Baltimore, Md., Nov 14, 2018 / 04:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The bishops of the United States resumed their open-floor discussion on the recent sexual abuse scandals facing the Church in America Wednesday morning. In addition to debating the best means of institutionally responding to the crisis, the specific case of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick was raised by several speakers.
Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville told the conference Nov. 14 that the allegations against McCarrick, and the scandal of his rise and fall, were not just affecting long-time Catholics. Many people in the process of entering the Church found themselves having the example of McCarrick throw at them by friends and family as evidence that they were entering an institution in crisis.
Stika said McCarrick, and the letters of former nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, were serving as “ammunition” to discourage people from entering the Church, and that many Catholics felt that bishops were only responding to the sexual abuse crisis when they were “forced to” by the media.
Several bishops spoke in favor of the USCCB acting as a body to speak out about McCarrick.
Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth told the conference hall that “we end where we begin.”
“So much of the outrage we experience – and I think it’s a rightful outrage – is prompted by the injustice that our people have experienced at the hands of predators, at the treatment of our seminarians and our priests who were entrusted to the care of former cardinal McCarrick, a trust that was not only violated, but was ignored by others who were responsible for paying attention.”
Olson observed that while Pope Francis had accepted McCarrick’s resignation from the college of cardinals and sent him to a life of prayer and penance pending a canonical process, the USCCB had yet to respond as a body to the scandal caused by one of their own.
“He is an emeritus [bishop of a U.S. diocese] and as such he is supposed to be a welcome guest here. He is not welcome and we should say it,” Olson said. He also questioned if the bishops’ reliance on structural and procedural reform was overshadowing their need to act with moral authority.
“We have said the Holy See should let us get some new norms, get a process together. Do we use this process as means of avoiding our pastoral responsibilities?” Olson asked, suggesting that the conference needed to condemn not just McCarrick’s alleged behavior, but also Vigano’s call for the resignation of the pope, which he called an attack on the Petrine office.
Bishop Liam Cary of Baker also insisted that the conference needed to respond to the McCarrick scandal as a body, saying McCarrick had “grievously offended” not just his victims but all Catholics, priests, and bishops.
By abusing seminarians “successively, over decades” Cary said McCarrick had left a “shameful residue” on all the bishops, and that while other institutions had revoked honors previously bestowed on the former cardinal the USCCB had taken no action.
Cary cited the example of bodies, like the U.S. Senate, which could pass resolutions to censure its members as one way they could respond, but insisted that some kind of action was urgently needed.
“What are people to make of our silence?” he asked. “How do we lead our brother to the mercy of God if we leave unspoken the demands of his justice?”
Bishop Cary echoed Bishop Olson’s concern that McCarrick was still technically qualified as a welcome participant at the conference.
“If McCarrick were to come to this microphone would he be allowed to speak?” Cary asked, noting that there was no open microphone for his victims.
In addition to the specific problem of Archbishop McCarrick, the bishops also discussed how they could proceed more generally in the light of the Holy See’s intervention to prevent them from voting to adopt the proposed Standards for Episcopal Conduct or to create an independent special commission to investigate allegations against bishops.
Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange summed up the dilemma facing the conference.
“We cannot just sit back and do nothing,” he told the bishops. If a deliberative vote was not possible, he said, the bishops needed to at least take “some sort of consultative vote” to show that the American bishops were firmly resolved among themselves.
Bishop Robert Christian, auxiliary bishop of San Francisco, expressed the frustrations of many bishops at the inability of the conference to act.
He pointed out that as several scandals broke over the summer “the leadership of this conference was blocked from either working in partnership with the Holy See or leaving it to us in the dioceses.”
Christian said that he was concerned by the Holy See’s intervention. He observed that it could take months for the Vatican to produce a final resolution after the February meeting of the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences in Rome. This could mean, he said, that the U.S. bishops could find it still “impossible” to act in March, or even June, of next year.
“It is all the more important to vote today as if we were voting on a policy,” he said, so that both the faithful and the Holy See could see the clear mind of the bishops.
Despite the support of many on the conference hall for the original proposal for an independent commission to receive and investigate allegations against bishops, a few bishops have suggested they would prefer to see a different system altogether.
Bishop Gregory Hartmayer of Savannah proposed that Rome should instead be asked to consider amending canon law to give metropolitan archbishops an expanded role and authority for dealing with allegations against bishops in their province. His proposal was echoed by Bishop Robert Coerver of Lubbock.
Hartmayer noted that it might be better for accusations against a bishop to be considered by “a jury of their peers” since, he said, “no one understands a bishop so much as another bishop.”
He also said that bishops owed each other the “courtesy” of listening “to one of our brothers who has misbehaved in some way.”
While the majority of the interventions from the floor were concerned with what direct action the conference could take, others were more reflective.
Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond gave a long and clearly personal reflection on the pain experienced by priests and laity alike in his former diocese, Washington.
Knestout said that he looked upon the current scandals on a continuum of previous crises, stretching back 50 years to the promulgation of Humanae vitae, saying that the rejection by many clergy of that document, and the Church’s teaching on the dignity of human life and sexuality, had caused “one long crisis of leadership and teaching” in the Church.
Despite the clear and forceful calls by several bishops for some clear statement on the case of Archbishop McCarrick, when the bishops resumed their seats after breaking for lunch they voted down a resolution to “encourage” the Holy See to release whatever documents it could on McCarrick.
As they debated the minutiae of the resolution’s wording, the bishops found they could not even agree on the inclusion of the word “soon.”
After the defeat of the proposal, one bishop remarked to CNA that “we cannot seem to speak clearly, even when we want to agree.”
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Do Jewish organizations have some animosity towards Catholicism? Beyond the abortion divide?
This is extreme animus which seems disproportionate to the leaked memo about federal v state lawmaking?!
Apparently their [Ruth Sent Us] philosophy is that every pregnancy they suffer is due to rape. They want sexual pleasure without responsibility.
Without grace that brings us to respond to God’s goodness, purity, spousal faithfulness, the tenderness and selfless giving of motherhood and love of children, the inevitable result is disassociation of the divinely ordained gift of sensual pleasure from the purpose of the conjugal act.
They dress in long red hooded gowns with white headdress as eerie as their coven like behavior. Sensuality has become consonant with Justice A Kennedy’s golden calf of liberty. After all, if we insist on something as a human right, there must be some personal, interior reward. Fundamental. Venereal. Consequently and virtually our culture has become venereal minded, foisting a new morality of liberty to exercise and experiment sexually [from pansexuality {with humans} soon likely to omnisexuality {with any living creature}] on college campuses, in children’s classrooms.
Irrational. Of course, but only if you’re not morally deranged. Sin, repudiation of natural law is always irrational because reason, that is, right reason is rational and consistent with the ordained order of things.
What then for the Catholic? Despite ourselves, our widespread nominal practice, the priesthood abuse scandal, heretical Catholics in Congress, apparent abandonment from the highest hierarchy – we are in the forefront! Miracle of miracles it’s Catholics who bear the banner of Christ and Blessed Mary as did the Crusaders, as did Joan of Arc, as did Columbus when he landed on the Americas’ soil.
We’re in for a fight [I’m stupid and arrogant so I choose to fight] offered the chance to prove our mettle to Christ, that we truly love him, that we stand for truth and justice, for family and children, that we will stand and fight to the end and to the glory of his Holy Name.
So then, I choose to fight with the spiritual arms Christ has given me, to address the truths of the faith clearly and with confidence, to give example as Christ did when confronted, to pray and offer sacrifice, to desist from violence and harm to others, to demonstrate the true meaning of our humanness.
Thats a disappointing statement, Father. Do you imagine prayer will stop demonstrators who believe they can disrupt our worship services with no repercussions at all? And if they indeed set consecrated hosts on fire in front of you, do you imagine prayer will put the fire out? Would you really do NOTHING?? I personally am tired of the kid glove treatment given to the 2020 rioters,serial shoplifters who KNOW they will neither be arrested or prosecuted, and those who vandalize our churches while police say those acts will NOT be treated as hate crimes. Now we have threats not only to our secular judges but ( I saw the video) people threatening to set the Eucharist on fire. When evil people KNOW they will never pay ANY price for their deeds, they will not only continue the behaviors, but they will escalate them. I will never be anyone’s willing victim. I am a Catholic and I believe in prayer. I am also an American and will not stand by meekly if attacked, nor allow my civil right to worship, to be stolen by people who have the IQ of a potato.To telegraph the idea one will not fight back to defend what they believe is a grave mistake, and it actively invites further attacks.The suppression of religion touted by the left was one of the reasons this nation spent decades physically fighting Communism all around the world. Peace at any price is NOT peace. It is simply capitulation.
Additionally LJ I certainly agree we cannot roll over in the face of violence directed against the innocent. That I can assure you I’ve always held.
Thats good to hear, Father. When raising my sons I always told them I NEVER wanted to be told by a teacher or parent that they had ever attacked another child or struck the first blow in any situation. But I always told them, if someone hits YOU first, hit them back as hard as you can. Once when one of my children was about 5 years old I was chatting with an acquaintance at a local pool. Her son was big for his age and was aggressively physical with other children. As we chatted, this child several times, unprovoked,roughly pushed my son down into the water. The boy’s mother said nothing, but I was about to. Finally my son (also big but not confrontational by nature) , got up out of the water and punched the boy so hard that he loosened a tooth. Needless to say that boy never attacked my son again. Its a hard lesson to learn, but not every maladjusted or bullying personality can be coaxed into appropriate behavior by “niceness” or prayer. These types of people are frequently the ones who end up in jail as adults. Sometimes you are forced to defend yourself physically. Its surprising how often that sort of push-back resolves the issue.The bully always counts on making their opponent cower in the corner.They count on fear to prevent resistance. In the case of our freedom of religion, we dare not allow such a thing.
I’m pleased LJ. At first I misunderstood until I gave further thought that it wasn’t intended personally.
Do they really think that helps their cause to slaughter innocent human beings? Fools.
hmm…. 🙂 – here we thought it was the 4th Easter Sunday….silly us 🙂
This would not happen at a Mosque. Just sayin’
It was Catholics-In-Name-Only Biden and Pelosi who encouraged these disruptions. And yet they are not excommunicated for it. Do we have to wait before these pagans desecrate the Host itself that the Church authority do something about these wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Would it not be nice if just one prominent American prelate put Biden on notice that we expect him to expend all necessary resources to protect churches and the faithful from these demonic hooligans and vandals? Yet again, their silence convicts them. And from the Vatican, all we hear are more condemnations of the rigorists. With shepherds like these, they mind as well as put out a sign saying it’s open season on the flock. Just so long as the federal money keeps flowing to Catholic Charities, all is fine at the chanceries. One day, that will get pulled too.