The Answer Blowing in the Wind

Introduction

The Charter

The meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Dallas, June 13-15, to address the crisis of priests’ abuse of minors has come and gone. There was a lot of media hype before it and some hype immediately after. Because it was such an important meeting, especially for the Catholic faithful, I found myself asking, “Do I, the priestly head of the priestly people, know what that meeting said and what it did not say? And don’t I think that God’s priestly people also should know what the meeting said and did not say? And shouldn’t all of us consider ourselves incompetent to say anything on the subject until we have informed ourselves, in some simple and clear way, what the meeting actually accomplished and did not accomplish?”

The co-adjutor bishop of Dallas, addressing the meeting, said, “People want us to act in a clear and decisive way. Not with a lot of wiggle words…. They want a clear policy that will say, `Your children will be safe.’” They did indeed get a clear-cut policy from the bishops. After much debate, the bishops wrote a document entitled Charter for the Protection of Children and Young Adults. The bishops approved that document by a vote of 229 for and 13 against. They gave what the public, the media and sex abuse victims in one solid chorus were demanding: zero tolerance or “One strike, and you’re out.”

A tough policy

One strike, and you’re out of what? One strike, and you’re out of ministry. Here is the bottom line of the Dallas meeting: Any priest who has committed even just one act of sexual abuse of a minor in the past, present or future is banished from ministry forever. That’s the zero tolerance the bishops voted for.

That tough policy, they believed, would deliver justice to victims. It would also enable priests and minors to relate with one another in the future without suspicion and mistrust. And it would bring a sigh of relief to thousands of priests out there who have suffered great embarrassment throughout this crisis.

That tough policy has immediate consequences. Priests with a history of sexual misconduct with minors in their past (and this could include some very elderly priests) will be immediately pulled out of the parishes, nursing homes, hospitals and other programs where they might still be ministering. They will be told they may not wear the Roman collar. They will not be allowed to celebrate mass publicly, to baptize, or to perform weddings. Some will be sent to live out their lives in monasteries, or even confined to what amounts to ecclesiastical imprisonment.

Too tough

That tough policy is too tough for some bishops. They feel the Charter with its “no mercy whatsoever policy” is flawed for a number of reasons. First of all, it treats all cases in the same manner. A priest who has repented, gone for treatment, continues to be counseled, is never alone with minors, and does well in ministry is far different from the repeated abuser, and should be handled differently. It is flawed also because it defines the role of bishops more as CEO’s looking for one good simple solution to solve all the sexual harassment problems in their corporations, than as fathers solving the problems of their sons on a one by one basis, applying justice, compassion and prudential judgment.

It is flawed also because it does nothing to improve the laity’s confidence in their bishops. The laity’s “no tolerance” demand is their way of saying, “Since you bishops have abused our trust by not exercising appropriate discretion and judgment on this issue in the past, we are taking the matter completely out of your hands, and we are demanding a process that will leave nothing up to your discretion.” It is flawed finally because it destroys the fatherly relationship of bishops with their priests. At the end of the day, the charter is flawed for some, and perhaps fatally flawed, because it chooses to be politically correct rather than prophetically correct. In the end political correctness prevailed over prophetical correctness by a margin of 229 to 13.

But not tough enough?

While the tough policy was too tough for some, it was not tough enough for others. The media immediately called our attention to the angry reaction of some victims who were bitterly disappointed that the bishops had not gone further. They wanted the bishops to call for a policy that would strip a man, who had abused a minor (in the past, present, or future), not only of ministry but also of very priesthood itself. In other words, they wanted a policy that would also defrock such a priest, laicize him, reduce him to the lay state, strip him of the privilege and power that comes with being able to call one’s self a priest. That’s what much of the fury after the meeting was all about: one strike and you’re out of ministry but not out also of priesthood.

The bishops stopped short of this more punitive step of defrocking or laicizing a priest because that would have involved a lengthy process through Vatican courts, which alone have the right to defrock a priest. Furthermore some bishops plainly said they did not relish the idea of defrocking old and feeble priests living in retirement homes. At the end of the day, the bishops maintained that though their policy might not kick offenders out of the priesthood it does kick them out of ministry forever. And so, yes, they did indeed vote for zero tolerance, and yes, “One strike, and you’re out” of ministry forever.

Who shall monitor the bishops?

So the Charter monitors the priests, but who will monitor the bishops? Who will punish the bishops for their mishandling of the past? Who will punish the bishops for their mishandling of the future now laid out by the new Charter? The US Conference of Catholic Bishops does not have the authority to punish bishops or fire them or demand their resignation; only the pope can do that. Who then will monitor the bishops? (a) The Charter does have an accountability procedure for the future. It stipulates that every year there will be a public report on how each bishop has implemented the Charter. If a particular bishop is not in compliance, everyone will get to know it. (b) Furthermore, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating (soon to finish his term of office) was chosen by Bishop Wilton Gregory, head of the US Bishops’ Conference, to lead a National Review Board. Keating, a no nonsense man who has clashed with US bishops on capital punishment, promises that his panel will seek “corrective action” for any clergyman who is found guilty of abuse or negligence “from the most junior priest to the most powerful bishop.”

The answer blowing in the wind.

Who will monitor the bishops? The best answer, “my friend, is blowing in the wind.” Let me explain. There is a giant out there that has been stirred from sleep by the Second Vatican Council. We have said over and over again from this pulpit that that Council, despite the appearance of multiplicity, basically addressed but one single great issue: the issue of the Church: What is the church, and what should she be doing?

Despite the fact that the teachings of Vatican II had not been properly propagated to the faithful, despite the fact that Catholics might not be able to quote Vatican II’s most singular document, The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium, 1964)—despite all that, the bottom line of that document and of the whole Council itself did indeed get through to the faithful clear and strong: the Church is not first of all the hierarchy; the church is first of all “the People of God.”

The history of that document is remarkable. The bishops were discussing a preliminary document on the church which placed the chapter on “The Hierarchy” before the chapter on “The People of God.” That discussion generated the Council’s most heated and historic debate which was to profoundly change the course of our ordinary Catholic lives. Some bishops, fortified with good theologians behind them, rose to protest that the Church is not the hierarchy; the Church is the People of God. The hierarchy is subordinate to the People of God, and it has no claim to existence except to further God’s People.

Therefore, these bishops insisted, the chapter on the “The People of God” must come first, before the chapter on “The Hierarchy.” When the council fathers made that switch, they struck the most defining moment of the entire Council. That switch came to be called the Copernican Revolution of Vatican II. Like the earth which revolves around the sun (and not the other way ‘round), so the hierarchy revolves around the People of God (and not the other way ‘round).

That great flash of light from Vatican II now helps us Catholics in our present crisis. An article in the America magazine says that according to the polls Catholics are now making a distinction between their “loss of confidence in church leadership and their robust confidence in their Catholicism.” “American Catholics,” continues the article, “love their church, but it is the church they experience in the priests they know and in other Catholics in the pews with them.” They love their church as the People of God and not as a hierarchical institution.”

That seems to square up with a letter recently received from a friend, in which she writes of both her dislike for Catholic hierarchy and her love of her Catholicism. “Mother, Joan and I are sick over the scandal of pedophile priests and the cover-ups. I blame the bishops. We know that our `faith’ has nothing to do with our `religion.’ I dislike the hierarchy and all the gold and finery.” Then comes her love of her Catholicism: “Fr. Joe from Burnet wrote and told me that they made a movie of Joshua, and that he saw it and that it was a tear-jerker. I always loved Fr. Joe because he is a man who can cry, as you can.”

You read the same emotions in an article by Andrew Sullivan in the religious section of Time magazine, June 17, 2002. “Perhaps what American lay Catholics need to say more clearly is that the aim of our desire to change the church is not to undermine but to save it. We love our faith—just look at how few Catholics have abandoned the church in this current crisis. We love our priests—just see how many parishioners have rallied round their own pastors in this time of trial.”

The answer at last: the sleeping Giant

We’ve been so long in getting to the answer, that we have forgotten the question. The question again is “Who’s going to monitor the bishops. The answer isn’t really in the Charter. It isn’t really with Governor Keating’s new National Review Board. “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,” is blowing in the Pentecostal wind of Vatican II. That is to say, there is a sleeping Giant out there stirred by that Council which told the Giant that it is the Church. There is a sleeping Giant out there, and its name is “The People of God.” There is a sleeping Giant out there, stirred by the Council, and it is ready now to take responsibility for the present crisis, its crisis, and do something about it. There is a sleeping Giant out there, stirred by Vatican II, and it is now emboldened to lovingly speak “truth to Power.”

That Power, now chastised and humbled as never before, is in a listening mood. At Dallas, America’s 300 bishops listened to speeches which bluntly told them that they bear the primary responsibility for the scandal rocking the church, that they are arrogant and aloof, and that the future depends on their listening to the People of God. They did indeed listen at Dallas. They listened to a Senior Fellow at the University of Notre Dame tell them that all their apologies are for nothing, until they are ready to “name the protection of abusive priests for what it is—a sin born out of the arrogance of power.” Some bishops with tears in their eyes listened as four victims of sexual abuse by priests related their stories and pleaded for “zero tolerance.”

For the present moment at least there is new hierarchy out there, chastised and humbled, and ready to listen. And there is hope in a hierarchy that’s ready to listen, provided that that readiness to listen is a true conversion of mind and heart, and not just a strategy for the moment. The hope is that they will continue to listen to God’s People, as they speak to them about other issues in their human lives, like divorce and remarriage, human sexuality, homosexuality, women in the church, married men in the church—issues which, at the end of the day, have been listened to mostly with arrogance and aloofness.

So the faithful go their own ways on those issues, and the hierarchy all the while pretends that the faithful are listening to them. Such pretense gives us a church that looks like two parallel lines that never meet: a People of God who talks and a hierarchy that does not listen. And a hierarchy who talks and a people of God who doesn’t listen.

Andrew Sullivan speaks of those two parallel lines when he writes in the same article: “This gulf between us and them cannot now be concealed. We kneel and pray; we donate our time and money; we have attempted to explain the moral lessons we have learned in the real world of family and sex and work and conflict. But so many church leaders—from the Pope on down—do not seem to hear or even care.”

Conclusion

The one Circle

The task of the hierarchy is not to poll the faithful; politicians take polls. Its task is to listen. Who listens abdicates power. Who listens puts away arrogance and aloofness. Who listens has something to say. Who listens teaches best. Who listens hears someone else besides self: the Holy Spirit.

And a listening hierarchy begets a listening people. If the sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd it is because the shepherd has first listened to them (Jn 10: 3). When both of us listen to each other, then the two parallel lines which never meet vanish, and in their place appears a Circle. And the name of the Circle is “The People of God.” And in that Circle all of us together are at long last made one: God’s People speaking to the hierarchy about their humanity, and the hierarchy speaking to God’s People about God’s divinity, and both of us struggling to put the two together, as we, a Pilgrim People, journey toward the Kingdom of God.