We have felt fortunate that there hasn't seemed to be a lot of abuse cases in Nebraska; aside from some instances a number of years ago involving clergy who are no longer in ministry. I suppose it was only a matter of time until some more problems came to light.
I'm sure by now most of you have seen this developing story. And this article by Rod Dreher features an essay by a former priest of the Lincoln Diocese, Peter Mitchell. Both of these links discuss allegations of abuse and misconduct by longtime vocations director and University of Nebraska/Lincoln Newman chaplain, Msgr. Leonard Kalin, who died in 2008. The Lincoln Diocese has been known for its conservative stance, and for the number of vocations to the priesthood it has produced. Kalin was in this position for over 20 years, from the early 1970's to the 1990's.
I didn't attend UNL, so I don't claim firsthand knowledge of the Newman parish or the vocations program. However three of my siblings, one of my sons, and a whole boatload of nieces and nephews attended UNL. What my sisters and son describe during Msgr. Kalin's tenure was a gradual descent into a negative and rather toxic environment at the Newman Center. They described a "drinking culture" associated with it. They mostly preferred to go to Mass at one of the other parishes, and they didn't get involved in the Newman Center Activities. By the time the nieces and nephews were there, Msgr. Kalin was no longer there, but the girls especially described a "male chauvinist" culture, and an in-your-face evangelical style of engagement, which was a turn-off for them.
When I read the articles I linked above, I was shocked, and also glad that my family members hadn't been harmed. And I was sad for the seminarians and priests who had been harmed, and in some instances may have passed the harm on to others.
And this case was more personal. I knew Fr. Townsend, when we lived in the Lincoln Diocese in the early 1990s. He was an associate for two years in the parish we attended. We didn't have any indication that anything was amiss. He was a quiet, kind, and approachable person. When someone you don't like turns out to have issues, it's tempting to say, "I always knew something was 'off' about him." But it's harder when it's someone you thought well of.
I believe it is likely that these situations didn't develop overnight, that it was gradual. I'd like to think that no one goes into the priesthood intending to be a perpetrator or a victim of abuse.
And I have some anger about another matter. It isn't always easy living next door to one of the "most special dioceses". We in the Omaha and Grand Island dioceses have had it shoved in our faces pretty often, that if we were just more traditional and conservative, we would have plenty of vocations, too. To our Catholic brothers and sisters south of the Platte River, these kinds of things have happened everywhere, it isn't about being traditional or not. We're all going to have to figure out a way forward.
I think I understand the emotion, at least a bit. For a long time I had thought that Chicago was "special" (in a good way) in this regard. I had thought Cardinal Bernardin wanted to get out ahead of it. And maybe he wanted to, a little bit. But as more and more of the history came out, I've concluded that Chicago really isn't any better, and hopefully not much worse, than any other diocese.
ReplyDeleteI think it's just a demographic fact that, for every 100 men, four or five will be abusers. Perhaps more than that will have attractions to sexual abuse but will not act on the attraction. There is no detector that we can put on the seminary doorways that will make an alarm go off when someone prone to sexual abuse walks through it.
There is no blood test. To the best of my knowledge, there is no psychological test such that answering 200 multiple-choice questions will reveal who the potential abusers are.
Once abuse is reported, the bureaucratic tendency will always be to not act decisively or transparently about it. There is no upside to it. Dealing with it appropriately doesn't advance anyone's career; it generates bad publicity; it incurs legal fees; it makes insurance rates go up. It disrupts the other work that goes on in the parish and the diocese. It makes for awkward communiques to parishes to have to explain why Father B suddenly has fallen off the mass schedule and has moved out of the rectory. Much easier to give Father B a private tongue lashing and send him on his way. Or move him elsewhere. Or send him off for a bout of treatment an announce that he is "on sabbatical". No muss, no fuss.
And in a bureaucracy, sweeping something under the rug typically isn't an individual, isolated act; it requires complicity among two or more functionaries. And so, over time, webs of complicity are woven that bind entire groups and departments who have collaborated in hiding the issue.
The above is roughly true of any ordinary bureaucracy, whether it is a religious denomination, a corporation, a not-for-profit or a school district. Perhaps there are exceptional leaders here and there who are able to resist these tendencies but they are few and far between. And now add in the things that are sort of peculiar to Catholicism: the obsequiousness toward priests; the secretiveness of the confessional; the theology that the bishops and priests share a sacramental bond; the stresses of the severe shortage of priests and the commensurate high opportunity costs of taking a priest out of service; perhaps the dysfunctionalities of a closeted and sexually active gay subculture among priests - and, as we're learning now, bishops.
Anyway, I don't expect there are any exceptionally good dioceses or religious orders or what have you. Just some that now are more forthcoming than others.
Jim, I believe your take on the situation is accurate. It would be nice if there was some kind of "magic bullet" solution, but the truth is that there isn't. I guess in the end it's up to everyone to exercise due diligence.
DeleteI buy most of Jim's analysis here, but I would say that public school bureaucracies in my experience are LESS likely to clam up about abuse. It's because they are accountable to parents, and their butts can be voted off the board and sued if they cover things up.
DeleteKatherine, I recall reading, a long time ago, that one major reason the Lincoln Diocese had more "vocations" than others is because uber-conservative men who wanted to be priests chose their seminary over others, including local seminaries. Many came from out of the diocese, and from out of state.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately for the Catholic church, the younger priests (at this point that may mean younger than 40, or even 50) are heavily uber-conservative. More progressive young men seem not attracted to the priesthood in the church these days.
Can you blame them?
Anne, the Lincoln Diocese hasn't had their own seminary until fairly recently. St. Gregory the Great seminary in Seward, NE officially opened in 1998. They are an undergraduate seminary. Then there is the FSSP seminary in Denton, NE, Our Lady of Gaudalupe, in Denton, which opened in 2002, I think. They really don't get too many diocesan priests, they are run by the Priestly Society of St. Peter for the purpose of training priests for the old style Latin Mass. They get a lot of international students, but not many of them end up serving in Nebraska. Lincoln used to send their seminarians to St. Charles Borromeo in New York state, and St. Joseph in Dunwoodie, also NY. Those were pretty conservative, I think.
DeleteMost of Lincoln's recruits came from Nebraska, but what caused some hard feelings is that many of them were "poached" from the other two dioceses. UNL is the main campus of the University system in NE, and the students who attended there come from all over the state. Msgr. Kalin did some pretty aggressive recruiting. He would tell men that they didn't know that they "weren't" called to the priesthood until they went to seminary and tried it. There was of course a lot of attrition that way, but some of the candidates stuck with it. The two articles I linked detail some pretty dysfunctional behavior. I wouldn't have wanted my sons to have any part of it, not that there was any danger. (I would have been fine with them entering through the Omaha archdiocese; different seminaries, different system).
I don't want to leave the impression that all the Lincoln priests are messed up, most of them are good people, even though they lean a little too conservative for me.
Update to the above; at first St. Gregory the Great seminary only served Lincoln diocese, but now well over half the students are from other dioceses.
DeleteI agree, Katherine, that there just is no way to spot them. I knew, a little bit, two priests and a bishop who were disappeared for their sins. And was surprised. But the priest who would not have surprised me if he had been in the roll call is as pure as a mountain stream, according to people who would have been his most likely victims.
ReplyDeleteAnd you wonder how many priests are functioning, and how, with parishioners having them on the list of likelies... At least I do.
It is sad as well as bad.
"...the bureaucratic tendency will always be to not act decisively or transparently about it. There is no upside to it. Dealing with it appropriately doesn't advance anyone's career; it generates bad publicity; it incurs legal fees; it makes insurance rates go up. It disrupts the other work that goes on in the parish and the diocese."
ReplyDeleteNot to start a fight, Deacon Jim, but that is exactly why class action suits -- which Federalist Society judges are trying valiantly to reign in -- are necessary, even if corporate interests hate to get involved in them. (Full disclosure: There is a lawyer in the family. Fuller disclosure: I figured out what I just said as a reporter in western Kentucky in the early 1960s.)
It's a sad and maddening fact that the only two institutions that have proven effective at holding dioceses accountable are the media and the courts.
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