Priestly Bad Apples

It is an old saying that I have often reminded folks of in the past, that being "don't throw the baby out with the bath water." The meaning behind this simple old saying is that it is the baby which in the end is by far the most important, precious thing. It may be sitting in a pool of filth, scum, and slime. So what? Toss the water, keep the baby.

The same theory can be applied to many things in life, but most especially must always be remembered when dealing with the most important things. One of those most important things is your spiritual life. Christians throughout history have far too often thrown the baby, in this case the Church, out with whatever bath water was mucking things up at any particular time.

In the past, Christians have left the Church, the only one founded by Jesus Christ himself, because they didn't like things that were going on within the hierarchy, or because they didn't believe in some matter of doctrine, or because they had been let down or felt betrayed by some scandal. This is exactly how Protestantism and Orthodoxy began.

The splits, or schisms, within the Church have left many wounds unhealed after centuries, and have left hundreds of millions of true believers in Jesus Christ susceptible to heretical teachings and practices.
 The scars may never fully heal, and the Church may never be truly reunited, until the return of Christ himself in the final days.

There is a lesson to be learned here for Philadelphia-area Catholics in particular who are digesting and reacting to the news this past week of further revelations of sexual abuse of children at the hands of some in the Priesthood. Current priests Charles Englehardt and Edward Avery, former priest James Brennan, teacher Bernard Shero, and sex-abuse investigator Monsignor William Lynn were all charged in the latest chapter of the scandals.

The lesson is that these unholy and abusive actions by people who claimed, to quote the Rev. Joseph Garvin in his homily today at St. Christopher's Church in Somerton "to represent God but who in actuality represented Satan" were not representative of the Church, it's priests, it's teachers, or it's vision. Rather they are, as have been all abusers uncovered in recent years, criminals and deviants who used the Church to destroy Christian lives and fracture the Church itself, Satan's own avowed goal.

Priests, teachers, and other Church representatives who are the actual abusers need to continue to be weeded out and prosecuted. And it is not enough at the current time to simply fall back on the position, as Cardinal Justin Rigali has in his letter to parishioners this week that "..there is no admitted or established abuser in ministry." That is an obvious defensive copout at a time when the Church needs to go on the offensive against it's rogues.

The Catholic Church has promised to, as stated by David Clohessy in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, "remove credibly accused clerics." Clohessy is the executive director of the Chicago-based "SNAP" (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests", and he is absolutely correct when he calls on the Cardinal to identify and suspend accused priests in furtherance of the protection of our precious children.

We as Catholics have a role as elements of this long-standing scandal continue to unfold. We must continue to insist that Church hierarchy aggressively investigate any and all allegations of abuse, be they past or current. We must insist that the Church always err on the side of protecting children in every allegation case. We must also remember to hold ourselves accountable for our own conduct in representing our Church to outsiders as well as to other Catholics.

But perhaps most importantly we must remember to not "throw the baby out with the bath water" in this situation. The Church is still the family and faith founded by Jesus Christ, and as such it is the single most important institution in all of our lives, including our own families. We must stand by the Church, not flee from it. We must pray for and embrace the Church, not abandon it. We must strengthen the Church with our lives and our faith, not allow the devil to weaken it further.

Tough times don't last, tough people do. The Catholic Church has lasted for over two millenia because we are a tough people, that toughness forged on the cross by Christ himself in our name. For the steadfastness in suffering that he undertook for our sakes on that afternoon at Calvary, we must willingly suffer and boldly overcome today.

As of 1995 there were almost a billion Roman Catholics spread throughout the world. As of 2005 there were more than 400,000 Catholic priests serving them. There have been over 4,000 American Catholic priests accused of abuse over the past half century, just 4% of the more than 109,000 American priests serving during that time. There is no way that we are going to allow these Satanic priestly bad apples spoil our entire bushel of a beautiful Church.

Resolve to Come Back to Church

In these first few days of the New Year many of us are struggling with beginning resolutions to improve our lives. For many this involves losing weight and getting in better physical shape. For some it involves straightening out their financial lives. No matter what your particular resolution, deciding to go back to Church, or perhaps even to go to Church regularly for the first time in your life, would be the single most important and rewarding for yourself and your family.

Going to Church requires taking care of a few formalities first, such as which Church to attend. There are many 'fly-by-night' operations out there disguised as churches. There are also any number of churches run by a strong pastor wholly dependant on that one person, always a dangerous proposition.

At the risk of alienating some, I am going to make a very brief case for you to give the Roman Catholic Church a try. Most of you probably already know which Catholic parish in which you live. If you don't just visit the Archdiocese website at archphila.org or give them a phone call at 215-587-3600.

The Catholic Mass is one of the most solemn and comforting services that you will ever experience. The solemnity comes from it's respect and reverence for the experience of worship. There is rarely any jumping around or hollering or dancing here. Prayer, scripture, and sacrament are the highlights of a Catholic Mass.

When you attend a Catholic Church service you are getting virtually the same general Mass service being experienced by hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics the world over on any given Sunday. There is a structure to the Mass involving two main parts: the Liturgy of the Word involving scriptural readings from both the Old and New Testaments, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist involving the preparation for and receiving of the Body of Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Word there are three readings. The first is always going to be by a lector and will come from the Old Testament, giving a teaching or passage from the traditional books of the Bible familiar to both Christians and Jews. The second is also from a lector and is going to be from the New Testament, usually from Paul's mission and that of Jesus' disciples in the aftermath of his death. Finally there will be a reading by the Priest from one of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John relating to some incident directly involving Jesus Christ.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist the priest will present and bless the bread and wine, and with God's help will turn it into the body and blood of Jesus Christ in a process known as Transubstantiation. During this portion of the Mass there will be traditional praying of the Lord's Prayer, the 'Our Father', a greeting among the community in offering one another a Sign of Peace, and then the actual receiving of the Lord in the Eucharist or Communion ceremony.

The entirety of the normal Catholic Mass service will take up about an hour of your time on any particular Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Depending on the size of the parish, Mass is offered 3-4 times on Sunday mornings. Also at many Catholic churches the Mass is offered in a 5pm or 6pm service on Saturday evenings for those who have to work or otherwise cannot make it to church on a Sunday morning.

As far as financial responsibilities, there are collections taken up as 'offerings' to the Church. Usually there is one main collection that will be for the support of your particular parish. There may be a 2nd collection directed towards a particular purpose, such as supporting the Church in a particularly difficult area of the world.

If you become a registered member of a parish, which you can and should do once you determine to which you belong, you will receive weekly envelopes in which to place your collection offering. There are guidelines suggested, but give as little or as much as you feel you can afford. If you cannot afford a formal offering on a regular basis, go to the Church anyway, and perhaps find some other small way to support the efforts, including through your prayers.

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the world with more than a billion members made up of 1/6th of the planet's population. By joining the Church you join that support system in an institution tracing it's origins directly back to the Apostle Peter, Christ's hand-picked choice as "the Rock upon which" the Lord's Church would be built.

There are some usual criticisms that you will hear about the Catholic Church that usually come across in four usual challenges by non-believers or advocates of other churches. These challenges involve staleness or blandness of the Mass ceremony, the priest sexual abuse, praying to statues or images, and the Papacy.

First, Catholics do not ever pray to statues or paintings or any other image. We put no image above or in place of God. What we will do regularly is ask for the intercession of Jesus' mother Mary or the holy men and women from the Church's past known as 'Saints' to pray to God on our behalf. We can and do pray directly to God, and believe that the intercession by these other holy individuals can help as well.

Secondly, where one man or woman might find the Mass boring many others find it beautiful, and I am firmly in that second group. Within that one short hour you get many opportunities to participate in group prayer, personal reflection and prayer, sacramental participation, and the singing of hymns. One Priest will indeed be more dynamic or personally charismatic than another, but it is the content of the Mass that is most important, not the individuals making the presentation.

Where the Priest abuse scandals are concerned, they are a fact of Church history that would be a mistake to ever ignore or deny. That denial and cover up went on for far too long, and no one is more ashamed or angered by that fact than Church members. Here I always point out an old saying to critics: "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." There are many, many thousands of good men around the world today serving God as Catholic Priests who have no taint of personal scandal, and who deserve our admiration and respect for giving up a worldly life in service to God and our community.

The Church is much more than the actions of rogue, degenerate men in Priestly garments. We are the community of God's people, and we will overcome this challenge and defeat Satan the same way the Lord's people have always done, by learning from mistakes and strongly addressing them, and by standing together and leaning on prayer and on the Word of the Lord in moving forward.

Finally, those outside the Church simply are wrong when they say that we the Pope is the "head of the Roman Catholic Church" and that we place the Holy Father above Jesus or put him right along side God. The fact as all Catholics know is that Jesus Christ is the head of the Catholic Church. The Pope is the spiritual leader of the Church, and has himself lived a life guided by and inspired by God.

Just as with any large and historically established institution, there will always be critics of the Church. Don't let their easily defeated challenges influence your decision to join or come back to the Catholic Church. Pray for your own personal inspiration from God, set aside one hour for a few weeks and actually come to Mass, and open up your heart and mind to the opportunity. I personally have experienced the power of returning to the Church myself and can tell you without hesitation that it will be the most rewarding resolution that you can keep this New Year.

Media Coverage of Abuse Helps Victims, Church

The embarrassment and scandal raised by each new report of a case of sex abuse in the church also has a positive effect of giving other victims the courage to come forward and increasing the church's commitment to ending abuse, said experts meeting at the Vatican.

The Anglophone Conference, which began in the 1990s as an informal network of English-speaking bishops meeting to share strategies for fighting abuse, held its 10th formal meeting at the Vatican June 1-5.

The meeting began just two weeks after an independent Irish commission released a report saying there was pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment in most of Ireland's residential care institutions for children from 1940 through the 1970s. The institutions were funded by the state but often run by Catholic religious orders.

St. Bridget Sister Angela Ryan, protection and prevention officer of Australia's National Committee for Professional Standards, said, "The media and the scandal enable us to again invite people to come forward so that there can be healing."

"We only can deal with it if people keep coming forward," said Sister Ryan, whose office is sponsored jointly by the Australian bishops' conference and religious orders in the country.

The victims and their stories are what will enable the Catholic Church to find ways to prevent abuse in the future, she said.

Judge Michael R. Merz, who is ending his term as chairman of the U.S. National Review Board, said, "If it had not been for the Boston Globe's coverage (of the abuse scandal) in 2002, many people would not have come forward" in the United States.

"We are still getting hundreds of people coming forward each year," mostly reporting abuse that occurred before 1990, he said.

Jackie McCaig, national coordinator for the protection of children and victims' assistance in Scotland, said all the conference participants "are here because of children, because of a desire to put the welfare and safety of children first ... and we must never forget that, no matter how difficult things get when there is a scandal."

Jesuit Father Joe Mathias, secretary of the Indian bishops' commission for clergy and religious, said that "priests and religious in India are a soft target for the media," which is probably why the Irish abuse report got so much media play there.

Although an Indian government report in 2008 estimated that 57 percent of all Indian children had suffered some kind of physical or sexual abuse, he said reports of the clerical sexual abuse of minors have not reached the scale seen in other English-speaking countries.

Father Mathias said participating in the Anglophone Conference meetings has helped him find ways to convince the Indian bishops of the urgency of the problem, which they are addressing by putting child protection guidelines in place.

Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, said the meeting gave participants an opportunity to consult Vatican officials, meet with experts in the field of child protection and share progress and problems with other bishops' conferences.

"We are all agreed that you need a comprehensive plan for prevention, support and healing," he said.

The Anglophone Conference helps people working for the church find ways "to create an environment in which anyone who has been abused can come forward with confidence," Bishop Cupich said.

While the meeting retains the title "anglophone" and the longstanding members are from North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, representatives are welcome from other bishops' conferences. The 2009 meeting, for example, included participants from Ghana, Chile and Italy.

"It is a human issue, a human problem, although it is reported more in the English-speaking world, maybe because of a unique openness in communicating" about abuse, Bishop Cupich said.

Msgr. Charles Scicluna, who as promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith handles the cases brought against abusive priests, also attended the meeting. Participants said he explained how the church's understanding of the phenomenon and its programs to stop abuse are continually evolving.

For example, Bishop John Cunningham of Galloway, Scotland, said the Vatican recently had decided that any case of a priest downloading child pornography from the Internet would be a form of serious abuse that a bishop must report to the doctrinal congregation.

Bill Kilgallon, chairman of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission of England and Wales, said most of the bishops' conferences represented at the June meeting have "very strong structures in place at the parish, diocesan and national level" to protect children in the church's care.

"For me, one of the most impressive things about being involved in this work is the amount of time people are willing to give to the church to make it a safe environment," Kilgallon said.

Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide, a longtime participant in the Anglophone Conference, said, "The positive fact is that people have come forward, that we have acknowledged this has been part of our history and are doing all we can to deal with the remnants of that and doing all that we can to make sure we have a new way of relating to one another in the church."

WRITTEN by Kevin Clarke at USCatholic.org on June 5th, 2009

Ireland's New Troubles

When the recent news from Ireland appeared, my friend Robert Royal asked me to comment on the physical and sexual abuse scandal swirling around the Christian Brothers and other orders. Initially, I turned it down because it was too intense and conflicted an issue for me, for I owe an immense and un-repayable debt to the brothers. I was born in Ireland, and they educated me for next to nothing and attracted me enough by their kindness and goodness that I tried out their life and rule for a while. Though I left at age twenty I had never seen the slightest indication of abuse anywhere I lived.

How many Irish Christian Brothers abused boys sexually and physically? I don’t know, but maybe something similar to the percentage of U.S. priests who were sexual abusers. That would mean about 97 percent of the brothers remained decent, dedicated men. If the rest of us suffer just reading the reports, how much more do they?

The deeper and more difficult question is: how did superiors and government auditors permit this to happen? The Irish have their own weaknesses and one of them is never to correct moral failings face-to-face. Behind the back, yes, face-to-face, no.

The Christian Brothers in the 1950s, the ones I knew, were good men. Some of them were a bit tough. But as kids we much preferred to get our “biffs” (slap on the hand, sometimes severe) rather than other disciplines, such as staying after school. This was not ideal pedagogy but it was admired by many parents, and often preferred by pupils.

It may be that therein lay the harsher seeds that corrupted some brothers. That and a “warehousing” dictated by tradition and national economic realities: class sizes were often fifty boys. Export that to the locales of the scandals, the “industrial schools” filled with sometimes difficult, though mostly lonely, abandoned boys. Add a few men who stayed there and got tougher and tougher, and gradually got satisfaction from inflicting pain, while the more normal brothers exited to ordinary schools as quickly as they could. This is pure speculative interpretation of the report on my part.

What to do?

I leave the legal consequences to the courts. And though since my days with the brothers, I have taken advanced degrees and practiced both clinical psychology and social policy, I would begin with some simple, spiritual advice. Confess, repent, and start all over again. Plus, ruthless self-examination and examination of the structures that allowed the corruption. The Church deals with corruption repeatedly, which it confronts with both firmness and kindness. St. Paul had to deal with corrupt members in the early Church. We’ve even had corrupt popes (sexually and in lots of other ways, too).

But don’t expect the Irish, especially those on a rant right now, to lead the reform of sexual attitudes and practices in Ireland. They love their license too much and will flay you, as only the Irish can, should you dare criticize them. They are silent on other forms of present serious sexual abuse of children, but refrain from calling them such: the abuse of sexually transmitted diseases, even deadly HIV; the abuse of children born out of wedlock, or much worse, aborted; the abuse of children abandoned by fathers for other women or women leaving husbands for other men. Are these serious sexual abuses? Of course they are, but not in modern Ireland.

Now how to deal with the children who were abused? Monetary compensation is certainly justified, but it can’t fix where the damage is worst, in the hearts and in the later adult sexual capacities of the abused. The likely consequences in their lives: Broken marriages, depressions, anger, abortions and out-of-wedlock births, all of which will tumble on into the future for at least a few generations to come. The only real answer is the kindness and patience they need to heal whatever damage manifests itself. There is no real recompense but the closest to it is love, care, patience, and understanding.

If God is willing and the Irish Christian Brothers are to survive, they have a stinging nettle to grasp. They will first have to establish a reputation for sanctity. Do they have the saints to lead them that way? I hope they do. Our Lord called them to follow Him and their own Calvary certainly has begun. They might start anew with a special dedication to the children and grandchildren of the abused.

But even with that they will suffer much for a long time. Those who hate the Church will see to that. It will take a special courage, humility, and grace to enter the order to serve the abused and their children. But with God nothing is impossible.

There are many to pray for in this debacle: the abused and their families, the innocent brothers, those superiors who lacked sound judgment, and the abusers who have to face a Judge (God) Who said “But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.” May the Lord forgive them – and all the rest of us, too.

WRITTEN by Patrick Fagan at The Catholic Thing website on May 27th, 2009