For those of us in the US, expectations for February's worldwide summit have risen dramatically since the unexpected, last-minute intervention by the Holy See into the proceedings of last month's meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The American bishops, feeling the heat from the media, government investigators and their own people, had come into that November meeting determined to enact a series of measures that would demonstrate to a watching country that they were equal to the challenge of decisively addressing the cluster of crises. Under the leadership of Cardinal DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, a package of legislation had been prepared for the American bishops to vote on. But on the eve of the meeting, the Holy See contacted Cardinal DiNardo and instructed the American bishops not to adopt any measures until the February summit in Rome could consider the matter from a universal perspective. Cardinal Cupich urged the American bishops to go forward with discussing the American proposals, and voting on them, not to enact legislation but to signal to the Holy See and the world what the mind of the American bishops was on the crises. But that effort fizzled, and the American bishops emerged from their meeting with nothing, either concrete or symbolic, to announce to the world. Both the American conference and the Holy See were heavily criticized for their inability to do anything. There is a real sense that, should the February worldwide summit similarly fizzle, that would be a blow from which the American church may be unable to recover.
Against that background, Allen's article is not a sign of hope. He notes that the bishops of the world are not of one mind:
what you have is roughly one-third of the bishops of the world who’ve experienced the “crisis,” in the sense of media pressure, lawsuits, stiff financial settlements, high-profile prosecutions, advocacy groups and so on, and who grasp instinctively the need for the Church to adopt “best practices” in the anti-abuse fight.
Then you’ve got about two-thirds of the world’s bishops, many from developing nations in the global south, who’ve never experienced the “crisis” in that sense. Many are convinced that their cultures don’t harbor the problem to the same extent, and they resent the way that Western discussions of abuse scandals overshadow their own concerns and priorities. They question the need for their nations to make a priority out of something many of them regard as a geographically and culturally limited phenomenon.Allen provides some further analysis as to why not all the bishops are on board. He ends the piece with half a loaf: talking about what is possible, including a new set of measures to hold bishops accountable. Let us pray and hope that the summit at least accomplishes that.
It is not at all surprising to me that all the world's bishops are not on board with a universal policy, given the cultural and economic differences of the various countries. Why do they all have to be in agreement, given that right now it is an impossibility? The ones who do agree could hammer out something analogous to, say, the Paris Accords. It could be a summary of "best practices", in which the signatories worked to bring the others on board over time.
ReplyDeleteI don't for a moment believe that sexual abuse of minors is something that is just a "Western problem". The non-agreeing bishops are in denial, and are going to get burned. But the pressure is going to have to come from their own people, as well as Rome.
I don't see why this is the hill the American church has to die on. That others are dragging their heels doesn't mean that we can't enact and enforce best practices here.
Katherine, I'm sure you're right that any bishop that is not seeing how this can apply to him is in denial. To Tom's point: I'd think that any bishop who is in a precarious position because of a hostile government or a competing majority religion in his territory, would have *more* incentive to ensure that this issue does not come home to roost with him.
DeleteAs for our choosing this hill to die on: the hard fact is that our bishops are legally unable to fix this issue themselves (when I say "legally unable", I am referring to church law, not civil law). As a rule of thumb, bishops can oversee other bishops only to the extent that Rome permits it. And perhaps that statement provides the seed for a solution: Rome could legally cede to national conferences the authority to regulate and discipline local bishops on this matter.
I can work up some sympathy with the bishops who, thinking they have no problem with sex abuse, fret about what their governments would do to the church if there were mandatory reporting where they are. I am familiar with the way Hitler and, especially, Julius Streicher blew up sexual abuses to separate the Church from its congregants in Nazi Germany. Imagine what Trump's buddy Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines -- who has already urged Catholics to boycott the Mass because he doesn't like what the bishops said about him -- would do with self-reported crimes.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, the countries where the problem is big enough to be acknowledged, or so well known that it can no longer be denied, are very important to the Church. And they are losing Catholics. Those Third World bishops who, with Third World press corps, can say they have no problem, live off money provided by the countries where the problem is most acute. Geez, if they can't see that, how can they preach the communion of saints, which is not as blatantly obvious? As they say in First Aid, stop the bleeding.
Yeah, bring the dubious along. But don't stop the treatment because of the laggards.
"don't stop the treatment because of the laggards."
DeleteExactly. There is no reason that this has to be all-or-nothing, i.e. either all bishops must cooperate with civil authorities, or none may. Give local bishops or their national conferences the leeway to determine whether their local governments will cooperate in good faith. And beyond that, mandated reporting is just one plank in the overall solution. Mandated reporting certainly isn't a cure-all, even in countries like ours with (mostly) trustworthy legal systems. To point out one obvious constraint, statutes of limitation prevent secular authorities from pursuing cases that have aged beyond the statutory time limit.
If clericalism, the abuse of power, is at the heart of the sexual abuse problem, then the problem is universal, even though it may take different forms in different cultures.
ReplyDeleteClericalism is definitely a problem in Latin America. Up until the explosion in Chile, most of the Latin American bishops, including Francis, were in denial about child sexual abuse.
In a book written in 2010, Francis said a priest who is incapable of observing celibacy should return to the lay state — better a good layman than a bad priest. No girlfriend on the side. No housekeeper “with benefits.” No hidden family. “The double life is no good for us,” he wrote. “I don’t like it because it means building on falsehood.” The problem that Francis, and other bishops were aware of was adult sexual abuse, i.e. the double life, even though there was not much public discussion of it.
There are similar and perhaps more extensive problems in Africa with adult sexual abuse, especially of priests who coerce women religious because they are concerned about contracting aids. India may have a similar problem of abuse of nuns.
Of course in this country we have heard very little about adult heterosexual abuse by priests, but it certainly exists, is probably extensive, and is only awaiting disclosure.
Again if one assumes clericalism is a major contributing factor, this problem is not going to go away anytime soon. I wish people at the parish level would stop being in denial about clericalism. That is something we can work on without waiting for bishops or Rome.
Jack, how can the people in the parish impact clericalism at the chancery and Vatican levels?
ReplyDeleteThe situation that Allen describes in the Crux article strikes me as, if not an indictment of synodality, at least a glimpse of its limits.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we could say that the church is still figuring out synodality: it reverts to a strong-central-government (ultramontanist?) model when it doesn't need to, as with the preparation of the new missal translation.
And now with the abuse crisis, when decisive action by a strong chief executive seems to be called for, the church pursues a synodal approach that, in Allen's telling, may not be up to the task of adequately addressing the problem at hand.
To be sure, we saw decisive executive-branch action when the Holy See intervened in the American bishops' meeting last month. Whether that rather unilateral action helped or hindered in addressing the crisis is not completely clear.
The basic governance model of the Holy See is still one that many would consider ultramontanist: near-unlimited power still is vested with the Supreme Pontiff. He doesn't need a summit in February to address the issue of clerical sexual abuse. And if he deems it prudent to have the summit, he has all the authority he needs to direct its outcome. I suppose what I'm saying is that the ball is very much in Francis's court right now. If Jack is right that the Chilean explosion was a wake-up call for Francis, then this is his opportunity to confirm that he's truly "woke" now when it comes to clerical sexual abuse. If he allows developing-world bishops to derail this process of reform, either through their passive disinterest or their active hostility, then I think we would have to conclude that Francis sides with them - because he could, with a few spoken words or the stroke of a pen, override any resistance to a program of reform.
Jim, I think you're right that the church is still figuring out synodality. There's definitely a time and place for it, but this may not be it.
DeleteAnd what do you do about involving the civil authorities in locations where they have given good cause for people not to trust them?
It seems to me that a national conference of bishops can address the sexual abuse problem more effectively than relying on the Vatican which would entail global edicts. Our government is not trying to control religion like China is. We can afford to be more open here. Call it local adaptation.
DeleteWe weren't exactly hitting home runs before Francis tried to install synodality. I mean, it's not like we could get back to some kind of good old days by dropping synods, since this problem festered under a one-man-band form of papacy. Our dutiful bishops, who got where they are by obeying orders conspicously, probably are not good materal for synodalists.
DeleteA while back we were discussing church files and records; and were saying that sometimes stuff gets kept way beyond what would be necessary. Well, here is a primo example. Our archdiocese has been in the process of turning over files to the state attorney general. According to this article in this morning's regional news, it has taken 7 people 2 months to go through 50 feet of files. Everything was turned over which had any mention of any impropriety. It sounded really bad that there were 100 instances in addition to the 38 that were already turned over, until I read that some of the records went back to the Louisiana Purchase, and were written in either Latin or French. Gee, do you think 213 years is a little overkill? At least it proves that there were some problems pre-dating Vatican II, when things supposedly got all loosey-goosey.
ReplyDelete213 year old cases seem silly, but at least the diocese can't be accused of hiding any records. The claim of "secret archives" plays to the latent anti-Catholic bias that still lives on in our country.
DeleteA counter-narrative has been in play this year about the crisis. Its main theme is that homosexuality, not clericalism, is the chief cause of the crisis. Personally, I believe that, on the whole, that counter-narrative is essentially false - although homosexuality certainly is a factor in the McCarrick cases. But in fact the McCarrick cases also are instances of clericalism, manifesting itself in a homosexual way.
ReplyDeleteBut the counter-narrative goes far beyond McCarrick - it claims that any instance of a cleric abusing a male is an instance of homosexuality - even if the victim is a 12 year old boy. And of course that claim ignores the many instances in which females, both minors and adults, have been victimized by clergy. It also sullies the reputations of those gay clerics who have remained faithful to their vows.
I hope Francis will have little or no patience with that counter-narrative during the summit.
That counter-narrative also conflates homosexuality with pedophilia. I don't have the statistics close at hand, but I have read that the percentage of homosexual people who are pedophiles is about the same as that of heterosexuals who are pedophiles. Bottom line, it is pedophilia which is the pathology.
DeleteLately Pope Francis has taken some heat because he said that individuals with a homosexual orientation who aren't willing to live chaste lives shouldn't be in the priesthood. To which I thought "Duh!", especially since he said the same thing about hetersexuals.
"Hetersexuals" should be heterosexuals.
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