Post for April 16, 2010
In case you were wondering if the feeding frenzy surrounding the Catholic Church right now has really jumped the shark, the fact that the idea of arresting Pope Benedict and putting him on trial has gotten any traction at all should be proof enough.
The plan, proposed by noted atheist Christopher Hitchens and backed by other noted atheist Richard Dawkins, is to arrest the Pope when he visits the United Kingdom on an upcoming papal voyage, and to have him put on trial for his supposed part in conspiracies to cover up child abuse.
As I mentioned in a previous post outlining 10 points regarding the current crisis in the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict has actually been one of the heroes in all of this, not one of the villains. Proposing this arrest, therefore, is just a silly stunt, which John Allen pointed out quite well in his article Don’t be daft, you can’t arrest the Pope.
The problem is, I am not sure the authors of the silly stunt actually realise it is a silly stunt. In their own minds they may just be serious. This can unsettle people, therefore, because the confidence of those proposing the silly stunt may just override the otherwise natural instinct to cry out “the Emperor has no clothes!” As well, to help bring them back to reality, someone needs to point out to Dawkins et al (who supposedly pride themselves on their reason) that they are being absurd and quite non-rational.
Which brings me to the use of humour. As I have observed before, laughter is a natural reaction to the absurd. One of the best ways to deflate pompous silliness, therefore, is to laugh at the silliness itself. And so I offer you the latest in Downfall parodies: Dawkins Downfall (“Arrest the Pope” edition)Nothing better than humour to put things in perspective.
A word about the parody, BTW: “Downfall” is a movie about the last days of Adolf Hitler. In the film the German generals inform their Führer that the battle is going badly, and Hitler freaks out. This scene has become a key ingredient in Internet parodies around the world.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 2 Comments
Post for April 13, 2010
Although I haven’t yet decided where to fit this into my previous post “10 points regarding the current crisis in the Catholic Church”, I thought I should write it anyway. One thing I’ve noticed about the anger directed to the Catholic Church is the notion that the Church failed to sufficiently punish people, whether they were abusive priests or the bishops who mismanaged them. I thought I should put that notion in context.
People are sometimes surprised to discover that the Church has a penal section in its canon law, but on the other hand most organized societies do. The punishments vary — the Boy Scouts may just kick you out of the troop, while the Mafia will kill you — but they are usually there. Heck, even groups of little kids who are friends develop unwritten rules about what is acceptable/fair and what isn’t, with the punishments ranging from getting excluded to being made fun of to to getting beat up. Anyone who has worked with little kids knows how dramatic even these lesser punishments can be — and how arbitrarily they are meted out sometimes, based on things as stupid as how someone looks or even just what some popular people think.
So the Church has a penal law, and because it doesn’t want that law to be artibrary that law is governed by things like due process and the right to defend oneself and the right to appeal, etc. Of course, these things exist in secular societies as well, so we often just transpose our experience of our civil court system onto the Church, even though that experience more often comes from watching TV than from real life. However, the Church system is different from the civil system in a very fundamental way:
The Church penal system has, as its objectives, the protection of the innocent, the restoration of justice, the correction of the offender, and the prevention of bad example. I would argue that this is usually the order of priority as well, although the exact mix may vary depending on individual cases.
But did you notice what is missing? *Punishment.* Secular societies have, as a key goal, the regulation of the punishment impulse, which left to itself often comes out as a form of mob justice. In a sense, secular justice is often a calculated form of social revenge, with the system designed to make sure that “the punishment fits the crime”. It should not be surprising that people unfamiliar with the Catholic system see how it works and are therefore appalled, because (in their view) their isn’t enough *punishment*!
Now that doesn’t mean there aren’t forms of punishment within the Catholic system: there are. However, these punishments are always a means to an end, and not the end in itself. Were it the latter, punishment would not longer be a means of discipline but rather a means of revenge, and the Bible teaches us that vengeance belongs to God and God alone.
When we take a look at how the different cases of sexual abuse were handled, we see that, while some were mismanaged, most were handled according to the priorities outlined above, where (let us not forget) protection of the innocent is priority number one.
Let us draw from an actual case: Father P. is accused of abusing a child. He admits it, and is taken to civil trial where he pleads guilty. He begins to serve out his sentence. The diocese contacts the victim and makes arrangements for her to be assisted with whatever therapy, etc., she may need. But what does the diocese do with Father P.?
First of all, the diocese makes sure other innocents are protected: it limits his right to contact with the public, removing him from all public ministry and requiring him to live in a clergy residence where his movements are more easily supervised. Thus, the public is protected much better than if he were simply “kicked out” of the priesthood and left to live in the community.
Next, the diocese offers to have him retrained so that he can still make a useful contribution to society. This training will necessarily involve preparation for a position within the diocese itself, as the odds of him getting a secular job now are next to none. Besides, it is better if he works within the diocese, as the aforementioned supervision is more easily maintained. Thus, reparation begins to be made for the harm caused.
Finally, the diocese seeks that the offender be corrected. Father P., in this case, does not deny his sin/crime, and is truly contrite. However, as we now know that pedophilia cannot be cured, the diocese requires of Father P. that he continue to see a therapist for the rest of his life, so that at the very least his evil tendency can be managed and not overwhelm him.
(The goal of prevention of bad example usually only applies when the offender is trying to sow moral/spiritual confusion. Given that there is currently a broad social consensus against pedophilia, a consensus that the Church certainly agrees with, this goal does not really apply in this case. In other penal cases it might, though, although it should also be coupled with solid catechesis for the faithful. After all, it is hard to confuse people who have a solid grounding in their faith and morals in the first place.)
Given all this, the actions taken by the diocese in the case of Father P. are not only the best things the diocese could do, they are the best things anyone can do. After all, Father P. has already been punished by society, and once he “does his time” civil society will offer very little else to protect him (and others) from himself. He could be put on a sex-offender registry, but that is nothing like the direct involvement the diocese has as mentioned above.
Like I said, this is based on a real case. And what happened in real life, when the diocese tried to implement its measures?
(1) The diocese was accused of coddling Father P. by letting him live in a clergy house.
(2) When word got out that Father P. was to be retrained for administrative work, a huge hullabaloo arose that he was supposedly being rewarded with some sort of a promotion.
(3) People said, with great contempt, that because the diocese did not move to kick Father P. out of the priesthood it showed it preferred to shelter a pedophile.
Now might it have been smarter to simply have kicked Father P. out of the priesthood? On a public relations level, perhaps, because it would have been a response to the desire of many to see more punishment. It is also smarter on a financial level, as Father P. now no longer costs the diocese anything. But on the level of what is truly just, not just for the Church, but for society, does it make sense? Does it make sense to just unleash a sex offender into broader society with no realistic supervision, marketable skills, job prospects or support to avoid re-offending? How does that help avoid another victim? How does it help repair the harm done?
Simply put, it doesn’t. That is why mob justice, left to itself, inevitably tends to the death penalty: because the goal is to satisfy one’s anger by utterly destroying the offender.
Now I am not saying that the penal system in the Church is perfect. There is certainly room for improvement, particularly in how fast (or, usually, how slow) things proceed — after all, justice delayed is justice denied. Our canonists could have better training in this area, and some Church authorities could do with being more willing to follow actual procedure rather than trying to handle cases on an ad hoc basis.
All that being said, though, I am personally glad the Catholic Church instinctively resists the call of mob justice, and I am glad its penal system sees punishment as a means to an end, and not an end in itself. The only punishment that is legitimately a true final end is the punishment of Hell, and that judgment belongs to God alone. No one should wish that another wind up there, not even a worst enemy. And no one, especially not the Church, should be trying to force others to start to live their Hell now.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 7 Comments
Post for April 7, 2010
I have not really written on my blog since I returned from Mexico, as I have just had too much to do lately (including a little thing called “Easter”, you may have heard of it 
), but I did want to offer a few thoughts on the scandal/crisis currently gripping the Church. This post may be updated from time to time as my own reflection on the question develops.
Point 1: In this time of confusion and hurt, your priests are with you.
The Church is going through a very painful time right now, and by “church” I don’t just mean the institution but the People of God as a whole. This pain comes from many sources — from compassion for the victims, from anger at the abusers, from disappointment at some in authority, from confusion and hurt from things reported (not always accurately) in the media, and so on.
I just want to say that, as a priest who knows his brother priests, we are with you in this. Every priest is a Christian first, a priest second, and as members of the People of God (not just as leaders) we are living the pain too. We love you, we want to be good pastors for you, and we deeply regret that some of our brothers have taken advantage of your trust and love for nefarious ends. Seeing you confused and hurt like this is our worst nightmare, and many of us feel just as helpless at the situation continues.
In fact, this is one major reason why I have written this blog entry. It isn’t just to vent my feelings (although there is some of that), it is also to help myself and others get a grip on what is going on. Many people have asked me, individually or in groups, how to understand this crisis. I am hoping this post will help give us, at the very least, some clarity.
Point 2: Compassion for the victims is job number one.
I think this next point goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway. There are no winners when sin happens, only losers, and compassion for the victims of crime and sin is absolutely necessary. A key corollary to this is that the victim, as much as possible and within reason, should get to decide what form this compassion takes.
For this reason, I personally utterly reject the attempts I’ve noticed in the media and comboxes around the Internet to link this problem of clergy sex abuse to things like the Catholic stance on abortion, contraception, women priests, and so on. I realise a lot of people disagree with the Catholic position on these things, and I believe there needs to be room to have a frank discussion regarding them (heck, this blog has been one of the places for it to take place). But these issues have nothing to do with clergy sex abuse, except in a very lateral way, so to invoke this crisis to try and whip up support for dissent on these issues is, in reality, an attempt to manipulate people’s disgust and pain to promote an unrelated end. I can assure you, true victims don’t like having their painful experiences used by third parties for unrelated ends.
Point 3: The Catholic Church is a Church of sinners called to holiness.
A key initial “point of clarity” that we must recognize is that the Church is not a hotel for saints, it is a hospital for sinners. To judge the Church based on how many sinners she contains is to miss the point. What is truly remarkable about the Church is not how many sinners she contains — those can be found anywhere — but how many saints she produces. In this we have nothing to be ashamed of.
Now some might say that a Church that has sinners in her midst should stop teaching her moral absolutes, as though it was somehow hypocritical to do so. That is like saying a doctor should stop treating his patients because they are sick. It is nonsense. The solution is not less treatment, but more. The solution for the Catholic Church is not to promote holiness less, but to promote it more.
There are also some who say that the issue is not the members of the Church so much as her leadership, i.e. that because the leadership of the Church does not always live up to the teachings the Church should just give up those teachings. Again, that is like saying an overweight nutritionist should stop teaching people how to eat right. The simple fact is that, when you have a Church of sinners called to be saints, you are always going to be faced with the possibility that some of the leadership (who are among those sinners as well) will have to effectively say “do as I say, not as I do”. That sucks, to be sure, but while I want the leaders of the Church to both teach *and* live the truth, I’ll rather they not give up teaching the truth even if they have trouble living it.
The Catholic Church has never claimed her members are morally perfect. The Catholic Church has never claimed her leadership is morally perfect. In fact, the only members she has ever claimed are morally perfect are the saints in heaven, and the only authority figure she has ever claimed to be morally perfect is Jesus himself. As for the rest, we admit, admit freely, and have always admitted, that ALL the living members of Church, the Pope included, are sinners.
Point 4: The Catholic Church, in its official teaching, has always been opposed to child sexual abuse.
We need to remember that opposition to child sexual abuse is part of the official teaching of the Catholic Church and always has been. Of this, we can be rightly proud. In the present day, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states very clearly that sexual abuse of minors is an offense against the moral law:
2389 Connected to incest is any sexual abuse perpetrated by adults on children or adolescents entrusted to their care. The offense is compounded by the scandalous harm done to the physical and moral integrity of the young, who will remain scarred by it all their lives; and the violation of responsibility for their upbringing.
There is no question that some Catholics sin against this moral law, whether directly or as enablers (e.g. by turning a blind eye). However, the problem is not with the law itself, but the sin. The horror people feel in the face of stories of sexual abuse is actually a legitimate Catholic response.
There are some who say that this crisis shows the Church to be hypocritical, because of the disconnect between her high moral standards and the behaviour of some of her members. This, however, is to misunderstand the nature of hypocrisy. To believe one thing and do another is not to be a hypocrite, it is to be a sinner. In the face of sin there are only two possible responses: hypocrisy, or conversion. With conversion, we change our behaviour to match our standards. With hypocrisy, we lower our standards to match our behaviour. Personally, I am proud that the Church has had a consistent high moral standard with regards to child sexual abuse, and I reject the idea that the Church is somehow being hypocritical. For us to be hypocrites, we would have to be trying to defend sexual abuse — which, I might add, no one is doing.
Or are we? I don’t mean as a Church, I mean as a society. Let’s not pretend that our society doesn’t permit (or even encourage) the sexualization of minors, because (as Mark Shea points out) it does. Let’s not pretend that there aren’t people who think that a sex abuser like Roman Polanski should get a free pass for drugging and sodomizing his victim, because there are (see Mitterand and Goldberg). If a by-product of all this negative publicity for the Church is to make sure pedophilia loses its cool, then maybe it is worth it.
Point 5: The sin of sexual abuse is less prevalent among Catholic priests than elsewhere.
As an initial caveat, let me begin by saying that, of course, even one case of sexual abuse is too many. However, as I have said before, the Catholic Church is a Church of sinners, and does not claim otherwise. Therefore, at any one one point, there will be pedophiles who are members of the Catholic Church, just as there will be pedophiles in any other walk of life. There is no magic wand we can wave to eliminate pedophilia from the Earth, and there is no magic pedophile detector that can infallibly weed out potential perpetrators from the Church and her clergy. It sucks, but that is reality.
Like I also said, though, the Catholic Church claims to be a hospital for those sinners, helping them to improve. Is this claim valid? The only way to know is to look at the numbers. Since the issue is Catholic priests, the question becomes: are there fewer cases of sexual abuse among Catholic priests than among the general population?
As it turns out, yes. Dr. Thomas Plante, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University as well as an Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, has written extensively on this subject. His article A Perspective on Clergy Sexual Abuse demonstrates that, given the data for the last half-century, the prevalence of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy has been half that of the general population, and has been declining even further.
Point 6: Not every claim of child sexual abuse is true.
While it may not be politically correct to say so, the sad truth is that not every claim of child sexual abuse is true. Such claims have been made not only against priests, but against educators, boy-scout leaders, and so on. It is the ultimate nightmare of anyone seeking to do good for children, as the damage from a false accusation is very hard to undo.
Yes, false claims have been made against Catholic clergy, as pointed out in the article The problem of false claims of clergy sexual abuse (originally published in 2002 in Risk Management magazine, a professional publication for corporate risk managers). These false claims can stem from a number of factors, but in all cases lead to a nightmare for the one falsely accused.
One of the most famous cases of a false claim is the one made against Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago by Steven Cook, a former seminarian, who later recanted. A lesser-known case is that of Father Gordon MacRae, who was actually convicted in a Kafkaesque trial.
Point 7: Not everything that looks like a cover-up is a cover-up.
As I mentioned in point 1, compassion for victims must be our top priority, and I believe that in the vast majority of cases Church authorities have tried to act with compassion. This genuine desire to be compassionate, however, can sometimes place those in authority in a bind. Imagine someone approaches their bishop with a complaint about a priest and says “Father so-and-so did this to me. I’m don’t hate the Church or anything, and I don’t want to go to the police or media, I just want you to know about it so that he can be prevented from doing it again. I don’t want anyone to know I spoke with you, and I don’t want any action against him to be traceable to me.” What can the bishop do? Assuming he believes the person, then what? And, of course, sometimes it isn’t the victim who comes forward, but a parent or friend who is adamant that the victim’s name, or even their own name, be kept out of it. How can the story even be checked in such a case? A victim has come forward, which took guts, but at the same time he or she is asking the bishop to do something without giving him the necessary tools. The bishop then has a choice: use the information even though knowledge of this testimony will come out (i.e. break confidentiality), or sit on it and hope that the person changes his or her mind, hoping that this will happen before another victim is created (creating the appearance of a cover-up). Which is better?
Breaking confidentiality can mean that future victims are possibly avoided, but the current victim feels betrayed and re-victimized (and others are perhaps discouraged from speaking out for fear of shame), while the opposite choice means that there is terrible potential risk to the community.
This is not simply a theoretical scenario. Assuming the case involves a minor, recent laws require reporting even a suspected case to the authorities, and I don’t know of any case where bishops failed to respect those laws. But in other situations the response is not so cut and dried, in part precisely because the person in authority wants to both respect the wishes of the victim and at the same time protect others. Personally I think if we are going to err it must be in the protection of possible future victims, as anyone who comes forward with negative information about someone else must take responsibility for that information, and in my experience a lot of victims eventually come around to this conclusion themselves. But it isn’t an easy discernment.
So there are cover-ups and there are cover-ups. The worst kind, the kind that really anger people (and rightly so) are the kind where the chief concern seems to be for the reputation of the institution rather than the potential harm to others. Respecting the confidentiality requested by a victim is one thing, but actually covering something up that is known to be true out of fear of the truth is simply unacceptable. The truth eventually gets out anyway, and the evident lack of respect for the truth is far more damaging — to everyone.
Point 8: We cannot serve both God and Mammon.
Mammon is the name given to the demon of greed and money. Jesus warned his disciples that they cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24). Saint Paul even went so far as to say that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10), calling it a form of idolatry (Colossians 3:5). And it is true: when money starts to come into the equation, corruption is not far behind and all bets are off.
We must, therefore, call a spade a spade. One of the major reasons the problems surrounding clergy sexual abuse have been permitted to fester — indeed, one of the major reasons genuine cover-ups have occurred when they occurred — is out of the fears surrounding the loss of money.
These fears are not groundless. Entire dioceses have been bankrupted due to lawsuits stemming from the evil actions of just a few. In cases where a bishop was truly negligent in his management of his priests (i.e. when there is direct liability), most people agree that a lawsuit is in order. However, what many people don’t realise is that these lawsuits didn’t only just succeed when the bishop acted improperly. The is a legal principle called “vicarious liability”, which states that even if a bishop was totally unaware of the evil actions of a priest, he is responsible for compensating people for those evil actions. In fact, it isn’t just him, it is the whole diocese. This creates a deep pool of potential wealth for victims, and for their lawyers.
The consequence of this, of course, is that it creates even more victims. People treat “the Church” like an abstraction, as though it was not connected to ordinary, real people. But it is. Imagine you’ve been going to a parish on the west side of town for decades, maybe even having contributed to the building of the church itself, and suddenly you get told that, because of the evils done by Father X on the east side of town, your parish is now on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that the parishioners are going to have to dig even deeper to buy their parish back. As a good Christian you feel for the victims of Father X, of course, but is this scenario really fair? And, I might add, this is not merely a hypothetical scenario: the diocese of Saint George’s in Newfoundland went bankrupt in just this way, with the people forced to “buy back” their parishes, precisely because of a finding of vicarious liability due to the actions of a single priest.
And let’s forget about parish buildings for a second. Suppose a clinic providing free health care is forced to close due to vicarious liability — is that fair to the patients, who now cannot get service? Suppose a school providing quality education to poorer children is forced to close due to vicarious liability — is that fair to them and their families? When the aforementioned diocese of Saint George’s was sued, there was also an attempt to sue the entire Roman Catholic Church in Canada as a whole, thereby putting every single Church institution at risk — not just parishes. There are currently attempts to sue the Pope himself for these sorts of cases. There is no question that if this were permitted to go forward, a key consequence would be that it wouldn’t only be the Pope and the Vatican that would have to pay if the case went against him, it would be the entire Catholic Church. It would be the ultimate “deep pockets” of vicarious liability ever known, linking every single Catholic institution — dioceses, parishes, religious orders, schools, hospitals — into one big pot. So, in other words, even if Father X was in southern California, it could be Mother of Mercy Hospital in Maine that is made to cough up. And given that the lawyers in such cases are often paid on a commission basis, getting a percentage of what they win, it is of course in their interest to sue, sue often, and sue as broadly as possible.
This fear of the loss of money — which, as I say, can be valid — can therefore put Church officials on a collision course with their better impulse to be compassionate. Imagine a bishop receives a complaint from a person about a priest. The compassionate response would be, at a minimum, to offer to pay for the person’s therapy — an offer that was often made. However, making that offer can be taken as an admission of guilt, and therefore opens the entire diocese to this vicarious liability scenario. Sometimes victims were asked to sign a paper promising not to sue, but again that comes across as cold and cover-up. The bottom line is that the only way to get out of this scenario is for people to be fair to each other and to trust each other. When the potential for big financial payouts starts to enter the picture, though, that kind of fairness and trust often (sadly) evaporates.
Personally, I think we must take the risks associated with compassion. Yeah, we might get nailed before the civil courts, but I think we’d earn even greater credit in the courts of Heaven. That doesn’t mean we need to be stupid about it, of course, as prudent management is one of the prime duties of a leader. But I do think we need to admit that, on an institutional level, the reason why vicarious liability has had the potential to wreak such havoc in our dioceses is because we used the civil system to centralise diocesan power. Under canon law, each parish is a separate corporation — accountable to the bishop, yes, but with its own finance council meant to manage its own property and patrimony. In theory, the civil law reality should be parallel, with each parish being a separate corporation — but in fact, on a North American basis, this is only true here in Quebec. Everywhere else, the bishop is a “corporation sole” who, in reality, owns all the parishes. This gives the bishop tremendous immediate power over the parishes, but at the cost of this increased exposed liability. So perhaps the real reason we are in such a pickle financially is not that we wanted to be rich, but that the central authorities wanted control — more control than our own Catholic tradition normally admits they should have.
Point 9: Pope Benedict is part of the solution, not part of the problem.
In the feeding frenzy surrounding the scandalous revelation of cases of sex abuse have been attempts to link them directly to Pope Benedict. There can be various reasons for this — in some cases, it is an attempt to bolster the vicarious liability arguments, in other cases is might just be because people don’t like the Pope and what he stands for — but it must be said that, in the case of child sexual abuse, these accusations against Pope Benedict simply don’t hold water. Indeed, the evidence presented has actually demonstrated his efforts to try and correct the situation.
Christopher Hitchens was one of the first to put Pope Benedict on trial in this way, in an article published on Slate.com (and picked up by Canada’s National Post). Leaving aside the exaggeration and hyperbole for a moment, Hitchens puts forward two major claims: a general claim that, as a Cardinal under John Paul II, he aided an abetted a cover-up of sexual abuse; and a specific claim that, while Archbishop of Munich, he knowingly and wrongfully handled the case of a specific abuser. However, a closer examination of the evidence shows that the Pope, prior to becoming Pope, was actually acting to solve the situation. Sean Murphy wrote a brilliant rebuttal on the web site of the Catholic Education Resource Center, entitled A Response to Christopher Hitchens’ The Great Catholic Coverup. This article sifts through the facts quite exhaustively (Murphy provides 80 footnotes) and demonstrates the exact opposite of what Hitchens claimed.
The next major accusation against the Pope had a similar attack vector to the Munich case, only this time the city was Milwaukee. Fr. Lawrence Murphy was an abuser, and the claim against the Pope was that he (supposedly) prevented Murphy from being kicked out of the priesthood. The New York Times even published the so-called evidence to prove this, except that the documents proved nothing of the kind. A full rebuttal by Father Raymond DeSouza was published by the National Review, and Jimmy Akin has been covering this extensively as well over at the National Catholic Register.
When Pope Benedict visited the United States in 2008 he had an unannounced meeting with survivors of clergy sex abuse — a truly pastoral response. As John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter has pointed out in a series of articles (Will Ratzinger’s past trump Benedict’s present? and Keeping the record straight on Benedict and the crisis come immediately to mind), Pope Benedict has come a long way on this issue personally, and is putting the weight of his office to bear on finding solutions. This is not just words: he personally authorized the investigations of Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, and has announced that a similar investigation (called an Apostolic Visitation) will be undertaken of key elements of the Catholic Church of Ireland. The bottom line is that Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has been (and is) one of the good guys in all of this.
Point 10: This crisis highlights certain institutional reforms that are needed in the Catholic Church.
In my discussions with people on the question of clergy sex abuse, I have found that most people are angrier at the Church for how the abuse cases were handled by those in authority than about the abuse itself. That doesn’t mean they aren’t angry about the abuse — they are — but that their anger about the abuse tends to be directed at the abusers, not the Church. When it comes to how some abuse cases were mismanaged, however, the anger *is* directed at the Church or, more precisely, her leadership.
The thing is, I personally believe most bishops are actually pretty decent fellows trying to do an impossible job. There is no “bishop school” to prepare someone for the role apart from a two-week session in Rome that you only attend *after* being named a bishop. This implies that bishops learn to be bishops by essentially two means: by observing other bishops and getting their take on issues; and by the institutional support offered by the broader church, whether on a national or international level, and usually coming in the form of documents (such as the Code of Canon Law). Of course, there is also all the work and studies they did as priests, but that is more background preparation than specific training.
Regarding the first method, which essentially involves learning by observation, the key problem is any profession that relies on this finds it leads to a mushy middle of mediocrity. This was essentially Father Raymond de Souza’s point in his article Culture Change in the Church, published in the National Post. According to Father de Souza, it isn’t that the local bishops were bad, just that they weren’t good enough, and that there was a culture of mediocrity among them.
I think the Father de Souza makes an interesting point, but I also think it isn’t that simple. The Church tries to encourage something better than mediocrity by means of the second method, i.e. by things like the Code of Canon Law. These tools themselves, however, have room for improvement. Father de Souza, for example, mentions that the bishops were “not Catholic enough” because some supposedly failed to apply canon law (he quotes from canon 1395.2, which states that clergy sex abusers are “to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants”). In reality, though, canon law is not always helpful. Canon 1341 states that a religious superior (called an “ordinary”) is to take care “to initiate a judicial or administrative process to impose or declare penalties only after he has ascertained that fraternal correction or rebuke or other means of pastoral solicitude cannot sufficiently repair the scandal, restore justice, reform the offender.” This is exactly what most bishops actually did — they kept the scandal quiet, they gave assurances to the victims and sent the priests for therapy — they probably felt they were doing the right thing in NOT sending these priests to canonical trial. If canon law had been so good already, there would have not been a need for Pope John Paul II to issue his 2001 letter Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela in the first place, which improved the rules on this question.
So some changes are in order, and on an institutional level. From what I can see, this needs to take certain concrete forms:
1. Transparency and openness need to be encouraged and supported. To the extent that a culture of secrecy exists within the Church, it must be abandoned. I have heard of several forms this could take, such as: fostering a responsible but free Catholic press; promoting accountability by requiring third-party audits of Catholic organizations; and implementing an ombudsman structure within Catholic institutions, particularly those that deal with the public. These are just a few, and I find them worth studying.
2. As mentioned previously, we need to take a look at how our financial power structures are set up. Yes, they may give us greater control in some cases, but if those same structures make it harder to live the Gospel, they have to change.
3. With regards to canon law, the simple reality is that the Catholic canon law presumes that there are three forms of authority in the structure of the Church: legislative, executive, and judicial. This is similar to the structure of a national government, which has a legislature, an executive, and a court system. Realistically, however, the way we work heavily favours executive authority over the legislative and judicial. Those holding executive power often have the capacity to dispense people from having to follow particular laws, and whether or not something goes to a penal trial is an executive decision, not a judicial one. In my view this easily creates an imbalance which, to be fair, is as unhealthy for the executive in question as it is for those subject to that authority. Corporations are structured in such a way that executives hold all the cards; the Church should be different, and if we are not we should not be shocked to discover that people treat us according to the structure we have given ourselves in practice if not on paper.
Conclusion
What can we conclude from all this sorry mess? I for one will never abandon the Catholic Church, because I truly believe she is, as Saint Paul wrote to Timothy, the “pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). The fact that some people did not live up to her teachings does not mean that those teachings aren’t true. At the same time, though, the human dimension of the Church is something that can always be made more perfect. Transparency and accountability are the order of the day, as well as the constant conversion needed to be true sons and daughters of the gospel. As Jesus himself said, “Everyone who does wrong hates the light and avoids it, for fear that his actions may be exposed. But the man who lives by the truth comes out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what he does is done in God.” (John 3: 20-21) We must all have the courage to come out into the light.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 9 Comments
Post for November 12, 2006
Or should that be a “cow-man” ?
A reader sent me an email regarding a story similar to this, about planned attempts to create a cow-human hybrid embryo for the sake scientific research.
This raises, of course, all sorts of ethical questions. Clearly the scientists desiring to do this don’t believe that “embryo” is a state of being worthy of dignity, or else they wouldn’t be trying this (I am, of course, being generous here — perhaps they just don’t care). But in the email my reader sent, she asked “what does it mean for those little souls?” From what I can see, there are 4 possibilities:
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The resulting hybrids are merely animals
It is possible that the resulting embryos are essentially animals with some human-specific DNA in them. In such a case, the hybrids have merely animal souls, not rational souls.
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The resulting hybrids have rational souls but do not possess bodies capable of expressing that rational nature
This case is analogous to a person who is suffering a severe mental handicap. A human being possesses a rational soul, but also requires a body capable of expressing that rational nature. A person with advanced Alzheimer’s, for example, still possesses a rational soul even if the brain has been slowly degenerating. If this second situation is the case, therefore, these souls are rational and immortal, even if the behavioural element would never be able to show evidence of it.
Complicating this particular matter, however, is the fact that there are serious theologians who do not believe that even human beings possess rational souls until the body itself is capable of some minimal rationality. Their position is that the human soul starts out as a vegetative soul, then develops to become an animal soul, and finally becomes a rational soul. These theologians would probably argue that if there ever were a new race of creatures in which not one of its individual members, EVER, could show evidence of rational behaviour, that race of creatures could not reasonably be considered to have a rational soul.
In the end, this leads to some touchy theological hair-splitting. The Church does teach that human life does begin at conception, and that the soul is created by God at that moment. If that is the case, i.e. if there is some special intervention by God involved, then we really are not limited to thinking that the human soul goes through “merely vegetative” and “merely animal” states prior to becoming a rational soul. Indeed, the direct creation by God is what gives the soul sufficient ontological priority over the body to allow for free will — even though all you may have is a fertilized ovum. Besides this, I think the general sensus fidei has become more aware of the dignity of the human person since conception, such that a common agreement would emerge to allow the hybrids to be accorded the dignity that comes with possessing a human nature.
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The resulting hybrids clearly share in human nature, such that they can rightly be called “children of Adam”
In such a case, the hybrids clearly have rational souls (with evidence of some sort to prove it). Basically, they would be considered a kind of human mutant, but human nonetheless. Physically, the ability to produce offspring with “regular” humans who are not mules (i.e. are not sterile) would be strong evidence that, while mutated, these hybrids are still essentially human, but this would not necessarily be required evidence. On the spiritual side, if their behaviour showed evidence of being tainted by original sin, it would be strong evidence that they true descendants of Adam (more on this in the next section)
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The resulting hybrids clearly possess a rational nature, but not a human nature, such that they are truly a new species
In this case the hybrids represent a “new creation”, such that their souls, while rational, are not human. What is interesting about this possibility is the further possibility that such creatures might be free of original sin. If they are so different that they truly cannot be called “children of Adam”, this might truly be the case despite their having been formed partly from “human flesh”. St. Thomas speculated on this possibility when he asked the question, Whether original sin would be contracted by a person formed miraculously from human flesh? Of course, we are not speaking of a miracle here, merely a work of biological engineering, but this does not change the point because the “generative contribution” of human beings is (likely) not at stake.
A complicating factor, however, is that it might be very hard to determine whether or not a new species is subject to original sin. This is because a new species, as a new species, might have its own version of natural law that corresponds to its new, non-human nature. Some of what would be sin for a human being might not be sin for a cowman being, and vice versa (and also with virtues and meritorious acts). On the other hand, the fact that such creatures would have a rational nature would mean that they would be capable of communication and language, meaning that they could (and should) cooperate with humans in the building of the common good. Actions against this common good, no matter human or cowman, would still be sins against the natural law derived from reason itself, and would be evidence of original sin.
Getting away from this question of souls, however, there is still the bigger question: should we do this? The answer is NO, for the same reason that extreme caution should always be exercised in issues of reproductive technology. Our reproductive capacity is part of the image and likeness of God in us, and is indeed a key part of that image and likeness, in that through reproduction we become “co-creators” with God in his ongoing desire to enrich his family with more and more children. How we pass on human life, therefore, has a strongly spiritual dimension, and should always be undertaken with great respect for its sacred character. I understand that the scientists in question may simply not see this quality of the sacred, and for that I am profoundly sad. Nevertheless, I think the answer for Catholics is clear: we must never participate in such experimentation, no matter what the possible potential payoff, because to do so with profoundly dishonour God as well as ourselves.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 8 Comments
Post for October 30, 2006
UPDATE: Welcome to readers of other blogs which have linked to this story. A special welcome to readers of this Catholic News Agency story (copied also to several news agencies such as EWTN).
A blog reader asked me to comment on the recent decision by Fr. Raymond Gravel to enter political life with the Bloc Quebecois party. This is something that is quite upsetting to many people, because Fr. Gravel appears to be claiming that he is doing so with the agreement of his bishop, and even the Vatican. And THIS is particularly upsetting to some people because Fr. Gravel is a known public dissenter with many elements of Catholic teaching. Some clarity, therefore, is in order.
First, priests are most definitely forbidden to enter political life — it is right there in the Code of Canon Law, in black and white, canon 285.
Second, Fr. Gravel does *not* have the permission of the Vatican to enter into political life. This was confirmed by the Apostolic Nuncio to Canada himself.
Third, Fr. Gravel has been told by his bishop that if he does enter into political life he will have to give up all public ministry. He will still be required to maintain all priestly obligations (particularly celibacy), but he will only be permitted to celebrate mass privately — no funerals, no marriages, no baptisms, no preaching in church, etc.
Now some people are wondering: why is the bishop even “allowing” this priest to enter into political life at all? But to be honest, I’ll bet the bishop is down on his knees thanking God for his good fortune. Fr. Gravel, as I mentioned earlier, is a dissenter — but a very very public one, with a lot of support from Quebec’s chattering classes. They seem to just be waiting deliciously for the bishop — or even better, the Vatican — to come down hard on Fr. Gravel so that they have a reason to (yet again) mobilize public opinion against the Church. But with Fr. Gravel entering into political life he will, in a sense, remove himself from positions of ministry, thus taking care of the internal problem himself.
Of course, there is the problem that, as a politician, Fr. Gravel will have a new bully pulpit from which to proclaim his heresies — but at least it won’t be a church pulpit, and it will be Citizen Gravel, not Father Gravel, who will be doing so. There is also the reality that, as part of the Bloc Quebecois, there is absolutely no danger that Fr. Gravel will ever share in government. And finally, I have a sneaking feeling it won’t be too long before Fr. Gravel annoys his new political masters. Fr. Gravel seems to have issues with authority, and he will soon discover that political leaders are far more exacting (and far less merciful) than bishops or popes.
There is, finally, one possible genuine silver lining in all of this, which (if we are smart) people of faith can take advantage of. Secularists in Canada often argue that religious belief should stay out of politics (separation of Church and State and all that), but they go to such an extreme that what they really mean is the Church should stay out of any form of public discourse on civic life whatsoever. Well, they themselves have now invited a Roman Catholic priest (who is still in canonical “good standing”) to join directly in the exercise of civic power, effectively cutting off their nose to spite their face. From now on, every time they complain about church pronouncements on civic and political life, we — no matter what our political or religious affiliation — can just turn around and point to the example of Fr. Gravel. It will give us a certain room to maneuver, effectively allowing religious discourse to once again become part of civic life in Canada.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 44 Comments
Post for September 26, 2006
Read the article, entitled Pope quote out of context. I almost fell off my chair when I saw that the McGill Daily (which in my day had a reputation for being just a little to the left of Lenin) had published such an opinion piece. Congrats to faithful blog reader Steven Bidd for bring forward this point of view.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 5 Comments
Post for September 19, 2006
Hi, my name is Father Thomas Dowd. I’m a Roman Catholic priest, and…..I’m a gamer.
(multiple voices) Hi, Father Tom.
I started gaming when I was 12 years old. It was the summer before I started grade 7. A friend got me into Dungeons and Dragons. “Just try it,” he said, “you’ll like it!” So we did, and he was right. Pretty soon, I was saving up my allowance money to spend on gaming rulebooks, odd-shaped dice, and adventure modules. I also started to get my friends into it. I even recruited my younger brother to play!
The effects of playing the game were readily apparent. First, we all started reading a lot more. Oh, there were less erudite books like the Nine Princes of Amber novels or the Myth series by Robert Aspirin, but to be honest you weren’t really considered a literate gamer until you’d read J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. We would talk about that trilogy at recess, at lunch, and after school, telling each other what we’d read and encouraging each other get through the tougher passages. Imagine, 12 and 13 year old boys reading real literature!
Playing the game was also having an effect on my knowledge of the world, particularly world religions and how they helped shape society. Just looking through the Deities and Demigods book, for example, with its descriptions of gods and legends and pantheons of other nations and eras, provoked visits in the imagination to ancient Greece, India, China, even Finland. Finland! How many teenage boys even knew where Finland was…and yet here we were, getting to know the characters of the great epics!
As if becoming more familiar with literature and culture weren’t enough, though, I discovered quickly that, among my friends who gamed, we were all developing a common interest…writing! D&D, you see, is not like other games like Monopoly, which has the definite goal of bankrupting the other players, or Risk, with the definite goal of conquering the world. D&D does not teach values like that — rather, the game is open-ended, with the players developing “characters” that engage in adventures together, with the goals being as much subjective (the growth of the character) as objective (attainment of some goal, or series of goals). In a sense, we were all living an adventure story together, and lots of us enjoyed it so much we started to write those stories down. I know one gamer who actually taught himself English by means of writing the D&D story of one long set of adventures!
I’m not sure the originators of the game meant for it to happen, but another side-effect of the game was that my brother and I became really good friends. I recall one summer vacation where we spent virtually every day together. I mean, we could have been running around the neighbourhood getting into trouble, or sitting in front of the TV, but instead there we were, day after day, reading books, talking and using our imaginations, our parents knowing exactly where we were at all times. How shocking!
It must be admitted, however, that the game did pass on certain subtle messages to us. One of them was that evil is just no fun. You see, the game *does* allow a player to create and play with an evil character within the game — but we learned quickly that evil simply does not pay. After all, if you really did play a character with an evil temperament, you eventually had to start backstabbing the other characters in your adventuring party — and then the monsters would get *all* of you anyway. Also, good characters who served good nobles and lords were always rewarded, while evil characters serving evil lords might only reap betrayal. It just wasn’t fun. Oh, it was possible to play a “neutral” character, who did not choose between good and evil, and that was sometimes ok — but in general, they had no real motivation to take part in the great epic adventures. No, it took Good characters, who acted out of bravery and with a spirit of self-sacrifice, to make the campaign really move forward with a story everyone could remember. What a lesson for life!
Finally, I have to admit that I probably owe part of my vocation as a priest to my experience playing D&D. You see, in any role-playing game there is one player who is not a player. This player is responsible to establish and referee the scenario that the other players experience. This “Dungeon Master” has a great responsibility: helping other people have fun. In a sense, the DM is a player taken from among the group of players to be the shepherd of the gaming experience. He spends long hours studying the rules and trying to create adventure scenarios that will challenge the other players but not discourage them. He also is responsible to arbitrate rule conflicts, and has the power to even bend the rules if they are getting in the way of the true purpose of the game necessarily leads to the development of improved practical judgement. And he is indispensable: the game *needs* for there to be one player at the service of the other players in this manner. How insidiously pastoral! Imagine being a DM, where nothing is in it for you except the enjoyment and success of others! And yet…secretly I loved being a DM — it seemed to echo something deep inside me, a calling that I didn’t even know I was feeling until years later when I joined the seminary. I’m not sure I’d ever have become a priest without having the chance to experience “shepherding” in such a simple, fun environment.
There is so much more that can be said about the game. I know one player who got so into D&D that he unplugged from our worldly reality by becoming a monk! Apparently, playing religious characters in the game gave him the desire to rediscover prayer in his life, and it led him to not just playing a cleric, but becoming one! The game also introduced us to the concept of demons and devils, teaching us that they are enemies that should be defeated (and never bargained with).
Since I began playing Dungeons and Dragons I’ve moved on as well to trying other games, and at this point I’ve even become a reviewer for the game Ars Magica (produced by Atlas Games). They wanted to include the Roman Catholic Church as part of their story scenarios, but also wanted to make sure it was portrayed fairly and accurately, including elements of Catholic faith. How could a gamer priest like me resist? I’ve contributed passages and concepts to a couple of rulebooks, such that I’ve even received credit as a “system designer”. All I can see is the great potential that exists in such games to promote new methods of fun and learning, and I’ll admit I’m entranced by the notion.
I’m really glad to be part of this gaming support group, because I think role-playing games are worthy of our support. Thanks for listening.
I hope people can hear the tongue-in-cheek tone of this text. Every so often I get an email commenting on the possible “evils” of a particular game. I don’t know every game out there, but I am at least familiar with the genre of role-playing games (especially the most famous/infamous, i.e. Dungeons and Dragons) and I must say, I find the texts out there that are critical of the game to be, quite simply, extraordinarily silly. Silly, with plenty of inaccuracies, and often full of hysteria. Can these sorts of things be used in an evil way? Sure, but that’s true of a lot of things. Do they necessarily lend themselves to that? Absolutely not — because then it isn’t fun anymore!
P.S. Anybody wanna try this Ars Magica game with me? A good friend will soon be giving me a table that will be *perfect* for gaming, and given that I’ve contributed to this game but never played it I thought it might be fun to try it out for size. Let me know.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 15 Comments
Post for September 8, 2006
The debate within Canada on same-sex marriage has been launched once again, this time by none other than Pope Benedict XVI. Get the scoop here, even before it appears on the CBC web site:
Pope calls gay marriage “folly,” warns politicians
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict said on Friday Catholic politicians could not be swayed by opinion polls and social trends into supporting practices such as abortion and the “folly” of gay marriage.
The Pope repeated his opposition to abortion and gay marriage in a toughly worded address to visiting bishops from Canada.
“In the name of tolerance’ your country has had to endure the folly of the redefinition of spouse, and in the name of freedom of choice’ it is confronted with the daily destruction of unborn children,” the Pope said.
“When the Creator’s divine plan is ignored the truth of human nature is lost,” he said.
Canada legalized gay marriage last year but its parliament will hold a vote later this year on whether to start the process of scrapping the law, which is opposed by conservatives.
Since his election last year, the Pope has often condemned gay marriage and last June a Vatican document called it one sign of “the eclipse of God” in modern times.
In his address to the bishops, the Pope also touched on the highly sensitive issue of whether Catholic politicians can back legislation allowing practices such as gay marriage and abortion even if they are personally opposed to them.
The Pope condemned such behavior by politicians as “false dichotomies.”
“They are particularly damaging when Christian civic leaders sacrifice the unity of faith and sanction the disintegration of reason and the principles of natural ethics, by yielding to ephemeral social trends and the spurious demands of opinion polls,” he said.
“They are particularly damaging when Christian civic leaders sacrifice the unity of faith and sanction the disintegration of reason and the principles of natural ethics, by yielding to ephemeral social trends and the spurious demands of opinion polls,” he said.
“Democracy succeeds only to the extent that it is based on truth and a correct understanding of the human person. Catholic involvement in political life cannot compromise on this principle…,” he said.
The Church, particularly in developed countries such as the United States, has been divided over the issue of whether Catholic politicians who support abortion should be allowed to receive communion.
The issue divided U.S. Catholics and their bishops during the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry, a Democrat and a Catholic who supports abortion rights.
Some Catholic politicians say they are personally opposed to abortion but, in pluralistic societies such as the United States, feel obliged to support a woman’s right to choose.
Last June, a task force of the U.S. Catholic bishops conference left the decision of whether Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be denied communion with local bishops.
President George W. Bush, a Protestant and a Republican, opposes abortion and gay marriage.
Gay marriage is expected to be an issue in November elections when control of the Republican-led U.S. Congress will be at stake.
Here is a brief version in French:
Le pape Benoît XVI critique le mariage homosexuel et l’avortement au Canada
CITE DU VATICAN (PC) – Le pape Benoît XVI a critiqué vendredi le Canada qui a permis le mariage de conjoints de même sexe et le recours à l’avortement.
En s’adressant à un groupe d’évêques ontariens, le Saint-Père a fait valoir que la classe politique canadienne avait cédé aux tendances sociales éphémères et aux sondages d’opinion.
Il a déploré que de nombreux hommes et femmes continuent de s’éloigner de la demeure de Dieu pour vivre dans le désert de l’isolement individuel, de la fracture sociale et de la perte d’identité culturelle.
I can’t wait to read the editorials tomorrow.
» Filed Under News and upcoming events, Sexuality, Social commentary | 37 Comments
Post for September 7, 2006
I was at a concert the other night, and while looking through the program booklet I came across an ad for footwear. It seemed ordinary enough, until I saw the brand name of the shoes: Mephisto.
Now I don’t usually get uptight about clothing — generally, I think there are better things to worry about. And I have no beef with the shoes themselves — they are probably quite well made. What disturbs me, though, is the use of demons in advertising. Since when did Hell get so fashionable that a reference to the demon Mephistopheles is so fashionable that a trademark based on him can be used to help sell something? I mean, we’re not talking drugs, or porn, or pipe bombs here. It’s just footwear — being sold with a stylized image of a demon on them. (Take a look at the trademark shape: the “M” is stylized to have two horns on the “head”, and the white “interior” of the M is made up to look like a menacing face, complete with red eyes.)
So a bit of background, for the next time you buy some shoes: the name “Mephisto” is a short form for Mephistopheles, a figure from Christian demonology. While the name does not appear in the Bible, each time it is found in the literature it makes reference to a fallen angel. At the very least, we know the name is directly and exclusively associated with the demonic.
Is there really a demon named Mephistopheles? Yes and no. Demonic (and angelic) names do not work the same way human names do. These names are titles that are typically attributed to the spirit in question to describe some function (or, in the case of some of the angels, to describe/praise some attribute of God). For example, “Satan” in Hebrew simply means “opposer”. A prosecuting attorney, for example, could be called a “satan” in this way. The name “Lucifer”, a name so often attributed to the Devil, actually takes its origin as a normal human name (it means “light bringer”); we actually have a couple of St. Lucifer’s in the church calendar!
The Bible speaks of spirits having a “private name” (the book of Revelation mentions even us obtaining a “new name” in the resurrection), and also shows such spirits being reluctant to mention their name when asked, such that when a person winds up in an exchange with an angel (or demon) the name that is given is often simply a title to facilitate establishing a relationship (for good or for ill). Is there a demon actually named Mephistopheles? Probably not. But on the other hand, it would be perfectly in character for a demon to take a look at how this name arose in the historical and literary tradition, and to use the name when interacting with humanity. So yes, demons probably do “borrow” this name from time to time when wanting to interact with us. Even if we were the ones who created the name, it does not change the association with evil.
The bottom line is, the makers of these kinds of shoes know the origin and usage of the name Mephisto, they know it is a demonic association (based on the shape of the trademark), and they are even counting on that evil reputation to help sell their shoes. All this is bad enough, but they would not be doing this if they didn’t think there would be an audience receptive enough (or at least indifferent enough) to their association with Hell that it would not harm their efforts to sell these shoes. As much as I might be disturbed by the company’s efforts, I find myself even more disturbed by my original question: when did Hell become so fashionable that it can acutally be explicitely used to help sell something?
» Filed Under Social commentary | 11 Comments
Post for December 22, 2005
…has apparently been relocated to this building in Ottawa, our nation’s capital. At least, that’s my guess, based on this latest ruling: Swingers clubs don’t harm society.
The gist of their argument is that community standards are not a legitimate legal measuring stick for creating law. Only potential “harm” can be considered…..unless the harm is, of course, to those community standards. Individualism trumps the common good, once again.
And, of course, both the cases that were ruled on originated from within my diocese. I really do live in an interesting city. Montreal was founded based on interior locutions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Jerome le Royer, and was first named “Ville-Marie” in her honour. Now, it seems to be “Babylon North”.
Wanna read the judgements for yourself? They can be found here and here.
» Filed Under Social commentary | 1 Comment
