On June 20, a review board for the Archdiocese of New York found that Theodore McCarrick had been credibly accused two incidents of child abuse of a sixteen year old boy in 1971 and 1972, when he was a priest of the archdiocese serving as the archbishop's secretary. He was immediately forbidden to exercise any priestly ministry. Also on June 20, the Archbishop of Newark revealed that there had been settlements of claims against him for sexual misconduct with adults during time he was in New Jersey. Additional details are available in a Wikipedia article. Amazingly, despite accusations, settlements, and apparently widespread rumors of his sexual misconduct with priests and seminarians, his advancement in the hierarchy was not impeded.
Since then, some former seminarians have published accounts of sexual harassment they suffered while in the seminary, with indifferent reactions from the superiors to whom they complained. In Boston, where some of the abuse was alleged, Cardinal O'Malley promptly placed the seminary rector on leave and appointed a commission (one bishop and two laity) to investigate.
After I began this, the Pennsylvania grand jury issued its report, detailing 1,000 victims of abuse by 300 priests over 70 years. The report is too long for most people to read in its entirety. I've seen an excerpt which summarizes one case (presumably one of the most egregious) from each of the six dioceses; and news stories abound.
Clearly, the abuse of children is the worst of the three things in the news. If there are still bishops around who didn't attempt to stop it according to the best understanding of the time, they should be removed and punished. Similarly any priests who engaged in or enabled the crimes. Where criminal charges can be brought, they should be. When I say, "according to the best understanding," I mean that in the early decades covered by the report, it was widely believed that moving a priest from the scene of his crime would enable him to avoid repeating the offense. Eventually bishops came to realize that that didn't work, and they began removing priests from ministry, sending them away for treatment, and readmitting them only when psychologists told them it was safe. Finally, they realized that there was always risk in returning priests to parish ministry, so they stopped doing so altogether. I've seen some tweets where people demand that everybody who was ware of any of it should be thrown out of the priesthood and into jail. This sort of generalized anger makes no sense to me. What we need is a case by case approach that takes account of differences and punishes people according to the degree of their culpability. Even more important than punishing the guilty from the past is continuing vigilance to prevent abuse from happening now and in the future. The other two stories have some bearing on that.
Archbishop McCarrick should never have been ordained a priest, since he has proved to be unable to keep his vow of celibacy. I don't know whether that was obvious — either to his supervisors or to himself — before he was ordained. When it became known that he was engaging in sexual conduct with young men, that should have put an end to his career. The fact that he was made archbishop and cardinal shows a serious failing on the part of the Church to properly vet people being considered for advancement. I don't know if it was a failure of communication between people in the know and people making decisions or a failure of those making decisions to appreciate the gravity of McCarrick's offenses. If the former, procedures have to be strengthened. If the latter, the decision makers should be removed from office and punished.
There are two aspects to the problems in the seminaries. On is the presence of actively homosexual seminarians engaging in sinful behavior and attempting to recruit others — including, according to one report, attempting to seduce a 15 year old boy. The other is the apparent failure in some instances of those in positions of authority to put a stop to it and expel those engaging in it. Such behavior in seminaries, if allowed to continue will probably lead to violations of celibacy after ordination, including child abuse by some of the guilty. At this point we don't know how widespread the sinful behavior and the failure to deal with it were. I am hopeful that the recent accounts will lead victims to continue to come forward and for comprehensive investigations to take place nationwide, so that effective measures will be taken to put a stop to ongoing sexual misconduct by seminarians and priests.
It would be utopian to suppose that all crime and all violations of celibacy can be prevented. The Catholic Church is made up of sinners, some worse, and some more saintly. It is made up of people who are competent in their positions and people who are less competent. There will always be a few who commit crimes, and a few who break their vows. But we can and must do better at keeping criminals and vow-breakers out of the priesthood, and of putting competent people in positions of authority.
I saw an intriguing tweet today. Someone suggested giving day to day control of the business side of dioceses to lay people and leaving bishops largely free for their spiritual responsibilities. I have seen movement in that direction already, with lay people serving as chancellors of dioceses and leading offices dealing with "temporalities" and even such things as education. It is a trend that should continue.
I have faith that the Church will survive, and continue to proclaim the gospel and minister the sacraments. But I see this as a moment when much that has been wrong can be corrected if people everywhere realize that it isn't just Boston, Pennsylvania, and maybe a couple of other places that have problems. They should demand to know what has been happening in their own diocese. When it is all made known, all offenders have been dealt with and protections agains recurrences are in place everywhere, then we will have truly dealt with the wrongdoing. I hope it will happen.
Tanglewood — 2026/08/01-02
1 day ago
