Bravo Mark. Thank you as well.
To call for the abolition of the Petrine office is a sin against charity, Mr. Shea, against the entire Mystical Body, and any "Catholic" who does so loses title to the name, and may suffer as great a harm in the long run. This one, and the others you mention, are equally iniquitous, for either may give birth to the other.
Mark,
Good post. BTW: I have long suspected that the Vatican's so-called "pacifist" approach to Islam is rooted in the fact that any endorsement of force would result in massive retaliation --pogroms, in effect-- against those Christians already at risk in Islamic states.
I have no doubt that the Pope is a living saint, and certainly arguing that the papal office should be abolished makes one a Protestant or worse. But I still think it is possible loyally to believe that the Holy Father has written too much (and much of it in inpenetrable prose), traveled too much, canonized too many saints, and mananged through aspects of his style to make it possible -- not consciously for a mintue I'm sure -- for many people to confuse the person of the Pope with the substance of the Catholic Faith.
And much as I admire him I don't think it will ever be possible for me to get out of my mind the picture of him being rubbed down with bay leaves in that Mexican 'purification' ceremony. If God is merciful enough to make us 'coheredes et sodales' in the next life we'll have to ask His Holiness what that was all about.
Before Nihil Obstat gets you,
it should be Vaticanus delendus est. The future passive particible takes the case and number of the subject.
When you are good, you are very, very good. This is one reason that I enjoy visiting so often. An excellent and insightful posting.
This is quite good, Mark. Just one thing: adultery is a crime in many states, including Virginia. It could be argued that Loverde should have called the cops when he discovered that the priest was having an affair with a married parishioner. As suggested, however, in another thread, I strongly disagree with the idea that a bishop is necessarily obligated to rat on his priests or his laity to the police whenever a crime has been committed.
By the way, who is the schmuck arguing "the Vatican must be destroyed?"
We've been through the toxic phase ever since the press treated the protestors outside of the Boston Cathedral as heros when in fact they bear a closer resemblance to Fred Phelps than Martin Luther King.
Thanks so much for this post, Mark. So well said.
I have good Catholic friends who are dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrats, and ever since the tensions with Iraq came to the forefront, they've been spewing similarly hateful invective against Bush. I may well send them this post, since though I'm not necessarily a Republican apologist or pro-war, I fear that their hatred is taking root in their souls... and will bear bad fruit.
Thanks again, Kathie
I for one absolutely LOVE our Holy Father. I think his beautiful writings, his travelling, and his approach to ecumenism and interfaith dialogue have made the Catholic faith only more vibrant and beautiful. In some areas the Church is in crisis, and after crisis comes renewal. Holy Father is sowing the seeds of that renewal now!
I also don't at all take issue with the canonization of so many saints. First of all, the canonization process is deliberate, and authoritative. Surely no one wants a legitimate, de facto Saint to go unrecognized! Who would you pick? Even though we know Josemaria Escriva is a saint (because the Church has said so solemnly) would we prefer we didn't know for sure?
I'd also argue that because making saints is the function of the Church, there is nothing wrong with Holy Father canonizing a multitiude of legitimate saints from all walks of life and all over the globe. More people I can ask to pray for me here and when I'm in purgatory!
Dev:
I must confess that I too find the "He's canonized too many saints" complaint preposterous. "He's acknowledged too much goodness, praised God too much, been too grateful." What an absurd thing to say.
Ditto to this post, Mark.
It is a sobering reminder of a deadly spiritual trap.
Lord, have mercy upon us all!
A useful antidote to the temptation to fury and its related evils is to pray the Fatima Prayer. Slowly and intentionally.
"O my Jesus! Forgive us our sins, and save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy."
Lee
Once again, a great post, Mark.
Making saints is an act of the infallible magisterium as well. Hard to question it and remain Catholic.
As to what Bishop Loverde should have done to the adulterous priest: Any priest who violates his vow of celibacy, even with an adult woman, should be defrocked or at least removed from active ministry. Maybe there can be mercy if the woman is unmarried or has no children to abandon, but never if she is married with children. I believe that canon law does provide for this. If the priest repents, he can and must be forgiven in the sense that he can receive the sacraments and attain eternal salvation, but he, or anyone, should be not allowed to be a priest if he can't maintain the basic standards of "Keep your vow of celibacy; don't be a homewrecker."
James:
My ignorance of the canonical legalities are such that I have no idea if there's even any point to "defrocking" somebody who has left the priesthood. I don't know the chronology of events and so can't speak to your argument. If the bishop said, "Don't talk to her" and the priest responded by renouncing the priesthood and running off with her, it seems a bit silly for the bishop to shout at the car as it drives away, "Okay then! If that's how you feel, then you can't be a priest anymore!"
I don't mean that he should have been defrocked after he left the priesthood. I mean that the immediate reaction to the discovery of his sin should have been to institute the process for his laicization, not simply to tell him, "Stop that!"
However, I suspect that the law against adultery in Virginia has not been enforced in decades, if not centuries, so handing him over to "Caesar" would be no good.
I am extremely skeptical that this should be the first response to an adult affair. Priests are human. The first recourse of the Church is supposed to be mercy and redemption, not the axe.
I have to disagree as to adult affairs. As our bishop makes plain, priests are in an authority figure positions, much as psychologists, medical doctors and lawyers, and there can be no "true consent" given in such situations. In our diocese, when consent is absent, it's clergy sexual abuse and the priest will be relieved of duties once that is established. Adult affairs with with members of the parish are plainly clergy sexual abuse and the priest should be removed from active ministry. The psychologist, doctor or lawyer would all suffer some form of extreme professional discipline in the same situation, and priests are no different from those secular professions in that regard.
Psychologists, doctors, and lawyers *never* fall in love with clients? Clients never fall in love with psychologists, doctors, and lawyers? Clients *never* seduce the psychologists, doctors, and lawyers?
I'm afraid I find the idea that a priest *can't* enter into a consensual relationship with a woman so overwhelmingly preposterous and blind to the vicissitudes of fallen human nature that I can't credit the rest of your argument.
Mind you, I'm not saying it's no sin. But the idea of draconian punishments for a single lapse in adulthood, with an adult woman, is simply incredible to me. It sounds more like a "zero tolerance" secular model than anything to do with the mercy of Christ. I simply don't buy the idea that every woman in such a relationship is a "victim", though I certainly buy the proposition that ever priest who abandons his vows has sinned.
By the way, I have in view here *single* women. With married women (presuming the priest knows they are married), it's quite different and would typically receive severe discipline in canon law, I would imagine.
Psychologists lawyers and doctors do fall in love with clients and they get professionally disciplined for it, too---all the time. this isn't a close call--it's a violation of professional ethics. In California, for example, the psychiatrist-patient relationship must be severed for 2 years, no contact--before any *other* relationship can be entered into. It's a common basis for discipline. I think priests are closest to phychologist/psychiatrists and the priest/psychologist/psychiatrist must recognize the transference that takes place AND must avoid damaging the patient (or parishioner) by suggesting that there is anything other than a professional relationship. If he can't do that, he can't be an effective pastoral minister. Not saying it doesn't happen. It's just a fundamental skill that priests, in common with other counseling professions, must have, and if they can't/won't fend off the patient/parishioner then another line of work is called for. It should be rare, and severely disciplined whenever it occurs.
The Holy Father's prose is not impenetrable as one commentator claims, but as clear as a bell -- this is one aspect of the great genius of Pope John Paul II.
David Kubiak: this refrain gets ridiculous the more I hear its incessant plea. This time the refrain has the Pope being rubbed down with ritual bay leaves. So what? Haven't you read Scripture? St. Paul the Apostle goes into the Temple to take part in a Jewish ritual, and this after his conversion; he takes St. Timothy with him. Part of the ritual is a ritual bath or emersion and another part is the shaving of his head ... Jewish mind you, not Christian.
Mark, the "praising God" aspect of all the canonizations is a profound insight to me, one which answers many doubts. A gem of magnanimous proportions.
Well, California does not seem to have any law against adultry ... unless there's enough money involved to interest the legal profession. Is this cynical, ironic, or sarcastic? I hope not, as I've sworn off this bent for a while, at least, if not forever.
So, should, then, such priests as commit adultry be furloughed to the golden state of California?
If I were bishop, I'd do what other leaders of institutions where trust is involved like a school or hospital
or the military.
Have a press conference, lay out the details, and make it clear that you support the victim, and reiterate the policies that make these acts incompatible with service in this area.
A bizarre thing that I picked up in the articles I linked to earlier was that the Bishop asserted the adulterous priest somehow had a privacy right that required anyone with knowledge of the affair to keep it concealed from the husband/victim.
Perhaps it doesn't fit the exact situation here, but can we at least agree that when committed by a person in a position of trust as a priest is, adultery is not one of those acts that is privledged to be considered private.
My views:
Maybe I was too harsh in originally saying that any priest who violates his vow of celibacy must be defrocked, but I still support it for those who violate it with married women. I disagree with Mr. McFaul - I do believe that it can be consensual, but it is a grave sin nonetheless.
It raises the question - what acts, beyond the true horrors like murder, molestation, rape - are worthy of defrocking? Surely theft or embezzlement should be, and I would think that adultery is at least as serious as that. (I mean from the Church's point of view, not "Caesar's"; I am not the Puritan sex police; I do NOT believe in enforcing the moribund anti-adultery laws of Virginia or anywhere else.)
P.S. for Mr. Silasen: I would not be surprised if you would discover that California has an anti-adultery law if you look hard enough. In my native Massachusetts, Puritan-era laws make illegal not only adultery but even fornication.
William:
I agree. But it's typically much less culpable due to the extreme ignorance of Catholic ecclesiology.
Mike:
There you go, making excuses when we know that the only *real* reason any bishop opposes war is for his personal gain.
Karl: Just quoting.
Patrick: Living in the Soviet of Washington, where everything is permissible, I did not know adultery is a crime in VA. I doubt very much my correspondent did either. So my point remains: when you don't know the facts you are to presume charitably, not attribute the worst motives. Since it is a crime, I think the bishop should have alerted the cops, though I can imagine circumstances in which that might not be advisable (is it always a kindness to the betrayed spouse to find out from the cops first that your wife is cheating on you?) Mostly the whole thing makes me glad I'm not a bishop and I don't live in that parish.
I prefer to conceal the identity of the schmuck, since I don't want to turn this thread into a referendum on a personality, but this person is quite real, I assure you.
Kathie: Yes, the present political climate is open to this sort of thing. There are, as I have frequently noted, a certain number of Lidless Eyes types on the right who love to look for evil in, well... practically everybody but themselves. However, it seems to me that the problem is far more endemic on the Left, which typically tends to regard conservatives, not merely as differing from them, but as evil. It's what comes of reading your own press releases about your manifold virtues for too long.
The fruit of these so called reform movements is not breeding unity in Christ, but disunity. They are creating a divisive "we" vs. "they" atmosphere. A combat. The members of the body should not be at war. We are either one in Christ or not. True reform begets love and love begets oneness in Christ.
Lee has a good point, "O my Jesus! Forgive us our sins, and save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy." To this I would add -- "--especialy me"
I do not think it is advisable to equate the priesthood into a profession requiring the same personal, objective distance as lawyers, doctors,psychologists. The nature of the priesthood is not a 9 to 5 job, it is a forever more job. It is more about being spiritual loving father and guide than objective counselor. It is about giving freely and unfettered the mercy and gifts of grace of God. Equating the priesthood to a profession will do serious damage to the understanding of priesthood and the priest's roll in the Church.
It will be another secularization of something that is profoundly non-secular. It will start a precendent that will continue to etch away at what a priest may or may not do. The next set of lawsuits will be for violating professional ethics. Our priests will end up being 9 to 5 administrators. There will be a whole new set of situations in which "Father" will have to create new barriers between himself and his flock. Imagine the personal stress placed on the priest as every transaction 24/7 has to be analyzed for potential for violation of professional ethics? For potential for misinterpretation? Professionals get to home at the end of the day; a good priest is always on call.
Of course there are situations where priests are licensed counselors and accept money for services. That is different and those people who are officially seeing him in that capacity should righly expect a professional client-patient relationship.
No human should be expected to have every human interaction they have in the course of the day subjected to relentless scrutiny, lawsuits, and censure. Can you imagine if the door is opened for people to say because Father yelled at them because they cut him off in traffic that he caused undue emotional pain because of the special client-priest relationship?
Can't resist (but I'll forego the cynicism, irony and sarcasm): Adultry and pri ... make that Privacy -- consulting the Mosaic Law one finds that sins such as adultry were hardly private. Rather they were occasions for the public meting out of death by stoning.
Did Jesus make it a private matter when He discussed the issue with "the woman at the well"? No.
Has Privacy been discovered as the reason for being for the legal institution of abortion? Yes.
So, therefore, what is a bishop of the Church doing in proclaiming Privacy as some reason for being for hiding a mortal sin against God and mankind?
Protestants sometimes institutionalize the public confession of sin. Since they don't have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, they have little choice than to put sins before their groups at large.
Catholics seem to have discovered that the opposite dynamic works for those who have excluded this Sacrament from their intentions, or rather maybe excluded the dimension of penance from their participation in this Sacrament.
How can a bishop, supposedly educated in religion, not realize that the only means to secrecy is through the valid operation of the Sacrament of Penance? It constantly boggles my mind to find clergy vacant of the most elementary of religious understanding. Sins will always be found out, with the exception of sin confessed immediately with absolute perfect contrition so that there are no effects of it (seems correct to me, the ignorant layman).
I continue to think that laity ought to watch and publically describe bishops in their "off duty" hours. When one reads a novel, for example, one can see how the manners and customs etc of the characters describe what is going on inside the ribcage and between the ears. This goes in real life, also. If you see a bishop stepping out wearing golf pants and shoes, then you know what he's got on his mind; if you see one stepping out wearing a brass studded leather jacket with wierd cut to the tailoring, and wearing motorcycle boots, then it says something about the intentions of the heart. It took maybe 60 years for the public to recognize the goings on of the former abp. R. Weakland -- why? I would think that it would have been obvious to the laity around him. But perhaps that laity was enamoured of the idea of secrecy or privacy and shut the mind's eye, or perhaps they were wound up in the same or abetting kinds of sin, and therefore couldn't assess much of what likely appeared to clue in the sin.
I think you all are being somewhat uncharitable to David.
The only infallible aspect of a canonization, to the best of my knowledge, is that we know the person declared canonized is presently in heaven. This is quite different from the prudential judgment of how selective one is proposing examples of sancity for the universal Church. It's possible that a rush of canonizations has caused the standards for canonization to be loosened, less rigorous than in ages past, and accordingly the bar of heroic sancity has been lowered, so to speak. One could claim that less is more.
Take St. Jose-Marie Escriva. Was that a prudent canonization? There are certainly orthodox Catholics edgy about Opus Dei's role in Franco's Spain. Clearly prudence plays some roll in the process, witness Rome's hesitation in canonizing Chinese martyrs under Communism, for fear of political ramifications, Queen Isabella, for fear of antagonizing Jewish relations, etc. Witness also the apparent dismissal of previously venerated saints, like St. Christopher, St. Philomena, or St. Simon of Trent. I don't doubt that many of the quick-to-condemn here would say it was incredibly unfortunate that the latter was venerated.
I don't buy the argument that the Pope's many canonizations have been imprudent, but one can maintain it and be a perfectly orthodox Catholic. Why do we need all these acerbic dismissals?
I agree that we ought to show deference to canonizations, but I think it's rather simplistic to say that just because a canonization is a good thing, the more the merrier.
There's certainly been reserve in the past with regard to writing, canonizations, etc. One could argue that things are an improvement today, but to equate this present policy with Catholicism itself is to fall into the same error which David voiced concern for, identifying the person of the pope with the substance of the Catholic Faith.
As for ecumenical and inter-cultural gestures over the years, since when has the prudence of these particular actions become a norm for orthodoxy? I think the questions of undergoing native ceremonies, kissing Korans, etc., are quite open.
Sincerely,
Breier
There is an interesting interview with Archbishop Julián Herranz on "Revising the Norms on Sexual Abuse by Clerics"
The entire piece is worthwhile and balanced. I'm highlighting the following bit since it is a point-of-view that hasn't been considered.
From the perspective of the Church, the relationship between a diocesan bishop and his priests is likened to that shared by a father and his sons. The richness of the theological reality is impoverished if we see the relationship solely in the secular terms of employer and employee or, even worse, as adversaries. For the good of the Church, a priest has to be free to approach his diocesan bishop and to speak to him with honesty and openness.
With that in mind, the Church recognizes an exemption from testifying in ecclesiastical proceedings for bishops and other clerics with respect to those matters that were "revealed to them by reason of their sacred ministry" (cfr. Code of Canon Law, can. 1548, § 2, 1
.
Sadly, the civil laws do not always recognize that important need and, instead, sometimes foster an attitude of fear and suspicion. We would do well to bring to the attention of those responsible for civil legislation the importance of recognizing the unique nature of the pastoral dialogue shared by diocesan bishops and their priests, which certainly merits at least the same kinds of protection that are given to communications between lawyers and their clients or physicians and their patients.
Even in the absence of such protections, it is my hope that the revisions to the norms which were recently accepted by the USCCB will -- because of their increased clarity, their greater certainty, and their insistence on basic fairness -- significantly reduce the tension that has been reported between some priests and their bishops.
P.S.
I don't have a clue what I did to put that smiley face in the above posting
It was completely unintentional
I agree completely with the comment that being a priest is not a 9 - 5 job, and is much more, in fact, is being a "spiritual loving father and guide." That is exactly true and that's why sexual contact with any parishioner is such a serious betrayal not only of that parisioner, but of all others. Under the definitions enforced here in the diocese of Orange, that conduct constitutes clergy sexual abuse. The Orange diocese paid 3.6 million last year (the bishop published the figures) of which over a million went to adult "consenting" women.
Yes, any prist who gets sexually involved in a so called consenting sexual relationship with a parishioner is exposing himself to lawsuits, and is also certainly exposing his bishop as well. That's Caesar's law, it's called sexual harassment in the work place; it's called clergy sexual abuse if it occurs in a church. Don't do it, whether you consider it immoral, or whether you don't do it out of fear of lawsuit.
Even though a parishioner may not actually consent, I don't mean to imply that the parishioner is necessarily blameless, but a priest cannot avoid the grave legal and professional consequences by claiming he was seduced. Nobody can accept that excuse.
The comment about secrecy and the Sacrament of Penance is also right on. The treatment of a priest who confesses his sins within the Sacrament, properly does Penance and repents, is another matter entirely.
The whole thing boils down to holiness. Doing a holy job is the business of each of us. Bishops who rely too much on some legal code are going to get messed up because of it; bishops who eshew laws are also going to get messed up by such folly.
The Church operates on a foundation of a human being, not on a code of laws, regulations, rules (except the Golden Rule), or popular concensus.
The decisions rest with the bishops. The carrot is heaven; the stick is hell. Listen as he will to other bishops, to clergy, to laity, it boils down to the bishop must do God's will. If the bishop succeeds in it then it is as it should be; if he fails, it is not because of God, it is not because of the frailty of man, but because he has been unfaithful.
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