The Church Crisis: Where Are We Now?
The archived program is available through the above link; my comments in italics below the break.
Juan Carlos Cruz
Juan Carlos Cruz is a survivors’ advocate from Chile whose complaints were initially dismissed by Pope Francis. During a week of meetings at the Vatican, the pope subsequently apologized to Cruz during their first three-hour, one-on-one meeting.
Cruz was very impressive, especially given that he was on stage with “experts” such as Peter, John Allen and McChesney. He named names, accusing Burke and Chaput of weaponizing the sexual abuse issue in their opposition to Pope Francis. He did not let Lori get away with his “learning curve” apology. Rape of a child is, has been and always will be immoral and a crime.
Kathleen McChesney
Kathleen McChesney, a former FBI executive assistant director, who was recruited by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to help the Church investigate victim allegations and to establish its “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”
McChesney underlined the importance of what laity are doing and can do in this area, that we are dealing with criminal behavior in the sexual abuse of children and law enforcement has the tools. She lamented that they were not as eager to use them back in 2002 when they might have been more effective since many of the offending bishops were still in office. She lamented the fact that there is still a long backlog of cases in Rome for removal of abusers from the priesthood. However she did not suggest the obvious need to expedite these cases by trials here in the USA. If you can now get an annulment here why not a defrocking?
She was the only person on the panel that even briefly touched upon what I think will become the defining issue in the coming decade, the sexual abuse of adult women. Why do we have so much abuse of male children? Because the abuse of women occurred most among adults including staff and persons seeking counseling. Yes we need to have women more involved in leadership on this issue as Cruz suggested.
Peter Steinfels
Peter Steinfels, a Chicago native with a doctoral degree from Columbia University, is a lifelong journalist and educator who has written for Commonweal since 1964, authored the “Beliefs” column for The New York Times from 1990 to 2010 and wrote a lengthy review of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report on Church misconduct.
Peter rested too much on his laurels from criticizing the PA report. Peter recognizes that the crisis in America is now in the hands of the legal system rather than the bishops. Rocco Palmo has summarized this well in his Crisis Digest.. What the panel made clear is that American Catholics are looking for LAY leadership. What can they (we) do? That has to be something more that defending the bishops against the legal system. Cruz got the message across to Peter that the rise and fall of sexual abuse in the USA is not likely a world pattern.
Archbishop William E. Lori
Archbishop William E. Lori has served as Archbishop of Baltimore since 2012.
Although Lori spent too much time defending himself with his learning curve, he seems to have recognized that he needs Catholic laity, more specifically that he needs the expertise of Catholics who are not employees of Church. I was surprised that he invited Marie Collins when she came to Baltimore to meet with his diocesan task force on this sexual abuse issue. Now if bishops would only begin to ask survivors in the USA to help them design their protocols!
The real question is how do we implement synodal government in the American Church in regards to all issues. That will mean that laity will be voices at the table when issues are discussed. That those voices will be a diverse group of people that get beyond the lay employees and that advocacy groups on the right and left. That also means that we must evolve new synodal methods like the German bishops are considering. Is there some way that bishops and laity can sit down and come to a binding agreement about what needs to be done? Or are the bishops always going to be going into executive session to have the real discussion and make the decisions?
Juan Carlos Cruz is a survivors’ advocate from Chile whose complaints were initially dismissed by Pope Francis. During a week of meetings at the Vatican, the pope subsequently apologized to Cruz during their first three-hour, one-on-one meeting.
Cruz was very impressive, especially given that he was on stage with “experts” such as Peter, John Allen and McChesney. He named names, accusing Burke and Chaput of weaponizing the sexual abuse issue in their opposition to Pope Francis. He did not let Lori get away with his “learning curve” apology. Rape of a child is, has been and always will be immoral and a crime.
Kathleen McChesney
Kathleen McChesney, a former FBI executive assistant director, who was recruited by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to help the Church investigate victim allegations and to establish its “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”
McChesney underlined the importance of what laity are doing and can do in this area, that we are dealing with criminal behavior in the sexual abuse of children and law enforcement has the tools. She lamented that they were not as eager to use them back in 2002 when they might have been more effective since many of the offending bishops were still in office. She lamented the fact that there is still a long backlog of cases in Rome for removal of abusers from the priesthood. However she did not suggest the obvious need to expedite these cases by trials here in the USA. If you can now get an annulment here why not a defrocking?
She was the only person on the panel that even briefly touched upon what I think will become the defining issue in the coming decade, the sexual abuse of adult women. Why do we have so much abuse of male children? Because the abuse of women occurred most among adults including staff and persons seeking counseling. Yes we need to have women more involved in leadership on this issue as Cruz suggested.
Peter Steinfels
Peter Steinfels, a Chicago native with a doctoral degree from Columbia University, is a lifelong journalist and educator who has written for Commonweal since 1964, authored the “Beliefs” column for The New York Times from 1990 to 2010 and wrote a lengthy review of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report on Church misconduct.
Peter rested too much on his laurels from criticizing the PA report. Peter recognizes that the crisis in America is now in the hands of the legal system rather than the bishops. Rocco Palmo has summarized this well in his Crisis Digest.. What the panel made clear is that American Catholics are looking for LAY leadership. What can they (we) do? That has to be something more that defending the bishops against the legal system. Cruz got the message across to Peter that the rise and fall of sexual abuse in the USA is not likely a world pattern.
Archbishop William E. Lori
Archbishop William E. Lori has served as Archbishop of Baltimore since 2012.
Although Lori spent too much time defending himself with his learning curve, he seems to have recognized that he needs Catholic laity, more specifically that he needs the expertise of Catholics who are not employees of Church. I was surprised that he invited Marie Collins when she came to Baltimore to meet with his diocesan task force on this sexual abuse issue. Now if bishops would only begin to ask survivors in the USA to help them design their protocols!
The real question is how do we implement synodal government in the American Church in regards to all issues. That will mean that laity will be voices at the table when issues are discussed. That those voices will be a diverse group of people that get beyond the lay employees and that advocacy groups on the right and left. That also means that we must evolve new synodal methods like the German bishops are considering. Is there some way that bishops and laity can sit down and come to a binding agreement about what needs to be done? Or are the bishops always going to be going into executive session to have the real discussion and make the decisions?
John Allen, the editor of Crux, will serve as moderator of the Sept. 25 event.
A can’t-miss moment on the abuse crisis looms under the Golden Dome
In conjunction with this, Notre Dame released a new study:
Notre Dame releases study on sexual harassment among U.S. seminarians
Perhaps the reason they found so little harassment according to Rocco
As harassment/misconduct probes continue at several top US seminaries, new Notre Dame/CARA study commissioned post-McCarrick revelations finds 76% of sems report “little or no problem”... however, only half of the seminaries allowed students to respond
Lori has no credibility - it's a travesty to have him there. His handling of the WVA bishop (including accepting cash payments from him and then failing to list in his report the names of the bishops, including himself, who had received such "gifts") should be enough to disqualify him from participating in these events.
ReplyDeleteGeorgetown also hosts many events of interest. Most are not livestreamed, but are available on video later.
https://catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu/
https://catholicsocialthought.georgetown.edu/topics/public-dialogues
Unfortunately for the bishops, he is the face of the metropolitan model with all its drawbacks. I hope the audience we not let him off the hook.
DeleteI am not sure there is an American bishop who is not a problem. There are even some questions about O'Malley. Notre Dame is going to have Archbishop Scicluna from the Vatican on November 13th.