Betrayal

I was born and raised Catholic. I’ve had a number of doctrinal disputes with the Church over the years, and have thought its hierarchy (particularly outside the US) has had a tendency to confuse tradition with dogma. But, regardless …

Even though I’m no longer Catholic, I still have a great fondness and respect for the Catholic Church. Which is why I, alongside so many of my Catholic brethren are increasingly incensed over the “sex scandal” rocking the Church in the US.

Except, of course, it’s not really a sex scandal. The real issue is not that some priests horribly abused their roles as pastoral and moral leaders, by molesting children and teens. Not to mention violated their vows. That’s terrible, it’s horrible, but it has happened before and it will happen again, even among men of the cloth. You lock the bastards up and go on, renewing your recognition of the power of temptation and sin and so forth.

No, the real scandal here is how the church leadership — the folks at the top of the national church ladder — abused their roles as pastoral and moral leaders, by quiet pay-offs and shuffling assignments and anything else they could to avoid public acknowledgment of what had happened — even if it meant putting others in harm’s way.

Pride. Face. Honor. They can drive folks to great heights. Or they can cause you to betray everything in their name. Maybe there’s a reason why Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

If you can’t trust the Church, who can you trust? Yeah, that sounds kinda naive, but … really.

The natural reaction is to request that some of the most egregious offenders resign. The person at the top of the list would seem to be Cardinal Bernard Law, until a few months ago seen as the most powerful Catholic leader in the US, and mentioned more than once as a possible successor to the Holy See. As more and more documents have come out, Law’s stonewalling (which sounds like the stonewalling of every policitician from Nixon to Clinton, and of the same moral suspectability) has rung more and more untrue, as we’ve seen in case after case that he was aware of the allegations, aware of the evidence for them, aware of the out-of-court settlements made to families, and aware of the reassignments made to those accused priests, after therapy or without any therapy — assignments all too often to unsuspecting parishes and other jobs where there would be further unsupervised contact with minors. This happened over and over … and all Law, as well as many others, seem to have been interested in is saving the Church’s good name.

The truth shall out, I believe Shakespeare said. And so it has, and now what happened to that good name?

There is continuing pressure for Law to resign. He has so far declined the suggestion. The fear, some analysts say, is that if Law is forced out, the numerous other officials — including other cardinals and bishops — who engaged in similar conduct may also be forced to resign.

Has it not occured to anyone that perhaps that’s just what’s needed?

In every scandal, the only way — the only way — that resolves matters without the destruction of the scandal-ridden individual, agency, or organizaton — is:

(1) Full, immediate disclosure. Tell the truth. Admit the worst. Apologize. Beg forgiveness. Don’t wait for every detail to be dug out — get a jump on it. Well, it’s too late for that in this case. Continued stonewalling (“It never happened. Well, it was alleged, but the accusers had no credibility. Well, they did, so we took appropriate internal measures. Well …”) only makes things worse, serving to insult everyone else involved.

(2) Full, sweeping reform. Kick the bums out. Fall on your sword. Exit before you’re forced out. It worked for Nixon, but he almost waited too long.

So force Law out. Review each case. Bust the folks involved down a few ranks, or reassign them as Bishop of Death Valley or something. Make it perfectly clear to those who remain — and to those you serve — that this sort of behavior cannot and will not be tolerated. Re-establish your moral authority by exercising it.

The Church does not have unlimited manpower, of course. And some of the folks involved have — except for these episodes — been capable leaders. But begging the issue of whether these sorts of coverups, and leaving the Church open for this sort of scandal isn’t really a final indictment of whether they are capable leaders, I don’t believe that there aren’t other people in the Church who cannot move into the vacancies that would be opened up. There might even be more room for power-sharing with (gasp) the laity.

This is not going to just blow over. Because the problem, the scandal, is not the individual priests who abused those in their care. That would be eventually forgotten, yesterday’s news. The problem, the scandal, is that many feel the Church hierarchy, the clergy, can no longer be trusted to watch after the laity. Because they’re too busy watching for themselves.

The Pope has summoned all the bishops and cardinal in the US to Rome next week. One cannot but hope that a few of them will not be coming back to their old jobs.