Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference, announced his resignation Tuesday, after The Pillar found evidence the priest engaged in serial sexual misconduct, while he held a critical oversight role in the Catholic Church’s response to the recent spate of sexual abuse and misconduct scandals.
Pillar Investigates: USCCB gen sec Burrill resigns after sexual misconduct allegations
In November 2020, Burrill was elected by the U.S. bishops to a five-year term as the conference’s general secretary. As general secretary, Burrill “coordinates all administrative matters of the Conference and is responsible for the coordination of the work of the Conference Committees and staff. He likewise directs and coordinates the planning and operational activities of the various secretariats and offices in support of the work of the Conference,” according to a USCCB press release.
N.B. THIS GUY WAS ELECTED BY THE BISHOPS. LIKE WITH MCCARICK THERE ARE GOING TO BE A LOT OF QUESTIONS ABOUT WHO KNEW OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS EXTENSIVE HISTORY OF SEXUAL ACTIVITY
According to Rocco, this is a very important
Going forward, the US bench faces a defining choice – either the next GS is a return to history in a bishop already vetted by Rome… or something new takes over 4th St: a lay(wo)man with nothing to lose.
For context, having just been elected GS last November, Burrill’s transition into his 5-year term barely finished; with his departure & his just-chosen deputy, Fr Michael Fuller, now named interim GS (& needing his own #2), the usual continuity/institutional memory are blown out.
The Grindr app and similar hookup apps use mobile device location data to allow users to see a listing of other nearby users of the app, to chat and exchange images with nearby users within the app, or to arrange a meeting for the sake of an anonymous sexual encounter..
This article is quite an education on the use of the Grindr app and the ability of news organizations to purchase public data that can then be linked to an extensive pattern of behavior. Also an education on its use in recruiting under age adolescents. Also details of the Pillar's attempt to meet with the bishops on this issue.
What is the Pillar?
Welcome to The Pillar.
We’re a Catholic media project focused on smart, faithful, and serious journalism, from committed and informed Catholics who love the Church.
Our focus is on investigative journalism, which is how we’ll spend most of our time. We think investigating stories that matter can help the Church to better serve its sacred mission, the salvation of souls.
As we work on investigative projects, we’ll also produce analyses, explainers, and podcasts, and we’ll send them to you.
We will need to rely on journalists to investigate whether there is any record of previous misconduct or red flags.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, the Archdiocese does a criminal background check on me periodically - I think it is annually. But as the article notes, some of what this guy allegedly did is not criminal so a background check may not yield any results.
Well more than journalists may become involved, e.g. lawyers for underage victims. They could go the same route as the journalists to build a case against the monsignor. And, of course, they could turn the matter over to the police for investigation.
DeleteWhen it comes to the age of sexual victims, I have been told that the age of consent is determined by the residence of the victim not where the act took place. So the monsignor might have crossed the (state) line without knowing it
Obviously the monsignor is involved in sexual addiction which is incompatible with active ministry. It is not like he made a one time mistake, or even has a mistaken relationship to a person. Addicts often have a long path to recovery.
You presented a lot of material in this post, and I may not have absorbed all the details, but from what I understood, he isn't accused of having sex, or any sort of inappropriate relationship, with minors (or anyone else) - yet. I guess the evidence gathered by ProPublica really consists of packets of information indicating where his cell phone was at any given date and time. To be sure, some of that evidence seems pretty damning (e.g. what was he doing in a Las Vegas bathhouse? Presumably not hearing confessions). Even having that app on his cell phone is pretty damning.
DeleteRe: sexual addiction: I'll defer to you on the clinical side. What interests me in this is: where does mental illness stop and sin begin? Part of the story of the American church leadership's failure to deal with the sexual abuse of minors during our lifetimes has been church leaders being overly deferential to clinical judgments, as when an offending priest would be shipped off to a treatment center for a few months, deemed to have his problem under control, and then returned to active ministry. Those disastrous decisions (which were made by bishops and their staff, not clinicians) were based on clinical judgments, or at least covered with the fig leaf of clinical judgments. They didn't give due consideration to the persistence of sinfulness.
The world is full of men who have made promises of fidelity. Some men abide by those promises. Many don't. Why do some men keep their promises and others don't? What separates those two categories, and what role does sin play in that separation?
I mistakenly mentioned ProPublica in my previous comment. I guess it was The Pillar who did this (really impressive!) investigative journalism.
DeleteFrom what I can tell, this is what The Pillar did: Grindr apparently sells its users' data to third parties. Let us just pause to think about that for a minute: I think Grindr is a hookup app. What companies market goods or services to consumers who are known to use apps to seek anonymous sex hookups? The possibilities are creepy. But setting that aside: apparently, the data Grindr makes available includes the identity of the consumer, or at least provides enough info (e.g. cell phone IP address?) to allow a third party to associate the cell phone with the cell phone's owner, perhaps by correlating it with other publicly-available data sets, also available to purchase. I've read that marketers can do this correlation, using data from our cell phones, our credit cards, government sources, and other sources of data. They use that data to build profiles of us - our demographics, our consumer behavior, and so on.
So it seems The Pillar bought this publicly-available Grindr data from Grindr (e.g. "this cell phone was in Las Vegas on 6/21/2019 at 11:49 pm"), and did the requisite detective work to associate those bits and bytes with Burrill's identity.
If that can happen to Burrill, then marketers, governments and other parties, some benign and some not, presumably can do the same thing for us. I assume none of us have the Grindr app on our cell phones, but I do have all sorts of other apps, and probably the rest of us do, too. Privacy is a fiction.
Of course privacy is a fiction. We give it up for the convenience of using the internet.
DeleteI don't use many apps. But, if I was up to something that I didn't want tracked, I would use a "burner" phone. Anyone whoever watches TV or movies that include police procedurals or spy stories would know that the 'burner" phone is SOP for bad guys!
Subscribing to a VPN at home on your internet also helps to thwart tracking by hiding your IP address. Or, you could just move from location to location away from home/office. Less convenient than a VPN. If you don't want anyone digging up your grocery list someday (an insurance company wanting to deny coverage for your heart attack because you lived on a diet of fatty junk food?) just give a false phone # so that you can get the card that gives you the discount. In order not to have them disturb others thinking it's my phone #, I always use a 555 in the middle of the phone # because real phone #s don't have that (also seen in cop shows when they display the phone # of the bad guy they are tracking)
P.S. A tip from the SOP of the national security community. When my husband or I had to visit a national security agency property, or sometimes the properties of some of the contractors who do the work, we often had to leave our phones with a security officer at the entrance (partly because of video capability in phones and partly because they could be hacked to overhear discussions). Sometimes (if the phone had no video, as was the case with our first mobile phones) we could take out the battery and leave that with the security officer.
DeleteThe major problem was arriving back at your car, or worse, your own home or office, and then remembering where your phone is. Back in the car......
If you turn off your phone(power it down) it is still tracked. The only way to prevent that is to take the battery out.
Hello - I mentioned in a previous comment that I thought the Pillar's investigative job was "impressive". As a technical feat, perhaps that's a fair characterization. But I've subsequently learned that it seems to have been prompted by a motive which I consider unadmirable: the desire by some unidentified party or parties to "out" gay priests who are sexually active. Whoever these persons are, they are using cell phone tracking data to stalk/surveil priests whom they've targeted. Apparently, Burrill (and others) are targets of these persons because these priests are suspected of being gay.
DeleteI'd much prefer that priests (and everyone else) abide by the sacred promises they've made. If Burrill has a psychological malady such as sex addiction, I don't think it's wrong per se to remove him from ministry while he gets treatment, or perhaps while his superiors make a dispositive decision about his future in ministry.
I consider gay priests being targeted for what seems to be a malicious purpose to be a different, and arguably worse, sin.
The availability of cell phone usage data which enables others to invade our privacy is yet another issue which this episode brings to light. I just went into my settings and removed a whole bunch of settings which would enable marketers (and others) to see where I spend my time. I doubt I'm completely anonymous now, but hopefully I made their snooping at least a bit harder.
The basic problem is that the contemporary church does not have an effective system for detecting when priests are in trouble, e.g. they have a health condition or an addiction that threatens their ministry.
ReplyDeleteIn Canon Law this is supposed to be done by the Vicars Forane, i.e. heads of a deanery. Can 555 says they are to see that clerics in their distict lead a life befitting their state, and discharge their obligations carefully, to provide them with spiritual assistance when they are in difficult circumstances, and to aid them when they are seriously ill.
THIS SYSTEM SIMPLY IS NOT WORKING IN MOST DIOCESES. When I was involved in Voice of the Faithful, a local priest canon lawyer essentially said that we laity should be suiting our bishops in ecclesial court for their failure to implement this system.
I guess most bishops would say they have a Vicar for Clergy who essentially is supposed to do this rather than a whole bunch of deans who are responsible for far less people.
Canon law is really a marvelous thing, too bad it is often ignored. But it is there. We are a church of law; bishops cannot do whatever they want.
Absent reports to bishops by witnesses, I don't think it's realistic for a bishop or whoever is delegated on his behalf to be aware of misdeeds by subordinates who are determined not to get caught.
DeleteIn Burrill's case, I don't think I read that there were any previous accusations made to church authorities against him. From what I can tell, The Pillar did some pretty impressive investigative journalism to figure out what was going on, and they alerted the USCCB. How did The Pillar get on to the story? I assume someone tipped them off, which would mean that at least one other person was aware of what Burrill was up to. But whether anyone had previously notified the USCCB or the La Crosse diocese - I think that still needs to be understood.
This guy Burrill is in a great position to get away with misdeeds. He belongs to a diocese which is literally a thousand miles away from the USCCB offices in Washington DC. Under church law, his bishop in La Crosse is responsible for him. But there is no practical way that bishop can be aware of what he is up to. And in his role as general secretary, it seems he traveled extensively, making it even easier for him to evade detection.
Clergy who get themselves stationed outside their home diocese, without getting incardinated into the new diocese, is one of the situations which abusers have exploited to evade oversight. One can easily imagine the finger-pointing in the Burrill case: the USCCB would say, "Hey, La Crosse bishop: he's your priest. It's your job to keep track of him." And simultaneously, the La Crosse bishop is saying, "Hey, USCCB: he worked for you. It's your job to keep track of him."
Your bishop should give you some kind of award for loyalty, Jim. You can be counted on to always defend the hierarchy/clergy, or at least come up with a feasible list of excuses for their behavior.
DeleteThe man hasn't been proven guilty of anything, so far, except perhaps, hypocrisy, if the inferences about his lifestyle are true. This is so often the case with professional religious in the RCC, and most other religions - rank hypocrisy. Does he confess his liaisons (assuming they exist) every week, get absolution, and go his merry way until the next confession before the next time he goes to communion?
The surveys of the "nones" who believe in God and pray but don't belong to a religious congregation indicate that the major turn-off for them is the hypocrisy they see in institutional religion, among the clergy and among the individual members of the congregation.
Hi Anne - on the charge of loving the church, I do plead guilty.
DeleteBut in the comment to which you're replying, I don't think I'm excusing or defending anything.
My first comment was in reply to Jack's observation that "the basic problem is that the contemporary church does not have an effective system for detecting when priests are in trouble". In reply, I offered one set of reasons (there could be others) as to why Burrill's issues weren't detected by his superiors. Jack notes that the heads of a deaneries are responsible for this duty of detection. If the dean is in La Crosse and Burrill is in Washington DC or Las Vegas, how is the dean supposed to detect anything about Burrill? Jack points out that this system doesn't work. I think I'm agreeing with him.
Given the patterns of behavior that we have seen in the church hierarchy and clergy for decades, do you think that if anyone who worked with Burrell or any other priest at the USCCB had suspicions about behavior that they would report them to his dean in another state? Or would they just shrug their shoulders and ignore it, because of clerical loyalty and because they just don’t want to get involved? The system gives them an easy out.
DeleteDoes love for the church mandate defending it under all circumstances? Perhaps real love would mean confronting reality, and not looking for excuses. Loyalty to God should come before loyalty to the institution. It is that misguided loyalty, written into the oaths taken by bishops, cardinals and priests ( which include secrecy) that created these scandals, especially the coverups.
At last you agree with Jack that the system doesn’t work. A beginning.
Sometimes I wonder about what goes through the minds of priests who engage in this kind of behavior. They take incredible chances. Frequenting gay bars is an easy route to being “ outed”. Having a gay “ Dating” app - any kind of dating app - on your phone or laptop is another giveaway, unless one is prepared to spend a lot of effort hiding screens from casual passers by.
ReplyDeleteDoes clericalism play a role? Thousands of priests got away with molesting minors for years and years. Many of their fellow priests were suspicious or simply looked away and kept silent. Bishops had reports and either ignored them or quietly transferred the molesters to new parishes. A priest in Canada reported a fellow priest’s porn addiction ( for young boys) to his Bishop. Nothing happened. The priest who reported him to the Bishop never reported him to either the civil authorities or the press. He kept his mouth shut, a good, obedient cleric. He probably figured that he had done what he could. Later, the porn addicted priest became a bishop. He was finally stopped - arrested by Canadian authorities upon returning from one of his many trips to Thailand, where many children are sold into prostitution by their parents. Gay “ entertainment “ featuring young boys, sex with young boys.
A one- time chaplain at my children’s Catholic high school was assigned to a parish later. In “ counseling “ a parishioner he had an affair with her. It became news when her husband filed a lawsuit against the Bishop after his wife, mother of their four children, ran away with the priest, now pregnant with his child. The husband had complained to the Bishop about his suspicions. A fellow priest in the rectory had reported the affair earlier to the Bishop. Nothing was done by the Bishop. The husband lost his legal case. As you know, there are countless stories of priests protecting other priests, and if bishops failing to act against priests whose actions are reported, either by a lay person or a priest who “ catches” the offender and reports him to the Bishop. Ironically, the next chaplain at my kids’ Catholic high school died of an unspecified illness in his 40s, which the kids all assumed was AIDS, as they had realized the priest as gay while he was still their chaplain. No rumors of him ever soliciting one of the high school students at least.
Clericalism. - the belief, reinforced by church teaching, that anyone who is ordained is set above others and will be protected by their clerical fraternity if they violate either civil or church laws - is at the heart of these scandals. Assuming this man didn’t solicit sex with minors ( as did the one time Bishop in the Dominican Republic, and his top aide) and didn’t pay for sex he wouldn’t violate civil laws. He may have assumed that his personal transgressions would not be revealed by his fellow clerics if they discovered it. Look how long McCarrick got away with it, even though his habit of taking seminarians to his beach house and being one bed short each time, was pretty widely known in DC, and, I suppose, wherever he was before DC.
So, Jack is obviously right. The system doesn’t work. And if the church doesn’t stop teaching that priests/ordained clerics are ontologically superior to the rest of humanity, the system will never work.
In 1980, which was roughly the year that clerical sexual abuse of minors peaked in the US, there still were enough priests in active service that most diocesan priests lived in rectories, in community with one or two or three other priests. In such a communal lifestyle, it's relatively difficult for a priest to have a "secret life" without arousing suspicion.
DeleteToday, there are so few priests that many of them now live by themselves. Many, perhaps most, parishes are staffed by a single priest - in many cases, a single priest is responsible for two or more parishes. The standard "best practice" of diocesan priests living communally has deteriorated.
I think my pastor is a good guy. But he lives by himself. I am in his house maybe once or twice a year. I couldn't swear in court what he is up to when he is home. I have no reason to think he is up to anything in particular. But I don't have certain knowledge, or even a whiff of a suspicion.
Everyone swears that mandatory celibacy isn't to blame for the sex scandals. Okay. I'll leave that to the social scientists to argue. But this is the thought that comes up in my mind. The sex drive is a powerful force. It has to be, to ensure the survival of a species. If people don't have a good outlet for it, some of them are going to be tempted to find a bad outlet.
DeleteI think after Vatican II and a better historical knowledge of the introduction of mandatory celibacy in the 12th century, a lot of hetero priests thought that a married priesthood was around the corner. When that didn't happen, they jumped ship. Also, celibacy doesn't equal or guarantee holiness. I think they knew that, too. After that, the priestly demographics changed. That's my theory, at any rate.
DeleteI was an altar boy for nearly a decade. The only problem I detected was one case of alcoholism. Not a sniff of sexual misconduct. Also, at that time, there were five priests in my urban-like suburban parish. I think being part of a community was a help.
DeleteSam Sawyer has a good article on the complexity of issues, technical and moral ( including journalism ethics and morals) related to the Burrill resignation at the America website. Sawyer notes that there is no information about who paid for the data set.
ReplyDeleteThe technical explanation he gives on how the tracking operation may have been done is quite interesting.
I suspect a whole lot of people may be frantically changing their privacy settings. But Sawyer points out that there is already years of tracking data out there that can be used. According to Sawyer, it costs a lot of $ to buy this type of data. An obvious temptation for billionaires hoping to knock out politicians they don’t like to help those they prefer. Religious leaders across the spectrum of religions may also be worried. Perhaps this sad case will prompt congress to take real action on privacy. But if they do, wanting to protect themselves, they also lose a weapon against their opponents. I am well aware of how political campaigns buy data to target voters. But to uncover scandals by using this cellphone data is pretty complicated. It would be used to target individuals, not to send political messages to voters.
Interesting.