Denver Newsroom, Nov 11, 2020 / 05:10 pm (CNA).- Ordinarily, a news analysis attempts to bring some context or expertise to a situation, in order to assess why something has happened, what might happen next, and whether any of it will prove to be important.
A news analysis often speculates about what newsmakers will do: At CNA, analysis considers often what the pope might do, or USCCB leaders, or bishops of prominent dioceses.
But this analysis will speculate about what ordinary Catholics – people who practice the faith and love the Lord and try to follow Jesus – will do after the publication of the Vatican’s McCarrick Report.
To do that, some context in this analysis will be personal. There is a reason I offer this personal narrative. Please bear with me.
I began working for the Catholic Church in 2005, while I was in canon law school. After finishing my canon law degree, in 2007 I began working regularly on cases involving clergy misconduct.
I have sat with priests guilty of sexual assault and coercion, of grooming young men, of acting with serial disregard for the promises of their priesthood and the spiritual health of their victims. I have also sat with priests falsely accused of those things. I have seen problems ignored, and I have seen problems treated with the attention they deserve.
I have seen priests get justice, and I have sometimes seen them face terrible injustice. I have seen victims mistreated, and victims treated with compassion and respect. I have seen cases in which every rule and protocol is followed, and cases in which most of them are ignored.
Before the initial McCarrick allegations were made public in June 2018, I had already seen some things. As friends dealt with grief and shock, I told some cynically “Now you know why I’m ticked off all the time.”
I had not known about McCarrick, but I knew about clerical abuse, and about the sins of omission and commission that allow it to happen.
The 449 pages of the McCarrick Report detail a story decades long, in which institutional and personal failures allowed a man who abused his power to act with serial and serious immorality — to, put simply, hurt people.
It includes accounts of both cowardice and courage, of institutional blindspots exploited by a manipulator, of naïveté, misplaced kindness, and ill-placed trust, of dysfunction, bureaucratic ineptitude, and malice. The report demonstrates that sin begets sin – it recounts stories of abusers who were themselves abused. It depicts the exploitation of crises for personal gain.
The report documents the damage wrought by a crippling bias towards institutional self-preservation, ironic for a Church that follows a crucified Lord.
There are few heroes: A mother who tried her best to speak out. A priest who blew the whistle to protect seminarians. A cardinal who came to realize, only over time, that he needed to make clear a serious problem.
The McCarrick Report also traces a broad trend of growing awareness of the importance of addressing abuse allegations, and addressing them properly. An increased understanding that presuming on good will is not helpful in the presence of manipulators. Efforts, often faltering, and sometimes failing, to learn from previous mistakes. But even amid that trend, there are appalling personal failures at every stage of McCarrick’s career.
The report does not document, or seem even to consider seriously, how McCarrick’s ambiguous and unmonitored financial situation enabled his decades of abuse. It mentions briefly his ability as a fundraiser, but offers no forensic analysis of his discretionary accounts. U.S. dioceses maintain records of those accounts, and to date have given no indication they plan to release them.
The report addresses bishops who lied for McCarrick, and about him, to the Holy See, but it does not ask why those bishops were willing to lie. It does not give serious attention to McCarrick’s social networks and their influence on the life of the Church – mention is made of a friend leaking high-level documents to McCarrick in the Vatican, but no attention is given to what influence networks that friend has. Many analysts have said it does not address whether there remain in ministry bishops who were gravely negligent, or even who compounded or facilitated cover-ups.
It brings many things to light, but the report is not a complete account of the McCarrick affair. A complete account may never emerge. Further, the Vatican’s report does not seem to consider present-day implications of McCarrick’s life and ministry, nor to draw lessons for the Church beyond McCarrick.
Questions remain, and those questions are very likely to go unanswered. Catholics who hope to see particular individuals brought to justice are likely to go disappointed.
And new scandals will inevitably emerge.
Since the retirement of Theodore McCarrick, there have already been some institutional reforms designed to prevent a situation like McCarrick’s from happening again. Institutional audits in U.S. dioceses, review boards, the promulgation of Vos estis lux mundi. Pope Francis or the U.S. bishops may well add more layers of policy reform.
But Pope Francis has emphasized that policy reform can not substitute for personal integrity. And the McCarrick Report demonstrates how much personal integrity actually matters. The report will likely bring statements from bishops committing to that personal integrity, and it might even inspire real conversion to that effect among some bishops and Church leaders.
Inevitably, though, there will be new failures in the Church’s life, because the Church is both human and divine: The mystical Body of Christ protected in certain ways by the Holy Spirit, and a community of sinners, each of them in need of a savior, few of them yet saints.
The Church is always and everywhere holy— its members are not usually so.
That paradox is a challenge to every believer.
But the future for the Church in the U.S. seems to depend a great deal on how ordinary Catholics respond to disappointment, discouragement, and somewhat unresolved scandal.
Religious disaffiliation is on the rise in the U.S. – a growing number of Americans identify themselves with no religion, or have no religious practice. And many ordinarly practicing Catholics are out of the habit of going to Sunday Mass, because of the pandemic. It will be unsurprising if the McCarrick scandal exacerbates religious disaffiliation, especially among young Catholics, who say in surveys that they prioritize the perceived personal integrity of leaders ahead of institutional affiliation.
Within the Church, there is a small but growing pocket of Catholics who are increasingly strident toward the authority of the pope and of U.S. bishops. In crises past, pockets like those have eventually become schisms. That seems practically unlikely in the contemporary U.S., but it is not impossible or unprecedented — there are more than 25,000 members of the “Polish National Catholic Church,” a schismatic group that began in the U.S in the early 20th century.
The point is that scandals have the capacity to discourage the practice of the faith, to foster cynicism, anger, bitterness, or indifference.
Hence the personal narrative.
My own experience has taught me that confronting the oft-disappointing humanity of the Church is an exercise in accepting that disappointment is real, and that it can be only be relieved by embracing the cross, and the Crucified Savior.
In the spiritual life, moments of disappointment present a choice: One can nurture anger or indifference, or one can turn to Christ on the cross.
One of those choices brings life, the other does not.
That’s true for the spiritual life, and for the mission of the Church itself.
A movement of Catholics who respond to crisis with an increase of prayer, fasting, charity, and evangelization is counter-intuitive. It is also a counter-witness to the “black eye for the Church” contained in the McCarrick Report. It is confounding, and compelling.
Catholics who seek holiness in times of scandal tend often to be conduits of Christian renewal.
Making such a choice, I’ve learned by my failures, is easier said than done.
There is very little saccharine or romantic about following Jesus, especially when confronted with the sinfulness of the Church’s own leaders. There is often more setback than progress.
Humility helps – remembering our own failures tends to put the sins of others in perspective. Confession and the Eucharist help all the more.
Embracing the cross does not mean accepting or tolerating the presence of sin in the Church. Rather it means both assiduously calling for reform and repenting seriously for one’s own sins and shortcomings. Maintaining communion with the Church, even while helping to rebuild it.
The mission of the Gospel probably has very little to do with tweeking existing policy. A statement of regret from the U.S. bishops’ conference is unlikely to spark a renewal of faith in Jesus Christ.
In the wake of the McCarrick Report, renewal of the Church likely has most to do with whether ordinary Catholics will turn to Christ, and embrace his suffering on the cross. That isn’t easy. But it is the path to eternal life, and, in this life, its consequences might well be surprising.
[…]
The Catechism of the Council of Trent remained unchanged for centuries.
This one? Ha.
The late Cardinal Avery Dulles warned that if the Church changed it’s 2000 year old teaching on the moral permissibility of the death penalty, it would open the door to changing other doctrines previously considered unchangeable as well (abortion, euthanasia, contraception, the inviolability of marriage, a male only clergy, Papal Infallibility). This change is dangerous, poorly thought out and could potentially spell disaster for the Church.
On a possible shortened path to personal conversion, Samuel Johnson offered this earlier prudential judgment: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully” (The Life of Samuel Johnson). One might be reminded, here, of St. Therese of Lisieux who discovered her vocation in the Church by praying for a sentenced convict who then converted seconds before his execution by the guillotine.
And then there’s John Goeghan, notorious child-rapist priest, who was not executed by the court but still was hanged—in his cell by another convict during the first year of his 10-year sentence. In an imperfect world even a merciful prison term can turn into a de facto death sentence.
So, do conundrums remain?—How do we now protect the dignity of, say, a prison guard’s life against fatal assault be convicts who are already serving life sentences, now with no further deterrent penalties?
Asked about the restrictive wording regarding capital punishment in the earlier Catechism (1994), the then Cardinal Ratzinger responded: “Clearly the Holy Father has not altered the doctrinal principles…but has simply deepened (their) application…in the context of present-day historical circumstances” (National Review, July 10, 1995, p. 14; First Things, Oct. 1995, 83). And, in a July 2004 letter to (former!) Cardinal McCarrick, he wrote: “Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia….There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.” As an aside, my memory is that the larger correspondence was widely circulated among bishops in America, but with this cover letter detached.
Concurring with the recent announcement by the Vatican, the late Jesuit Cardinal Avery Dulles clearly opposed the death penalty, but he also concluded that traditional teachings on “retributive justice” and “vindication of the moral order” (not to be conflated with vengeance, and mentioned elsewhere in the Catechism) were not reversed by (now St.) Pope John Paul II’s strong “prudential judgment” regarding the actual use of capital punishment. He noted that the pope simply remained silent on these other teachings. (“Seven Reasons America Shouldn’t Execute”, National Catholic Register, 3-24-02). As commentaries proliferate on the solidified Vatican position from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Dulles’ essay would be a good read. (The problem of false convictions would seem less an issue, given the extensive use now of nearly infallible DNA evidence.)
We knew this was coming.
“Inadmissible”
Pope Francis’s yet another end-run around doctrine?
Twenty centuries where the Church did not have the truth about the “inviolability and dignity” of the person but She is enlightened now???
But not “intrinsically evil”…
Yeah, I don’t think a new teaching can be snuck into the Catechism like that, with no reference to any authoritative document, especially since it contradicts all prior magisterial teaching. This is pretty clear evidence that Bergoglio is an antipope and that Benedict XVI is still the reigning Pontiff.
The Charles Manson’s of our age are fed and housed for $70,000 per annum. Could those funds be better utilized? Not being keen on the chair, the noose or the firing squad myself, I nevertheless characterize this last “word of wisdom” from the Domus Sanctae Marthae as ninety-nine percent of the rest of the noise from there – merely more left-wing knee jerk Jesuit balderdash. Yes the broken clock is right twice a day but this isn’t one of those times.
Credence squandered is not easily regained, and rest assured squandered it be. Start cleaning house – beginning at the very tippy-top so we can get on with business. No other topic is so pressing as that right now. It’s called proper prioritization.
Get it? Get with it. Putting it off to the next millennium (or the next pontificate — whatever comes first) won’t due.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. Either way I can live with it. What is of deep concern is change to dogma. “Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent” (John Paul II Evangelium vitae 56.69 Cf Gen 4:10). The issue with John Paul II and the death penalty is that he was against it. John Paul II made it virtually impossible to exercise the death penalty in Evangelium by contrasting “absolute necessity” with “practically nonexistent”. Either something exists or it doesn’t. “Practical nonexistence is measured v Nonexistent which is an oxymoron. If we can’t practice it then what is it? However this apparent contradiction is conditional by saying “if not”, which leaves the slimmest of possibles open. So the Pontiff virtually changed the doctrine without changing it. The difference with Pope Francis’ revision of the Catechism is that it changes a dogma. My concern then is this highly contested doctrine is a testing ground for change of other more essential doctrine if the Pope’s argument that “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.” This is a rationale that differs from “absolutely necessary” effectively saying the traditional doctrine was wrong placing dogma within the purview of cultural change.
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
The wilful killing of a human being which attacks the inviolability and dignity of the person is called a murder. So, if Pope Francis is correct, the Church for the past 2,000 years, and the tradition of revelation from the time of Noah through Moses and beyond, has condoned a sin which cries to heaven for vengeance.
You’re as sick as Francis. Read the book of Numbers.
Perhaps some of the cardinals could submit a dubia, pointing out that this new statement is contradicting all of Church history. I’m sure the Pope would answer that, right?
If I sound bitter, it is because I am. It would certainly be nice to be living in a time when one could feel confident that the Pope was not actually trying to destroy the Church.
The Holy Spirit is strong in the Holy Father. God bless our leader and his flock.
Would the Holy Spirit deliberately confuse and muddle the faithful; going so far as to refuse to clarify Church teachings?!?
I think you made a typo in your name. It’s spelled “gullible,” not “gibbon.”
The Pontiff is doing yeoman’s work in dispelling the old myth that all Jesuits are intellectuals. That’s a fact lost on his sycophants.
I see this as within the realm of “development” rather than “change”. The Church always strives to go deeper into the mind of Christ and to bring Christ forth in time until time will be no more. If we ask if Christ would give the death sentence or if He would inject the poison, pull the trigger, turn on the electricity what would our answer *have to be* if we put ourselves in the place of Christ??? The question of the death penalty is not addressing the immediate defense of the life of the “innocent” (ie you shoot at one who is shooting at you, etc) but looking at the simple fact that the one who did do the crime is no danger to anyone once they are incarcerated correctly/securely (though we understand some do manage—always have/always will—to find ways to do more harm). Many will repent and finish out their sentences and even be in Heaven before some of us who think we’re not so bad? The Church exists to teach Christ and I do believe She’s doing that. We align ourselves with Christ and His holy Church; Christ does not align with our opinions. It will take prayer and striving to do His holy will perhaps for us to fully understand and embrace this.
“I see this as within the realm of “development” rather than “change”. The Church always strives to go deeper into the mind of Christ and to bring Christ forth in time until time will be no more. If we ask if Christ would give the death sentence or if He would inject the poison, pull the trigger, turn on the electricity what would our answer *have to be* if we put ourselves in the place of Christ???”
Developments do not flatly contradict what came before; change does.
We don’t have to ask whether Christ would give the death sentence. Have you never read the Bible? Like the story of Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5? Not to mention, for example, the deaths of the firstborn sons of Egypt at the time of the Passover. Or do you think God the Father cruelly did something that was wrong, while Jesus said, “Oh, gosh, Dad, I really don’t think we should do that, because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person?”
But what about infallibility in Faith and Morals?
If this ‘teaching’ is only being fulfilled, where was the Church up to this time in not knowing the truth about the full dignity of the person?
While I am generally against the death penalty, my initial reaction is that this pronouncement of the pope is not only wacko and non-official, but also so very dangerously confusing to all the people of the world.
It’s not the place of bishops to decide about the particular conditions for using the death penalty, and they should limit their statements to general principles regarding just punishment and fairness to all.
In general, it seems that so much damage has been done by bishops inserting their personal opinions as settled doctrine. This confusion has caused people to generally take the teachings of the Catholic Church as a matter of individual preference, with the result of so many lives devastated by promiscuity and perversion and birth control and abortion — and ultimately the tragic breakdown of the family and the aching loneliness of western society.
Our bishops and priests in America — perhaps the majority — seem to have lost their nerve in defending the moral teachings of Jesus as truly helpful for us in this life, as well as preparing us for eternal happiness in the next life. The ways of Jesus are the ways of true love. The ways of the secular world are selfishness and lies disguised as love.
So it is that some bishops defend the lives of guilty murderers to a fault with loud and showy proclamations, while neglecting the lives of innocent victims unto death by the faintness of their protests. These bishops seem so eager to be trendy and popular in the ways of the world, and so ashamed of Jesus as found in the Catholic Church which is his gift to us.
Yes, it is true that the most vile criminal retains his dignity as a human always. He may have acted as an animal, or worse, but no person ever should be considered an animal. Let us hope and pray for all persons to be saved no matter how horrible their sins, in the spirit of the divine mercy of Jesus.
This doesn’t mean that the death penalty is never to be allowed. I’d sincerely prefer it to not be applied again, but wonder if it may be valid for those criminals who persist in preying on other prisoners with physical and sexual assaults, or who continue to commit serious crimes in society through lackeys.
Also, the governments of different countries should have discretion to assess their own national situations in reference to the application of the death penalty.
If our bishops really want a voice in the wider society, they will know their God-given place in presenting transcendent principles and not personal opinions. Instead of telling politicians how to do their jobs, our bishops should be considering how well they are fulfilling their own roles as representatives of the Good Shepherd — for so very many are being ravaged by wolves for lack of strong teaching and stout encouragement.
The resulting casualties are breathtaking in their statistical numbers, and heartbreaking to behold in each particular personal sadness. The secular world is darkness and death and despair; it is Jesus alone who is light and life and love.