Posted on 07/03/2008 7:45:48 AM PDT by veritas2002
Our recent coverage of the scandal at Richmond Catholic Charities (CCR) tells a sordid tale of tragedy, secrecy, and subterfuge. But this incident, sorrowful as it is, also reveals a deeper and more pervasive problem that has plagued the Church in America for decades. That problem is the power of rogue bureaucracies that have hijacked the work of the Church and secularized it. In many cases, like that in Richmond, they have totally corrupted it.
Sometimes we have to wonder if the chanceries have learned anything from the clerical abuse scandals and cover-ups that have so damaged the Church in recent years. The Richmond chancery, flouting the Dallas charter’s requirement for transparency, covered up this latest scandal for months. Their method is marked with familiar signs — secrecy, expensive lawyers, denials, and finger pointing. The only tactic missing is “blaming the victim” — which is impossible, in this case, because one of the victims is dead, killed last January 18 by an abortion arranged and authorized by employees of Richmond Catholic Charities (CCR). The whereabouts of the other victim — the mother, a 16- year- old Guatemalan girl who was under the care of CCR — is unknown. The chancery’s lawyer won’t even say whether she has received post-traumatic care. It brings to mind a friend’s comment about Cardinal Law during the Boston scandals: “he’s made enough stonewalls to build a cathe¬dral.”
At this writing, Richmond Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo has yet to be heard from. For months, he kept everyone — the faithful, his pastors, even key officials in his own chancery — in the dark. He did not even report the incident to his brother bishops until he discovered in April that the federal government was investigating the USCCB. At that point, he wrote to tell his colleagues that the news might go public — as it finally did, when the Wanderer broke the story on June 13.
This performance is dismal, but it should not be shrouded in secrecy. It should be prominently posted high in the agenda of the next meeting of the USCCB as the catalyst for a thoroughgoing reform of the USCCB bureaucracy. Chanceries in individual dioceses throughout the country should be next. Why? Well, consider the most distressing passage in the bishop’s letter (apart from the report of the abortion itself), where he describes his “particular concern that some members of MRS staff [referring to the USCCB office that coordinates fed¬eral grants to Richmond] were not sufficiently aware of Catholic teaching” to stop the abortion.
Imagine that. Apparently, employees of Catholic Charities are not familiar with Catholic teaching — or Christian charity, for that matter. His Excellency must be shocked, shocked! that this could possibly be true. But he should not be shocked. For the past forty years the bishops have built bureaucracies that encourage employees to mirror not the spirit of Catholic teaching and Christian charity, but the entrenched liberalism of the government agencies with which they deal every day. Thus it is no surprise that these bureaucracies should have become indistinguishable from their secular government counterparts. But why haven’t our bishops noticed? Let’s face it. Most of them grew up Democrats — which is not surprising: most Catholics of their generation did. But didn’t they hear Ronald Reagan’s famous lament that “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me”? It has left the bishops, too. The blue- collar Catholic Democratic coalition of the days of our bishops’ youth has crumbled. That party has now been re-assembled, like a Frankenstein, out of a grim patch¬work of special interests whose strongest common goal is the preservation of abortion on demand in America. The Democratic Party now has its spiritual capital in the Valley of Death.
Sadly, the GOP is not far behind. Federal and state bureaucracies have exploded under both major political parties in recent years. The bishops’ bureaucracies have modeled their bureaucracies on their government counterparts with whom they interact. It is not surprising that the Church bureaucrats have acquired the liberal mindset of their government colleagues. After all, they see their counter¬parts in government more often than they see a bishop. Whom are they going to try to please — especially when the government provides them billions of dollars a year to support their work? The bishops, who are usually otherwise occupied, are then horrified when they are blind-sided by tragedies caused by their employees who are “not sufficiently aware of Catholic teaching” on the right to life itself.
The bishops must wonder, how did this come to pass? Well, while they weren’t looking, those church bureaucracies have become solidly entrenched and radicalized. They are now virtual clones of the federal bureaucracy — where government unions demand “gay days,” castigate anyone caught praying on the job, and mock pro-life presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush as though they were temporary “political appointees.” For the past thirty years, many USCCB bureaucracies have faithfully reflected the policies of the pro-abortion, Democratic left in Washington. The small (and good) pro¬life office at the USCCB is a lonely island in a sea of left-wing attitudes.
No wonder the parking lot of the USCCB was full of bumper stickers supporting Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004. And the spirit of secrecy prevails even there — when a photographer entered the parking lot during the 2004 campaign and started snapping pictures, she was quickly ushered off the premises by a private security guard.
Are our bishops aware of this secular radicalization of their bureaucracy? They certainly should be, and the disaster in Richmond should serve as a wake-up call. In Richmond, Bishop DiLorenzo has fired a few low-level employees — while keeping on the higher-ups who misled him. The USCCB should confront this issue head-on at its fall meeting. Instead of nibbling around the edges, the bishops should ask, “if we had no bureaucracy at all, how would we best design the way we shepherd our flocks, from the ground up?” I doubt that they would rebuild the monster that they have now. As Bishop DiLorenzo can testify, it has turned into an albatross.
The problem is not one of partisanship, it is one of principle. I am not suggesting that the bishops become Republicans, or hire them. Rather, I am suggesting that they depoliticize their staffs and make a declaration of Catholic independence from partisan politics, government money, and private political agendas altogether. Since their current bureaucracies are virtually incapable of reform — witness the Richmond case, six years after the clerical abuse scandals — they should abolish the bureaucracies and start over.
Your Excellencies, while you weren’t looking, the Democratic Party left you. It moved firmly and solidly over to the pro¬abortion, socialist left. And it took your bureaucracy with it. Please do not tell us, as you did during the last scandals, that the crisis is over, that nothing more need be revealed, that we should go back to the pews and pray, pay, and obey. To avoid more Richmonds, isn’t it time to face the music and take action?
( Editor’s note: Christopher Manion’s editorial should be read and pondered by every bishop. You can help by sending a copy of this editorial — along with your own comments — to your bishop.)
This squares with the received opinion that private, parochial charity should be kept that way.
“Faith-based” initiatives simply cannot stay that way when there is taxpayer money involved.
Ping.
Add Catholic hospitals, Catholic colleges (with a few notable exceptions), Catholic schools, Catholic charities........it cuts right across the board.
We've adopted business and bureaucratic models for the work of the Lord. It will all come crashing down in due course.
I don't think they realize how political they are, any more than the MSM recognizes their own liberalism. The only point on which most of the USCCB diverges from the DNC has been abortion; more recently, same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research may be giving them pause. On economic issues, for example, they stand foursquare behind the DNC -- not only because they don't know any more about economics than the DNC but because they don't even see it as an issue on which people of good will can disagree!
Thnx
Yep. Pretty much.
This performance is dismal, but it should not be shrouded in secrecy. It should be prominently posted high in the agenda of the next meeting of the USCCB as the catalyst for a thoroughgoing reform of the USCCB bureaucracy. “Chanceries in individual dioceses throughout the country should be next. Why? Well, consider the most distressing passage in the bishop’s letter (apart from the report of the abortion itself), where he describes his “particular concern that some members of MRS staff [referring to the USCCB office that coordinates fed¬eral grants to Richmond] were not sufficiently aware of Catholic teaching” to stop the abortion.”
Can I get an AMEN, somebody.
The odds are about the same as for the MA legislature reforming itself, I'm afraid . . .
If someone were to Google: “Richmond” “Catholic Charities” and “Abortion” what kinds of hits would you expect to get? Last month, I might have said that it would be about how CC assisted post-abortive women to heal, how they had supported pregnant girls to have their babies and use their funding to place the children for adoption, or how they were planning to organize a silent protest outside one of the Planned Parenthood abortuaries. Or maybe they had petitioned Catholic Charities USA to relase some of their millions to support their Catholic ministry to those women considering alternatives to abortion.
Not this month... the results are different. Google it and see what you get.
Take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
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