Thrown Back

Some Clarifications

As regular readers of my blog are aware, I have criticized some of the content of Michael Rose’s book, Goodbye, Good Men, and also questioned the accuracy of some of its contents. In compliance with Mr. Rose's request, via counsel, and in the interest of laying the controversy to rest, I’d like to make the following clarifications.

In June of this year I sent two e-mails to several individuals. The first e-mail was an announcement that Michael Rose was scheduled to appear on Raymond Arroyo’s show, “The World Over”, on EWTN. My source for that information was a friend, another priest. Several days later I sent another e-mail to the same people as the first, in which I informed them that Michael Rose’s appearance on the Raymond Arroyo Show was cancelled “precisely because of the ‘controversy’ regarding Rose’s veracity.” I also stated that Michael Rose was being sued for libel by two priests. Each of these statements require clarification. First, the statement that “two priests mentioned by name in Rose’s book are suing him for libel”, was furnished to me second hand, by the same source mentioned above. I am not personally aware of the existence of any such suits. Second, is the statement regarding Michael Rose’s appearance on the Raymond Arroyo Show. In fact, the only information I received with respect to this issue was an e-mail from the same friend mentioned above forwarding me an e-mail message from Raymond Arroyo that stated: “We are NOT having Rose on at present, based on the controversy.”

My friends, I also want to take this opportunity to tell you that I am taking a blog vacation for a short time to attend to my pastoral responsibilities and to work on a manuscript for a Catholic magazine. I will return when time and energy permit me.

Something New

If you'll look over to the right, you'll see I've added a new section: "The Best of My Blog."

These are things I've posted which I think were especially significant or about which I have received more than a few compliments.

I'm trying to make some other changes to my page, but the archive function on Blogger is messed up (again).

Enjoy!

God is Good. All the Time!

This past Friday I had the honor of participating in the episcopal ordination of Bishop Earl Boyea. Bishop Boyea will be an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit. He returns to his native diocese after spending 3 years as the Rector of the Pontifical College Josephinum, the only Pontifical seminary in the United States.

When then-Monsignor Boyea's appointment was announced in late July I was very happy, as I was privileged to have Bishop Boyea as my spiritual director at Sacred Heart Seminary, where he served as Professor of Church History and Academic Dean. He was a great source of support and encouragement in persevering in my vocation.

The Archdiocese of Detroit has been given a great gift in it's new Bishop, and it's my prayer that Bishop Boyea's zeal for the Catholic Faith and love for the Church will make a mark in Detroit and beyond.

During my visit to Detroit, I stayed at Sacred Heart, and was able to spend some time visiting with the seminarians from my own diocese of Kalamazoo. I am very impressed by these young men: They are intelligent, they love the Church, and want to be uncompromising witnesses to Christ and His gospel. I was also impressed by the fact that we have 6 new seminarians this year. That may not sound like a lot, but for a diocese as small as Kalamazoo (110,000 catholics), that's doing very well indeed. This new group of men increases our number of seminarians by almost 50% over last year. When I consider that when I joined my diocese in 1998 I was one of three seminarians, and that now we have 13, I'd say that things are looking up indeed!

I have read some speculation that the blot upon the priesthood caused by The Situation would drive aspirants away from the priesthood. I have heard some priests' lament that the scandals would devastate seminary recruitment. Well, I was skeptical about that thinking at the time, and it seems that my skepticism was justified. It is my belief, and my hope, that The Situation will be a time of purification for the Church. I think that God will raise up many zealous and holy priests even in the midst of scandal. Given the evidence within my own little diocese, I think we have good reason to be hopeful.

9-11 Remembered


Today, we remembered the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by offering a "Mass in Time of War or Civil Disturbance" at my parish. We did this at our regularly scheduled 8:00 AM Mass. After the Mass we tolled the church bell for about 15 minutes. But we are not having any additional Masses or special services at my parish today.

My pastor has caught a little bit of heat for this from some parishioners, who felt that we ought to have a "special" Mass or service today. But I think that the way we have handled this day is fitting. I'm not sure I can put my finger on the reasons I think so, but I think that having a "special" Mass for today would not have been appropriate. We certainly recognized the significance of this day in the prayers, and I did in my homily, which emphasized that the only true source of Peace is Christ and his redemptive work. But I think that today should be a "low-key" sort of day, and not the frenzy of emotional hyperbolics we have seen building up to today.

There was also some disappointment expressed about the relative lack of patriotic music at today's Mass. We closed the Mass with "America the Beautiful" but that was the only patriotic song we sung. I think this was also fitting. I have always been uneasy with patriotic music at Mass. And that's not because I'm not a Patriot. I love expressions of patriotism as much as any American. I sing the national anthem enthusiastically at public events. I'm all in favor of things like starting the school day with the pledge of allegiance. But I don't think the Mass is the proper place for unrestrained expressions of patriotism.

Finally, a couple of older people I know have pointed something curious out to me. We see that there are a plethora of different "remembrance services" and the like going on across the country. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with them, but I am somewhat puzzled at what I see as an over-multiplication of them. In my little town of St. Joseph, Michigan, there are something like 35 different services today, in addition to the big service for the whole town at the firehouse. The announcements of them took up almost a whole page of the local newspaper. But these older people observed that nothing like this happened in World War II, for example, in marking the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They told me there was nothing like the kind of almost-frenzied series of different services, rallies, or the like. This stikes me as interesting, and indicative of some sort of change that has overtaken American culture between then and now. What has changed? Is it a change for the better or worse?






Don't Be Alarmed

I know some people were worried yesterday because apparently my blog page came up as blank for couple of hours. They took this as a sign that perhaps my blog had been "silenced." No, nothing like that happpened. It was a purely technical problem.

Also, don't be alarmed if I don't post for a few days again. Nothing sinister going on. But they're switching our servers and software at my church and school over to Novell, and we'll be off-line for a day or two. Not to mention that, even once we're back on-line here, I fully expect that nothing will actually work right. That seems to be the way it is whenever you make changes or attmept to "upgrade."

Rose Matter Under Review

Just so it is clear what is actually happening:

My bishop, James A. Murray of Kalamazoo, has asked me to make no further public statements about Michael Rose, Goodbye! Good Men, or Rose's threatened legal action until he has had the opportunity to review the matter. I am meeting with him next week, when, I imagine, he will render a judgment about how he would like me to proceed.

Please pray for me, Michael Rose, and my bishop, that we will act with prudence, fairness, and wisdom in this matter.

Toning Down the Rhetoric

In an effort to try to "tone down" the rhetoric and restore some degree of calm to the dispute between Mr. Rose and myself, I have edited this post. I left the facts about the legal action, as it would seem silly to try to pretend it isn't happening.

I intend to move on with blogging on other matters in the near future.




Michael Rose Threatens Legal Action


Yesterday I received in the mail a Certified Letter from a lawyer representing Michael Rose, the author of Goodbye! Good Men. In May I wrote a critical review of Rose's book in Culture Wars Magazine. Mr. Rose objected to my criticisms, as is his right, and responded to them, as is also his right. Mike Jones, the publisher of Culture Wars, and I, felt it was necessary for me to rebut Mr. Rose in the magazine. So Mr. Rose's response and my rebuttal were published in the July/August issue of Culture Wars. That issue of Culture Wars isn't yet available on line.

This letter from Mr. Rose's attorney demands that I cease my "ongoing pattern of numerous and defamatory statements" against Mr. Rose, and threatens me with a Federal lawsuit if I do not comply. He demands that I retract certain criticisms I have made, that I remove all statements I have made about Mr. Rose and his book from my website and its archives, and that I agree in writing not to write anything further about Mr. Rose or his publications.

Unfortunately, it seems to me, this legal action is forcing the controversy to remain protracted. If Mr. Rose had not chosen this tactic, he probably would have gotten his wish. After announcing the Crisis Magazine article in my blog last week, I really wouldn't have had any more to say about Rose or his book. I've pretty much said my piece on it, and was getting ready to move on.

Prophecy and Fulfillment?

Brian Saint-Paul's article in Crisis Magazine, which I blogged on last Friday, is now up and available on line. Read it!


In related news, a while back, you may recall, Mark Shea generously attributed to me the virtue of sagacity. Now, Stephen Hand over at TCRNews has recognized in me, in my own small way, the gift of prophecy.

In an e-mail to me over the weekend he pointed me in the direction of Diocese Report's newest headline. Last Friday I concluded my blog by commenting on the conspiracy theory being cooked up by Rose and his supporters to explain the criticisms of Goodbye! Good Men coming from orthodox Catholic quarters.

Stephen wrote, quoting from my blog and then from Diocese Report:

> Prophecy: "I suppose they’ll have to add Crisis to the conspiracy now.
> A “grand conspiracy” certainly will make for sensational reading, and it has
> the added benefit of preserving the putative victim(s) of that conspiracy
> from self-examination."


> Fulfillment: "Circling The Wagons: Crisis Joins Witch Hunt of Michael S.
> Rose... Developing.." ----Diocese Report. PM, 8/30/02

It's too bad the Diocese Report's site has been updated since the weekend. The "Witch Hunt" headline was really impressive at the top of the page in 36-point type.

A Question of Integrity: Crisis Magazine Opens New Round in The War of Rose

The September issue of Crisis Magazine takes on the accuracy and journalistic integrity of Michael Rose and his book, Goodbye! Good Men. This is the latest round of criticism of Rose’s controversial book: The first round was opened by Amy Welborn in a review she wrote for Our Sunday Visitor. Her relatively restrained criticisms were of the overall tone and overreaching claims of the book, and the fact that Rose relied heavily on pseudonymous sources. Next I wrote a review for Culture Wars, in which I took Rose to task for relying, in his book, on a source which he had acknowledged to be "seriously flawed". I recognized that Rose’s overall thesis contained a large amount of truth, but pointed out that the truth of some of Rose’s claims did not give him the right to make poorly substantiated charges which could harm the reputation of innocent people. For daring to criticize him, Rose and his supporters labeled me "schizophrenic", "dishonest", of dubious character, and a protector of priest-abusers and those who enabled them. Later this summer, National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor weighed in with further criticisms which were narrower in scope, but furthered the case that Goodbye! Good Men is marred by errors and inaccuracies.

Now Brian Saint-Paul, the senior editor of Crisis, shows that Rose’s claims regarding the American College of Louvain (the American seminary at the University of Louvain in Belgium) are highly problematic, beset, as they are, with evidence of poor fact-checking. Rose’s account revolves around the claims made by Joseph Kellenyi, an ex-seminarian. This ex-seminarian claims that he was subjected to homosexual advances from another seminarian, and that that same seminarian was later entrusted by the Rector of the seminary with a supervisory role over Kellenyi. Saint-Paul shows that Rose’s claims, far from being "carefully researched", as Rose and his supporters contend, rely solely on Kellenyi’s testimony, and that testimony is dubious indeed.

Kellenyi’s account of the events in question can be found in his official sounding "Final Report to the Committee", available at AmericanCollegeScandal.com. The probative value of this so-called "Final Report" lessens dramatically, though, once the reader realizes that it is the composition of none other than Kellenyi himself. And this "report" is a towering monument of unsubstantiated assertion and circular reasoning. One piece of "evidence" that Kellenyi adduces on several points is the fact that the then-Rector of the Louvain, Fr. David Windsor, never launched a formal investigation of his claims. That no-one else, including other members of the seminary faculty, found his allegations credible or worthy of investigation never seems to have crossed Kellenyi’s mind. But Kellenyi nevertheless asserts that his "report" is the "final and authoritative word on this matter." The most priceless example of Kellenyi’s circular reasoning comes at the end of his report, when he asserts that his account of things is "a matter of record". And why is it a matter of record? Because Michael Rose documents these allegations in his book. And what is the source of Rose’s documentation? Nothing other than Joseph Kellenyi’s claims.

Kellenyi’s claims, far from being corroborated by other seminarians at Louvain, are strenuously denied. Saint-Paul, in his Crisis article, quotes seminarian after seminarian who say that nothing like the "gay subculture" Kellenyi and Rose portray existed. But Rose seems not to have taken the time to find out about those other opinions: As the Rector of the Louvain, Fr. Kevin Codd, stated on the College’s website earlier this summer:

> Mr. Rose never contacted The American College to authenticate
> his documentation, to seek further documentation, or to give us
> our rightful opportunity to respond to the accusations made in his
> book. Mr. Rose has never visited The American College and does
> not personally know any of our students or faculty members about
> whom he repeats these egregious accusations.

To those who have read my review in Culture Wars, this will sound very familiar. For Mr. Rose, in assembling the information he used in making his attack on Sacred Heart Major Seminary, never interviewed the Rector of the seminary, Bishop Allen Vigneron, nor any current faculty there, nor did he give anyone there an opportunity to provide another perspective on his claims before he went into print. Furthermore, seminarians enrolled at other institutions, such as Mundelein, have reported that their experience is at wide variance to the allegations Rose makes against them. Is this the "careful" research that Rose claims to have performed?

Rose’s case against the Louvain hinges on the testimony of Joseph Kellenyi, and his allegations of being subjected to the unwanted advances of a homosexual seminarian, whom, Kellenyi laments, was later ordained. Kellenyi does not name this person, designating him as "seminarian X". But Brian Saint-Paul discovered the identity of this seminarian: now-Father Pat Van Durme. Fr. Van Durme has come forward and made his outrage at Rose’s allegations known. Fr. Van Durme apparently not only never made advances on Kellenyi, he isn’t even homosexual. Not homosexual? That’s right, as several of his friends, ex-girlfriends, and Van Durme’s ex-fiancee have readily testified. That Rose could rely upon accusations of homosexual misconduct against a man whose heterosexual identity is well known and easily verifiable would be laughable, if the accusations weren't so grave. But, in showing the patent falsity of Kellenyi’s charges, Saint-Paul calls into question the accuracy Rose’s account.

There is much more in Saint-Paul’s article that I could discuss: Kellenyi’s broadening of his accusations against Van Durme to include charges of a homosexual affair between Van Durme and the Rector, and even Bishop Ed Braxton of Lake Charles, Louisiana. But I’ll leave you to read about it in Crisis. The September issue is out and has hit the stands, and the article should be available on-line next week.

When I published my review in May, Michael Rose and some other critics dismissed my review as focusing on "just one" example. Of course, my criticisms were broader than that. In my rebuttal to Rose’s "response", published in the July/August issue of Culture Wars, I gave further evidence of problems in Rose's account. National Catholic Register and Our Sunday Visitor have adduced other examples of Rose’s spotty approach. And now Brian Saint-Paul uncovers yet another example of problems with Goodbye! Good Men. If "just one" example isn’t enough to show that Rose’s claims are flawed, what about 2? Or 3? Aren’t six enough? And these aren’t just "little" errors. They involve grave accusations made against real people. Michael Rose has published claims that are potentially damaging to the character and reputations of real people. That’s not a little thing.

As Brian Saint-Paul points out, the criticisms of Goodbye! Good Men have come from a surprising quarter: journals such as National Catholic Register and Culture Wars, which are known as being orthodox, “conservative” Catholic publications. But rather than encouraging self-examination or moderation of claims, these criticisms have provoked from Rose's supporters increasingly strident attempts at justification and vilification of their opponents. In the on-line tabloid Diocese Report, the writer all-but links OSV, NCR, and Culture Wars in a conspiracy of "individuals who seem bent on destroying the creditability of the book and of Rose." I suppose they’ll have to add Crisis to the conspiracy now. A “grand conspiracy” certainly will make for sensational reading, and it has the added benefit of preserving the putative victim(s) of that conspiracy from self-examination.

And on the Seventh Day, the Blogger Rested

Now that the Johansen-Dreher debate here about his Wall Street Journal article (which will be available online at OpinionJournal.com on Sunday) is over, I'm taking a day or two off from blogging. I hope Rod is taking a day or two off as well.

For those just coming upon the debate for the first time, go down to Wednesday's blog and then scroll up to follow the back-and-forth of the debate between Rod and myself.

And have a good weekend!

Dreher Talks Back!

When I first invited Rod to respond to my criticisms of his WSJ article, we agreed from the outset that I would comment on his response, and he would have the opportunity to further respond, and there we would close the debate between us on this matter. So here are Rod's "final" words on the subject, repsonding to my blog of this morning:




Fr. Rob:


Thanks again for the opportunity to respond. As we have agreed, this response of mine will be the last exchange between us in this matter. So reader, if Fr. Rob doesn't respond to this post, you mustn't assume it's because he didn't want to!

You wrote:

> But I think it is inaccurate to characterize the Vatican as 'refusing to
> hold bishops accountable.' That diagnosis is accurate only if
> 'accountability' equals removal from office. And I don't think that's
> necessarily so. I think for Rome to tell the Bishops 'you clean up this
> mess you made' is a way of holding them accountable.

I fail to see how that is different from not holding them accountable at all? If it is, then Rome owes us an explanation, instead of leaving you and me and everybody else here to divine their intentions. The record shows that over and over and over again, Church officials, from the chanceries to the Curia, have been told by concerned priests and laymen of terrible abuses, and nothing has been done, or if something was done, it wasn't substantial. And the abuse continued. I am genuinely incapable of understanding how Rome's failure to remove egregiously failed bishops like Law, whose failure has resulted in - and let us be very clear what we are talking about - little boys having their rectums torn by the penises of Christ's priests, among many other abominations, can hardly be read as anything but a failure to respond to the gravity of the crimes. To me, it testifies to a Church hierarchy that is so out of touch with the people it is supposed to serve that it identifies the good of the institution with the preservation of its own class interests. Repairing the situation in Boston is not possible with Bernard Law in the chancery. How is it possible to believe that it is? We need to understand that this thing is not about Bernard Law and his quest for redemption. It is about what the Catholic people in Boston - who are part of the Church too - need and deserve.

> [I]nvoking mystical (or any other kind) of theology is not 'cant'.

The American Heritage Dictionary (4th edition) defines cant as: 1. Monotonous talk filled with platitudes. 2. Hypocritically pious language. 3. The special vocabulary peculiar to the members of an underworld group; argot. ... 6. The special terminology understood among the members of a profession, discipline, or class but obscure to the general population; jargon.

I accused you of cant first with respect to your comments about how removing a bad bishop is an "act of violence" to the local and universal Church. I meant to suggest that your sentiments bear little relation to the actual experience on the ground, in Boston or any other diocese where the violence done by these bishops has been real and severe. I don't believe you were being hypocritical or insincere; I do believe very much that your words come from an ivory tower. I don't mean to denigrate mystical theology, but I think it is most inappropriate to invoke it in this particular situation, because it is being employed to justify what I believe to be passivity in the face of evil. It is an outrage that a bishop can remain in office after having committed what could well be felonies, and which are certainly grave moral crimes, because we have to worry about metaphysical guillotines.

I also called "cant" these lines:

> But that may be reason number 6,485 that I am not the Pope, nor ever will be.
> I hope Mr. Dreher and those who agree with him have the humility to admit
> the same.

I stand by my original assertion. These lines strike me as meaningless. OK, so I'm not the Pope. Big deal.

Finally, I called "cant" your assertion that:

> Our obsession with the 'governance' of the Church is almost certainly a sign
> that we are not yet thinking with the mind of Christ in the heart of the Church.
> We will not govern our way out of The Situation. We will only find the way out
> through Christ and His way of the Cross.

I still believe these are pious platitudes you've stated. Of course we have to find our way out through Christ and His way of the Cross. Who disputes that? I dispute your view that proper governing of the Church - that is, holding those ordained to serve Christ and the faithful to accountability, is somehow apart from the Way of the Cross. It is apparent to very many good Catholics that the Way of the Cross does not mean, or should not mean, a lifetime sinecure for Bernard Law, Rodger Mahony and their ilk.

For the record, I believe that it's imperative that the due-process rights of priests are maintained. So does Fr. Tom Doyle, who is second to none in his courageous advocacy of the rights of abuse victims - and it's why Doyle has criticized the Dallas protocols. I have not called on priests to be dismissed without respect for their due process rights.

You write:

>I think to dismiss the Holy Father's lack of 'action' so far as signs of
> indifference or 'not caring' is premature.

It would be, Fr. Rob, if the first the Vatican heard about the scandal in the American Church was January. But they have known about this thing, and known about it in great detail, for at least 17 years. How patient is one expected to be? Do you not understand that the lives and souls of real, flesh-and-blood people are at stake? Does Rome not see that from its vantage point of 30,000 feet? Rome has been told. And told and told and told - and this has been documented (e.g., check out the reporting of such in "Lead Us Not Into Temptation," by Jason Berry, which came out 10 years ago). If you want to see a monument to patience with Rome on the sex abuse question, read the daily papers.


Thanks again for inviting my comments.


R.

Some Reactions and Observations

OK, it's not exactly "first thing" in the morning, but here it is anyway:



Rod:

I have a few comments on your response:

Firstly , a few clarifications of my position are in order. I am not one of those people (if indeed any such exist) who believe that we must "never criticize the Pope" in matters that are not of Faith and Morals. Of course, we have a right and perhaps at times, a duty, to voice our concerns about the Pope's decisions in matters of prudential judgment. Furthermore, I am not articulating the position that Catholics must simply "live with" whatever malfeasance a bishop perpetrates. I don't think what I have written can fairly be construed to mean "God has sent us our bishops, and whatever they do, or fail to do, is to be accepted without protest as His will." The fact is, I raised the specter of deposing bishops back in June on my blog. I recognize that it is an appropriate measure in extreme cases. But such means have never been employed in a widespread fashion as an instrument of Church reform.

Rod, you wrote:

> No, the true violence was done first by the priests who sexually abused the
> powerless, then by the bishops who maintained them in ministry, and/or helped
> the escape the police, and finally by a Vatican that for whatever reason refuses
> to hold these bishops accountable for their actions.

I agree that the violence was first done by the abusers, and perpetuated by enabling bishops. But I think it is inaccurate to characterize the Vatican as "refusing to hold bishops accountable." That diagnosis is accurate only if "accountability" equals removal from office. And I don't think that's neccesarily so. I think for Rome to tell the Bishops "you clean up this mess you made" is a way of trying to hold them accountable. If Rome were to swoop down from on high and provide a "fix" for the problem, how would that keep the responsbility where it belonged? I think the bishops have made a very unpromising start, and they may make a hash of it yet, but Rome is trying to force the bishops who collectively created this disaster to live up to their duty of repairing it. One of the fundamental principles of moral theology is restitution: if one does something wrong, one is obliged to try to repair the situation as far as one is able. That is accountability.

You also wrote:

> I'm sorry, but this is cant.

Actually, you raised this objection several times. But invoking mystical (or any other kind) of theology is not "cant." If we are going to find a Catholic solution to the problem, and I hope you agree that we should be seeking a Catholic solution, then we must think with and through the Tradition. And to denounce those of us who are trying to do so as "invoking mystical abstractions" is unfair and unworthy of you. If my theology is wrong, tell me so, and tell me why. If I'm misreading the Tradition, tell me that, too. But don't dismiss these efforts as cant. We will not properly solve the problem if we don't think it through. As Catholics one of our primary tools for thinking anything through is our theological Tradition.

I am frankly shocked that you could dismiss my statement:

> We will not govern our way out of The Situation. We will only find the
> way out through Christ and His way of the Cross.

The Cross is the central mystery of our Faith. We must try to look at everything through the Cross, as there is nothing which is not subject to and redeemed by the Cross. To reform the Church we must think with the mind and in the heart of the Church. And that's not "cant".

You wrote:

> Good Catholic mothers and fathers will not sacrifice their children
> upon the altar of clericalism.

You are correct: they neither will, nor should they. But let us be clear about what clericalism is and is not. As I have written before on this blog, bishops covering up priest-abusers is a symptom of clericalism. But to demand that priest-abusers receive no more and no less than justice is not clericalism. To insist that the right of the accused to due process be respected is not clericalism. And don't reply that "of course, everyone understands that." Judging from some of the comments and e-mail I've seen, some people seem to have little trouble dismissing a priest's right to due process in the name of "protecting the children". And to call upon you and other faithful Catholics to try to think with the Tradition is not clericalism, either.

Rod, I agree with you that some of our bishops deserve to be removed. And it may yet happen that some of them will be. You and I and other "Vatican watchers" think that sometime soon, probably shortly after the Romans return from the August vacanza, the Holy See will send the Dallas norms back to the bishops and tell them to get it right. That will be a pretty swift response: three or four months. I would also see that as Rome beginning to hold the bishops' feet to the fire. I think to dismiss the Holy Father's lack of "action" so far as signs of indifference or "not caring" is premature.

I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned the principle of subsidiarity: that decision-making and authority, and accountability, be devolved to the level closest to the people affected. Rome is trying to respect that principle, and in doing so she is thinking with the tradition. It may yet happen, and frankly, I expect, that the bishops will prove themselves incapable of dealing with The Situation. But it would not be holding them properly accountable for Rome not to force them to apply themselves to the problem.

You are correct in pointing out that this problem has been festering for a number of years. But I think that, far from demanding precipitate action, the long-standing nature of the problem necessitates a thorough, deliberate response. And I hope you will admit that removing some bishops will not constitute such a thorough response. Let's say the Pope does remove some bishops, then what? I think it would be best to have good answers to that question before proceeding with the purge.

Thank you for your thoughts on this issue. I appreciate your investment of time and your love for our Church. I'll be interested to read what further observations you may have.

Rod Dreher Responds

I invited Rod Dreher, the author of the WSJ article I blogged on below, to respond to my criticisms, and he graciously agreed to do so.

He apparently burned the midnight oil to do so, as he sent his response to me at about 1:00 AM. Another night owl (like me)!

I apologize for the delay in getting this up, but this is my day off, and I'm not exactly keeping a schedule today...

I will have some comments and observations about Rod's response later today, but for now I'll just let you read what he had to say:




Fr. Rob, I appreciate the opportunity to respond this way.

You wrote:

>Bishops are rarely deposed because to do so is to cut off the head of the local
>Church. To cut off a man's head, no matter how enfeebled or diseased, is to kill
>the man. I realize that the analogy limps here, because deposing a bishop does
>not "kill" the local Church. But it is an act of violence, and it does damage
>not only to the local, but to the universal Church. The only justification for
>doing so is the judgment that the damage done by the removal of the bishop is
>less than that done by keeping him. And that is a prudential judgment.



I'm sorry, but this is cant. How, outside of the rarefied world of mystical theology, does removing a calamitously failed bishop like Bernard Law do violence to the Church, local or universal? I think rather the opposite is happening. Removing a bishop is not to be undertaken lightly, of course, but please understand what the worst bishops in the U.S. Church have done. Time and time again, they recycled priests who rape children and minors through parishes, where they preyed on more children, particularly the children of the poor. Some have lied in public, and even, I firmly believe, have perjured themselves. Some have sought to intimidate victims and their families by siccing private investigators on them. All this and much more. The Catholic people in dioceses across the country, first among the Boston, have had to come to grips with the ugly fact that their Church is headed locally by a self-protective clerical mafia -- and that there is no relief to be expected from Rome, which apparently identifies the interests of the Church locally and universally with the narrow interests of the clerical class. The moral authority of the Church in Boston, and increasingly everywhere in this country, has been evacuated by Rome's failure to remove corrupt bishops. It is becoming perfectly clear to all who have eyes to see that there's a deep sickness in the hierarchy of the Church, and Rome's blindness to this only deepens the crisis.

No, the true violence was done first by the priests who sexually abused the powerless, then by the bishops who maintained them in ministry, and/or helped the escape the police, and finally by a Vatican that for whatever reason refuses to hold these bishops accountable for their actions. The judgments Rome has made to this point in this scandal are horribly wrong.

>It is erroneous to look at the Pope's actions and diagnose them as a "failure"
>to govern. The Pope, in this situation, has made a particular prudential
>judgment. The fact that we do not like that judgment does not mean that the
>Church isn't being governed.

Well, this is a dispute over terminology. The Church is being and has been governed passively by John Paul, which is tantamount to no governance at all.

>But that may be reason number 6,485 that I am not the Pope, nor ever will be. I
>hope Mr. Dreher and those who agree with him have the humility to admit the
>same.

More cant. Of course you're not the Pope. Neither am I. What does that have to do with anything? Can only a Pope pass judgment on a Pope's managerial style?

>In his WSJ article, Dreher writes "John Paul must bear partial responsibility
>for the catastrophe that has befallen us." I hope that Mr. Dreher does not think
>that Pope John Paul is not profoundly aware of that fact.

Mr. Dreher doesn't know John Paul's mind, and neither does Fr. Johansen. All we can do is go by what we can observe. I believe evidence shows John Paul to be a man of deep faith and boundless compassion. Sadly and perplexingly, I see no evidence of that in the way he has responded to the cries of the victims in this clergy sex-abuse scandal, which has been with us, at least publicly, for almost 20 years now. I cannot square the John Paul I know and love with the John Paul who permits such evil to take place by not demanding and enforcing accountability on the bishops who have betrayed him and the People of God in such unspeakable ways. It is not enough to say, "Well, he must have his reasons." I'm sure it must break his heart to see what's going on, but as C.S. Lewis observed, "A long face is not a moral disinfectant."

>Our obsession with the "governance" of the Church is almost certainly a sign
>that we are not yet thinking with the mind of Christ in the heart of the Church.
>We will not govern our way out of The Situation. We will only find the way out
>through Christ and His way of the Cross.

Still more cant! What can you possibly mean by this, Fr. Rob? What about the mind of the Christ who prescribed millstones for those who harmed children, and who drove moneychangers out of the Temple they desecrated? I don't know why you draw a distinction between right governing of the Church and devotion to Christ. It is all of a piece, or should be. The solution is not more rules, I agree. The canons were already in place to have prevented this catastrophe; they were widely ignored by bishops, who rightly figured that there would be no consequences from Rome for allowing these things to slide.

I am grateful for the press and the secular authorities for beginning to put a stop to the evil exploitation of children and minors by elements of the Catholic clergy and their bishops. And it's pathetic, a humiliation to all us Catholics, that Church authorities didn't do it first. It seems pretty clear to me that the terrible Cross the Church is suffering now could have been mitigated if bishops, including the Bishop of Rome, had been willing to endure countless tiny crosses, such as removing pederast priests or whitewashing bishops from office when it became apparent what they were. But that didn't happen. And here we are.

A general comment: the overall impression I get -- and please correct me if I've misunderstood you -- from the position that you and Tom Hoopes take is that the laity has no business questioning its ecclesiastical betters. That God has sent us our bishops, and whatever they do, or fail to do, is to be accepted without protest as His will. To stand up and say, "Hey, I'm tired of having a bishop who tolerates pedophile priests, and lies about it in public; we don't deserve this!" -- to say that is to deny Christ at some level. The implication of this is that the victims at some level deserved what they got; after all, it was God's will, because Bishop X. knew what Fr. Y. was doing, and allowed him to continue. You should realize that this is precisely what many abusive priests told their child victims: Don't tell, or you'll make God mad and go to Hell." Is there any wonder that victims feel victimized again?

I tell you, Father, if y'all keep this business up of talking down loyal orthodox Catholics who protest in good faith the way the Pope and the bishops have handled this, by saying that we're "not thinking with Tradition," and so forth, you're going to convince people that you're right. They will think: Does Catholic tradition require my silence and acquiescence in the face of evil like child rape? How could the Church of Jesus Christ make such a wicked demand of me? Maybe the Catholic Church isn't what it claims to be at all. Maybe the Orthodox, or the Protestants, are right. And then we lose them.

I ask you to consider that you cannot have the kind of stories that we've had for the past eight months, and which we are going to be getting for the foreseeable future, without calling up a terrible reaction from good Catholics. Invoking mystical abstractions to counter revelations of priests committing grotesquely cruel forms of sexual abuse will mean less than nothing. Good Catholic mothers and fathers will not sacrifice their children upon the altar of clericalism. I commend to you and St. Blogs the final analysis historian Barbara Tuchman gave, in The March of Folly, summing up why the folly of six Renaissance popes led to the Reformation. I think there are lessons there for us all:

The folly of the popes was not pursuit of counter-productive policy so much as rejection of any steady or coherent policy either political or religious that would have improved their situation or arrested the rising discontent. Disregard of the movements and sentiments developing around them was a primary folly. They were deaf to disaffeciton, blind to the alternative ideas it gave rise to, blandly impervious to challenge, unconcerned by the dismay at their misconduct and the rising wrath at their misgovernment, fixed in refusal to change, almost stupidly stubborn in maintaining a corrupt existing system. They could not change it because they were part of it, grew out of it, depended on it. ...Their [the six popes] three outstanding attitudes -- obliviousness to the growing disaffection of constituents, primacy of self-aggrandizement, illusion of invulnerable status -- are persistent aspects of folly.

Is this the "Tradition" you and Tom, and those who reject my viewpoint as insufficiently Catholic, insist that we all think with? I fear it is.

In any case, my words have been tough, but charitable I hope, and I appreciate you lending me your blog to respond to your tough but charitable attack on my position.

R.

Has the Pope "Let Us Down"?

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece by National Review columnist Rod Dreher titled "The Pope Let Us Down". In it Mr. Dreher criticizes Pope John Paul II for his decision (so far) to leave bishops like Cardinal Law, who have made the the Church's repsonse to The Situation such a cock-up, in office. He asserts that nothing less than swift action by the Pope will restore the moral credibility of the Papacy and the Church.

Quite a discussion has erupted about this article on Mark Shea's blog. Mark has posted a letter by Tom Hoopes of the National Catholic Register taking Dreher to task. I'll let you go to commnets section of Mark's post to read the debate, but it seems to me that Hoopes makes a telling point, unanswered by Dreher, which illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding of Catholic ecclesiology.

Hoopes writes:

The Church has never functioned in the way he wishes JPII would run it. Not in the times of the Cristological heresies, when the Church lived in another practical schism. Not before the Reformation. Not after Trent. Not at Vatican I, either, Lord knows (dissenting bishops stayed in place even as they renounced Papal infallibility). Lord knows it wasn't that way in the 1950s. It's incredibly naive to expect JPII to be able to do the impossible. The Pope isn't the police chief, he's the Vicar of Christ.

Hoopes is right when he points out that there is no precedent or tradition in the church for governance along the lines that Dreher seems to prefer: Tradition-minded Catholics have wondered and lamented for years now "why does the Pope leave [insert name(s) of bad bishop(s) here] in office? Why doesn't he remove him [them]? The short answer is that such an approach is not Catholic. The longer answer is that the episcopacy is not a job, it is a vocation and charism, and it is a cross. I fear that Mr. Dreher, and those who agree with him, are falling under the spell of the Church-as-Corporation model. The bishops are not mid-level executives carrying out the directives of headquarters (Rome). They are not replaceable in the sense that a CEO would replace one of his managers who was performing poorly. The Church is a communion, and just as we are in communion with the bishops, so they are in communion with us. The bishop is configured to Christ as the Head of the Church, and we must be vivdly aware that we are not speaking metaphorically here. We really are Christ's Body, and our bishops really stand in persona Christi as our head. Bishops are rarely deposed because to do so is to cut off the head of the local Church. To cut off a man's head, no matter how enfeebled or diseased, is to kill the man. I realize that the analogy limps here, because deposing a bishop does not "kill" the local Church. But it is an act of violence, and it does damage not only to the local, but to the universal Church. The only justification for doing so is the judgment that the damage done by the removal of the bishop is less than that done by keeping him. And that is a prudential jugdment.

Mr. Dreher said, in his remarks in Mark Shea's comments section, that his complaint is with the way our church is being governed. I hope not, because if that is the case he has aligned himself with VOTF, We Are Church, and the rest of the AmChurch agitators who wish to make the Catholic Church into something it is not. I imagine, and I hope, that what Mr. Dreher means is that he disagrees with some of the decisions made by JPII in responding to The Situation. It is erroneous to look at the Pope's actions and diagnose them as a "failure" to govern. The Pope, in this situation, has made a particular prudential judgment. The fact that we do not like that judgment does not mean that the Church isn't being governed. The Pope has apparently decided (up till now) to leave bishops like Cardinal Law in place to clean up the messes they have made. Dreher is right in saying that he has a right, and even a duty, to voice his misgivings about that (or any other) judgment. But before he does so, he has a duty to try to examine the situation in the light of the Tradition. And it seems to me that he still has to do some homework there.

I have often been one of those people who wondered "why does the Pope leave so-and-so in office? Why doesn't he remove him?" The answer, often, was " I don't know." But my understanding of the mystical nature of the Church, and the subjection of all things to the Cross of Christ, makes me leery of bloodlettings and purges as solutions to problems. Christ always invites people into communion: he never compels or drives away. It seems to me likely, as Mark Shea suggested in a blog of a couple months ago, that the Pope is looking at this from the spiritual perspective of the Cross, and not from the perspective of "what will people think?"

It may be the case that, if Mr. Dreher were Pope, he would can Law, Mahony, et al. It is certainly the case that if I were Pope, I would have dealt with things differently. I probably would have gratefully accepted Cardinal Law's resignation and demanded those of others. But that may be reason number 6,485 that I am not the Pope, nor ever will be. I hope Mr. Dreher and those who agree with him have the humility to admit the same.

The Situation has brought up from every quarter calls to reform the Church's governance. Those on the "progressive" side demand we scrap Catholic ecclesiology in favor of something more Anglican or Presbyterian. The "conservatives" demand a sort of purge of less-than-faithful elements, with the proverbial cry "let heads roll". Both extremes are wrong: neither is Catholic. I confess that I find it difficult to listen to cries for "reform" coming from complacent upper-middle-class suburbanites who have embraced the World and found it good. I also confess that I find it difficult to listen to demands for purity and holiness coming from other comfortable middle-class Catholics without any concomitant call for personal penance and reparation. I have been quite critical of bishops in my blog and in homilies, etc. That has caused me to have to examine the complacency and accomodation to sin in my own life, and recommit myself to penance and reparation. I had to recognize that if I was going to point the finger of blame, I'd better go to a mirror and do it to myself before I did to the bishops. And I dare say that principle applies to the vast majority of Catholics in the US. As I have said before, we have the bishops and priests we do because that's what most of us wanted. If you are engaging in personal acts of renunciation and penance in reparation for the sins of priest-abusers and knucklehead bishops, then you probably have something to say by way of criticism and suggestion. But if you're not, then go off and say a few rosaries, make a couple of novenas, and fast for couple of days over the next couple of weeks. Then come back and tell us what you think.

In his WSJ article, Dreher writes "John Paul must bear partial responsibility for the catastrophe that has befallen us." I hope that Mr. Dreher does not think that Pope John Paul is not profoundly aware of that fact. The Holy Father is a mystic in the spirit of John of the Cross, and anyone who has read his spiritual writings or has even witnessed him in prayer will recognize that he has shouldered the burden of the Cross, in some sense, for the whole Church. Indeed, his whole pontificate has been an exemplification of the Way of the Cross.

Our obsession with the "governance" of the Church is almost certainly a sign that we are not yet thinking with the mind of Christ in the heart of the Church. We will not govern our way out of The Situation. We will only find the way out through Christ and His way of the Cross.

Hooray For Me!

Sometime last night my counter (you can see it if you scroll to the bottom of the page) rolled over to 10,000 hits! Yeeaahhh!

That's just about 5,000 hits per month, or 1,125 hits per week. I'm grateful to all of you who read my periodic ramblings.

Keep coming back for more!

I Predict...

Well, two days have come and gone since Catholic World News broke the story that the Vatican will almost certainly send the Bishops' Dallas Zero Tolerance norms back with the charge: "do it again, and please get it right this time." In particular, Vatican sources told CW News that the policy would be rejected because of deficiencies such as:

-The absence of safeguards to protect the reputation of priests who might be unjustly
accused;
-The failure to guarantee that bishops would apply the norms fairly, or that bishops
themselves would be subject to the proposed discipline.

These are issues which I and others have blogged before.

Most interesting is the Vatican's concern with the Dallas policy's "failure to address root causes of sexual abuse." Does anyone else read that as a veiled reference to the problem of homosexuals in the priesthood? It sure seems that way to me. What other "root cause" is there for pederasty? Could it be that the largely inarticulate recent rumblings of Rome on this subject will be followed up by a demand that our bishops get their house in order and act with regard to disobedient homosexual priests like the St. Sebastian's Angels? Dare I hope for so much?

Now, aside from a story in today's Boston Herald and a couple of blurbs about this by Rod Dreher at The Corner, no one in the secular media has picked up on this. I know, because I've been watching, expecting at any moment an eruption of indignation at the Bad Old Vatican from the media establishment. But in the New York Times, nothing. The Chicago Tribune, nothing. From the TV networks, nothing. From "designated catholics" in the media such as Sean Hannity, nothing.

I confess to being puzzled at this. You'd think they'd be all over the story, if for no other reason than to re-open the wound of The Situation and pour a little salt in it. So what is the reason for the media's silence?

I can think of one explanation: A confluence of the slothfulness and bias of most of the people in the "mainstream" media. Bias, because the source of the story is Catholic World News, a "conservative" Catholic publication known for loyalty to the Magisterium. For this reason it is beneath the notice of most of the media. Slothfulness, because, for all the splash that media outlets make about "investigative" journalism, there's actually precious little of that being done. Most reporters rely on being spoon-fed information from their sources, who, for the most part, share their outlook and prejudices.

So, my prediction: When the official Vatican announcement is made that the Dallas policy is fatally flawed and needs to be redone, the media outlets will trumpet the story as shocking, surprising news that no-one (meaning none of their coterie) anticipated. That informed Catholics have suspected this outcome and predicted it all along will go unreported. Also largely unreported will be the substance of the Vatican's concerns. It will be played as another "power struggle" between Rome and the US bishops, who tried so hard, after all, to do the right thing with those nasty pedophiles in Dallas.

Back again!

Well, I'm back from my blogging hiatus. The trip to Detroit was enjoyable, and the interview with Al Kresta was a lot of fun. Al is a very even-handed interviewer, and an all around good-guy. I'll blog more about the interview and its "fallout" later...



More Thoughts on Zero Tolerance and Fr. DeVita

I had a very interesting conversation with some of my brother priests last weekend about the Zero Tolerance policy and its effect on priests like Fr. Tom DeVita, about whom I blogged here and here last week. What I found interesting in the conversation with my brother priests (all of whom I would classify as in the orthodox/conservative camp), was that they all took a harder line than I with regard to priests like Fr. DeVita, who committed an act of abuse in the distant past and since then have mended their ways and served well.

All of us expressed disapointment in what we perceive as the bishops playing PR games at the expense of their priests in their adoption of the Dallas norms. All thought that Zero Tolerance, if allowed to stand, would become a weapon by which bishops could abuse priests whom they found troublesome. All thought that the priests removed by the Zero Tolerance "process" would probably be returned to active ministry, as their canonical right to due process was ignored.

But the thing that surprised me was that, to a man, they all thought that priests like Fr. DeVita should be out, period. There was no question about repentance or forgiveness: all agreed that a priest-abuser who repented and amended his life was forgiven. But they thought it was too damaging to trust within the Church, and too damaging to the priesthood, to allow these priests to continue in any form of active ministry.

One of my friends also made an argument that I hadn't considered before, and found powerful: He pointed out that Fr. DeVita had never been prosecuted and convicted for his crime, much less served any sort of sentence. He has never been sued or made to pay any sort of civil damages. He has been allowed to continue in active ministry all along. Now it is too late for any criminal or civil remedies. The bishops have made it clear in the Dallas norms that removal of priest-abusers is not to be considered a punitive act against the abuser, but is aimed solely at protecting children (this claim struck my brother priests as more than a little disingenuous). Fr. DeVita and others like him retain their faculties to celebrate Mass privately. So, my priest-friend claimed, Fr. DeVita has never actually been punished. But Justice demands punishment for such serious crimes as sexual abuse. I have thought about this quite a bit, and I find this argument unassailable. To cry "mercy" here is not on-point. For mercy tempers justice; mercy mitigates punishment. Mercy does not obviate the punishment that belongs to justice.

So, my friend concluded, priests who committed sexual abuse decades ago and were never subject to punishment still have punishment due them. That the demands of justice be satisfied is necessary both for the victims and the offenders. Since these men are beyond the reach of civil law, perhaps we as a Church need in some way to step in and supply the punishment that was avoided, and supply the justice that is still lacking. In this light, he said, removing such priests from ministry, and in fact involuntarily laicizing them, is only just, and compared to civil penalties, quite merciful.

As I said before, I find this argument compelling, and it is causing me to rethink my position on removal of priests who have abused in the past but are repentant. Mark, Greg, Amy, care to chime in?

Motor City, Here I Come

I'm in Detroit today, visiting my alma mater, Sacred Heart Major Seminary.

Later today, at 4:00 PM EDT, I'll be on the Al Kresta Live show to talk about my review of Goodbye! Good Men.

Tune in if you can!

From the Shameless Self-Promotion Department

Tomorrow, that is Thursday, August 8, I will be interviewed on the Al Kresta Live radio show. The interview is scheduled for 4:00 PM EDT.

The subject of the interview will be my recent review of Goodbye! Good Men, the book by Michael Rose which is being touted as an expose' of the problems in American seminaries. The review was published in the May issue of Culture Wars. I have been quite critical, in my review and here on my blog, of Mr. Rose's book, and of some of his actions subsequent to the publication of my review.

Al Kresta Live is a daily national Catholic radio talk show, which addresses a wide variety of topics and contemporary issues from an orthodox Catholic perspective. The show is syndicated nationally by the Ave Maria Radio network. If you have a Catholic radio station in your area, chances are they carry Al Kresta already, so tune in! If they don't, then ask them to start carrying Al's show.

Today is the Feast of the Dedication of St. Mary Major Basilica




This is the oldest church dedicated to Our Lady in Rome, having been built by Pope Liberius in about 352 AD. Our Lady appeared to a Christian Roman nobleman on the night of August 4, and she asked that a church be built in her honor on the Esquiline hill. She told him there would be a sign to accompany this dream: that the exact location of the Church would be marked out in snow. Pope Liberius was granted a similar vision that same night, so that he would know of Our Lady's request.

Upon awakening, John and Pope Liberius rushed to the Esquiline and saw the miraculous snowfall which had traced the form of the basilica on the hill. Many other people were there to see the snow which had miraculously fallen in the August heat (anyone who has ever experienced the sauna that is Rome in August will know just how miraculous such a thing would be).

The basilica was completed on that spot within two years and consecrated by Pope Liberius. When the Council of Ephesus defined Mary as Theotokos, the God-bearer, in 431 A.D., Pope Sixtus III (432-440) rebuilt and embellished the basilica. From the seventh century onward, it was referred to as St. Mary the Great or Major. Because of the miraculous snowfall, it is also sometimes referred to as Our Lady of the Snows.

Today's Feast is marked at the basilica by a special procession in which white flower petals are droppd from the ceiling of the church to commemorate the miraculous snowfall. On this day, traditionally, the Pope is presented at the basilica with his flock of Papal sheep, which he gives a special blessing. These are the sheep from whose wool the pallia (singular= pallium) are made. The pallium is the white woolen cloth, decorated with black crosses, worn by Metropolitan Archbishops around their neck over their vestments when they celebrate Mass. The pallium is a sign of the Archbishop's communion with the See of Peter and is presented to new Archbishops on the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29. Bet you didn't know the Pope had his own special flock of sheep! The sheep are raised at Castel Gondolfo, the Pope's summer residence.

On a note of pure diversion, at Castel Gondolfo is also the Papal herd of cows. I have seen the Papal cows myself and taken part in the unusual tradition of serenading the Pope's cows. The song which one sings to the Pope's cows is, of course, in Latin, though the text is not ready to hand. I took part in this curious custom when I was studying Latin in Rome in 1997 with Fr. Reginald Foster, OCD, who is known as "the Pope's Latinist". Reggie regularly takes his students out to Castel Gondolfo to take part in this pilgrimage of Papal animal-lore.

Getting back to Saint Mary Major, also there is the Praesepium, the relic of the manger in which Christ rested:



The chapel of the Praesepium is granted a singular privilege: In that chapel any priest may, on any day of the year save Good Friday and Easter Sunday, celebrate any of the Masses of Christmas. It's Christmas everyday there! I intend on my next visit to Rome, which will be the first since my ordination, to visit that Chapel and celebrate Midnight Mass there. Being Catholic is great, isn't it?

As one might gather from my enthusiasm, this feast is special to me. It was in this Basilica, as a seminarian, that I put away some doubts and difficulties I was having in persevering, and rededicated myself to seeing through my vocation to the priesthood. Also, by God's providence, this day is the day I was privileged to be able to offer my First Mass at the Cathedral of St. Augustine in Kalamazoo. That day, the oldest known prayer to Our Lady became a special and personal prayer for me. The music director at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Mr. Calvert Shenk, has written a sublimely beautiful motet on this text, which I hope he has published:

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus,xxxxxxxxxxWe fly to thy patronage,
sancta Dei Genitrix: nostras deprecationesxxxxO holy Mother of God. Depise not
ne despicias in neccestitatibus:xxxxxxxxxxxxxour petitions in our neccessities,
sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper,xxxxbut deliver us always from all dangers,
Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxO glorious and blessed Virgin.

Comments, Anyone?

Well, I've gone and done it! I've added a comment feature to my blog. It seems to be pretty much de rigeuranymore. So please, comment away! Debate about what I or other bloggers have written. Argue about things (always with charity). Tell me if I said something really stupid.

Of course, I still love to get e-mail. So talk back!

The Priesthood: Fraternity or Club?

At the ordination of Fr. Fleckenstein Saturday I saw in a new way what the fraternity of the priesthood is really supposed to be about, and, at its best moments, truly is. For those of you who have never attended and ordination, you should know that after the bishop lays hands on the ordinand to impart the gift of the Holy Spirit, all of the other priests present lay hands on him to express the unity of the priesthood and our sharing in the one high priesthood of Christ. As I laid hands on John in turn with the other priests, I realized that I gained a new brother. For all of us who share in the high priesthood of Christ are brothers.

I have seen this brotherhood at work in different ways since my ordination. A few months ago I was having a difficult time with a situation in my parish and I was really discouraged by it. I called one of my priest friends to talk about it, and he dropped everything the next afternoon to drive almost 2 hours to have lunch with me and spend most of the afternoon talking with me and giving me encouragement. That is brotherhood. And conversely, if I or another priest says or does something out of line, or is headed down the wrong path, we are usually the first to call one another to account.

Some bloggers and readers have voiced their concerns that I, by trying to set the record straight about Fr. DeVita, have given the impression that the priesthood is a sort of club whose members rally around one another no matter what. I imagine that the priesthood, like any other human organization, can devolve into a sort of "in-group" interested primarily in its own prerogatives. I have seen parishes that function that way, and it is very disordered. A presbyterate that decayed into an "in-group" or club would be very disordered indeed. And perhaps that is what happened in places where priest-abusers got shuffled around and no one seemed to pay attention or care.

I have not experienced the priesthood as a club, but as a brotherhood. And when I speak of the priesthood as a brotherhood, I am not thinking of some sort of metaphorical or symbolic brotherhood. If anything, the spritual brotherhood of the priesthood may be more real than natural brotherhood, because it is a participation in the Person of Christ. When my brother priests are honored or advanced (such as my friend Bishop-elect Earl Boyea), I rejoice with them. And when one of them experiences sorrow or grief, I grieve with him. When one of them is discouraged, I try to encourage him. And if one of my brother priests should fall, I am filled with sorrow and pity for him. And, as we now know has happened far too often, if one of them should go so far as to abuse his office in order to vicitmize those under his care, I am moved to anger and a sense of personal betrayal, because the priesthood he has betrayed is my priesthood as well.

If anyone has been led to believe by my remarks concerning Fr. DeVita that I am somehow defending abuse or abusers, then I am truly sorry, for that is the last thing I intended to convey. I would never defend anyone's wrongdoing, be he priest or layman. Anyone who has read my previous ruminations (for example, here or here) regarding The Situation knows that I am no defender of abusers or those who protected or enabled them. But just as I would never defend wrongdoing perpetrated by anyone, so too will I always demand that wrongdoers, be they priests or anyone else, be treated with justice: no more, and no less than justice. And I will always plead that any wrongdoer, be he a priest or anyone else, be shown mercy.

If anyone of you had a brother who committed a grievous crime, would you cease to love him? Would you cease to desire his redemption and restoration? I would hope not. I feel precisely this way about a brother priest, such as Fr. DeVita, who has sinned and sullied the sacred trust he was given. In his particular case I (and my bishop) believed him to be redeemed and reclaimed. So I ask "what does 'restorative' mercy look like for someone like Fr. DeVita?" It is my concern for living out this value of "restorative" mercy that prompts me to think that some form of active priestly ministry may still be possible for him.

It may be the case that restorative mercy for priests like Fr. DeVita doesn't include continuing in some form of active ministry. The bonds of trust may be too badly shatttered by his crime. But what does restorative mercy look like, then? Is restorative mercy something we should expect to see in this life, in this world? I would hope so, especially within the Church. Is a restorative mercy that includes the possibility of continued active ministry is a false mercy?

I am aware of the danger, as Fr. Greeley warned, of priests showing false compassion towards their offending brothers. But it does not demean the victims or make light of their pain, as some have implied, to demand justice and plead for mercy for offenders. Justice and mercy are not some kind of zero-sum game where to give them to the offenders is to take them away from victims. Ultimately it is for the victims' good that offenders are given no more and no less than justice. And restorative mercy, which brings healing and restoration, is all of a piece. Why? because it is a quality of God, who is one. There isn't one sort of divine mercy for victims and another sort for offenders. There is one divine mercy which is generously given to all. So the question for us is "How do we show restorative mercy that is in some way unitary for victims and offenders? How do we show mercy that restores communion?" When we find the answer to that question, we will be doing the greatest good for victims, offenders, and the whole Church.

An Occasion of Joy!

Fr. Jeffrey Keyes at The New Gasparian rightly laments that the conversation at St. Blog's about the priesthood has centered around the admittedly-dismal topic of what to do about those priests who have sullied their vocations by the crime of sexual abuse. The topic is painful for Fr. Keyes, as it is indeed for myself, my brother priests, and most Catholics. I hope in this post to provide something of an antidote to that pain and disappointment.

Today and tomorrow are days that give me hope, and I hope will be a source of encouragement to my readers. For tomorrow is a day of particular joy for me, as it is the 1-year anniversary of my priestly ordination. By God's good grace, one year ago tomorrow, Bishop James Murray laid hands upon me and imparted to me the gift of priestly ordination, making me a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, and giving me the awesome privilege and responsibility of acting in Persona Christi.

I feel particularly favored to have been ordained on the feast of St. John Marie Vianney, patron saint of parish priests. On that day I adopted him as my special patron: I have asked and will continue to ask for his intercession, that I can have some share of the zeal and love for souls that marked his priesthood. I feel especially close to him in regards the sacrament of reconciliation: St. John Marie was renowned for his skill and insight as a confessor. He had the gift of reading souls and people would come from all over France to his humble parish in Ars in order to go to confession with him. He was known on occasion to spend 18 hours in the confessional at a stretch. While I certainly do not claim anything like his gifts or sanctity, I do feel a kinship to him in that I truly love hearing confessions, and dispensing the healing mercy of Christ in that sacramant. The joy and wonder of being a confessor, of seeing souls cleansed and made whole, of seeing the redemptive grace of Christ at work through myself as priest, is something that the seminary didn't (and really couldn't) prepare me for. It is an awesome privilege. It is also a source of great edification to me, for in the sacrament of reconciliation I have been privileged to encounter people who, I am certain, are saints. They are people who look, on the outside, like "ordinary" Catholics, but the depth and richness of their interior lives is a source of wonder to me.

I ask all of my readers to say a prayer for me on my anniversary day, and join me in asking for St. John Vianney's intercession on behalf of all priests.



Another Occasion of Joy!

But today is a day of perhaps even greater joy, for it is a day of joy not only for me but for my whole diocese, and indeed for the whole Church. For today a new priest was added to Christ's Church, and I was privileged to participate in the ordination of Fr. John Fleckenstein to the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Every time a new priest is ordained the Triumph of Christ over sin and death is made that much stronger. Every time a new priest is ordained the Kingdom of God is brought to a fuller realization. Every time a new priest is ordained the boundaries of the kingdom of this world are pushed back a little farther. So it is a day on which all Christians should rejoice. I tell you that the Angels and Saints in heaven are rejoicing!

In spite of the scandal of The Situation and the dismal failure of our bishops I am very hopeful, and I think you should be as well, because the rising generation of young priests and seminarians, like Fr. Fleckenstein, are men of zeal for the authentic Catholic Faith: they are men inspired by, loyal to, and eager to imitate our Holy Father. They not only assent to Church teaching and discipline, they willingly embrace it. And their numbers are growing. I encountered this phenomenon in microcosm, as many recently-ordained priests and seminarians were there at the ordination. I had the good fortune of meeting Fr Raymond D'Souza, about whose First Mass several bloggers wrote a couple of weeks ago. It was an impressive gathering, and something that should give hope to all Catholics.

Let us pray for more such men to follow Christ in the priesthood, and see to it we give these men our support and encouragement.

The Critics Weigh In

Greg Popcak and Woodene Bricker-Koening at the Heart, Mind, & Strength blog voice their objections to the issues raised by Mark Shea and myself yesterday concerning Zero Tolerance. Greg is nothing if not witty: he compares Mark and I to a "Scalia/Thomas tag team". Woodene asks "Do we keep priests around after they've abused someone until they do it a second time and then get rid of them because a second fall indicates they haven't been redeemed?"

Mark Shea answers them brilliantly, and reiterates the problem that Zero Tolerance is not a suitable instrument for balancing mercy and justice, because of its inflexibility.

Now that Mark has said it better than I could have hoped, I have to re-think what I am going to say, since he stole more than a little of my thunder. Not that I mind, of course...

I'll have to get back to the subject later: I have to go and do like, "priest stuff" now, and then I get to go to a birthday party!

Rising Above Lawlessness

I'm going to blog more on the repsonses I've had to my posts about Fr. DeVita later today, but first I'd like to share this with you:

No doubt by now most of you have heard about the senseless and primitive outbreak of mob violence in Chicago that led to two men being beaten to death after a traffic accident Tuesday. Two men whose van ran off the road into a house, injuring three girls, were, within moments, set upon by a mob of angry onlookers and beaten to death with stones and bricks. According to witnesses, the perpetrators were egged on by the crowd with shouts of "kill them" and "bash their heads in" and the like. Though more than 80 people witnessed the beating, police have been stymied by a wall of silence in the neighborhood, as people, either fearful or mistrustful of police, have refused to come forward and provide evidence.

I'm from Chicago: I was born there, grew up in the suburbs, and lived there for a couple of years after college. The parish I'm assigned to is almost directly across Lake Michigan from Chicago: we get Chicago TV and radio stations here, and culturally we're very much in Chicago's orbit. The city (when locals here refer to "The City", they mean Chicago) is only an hour and 15 minute drive away. So this story hits home, it hurts to see something like this happen in the city I love and still consider my home.

But there are still people determined to rise above the lawlessness demonstrated by that mob on Tuesday. In a story in today's Chicago Tribune, community leaders are trying to mobilize local residents to fight back against mob violence:

"It will be devastating if the community does not rise to the challenge and address this," [Najee] Ali said as he slipped fliers under the windshields of cars calling for cooperation with police."

Another resident said "This community is trying to get better but there are people who just don't care. You have to get rid of these bad apples."

I for one am glad to see people are still trying to make things better: to rise above lawlessness and vigilantism to promote a more human city. I want the city I love to be a city I can feel proud of loving.

More Thoughts on Fr. DeVita and "Self-Aggrandizement"

A couple of bloggers and their readers, among them Amy Welborn and Greg Popcak, have remarked on what they see as evidence of Fr. Tom DeVita's "self-aggrandizement" or "showmanship" in the article on him in today's New York Times. I take a different view of it in my blog below. I am glad that someone like Mark Shea is in agreement with me, but a recent glance at Amy's comments shows more readers who question everything from Fr. DeVita's "exquisite" (the word used by the Times reporter) planning of his "Last Mass" to his decision to cooperate with the press in the first place.

Firstly, it seems that critics of Fr. DeVita's planning of his last Mass at his parish are getting hung up on a word. Shouldn't every Mass be "exquisitely" planned? The fact is, because the Mass in question was his "last", it was de factonot going to be ordinary. Therefore extra (special) planning was needed to deal with such questions as "Will I remain after Mass and let maudlin "good-bye" scenes proliferate?" No. "Will I allow this Mass to take on a somber "funereal" tone?" No. Will I reiterate my hopefulness and trust in Christ?" Yes. To get hung up in criticizing planning seems to me to strain at gnats.

And to those, such as a commentor on Amy's blog called "mary-m", who question his decision to allow himself to be interviewed or photographed in the first place, and take that of evidence of his search for "self-aggrandizement", I submit, as someone who has been interviewed by various organs of the press from time to time, that things one says or does with complete innocence can be transformed by a reporter with an agenda. Last year I was interviewed by a local paper looking for a "Catholic" perspective on the war in Afghanistan. My remarks that the campaign there was substantively self-defensive and limited, and therefore justifiable, was boiled down to "Fr. Johansen favors an aggressive campaign against the Afghans."

For those seeking to understand possible motives for Fr. DeVita's cooperation with the press, I point out that Fr. DeVita is originally from New York (Long Island), and that is where the incident of his abuse took place. I think that fact alone is sufficient to explain the Times' interest, and Fr. DeVita's willingness to cooperate with the press. I suppose he could have told the reporters to "get lost" and not cooperate with them, but that usually only makes them more aggressive and antagonistic. Everyone knows that when a newspaper prints things like "no comment" or "Fr. X refused to grant an interview" it creates the impression of cover-ups or other more sinister activities under the surface, and induces reporters to tear people's lives apart trying to find those things. I think Fr. DeVita can be forgiven for wanting to avoid that situation.

Furthermore, the more I think about the charge that Fr. DeVita is seeking notoriety or self-aggrandizement, the more the charge appears to be patently absurd. Why? Because Fr. DeVita's notoriety is as an admitted priest-abuser. Forever after, Fr. DeVita will be known across the country as "one of those pedophile priests" (Not that he is in fact a pedophile: he is not). That is a very strange form of self-aggrandizement.

The fact is that neither mary-m nor I knows Fr. DeVita's motivation for cooperating with the press. What I know of the man makes me doubtful that he is seeking fame or
self-aggrandizement. As I showed above, the charge is absurd on its face. It is unjust to attribute motives to the behavior of people we don't know. That is precisely the sort of thing Our Lord was talking about when He said "Judge not, lest you be judged". We can make moral judgments about behavior, but we tread on perilous ground when we start ascribing motives to that behavior.

Zero Tolerance Hits Home

I haven't published anything about this so far, since, frankly, I haven't been sure what to say. Today's New York Times ran an article on Fr. Tom DeVita, (LRR) who stepped down as pastor of St. Mary of the Lake Parish in New Buffalo, Michigan, yesterday. Fr. DeVita was the subject of an earlier NYT piece shortly after the Dallas conference, when it became apparent that Fr. DeVita would have to leave under the "Zero Tolerance" guidelines.

Fr. DeVita is a priest of my diocese, and in fact, his parish neighbors my own. As I have watched this drama unfold, I have had many conflicting reactions, hence my reticence to write on it. But I have several observations to make which I think are relevant to Fr. DeVita's situation. I don't claim to know Fr. DeVita well, but I have talked with him on a number of occasions, and I know he has been well regarded and respected by my brother priests.

Firstly, I would point out, that though the story is written in a style characterized by Amy Welborn as "self-aggrandizing rot", the aggrandizing is being done by the Times and its reporter, not Fr. DeVita himself. Fr. DeVita didn't write the piece. The reporter did, and she clearly has an agenda, as she demonstrates by using words like "secretive" to describe the canonical process by which Fr. DeVita is appealing his removal. Being acquainted with Fr. DeVita, the last word I would use to describe him is "self-aggrandizing." He is a soft-spoken, quiet, and humble man. The Times may be trying to turn Fr. DeVita into a "poster boy", but that has much more to do with the Times' agenda to portray the Big Bad Church as the heavy than anything Fr. DeVita intended.

Secondly, back in June, after the original Times article came out, Nightline ran a segment about Fr. DeVita, which included a rather lengthy (by TV standards) interview. Fr. DeVita's humility and resigned acceptance of my bishop's judgement were apparent to me. He spoke movingly of his willingness to accept his punishment, if that was what the Church required of him. "I did something terrible 25 years ago," he said, "and I have to pay the price for it now." Fr. DeVita has never encouraged parishioners to lobby or agitate for him, as some others have done. In fact, he has done the opposite: he has encouraged parishioners to accept the bishop's judgment and acccept his replacement willingly. He said at one of his Sunday Masses, "This isn't about me, it's about Him," as he pointed at the crucifix.

Thirdly, by every evidence I can see, Fr. DeVita is one of those perhaps rare cases where a priest fell terribly, did something grievously wrong, but then repented, did penance, got help, and has genuinely straightened himself out. Fr. DeVita's priesthood has been exemplary since then, especially since he came to my diocese about ten years ago. To say these things is in no way to diminish the wrong that he did, as he himself has readily admitted (and is the reason he has publicly stated his acceptance of the Church's judgment).

If the issue is one of strict justice, removing Fr. DeVita is just, and there is an end of the matter. But as Catholics, the issue cannot be solely about strict justice. As the Holy Father himself said, we must also take into account repentance and the restorative grace and mercy of God. Under that standard, it becomes more problematic to decide what to do with Fr. DeVita. I am not qualified or worthy to make that judgment. Fr. Andrew Greeley has rather insightfully observed that the brother priests of an accused or offending cleric cannot be the ones to render judgment about him, as they will be tempted to give in to a "false compassion." So I will not suggest what could be done with Fr. DeVita. But I will suggest that satisfying the demands of "justice" cannot be the end of the matter.

If the issue is about more than strict justice, then a logical question is, "is the priest a further threat?" My bishop's judgment on that matter, when he reviewed the matter shortly after becoming bishop 4 years ago (Fr. DeVita came to my diocese before our current bishop took office, under the reign of his predecessor), was that Fr. DeVita was in no way a danger to anyone (having served 20-plus years in a fruitful ministry). He reaffirmed that judgment this spring when, under criticism by the local press, which demanded Fr. DeVita's removal, he stated that he had full confidence in Fr. DeVita. Now some may howl at my bishop's judgment in this circumstance, but my bishop was actually doing what bishops are supposed to do: He examined the circumstances personally, weighed the facts, and came to a judgment, which he put his name to and stood behind. And the fact is that I trust my bishop's judgment. I know my bishop, and his care for his office and his flock. I know his orthodoxy and love for the Church. So I trusted his judgment about Fr. DeVita, as I do on other matters. It is a great misfortune and scandal, that because some bishops misused or abused their discretion, most people no longer trust any bishop to make such judgment calls. But the fact the some bishops made bad or self-serving judgments does not mean that my bishop did so in deciding to keep Fr. DeVita before the Dallas conference norms (seemingly) precluded that possibility.

Is removing Fr. DeVita just? Yes. But, as I wrote above, justice is not the only consideration. The fact that the wrong-headedness of the bishops' Zero Tolerance policy plays into the New York Times' agenda is unfortunate, but the bishops are the architects of that situation, not Fr. DeVita. If the case of Fr. DeVita leads the bishops to re-work their "Norms" and come up with something that is actually Catholic, then that will be a good thing. If Fr. DeVita's situation remains merely one more thing that the establishment media can use to flog the Church, that will be unfortunate, but that outcome will not be of Fr. DeVita's doing.

I don't have any fancy comment function (yet), but I welcome your feedback or observations. E-mail me! I'll publish relevant comments on my next blog.

Some Thoughts on Clerical Celibacy

I recently had a conversation with an acquaintance about celibacy in the priesthood. This person (a friend of a friend that I met at a party), a non-Catholic, rather innocently, out of his ignorance, suggested that the way for the Church to "get past" the scandals would be for the Church to drop its celibacy requirement. I was able to pretty handily lay that idea to rest by pointing out to him that allowing priests to marry would in no way alter the disordered sexual desires of pedophiles who had made their way into Holy Orders. Priestly Celibacy and The Scandal only seem related because both have to do with sexuality.

But, unfortunately, it is not only non-Catholics who labor under the misapprehension that if the Church were to drop clerical celibacy, that would in some way lead us to a solution to the problem. Most recently, a debate has been raging about this issue in the comments to one of Amy Welborn's posts. Those arguing in favor of abandoning clerical celibacy seem to me to have an insufficiently formed understanding of the nature of Church discipline and on the nature of the priesthood.

Firstly, I have to clear up an illusion commonly held by many people, Catholics and non-Catholics. The illusion is that celibacy is the "make or break" issue for those discerning a vocation or in seminary formation. This is, in my experience, simply not the case. Most seminarians do not spend sleepless hours agonizing over whether they can live with celibacy or not. And that is not because they are immature or sexually maladjusted, either. I was continually impressed during my years in seminary at how extremely well-adjusted and "normal", on the whole, my brother seminarians were. They do not agonize over celibacy because, for the most part, by the time they reach the Theologate they have made a decsion to embrace celibacy. Much of the talk about dropping clerical celibacy seems to me to implicitly contain the assumption (taken as an unquestionable precept) of our hyper-sexualized post-modern society that sex is a fundamental and almost uncontrollable drive, and that suppressing it is potentially psychologically dangerous. This is pseudo-Freudian claptrap. I say "pseudo-Freudian" because not even Freud actually subscribed to this twaddle. The Catholic understanding of the human person is that our drives and emotions are subject to the will. Part of embracing celibacy is training yourself to subject your drives and desires to your will, which has made a decision to embrace celibacy. I know this is do-able by personal experience: I am much better at doing this now than I was, say 10 years ago. Part of it is growing in maturity, part of it is growing in holiness, part of it is learning to recognize one's own faults and weaknesses.

This disciplining one's drives and desires to be subject to one's will is not easy. In fact, it is difficult. But so is acquiring any kind of discipline. And learining this discipline is essential to any Christian vocation, not just priesthood. Living in marital fidelity is difficult. Forgiving those who injure us is difficult. But all of these things, in different ways, call us to place our drives and desires in subjection.

Secondly, those who advocate dropping the celibacy requirement are frequently ill-informed about the history of celibacy. There is no evidence that any Church of Apostolic origin has ever allowed those in Holy Orders to marry. It is true that in the very early Church, and in some of the Eastern Churches today, married men have been ordained. But once ordained, marriage has always been barred to those in Orders. Furthermore, appeals to evidence such as "St. Peter was married" are not on-point. St. Peter could not have been expected to leave his wife. St. Peter himself nowhere counsels the Apostles or their successors to take wives. In fact, the only apostolic treatment of the issue is from St. Paul, who makes it quite clear that for those engaged in Apostolic ministry, celibacy is best. Since it was recommended as best, it is not surprising that the Church quickly adopted celibacy as normative. Celibacy was seen as normative and binding (by local legislation) within most of the Churches of the West by the 6th century. The frequently-adduced canard that "celibacy was mandated in the Middle Ages to protect church property" is simply false. A reading of local Church synods and councils from the 4th-6th centuries will shred that contention to tatters.

Finally, it seems to me that those who advocate dropping celibacy frequently have bought into the "dogmatic minimalism" foisted upon us by "progressives" in the wake of Vatican II. Dogmatic minimalism is the attitude that anything not explicitly defined as dogma by a council or ex cathedrapapal pronouncement is somehow extraneous to the Faith and therefore easily dispensed with. Those arguing that because celibacy is a matter of discipline and not dogma we can get rid of it are operating from the dogmatic minimalist assumption. But just because something hasn't been defined as de fidedoesn't mean it isn't from the Holy Spirit. Just because something is a matter of tradition doesn't mean it isn't spiritually good or useful. For example, the use of vestments by priests at Mass is purely a matter of tradition and discipline. We could dispense with vestments tomorrow and it would not change the content of the Faith by one iota. But does anyone (70's liturgical goofiness aside) seriously think it would be a good idea for priests to start celebrating Mass in Dockers and Polo shirts? I don't think so. The use of vestments, while perhaps not integral to the Faith in the way that the Trinity is, is nonetheless not peripheral.

And so, I think that priestly celibacy, while not being a matter of dogma, illustrates something that is. In that sense it is akin to a sacramental: it points an article of Faith, though is not the article of Faith itself. Priestly celibacy points to the identity of the priest as the Alter Christus, the "Other Christ". For Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church, and as such He takes the Church as His bride, in a mystical marriage. For this reason it was fitting and proper that Christ had no earthly wife (it wasn't just an accident). The priest, by his ordination, is configured to Christ and made the Alter Christus. For this reason I think it makes perfect sense that priests be celibate. It is a sign of the mystical union of Christ and the Church. A married priesthood would obscure this sign and witness. I think that the realization of the importance of this sign is what has kept, even in those Eastern churches that allow married priests, the office of Bishop reserved to those men who are celibate. For the Bishop, as the high-priest and chief shepherd of his Church, is even more a sign of the the mystical union: he holds the fullness of Sacred Orders.

In short, I think that celibacy is the work and a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. It is a sign and witness of great power and importance, whose full meaning has yet to be explicated.