Sexual Abuse and Misconduct: McCarrick, Seminaries, Pennsylvania

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.

2017/02/12 — 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time — Year A

If we look for the unifying thread between the first reading and the gospel, we might call it something like "observing the Law."


The first reading — Sirach 15:15-20 — insists that, "If you choose you can keep the commandments." We have free will. We can't employ the excuse, "The Devil made me do it."This year, the weekday Mass first readings are from Genesis. We heard on Monday through Thursday of the creation on the world and of man and woman. On Friday came the story of the fall, and on Saturday, the result, with Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the serpent. God does not accept the excuses: all three are guilty and all three suffer the consequences. Similarly, Sirach tells us, we will experience the good or evil consequences of our good or evil choices. God knows what we do.


The responsorial psalm — verses of Psalm 119 — praises those who follow the law of the Lord and prays the we will know and obey it fully.


In the gospel — Matthew 5:17-37 — Jesus affirms the Law as valid, and tells us that our observance of it must go beyond the literal minimum. We must refrain from anger as well as murder. Of course, there are instances when we react emotionally with anger at evil, but we must not stoke that anger and hold on to it. Instead, we are to forgive and be reconciled with one another. We must refrain from lust as well as adultery. Of course we are attracted by a beautiful person, but we must not let the involuntary attraction turn to lust — which St. John Paul II says occurs when we fail to regard the person as one who has the inviolable dignity of a human person and instead make her/him an object for our own pleasure. Note also that he specifies that adultery includes marrying a divorced person unless the former marriage was invalid. Finally, we must refrain from deceptive speech as well as perjury. We should be fundamentally honest, so that it will not be necessary to put us on oath to be sure we are telling the truth.

Judaism has always regarded the Law as God's supreme gift to Israel, something not only to be studied and observed, bit something to be joyful about. The giving of the Law proves God's love for his people. Jesus tells us that we should take it to heart, and when we do, our observance will go beyond a literalist minimum. Our attitude won't be "How far can I go before I've broken a commandment?" but, "How is God asking me to live?"


St. Paul tells us in the second reading — 1 Corinthians 2:6-10 — that God's wisdom is far above human wisdom. God's wisdom is aimed at providing us with a glorified existence far beyond anything we could imagine. Those who love God, as witnessed by their keeping the commandments, will receive what God has prepared — in line with Sirach's statement that keeping the commandments will save us and trust in God will bring life. Jesus also says that we must follow the Law as he explains it if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven.

2015/10/25 — 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

This Sunday's readings speak of the Lord as the healer of his people who leads them on their way.


We begin with Jeremiah 31:7-9, a promise that the Lord will bring the remnant of Israel back to their homeland. All, regardless of infirmities, are included, and the Lord will clear the way for them so that the return to Israel will be easy.

Between the years 732-722 B.C. the Assyrians annexed the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which included all the Israelite tribes other than Judah and Benjamin. They deported the people to Assyria. Writing in the period 605-587, as Assyria weakened and Babylon gained strength, Jeremiah looked forward to the end of the captivity. In fact, it does not seem that there was a wholesale return of Israelites from Assyria, and in 587 Babylon conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah and there was an exile of its people, known as the Babylonian Captivity, which lasted until 539, when Persia conquered Babylon.

Since Jeremiah's prophecy does not seem to have been literally fulfilled, we must understand it differently. It is, of course, possible that at some point before the end of the world, the descendants of the tribes deported to Assyria will return to the Promised Land. Maybe some descendants of the exiles from Israel returned along with the exiles from Judah. But we need not insist that there will be an eventual literal fulfillment of the prophecy. We can, and I think should, take it in a figurative sense, seeing the Promised Land as a type (prefiguration) of heaven, and the people as being all God's people. God is our father, and he will bring us from what we can metaphorically consider an exile from heaven in this life to our true home with him. We suffer in various ways, but he will remove both internal and external obstacles to our joyous return to him.


In the responsorial psalm — Ps 126 — we meditate on the joy of the Lord's bringing us back to our ultimate promised land.


The gospel — Mark 10:46-52 — recounts a specific healing by Jesus, that of the blind man Bartimaeus. This is an individual instance corresponding to the more general reference to the disabled of various types in the passage from Jeremiah. We all have disabilities. There are physical disabilities, but more importantly, all of us, regardless of physical condition, have our spiritual disabilities — sins — which keep us from God. When we seek the Lord's healing forgiveness, he will not refuse it.

Bartimaeus, once healed, didn't stay in Jericho. Without being asked, he joined the company of Jesus' followers as they went up to Jerusalem, where Jesus would suffer and die for us. In the same way, being forgiven, healed of our sin, enables us to follow Jesus through his suffering and death to his resurrection and return to heaven.


We can hear the second reading — Hebrews 5:1-6 — in the context of the passages about being healed and led home from exile. The quotes from Psalms 2 and 110 with which the reading concludes became common among Jesus' followers' understanding of him after his death and resurrection. (See Acts 13:33 for Ps 2:7 and Matthew 22:44 for Ps 110 — though not directly v. 4.) It is as our high priest, our representative before the Father, that Jesus offers the sacrifice of himself: the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52-53 whom we heard about last Sunday. This is what enables us to be healed and brought back to God.


In one sense, our spiritual blindness is cured in baptism, which sets us on the path of return to God. But we can also fall victim to a sort of blindness when we lose sight of God as part of our lives and wrap ourselves in the cloak of our own self-interest. We can turn aside from the path that leads to God and return to a state of exile. If we find ourselves in any sort of spiritual blindness, in any sort of exile or estrangement from God, the Church says to us what it says to all, "Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you." He makes it possible for us to follow him home to the Father.

2015/09/27 — 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for this Sunday remind us that God is free to give his gifts where he wishes, and we should be glad whenever people receive them. They also remind us of the importance of not leading others to sin or letting us be led into it, with a specific warning about riches.


The first reading — Numbers 11:25-29 — tells of an episode when the Israelites were wandering in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land. It was a year and two months since they had left Egypt, and Moses asked the Lord for help in governing the people. The Lord told him to choose seventy people to assist him and bring them to the tent where Moses would meet with the Lord, and that the Lord would give some of Moses' spirit on them so they could help Moses. Today's passage tells what happened next.

Receiving the share of Moses' spirit caused the elders to prophesy, that is to engage in enthusiastic utterances, probably like charismatics speaking in tongues, not delivering normal speech like biblical prophets. What is remarkable, of course, is that the elders had been assembled with Moses at the meeting tent for the event. But Eldad and Medad, who had been chosen but missed the gathering, received the spirit too. Joshua thought that their presence with Moses was some sort of requirement, but God was not limited by the presence of Moses.


Similarly, the gospel reading — Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48 — begins with a case of "unauthorized" people using Jesus' name to drive out demons. Joshua-like, the disciples wanted to stop them, and hold for themselves the share of divine power they enjoyed. But God is not limited to the institutions that he has created. God owns the Church, not vice-versa; and if God has given the sacraments to the Church as "guaranteed encounters with God" and the ordinary channels of his grace, he can give his grace in other ways as well. We must be pleased whenever we see God at work in people's lives.

The rest of the passage gives a warning, first against leading others into sin (called giving scandal), which is particularly diabolical, then against giving in to our own temptations. Clearly the advice to amputate a bodily part which causes us to sin is not to be taken literally. After all, as Jesus says elsewhere (e.g., Mark 7:20-23, read on the 22nd Sunday), sin comes from within, from our heart. But it does underscore the necessity of not giving in to temptation. This must also be taken in conjunction with all that scripture says about God's mercy. It is not failure to overcome temptation that leads to Gehenna, but failure to repent of sin. It is becoming content to continue in sin, with the consequence that we do not repent and seek God's mercy, that leads one away from the kingdom of God and, ultimately to the separation from God to which Jesus gives the image of fiery Gehenna.


The second reading — James 5:1-6 — is a powerful, even shocking, condemnation of the rich, whose avarice leads them to injustice and murder. St. Paul says that the love of money is the root of all evils (1 Timothy 6:10). While there are verses which tie the sin of the rich to injustice and murder, I think we shouldn't be too quick to say, "There's nothing wrong with being rich in itself." Even though that is literally true, one has to consider, first, how the riches are acquired. Does one become rich through a position in a business which pays employees less than a living wage — which is de facto withholding the wages of the workers — or through destroying competitors through unfair competition, or through other wrongful ways of getting more than one is entitled to? Secondly, one must ask how one uses even legitimately gained riches. If it's just for one's own enjoyment, that is wrong.

As the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) tells us, the rich are obliged to share with the poor. To keep what one does not need when others are in need is wrong. There is an obligation to share with the poor. Here is a link to a very powerful sermon addressed to the rich by St. Basil the Great. The needy are entitled to our surplus, he says, and if we hold on to it, we are thieves who oppress those we could help, but refuse to. This is a real challenge for all of us. To what extent are we justified in enjoying more than the necessities of life when there are others who lack them and whom we could help? Of course, in the West, programs and institutions exist, so nobody has to starve. Poverty of the sort that existed in Basil's time  (late 4th Century) isn't present in the West. But it does still exist in other parts of the world. What is our obligation to those poor, and what is our obligation to those considered poor in our own country?


Psalm 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14 leads the congregation to meditate on the goodness of God's ordinances and to pray that God will cleanse our hearts from evil inclinations.

Theology of the Body 2014/02/09

Continuing the excerpts from Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body in Simple Language by Sam Torode:

"Sin disrupted the original harmony of body and spirit. St. Paul expresses this memorably in … Romans:

When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Rom 7:[22]-24)

But in the resurrection, the body will be free from this 'law of sin.' Body and spirit will be in perfect harmony.

"Paul … speaks of man as a composite of body, spirit, and soul, with no distinct boundaries among the three. According to Paul, both body and soul are capable of being 'spiritual.' … [I]n the age to come, the body will be filled with light, entirely permeated by the spirit.

"Can the body be illumined even while we are here on earth? Yes, to the extent that we mature spiritually. But in this life there will always be … an opposition between body and spirit that we must overcome. In the age to come, this opposition will be … eliminated. The law of sin will be vanquished from the body, and our spiritualization will be perfected.

"This spiritualization is not dehumanizing. It is the opposition between body and spirit that limits our human potential. The resurrected body will not be less human, but more.

"Since God created the human being as a unity of body and spirit, human perfection could never involve an opposition between them. [It] means a deep harmony between [them.] And we must not conceive of this harmony as a victory of spirit over body, but as a perfect participation of the body in the mystery of the spirit."

Next: divinization.

Jesus and Same-Sex Couples — Part 3

Seeker030 posted on his blog and clarified what sort of relationship he had in mind when he wrote the tweet that got me started on this series. I hadn't quite understood what he was getting at, and I have left a comment there, responding to his specific concerns. Please check it out.

As long as we're thinking about Jesus and same-sex couples, there are a couple of further general points I had in mind which I think are worth presenting for consideration.

Jesus must not be thought of apart from the rest of the Bible.  The fact that Jesus did not speak directly to a specific topic does not necessarily mean that Christians are free to do whatever they feel like. We cannot ignore what Paul, and John, Peter, and James tell us about how Christians ought to live. We cannot ignore the prophets and wisdom literature of the Old Testament when they tell us how God wants his people to live. After all, Jesus himself, on the road to Emmaus, interpreted the parts of scripture which referred to him for the disciples. Luke 24:27 Christians believe that Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1) and that the Bible is the Word of God in human language. There can be no real contradiction between them. What this means is that if we find the Bible telling us to do this or not to do that, then that is how God is calling to live, even if Jesus did not speak about it.


Jesus does not always approve what we want. People sometimes say, Jesus would not want me to have the unhappiness which this rule would bring. But Jesus does not promise pleasure or happiness in this life. In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), he calls blessed, people who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are persecuted. Ultimately, their reward will be great, but for now, we are told that we have a cross to carry daily. (Luke 9:23) The line, "How can something that feels so right be wrong?" is sometimes used to assuage guilty consciences in situations of adultery and fornication. We shouldn't let our feelings overcome what we know about right and wrong or invoke an image of a loving God which has been transformed into an image of an indulgent God.

Whatever moral standards exist are for our good, since God did not send Jesus for the purpose of condemning us, but to save us. John 3:17


"Jesus appreciates same-sex couples who are committed to one another in love."

To sum up my feelings on this, I'd say that Jesus certainly appreciates all, including same-sex couples, who are attempting to live a life of  love, even if their understanding of what is right or wrong is mistaken on some points. And it certainly doesn't matter whether I think they are mistaken.

My belief is that when it comes to sex, for one thing we are supposed to avoid lust. That is one of the big points in the Theology of the Body, which I have been posting about. But lust is not the same thing as attraction, much less is it the same as affection. So an affection which does not seek to reduce the other to an instrument for one's own sexual gratification is legitimate. And when it comes to action, it seems to me that what is forbidden is only those actions which involve contact with the genitals or which more or less inevitably lead to sexual arousal. I believe that there can be innocent touch including such things as embracing, stroking, cuddling, even light kissing — depending on the "tolerance" of the individuals. Different people probably have different levels of activity in which they can engage without sexual arousal. Within those limits, I see no problem in physical expressions of affection and love. (I know that other Side B people take a more rigorous position either because they believe the pleasure that comes from these forms of touch is so sexual as to be restricted to husband and wife, or because it is too difficult for most me to stop before the touch progresses to more explicitly sexual activity.)

So I agree with Seeker030 in the sense in which he meant his tweet. I wouldn't mind some of that sort of expression of love in my own life.

Jesus and Same-Sex Couples — Part 2

Shall we go say hello to the elephant in the room? One point my friend did not state explicitly is that the same-sex couples of whom he speaks are sexually active. If we presume they aren't then this bit is superfluous. But if, as I suppose he means, they could be, then we have to note that among those who care about what Jesus thinks, namely Christians, there are, several schools of thought about the morality of homosexuality. They are sometimes designated by the terms "Side A" and "Side B." Side A holds that gay and lesbian sex can be morally legitimate. Side B holds that a homosexual orientation is not sinful in itself, but sex between members of the same sex is sinful. As regular readers know, I believe tat Side B is correct. (There is also "Side X," which says that even a homosexual orientation which is not acted on is sinful. Since they could never see Jesus appreciating even a celibate gay person, let alone a couple, there is no point in considering their position  for purposes of this discussion.)

I think it makes sense to distinguish between what is objectively right or wrong and what is subjectively right or wrong. I think this is a very important distinction when we talk about what Jesus appreciates. Let's think about drinking alcohol. There are some Christians who think it's morally wrong to drink alcohol. Most think it isn't wrong. They can't all be right. Objectively, either it is alright or it is wrong. But subjectively, if I think drinking is not sinful and I drink, I am not sinning because I do not intend to do anything I believe to be wrong. If the other side is right, then I am objectively doing something wrong even though I have not sinned by knowingly doing something wrong. On the other hand, even if drinking is not objectively wrong, someone who thinks it is and still goes ahead and has a drink is sinning, because he wants to do something he considers wrong.

Now, if Side A is objectively right, there is clearly no problem with saying that Jesus appreciates the couples my friend speaks of (except for Side B individuals who believe they are sinning). But if Side B is objectively right, then there is no problem with sexually inactive couples, but we have a question about those who are sexually active. Here is where the distinction between objective and subjective morality is important, because when Side A people engage in activity which they believe is okay, then they are not sinning, and there is no problem on that score between them and Jesus.


Who am I/are we to judge?  Whether a person is sinning or not is between his conscience and God. It is not my place to judge them. I do not know what's in their conscience. In other words, we can all have our beliefs about whether certain forms of conduct are objectively wrong, but that does not mean we know whether specific individuals have sinned. Of course, unless they tell us or we are there when it happens, we don't even know whether they have done anything or not. So there is no way I can say that these people have incurred Jesus' disapproval. And even in speaking hypothetically of Jesus' disapproval, we have to remember, as I noted at the beginning of the first post, that God is love. Even if someone sins, that does not make God stop loving him.


To be continued.

Theology of the Body — 2011/07/27

Continuing my series of excerpts from Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body in Simple Language, published by Philokalia Books, an adaptation of the Pope's talks by Sam Torode:

"Christ's saving work is cosmic, rescuing the entire universe from sin; but it begins with man and the redemption of the body.

"A redeemed life is possible through the power of the Spirit. It begins in the heart, them bears fruit in outward actions. …

"The 'flesh' is not limited to the sexual or physical realm. The 'acts of the flesh' [mentioned by St. Paul] are closely aligned with those things Christ describes as coming from an impure heart — 'evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander' (Mt. 15:19). … All sin comes from the flesh; all purity from the Spirit.

"… When Paul talks [in Romans 8:12-13] of putting to death the body's misdeeds, he echoes Christ's words in the Sermon on the Mount. … Self-control is essential for living by the Spirit.
…
"Living by the flesh means bondage to sin and decay. But living by the Spirit brings true freedom …

"Again and again, Paul stresses that salvation does not come from following the prescriptions of the Old Testament law, 'You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rater serve one another in love' (Gal. 5:13).

"Christ sets us free — not so that we might fall under the control of sin again, but that we might learn purity of heart."

"Every Saint has a past, Every Sinner has a future"

I found a laminated card with those lines in the back of a church in Monaghan Town, Co. Monaghan, Ireland, when I was there in September. It goes on to say,
"My past life I leave to Your Mercy, O God.
My present life I give to Your Love.
My future life I place in Your Providence."

Forgiveness

     Today in church the Gospel reading was the passage about the woman taken in adultery. The scribes and Pharisees point out that the law says she should be stoned and ask Jesus what he says about it. And he says, "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone," and they all gradually go away.

     As usual, the homily was mainly about the fact that we are all sinners. And this is an important point. It is easy for us to deny that what we are doing is wrong, even when it is. To deny that we have committed that sin, to deny that it is a sin, or even to deny that there is any such thing as sin. So we need to be reminded that we are sinners, as much as the ones we think of as sinners.

     But I found myself wishing that the homily had something also about the fact that Jesus did not condemn her. He told her not to sin any more, but he did not condemn her. Once we realize we are sinners, the most important thing is to realize that forgiveness is there for the taking.