not my intention to accuse anyone involved in this latest dispute of fomenting schism. Rather, I hope to remind everyone that certain attitudes can lead to that danger if not kept in check)

The thing that troubles me about the reaction to the scandals is the open contempt that some are showing to the clergy, treating them as an enemy that the Church needs to be liberated from. They rightly want reform but think that the cause of the corruption are not just some corrupt bishops and priests, but the bishops and priests. The problem is, this is not the first time that this happened. There were other movements in the history of the Church who began with a desire to reform the Church and ended in schism.

We’ve had groups like the Donatists, the Fratricelli, the Lollards, the Protestants, etc. They gradually started viewing the clergy as enemies and rejected them. When the Church told them they were wrong, they retorted that the Church was wrong. Eventually they wound up leaving the Church in the name of reform.

In this current crisis, I’m not accusing those concerned over scandals as fomenting schism. But I do wonder if we’re seeing fault lines that may turn into schism if left unchecked. The mistrust can lead to rejection of rightful authority. That rejection can turn into separation from the rightful authority. But, as Catholics, we cannot reject that rightful authority—even if some misuse it or personally sin grievously—because this authority is given to the Church by God.

This doesn’t mean “business as usual” when it comes to scandals. But it does mean recognizing the authority to teach and govern is not set aside for the bad behavior. John XII was a notoriously bad Pope. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia describes him as “a coarse, immoral man, whose life was such that the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general odium.”  Yet, if he had ever taught as Pope [§], the obligation to obey would bind and the faithful would have to trust God would protect him from teaching error. People tried to depose him, but the attempt had no authority.

The situation we have in the Church today is nothing like the scandals of past centuries. I’m not arguing the fallacy of Relative Privation here. The fact that a past scandal was worse doesn’t mean we don’t suffer in a current one. But what it does mean is if the Church survived that, it will survive this and we are not excused from obedience.

What we have is a reaction of revulsion against the evils committed by one bishop and a small number of clergy combined with the revelation of some bishops knew but preferred to keep it hidden instead of stopping it. Yes, we do have evil in the Church. Yes, it does have to be rooted out. Wanting these things corrected is not wrong. But reckless accusations, assuming without proof the Pope must be guilty and demand for him to resign, assuming the clergy are an enemy of reform—these are wrong.

I would urge the faithful who are (quite legitimately) struggling with feelings of hurt, anger, and betrayal to remember this and not allow themselves to fall into these attitudes.

___________________

[§] He never did. God protecting His Church sometimes means that an evil Pope doesn’t get around to teaching at all.

Reflecting on Seeking Truth

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The Pope in the Dock: Reflections on an Unproven Accusation

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A Schism In All But Name

No doubt by now you’ve heard many accounts about the 2018 abuse scandal. I want to discuss a certain aspect of that story that went unreported—the aspect of dissent that was building for decades and came to fruition in the opposition to Pope Francis. No doubt some will disagree with my observations here. But I do believe it explains how the backlash to this scandal could have erupted so quickly. To get to the point we’re at in late August, 2018 didn’t happen overnight, but it doesn’t need a conspiracy theory either. 

What it took was years of dissenters pretending (or deceived into thinking) their opposition was faithful Catholicism. I think it can be traced to resentment after changes in discipline. Certain Catholics, who thought these changes went against what they thought the Church was supposed to be, believed the Church to be in error. They blamed the Church for any negative behavior from dissenters—a post hoc fallacy. Over the decades, this mistrust and blame led to a growing suspicion that the magisterium was wrong while they were the arbiters of what was orthodox.

By the pontificate of Pope Francis, the suspicion became open contempt. People believed that the Pope was a heretic and whatever he did was suspect. His critics, through suspicions, gave the worst possible interpretation of his words, “confirming” their suspicion that he was a heretic in a vicious circle. What he said was compatible with his predecessors, but was assumed to be a contradiction by Catholics ignorant of his predecessors’ teachings. The result of this was a refusal to accept the authority of the Pope. His critics refused to accept his authority to govern or taught. Confusion resulted, but the critics blamed the Pope for the confusion.

The result was when the renewed outrage over the abuse scandal arose, his critics blamed him for a problem that went back to the 1940s and was mostly eliminated by 2002. What was different was that we learned some bishops were involved in concealing abuse in the same period—and one cardinal stood credibly accused of abuse. Understandably, Catholics wanted those who covered up to face the consequences for their acts. The problem was in determining which living bishops did wrong, and which ones merely inherited the problem.

The anti-Francis Catholics demanded immediate results, even though a just investigation and canonical trial takes time. Much longer than the two weeks between the Pennsylvania report and the time of writing this sentence. Because the Pope did not mention specific policy changes in his condemnation of the evil, critics accused him of doing nothing—again two weeks after the release of the report.

Finally we had the Vigano letter. Putting aside the arguments about his motives, we have an accusation that Benedict XVI imposed sanctions on McCarrick in 2010, but Pope Francis knowingly removed these sanctions in 2013, taking part in the coverup. As of the time of my writing this, nobody has proven that Benedict XVI made such a decision. In fact, Cardinal Wuerl has explicitly said nobody told him that such sanctions were in effect—and he would be the one responsible to make sure they were enforced. [§] In his press conference, Pope Francis told reporters to stop being lazy and investigate the accusations. I believe he is confident of the results of that outcome.

But the mistrust this faction caused has reached such extremes that any bishop who denied being part of the coverup was deemed a liar. As a result, the critics had a “heads I win, tails you lose” situation. Any bishop who didn’t go along was “part of the problem.” Any bishop who did was “proof” that the other bishops were liars. There’s no way a bishop can prove his innocence under these circumstances.

And, here we are. A vocal faction has hijacked the narrative and attacked anyone who challenged the claims. They were so loud that many people are beginning to believe them. Now, when the Pope and bishops reject the accusations, people believe the propaganda.

This is schism in all but name. I will not be part of it. Like this Pope or hate him, he is the Vicar of Christ. Like or hate the bishops, they are successors to the Apostles. They do have the authority to bind and loose regardless of personal sins. Yes, reform is needed. But it cannot be a revolt. It must work with the magisterium, not against it.

___________________

[§] Also of note, if Benedict XVI imposed sanctions and Pope Francis lifted them, Cardinal Wuerl would have an excuse for not getting involved in the McCarrick case. But instead of saying he was ordered to end sanctions, he insisted he received no instructions to begin them.

Reform or Rebellion?

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Pro and Con: Trying to Sort Through the Slogans

Introduction 

After the disgust at the news of wrongdoing (I naively assumed the bishops had cleaned up their mess in 2002), the next thing that rises up in me is wariness. Catholics are right to want the wrongdoing fixed, but I’m dubious about the righteousness of some of the demands being made. Some of the reactions seem based in wrath or preexisting resentment. These cannot be the basis of reform.

This article, which may not see the light of day, is my attempt to work through my misgivings. None of it should be interpreted as supporting the status quo or advocating clericalism. Nor do I intend to show fatalism. Instead, I hope to show that attempts to achieve true justice here are much more involved than the combox warriors on social media think.

Contradictions and Contraries

When we say “All A is B,” the contrary is “No A is B.” They can’t both be true, but both can be false. If we want to contradict “All A is B,” we would say “Some A is not B.” They can’t both be true, but one of them must be. So, if someone says “all Muslims/Priests/Bishops are terrorists/abusers/guilty of coverup,” the contradiction is “some Muslims/Priests/Bishops are NOT terrorists/abusers/guilty of coverup.” [§]

Once we recognize that, it is no longer legitimate to demand a “one size fits all” approach. If some are not guilty, then we must not punish them with the guilty. That means we have to investigate accusations and deal with those who are culpable.

Different Levels of Involvement 

Off the top of my head, I can think of four different levels of bishops’ involvement (and there are probably more) each with a different level of guilt.

1. Bishops who knew wrongdoing was happening but chose to hide it
2. Bishops who sent offending priests for treatment and sincerely believed the psychologist who said the priest was cured [~]
3. Successors to the first bishop involved who assumed that past problems were properly handled until the offending priest showed up in the news.
4. Successors to the first bishop involved who did their best to root out this evil from their diocese.

Obviously, the greatest guilt goes to group 1. Guilt in groups 2 and 3 will vary depending on what they did once they were aware of the problem reemerging. Group 4 clearly has no guilt and not only would it be unjust to punish them, but doing would hurt real reform.

So, again, we cannot just take a “one size fits all” approach in a reform.

“Let the Laity Run It!” 

One of the mantras on the scandal is that the bishops can’t be trusted and the laity should handle it. I am very concerned about this going wrong. First of all, the bishops are not like elected officials. They do have a sacramental based office as successors of the Apostles and cannot just set aside their task.

Second...well, have you seen the wrathful and sometimes woefully ignorant responses by some of the laity? I wouldn’t trust them to run an impartial investigation. To make this work, we would have to search out and appoint wise and impartial laity who would seek out the truth and render a just report. The problem is, WHO do we trust to make that decision? The bishops who many don’t trust? The laity who I have misgivings about? No matter how it’s decided, somebody will think the investigation lacks credibility.

Personally, I’d like it to be handled like Chile—where the investigation came from the Pope, but involved investigators from outside the country under investigation. Laity can certainly play a role in this. But let’s remember how justice works. The victims are witnesses, and we should listen to them and give them justice. But victims and witnesses can’t also sit on the jury. The whole point of a jury is that the verdict be reached by impartial people.

So, let’s realize that slogans aren’t helpful. We need to ask questions on how to create a just investigation that neither turns into a lynch mob nor turns a blind eye to evil. Yes, laity have a role to play. But so does the magisterium. Unless we recognize this, any investigation is unlikely to be acceptable.

Government Involvement 

I’ve seen some call for the government to be involved in an investigation. I could make a lot of flippant jokes on trusting government competence, but levity isn’t helpful here. The issue here is, what is the role of the government? It can legitimately investigate crime. So, if there were crimes committed that are not past the statute of limitations, the government can prosecute.

The problem is, the state not only can prosecute. It can persecute. It can turn an investigation into a weapon to silence foes. I think back to the 1990s when the government wanted to use RICO to target pro-life demonstrators and seize the property of family members. That was a politically minded attack from a pro-abortion administration. But this is not merely a threat from the past. I remember the recent contraceptive mandate and the hostility directed at the bishops. I can imagine the current administration remembering the bishops’ stance on immigration. So the question is, how far can we trust the government to only do what it has the authority to do?

This too must be considered in determining a just response.

Cut off Donations!

This is a popular slogan, but it flies in the face of our Catholic obligations... notably the Fifth Precept of the Church. The fact is, the faithful are required to provide for the needs of the Church to carry out her mission. Now I understand the anger the faithful have in seeing this support go to paying settlements. If the bishops had acted instead of evaded, we might not be in that mess. But their bad stewardship doesn’t remove our obligation.

That doesn’t mean we have to just throw our money away. One can specify that their donations go to specific ministries and not the general fund. But this does require some research to know where the greatest need is.

Conclusion 

I realize these reflections do not provide solutions. That was never the intention. The point of this was to point out that the Catholic response cannot be implementing slogans. They require thought and planning to ensure a just solution that solves the problem, not a quick fix that does greater harm down the road.

I don’t advocate a clericalism based response. After all, I’m a member of the laity and I’m involved by writing about this. But I also reject the idea that the clergy is the enemy of reform. That idea has led to many heresies and schisms.

If we as laity want to truly be involved, I think it involves prayer and study before actions. We must pray for God’s involvement and for our own guidance. We must pray for the innocent clergy to be comforted and given courage to do right. We must pray for the guilty that they repent and make amends for their evil, and that they be brought to salvation.

And after prayer comes study. There are a lot of uninformed, emotion driven reactions out there which will not bring reform. They will only cause division. We must understand what the Church can actually do, we must understand what is compatible with her mission. If we can understand that, we can recognize when a demand is something we cannot do.

This frustrates people. We want the filth to stop. We want accountability. There’s nothing wrong with that. But unless we pray for guidance and study to learn what is just, we may end up doing injustice to feel good. 

______________________

[§] This works both ways of course. The contradictory of “No A is B” is “Some A is B.” 

[~] There can be overlap with group 1 if they worked to conceal wrongdoing.

What Are We To Do? Thoughts on Reforming the Church

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. 

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

—JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Some of the anticlerical posts I’ve seen on social media claim that other states will follow the lead of Pennsylvania and start their own investigations. These posts are saying that the Church should “get out in front” of the scandals and disclose the names.

I’m pretty sure I know how it will play out. We’ll probably see incidents from the late 1940s to 2002 and then a sharp decline. We’ll probably see some bishops who, whatever the motivation, moved these priests around. Then we’ll all fight again about who knew what and what should have been done instead.

What we won’t see is many people seeking to understand how we got to this point, what motivated some bishops to think this was a good idea, and who advised them. Instead of learning the full truth of the matter, we’ll stop seeking the truth with a list of names and some graphic descriptions of what was done. People will be shocked by these descriptions, get angrier with the Church until finally some of them decide to leave the Church, declaring that this is the worst scandal to ever strike the Church, and we need to throw out the old and rebuild.

I will not be among those who leave. That’s not because I’m “in denial” about the evil done. Nobody who studies Church history can be blind to the often shameful and always cringeworthy scandals throughout. I will remain because I understand that each era of the Church has its own scandals that must be faced and overcome.

But I don’t expect a quick fix to the problem. When a long-running problem is exposed, exposing it to the roots and removing them takes time. For example, in dealing with the corruption that led to the Protestant revolt, the Council of Trent took almost 30 years after the rise of Luther to begin, 18 years to complete, and over a century to implement. Fifty years after Vatican II, we are still implementing it—and fighting over whether it should have happened at all.

While I pray it doesn’t take that long to deal with this, the task at hand is more involved than people seem to think. People think it is just a matter of identifying and throwing out the priests and bishops involved. And while that is a part of it, it is not the only part of it. To prevent sliding back, we need to understand what led to it becoming so entrenched and how it could have been tolerated. Pope Francis mentioned the problem of clericalism. I think he’s right. Not just the arrogance of some clergy that lets them view their parish or diocese as a personal fief, but also a belief among laity that they must accept and keep silence over wrongdoing.

Also, we need to separate those bishops who decided to coverup wrongdoing from bishops who trusted psychologists to “cure” predator priests and believed them when they said the priest was safe to return to duty. We need to separate both groups from later bishops who thought the past problems were legitimately solved until news of a former priest from the diocese made the news. Finally, we need to separate these three groups from the later bishops who sincerely followed the Dallas Accords and tried to root out the filth. A true reform needs to deal with all four scenarios and not slap on a single “throw the bastards out” slogan.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing a growing number of Catholics who think it’s better to throw out some of the innocent if it means getting rid of all the guilty. They think “kill them all, God knows His own” is reasonable. This view shows up in the assumption that all bishops must be guilty of willful wrongdoing and none can be trusted.

And that brings up another problem. In every case of corruption in the Church, there is always a faction that goes too far, rejecting the legitimate authority of the magisterium and insisting that the reform be given to them instead. That’s happening here too. That faction must be rejected. Unfortunately, rejecting them is represented as rejecting real reform. So, if the Pope follows canonical procedures in investigating, these factions will accuse him of stonewalling “real reform.”

One of the responsibilities of the laity in this time is to educate themselves about what the Church can and can’t do. When we know, we can have reasonable expectations on how the Church works, or respectfully call for a reform of what doesn’t work. But if we’re ignorant about it, we’re liable to get furious over unreasonable demands and think it’s “business as usual.” That’s how heretical and schismatic movements get started.

None of what I say here should be interpreted as advocating passivity or clericalism. We do have to act, and we do have to participate. But I am saying that if we want to truly reform, we need to work together with and for the Church, not against the Church. Otherwise our efforts will damage the Church we hope to save.

The Pharisee and the... Bishop?

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