A pledge of commitment - Updated

Update 8/3/2018 11:01 pm - Cardinal DiNardo, president of the USCCB, has issued a statement on the McCarrick controversy.  Scroll to the bottom of the post for more details.

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Less than two months ago, the American bishops reviewed and revised the documents known collectively as the Dallas Charter.   Those Charter documents include some specific promises by the bishops to hold one another accountable.  Their promises unexpectedly became both pertinent and important when, within a week of the Charter's revision, Cardinal McCarrick's allegedly abusive past was made public.   We hope and pray that the contents of the Charter documents are still fresh in the bishops' minds, because the church now looks to them to keep their promises.

This past June 13th and 14th, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathered in Fort Lauderdale for their annual Spring General Assembly.  Among the agenda items at the meeting, the bishops overwhelmingly approved some minor revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, often referred to as the "Dallas Charter".  NCR has the details.

That particular business item may now be of special interest because, within a week of the spring assembly's conclusion, Cardinal McCarrick announced he had been removed from ministry

What is generally referred to as the "Dallas Charter" actually is a collection of three related documents: the Charter itself, which is a statement of principles, guidelines and pastoral best practices; Essential Norms for Diocesan / Eparchial Policies Dealing with Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons, which is the church-legal part of the document; and A Statement of Episcopal Commitment.

During the 13 years or so that have elapsed since these documents were first promulgated in the wake of the clergy sex-abuse scandals personified by Cardinal Law's fall from grace, it's been my observation that most of the public's attention has been focused on the first two of these documents, the Charter and the Essential Norms.  But it is the third document, A Statement of Episcopal Commitment, to which I'd like to draw your attention in this post.  It is by far the briefest of the three documents, running just a bit longer than a single page, and can be found beginning on page 29 at this link.

The Statement doesn't explain why it was created, but one of its intentions may have been to address a perceived gap: the Charter and the Essential Norms, as products of a national bishops' conference, are binding on priests and deacons, but not on bishops.  Under church law, a national conference can't legally bind bishops on this subject matter; that authority belongs to the Holy See.

But while a bishop can't be bound by the decrees of a national conference, he is free to make voluntary public promises.  And that is what this document is: a set of freely made commitments by the American bishops.

Prefatory to making specific promises, the bishops apologize for their role in abuse, in particular naming the practice of transferring abusive clergy to other dioceses.  They also note that, in accordance with church law, their governing responsibility is not only to their own diocese but collegially over the church as a whole.  And crucially, in light of the Cardinal McCarrick allegations, they state that they are morally responsible to and for one another.

The bishops then make four specific pledges, as follows:

1.  Within each province, we will assist each other to interpret correctly and implement the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, always respecting Church law and striving to reflect the Gospel.  

2. We will apply the requirements of the Charter also to ourselves, respecting always Church law as it applies to bishops. Therefore, if a bishop is accused of the sexual abuse of a minor, the accused bishop is obliged to inform the Apostolic Nuncio. If another bishop becomes aware of such an allegation of the sexual abuse of a minor by a bishop, he too is obliged to inform the Apostolic Nuncio and comply with applicable civil laws. 

3. In cases of financial demands for settlements involving allegations of any sexual misconduct by a bishop, he, or any of us who become aware of it, is obliged to inform the Apostolic Nuncio.  

4. Within each of our provinces, as an expression of collegiality, including fraternal support, fraternal challenge and fraternal correction, we will engage in ongoing mutual reflection upon our commitment to holiness of life and upon the exercise of our episcopal ministry

I trust it is clear to the reader that all four of these promises are applicable to various allegations made against McCarrick.  Thus:

• For the accusations of abuse of minors, McCarrick would be expected to self-report to the Nuncio (the representative of the Holy See) that an accusation had been made against him (no. 2); Cardinal Dolan or another bishop of the New York Archdiocese would be expected to report the accusation of abuse of a minor by McCarrick which was made to the NY Archdiocese's Independent Review Board (no. 2); 
• The bishops of Metuchen and Newark would be expected to report to the Nuncio about financial settlements made by their dioceses to alleged victims of McCarrick (no. 3).  Note that no. 3 is not limited to the sexual abuse of a minor, but applies to "any sexual misconduct by a bishop", which presumably would include the abuse of adults; 
• Any bishops who were aware of the accusations against McCarrick - whether the victims were minors or adults - should have provided "fraternal challenge and fraternal correction" to McCarrick(no. 4).  

 As we've seen, commentators are starting to ask whether any of this has happened.  It seems pretty clear that the bishops of the New York Archdiocese did fulfill their responsibilities as outlined in commitment no. 2: the NY Archdiocese received an allegation about Cardinal McCarrick; it handled the allegation according to the prescribed process; and, finding the accusation credible, it alerted the Holy See.

And that is worth noting - perhaps even something to cheer about.  As for the other requirements bulleted above: I don't think we know yet whether any of that prescribed reporting and correction has happened.

Even though nos. 1 and 2 are specifically for the abuse of minors, I would argue that the spirit of all four of these pledges is that they should be applicable to any and all forms of abuse, whether or not the victims are minors.  The theology underlying these promises underlies all episcopal governance; they are constitutive of what it means to be a bishop.  Or so it seems to me.

Still, it seems likely enough that this business of bishops fraternally correcting one another, reporting one another to Rome and otherwise holding one another accountable will require some consideration and prayer on the part of bishops, and perhaps the setting aside of some deeply-ingrained habits.  The collegiality of bishops seems to be understood more as a way for them to maintain solidarity with one another over and against a sometimes-hostile world, than in engaging in correction within the college.

It seems to me that, if the bishops are to respond appropriately to the questions raised by the McCarrick scandal, they need to consciously avoid a reflexive solidarity.  Solidarity with negligent or sinful members of the conference will hinder rather than help in bringing failings to light and enabling corrective action.  What is called for now is solidarity with the victims, and with members of the faithful who are dispirited or fed up, rather than with those brother bishops who may have been part of the problem.

The bishops meet only twice per year, in the spring and the fall.  Coincidentally or not, the McCarrick situation came to light just after the end of the spring conference.  Let us hope and pray that the bishops don't wait until November to begin addressing problems that allowed McCarrick's career to flourish while he engaged in patterns of abusive behavior.  Let a transparent and independent investigation of McCarrick's misdeeds, including identifying and rooting out negligence and complicity by other bishops, begin very soon, for the good of the church, its people and the victims.

Update 8/3/2018 11:01 pm.  On August 1st, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Galveston-Houston archdiocese and president of the USCCB, issued a "Statement on Course of Action Responding to Moral Failures on Part of Church Leaders". 

On the whole, it is pretty good.  It's not defensive, it's not patronizing, it doesn't seek to minimize or deflect the allegations against McCarrick.

I had opined in the original post that the bishops shouldn't wait until their November meeting to address the situation, and it seems the cardinal agrees:

Archbishop McCarrick will rightly face the judgement of a canonical process at the Holy See regarding the allegations against him, but there are also steps we should be taking as the Church here in the United States. Having prayed about this, I have convened the USCCB Executive Committee.  This meeting was the first of many among bishops that will extend into our Administrative Committee meeting in September and our General Assembly in November. All of these discussions will be oriented toward discerning the right course of action for the USCCB.

DiNardo also makes four specific pledges of his own:

allow me to stress these four points immediately.

First, I encourage my brother bishops as they stand ready in our local dioceses to respond with compassion and justice to anyone who has been sexually abused or harassed by anyone in the Church. We should do whatever we can to accompany them. 

Second, I would urge anyone who has experienced sexual assault or harassment by anyone in the Church to come forward. Where the incident may rise to the level of a crime, please also contact local law enforcement. 

Third, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will pursue the many questions surrounding Archbishop McCarrick's conduct to the full extent of its authority; and where that authority finds its limits, the Conference will advocate with those who do have the authority. One way or the other, we are determined to find the truth in this matter. 

Finally, we bishops recognize that a spiritual conversion is needed as we seek to restore the right relationship among us and with the Lord. Our Church is suffering from a crisis of sexual morality. The way forward must involve learning from past sins.

There are things to like about those four pledges.  He is surely right to promise to respond to victims, and to urge victims to come forward.  It is heartening that he pledges to "pursue" the questions surrounding McCarrick's conduct - I hope "pursue" means "investigate aggressively".  And he acknowledges that a national conference's list of remedies against a brother bishop (or more than one, if it turns out that others were somehow complicit or negligent) may be limited, but he also doesn't use that as an excuse to passively wait for Rome to fix the problems.  As noted in the original post, the promises they've already made in the Dallas Charter commit them to report offender bishops to the Nuncio, and to fraternally correct and challenge one another.  That is not everything that needs to be done, but those are concrete things that the bishop can do.  

Personally, I could wish that there was a pledge to protect seminarians and other vulnerable adults and minors.  It is not enough to "accompany".  They must take concrete, practical measures to root out abusers and enablers among those in leadership, and they should pledge to do this (and then they should actually to it).  DiNardo is not wrong about the need for spiritual conversion, but spiritual conversion must be supplemented by concrete, practical steps to protect the vulnerable.

And I could also wish for a pledge of transparency - that any offenses that come to light will be reported, not only to the Nuncio, but to the people of God.  The prospect of what is done in the dark being brought into the light may curb some behavior.