US Election Message To Catholic Bishops Part III: The Broken Window Strategy

Two of today's LifeSiteNews reports provide more evidence of the severe need for a renewal of Catholicism in the United States. Pro-abortion, pro-homosexual former Senator Tom Dachle and California First Lady Maria Shriver both call themselves Catholic and yet don't appear to have a clue what that really means. Is this mostly or entirely their own fault? That is doubtful. Rather, they are likely just two of the millions of North American and European Catholics who are the products of decades of extremely neglectful, corrupt Catholic institutions and leaders who have not taught and defended the authentic Catholic/Christian faith.

This series of articles is about an issue that affects everyone - Catholic and non-Catholic, Christian and non-Christian. A healthy, faithful Catholic Church in the US, Canada and Europe would produce many practical social, cultural and even economic benefits for all citizens.

Weak, negligent Catholic leadership and institutions, in the observation of LifeSiteNews, have played a large role in allowing the current dangerous situation to develop. Morality and respect for life have catastrophically plummeted in recent decades. That has logically advanced to where even freedom and democracy are in real danger.

There is a common sense method that could help willing Church leaders to correct the problems in the Church that left the nation bereft of all that Catholics could have done to halt this cultural collapse. It was developed by social scientists but is really nothing more than a re-emphasis of a reality of human nature.

Visitors to New York city in the 1960s encountered a crime infested city core with porn shops, strip joints, pawn shops, prostitutes, aggressive, drug-ridden panhandlers and petty criminals scattered throughout a dirty and poorly maintained Times Square region of Manhattan and beyond. In 1994, new New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani decided to implement what social scientists termed the "broken window" concept to clean up the city. What a transformation it made! The few times I visited Manhattan after Guiliani's program was put in place I could barely believe the difference. I no longer had to fear for my safety. The smut and dirt were gone and the city was a joy to experience.

The "broken window" concept was developed by social scientists who surmised that if comparatively mundane laws (against loitering and littering, for example) go unenforced in some neighborhoods, the resultant and visible disorder then invites attention from serious criminals who sense a vulnerability worth exploiting for greater crimes. The social scientists conducted experiments that did indeed reveal the truth of the theory.

A car that was left abandoned for some days in a city street as part of an experiment was not vandalized until the scientists secretly broke a window in it. Once noticed, this was perceived by some elements in the community as a signal that no one was protecting the vehicle or cared about it and that authority in the neighbourhood was weak. That sign of local disorder resulted in the vehicle being quickly vandalized, stripped of its parts and essentially destroyed by thieves. That then created a climate for more disorder.

Although there have been many exciting and praiseworthy developments in recent years, there is still a great deal of "disorder" and "smut and dirt" in the Church in the United States, Canada and in Europe as yesterday's report on the Bishop of Lancaster's statements revealed. It has been so bad that for years many bishops appeared to retreat into a protective shell of mediocrity, relative silence and fear or accommodation with their unbelieving flock and pushy Church dissidents. The perception then naturally developed that authority was weak or compromised and that there were and still are many opportunities for those who wish to use, abuse or trash the Church from within.

These bishops often haven't known where to begin as larger problems loomed over them, some seeming like impossible challenges. Hence, many bishops have handed over a lot of their authority and decision making to Church bureaucrats, especially those running the various bishops' conferences. However, these conferences have no legitimate Church authority and were only created to be a practical help to bishops, not to replace them or take on their responsibilities.

What the beleaguered bishops who now sincerely want to serve the Church can do is place first emphasis on correcting the many less overwhelming disorders in their dioceses. These more manageable things, such as in liturgy, diocesan literature and media, marriage prep courses, clergy dress, Church institution architecture and design, among many others, when properly addressed, will strengthen the bishops' credibility and support for correcting the big problems.

These are the broken windows, the visible disorders that undergird the larger symptoms of Church decline such as the sexual abuse crisis, the catastrophic drop in vocations, and support by Catholics for militantly anti-life, anti-family politicians and organizations.

Before he attempts anything, however, a bishop must realize and be willing to accept, as Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko indicates in yet another article today, that an effort to rebuild the faith will "come at a personal cost". There is no other way.

Secondly, a bishop, or any other administrator, cannot even begin a process of restoration without a supportive key staff. The unfortunate reality is that many faithful new bishops, and especially those who are moved into larger dioceses, are far too trusting of the establishment and reluctant to do necessary staff and clergy house cleaning. They often allow diocesan bureaucrats to weave a web of control around them and the newly installed bishops tend to pay too much attention to the skilfully presented, self-serving counsel of diocesan "experts", academics, lawyers, insurance companies, large financial supporters, Catholic education heads and other Church establishment elements and persons.

A faithful bishop is a servant who is best served by others who are also faithful, humble Catholic servants. It is crucial to seek out and place such persons in important positions and to quickly replace those who cannot meet the requirements for the work of a spiritual organization.

The next article in this series lists and addresses what I suggest are many of the "broken windows" in Catholic dioceses that need fixing. Hopefully, other Christian denominations will also benefit from what these articles have been noting and suggesting. It is not just the Catholics that need to repair the damage wrought by the past four decades of rejection of traditional Christian belief and practice and Christian culture.

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