Washington D.C., Jan 4, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- This week the U.S. bishops gathered at Mundelein Seminary in the Archdiocese of Chicago for a weeklong retreat, held at the urging of Pope Francis. Under the guidance of the preacher to the papal household, Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, they will spend a week “pausing in prayer” to “reflect on the signs of the times.”
Although recent scandals loom large over the meeting, the pope has asked the bishops to focus on their own conversion, before further discussion about new systems or structures to address the sexual abuse crisis.
In a letter sent to the American bishops ahead of their retreat, Pope Francis underscored that the recent crisis has “severely undercut and diminished” the Church’s credibility. Only response grounded in unity and communion, the pope wrote, has the power to restore the Church’s authority and authenticity.
The pope warned the bishops to avoid temptations to seek either the “relative calm resulting from compromise, or from a democratic vote where some emerge as ‘winners’ and others not.”
These temptations remain strong. One of the great frustrations for many of them during the Baltimore assembly was what they saw as a missed opportunity to produce “a solution,” in whatever form.
Whatever model bishops supported in November: the proposed lay-led national commission or the so-called metropolitan model, at least some seemed to be looking for a silver bullet, a powerful “fix” that would restore confidence now and prevent scandals from repeating.
Many American Catholics, too, seemed to expect a cure-all structural reform, and are now hoping that at the global summit on abuse in February, Rome will produce the reforms the U.S. Church could not.
But expectations that there can be one practical solution to solve the crisis are likely to prove false hopes. It has become obvious to most observers that no new policy, structure, or process can answer or prevent what is essentially a crisis of sin.
In his letter, Francis called administrative reforms “necessary yet insufficient” as they “ultimately risk reducing everything to an organizational problem.” The pope called the bishops to recognize their “sinfulness and limitations” and to preach to each other the need for conversion.
The pope’s diagnosis seems to be rooted in the evidence of recent months.
The current crisis is really better understood as a web of intersecting crises. The sexual abuse of minors is rightly seen as the most scandalous among them, but it has festered – as the pope has observed – among other illnesses in the body of the Church.
Clericalism, sexual permissiveness, moral indifference, and administrative negligence are themselves serious problems that require answers of their own.
But, if recent history is any guide, those answers are unlikely to come from any canonical or structural reform, however dramatic or well-intended.
As Cardinal Blase Cupich noted in November, there have been structures and commitments of various kinds in place in since 2002. The Statement of Episcopal Commitment was designed to ensure Church law was always followed when allegations were made, no matter who was being accused. And in 2016, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio Come una madre amorivole, which established – or was meant to – an entirely new canonical procedure for investigating and triying allegations against a bishop.
But even with those those policies and promises, Church officials have not seemed to consider themselves bound to any uniform procedure for handling allegations against bishops. Meanwhile, Francis has withdrawn the reforms of Come una madre before they were ever tested.
Many are now realizing that the problems facing the Church have never been the result of a lack of procedures. Instead, attention is beginning to shift to an enduring lack of will in the Church to employ its policies consistently and with rigor.
Absent a moral commitment to see them applied unsparingly, no reform measures – however systematic – can prevent the worst from happening.
As a case in point: last month it emerged that the Archdiocese of New York, which has some of the clearest, best-established abuse policies of any U.S. diocese, left a priest in ministry even after its own independent commission offered compensation to several of his alleged victims.
As recently as last month, the office of clergy personnel issued a letter of good standing stating “without qualification” that no accusation had ever been made against him; this despite an ongoing investigation by the archdiocese’s own review board.
The failures in New York were not caused by a lack of policies and procedures. Instead, they appear to have been truly human failures.
This may be the reason the pope appears skeptical that another policy or structure could yield different results, at any level of the Church, without personal conversion by the people charged with implementing them.
In August of last year, at the height of the Church’s summer of scandal, the USCCB’s own lay-led National Review Board agreed, issuing a statement that ruled out further structural reforms as a solution.
“The evil of the crimes that have been perpetrated reaching into the highest levels of the hierarchy will not be stemmed simply by the creation of new committees, policies, or procedures,” the review board wrote.
“What needs to happen is a genuine change in the Church’s culture, specifically among the bishops themselves. This evil has resulted from a loss of moral leadership and an abuse of power that led to a culture of silence that enabled these incidents to occur.”
Moral leadership, as the pope has told the U.S. bishops in no uncertain terms, cannot be effected by a vote. It requires a personal conversion in the face of failure and sin. Real change will require a totally new mindset among bishops, and the Curia.
The 19th century British Prime Minister George Canning ridiculed what he called “the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the carriage.”
“Men are everything,” Canning said, “measures comparatively nothing.”
Pope Francis echoed this sentiment in his letter to the bishops, warning them that the Church’s lost credibility “cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts.”
Instead, the pope wrote, the Church will only regain her credibility by “acknowledging its sinfulness and limitation” while at the same time “preaching the need for conversion.”
After the scandals of 2002, many bishops and officials treated the new measures and standards as a hardship to be endured, rather than a new reality of ecclesiastical life to be internalized. The “cultural change” called for by the national review board and the pope may prove to be the only means of breaking what has begun to resemble a cycle of scandal.
By warning the American bishops against measures aimed at recovering their reputations rather than amending their ways, the pope may have set the bar by which his own February summit will be measured. In his letter, Francis has called for a “shared project that is at once broad, unassuming, sober, and transparent.” Such a project, it seems, would bear little resemblance to past attempts to respond to the sexual abuse crisis.
As the bishops pray in Mundelein and the pope’s advisers prepare for February’s meeting in Rome, many Catholics begin 2019 wondering if a hierarchy beset by scandal can truly convert, or merely reform – again.
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I’m sick of polls regardless of who’s conducting them..
Agree re the polls.
But when the Holy Eucharist is “handed out” so casually with little or no reverence by unnecessary lay ministers you have but one ingredient to the decline in this foundational belief.
I do grow weary of it all.
You sound very dejected yourself … do you not want to know how affected your work is as a Deacon? … no wonder Catholic are loosing faith when you seem to be losing your!
David Brown: I’ll let you know when your services as a psychologist or spiritual advisor are needed. Give me your contact information so that, if and when the need arises, I’ll know where to reach you. You’re obviously highly skilled since by reading one sentence written by someone you’re able to devine so much about him. Remarkable!
I’m sick of reading about polls, and most especially polls about Catholics. Tell me one instance when a published poll had any effect on this degenerate culture other than to amuse for approximately 30 seconds. Tell me, instead, about the individual hearts and minds that have been converted through God’s grace and the evangelization efforts of Catholics..
After some pondering, I think I agree with you. I recalled how our Bishop (a good sincerely believing Bishop) cracked in his Christmas homily the fact that, according to the recent survey, more than half of Australian Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence. Somehow, he made it a point of his homily. It was one of my early years of worshiping with Catholics and I was stunned and became depressed. I could not understand why so many Catholics do not believe but even more than that – if they don’t why do they come to the Church? In a word, it was all I could think about on that night in the Cathedral.
And truly, why should I know those statistics? They achieve nothing. Our task is to live that Real Presence, nothing else. Whether others believe in it is between them and God. I think those surveys have something vulgar about them.
A quibble, but not really:
It’s amusing when people say “the Church.” That is a very sloppy and imprecise way of looking at things. Who, exactly, is “the Church”? Is it Pope Francis? Should we accept his teachings on global warming? Is it the people who put together the last catechism, with their teachings on nuclear war somehow being more evil than war with arrows and swords? Is it St. Augustine? Is it the people who wrote the Catechism of Trent? Is it the moderns who honor/worship Mary?
I think all intelligent Catholics need to get out of the habit of saying “the Church” and should, instead, be very specific on who in the Church is teaching what. It would be very enlightening.
BTW, if the writer of this article is the same Matthew Bunson who used to do the Catholic Almanac, then I say “thank you, thank you, thank you for all your work on those books!” I used many of them!
With such a watered down faith and the mindset of many which is, “Come let us worship each other”, or like the famous burger joint’s motto is “Have it your way”, which I call the Burger “K” Gospel, is anyone really surprised?
Another Catholic article focusing purely on externals and peripherals and calling it “spiritual”.
How about, “How many Catholics have sought God?”, “How many have loved God?”, “How many have found God?”, and “How many clergy have taught you how to find God?”.
The answers would show a generally dead spirituality from top to bottom, and explain quite handily the collapse.
This external-only observance was what the Christ spoke so stridently against, and that is pretty much all we have today, People Of The Book who have lost sight of to what the rules are supposed to lead.
Gloom and doom, an unhappy forecast by Real Clear’s poll the numbers reflecting in comparative accuracy Pew and other polls. Despite the slivers of resurgence by the Eucharist Congress and other attempts at revival of the faith they’re small in comparison.
Perhaps Catholics who are beginning to return to Mass and confession read the signs of the times. Many of us do sense this although others point to previous crises that eventually ended, doomsday syndromes that occur periodically in which people were convinced the Second Coming is at hand. Of course that would be a happy turn of events, except perhaps not for some who may have a desire for highly spectacular entertainment.
From observation as a priest it’s likely that the disaffection is centered on belief in the real Prince in the Eucharist. Several decades of distorted liturgy at the altar priests suddenly transformed into showmen, entertainers, and the more subdued flight attendant. Solemnity vanished along with the fire except for the resurgence of the TLM and those of us who offer the Novus Ordo Mass with reverence and love. They’re other factors: the explosion of sensuality in conjunction with the pill poor and frequently heretical catechesis and so forth and so on. Although it all comes back to that real belief in the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
It’s been argued then that we suffered and survived similar. Here is where there’s strong disagreement from some including myself. We’ve never had heresy flow down to the faithful from the apex of hierarchy. Example the Arian heresy began with a priest and assumed by hierarchy. All the major heresies I’m aware of were singular issues, theological misinterpretations. The other marked difference is that the current heresy seriously affects all Apostolic doctrine, the fundamental premise that intrinsic moral principles are not permanent, in effect that truth and permanence are not congruent, that human behavior need not be moderated in accordance with Christ’s.
What we may infer from this heresy is that if there are no permanent truths, the fallacy is revealed in declaring that itself to be a truth. In other words, the premise cancels itself. For the vast majority we’re basically talking over their heads when we argue this point. What the Catholic public perceives is a Church in which all is questioned now permanently by a process called Synodality. And a clergy bishops included who are basically, except for the rare few who are quickly suppressed, rendered catatonic. Anyone in the house with smelling salts?
Amen Father. Heretical Modernist have destroyed so much beauty and worse of all led so many souls to Hell.
The young will save the church from those that say in the pews and said nothing in the early 70s.
Yes. There’s reason why hope is a theological virtue, as evident in times like these when there seems no hope.
The Novos Ordo can sometimes be celebrated with dignity. TLM can never be offered with indignity. Which is most pleasing to God?
As much as I would like to believe these results, there is absolutely no way the results are close to accurate – unless the people polled are CWR readers or were leaving Mass on a Sunday morning. CARA has been doing polling since 1964. From their 2023 poll: “Prior to the pandemic 23% reported attending weekly. By comparison 21% said they were attending this frequently now. There are also slightly fewer saying they attend almost every week (10% now compared to 13% prior to the pandemic).” https://nineteensixty-four.blogspot.com/2023/ As for the “12% that attend daily” I think they need to move the decimal point one place to the left.
I do not believe that this poll agrees with the CARA polls (Center for Applied research on the Apostolate. It makes a difference whether the poll was in person, phone, or questionnaire. People tend to exaggerate their performance. when talking to a live person. Was Mass attendance done on a survey or by head count? Different methodologies produce different results.
Crusader – full agreement. If these numbers were even close to the facts, then we should see traffic congestion on Sunday mornings.
Harris’s support for a constitutional amendment that would legalize abortion without any restrictions, including allowing an infant surviving an abortion to die, is barbaric. This woman also supports gay marriage and the mutilation of children through transgenderism. Thus, she openly opposes basic moral principles thar are foundational to Catholic teaching. This woman is an arm of Satan. These policies along with her economic and immigration policies will destroy this country
The US has a problem of passing ANYTHING as law so long as it got duly voted. Is that in the US Constitution? It is asserting that “we the people” clause is MEANT to give such a reading to the whole document but without actually saying so.
In typical law-making down through the ages except the 20th Century, abortion is crime as it always is and should be; PLUS, merely SPEAKING about certain things so as to promote them, is subversion, i.e., is treated as subversion as it always was and should be. The idea that law is found ONLY through a vote is unjustifiable.
Please do not use the term “gay” to mean homosexual.
As the Stonewall Institute has told us, homosexuals prefer not to be called homosexual, and to use the term “gay” is to be an ally of the LGBS community.
I disagree, as a priest, I see first hand the state of things, we in the US have about 12% of Catholics coming to Mass every Sunday. If you count REGISTERED CATHOLICS, who are registered in a parish, that number goes up, but when you consider a huge number of Catholics who never register in a parish, that number goes down.
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I would be interested to know the reason why Catholics go to Mass (when they go), if they don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? I would also challenge the accuracy of that 52% belief number in light of the low weekly Mass attendance. If people really believed in the Real Presence, they would go to Mass at least weekly. How is it they see the importance of Christ in the Eucharist, but fail to see the importance of going to meet Him?? And what, to them, is more important?? This is a problem within the Church, when people become accustomed and conditioned to thinking that going to Mass is just something we do and there’s no reflection on how this might affect my life spiritually. Not to mention how the dismal confession numbers indicate that the vast majority of people presenting themselves for communion are not properly disposed to receive it.
I applaud the comments of Fathers Dan and Peter Morello. I hope more and more priests will adopt their manner of thinking.
Jesus Christ must be treated with all dignity, respect, reverence and solemnity. Unfortunately, since Vatican II and the Novus Ordo Mass many of the above characteristics were taken out of the Mass and the structure of Churches. The altar became a supper table and Communion became a communal meal. Many priests and lay people adopted a casual, nonchalant attitude toward the Eucharist which diminishes the importance of the Eucharist. The concept that The Holy Mass is a sacrifice was forgotten. I’ve talked to some priests that actually said that the Eucharist distracts from the Mass. The congregation was there to worship God in one another.
Protestant concepts were introduced into the NO Mass which helped to undermine the belief that the Eucharist is God. Churches lost their beauty and became very ordinary. The tabernacle was move from an elevated position in the front of the church to a “Eucharistic Chapel” which essentially was a walk-in closet. No wonder people lost the belief of the Real Presence.
Fortunately, the TLM and conservative NO Masses are being said more often and with growing attendance. God will eventually give us back our churches and our true Mass.
One more item: A number of people dress very casually for Mass. One should at least wear dress clothes to Mass and not t-shirts and shorts. Imagine, if a lawyer showed up in a courtroom to litigate a case, dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. What do you think the judge would do to that lawyer? Doesn’t Jesus Christ deserve even more respect than a civil judge?