Benedict and the Scandal (Mark Shea comments on Rod Dreher remarks)

Inside Catholic ^ | April 23, 2008 | Mark Shea

[NYer]

Now that Benedict has come and gone we are in the thick of media analysis of the meaning of it all. Many folk (Rod Dreher is a notable example) were (as I expected) disappointed because the pope didn't "do something" about bishops who have, to say the least, not particularly distinguished themselves in the Scandal. Dreher wanted a "read them the riot act" moment. Others scattered around the secular and mainstream media talked about Benedict "firing" them and so forth.

The pope, as you might expect, addressed the bishops and (as you also might expect given his high degree of commitment to dialog with any person of good will or even not-so-good will) his talk wound up being a mixture of his thoughts and attempts to engage the often dim-witted drivel of the USCCB functionaries upon whom he depends for information about what's going on in the USCCB. But though he made clear that sometimes sexual abuse cases had been very badly handled by our bishops, there was no Riot Act Reading. Compounding this, for Dreher, was the reaction of our dim-witted functionaries, which was predictably less-than-stellar (not to say vaguely nauseating). Dreher mentioned Bishop Tod Brown, who offered the usual disingenuous smarm that he learned from his master, the even more egregious and untrustworthy Cardinal Mahony. Both Brown and Mahony are textbook examples of just about everything that is wrong with the USCCB's response to the crisis of sexual abuse in the Church.  All this bugs Dreher and he expresses his disappointment with Benedict (though, to be fair, he was also very delighted to see Benedict meet with abuse victims and gave him his due).

The thing is, I'm not sure what Dreher and many others think should have happened between Benedict and the bishops. But then I haven't thought Dreher has had a realistic grasp of the options the pope has in this matter since the beginning. Dreher began his quarrel with the papacy on this matter when, as he famously said, the pope "let us down" by not dismissing a bunch of bishops "with the stroke of a pen." Life for Dreher since then has constituted the never-ending encounter with the fact that this entire perception of what the pope could or would do was wholly unrealistic.

As I've argued repeatedly, anybody who has read and internalized Ut Unum Sint could not be surprised when the pope with the most Eastern conception of the papacy in a thousand years did not regard it as his role to micromanage the American Church. Likewise, John Paul II's successor, Benedict, for all his fury at the Scandal (and it is real fury, not feigned for the cameras) is also constrained by the fact that, at the end of the day, he is bound to his commitment to regard himself as first among equals, not as The Guy Ordained by God to Tell All the Other Bishops to Obey Him or Hit The Road. His mission is to strengthen the brethren, not lay about him with mace and cudgel. Both his office and his personality are wholly arrayed against this highly American desire to "fix" everything with a cathartic gust of rage.

Moreover, the crowning paradox of Dreher's position is that, having left the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy in large part because of the Scandal, he is now in communion with bishops who would take it very ill if the pope were to do what Dreher so much wants him to do. It's one of the most puzzling aspects of Dreher's position and I hope that one of these days he will articulate how he can simultaneously hold an Orthodox ecclesiology and still want Benedict (or any pope) to act like Innocent III. I honestly don't get it.

Meanwhile, from where I sit it seems we are left with this:

 

Failing to summarily fire bishops whom even we laypeople (who own all the guns, run all the police forces, staff all the courts, and manage all the jails) have not opted to charge with any crimes, what is it we laypeople are asking the pope to do?

 

As far as I can tell, we are demanding that the one person in the world whose job, more than any other, is to proclaim the mercy of God do our job for us by administering some sort of vague but severe punishment for something we will not, ourselves, punish (and which we in many cases celebrate: namely a laissez-faire attitude toward our sex lives, including the sex lives of our kids).

Now I'm all for jailing bishops who have committed crimes. But, see, that's our job as laypeople and we have basically decided we can't or won't do that. I'm not a lawyer and I have no idea of the legal guilt of this or that bishop. But I do know something about the Gospel and it seems to me that if we laypeople don't think we have a case against the bishops beyond their being dumb, shady, slick, and/or disingenuous in the handling of serial perverts, then I don't see how it is the pope's task to be more merciless than we are.

The American Church has made great strides in making parishes places of almost paranoid safety for kids since 2002. This is but one of the prices we pay for the wretchedness of the episcopal response to the Scandal. Some of the Zero Tolerance idiocy is a heavy cross to bear for all the normal people who have to go through endless training and scrutiny because bishops did not have the sense God gave a goose when some serial pervert was reassigned to a fresh field of victims multiple times by these numbskulls. Now the bishops overcompensate by treating everybody as a serial pervert. That's exasperating, but it does give the lie to the notion that "nothing has been done." Plenty has been done and I, as a layman, have not a worry in the world about the safety of my children in the Church.

But that's not what people now mean by the phrase "nothing has been done." What they mean is that they do not have the sense that sufficient vengeance has been wreaked on bishops. Well, if there is legal vengeance to be wreaked, that's up to us laypeople, innit? But we have not done so, apparently because we don't have a case. So we hope that Benedict will do something or other to wreak that vengeance for us and we take it out on him for not doing our job. I think that's kinda crazy. I don't want a Church that is all about vengeance. I much prefer a Church that is about mercy.

[NYer]

---

Mark P. Shea is a senior editor at www.CatholicExchange.com and a columnist for InsideCatholic.com. Visit his blog at www.markshea.blogspot.com.

[NYer]

For those who are unfamiliar with how the Vatican functions, I strongly recommend the following article, written by Fr. Rob Johansen:

Why Doesn't the Pope Do Something about "Bad" Bishops?

[NYer]

Benedict, for all his fury at the Scandal (and it is real fury, not feigned for the cameras) is also constrained by the fact that, at the end of the day, he is bound to his commitment to regard himself as first among equals, not as The Guy Ordained by God to Tell All the Other Bishops to Obey Him or Hit The Road.

Your thoughts?

[Tax-chick]

Very interesting discussion. What I would have liked to see the Pope do (in a dream world ...) is stand up in front of the press and say, in a talking-to-rather-slow-preschoolers tone, “You do understand that all but a few of these cases involved homosexual men and teenage boys, don’t you? Oh, but you think there’s nothing wrong about adult men’s having sex with teenage boys? Well, you’re compost-eating hypocrites, then, aren’t you?”

Just sayin’ ... reason number #7857 why they’ll never make me Pope ...

[brooklyn dave]

I read Johansen’s letter about bishops. Yes, he has a point that you can’t look at the Pope as if he were the top CEO and bishops as if they were middle level executives. This is where the laity needs to step in. If solid evidence comes forth that a priest or priests were involved in sexual misconduct with minors and the bishop is lax in action-—the laity needs to force his hand. There is no better way to say F-U to a bishop than by holding back $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[livius]

It’s an interesting idea that JPII had an “Eastern” view of the Papacy, although if this means being simply a hands-off figurehead, I’m not sure this is a totally accurate assessment of the Eastern view. However, I think BXVI’s view of the papacy is different from that of JPII, although obviously it is tempered by it because it would be very hard for him to do anything abrupt after so many years of JPII’s style.

JPII had one of the longest papacies ever, and I think that’s something we often neglect to consider: many things that Popes will have to deal with for some time to come were shaped by him, particularly since he had this long reign right after VatII, when things were in flux anyway. The rise of the national bishops’ conferences and their power, for example, is something that earlier popes didn’t have to contend with, so there were even structural changes left behind by JPII. (The bishops’ conferences came out of a suggestion made at VatII, but they were fairly new when JPII took over, and he could have restricted their competence, but actually seems to have expanded it.) Also, JPII let so many things drift along that there are many - well, I’ll say it - evil people installed in various cathedra across the country and the world. And they’ve been there for a long time.

That said, I think he probably will do something, but it’s not going to be as dramatic as I’d like! Some bishops may get coadjutors; some bishops may be retired for “health reasons.” This Pope seems to give people plenty of warning, but he does act eventually. So we shall see...

[neb52]

This was how I felt on why nothing outspoken had come from the Vatican on the issue. But the Pope still can use the bully pulpit. Of course the hard part of using the bully pulpit is being charitable at the same time.

Rewarding those Bishops that did do something right would be great as well. I’m still miffed that Arch. Bishop Burke was over looked for the Red Hat. Not that I would want him to receive the hat for political statement purposes, but at least it could be a statement on how a Prince of Church should look like.

Another good reason for lack of thunder is due to small list of replacements. I think it has been pointed out that there are many bishop sees empty and deciding on who to take the chair can take years at times.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Article:"Moreover, the crowning paradox of Dreher's position is that, having left the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy in large part because of the Scandal, he is now in communion with bishops who would take it very ill if the pope were to do what Dreher so much wants him to do. It's one of the most puzzling aspects of Dreher's position and I hope that one of these days he will articulate how he can simultaneously hold an Orthodox ecclesiology and still want Benedict (or any pope) to act like Innocent III. I honestly don't get it."

The deeper question, for anyone who wants to ponder it, is why God does not send better bishops and priests who defend the faith and the Church. We are not able to see the correspondence that has been sent to Rome from priests and laymen complaining about this for the last 30 years. But weak bishops or popes is nothing to lose your faith over. During the Reformation people were killing each other over doctrinal disagreements. There were perverts pretending to be clergymen long before some of these American celebrity converts converted. It's disgusting but you can't spend the rest of your life stuck on this.

[Petronski]

Scene I’d liked to have seen: Mahoney comes up to receive Holy Communion from Benedict at a televised event. Benedict slaps Mahoney’s face, administers a blessing and sends him back to the pew.

[livius]

Actually, did you notice the one brief mention he made of just this issue? I think it was in one of the DC addresses, but I’m not sure which one. He said something about the pedophile crimes, and then he mentioned homosexuality and said “but this is a separate matter that we will get to later.”

The number of genuine pedophiles among the clergy was probably even lower than that in the rest of the world, because priests rarely have much opportunity to get near small children of either sex. And the crimes that would genuinely constitute pedophilia are a relatively small percentage of those in the lawsuits, etc.

It was in the vast majority, homosexual adult men preying upon teenage boys. These men were active homosexuals and were engaged with other adult men as well. And it went all the way up the line. Recently stuff has come out about Cdl McCarrick (now retired), and of course, we even have a serving bishop here in Florida, Bp Lynch of Tampa St. Pete’s, who had to settle a sexual harrassment suit brought against him by a male employee only a few years ago. And yet he was not removed from his post or even mildly scolded.

Also, I think BXVI made a major mistake in picking Levada, since Levada is notoriously gay-friendly and probably has completely misadvised BXVI about the US bishops. But I think BXVI may be aware of this, and I suspect that he will take up the issue of homosexuality in the clergy and probably even among the bishops and higher. This probably wasn’t the moment for it, but I suspect it will happen.

[Tax-chick]

You have an eye for the perfect moment!

[Notwithstanding]

Implausible:

Priests/bishops/cardinals self-communicate when they are vested.

[Petronski]

Implausible

I readily concede that.

[Tax-chick]

This probably wasn’t the moment for it, but I suspect it will happen.

If anyone knows what the right moment is, it would have to be Pope Benedict :-).

The Popes and some Bishops have produced excellent statements about homosexual attraction (a psychological disorder) and homosexual behavior (always a sin, No Matter What). Unfortunately, resistance to this message is pervasive in the Church as well as in general society.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"It’s an interesting idea that JPII had an “Eastern” view of the Papacy, although if this means being simply a hands-off figurehead, I’m not sure this is a totally accurate assessment of the Eastern view. However, I think BXVI’s view of the papacy is different from that of JPII, although obviously it is tempered by it because it would be very hard for him to do anything abrupt after so many years of JPII’s style." 6 posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:52:00 AM by livius

It's more likely that a naive understanding of sexuality is to blame. By the time the media were making noise about it, JP2 had Parkinson's. Not exactly in a robust state to offer stern lectures.

But whoever is advising the Vatican about the Church in America needs to replaced. And they ought to have lay heterosexuals who were born Catholic and grew up in the Church in leadership positions on some of the committees. It's astonishing some of the people that manage to rise to positions of promimence on Catholic matters. Someone who converted in the '90s or the '80s is not going to know enough about what was going on with these issues. And, really, as outsiders, they should consult with people who do.

[Alberta's Child]

Very good point. It's also worth noting that many of the clerical abuse claims we've seen in the news here in the U.S. can hardly be called "abuse" at all. This was borne out in one of the big stories a couple of years ago involving a claim of abuse that dated back 20 or more years. When I saw the age of the accuser, I calculated backward and figured that he was about 25-30 years old when the "abuse" took place -- and his "abuser" was well into his 50s.

Color me skeptical, but something about that doesn't seem quite right.

[NYer]

You do understand that all but a few of these cases involved homosexual men and teenage boys, don’t you? Oh, but you think there’s nothing wrong about adult men’s having sex with teenage boys? Well, you’re compost-eating hypocrites, then, aren’t you?”

There, that looks better :-)

[NYer]

I think he probably will do something, but it’s not going to be as dramatic as I’d like!

Actually, there's some discussion that he may modify Canon law to extend the statute of limitation for filing claims. There are victims who have submitted claims against priests, dating back to the 50's; most of those priests are now deceased.

[NYer]

I’m still miffed that Arch. Bishop Burke was over looked for the Red Hat.

Last year or this?

[Tax-chick]

Color me skeptical, but something about that doesn't seem quite right.

Yes, that's interesting. Perhaps the man was an employee of the church, which would make it a workplace sexual-harassment situation? We also don't know how many of the molestation claims are false. "Oh, I just remembered when I saw the seven-figure dollar amounts on the news that a priest groped me thirty years ago!" One case in Tulsa, involving a former pastor of our parish there, was determined by the DA to be a complete fabrication; I'm sure that wasn't a unique case.

What really bothers me, though, is that our society, our school systems, and often other government entities positively encourage homosexual behavior by teenagers. They want to force the Boy Scouts to put active homosexual men in authority over teenage (and younger) boys. One might imagine that some of these forces are actually thrilled that homosexual priests were (totally predictably) prospecting, seducing, and in some cases forceably raping teenage boys. (LIKE, DUH. That's what they do!) They don't care about "the children." They're just Satan's tools who want to destroy the Church, by any means.