South Bend, Ind., Sep 27, 2019 / 12:07 am (CNA).- It has been more than a full year since the sex abuse allegations against the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the publication of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report set off a shockwave of further abuse accusations and investigations in the Church in the United States and beyond.
It has been 17 years since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) implemented the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which proposed a “zero-tolerance policy” for child abuse in the Catholic Church in the U.S.
It was just this week that a panel of four experts on the abuse crisis gathered at the University of Notre Dame to discuss the question: “Where are we now?” and to propose ways for the Church to continue moving forward.
Panelists at the Sept. 25 event included Juan Carlos Cruz, an abuse survivor and advocate from Chile whose complaints were initially dismissed by Pope Francis (though were later accepted with an apology from the pope); Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore; Kathleen McChesney, a former FBI executive assistant director who helped the USCCB implement the 2002 Dallas Charter; and Peter Steinfels a long-time journalist for Commonweal who wrote a lengthy review of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on the sex abuse crisis. John Allen Jr., editor of Crux, moderated the panel.
While much has improved regarding the clerical sex abuse crisis in the U.S. since 2002, the panelists gave a resounding response that even one case of abuse occurring in the Church is too many, and that a change of hearts and attitudes, and not just of policies, is needed for the Church to progress and for victims to heal.
“The one thing that I am certain about is that most of us, myself very much included, know much less about this painful, stomach-churning scandal than we think we know,” Steinfels said.
Steinfels noted that since 2002, the Church in the U.S. made significant progress in the abuse crisis, reducing the number of cases of sexual abuse from about 600 per year in the 1950s-1970s down to roughly 20 or fewer cases per year, post-Dallas Charter.
“Anyone who obscures this dramatic drop in Catholic clergy abuse, as I think the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report did, is not telling the truth,” he noted.
But that is still not enough, Steinfels added, because “one case is one too many,” and these statistics of success “can blind us to the excruciating, life-derailing devastation caused by a single case of abuse.”
He also predicted that news of Church sexual abuse was not going anywhere anytime soon, because “the abuse scandal has gone global. More than 120 million children sexually abused worldwide – it is woeful that even a small fraction has touched the Church.”
Even though the bulk of the abuse crisis in the U.S. occurred decades ago, Steinfels said, there are still victims coming forward who were afraid to share their stories until now, and whose experiences of pain and betrayal “are like landmines left buried in the ground after the war.”
In one suggestion for a way forward, Steinfels encouraged Catholic universities like Notre Dame to compile the history of the sex abuse crisis, from which others could learn.
“A genuine history will require archives, oral history interviews, and study of scandal’s religious, cultural, and economic context,” he said.
“It has been said that we walk backwards into the future looking at our past. A genuine history is needed for our future.”
In his remarks, Cruz said that he would leave the statistics to the experts and speak from the heart. While Cruz’ story of abuse at the hands of his parish priest in Chile was initially dismissed by Pope Francis, the Holy Father later apologized to Cruz and other victims for being “part of the problem” in May 2018.
Cruz told the panel audience that what sustained him through the pain of his experience of abuse was his Catholic faith.
“I decided early on that I wasn’t going to let them win. I wasn’t going to let the bad ones win,” he said. “I believe that the relationship anyone has with God…it’s the most basic human right that one can have, is to believe in what you believe, and nobody can mess with it. And I wasn’t going to let them mess with that.”
In a word of encouragement to abuse survivors, Cruz said that while it is hard to come forward with a story of abuse, there are people who can help.
“There are so many people who want to lend you a hand, to help you through that horrible pain,” he said.
Cruz said that he was encouraged by Pope Francis’ apology and willingness to listen to his story and those of other abuse survivors, but that he was discouraged by the attitudes of some bishops who promise to improve but who continue to cover up and mishandle cases of abuse.
“Pope Francis wants to solve the problem, I’ve talked to him and know he’s sincere,” he said. “However, the bishops go, talk to him, say, ‘absolutely Pope Francis,’ they bow, they kiss his ring, go back to their countries and do the same thing they’ve been doing…nobody holds them accountable and that needs to stop.”
In her remarks, McChesney also called for a change of heart and attitude among the bishops.
“When I first worked for the USCCB, the Dallas Charter was new, we were excited about implementing it, and I talked with many survivors,” she noted. “And one man said: ‘Look, you can have all the programs in the world you want, you can have policies, you can have trainings, you can have background checks and investigations, you can do all of those things, but until the bishops realize that there has to be a true accountability, I and my fellow survivors are not going to heal.’”
“It is so critical for the men and women who have been abused to know that someone is taking responsibility for what has happened to them,” McChesney said.
There has also been a lot of talk about the rethinking of seminary formation in the wake of the abuse crisis, McChesney said, with suggestions to really emphasize the human formation aspect of seminary formation.
But this “puts the cart before the horse,” she argued.
“In my experience, I think that selection is more important than formation…you can have the best formation programs, the best seminaries in the entire world, but if you have selected the wrong person to go into seminary, someone who is so troubled, who doesn’t know what they want to do, has mental health issues…that person is never going to become a healthy cleric. So to have a healthy presbyterate, you need to start with healthy men,” McChesney said.
She also credited lay men and women, as well as some dedicated clergy, with working on the ground levels to bring the abuse numbers down since the Dallas Charter was established and who continue to work with and pressure bishops into doing more.
Because there have been so few cases since the 2002 Charter, McChesney added, it is all the more urgent to thoroughly investigate the cases of abuse that have occurred since then, and to ask how and why they happened.
“There are not as many cases – but there have been cases. Why? Who missed that lesson and why? And where was the oversight of those persons who abused?” she said.
Finally, she added, the Church must fight against issue fatigue and complacency when it comes to the sex abuse crisis.
“We can’t let our tiredness, our sadness, overtake our passion for continuing to work on these issues,” she said.
Archbishop Lori, once a member of the USCCB’s Committee on Sexual Abuse, noted that he was speaking only for himself and not all bishops. Lori said that for him, learning how to really listen to victims of the sex abuse crisis has been one of the “steepest learning curves” in the handling of the sex abuse crisis.
It may be the instinct of a bishop to offer a victim the help and support of the Church, Lori said, but survivors of abuse do not always want that. He had to learn how to really listen and realize that “I as the bishop listening to this cannot fully appreciate the nature of the experience that’s being described to me.”
He had to learn to not try to “be the person that has the answer, not try to be the person who pushes or who offers something that might not be wanted by the victim-survivor in that moment, the victim-survivor has to be in the driver’s seat. It’s not just a question of meeting them or of affirming, it’s a question of listening deeply, and believing them.”
Adding to the chorus of previous comments that “one case is too many,” Lori also echoed the other panelists’ call for conversion among the bishops and other Church clergy and officials.
“The need remains and will always remain not to see the charter, these norms…simply as policies to be complied with,” Lori said. “In the grace of the Holy Spirit, there’s really got to be, on the part of people like me, my co-workers, lay co-workers, a conversion of mind and heart.”
Protecting children and listening to and helping victims of clerical abuse must be “as much as part of the life of the Church…as evangelization, Catholic education, or raising up vocations,” he added.
“We’ve got to continue being held accountable, because the Church’s mission depends on it.”
During the discussion, most panelists also noted that the abuse crisis has in some cases been “weaponized” by both conservative and liberal camps within the Church to push certain other agendas.
This is “a shameful use of what has happened to these men and women,” McChesney remarked.
During a question-and-answer session, Lori added that part of the ongoing solution to the abuse crisis is bringing more lay professional voices to the decision table.
“I need the help of qualified, committed laypersons who have expertise that I’ll never have,” Lori said. “Who’s sitting around the decision table?…that affects Church governance and how we look at this.”
Cruz also called for more young people and more laity, particularly women, to be involved in the decisions and solutions to the abuse crisis.
“We need more women in the Church that are trained, that are prepared, to break this men’s club, to bring all their talent and their training to help us heal,” he said. “We can’t have women in the sacristy, we have to have them front and center in the Church, and we can’t wait for bishops to finish their learning curve, survivors need us now.”
Cruz added that he gets frustrated when he hears bishops or other clergy say that prior to the Dallas Charter and other protocols, they did not know how to act or handle cases of abuse.
“I want to tell them: raping a child has always been wrong – before Christ, after Christ, in the Middle Ages…and it always will be wrong. So you better learn.”
[…]
Anybody who’s unhappy with his boss, should quit.
Nathalie, Pope Francis and Archbishop Naumann hcve one “boss” and He is Jesus, the Son of God. They are both by thier calling must teach, defend, and spread the commands and teachings of the Lord Jesus. If one is failing to do so or is causing confusion and disunity, then in brotherly love it should be pointed out.
I couldn’t agree with you more…. One boss-GOD
Richard: We’re talking here of the Church’s polity. Bishops as a College serve and function “with” and “under” the Pope, “cum Petro, sub Petro.” The Archbishop like a few other American prelates (only in America!) who are openly and disloyally critical of the Pope should quit their post or be investigated/visited. They can look at the case of Archbishop Vigano who was mothballed and called back to head office for botching the 2015 U.S. papal visit. To CWR’s good judgment it has not propagated his weird conspiracy theories and unfounded accusations against the Pope in retaliation for having been sidelined in his clericalist careerism.
The Pope is very, very wrong because supporting, promoting, legislating and financing abortion is not a matter of choice of conscience according to Evangelium Vitae.
The Pope is very wrong to say Bidens position is only “incoherent”. Biden’s position is directly opposed to and an attack on Catholic infallible dogma condemning abortion. Biden is a heretic against and infallible dogma condemning abortion in Evangelium Vitae.
Nonsense. It has nothing at all to do with being “happy.” It has EVERYTHING to do with the teaching of the Catholic Church and the pastoral care of the flock. To callously consign someone’s immortal soul to damnation by doing and saying nothing in the face of their support for the murder of innocent children is to compound the evil.
If you endorse the crimes against humanity by Pope Francis who directly promotes undermining the Church’s moral authority to condemn crimes against humanity, then you too support crimes against humanity. And the Pope is no one’s “boss.”
Argument is given by those, and they’re not a paltry number, who despite their opposition to abortion either firmly believe [or harbor doubts of Biden’s, Pelosi’s guilt] Biden and Pelosi may be wrong, but are abiding to a conscience, formulated in such a way that absolves them from sin.
Morality is determined by acts, what we do. If there is some mysterious conscientious proposition by which a man may commit cold blooded murder, kill the innocent man without just cause and be free of grave sin it defies reason. Example. Aristotle taught that the virtues are determined virtuous acts by a reasonable mean. That the mean of fortitude is somewhere between audacity and cowardice. However, Aristotle [Aquinas agrees with Aristotle on the virtues] held that justice, what is right, of all the virtues has no mean [or median]. There are no degrees by which murder is more or less murder. Which indicates there is in us an inherent capacity to apprehend with certitude that certain acts, murder, sexual acts with a child, false witness. Certitude of these acts is realized when major and minor premises are apprehended in one act of knowing. As simple as immediately knowing this act is murder, false witness, rape of a child.
As regards abortion they’re are mitigating dynamics, fear, lack of knowledge ignorance is common among subcultures, extreme duress. The Church recognizes these although despite proponents of mitigation theory [John Paul II warned not to make mitigation a category] that cast doubt of grave sin on all abortions. Biden will say abortion is wrong, and similarly say it’s not. His rationale is we’re unsure when a human being is present in the womb, that Aquinas determined there’s a hiatus between conception and the presence of a soul. Nevertheless, he poses these opinions contrary to what the Church teaches, that human life begins at conception. The argument of ensoulment is frivolous at best and nonsensical at worst, because the notion of soul as understood stems from the Gk definition of anything that is self motivation. A plant was said to have a soul, as well as a grasshopper. We know with certitude that human life begins with conception. It really is not up to us to determine when that human life has rights in recognition that it is a human life, since that determination belongs to the Creator. It’s right to life starts with its life at the moment of conception.
Biden rejects what the Church teaches which places him in the heretic category. Pelosi argues on the basis of hardship, undue burden [some canonists consider all pregnancy and birth an undue burden].
Archbishop Naumann [it’s obvious why Naumann, Aquila, Cordileone are not cardinals] is taking the stand of reason that not all abortions are hardship cases to the degree that the woman who aborts might be absolved from grave sin. That the vast majority of abortions are frivolously decided, often for cosmetic reason or maintaining a lifestyle. The monumental number of abortions hang over the head of Biden [and] Pelosi like the Sword of Damocles.
En effet. Francis in defense of Biden argues the case he makes in Amoris on conscience that inherently grave sin like murder of the innocent is not murder when we determine that it’s not.
Dear pastor and brother in Christ:
Blessings and thanks. You strive to help Biden and Pelosi come to the knowledge of truth and peace with God. If they are unwilling to accept the teaching of the Catholic Church, what kinship do they have then? You are well acquainted with the following verses and yet, if someone struggles with their conscience, God always guides us to paths of righteousness. God will forgive us of all sins if we ask Him in Jesus name!
Genesis 9:5-6 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Leviticus 24:17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.
Proverbs 24:11-12 Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
Your fellow servant in Christ,
Brian
May our Lord Jesus who knows all hearts deliver His children from the spirit of Error in this evil days.
Plaudits to a bishop who has the courage to speak the truth to power. Would that we had a Church today where it wouldn’t be necessary to even single a bishop out for such courage.
How these bishops cover for their abusive “pope”!
Their excuses for Bergoglio are tragic.
They are fools.
“I wasn’t aware of that statement by the Holy Father and I do think that’s helpful,” Naumann told CNA. “It’s very helpful because I think that’s exactly true, that his position is incoherent with Catholic teaching. So I’m grateful for that clarification by the Holy Father.”
It is so sad that you, Archbishop, was not aware of that statement made by Pope Francis. That was an important statement that was published in many good Catholic sites. And, by the way, it was not offered as a clarification. That is Church teaching. Yes, people who are not in communion with the Church should not receive communion. Hey Archbishop, Pope Francis would have received Pelosi and others because she is an American official. Even us laypeople know that.
COREECTION: What you write should read, “Even WE laypeople know that.” You see, “we” is in the subjective case and should be used for the subject of a sentence. However “us” is in the objective case, and you’ve used it wrongly.
Parenthetically, you do realize that you castigate some here for admonishing Pontiff Francis while you have no problem admonishing Bishop Naumann. Both men are bishops, you know. Aren’t you a bit inconsistent? Or perhaps, to quote Pontiff Francis, aren’t you being “incoherent.”
Mal, the nature of evil is to combine itself with the good.
It’s one thing to receive an American official, your point, but it’s another to combine such a courtesy with distribution and reception of the Eucharist. But, you are correct that Pope Francis’ statement “was not offered as a clarification.” It clarified nothing. Like stupidity, mere incoherence (as for Biden) is likely more of a hall pass than it is a sin. A new category, while moral theology remains about good and evil.
How can it clarify something, Peter, when it was not meant to clarify anything. It was a straightforward statement that reflects Church teaching. Secondly, where did you get the idea that Pope Francis combined his reception of Pelosi, mthe American official, with an invitation to receive Holy communion. That is a fabrication.
Who said “invitation?”
My comment is “combine,” a combination that coherent popes or pastors would have acted to prevent. The issue is inaction. As for “Church teaching,” it might be that such teaching is above the level of whether something is incoherent or not. There’s even something in there about inaction or “sins of omission.” Pay attention.
It is so sad that you, Mal, are not aware that the statement made by Pope Francis is NOT Church teaching. If it were, Francis would have said that Biden’s position is a REPUDIATION of Catholic teaching and a spitting in the face of God, and not use a wimpy word like incoherent, a CONTRADICTION so grievance, so obvious a crime against humanity, as to warrant his excommunication, and he would have said it last fall when Francis called him “a good Catholic,” and it would have been a reoccurring theme for nine years that any Catholic in high office is obligated to oppose the principalities of mass murder and not serve as an instrumentality. Even laypeople who are not involved in personality cults know this.
Edward, you are the last person I would ask about the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Again, maybe the controversy isn’t even about “the teachings of the Catholic Church,” but rather about affirming the teachings, while then ALSO (are you listening?) creating a surrounding climate of ambiguity within which these teachings can be pastorally or synodally set aside. The issue is the “smoke(stacks) of Satan” and this new kind of “climate change”!
Explaining this simple observation incisively to some readers is like trying to kill a deep-sea sponge with a needle, but let this internet discourse continue, because it does serve to clarify.
The archbishop just had knee surgery this week. So cut him some slack.
The Church teaches now and always has that life begins at the instant of conception and lasts until natural death. This is not difficult to understand.
The Church teaches now and always has that abortion is FORBIDDEN and always will be, in other words it is a mortal sin. THIS is not difficult to understand.
So called ‘catholic’ politicians going all the way back to Kerry and Kennedy – remember Kennedy’s anti-Bork rant about “backyard abortions’ during the Senate hearings as far back as the 80s – have been openly defying for decades the very tenets of the faith they say they follow regarding this issue. This has been going on so long that it has, sadly, become the norm.
Given this, Archbishop Naumann’s statement, while welcome, is a bit silly.
“Sad” continues to well describe my response. However, Mrs. Pelosi is also a cause of sorrow, and I intentionally use her matrimonial title as that should be her primary vocation. I cannot envision a more pastoral figure—with her—than Archbishop Cordileone who provided her soul with thousands of Rosaries and white roses after years of petitioning her conscience to realize the error of her thinking and disconnect in her actions. It was appallingly condescending to suggest that Archbishop Cordileone’s ultimate declaration was not consequentially pastoral, as well.
Then, how did Mrs. Pelosi respond to the Pope’s smiling encounter—she rebelliously rebuked him even recently, thrusting the same bitter uline about giving birth to five children (something the Pope could not understand). Incredibly, she remains blind to the enormous blessings God gave or permitted her,throwing the greatest possible one, co-creation, back in His Holy Face. (Now, granted even devout Catholic Moms, pregnant again, might look heaven bound and cry, really?, but they do not publicly resent this gift and use its perceived “burden” to justify tens of millions of abortions—up to birth, no less.)
Yet, returning to Pope Francis, I also pray he emphasizes the need to protect the great pastoral work of crisis pregnancy centers—which neither Pelosi nor Biden have done—and most importantly speak of the right of persons in the womb to be pastorally delivered into Baptism and even their First Communion.
Over 70 years of Catholic upbringing and teaching for both Biden and Pelosi and look what you get! That church needs to stop relying on human traditions and false teaching/interpreting scriptures to fit their narrative. It’s no wonder God has turned his back on this church.
Most of the time the fault lies with the individual, and NOT the church. I seem to recall Martin Luther disposing of 7 Books of the bible because they didnt fit his preferred theological narrative. The same books which had been accepted by Christians for 1500 years to that point. I would suggest that moves into “false teaching”. Or at the very least, the twisting of scripture. I see no evidence God has abandoned the Catholic Church. Although many are unhappy with Frances as its head.
We need another St. Ambrose in the Church today to set the record straight on what the Church teaches, and whips everyone into shape.
Even though the grammar is atrocious (i.e., “someone”, “that person”, “they”), the Archbishop does a good job of identifying hypocrisy when he sees it:
“‘However, it is not pastoral to tell someone they are a good Catholic and can receive Communion as a matter of course, when that person has committed a grave evil,’ he continued. ‘The fact that the pope received Pelosi was politically exploited. In doing so, Francis is doing exactly what he warns others not to do.'”
I think Abp. Naumann is right that Pope Francis doesn’t understand America, as he doesn’t understand the American Church. Yet he presumes to wade in. Whose job is it to enlighten him? Or is he as closed to insight as Pelosi and Biden seem/pretend to be?
The collective Bishops authority to teach about the Eucharist at this point is the same as a known adulterer teaching about fidelity in a marriage.
After approximately two years of starving their children telling us Walmart was more essential than Jesus Christ, trying to teach the faithful about the importance of the Eucharist just shows how collectively out of touch they are.
We shouldn’t expect anything out of them at this point as they will collectively cave again for the next “emergency” with a 99% survival rate.
Hate the sin not the sinner
“I think the Pope doesn’t understand the U.S., just as he doesn’t understand the Church in the U.S..”
Kansas’ vote to protect abortion rights ironically shows that Archbishop Naumann is the one who doesn’t really understand the U.S..