Von Speyr: On Scandal

John 13:11 For he knew who was to betray him. That is why he said: You are not all clean.

The Lord knows his betrayer, but he does not point him out, for outwardly he still belongs to the community, although inwardly he has turned away from the Lord. The Lord does not expel anyone; a person who goes away has excluded himself. Before the community, the Lord does not give a hint as to who will leave it soon, for the scandal is not yet public. So, too, the Church will not bring scandals to light before the instigators themselves give occasion for it. 

The scandal of Judas was one that had to happen, but many another scandal in the Church has no visible cause. Yet the Lord does not spare her such scandal. Is it because the Lord himself took upon himself the scandal of the Cross? Is it because through one person's scandal the other members of the Chruch are horrified and thus strengthened in their loyalty to the Church? In any case, the offense is tolerated, even if it affects the Church's holy of holies. The Lord endures it in the room at the Last Supper. The Church must endure scandal; she may not circumvent or deny it, or act as if it were not there, or distance herself from it. Nor is it said that the Church should immediately and by all means stifle the scandal by eliminating the evil, for perhaps the sinner may still repent. Nor does the Lord cast Judas out - it can be better to let an abscess ripen than to put a knife to it too soon and kill it in its early stages. Not every scandal rousing book needs to be immediately banned, even if it may not keep the Church's doctrine intact. Perhaps it is better to talk first and to clear up misunderstanding by the light of day, and fairly. Many in the Church are sinners. and every sin is a tacit scandal and a heresy. But the Church is held together by love. 

John, Adrienne von Speyr, vol III, p.29

Clericalism: The Elephant in the Parlor

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An airing of concerns: 

(This posting from thesuburbanhunter is reprinted on my blog because it addresses the issue of Clericalism with refreshing honesty.

Clericalism is a huge but unattended problem in the Church. To attend to the problem, we have to stop denying its existence, face it squarely, and start putting into words what we see. The experience is akin to exploring a new territory without a map. You draw the map as you go along, learning the right direction to go in after following paths that lead nowhere. 

Truth has a way of revealing itself to us when we allow it to take us over.)

This entry has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. I wrote the below entry in the wake of the Msgr. Wallin scandal breaking in the Diocese of Bridgeport. Compared to the open airing of the Church's documents in the Archdiocese of LA, that is small potatoes. However, more mistakes are being made, including right now in New Jersey, and the unhealthy root cause of these issues is not being addressed. The unhealthy root cause of the issue is the clerical culture of the Church, which is at this time dysfunctional, and the problem needs to be addressed with bravery and honesty. My words mean very little. In fact, they mean nothing. However, I feel many faithful Catholics are feeling this way, and we need the courage to say it.

Clericalism and Msgr. Wallin

The demands of an authentic and healthy love require us, when we see dysfunction in those we love, to speak out. Now, in the Church, is one of those times. Now in the society at large is one of those times. There are too many irresponsible voices, too much noise, and not enough discernment and careful thought. It is time for change.

The vast majority of the priests in this state (and everywhere) are amazing men. I in no way wish to cause them pain, and my concerns are not in any way about them.  My concern involves a problem bigger than us all.  This problem materialized most recently in the sad story of Msgr. Wallin in the Diocese of Bridgeport, but the problem has a history which stretches back to many cases of tragically ignored, denied, or hidden abuse of minors by priests. However, it is not just about sex abuse, which has been thankfully been tamped down. It is also about finances, and Church governance, and the role of the laity.

How could problems or hints of serious things amiss among our clergy be ignored, or if not ignored, somehow tragically mishandled, again?  And again? And again? 

I believe that clericalism is at the core of our dysfunctional response to these challenges.

What is clericalism? Does it exist? Is it a problem? As lay people do we even have a right to think about it, let alone write about it?  Are we lay people a part of the problem, somehow unhealthily relating to and encouraging a dysfunctional ecclesial environment?

I think the answer to these questions is that yes, clericalism most certainly does exist. Yes, it is probably the greatest challenge facing the Church in the United States today. As lay people we participate in it and even thrive on it in a codependent and dysfunctional way, so we not only have a right, but a duty, to think about it, name it, and write about it. If we don't we will simply continue to see scandal heaped on scandal until the Church's message and witness to the culture becomes entirely irrelevant.

Let's begin with what clericalism is not. Clericalism is not the teaching authority of the Church, nor is it the role of bishops as successors to the apostles, nor is it the sacramental character of the Church. That authority is essential to a healthy Christian understanding of the world, and it centrally important to the functioning of the Church. We cannot do well in the world apart from the body of Christ, which is the Church. Neither is clericalism the notion that priests are changed by virtue of their ordination. Clericalism is not the male only priesthood, which is something the Popes have said is ordained by Christ and impossible to change.

The constant demands to change these things (which have been ongoing since 1400AD) have perhaps made the Church increasingly defensive. It may be this defensiveness that has given rise to the thing called clericalism that is doing such damage. In and of themselves however, clericalism they are not.

If the aforementioned characteristics of the Church are not clericalism, then what is?  Clericalism is the viewpoint that priests and clergy are the center of the Church, and everyone else is passively along for the ride, offering adoring and silent prayer support for our heroes. We laity are the disposable "bit players" in salvation history. The "real" Church is the priests.  Clericalism is the viewpoint that laity are not to think, question, write, ponder, or take action towards injustice when an injustice is perceived within the Church. Clericalism is the viewpoint that the laity are not fit to comment on or participate in parish finances, or make reasoned complaints when there is a legitimate reason to criticize. Perhaps most nefarious, clericalism is the viewpoint that priests and Bishops are essential, while laity are incidental, or even disposable.

This is not just a religious problem though, and we Catholics are not special. Clericalism's counterpart in the secular United States is the celebrity culture, which turns otherwise mature people into passive observers of other people's melodrama, taking sides and cheering from the sidelines. Secularists chose their own cults and their own tribes, with their own "plaster saints." This is not a religious problem, but a maturity problem. It is self evident to this observer that social media only exacerbates our collective codependence and celebrity worship, and makes it worse.

Yet, that cannot be an excuse.

The response of many in the Diocese of Bridgeport to the Msgr. Wallin scandal has been more of the same. We are told to pray about it. Move on. Nothing to see here. Isn't it sad? Support out priests! The poor man! All of this as if there is not a crying need for change and reform that seems so blatantly obvious to everyone except those most inside the Church.

The way that the diocese has responded to this situation is broken, and is indicative of a broken culture. It is a culture that is still broken, desperately so, and despite the scandals to rock our Church, there have been no meaningful cultural changes to the way we look at and think about the priesthood. Yes, there are new reporting procedures in place. As a Catholic father I feel my children are very safe at Church functions and with Church personnel. But as the case of Msgr. Wallin (and other situations) clearly shows, our reflecting on this topic has not gone deep enough, and the meaningful discussions that are called for are not occurring.

My initial response to reading about Msgr. Wallin was to say that Archbishop of Baltimore, William Lori, and his predecessor, Edward Egan, are somewhat at fault for this situation. By failing to address situations such as Msgr. Wallin’s in a forthright and functional way, both men have engaged in scandalous conduct that diminishes the moral authority they hold. Therefore, I felt that Bishop Lori, at a minimum, had a duty to apologize and address the situation. The reaction to this surprised me.

I know many who read this will accuse me of being uncharitable towards our shepherds, and are feeling very defensive of our Church. We all have our fears right now. If the Church were persecuted, I pray I would have the temerity to suffer whatever trials would come, and not lose my identity or fidelity to our Catholic faith. The Church faces an increasingly hostile culture, one that elevates the immoral and calls it moral. (Abortion is the greatest example of this cultural decay.) Yet, I firmly believe that we need to move past the point of being defensive, and instead be proactive. The time for change has come.

There is a reason why we must move, and act. That reason is love. Love requires us to name that which is dysfunctional. Love requires us to deal with reality. It requires us to be open, and honest, as opposed to secretive and conniving. The time has come for change.

For those non-Catholics reading this trying to make sense of it, the first thing to understand is that the priesthood is not a job. We are not protestants. The clergy are not in a profession. The priesthood is a vocation. Becoming a priest isn't like becoming an employee somewhere. Rather, it is like getting married.Thus it is different than speaking about how we deal with employees and employers.

In discussing the nature and potential solutions to clericalism and its ensuing dysfunction within the Church, a parallel should be made.  The parallel is not how an organization should treat an employee, but rather how a family will treat a member: how a spouse will treat a wife or husband.

If this is the case, then I think it is clear that the Church in the case of Msgr. Wallin, under the leadership of now Archbishop Lori, operated very much like a dysfunctional family would. Let's look at Wallin's actions from the point of view of the marriage vocation.

Let's assume a hypothetical husband sinned against his marriage the way Msgr. Wallin did against his vows.

Said husband would have a) cheated on his wife b) started doing drugs. c) possibly started dealing drugs around the kids, d) been (at the very least) verbally and emotionally abusive towards all of them.

This is an exact parallel.

To mimic the actions of the Diocese of Bridgeport regarding Msgr. Wallin said wife would a) say nothing at first... definitely keep it quiet from friends and family to avoid embarrassment and scandal. b) fight DCF actions to protect the children, c) complain about an aggressive nation state when the government tried to take custody, arguing to all who would listen that her family was being persecuted. d) maybe send her husband away for a little while, and give him some money too... just until it all blew over.

That is, to put it mildly, a dysfunctional response.

What the hypothetical wife (the Church) could have done:

Separated from her husband immediately and take the kids with her. Immediately reached out to her support network, and her (and his, depending on her relationship with them, their level of codependency and self-delusion etc.) family. Assuming he wasn't a danger to her, she could have scheduled an intervention to get everything out in the open. SHe could have sought means of doing all this where she would be safe, relying on charities and shelters or family members.

She would then set up a plan to move forward. To heal the marriage, the husband would have to agree to substance abuse counseling, psychological counseling, and oversight while swearing to never touch drugs again. If he refused or denied he had a problem, she should walk away, even call the police and inform them of his illegal activities (as anyone who has experienced addiction knows, it is necessary to first hit “rock bottom” before one is able to admit and desire help and sobriety.)

 This is hard. A Christian would always keep the door open to reconciliation and true reform (being a Christian is not easy)  But it would be the right thing to do. Would some family members attack her? Would some people in his (or even her) family stand with him and call her all sorts of vicious names?  Would she have to go through hell?  Would people talk?  Would it be embarrassing? Yes, yes, yes.... But she would be doing the right thing for the right reasons.

There are few actions more painful than an intervention such as this. I know because I have seen them first hand. They also have the power to transform and change lives and heal families. I have seen this too.  Courageously loving actions like these have the power to restore sobriety, and sanity, in people.

The case of Msgr. Wallin shows a Church failing to function. It is easy to, after the fact, criticize what those in authority have done. However, in a case such as this, what the Church should have done, just based on the information they had, seems very different to what they ended up doing.

Any of the following actions, or all of them together, could have been much more heathy for the Church in the long run.

Msgr. Wallin could have been suspended immediately when his conduct came to light. Diocesan leadership (the Bishop) could have gone to the parish, and come as clean as possible with the people. Leaders could have asked Wallin's flock to pray for him, and let them know that he was suspected of habitually breaking his vows in a very serious way, serious enough to merit this disciplinary action. The Bishop could have said that Msgr. Wallin was leaving his responsibilities to them for days and days at a time, and that such things were not acceptable, thus he was being removed from ministry for the time being.

This hypothetical course of action stands in stark contrast to telling the community that Msgr. Wallin was granted a "sabbatical" for time to “think”. A sabbatical is what you grant to a college professor who is writing a book, not someone who has scandalously broken their commitments to employer, let alone a priest who has abused the trust of his flock!

Leaders could have explained that, for privacy, parishioners would not be informed of what Wallin had actually done at this time. In all honesty they could have at that time assured parishioners that to the best of their knowledge, no laws were broken, and no children were in danger. However, an investigation could have been ongoing, including a thorough audit of all parish finances.  Would this really have disquieted the faithful?  OR could such honesty and communication assured the faithful that the Church was still functioning despite the struggles of one of its priests. 

 Msgr. Wallin could have been placed on "administrative leave" pending the results of said investigation, and a canon lawyer provided to him to advise him and protect him while the Diocese aggressively worked to leave no stone unturned in its investigation. Should he have refused to submit to all this and walked away? Payments from the diocese could have been stopped, and the process started for laicization.

This isn't rocket science. It is basic oversight of persons in responsibility 101. If the Bishop (or Diocesan officials) actually took such action, maybe they could have nipped the drug dealing in the bud, and actually have helped the man.

If the Church was acting like a functional family, and a highly functional spouse, their actions would have been very different from the codependent "sweep it under the rug and don't rock the boat" course they took. The Church right now is like a dysfunctional co-dependent family and that must stop.

It is therefore past time for a cultural change. The biggest thing preventing us from becoming a more functional family: clericalism.

If priests and clergy are the center of the Church, and everyone else is passively along for the ride, offering adoring and silent prayer support for our heroes, then we will seek to defend our heroes no matter what, even when what is needed is soul searching and some movement towards real change.  We will try and protect ourselves when priests fall by pretending they don't. We will not take appropriate action when behavior such as Msgr. Wallin's first comes to light.

If the laity are not to think, question, write, ponder, or take action towards injustice when an injustice is perceived within the Church, then clergy, who are human beings, will take the path of least resistance, doing whatever is comfortable, and that means not taking bold action and making life hard for themselves. Situations like Msgr. Wallin's will be handled quietly, in ways to "avoid scandal." If the laity are not fit to direct parish finances, or make reasoned complaints when there is a legitimate reason to criticize, then priests can do whatever they want with the money we give them, including spending it on questionable endeavors, or worse, misappropriating it. If only priests and Bishops are essential, while laity are incidental, or even disposable, then what does it matter what laity think or say? They are just along for the ride anyway.

How much open communication do we truly have in our Church? Do the Bishops you know deal with criticism in a healthy manner? If we write or call with a concern, do they or a representative even respond? Is there anything like a "two way street" when it comes to communication and openness?

How do we change? Here is the mature answer: I don't know. I only know it is time for a conversation to occur about how we relate to each other as the Church. We need to start asking questions about why these things keep happening. This is more than just policies and procedures; we have done and are doing that, and things HAVE gotten better from that perspective. But there is still something deeply dysfunctional at our core. Everything, from seminary formation, and especially what psychological training and counseling are required (and not required) needs to be looked at closely as we move forward. Lay formation needs to be addressed. Catechetical programs and their emphasis need to be examined. We need to do soul searching. Something isn't working. I don't care what side of the ideological Catholic divide one is on, everyone should be able to agree that right now there is something dysfunctional here. For love of our Church, the body of which every one of us is a member, isn't it time to address it?

Clericalism Part Four: Senator Kennedy and Cardinal Law

                           Apples and Oranges?

  Let me illustrate my point  about Clericalism by making a comparison between the downfall of a churchman and a politician: Cardinal Law and Senator Kennedy. There are striking similarities between the two. Both were based in Massachusetts, both seen as successful Irishmen, both were consultants to presidents, both highly influential in their own sphere as well as beyond its boundaries, and both went through an excruciatingly painful scandal that destroyed their public image.  Both still have their fans and their despisers. Both were substantially the same persons before their date with destiny as afterwards. It was public opinion of them that had changed, not their basic characters.   However, Kennedy was able to be rehabilitated after Chappaquiddick and continue his career in the Senate, and Law had to leave town and country in disgrace.  Public opinion allowed Kennedy to reinvent himself, while Law had to go into exile in Rome.

Is it fair to compare the two cases?  Their fall from grace took place at different times and circumstances. By comparing a cardinal with a senator, are we comparing apples and oranges? My contention is that in spite of all the similarities and difference, the decisive factor between their two cases is Clericalism. There are huge differences, of course. The feeding frenzy the Boston Globe provoked over Law’s situation, the deep pockets of the Church which attracted so many lawsuits, the justified public outrage over the sexual abuse scandal, the heinous nature of the crime itself, the reassignment of sexual offenders, all of these serious factors demand attention. But the basic difference between the two is that Law was a priest, and Kennedy was not. Law was a sign of Someone Greater than himself, and Kennedy was not. Kennedy was a cultural Catholic, nothing more. As a sign Law was presumed to be greater than he humanly was (idealization), and expected to incarnate perfection. After all, he was a prince of the Church! When the idol he should have been turned out to have clay feet in the public mind, well, the mob wanted blood. It would have meant little, (nothing really), to say that Law sacramentally was configured to the person of Christ by ordination and actually was doing his best to be the holy person Christ was calling him to be. The public wanted perfection by its idealized standards, not Christ’s.

 Clericalism set the Church up for the scandal, for the public outrage, for the media feeding frenzy, and for the preying lawyers who continue to loot the Church’s coffers.  The biased perspective the Public had against Law did not exist against Kennedy because Kennedy was a layman, whereas Law was and is a priest and a churchman. A somewhat sarcastic rhetorical question asks: If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? The question should apply to all the baptized, but because of the superficial way most of us live our Christianity, no matter what our denomination, society no longer accuses Christians of trying to be the light of the world or salt of the earth. Even priests are not expected to be salt or light, most of the time. Most Catholics are happy with their priests if they are “nice”, that is, politically correct and blandly inoffensive. Challenge is not “nice”. The question of Christian witness should be applied across the board, not only against a despised churchman like Law.

  Kennedy had his enemies who were out for his blood, but nobody ever presumed Kennedy was perfect, nor admired him on that basis. Those who really knew and loved him knew he could be his own worst enemy and had to be protected, from himself, and from the public. He may have been looked up to because of his wealth, his charm, his power, his political skills, the Kennedy mystique, etc., but no one seriously harbored any doubts that he was like the rest of men. His survival was partly possible because he did not have to live up to idealized standards of perfection, only appear to do so.

Cardinal Law, on the other hand, did have high moral standards, and was living up to them in his personal life. He did not drink to excess, did not engage in illicit sexual behavior of any kind, and had made innumerable positive contributions to both Church and State. He was presumed to be a paragon of perfection. It made no difference in his defense to point out that the percentage of priest abusers was lower than that of abusers in other professions, no difference to explain that Law was operating on the basis of the  best professional medical advice of the day,  it made no difference to point out that today’s society was judging yesterday’s crimes by today’s standards of awareness which did not exist  when the crimes were committed, and it made no sense at all to speak in terms of mercy, forgiveness, repentance and conversion, nor  gradations or degrees of sexual offense.  The only thing that mattered was that the outraged public that needed someone to be pay.

Where did that hatred come from?  Was everyone was swept up in the tsunami of public opinion? A “yes” answer to that question ignores the facts.  I believe it is a fact that school administrators had long been in the same position the cardinal was, and indeed had long been guilty of “passing along the garbage” by transferring their sexually abusive teachers to other schools. There was not the same call for their resignations, nor was there a public outcry for their blood, in spite of the betrayal of trust that they were guilty of and complicit in.   It is also statistically provable, I believe, that other denominations had (and have) a significantly higher percentage of clergy who commit pedophilia that the Catholic Church does. Yet public outrage against them was hardly noticeable. Pedophilia is pedophilia, whether it is committed by a priest, minister, rabbi, doctor, lawyer, coach, or teacher. If concern for children is the most important issue to the public, then the same outrage that was displayed over clergy sexual abuse should have been poured out in the other instances as well.  Why was not the same vilification heaped on other professions when those professionals are guilty of the same outrage? My conclusion is that Clericalism is the factor that makes the difference.

If you find yourself disagreeing, please see if the following fantasy makes any sense to you: Imagine a Catholic bishop or cardinal of great public stature as Cardinal Law before his disgrace. Imagine that this esteemed Prince of the Church is crossing a wooden bridge on an island with an attractive woman in his car late at night, and the car slides off the bridge somehow and into the deep water below.   Somehow the cardinal gets out and swims to shore while the woman drowns. Imagine too that as soon as he gets to shore he pulls out his cell phone and calls for help immediately. There is no delay, no suspicion of a cover up, no liquor on his breath. There are no aggravating factors that could justify suspicions, just an immediate call for help. An autopsy of the woman is performed which shows she died by drowning. That’s it, the whole story,   clean of any salubrious implications or grounds for doubt. Would it fly? Would people allow the prince of the church to continue in office? I would bet any amount of money they would not. A Cardinal in Kennedy’s situation, even if it were not as bad as Kennedy’s would be treated worse than Kennedy was, because the Cardinal is a man of the cloth. As a man of the cloth, he is idolized and victimized, praised and scorned, exalted and sacrificed, because he is seen as a living image of a Presence greater than himself. He is therefore presumed to be more than himself, the living incarnation of a holiness that the world fears and finds foreign.

As an idealized embodiment, the priest is a sign of contradiction, in success as well as failure, because no human, even a saint, is ever a complete embodiment of an ideal. Some will hate the priest no matter what he does because of the Christ Whom he re-presents to them, or because of incorrect impressions of what they think Christ represents. When Law failed, the protective wall of Clericalism crashed down with him.  The secrets of many hearts are laid bare. People stood before God with no welcome or unwelcome barrier interposed. Naturally they were not happy about being confronted with the supernatural!   

To be Continued...

Giussani Quotation: Love for Truth

"In effect, an individual must possess a profound desire for truth in order to overcome the scandal of the instrument communicating it."  Why the Church,  Luigi Giussani, p.130

"A gold prospector would never have been  daunted by the mud of the river bed where he hoped to find nuggets. Rather he would have been motivated by the probability of finding gold, not  by the conditions he would have to face in order to come across it." p.131