THE BELLS ARE RINGING — IN ROME,  DUBLIN, PHILADELPHIA, BOSTON AND
BRUSSELS……AND RIGHT HERE IN RIVER CITY

IT’S THE CATHOLIC HOUR

AND TODAY’S PROBLEM

AND YESTERDAY’S PROBLEM

AND LAST YEAR’S PROBLEM IS THE  SIN OF ABSOLUTE AND ABUSIVE POWER.

Catholic institutional sin, like cancer, starts small;  but it grows and flourishes as it penetrates and generates supportive networks. Destructive little devils, they invade the
body and then disrupt and destroy. Today’s – and yesterday’s —  Roman Catholic sin is ABUSIVE POWER.

Part of this sin-laden condition comes from our human situation….what we call original sin. The specifically Roman Catholic institutional sin of abusive power, however, is something our institutional leaders picked up early the life of our church. An inheritance from Imperial Rome.

Over the centuries, popes and bishops and some “lower clergy” have enjoyed and glorified power, and self-righteously glorified themselves as holders of power.

Abusive Power — THE Roman Catholic institutional sin — reinforces power-brokers at every level in the church: from the Vatican on high to the aberrant rectory resident on the other side of town.

Abusive power rapes little boys and girls, promotes arrogant bullying, justifies bishops who lie publicly and privately, and it flourishes in an institutional climate of secrecy and deception. Abusive power creates qualitative classes of people: superior people who control inferior people. The inferiors — women, gays, the children of gays, the divorced and
separated, for example —  must of course be controlled and put down. They raise uncomfortable thoughts and ask uncomfortable questions. They challenge and threaten the self-serving world of the power-holders.

Where there is sin, there must follow confession and repentance.

Where there is confession and repentance, there must be conversion, penitential reform and rebuilding of the institution – at all levels.

This indeed is our contemporary Roman Catholic challenge.

A MEDITATION ABOUT CURRENT EVENTS

A CONTEMPORARY ROMAN CATHOLIC CASE STUDY

THE SITUATION IN CLOYNE……

Bishop John Magee: Case Study — Catholic Power Abuse

This summer in Ireland, on 13 July, the Cloyne Report was issued. The Cloyne Report scrutinizes how both the Catholic Church and Irish State authorities handled allegations of sexual abuse against 19 priests and the local bishop and vicar general in the County Cork Diocese of Cloyne.

The Irish Voice of the Faithful responded immediately to the report by asking: “How can Catholics ever trust these lying bishops again?” It’s a good question.  It painfully goes to the heart of our contemporary Catholic malaise.

The Cloyne Report confirms that Bishop John Magee, former Bishop of Cloyne (who resigned his episcopal seat on 24 March 2010)  lied to survivors and lied to the Irish National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church. Bishop Magee also lied to public authorities investigating child safety in his diocese and he lied to his people. The Bishop of Cloyne deliberately misled another inquiry, and his own advisors, by creating two different accounts of a meeting with a priest-suspect:  one for the Vatican and another for diocesan files.

John Magee has a colorful Vatican history. In 1969 he was appointed secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome, and was chosen by Pope Paul VI to be one of his private secretaries. On Pope Paul’s death, he remained in service as a private secretary to his successor, Pope John Paul I, and also to Pope John Paul II. As private secretary to three Popes, Magee is the only man to hold such a position in Vatican history

The former Bishop of Cloyne relied on his vicar general, Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan,  to handle virtually all aspects of sexual abuse of children by priests in his diocese. The vicar general considered the national guidelines promulgated by the Church and State in Ireland to be misguided, and he substituted his own poorly documented and ad hoc procedures in their place.

As a result of the actions of Magee and O’Callaghan, and others who colluded with them, sexual abuse perpetrators have gone unprosecuted, victims have gone unsupported; and the people have been left bewildered and angry.

The actions of the former Bishop of Cloyne and his collaborators between 1996 and 2009 are an outrage. Bishop John Magee and Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan acted only to protect what they saw as the interests of the Church.

These men acted as they did because they belong to a power structure that does not value transparency and accountability. They thought they knew better than everyone else what was in the interests of the Church in Cloyne. There was no one who was in a position to contradict them.

Absolute power and absolute abuse. The contemporary Catholic problem…….

******

THE UPSIDE-DOWN PYRAMID

Mark 10:42-45

Jesus called His disciples said to them, “You know, those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them. Their great ones exercise authority over them. Nevertheless — it shall not be so among you.

“Whoever desires to become great among you must become your servant. Whoever  desires to be first namong you must  be the slave of all. Not even the Son of Man came  to be served. He came  to serve. To give his life for others.”

Dead Horse Theory

If you don’t understand this theory, you haven’t lived long enough.

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

 However, in government, education, and in corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase dead horse’s performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is  less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially  more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

And of course….

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Vatican II Deniers in American Catholicism

American Catholicism should be preparing for 2020 when a large increase in the Catholic population, mostly Hispanic, will present Church leaders with the challenge to open rather than close new churches and schools. Instead of preparing for the future, bishops and priests now in key administrative and pastoral positions, led by Pope Benedict XVI, are dressing the set of Catholic life with props from the past in an effort to take the church back to 1920.

That era of simplistically captioned silent movies is now re-created through the awkwardly translated liturgical readings soon to be expensively imposed on what these self-styled “reformers” hope to be passive and silent parishioners. Americans are not, however, alone in experiencing this phenomenon. In May the bishops of England and Wales restored meatless Fridays year round for Catholics. In the same month a nun held up a silver reliquary carrying the blood of the newly beatified Pope John Paul II, to applause by a large crowd in St. Peter’s Square. Besides alerting Pope Benedict to beware of doctors holding syringes, this reveals the Transylvanian caste of some of the clerics now decorating the set of Catholicism throughout the world.

For the next couple weeks, I am on vacation; but still processing the events in Detroit on Pentecost week end. For me the events of the American Catholic Council were clear signs of the times for a great number of American Catholics. We are not a bunch of obedient children following papa’s every command.

Some years ago, the American educator, Malcolm Knowles, stressed that anyone who would like to work effectively with adults should understand the six characteristics of adulthood.

I would stress that anyone who would be an adult believer or who would work with adult believers must understand and pay attention to these characteristics.

(1) Adults are autonomous and self-directed.
When making decisions about faith and action, adults draw from their formation and their lived experience and then decide how to live and act. (I suspect many bishops do this as well but often do not want “the faithful” to behave in a similar self-directed way.)

(2) Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge.
This deserves deep respect and thoughtful consideration. It is what the Council fathers at Vatican III meant by reading the signs of the times.

(3) Adults are goal oriented.
Adult believers are concerned with what it’s all about…..coming to a fuller and more satisfying appreciation of the Divine presence in our lives and world…..developing a sense of mission within and to the world around us.

(4) Adults are relevancy-oriented.
We are concerned about human life TODAY not yesterday.

(5) Adults are practical.
The great tradition of the church says that ortho-praxis comes before ortho-doxis: the LIVED FAITH lays the foundation for theological and doctrinal formulations. Many contemporary church leaders try to work the other way around……this results in using yesterday’s formulations to solve today’s problems. Often a very unhappy solution. The “new” liturgy that will be imposed on us in November is a good example.

(6) Adults need to be shown respect.
This of course goes both ways. Church leaders must show respect to and for church members. Church members must respect as well church leaders. BUT respect is earned!

One week ago, during Pentecost week end in Detroit, nearly 2,000 people gathered for the American Catholic Council. It was a marvelous experience: positive, faith-filled, and Catholic in every good sense of that word.

I am on the road right now, visiting family and friends but do want to jot down some quick reflections. First of all there is absolutely no reason that any bishop (or archbishop!) should be or should have been anxious about this gathering. The council participants were mature, adult Catholics, and open to bridge-building and dialogue. They were not, as a journalist (who I understand was not even there) observed: a bunch old 1960’s dissidents and trouble-makers.

Now we need to see what kind of follow-up will capture and promote the spirit of this Pentecost gathering.

Some reform organizations, like my favorite ARCC: the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, have an ambitious and realistic concrete action program. More about this In a future posting…..

Bankruptcy judge in Milwaukee

Blasts Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s program for sex abuse victims

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director    contact 414.429.7259/

On Wednesday, June 1, 2011, Judge Susan Kelly told attorneys from the Milwaukee archdiocese that the church’s so-called victim “mediation” program
established by archbishop Timothy Dolan in 2004 to address child sexual abuse by priests was “completely inept” and “not at all what had been described to
her” by archdiocesan officials.  The archdiocese was asking Kelly to allow the program to continue while they seek bankruptcy protection from the federal court.

Dolan testified before state lawmakers before leaving Wisconsin in 2009 to become the archbishop of New York that his mediation program, which had never been reviewed by outside investigators, rendered changes in the Wisconsin sex abuse statutes under the proposed Child Victims Act, and other institutional reforms, completely unnecessary.  Under Wisconsin law, until recently, any civil claim against abusive clergy and their bishops have been barred due to a set of controversial state supreme court decision in the mid 1990’s, which ruled any such case filed against clergy violated the 1^stamendment of the US constitution. Wisconsin is the
only state with such a provision.

Shielded by these rulings, Dolan and his attorneys devised the mediation program criticized by Kelly today, where victims received a nominal financial settlement in exchange for signing a release and dropping any chance, no matter how remote, of legally obtaining information, records, and testimony concerning the clergy who sexually assaulted them as children or what church officials knew about the abuse.

Clergy sex abuse survivors who testified before Kelly detailed how, instead of receiving healing and assistance from Dolan’s program, they were re-traumatized by it.  One victim, for instance, described in painful detail how, if she was to receive any assistance through Dolan’s program, she was forced to travel to the church grade school where she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and point out to a diocesan official each room and every hallway where she had been molested by the priest.

Dolan conveniently brokered his promotion to New York just in time to leave Milwaukee before the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy.  Now that we are beginning to see the results of his seven years as CEO of the archdiocese, the questions Dolan needs to return to answer under oath in Milwaukee are mounting, including evidence that he moved at least 130 million dollars into bogus financial entities before the bankruptcy filing and claiming that he was selling the archdiocesan headquarters while concealing its ownership under a school that has not operated for 30 years.  Now, as Judge Kelly has determined, we can add a bogus mediation program to this
growing list, where abuse victims had no choice for desperately needed therapy and assistance but to crawl back to their abusers and those who covered up
their crimes.

++++++

NEXT WEEK

Firsthand Report about the American Catholic Council  in MOTOWN…..

It takes courage to be a church reformer

It takes Know-How as well!

Shortly before his death in 1972, the highly effective community organizer, SAUL  ALINSKY, published his Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.

In the first chapter’s opening paragraph, he wrote:

“What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

Outlining his strategy for organizing, Alinsky continued:

“There’s another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.”

Roman Catholics TODAY need to examine their consciences.

ARE WE WILLING TO LET GO OF THE PAST SO WE CAN CHANGE THE FUTURE?

ARE WE WILLING TO FACE THE CHALLEGES OF REFORM FROM WITHIN?

ARE WE WILLING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT POPE BENEDICT’S REFORM OF THE REFORM IS NOTHING MORE THAN PIOUS  DOUBLE-TALK?

ARE WE WILLING TO BE CRITICAL THINKERS WHO CHALLENGE FALSEHOOD PRESENTED AS TRUTH  —- WHO REPUDIATE REVISIONIST HISTORY AS A WAY TO JUSTIFY CONTEMPORARY ABBERATIONS?

For Saul Alinsky, organizing was the process of highlighting whatever he believed to be wrong and convincing people they can actually do, something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a situation, they stop thinking about it. And this is exactly where many Catholics are today.

According to Alinsky, the organizer — the reformer — must:

(1)    First overcome suspicion and establish credibility.

(2)   Next begin the task of agitating to get people to participate.

(3)   Reformers have to attack apathy and patterns of complacency.

(4)   By combining hope with a clear and practical strategy for reform, the reformer gathers individuals and groups into a body of reformers.

It does work. And Catholic history — and American history — proves it!

 

Concluding reflections:

It takes courage to be a reformer.

Reformers cannot do it alone.

Reformers are “dissidents” in some people’s eyes. In fact, reformers are authentically loyal to the best of our tradition.

Some of our greatest Catholics were reform organizers: Francis of Assisi, Dominic, Ignatius of Loyola, Catherine of Sienna. And let us not forget Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and his “common ground” project. Joseph Bernardin was correct but he had to face being denounced by his brothers: Cardinals Bernard Law, James Hickey, Anthony Bevilaqua and Adam Maida! History will smile on Joseph and shrug its shoulders at the others as simply old  names on library cards…..

Put your arm around one friend today and start your local reform.

Reform can be contageous……

The Pathology of Catholic Authoritarianism

Something sinister is happening in the contemporary Roman Catholic Church. It is not just that Pope Benedict XVI (like his predecessor Pope John Paul II) is theologically and institutionally old-fashioned. What is happening under Pope Benedict’s rule is the implementation of a pathological regression into a degenerative and destructive Roman Catholic authoritarianism.

Pope Benedict, and bishops around the world who have obediently succumbed to his authoritarian virus, are destroying a contemporary Catholic Church that, thanks to the theological impulse of the Second Vatican Council, had begun to value dialogue, service, critical thinking, and an openness to new human experiences and contemporary realities.

The hallmarks of today’s Catholic Church are now becoming: arrogant episcopal power plays, an exaggerated medieval-style clericalism, institutional self-justification and hypocrisy, and a deceptive re-writing of Catholic belief and praxis that marches triumphantly beneath the banner of “the reform of the reform.”

For those who still really care to see a different kind of Catholic life, I invite you to reflect on the seven forms of pathological authoritarian behavior.

The pathological behavior of authoritarian leaders and followers:

1.Illogical Thinking : The lack of independent, critical thinking.

2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds : Authoritarians’ ideas are poorly integrated with one another.

3. Double Standards : When your ideas live independent lives from one another it is pretty easy to use double standards in your judgments. You simply call up the idea that will justify (afterwards) what you’ve decided to do.

4. Hypocrisy : The leaders of authoritarian movements sometimes accuse their opponents of being anti-democratic and anti-free speech when the latter protest
against various books, movies, speakers, teachers and so on.

5. Blindness To Themselves : self-righteousness.

6. A Profound Ethnocentrism : Ethnocentrism means dividing the world up into in-groups and out-groups…….in-groups are holy and good…out-groups are evil and Satanic.

7. Dogmatism: the Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense : By dogmatism I mean relatively unchangeable, unjustified certainty. Loyal followers obey without questions…..

 If we collaborate….we can change the system by refusing to acknowledge

authoritarianism in every form…..

(This week’s in-the-news photo reflection, with commentary, is below.)

“Give me my robe, put on my crown. I have Immortal longings in me.”

William Shakespeare

At today’s (25 May 2011)  weekly general audience Pope Benedict received a golden tiara commissioned by Dieter Philippi (http://www.dieter-philippi.de/), a German Catholic businessman. It was created in Sofia, Bulgaria by Orthodox Christians of the Liturgix studio (http://www.liturgix.com/). A small delegation of Roman Catholics and Bulgarian Orthodox presented the tiara to the him after the audience. (Images from l’Osservatore Romano).

Gloriously Afloat in a Little Sea of  Catholic Fundamentalism

While the Rest of Humanity Confronts Real Issues

Dominus Vobiscum: A new Vatican instruction, issued 13 May 2011,  calls on local bishops and pastors to respond generously to Catholics who seek celebration of the Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal, commonly known as the Tridentine rite. The instruction, issued May 13, said pastors should approve such Masses for groups of faithful, even when such groups are small or are formed of people from different parishes or dioceses. These faithful cannot, however, contest the validity of the modern Mass or the authority of the pope. The instruction said that bishops should make sure seminarians are trained in celebrating the Tridentine rite, or “extraordinary form” of the Mass.

Friday Abstinence: The bishops of England and Wales are re-establishing the practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays as a penance to identify with Christ on the cross. In the resolutions published from their spring plenary assembly, which concluded Thursday, 12 May 2011, the bishops announced the re-establishment of the practice, to go into effect September 16, 2011. The date for the re-establishment of meatless Fridays marks the anniversary of Benedict XVI’s visit to the United Kingdom on September 16^th last year.

Progressive bishops are seen as more dangerous than those engaged in sex abuse: As has been reported, the Vatican has taken decisive action against an “errant” Australian bishop, showing that it has a zero tolerance policy towards deviants. Bishop William Morris, who was forced to resign (for wanting to discuss married priests, women priests and an ecumenical understanding of holy orders) was not guilty of sexual abuse. On the contrary, the Toowoomba, Australia bishop has been a noted supporter of abuse victims in his diocese, and widely admired as a sensitive pastoral leader. At the same time, the Vatican has fast-tracked the beatification of John Paul II, the pope who denied that pedophilia was a problem in the church and gave great support to sexual abusers like his friend Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer of Vienna who abused 2,000 boys over several decades.

Opus Dei liturgy: Auxiliary Bishop James Conley of Denver, Colorado, seems to have already succumbed to the liturgical virus spreading out from Rome. Speaking at the Midwest Theological Forum in Valparaiso, Indiana, on 25 April 2011: “One of his altar servers left us this description of how St. Josemaría Escrivá used to pray the Mass…..For [St. Josemaría], the liturgy was not a formal act but a transcendent one. Each word held a profound meaning and was uttered in a heartfelt tone of voice. He savored the concepts. Josemaría seemed detached from his human surrounding and, as it were, tied by invisible cords to the divine. This phenomenon peaked at the moment of consecration. Josemaría seemed to be disconnected from the physical things around him and to be catching sight of mysterious and remote heavenly horizons.”

Concluding thought for this week:

“There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality,

for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us.

When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve.”

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude.