1. Only the Holy See has jurisdiction over bishops. See Bishop Robert Barron on this (h/t Rod Dreher). Even if the American bishops' collective credibility was high on matters of sexual abuse, our expectations shouldn't be very high that they could make radical changes on their own - especially if your desired outcome is to see the heads of a few bishops rolling and bouncing across the scaffolding. Neither an individual bishop nor a national conference can fire a bishop. I doubt they can compel another bishop or a member of his staff to testify or provide records.
2. In the range of issues and problems brought to the forefront by the McCarrick scandal, several of them are not only within the American church. Among those questions which must be answered satisfactorily are:
- What precisely has McCarrick done, to whom, when?
- Who specifically promoted McCarrick after he had already established a track record of church crimes and sins, and what did those persons know about his track record?
- What did other members of the American church, especially American bishops, know about McCarrick?
- As a corollary to the previous bullet: what role did McCarrick play in the promotions of other American churchmen, and did McCarrick's crimes and sins play any role in those promotions?
- What did church officials in the Holy See know about McCarrick's crimes and sins, and what have they done about them so far?
- What must be done to address the myriad of problems that the McCarrick scandal has brought to light?
- What preventative measures should be put in place to minimize the chance of similar sins and crimes from reoccurring?
But American bishops are not able to investigate the Holy See. Only the Holy See itself can do so.
It falls to the Holy See to investigate both itself and the American bishops. Because some American bishops are appointed to positions in the Holy See, the two groups - the Vatican and the Americans - are not wholly mutually exclusive. The possibility of conflicts of interest is certainly present. Those problems usually are solvable, as for example via individual recusals, and by appointing independent outsiders with impeccable credentials and reputations to conduct the investigation.
About reasons why the powers that be look the other way when there is an influential person doing abusive or unethical stuff, there is a common thread running through both ecclesial and secular scandals. That thread would be that the institution is getting some things that they want from the person in question. McCarrick gave the Church a lot of things they wanted. Same with the former Lincoln Diocese vocations director that I posted about. I don't mean that quite as cynically as it sounds; people can be class A bamboozlers. But the up side of keeping them around can outweigh the down side (which you deftly summarized in a previous post) of dealing with the problem. And on the secular stage, our president is a classic example. His own party for the most part isn't calling him out on some pretty egregious behavior because they are getting things that they want, such as congenial SCOTUS nominations, and a freeing up of regulations that cramp their style, and "Hey, look, the economy hasn't crashed and burned ." (Yet)
ReplyDeleteYep, I agree with both your points.
DeleteIt's an interesting parallel: Trump with McCarrick. Regarding Trump: all I can say is: nobody should be surprised. His follies, foibles and failings were well-known, both by the elites and by the country as a whole. I don't think it can fairly be said that Trump has bamboozled anyon.
But regarding McCarrick, we still don't know how widespread the knowledge is among the elites. Dreher points out that there are at least a handful of other bishops who absolutely knew about McCarrick: his successors at Newark and Metuchen who swept under the rug the messes McCarrick left behind; and curial officials who met with the delegation of concerned Americans when it became known that McCarrick was being considered for the Washington DC diocese.
Then there were bishops who should have known because complaints about McCarrick were directly addressed to them (I'm sorry to say that Cardinal O'Malley was one of these).
And Dreher clearly thinks it strains credulity to suppose that other bishops who were very close to McCarrick hadn't heard the stories.
So there is, in what we might call the best case (or the least bad case), a relative handful of bishops who were aware, and perhaps an at least slightly larger circle who seemingly should have been aware and/or are under suspicion of having known. Whether any of them did anything whatsover to raise the alarm or confront McCarrick or anything similar, still isn't clear - an investigation has to determine that.
And of course, that's the least bad case. The circle who knew could be considerably larger. The worst case, of course, is that they all knew.
Personally, I think we have to let the investigations get organized, and let the investigators do their work, and - this is crucial - tell us of the findings. That's going to take some time. I mention this because I sense there is a lot of anger out there (I read it between the lines every day on Dreher's blog at American Conservative) that wants to start lopping off episcopal heads now and ask questions later. Perhaps there will be a time to fire a small or large groups of bishops. But if that is what's necessary, let the decision be based on evidence.
Yes, with Trump nobody can claim to have been bamboozled. I just have to credit full-blown cynicism there (that, and drink-the-koolaid wilful self-deception.)
DeleteJim, you just wrote the best definition of clericalism gone mad that I have read.
ReplyDeleteJim Pauwels wrote, "Those problems usually are solvable . . . by appointing independent outsiders with impeccable credentials and reputations to conduct the investigation."
ReplyDeleteThat reminded me of Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger's suggestion about how to deal with the problem:
"We have reached a point where bishops alone investigating bishops is not the answer.
“To have credibility, a panel would have to be separated from any source of power whose trustworthiness might potentially be compromised . . .
“Our laypeople are not only willing to take on this much-needed role, but they are eager to help us make lasting reforms that will restore a level of trust that has been shattered yet again . . . In speaking with them, we all hear their passion for our universal Church, their devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and their hunger for the truth. They are essential to the solution we seek.
"[The commission should be] led by well-respected, faithful lay leaders who are beyond reproach, people whose role on such a panel will not serve to benefit them financially, politically or personally. . .
“These will be people with a deep understanding of the Catholic faith, . . . but without an axe to grind or an agenda to push. It will not be easy, but it will be worth every ounce of effort, energy, and candor we can muster.”
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/08/06/albany-bishop-says-laypeople-should-investigate-misconduct-us-bishops