Homosexual Leaven in the Liturgical Lump [Narcissism on the Altar]

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As debate surrounding the recently published John Jay Report (Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010) continues, more and more Catholics are coming to the unavoidable conclusion (contrary to “official findings”) that the overwhelming majority of abuse cases were directly related to homosexuality.

One may further deduce that the historical spike in such incidents also likely coincided with an increase in the relative number of homosexual men in the priesthood — a proposition too unsavory (not to mention too politically incorrect) for many to acknowledge.

Those who are willing to look at the situation with eyes opened wide are left to ponder, not just the aforementioned abuse crisis, but also the broader implications of homosexuality in the priesthood.

I would submit that the impact of homosexual priests has perhaps been brought to bear in a particularly profound way in the liturgical life of the Church, and I would ask the reader to keep in mind as we proceed the warning issued by St. Paul: “Know you not that a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:6)

Let’s begin by considering that the priest who celebrates Holy Mass does so in persona Christi – in the person of Christ – such that he “does nothing of his own power” when he carries out his liturgical duties; rather, it is the Lord Himself who is present and active in offering the Holy Sacrifice (cf St. John Chrysostom – Homily on the Holy Pentecost).

Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest, is uniquely present and made visible to the faithful in the person of the ordained minister at Holy Mass (cf Sacrosanctum Concilium – 7) – a reality that compels the celebrating priest to personally surrender to Christ after the example of St. John the Baptist who said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

The cleric who suffers with homosexuality, however, will necessarily find this liturgical submission-of-self a most challenging proposition.

Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a consultant to the Vatican Congregation for Clergy and a leading expert with more than 35 years of clinical experience treating priests and others who suffer with Same Sex Attraction (SSA), said in a recent interview with regard to homosexuality in the priesthood, “Narcissism – a personality disorder in which an insatiable need for admiration often leads to attention-seeking behavior – is prevalent among men who struggle with homosexuality. This conflict results in a need to draw attention to his own personality in the liturgy rather than to surrender his personal identity in favor of Christ.”

While narcissistic behavior certainly isn’t the exclusive franchise of homosexuals, Dr. Fitzgibbons’ insights speak directly to the reason why homosexual men are ill-suited for the priesthood – a truth that comes into ever sharper focus when viewed through the lens of the sacred liturgy.

“The male who suffers with deep-seated homosexuality has difficulty in being Christ visible in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for a number of reasons,” Dr. Fitzgibbons continued. “For instance, a number of well-designed studies have documented that the homosexual man struggles with weaknesses in male confidence, which in turn makes it difficult for him to give of himself fully in the ministerial roles as a spouse to the Church and as a spiritual father to Her children as the priest is called to carry them out in persona Christi at Mass.”

The Council Fathers tell us that Christ is the ultimate expression of the human person; He reveals to mankind who he really is (cf Gaudium et Spes – 22).

This, of course, is true for both men and women, but we must not fail to recognize that Christ also reveals in a uniquely profound way what it means to be “male,” and the reality of Christ’s maleness is made expressly manifest in the Mass where the Sacrifice willingly offered by Jesus in love for His Bride and their beloved children is re-presented.

(The reader may also wish to consider how this factors into the Church’s inability to confer Holy Orders upon women.)

The priest at Holy Mass is called to visibly model, in willing cooperation with grace, the quintessential father and husband who protects, provides and sustains those who depend on him for their very survival. This presupposes in the ordained a healthy appreciation for his own God-given maleness, but whenever this requisite level of self-awareness is deficient, the priest is ill-prepared to render such service to his spiritual family.

According to Dr. Fitzgibbons, “The insecurity inherent to SSA could also predispose the homosexual cleric to seek the approval of the laity by treating the liturgy as performance or by otherwise calling attention to himself. Furthermore, the underlying anger and disdain for authority that is also endemic to homosexuality could lead to rebelliousness and a determination to ‘do his own thing’ with the liturgy.”

To view this from a more spiritual perspective, consider that when the ordained minister who is called to serve as “father” chooses instead to use the Mass (and by extension the assembly) as an occasion to meet his own needs (e.g., a need for approval and adulation), he is guilty not just of liturgical abuse, but in a certain sense of no less than spiritual child abuse.

A quest for self-fulfillment on the part of the priest is the antithesis of the spirit of the liturgy, but according to Dr. Fitzgibbons, homosexuals often tend “to see and to treat their own pleasure as the highest end.”

This being the case, a substantial degree of tension can exist between the homosexual cleric and the liturgy properly celebrated, one that is overcome only with resolute determination to engage in intensive therapy and prayer, and even then with great difficulty.

Setting aside “chicken and egg” arguments for the time being, it would seem that the apparent increase in homosexual orientation among the priestly population, coupled with the liturgical crisis that emerged in the decades after the Council, has created a perfect storm.

Prior to Vatican II, Holy Mass was commonly celebrated in Latin in the ad oreintem posture in which both priest and people faced east, even if only a “liturgical east.” As such, the personality (and underlying emotional health) of the priest was of little consequence in the celebration, and so “losing himself” in order to make room for Christ in the liturgy was far more easily accomplished by the priest than it is today.

In the Novus Ordo, however, the priest most commonly offers Holy Mass in the vernacular versus populum (facing the people) wherein his personality (and at times his emotional health) is unavoidably on display. Aware of the impact that his liturgical persona can have on the experience of the assembled faithful, the priest often feels tremendous pressure to draw upon his personal resources to “perform” his duties in a compelling way. Even in the best of circumstances, it is quite natural for the priest to feel moved to so meet the expectant eyes and ears of the faithful such as they are ever cast upon him in the newly configured rite.

For the priest who also struggles with an underlying inclination toward narcissism, the temptation to use the liturgy as a venue for seeking attention and personal gratification can be all but overwhelming.

Given the fact that the Council Fathers encouraged neither the dramatic change in the priest’s posture toward the people nor the construction of free-standing altars to accommodate the practice, it is reasonable to wonder what sorts of influences and pressures within the priestly population itself may have allowed for such a radical liturgical innovation to take hold so quickly.

Now, I don’t propose to offer an exhaustive treatment here, but I would suggest that at least one contributing factor among many may be suggested in the data found in the John Jay Report.

In a graph that plots “Incidents of Sexual Abuse by Year of Occurrence” (on pg. 8 ) one finds a steep increase in cases of abuse (which again, are overwhelmingly homosexual in nature) taking shape just as liturgical experimentation was gathering worldwide momentum in the mid-1950s.

From there we see cases of abuse spiking to unforeseen levels that are then roughly maintained over a 10+ year period beginning in the late 1960’s — the very point in time during which the push to create a liturgy celebrated versus populum reached critical mass and found favor in so many places.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but then again maybe not.

As the percentage of homosexuals within the ranks of the presbyterate rose, one may reasonably argue based upon Dr. Fitzgibbons’ clinical insights that so too did the group’s overall receptiveness to a versus populum liturgy featuring the priest-as-centerpiece.

In other words, it would seem naïve to discount the role that clerical homosexuality (like leaven) may have played in promoting a liturgical agenda that dovetails so comfortably with the emotional neediness that comes with the territory.

Let me be clear – I am not suggesting in any way that priests who favor the versus populum orientation today are necessarily struggling with narcissism, much less homosexuality. Many such priests, I presume, are simply caught up in the current liturgical “lump” as we know it, albeit some more willingly than others.

The John Jay Report also gives us reason for hope as it indicates a steep decrease in the incidence of homosexual abuse beginning in the early 1980s, continuing downwardly right up to this very day when the numbers are below that of 1950.

One might see in the current trend, along with the elevation of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the Chair of St. Peter, the makings of a potentially new perfect storm – one that will eventually usher in at long last the Council Fathers’ authentic vision of a liturgy renewed.

Perhaps this will one day include a large scale return to ad orientem worship at Holy Mass; a posture that Cardinal Ratzinger described as a “fundamental expression” of the liturgy’s true nature (Spirit of the Liturgy – Ignatius Press – 2000).

While certainly not an ecclesial cure-all, it could go a very long way toward curing much of what ails our perception and experience of the sacred liturgy, “The font from which all of the Church’s power flows” (SC 10).

It could also go a long way toward curing much of what ails the priesthood in our day by reaffirming its true nature – both for the benefit of the laity (some of whom are being called to a priestly vocation) and for the ordained minister himself – as the ad orientem posture gives bodily, visible expression to the sacramental reality of the priest as that Perfect Male who lays down His life on behalf of His family: Provider, Protector, Sustainer, and ultimately, Husband and Father.

It might even serve to strengthen those clerics who are currently struggling against homosexuality, aiding them in taking the difficult steps necessary in order to address their inner conflicts — to make room for the Divine Physician who alone can heal all wounds. Catholic Exchange

Author and speaker Louie Verrecchio has been a columnist for Catholic News Agency since April 2009. He recently launched Preparing the Way for the Roman Missal: Where the New Translation Meets the New EvangelizationTM. Learn more at MissalPrep.com. Verrecchio’s work, which includes the internationally acclaimed faith-formation program Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II, has been endorsed by, among others, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia; Bishop Emeritus Patrick O’Donoghue of Lancaster, England; and Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa. For information go to harvestingthefruit.com.

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Anchorage Archbishop Schwietz comments on causes & context of clergy sexual abuse in U.S.

Archbishop Schwietz

By ARCHBISHOP ROGER SCHWIETZ

CatholicAnchor.org

The recently released study relating to clergy sexual abuse of children and youth by Catholic clergy is the second study researched by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice that was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It brings to our attention once again one of the most painful and shameful chapters of the recent history of our church. Permit me to share some thoughts on the origin as well as the context of this study.

Back in 1992, a couple years after I became bishop of Duluth, Minnesota, a discussion at the USCCB resulted in several suggestions of actions that bishops could take in their own dioceses to deal with emerging accusations of clergy sexual abuse.

Besides being appalled by the possibility of such a thing taking place, I, along with many other bishops, was determined to set up a just system of dealing with accusations. I remember setting up an independent review board, toll-free hotline and other elements as recommended. The process of listening to the stories of survivors helped us realize how painful were the experiences of the survivors and how long lasting the wounds.

By 2002, it became clear that we bishops had to do more. So we established The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People with its essential norms to be implemented in the dioceses. But that was not enough. We wanted to know the extent of the abuse that had taken place, why it happened and the context within society. All of this was intended to help us create an atmosphere in the church in which this could never happen again.

We commissioned two studies: one on the nature and scope of the abuse by Catholic clergy, and a second on the cause and context.

The first study, on the extent of abuse incidents over the past 50 years, was completed in 2004. The second study, on the causes and context of these tragic happenings, took longer and was just released to the public. Both are available on the USCCB Website at usccb.org.

Before sharing some of the conclusions of this second study, I want to apologize to each person and their loved ones who have been harmed by ministers of our church. I realize that it takes a lifetime to deal with these devastating experiences and, along with assisting survivors of abuse, I want to renew the pledge to do everything possible to make sure the church is a safe place for children.

What does the study tell us? Going back to 1950, it has become clear that most cases of abuse occurred in the period of 1965-1985 and most current reports are of abuse that took place more than 25 years ago. The study reports that “despite data indicating that the incidence of abuse rose steadily between 1950 and 1980 and fell sharply by the mid-1980s, most of these events were unknown to civil authorities or church leaders before 2002.”

In asking how the rate of sexual abuse of youth in the Catholic Church compares to the same rate overall in the U.S., it must be stated that no other institution has allowed itself to be studied as did the Catholic Church. Thus no similar comparisons can be made. However, using limited data from other institutions, the report concluded that “the incidence of child sexual abuse has declined in both the Catholic Church and in society generally, though the rate of decline is greater in the Catholic Church in the same period.”

The percentage of priests who turned out to be abusers is four percent. There is not evidence that priests abused at higher rates than men in the general population or in other organizations. Some would like to blame the discipline of celibacy in the Catholic Church for the abuse crisis, but the study notes that “celibacy has been a constant in the Catholic Church since the 11th century and could not account for the rise and subsequent decline in abuse cases from the 1960s through the 1980s.” The fact that the commitment to celibacy was constant before, during and after the crisis period suggests that celibacy was not a cause of abusive behavior.

There are many other dimensions of this tragic crisis which are covered in the report. I invite you to seek answers to your questions on the USCCB Web site (usccb.org), where the first and second John Jay reports can be found.

Though this most recent study found no single “cause” of sexual abuse by priests, much information is being given us that will help in our continuing efforts to improve formation programs and safe environment initiatives. These sinful and evil actions of abuse should never have happened, but they did. We must learn from them so that, as far as is humanly possible, we can assure that they never happen again.

In the meantime, let us continue to pray for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse that, through the Lord’s power to heal, peace may come into their lives. Catholic Anchor

Archdiocese of St. Paul-Mpls: 33 priests accused but not named

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The archdiocese's list of those facing sex abuse allegations dealing with minors stays unpublished, counter to what others have done.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has a list of 33 priests accused of sexual abuse involving minors. But unlike other Roman Catholic archdioceses that have published similar lists in recent years -- Milwaukee, Chicago and Baltimore, among others -- it has refused to do so.

The archdiocese's list has been around for nearly eight years and is the subject of at least one lawsuit filed by a man who says he was sexually abused as a teenager by a former Twin Cities area priest.

The question of whether to reveal the priests on the list came into question again this week when St. John's Abbey in Collegeville released the names of 17 monks who have faced credible allegations of sexual abuse or other misconduct. The disclosure was part of a settlement of lawsuits against the abbey.

St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, who has represented thousands of clergy sex abuse victims, and victims' rights advocates have pressed to make such lists public for years. Doing so helps victims heal, leads others to come forward and protects children from possible future abuse, they say.

"Until all the names of the all offenders become known and exposed ... other survivors will suffer in secrecy and silence and shame until they know they're not alone," Anderson said. "Kids remain at risk. Those offenders could be in schools, our neighborhoods; they could be in churches."

Archdiocese officials counter that releasing the list could subject someone who is innocent to false accusations. Andrew Eisenzimmer, legal counsel for the archdiocese, says at least eight of the 33 priests on the list are dead and the rest no longer are in the ministry.

So far, the courts have sided with the archdiocese and barred publication of the list. Mike Finnegan, an attorney with Anderson's law office, said the Diocese of Winona has a similar list with 13 alleged abusers from the clergy identified, but it too has been kept private by court order.

"I don't believe all of them [33 priests] have been credibly accused," Eisenzimmer said. "I'm largely basing this on what I know about each of those cases."

U.S. bishops commissioned the John Jay College of Law in New York to compile a nationwide statistical summary of the clergy abuse of minors not long after the church's clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002. Dioceses were asked to review their records over the past 50 years and submit data for the study. Among the findings by the Twin Cities archdiocese: A total of 26 diocesan priests had been accused of sex abuse involving minors. If priests of other religious orders and other dioceses who had worked in the archdiocese were included, seven more priests, 33 in total, were known to have been accused of abusing minors.

Eisenzimmer said that that total hasn't increased since the information was submitted to the John Jay study almost eight years ago.

"We included people in the John Jay study that probably there's serious doubts about whether the allegations are true or not," he said. "The study asked us to identify allegations of sexual abuse. But it defined allegations quite broadly, as any accusation that's not implausible. To be ... as honest as we could, we put people in that category where there had never been a criminal proceeding to determine whether they had abused someone; there had never been a civil proceeding of any sort."

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks Catholic clergy sex abuse cases, said he's aware of about 24 dioceses that have made public lists of clergy accused of sexual abuse involving minors.

Publication can help victims heal and encourage others to come forward, he said. They also can help prevent future abuse, he argues. Often, the listed priests have never been prosecuted or charged because the statute of limitations has run out.

"If the list isn't out there, survivors are going to suffer in silence," he said. "Until they know that someone else has suffered the same thing they did, they think they're the only one. Many of the priests on the lists are still alive. The question is, 'Who are they, and where are they?' Is one of those priests the kind gentleman that moved in next door and is very kind to your kids?"

Restoring trust in Milwaukee

Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for the archbishop of Milwaukee, said that archdiocese began in 2004 to publish a list of "restricted" diocesan priests "due to substantiated reports of sexual abuse of a minor." At the time, victims' rights advocates and others were calling for such a list to be made public. The list is updated regularly online at the archdiocese's website, Topczewski said.

"We felt that in the climate in Milwaukee at the time ... that this was a good step in rebuilding trust, being transparent and providing information in a way that provided the assurances ... that we've done our due diligence in responding" to abuse reports, Topczewski said.

Eisenzimmer stressed that the Twin Cities archdiocese is in compliance with nationwide church regulations aimed at protecting children. By not publishing the list of the 33 accused priests, "we've taken a different approach, which I think is kind of a nuanced approach, and is respective of victims, it's respective of the parish community, it's respective of the leadership in that parish community," he said. Star Tribune

How Does Archdiocese of St. Paul-Mpls Handle Sex Abuse Cases?

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St. Paul-Minneapolis Chancellor for Civil Affairs Outlines the Policies and Procedures

What happens after an allegation of clergy sexual misconduct is brought to the attention of the archdiocese?

What policies and procedures does the archdiocese follow if the allegation is deemed credible?

Can a clergy member who has committed misconduct that doesn’t involve the abuse of a minor ever be returned to ministry? If so, how is that determination made?

During the last five months, two cases of alleged clergy sexual misconduct involving adults in the archdiocese have been the subject of local media reports. More recently, national reports have focused on the clergy abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The reports have led some to question how the archdiocese handles misconduct cases, particularly if the alleged incident involves another adult.

Andy Eisenzimmer, chancellor for civil affairs, outlined the scope of the archdiocese’s sexual misconduct policies and explained how they are implemented during a March 24 interview with The Catholic Spirit.

The archdiocese’s current policies regarding sexual misconduct are rooted in the provisions outlined in the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” and “Essential Norms,” approved by the U.S. bishops in 2002, as well as its own policies that date back to the late 1980s and were among the first of their kind in the nation.

The local policy was updated most recently in 2007, Eisenzimmer said, to incorporate the requirements of the “Essential Norms.” However, unlike many dioceses and archdioceses, the St. Paul and Minneapolis policy also covers sexual exploitation — defined as sexual contact between a church leader and an adult who is receiving pastoral care from the church leader — and sexual harassment, defined as unwanted sexualized conduct or language between co-workers in the church work setting.

When an allegation is made

When a report of sexual misconduct is brought to the archdiocese, the archbishop initiates an investigation as required by canon law. Should circumstances warrant, the priest or deacon may be temporarily restricted from ministry while the investigation is taking place, Eisenzimmer said.

Under the provisions of the charter, a report involving the abuse of a minor who is still a minor at the time the report is made must be forwarded to law enforcement authorities, Eisenzimmer said.

Minnesota law also has a mandatory reporting requirement. Under the statute, mandated reporters — including teachers, counselors and medical professionals — must report to authorities within 24 hours any knowledge of child abuse or neglect that has occurred within the prior three years.

Clergy members also are mandated reporters unless they receive the information under certain privileged and confidential settings, such as during sacramental confession.

The charter also states that if a diocese receives a report of abuse of a minor, but the person is no longer a minor, the diocese is required to cooperate with authorities if there is an investigation, Eisenzimmer said. These adults choose themselves whether or not they want to report an alleged incident to law enforcement.

“People [may] want to report something to us for a variety of reasons: They may want to get it off their chests, so to speak, because it’s been bothering them for a long time,” he said. “They may be concerned that the person is still in ministry, so sometimes they want to tell you they were abused by someone to make sure that person isn’t in a position to abuse others. . . . They oftentimes don’t want to go to authorities. They don’t want to be part of a police investigation.

“The way the policy is crafted,” he added, “is to try to honor their desire to not, in some instances, report it. But we make sure they understand they are free to report. We also make clear that if they want us to help them in some fashion, we’ll assist them to the extent they would like us to assist them.”

Next steps

What happens after a report of sexual misconduct is made and deemed cred­ible? A variety of factors come into play, Eisenzimmer said.

It may trigger a canonical investigation required by church law, he noted. Certain cases that involve the sexual abuse of minors or other misconduct — such as solicitation in the context of the sacrament of reconciliation — might require a report to the Vatican.

If the alleged perpetrator is still in ministry, the archdiocese typically removes the person from the post — at least temporarily — while it continues to investigate the allegation. The investigation determines if it is necessary to have a trial or other canonical process to determine guilt, at which time disciplinary action can be imposed. If the allegation can’t be substantiated, some effort might be required to restore the good name of the person accused.

When an investigation is initiated, the archdiocese often turns to outside investigators for assistance, he said. But the archdiocese is careful that its own investigation doesn’t interfere with any that law enforcement officials might be conducting.

“Each case will be handled a little bit differently.” Eisenzimmer said. “But we try to investigate quickly and determine the substance of any allegation right from the beginning and try to put some safeguards in place to make sure no further harm can be done to the alleged victim or anyone else. Then, we continue to decide what is the best course of action.”

Those making a report of sexual misconduct are referred to the archdiocesan office of advocacy and victim assistance, which can help them make a report to authorities, arrange counseling and provide financial assistance if needed for therapy.

In cases in which a pastor has been removed from a parish because of misconduct, the archdiocese works with the parishes to answer questions and offer support.

“Frequently there is some kind of meeting to help [parishioners] because we’ve recognized that even if they weren’t harmed individually by that particular member of the clergy, as a parishioner in that parish, there’s harm to everyone,” Eisenzimmer said. “It’s harm to the faith community. So you do really need to address that. There’s going to be anger and hurt. And there’s going to be a healing process.”

Return to ministry?

When sexual misconduct is substantiated or admitted on the part of clergy members, they are referred for psychological and psychiatric evaluation, treatment and aftercare, Eisenzimmer said.

If the case involves sexual abuse of a minor, the charter and the archdiocese’s policies preclude a return to ministry.

In cases of sexual misconduct that don’t involve child abuse, a return to ministry is possible in certain instances if treatment is deemed successful, Eisen­zimmer said.

“Our current policy does allow for a possibility of a return to ministry in some fashion,” he said. “What ministry that might be will depend on a host of circumstances, and it’s something that’s never contemplated until there are a variety of steps taken.”

One of those steps is getting a positive evaluation from therapists, Eisenzimmer said. For many years, the archdiocese has received two clergy evaluations — one by a therapist chosen by the archdiocese to provide an objective evaluation, and another by a therapist who is working closely with the clergy member as a part of treatment.

“We try to gather information from both sources — in essence a double check on what we can do with this person following a successful conclusion of any therapeutic process,” Eisenzimmer said.

If the therapists offer a positive report, the archbishop and others he consults must decide what, if any, assignment is appropriate. Typically, before any reassignment is made, the matter goes be-fore the Clergy Review Board, an advisory body to the archbishop that makes its own recommendations, said Eisen­zimmer, who is staff liaison to the board.

The “Essential Norms” require that each diocese have an independent review board to review accusations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy. However, the archdiocese has had a review board in place since 1995, and its scope is broader than the national requirement, allowing the board to also review cases involving clergy accused of sexual misconduct with adults.

Current members include two priests, a deacon who is a lawyer, another lawyer, a psychiatrist, a nurse educator at the University of Minnesota, social worker, psychologist, trauma surgeon and a retired University of Minnesota faculty member. Past members have included law enforcement officials, abuse victims and family members of victims.

Clergy Review Board members may ask for additional information or steps to be taken if they feel it is necessary before making a recommendation to the archbishop about whether a clergy member who has committed sexual misconduct can return to ministry, Eisenzimmer said.

The board may make additional recommendations for returning clergy members to ministry, such as insisting they continue to participate in an aftercare program. Board members also may recommend to what extent the misconduct should be disclosed publicly, Eisenzimmer said.

“Ultimately, it’s the archbishop’s role to make the decision,” he said. “But in virtually every case that I’ve seen, the archbishop has accepted the recommendation of the Clergy Review Board.”

Review, safe environments Eisenzimmer stresses that the archdiocese evaluates its policies and practices regarding sexual misconduct on an ongoing basis to ensure they are consistent with national best practices, the need for transparency, victims’ needs, community needs and the needs of the accused.

Over the years, policies and procedures have been changed and updated as the issue of sexual abuse has become better understood, he said.

“I will tell you from my own experience back in the 1970s that the therapeutic community said you could put priests back in ministry that had sexually abused minors,” he said. “You’re not going to find a therapeutic advocate . . . today that’s going to say that.”

In the last decade the Catholic Church has taken a lead role in addressing child sexual abuse and instituting safe environment programs to educate children and adults about the issue, which affects all segments of society, he said.

“What I’ve learned, especially this last decade, is that there’s no one doing more about it than the Catholic Church,” Eisenzimmer said. “We don’t get any credit for that, and maybe we don’t deserve any credit because of our failures in the past. But we have instituted procedures where we do criminal background checks on all clergy, all employees and any volunteers that have regular, ongoing contact with children.”

That amounts to 83,000 people, according to Rita Beatty, who helps coordinate the archdiocese’s safe environment program.

All students enrolled in Catholic elementary and secondary schools and those in parish religious education programs are educated on age-appropriate safe environment matters, Eisenzimmer added. Church employees and volunteers are also required to undergo safe environment training.

As a result of such training and the archdiocese’s misconduct policies, “We can safely say that today there’s no clergy in a ministerial position who have been credibly accused of child abuse,” Eisenzimmer said. “We know that for certain.”

As part of the national charter, the archdiocese and the other dioceses in the United States undergo an annual independent audit of their policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the charter’s provisions.
The audit is conducted on site once every three years; in the other years independent investigators gather data and a variety of other information, Eisenzim­mer said.

In turn, the archdiocese audits each of its locations — including all of its parishes and schools — twice a year, he said. In the fall, the archdiocese asks for plans for the school year regarding what will be done in compliance with safe environment and charter requirements. The spring audit shows what was accomplished.

Eisenzimmer said he has no argument with the public for holding the Catholic Church to a higher level of scrutiny when it comes to sexual misconduct. But he also adds that the church should get the credit it deserves for addressing the topic in the comprehensive way it has.

“Our belief is that preventing child abuse has become a core mission of this church,” he said. “It has to be. And we see the value of that broader than just in the church. There’s a community value to that. And if we want to fulfill that core mission, we have to continue to emphasize that we are ourselves following what we’re preaching, that we’re practicing what we’re preaching. We think that’s as important of a task as we can fulfill these days.” The Catholic Spirit

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For more information

» Read more about the archdiocese’s Protection of Children and Youth Initiative.

» To contact Greta Sawyer, director of advocacy and victim assistance, call (651) 291-4497.

Repeat after me 18 times: "The Church's clerical abuse crisis was a homosexual crisis"

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Tim Drake of the National Catholic Register has an article today, documented by a secular university, that no secular media outlet will dare reprint. You'll have to read it yourself.

Notice that I said "was a homosexual crisis." Because after the revelation of how serious the situation was, and how bad the cover-up was, beginning with Boston revelations in 2002, the Church began to take measures to ensure that this would not happen again. Virtually every parish in the country has undergone special training and the regulations prohibiting homosexuals from becoming priests were strengthened.

As a result, the 2009 Annual Report of the USCCB reported that there were only 6 new cases of clerical abuse in the entire country that year. Right now, the Catholic Church is the safest place for children in the entire U.S. All those articles you keep seeing in the newspapers are old cases dating from the 1960s to the 199os, finally being brought to trial.

This week, our elected officials voted to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. By so doing, for the first time in this nation’s history, they’ve opened the U.S. military’s combat forces to practicing homosexuals. It would behoove the military to take a look at how such an open policy toward homosexuals worked in another male fraternity, that is, the Catholic priesthood. . . .

The connection between homosexuality and abuse was clearly demonstrated in 2004’s The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, otherwise known as the John Jay Report, which was conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice [part of the New York State College system] and commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. . . .

Dr. Paul McHugh, former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, has said that the report shows that the Catholic abuse crisis was “homosexual predation on American Catholic youth.”
Psychiatrist Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons has echoed that.

“The John Jay report has revealed clearly that the crisis in the Church is not one of pedophilia but of homosexuality. The primary victims have not been children but adolescent males. Fitzgibbons told Catholic News Agency that “every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships. . . .”

Following the sexual abuse crisis in the Church, and the results of the John Jay Report, the Church reaffirmed its policy in the 2005 statement, “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with Regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.”

That statement indicated that “the Church…cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’” Furthermore, the statement went on, “Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. . . .”

Homosexual relationships caused a deep fracture in the priestly male fraternity. Pseudo-intimacy and intrigue replaced the outward looking evangelization of apostolic brotherhood. Bishops were unwilling to discipline the abusive priests under their charge. The Communio became divided. Religious leaders hid their own homosexual proclivities. The worst priests desacralized the liturgy and their vows and their priestly identity, while good priests often became isolated, fearful, and rigid. All priests were maimed. . . .

What will be the result once the military has been compromised by disordered love? What will happen when an 18-year-old recruit finds himself in an unequal power differential with a superior officer who wants something more than push-ups. . . ?

How ironic, that at the same time that Congress was voting to impose its morality on the American military, Pope Benedict XVI spoke with the Vatican Curia about the disastrous results of a corrupted priesthood.

In his Christmas message, Pope Benedict said that the Church’s garment has been torn by the sins of her priests. “We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen,” said the Pope, citing the reigning philosophy of the sexually derelict 1970s. “It was maintained – even within the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself…Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist. The effects of such theories are evident today. . . .”

We have been promised that the gates of Hell will never prevail against the Church, instituted by Christ. The Armed Forces, however, carry no such divine promise. This radical disruption of the Armed Forces of the world’s most reliable Christian nation represents a desacralization of the male military bond. The center may not hold.

Read Tim's complete article here.

John Allen: The press and the sex abuse crisis of 2010

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John Allen [Nat'l Catholic Reporter] and George Weigel consider the Vatican's response to sex abuse charges in Europe

Under the best of circumstances, the Vatican and the secular media struggle to understand each other, and the first half of 2010 was hardly the best of times. As a new wave of the sexual abuse crisis swept across Europe and raised critical questions about Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican officials accused the press of bias, while news reports and editorial pages blasted the Vatican for dishonesty and denial.

Now that the dust has begun to settle, thoughtful figures on both sides realize the need to take a dispassionate look back. Many in the news business want to know if they got the story right, and at least some in Rome — not to mention frustrated Catholics elsewhere — wonder if the Vatican's crisis management strategy, such as it was, backfired.

On Monday, I was in Miami Beach for a gathering of journalists from mainstream secular outlets, sponsored by the "Faith Angle" project of the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center. Papal biographer George Weigel and I were asked to lead a discussion of coverage of the crisis, especially its most recent wave.

Among the 20 or so reporters on hand was Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times, whose pieces digging into Benedict's record have been both widely read and controversial. Critics include American Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who called a March 24 story by Goodstein on the Vatican's handling of the case of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting deaf children "deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness."

The conversation in Miami didn't produce an artificial consensus — and it wasn't designed to — but it did have a lot to say about where things stand vis-à-vis the church and the fourth estate.

* * *

Weigel said that in his view, coverage of the American sexual abuse crisis of 2002 largely got the story right, forcing the church to confront a reality that had been "ignored or downplayed" for too long. By way of contrast, he argued, the coverage in 2010, which focused more on the Vatican and the pope, was marred by "errors in reporting and editorial bias."

Weigel laid out what he called seven "flawed assumptions" which, in his view, ran through much of the 2010 coverage.

Assumption One: The "Omni-Competence of the Papacy"

Weigel said the pope is often styled as an absolute monarch, wielding total control over Catholic life. That's not true either in theory or practice, Weigel insisted. In theory, a pope's power is limited by all sorts of things: church tradition, the Code of Canon Law, the sacramental system, even the rules of logic.

In reality, Weigel said, a pope's influence is also limited by factors such as the competence of his aides and his own shrewdness in diagnosing situations and making appointments. He added that the latter point is part of the dynamic of the papacy of Benedict XVI — this "world-class theological mind," Weigel said, doesn't always seem to have an aptitude for picking subordinates.

Assumption Two: The "World-Class Competence of the Roman Curia"

Weigel said people often succumb to the notion that Vatican officials must be the cream of the Catholic crop, including the notion that they operate "the world's best intelligence service." In reality, Weigel said, the quality of heads of Vatican offices is not notably higher than other systems with which he's familiar — say, the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom — and in some cases it's "much lower."

As an illustration, Weigel claimed that Pope John Paul II was four months behind the news when the sexual abuse crisis broke out in the United States during spring 2002, because of the poor quality of information reaching him through Vatican channels. In general, Weigel argued, the small circle of senior Vatican officials who wield real power, probably no more than 20, do not live in the same "24/7 media universe" as the rest of us.

Assumption Three: A "General Hermeneutic of Suspicion"

Outsiders sometimes conclude, Weigel said, that "there is a will to deceive at the highest levels" of the Vatican. In reality, he said, much of what looks like deception is actually bungling — bred by naiveté, misinformation, or just plain being in over one's head.

A hermeneutic of suspicion, Weigel argued, breeds contorted conspiracy theories, thereby missing "the simplest and truest explanation, which is that these guys were blindsided and scrambled to respond."

Assumption Four: "Institutionalized Hypocrisy"

Many people already don't like the sexual teachings of the Catholic church, Weigel argued, and when violations of that teaching by clergy are not immediately met by draconian penalties, it fuels "gotcha" reporting.

When hypocrisy is presumed to be the root of everything, he said, important bits of context are overlooked. Weigel offered three examples:

• A 1983 revision of the Code of Canon Law was designed to protect priests from arbitrary abuses of power by bishops, but it also made it harder for bishops to discipline abuser priests.
  
  
• In debates over laicization (popularly known as "defrocking"), some experts caution against it on the grounds that once the church cuts ties with a priest, it loses any ability to monitor and control him.
  
  
• Weigel also criticized attempts to link the crisis to priestly celibacy, asserting that 50 to 60 percent of the sexual abuse of children occurs in the family — and is therefore committed by people who have never taken vows of celibacy.

Assumption Five: Sex abuse is "a distinctively Catholic problem, and an institutional Catholic problem."

That may be true of Ireland, Weigel said, but it's not in the United States, where data suggests the incidence of abuse among Catholic priests is no higher than among comparable professional groups such as public school teachers — even though sex abuse in other environments doesn't draw anything like the same saturation coverage.

In 2010, Weigel argued, "the Catholic church is arguably the safest environment for young people and adolescents in the country," but there remain other "non-safe environments" that will not be exposed so long as public perceptions treat the sexual exploitation of children as a "Catholic problem."

Assumption Six: "A lack of skill in reading church statements and documents"

The inability of some observers to adequately decode Vatican-speak, Weigel said, sometimes leads to "missing the real stories." He cited Pope Benedict's letter to the Catholics of Ireland, which Weigel said, for the first time begins to "dig into real problems of ecclesiastical culture" underneath the crisis. That point was missed, he said, amid sensational but often ill-informed commentary from the likes of Sinead O'Connor.

Assumption Seven: Confusion about who's a reliable source

Weigel complained that in some news coverage, critics of Benedict XVI have been presented as seemingly neutral "experts." He complained, for example, that victims' attorney Jeffrey Anderson is routinely cited without mention of his "direct financial interest" in sex abuse litigation. He also offered the example of Italian Catholic writer and scholar Alberto Melloni, an exponent of a school of interpretation of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) rejected by Benedict XVI. To present Melloni as an objective source, Weigel argued, is a distortion.

More broadly, Weigel warned against relying too much on alleged Roman insiders — who, he said, are often "low-level munchkins who have no idea what's going on, but are happy to talk over a free cappuccino or a Campari and soda."

* * *

All of that, Weigel argued, illustrates the need for "serious reform in press coverage of the Catholic church."

On the church's side of the ledger, Weigel argued that two chronic problems have to be addressed: 1) What he called "the Vatican's communications debacle," and 2) the lack of "a mechanism for dealing with manifest incompetence, or worse, from bishops." Weigel said that many "serious Catholics," including regular church-goers and big-time donors, have deep reservations these days about the competence of some local bishops. He called the inability to get rid of problem bishops in a timely fashion the church's "single biggest management problem."

Both issues, he said, will have to be faced the next time the cardinals gather in a conclave to elect a pope, because it's not realistic to expect they will be resolved under Benedict XVI.

* * *

In my [John Allen] comments, I raised what has long struck me as the central puzzle about the crisis of 2010: How is it that Pope Benedict XVI, whom insiders regard as the great reformer on the sex abuse issue, somehow became the global symbol of the problem?

I laid out my reading of Benedict's record, which is that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger underwent a sort of conversion experience around 2001, when the sex abuse crisis was dumped in his lap by John Paul II. His willingness to face what he once memorably called the "filth in the church" was fueled by studying case files from all over the world, including the testimony of victims, and by listening to his deputies who met with victims. The story as I know it boils down to this: before 2001, Ratzinger was essentially another cardinal in denial; afterwards, he became the leading force inside the Vatican for a more aggressive response.

Measured not against the sweeping programs for reform that some critics of the church have advanced, but against what was realistically possible, Ratzinger moved the ball farther and faster than most people anticipated, often against strong internal opposition.

If that's so, then why did a handful of cases from decades ago, which came to light earlier this year, cause such an earthquake in public perceptions?

In addition to the flawed assumptions flagged by Weigel, I suggested two other factors — both of which, I think, impeded the Vatican from making a more effective case on the pope's behalf.

First, I argued, the Vatican drew a bad hand, in that the first case to come to light was also the most serious. It involved Peter Hullermann, a German priest who came into the Munich archdiocese for therapy, while facing charges of abuse, when then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was in charge. Hullermann ended up in a Munich parish where he committed other acts of abuse, for which he was eventually convicted criminally.

When the story broke in early March, the immediate response in church circles, both in Munich and in Rome, was to try to insulate Benedict from blame — insisting that the decision to assign Hullermann to a parish was made at lower levels, without the future pope's knowledge. Whether true or not, that response rang hollow for many people, because a bishop still has to take responsibility for decisions made in his name.

Benedict could have said something like, "I'm heartsick over what happened, and with the benefit of hindsight it's clear I should have been more vigilant. I intend to reach out to Hullermann's victims to apologize, and this terrible tragedy illustrates the importance of the reforms we've put into place." Had that been the tone, outsiders might have been more inclined to listen to a defense of the pope on other cases — especially because in the handful of other instances which have drawn coverage, his role was often minor and after-the-fact. Instead, an impression of blanket denial was created, which became the prism for everything else.

More deeply, I also speculated that the Vatican has been hampered in defending Benedict's record because it would imply indicting other senior Vatican officials, and perhaps ultimately tainting the memory of Pope John Paul II. That's a psychological and cultural bridge, I said, that many in the Vatican aren't ready to cross.

Weigel was asked to comment on whether the crisis indeed represents a stain on John Paul's legacy. He conceded the crisis wasn't handled well, especially towards the end when John Paul was already in decline. At the same time, Weigel argued, that breakdown has to be seen in the context of John Paul's broader renewal of the priesthood. Both John Paul and Benedict XVI, Weigel said, have inspired a new generation committed to a "heroic ideal of the priesthood," which, he said, suggests there will be few incidents of abuse down the line.

* * *

Understandably, Goodstein wanted to join the conversation. She said that when she began reporting on the latest wave of the crisis, she largely accepted the claim of "Ratzinger the Reformer," based partly on things that I and others had written.

Yet, she said, the 2010 stories upended that narrative, which placed the responsibility entirely on bishops for the failure to report and remove abusers. This year we learned of one case after another, she said, in which bishops were pleading urgently with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Ratzinger to laicize a known molester, and the CDF rejected those requests. And, she added, we were always told that the CDF had nothing to do with these cases until 2001, but that turned out to be false also. In fact, they were handling them all along.

As a footnote, Goodstein said that much of the reporting was based on documents — though she didn't add this herself, usually documents obtained from victims' lawyers. Those documents, she said, are the most revelatory evidence we have. The documents come from attorneys, she said, because the church sure is not handing them over.

Goodstein's question thus was: Didn't the reporting of 2010 add something to what we thought we knew?

I said that for me, the reporting fleshed out the picture, but didn't fundamentally alter it.

First, it's still true that pre-2001, most sex abuse cases never reached Rome because bishops relied on informal remedies rather than laicization (which requires Vatican approval, and was seen by many bishops as a cumbersome, expensive, and uncertain process). We already knew that before 2001, Ratzinger's approach to the few cases which reached his desk wasn't notably different from other senior Vatican personnel. Thus to produce a 1985 letter in which he urges caution in laicizing Stephen Kiesle of Oakland, for example, is certainly interesting, but not a paradigm-changer.

That go-slow approach in the 1980s and 1990s, I argued, still has to be balanced against expedited handling of hundreds of cases beginning in 2003, when Ratzinger obtained "special faculties" from John Paul II allowing him to waive a canonical trial and to remove an abuser from the priesthood more efficiently.

One can certainly argue that his awakening came late, and that not enough has yet been done — perhaps especially in terms of matching the new accountability for priests with similar accountability for bishops. The fact remains, however, that the Vatican is today more committed to a "zero tolerance" policy because of Ratzinger's impact, both before and after his election.

If that point sometimes got lost earlier this year, it's probably one part a media failure to keep the whole picture in focus, and one part the Vatican's inability to project a different narrative.

Weigel threw in a couple of interesting footnotes. In terms of the response to the crisis under John Paul II, Weigel said that during the late pope's long illness, there was effectively no one in charge — on sex abuse or almost anything else. The then-Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, was either "unprepared or unwilling," Weigel said, "to become a sort of prime minister as the king was dying."

Weigel also asserted that another element in understanding Vatican culture vis-à-vis the crisis is "the odd influence of the Latin American mind," which he described as "riddled with conspiracy theories." He was likely referring to suggestions from a few Latin American cardinals that media reporting on the crisis, especially in the United States, was calculated to stifle the church's advocacy on issues such as support for a Palestinian homeland.

* * *

We spent a fair bit of time in Miami doing some basic exercises in Vaticanology, which prompts a warning about relations between the Vatican and the media.

Several people, for instance, asked why there never seem to be consequences when somebody in Rome obviously screws up. To take one example, Sodano explosively compared criticism of the pope on the crisis to "petty gossip" during the 2010 Easter Sunday Mass, and yet he continues merrily along as dean of the College of Cardinals. (When Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria, later criticized Sodano, he actually got his knuckles rapped.)

I explained that in the culture of the Vatican, the way they typically signal disapproval of a statement from someone at Sodano's level isn't by overtly repudiating it, but rather by not repeating it. Insiders know that silence speaks volumes, although the outside world usually concludes that the guy got away scot free.

Two reactions from reporters are worth recording.

One said that while such insider scoop is interesting, it's of limited journalistic value. Editors won't tolerate sticking in four paragraphs of "Vatican context" into stories to explain every statement or decision that comes down the pike, this reporter said, because it smacks too much of apologetics — i.e., trying to get the Vatican off the hook.

Another reporter made the point that when it comes to the crisis, media outlets have a limited appetite for nuance, because of the stark moral nature of the underlying issue — the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children. In that regard, this reporter said, the media can be as "unchanging and relentless as the church."

The take-away seemed to be that unless the Vatican wants a perpetual war with the press, it needs to become more adept at translating its internal culture for the outside world.