When the People Do Not Love the Shepherd

Some Catholics have a problem with the perceived imbalance of this “limited” petition from Eucharistic Prayer II:

Remember, Lord, your Church,
spread throughout the world,
and bring her to the fullness of charity,
together with Francis our Pope
and N. our Bishop
and all the clergy.

Why end there? What about us lay people? (We are, by the way, mentioned just before this sentence.)

Pope Francis has dispatched the disgraced Cardinal O’Brien to several months of “spiritual renewal, prayer, and penance.” Was this on his mind in today’s homily?

When a priest, a bishop goes after money, the people do not love him – and that’s a sign. But he ends badly.

A lack of love, especially in a Church culture in which people are still largely predisposed to treat priests with great affection, is indeed a sign.

(St. Paul) did not have a bank account, he worked, and when a bishop, a priest goes on the road to vanity, he enters into the spirit of careerism – and this hurts the Church very much – [and] ends up being ridiculous: he boasts, he is pleased to be seen, all powerful – and the people do not like that!

A ridiculous end. And all the more sad that some clergy do not perceive the state with which they are viewed. A martyr, certainly, can be widely rejected and laughed at. But a buffoon will suffer the same fate.

Pope Francis requests:

Pray for us, that we might be poor, that we might be humble, meek, in the service of the people.

This is why I have no problem with the mention of pope, bishop, and clergy in the Eucharistic Prayer. Presiders don’t need to bother to add “laity,” though I appreciate the gesture. I’ve worked closely with priests for three decades. I know they need prayers. I don’t begrudge them the extra mention (if it is indeed that) before God.

Pope Francis asked for a reflection on Acts 20:28-30:

Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. I know that, after my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

Read this fine passage, and while reading it, pray, pray for us bishops and priests. We have such need in order to stay faithful, to be men who watch over the flock and also over ourselves, who make the vigil their own, that their heart be always turned to [the Lord’s] flock. [Pray] also that the Lord might defend us from temptation, because if we go on the road to riches, if we go on the road to vanity, we become wolves and not shepherds. Pray for this, read this and pray. So be it.

I can attest to the great difficulty in remaining faithful in a marriage over the past seventeen years. It seems serene on the surface–what others see when my wife and I worship together, shop together, sit quietly in a room together, attend concerts and events and parties. But married life is difficult in ways I would not have imagined. But I feel fortunate. My wife prays for me, and I for her. And we keep working at it, mutually supportive of one another.

Some clergy–I don’t know how they maintain balance in what is essentially the eremitic lifestyle of a modern priest. How tempting it must be to consider drink, drugs, sex, gluttony, and other indulgences.

So, no: I have no problem whatsoever with the Holy Father’s message today.

 

Another Bishop Under Fire

This latest episcopal misadventure has sort of a Mahony in February vibe. Or Bishop Bill, if you prefer. Given that Roberto Gonzalez Nieves is not a cardinal, but more than an Outback bishop, I suspect this will go less successfully for his 2014 Confirmation calendar than the Frequently Scheduled One. Perhaps slightly better than the Australian discussion (not promotion) of ordination.

Archbishop Gonzalez’s supposed transgression is covering up sexual predation and other offenses of his clergy. That’s somewhat John Myers material. The level of hierarchy is the same, so maybe this is a preview of the New Jersey prelate’s future. Will he try a cringe-worthy message to his people, who, so far, seem to have a supportive streak?

I beg of you, please, do not send letters to the Holy See with expressions of solidarity. There is only one thing to do in situations like these: Pray.

The Vatican wasn’t impressed with the leak of a February letter he wrote to Cardinal Marc Ouellet at the Congregation of Bishops. Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, didn’t comment on the situation (the Culture of Silence) but he did say the letter’s release was an “indiscretion.”

So let’s try to sum up this thing, aware that no mortal on this planet likely has the whole story. Accusations from a reporter, and the bishop says, “Go home.” A serious investigation leads to three pink slips, and the bishop says nothing. The Vatican accuses, and the bishop claims, “Innocent!” All independent of any kind of truth in the situation.

 

The Frequently Scheduled One

Grant Gallicho levels a devastating post on the Frequently Misspelled Scheduled One and the active ordinary of his archdiocese. And just when you thought the episcopal attack on the truth couldn’t get any more brazen:

(Archbishop Gomez) does have the authority to say who presides over confirmations in the archdiocese. Have a look at the letter. Sorry, is that link broken? It seems the letter is no longer available on the website of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. (The L.A. Times cached a copy here.) Odd that the archdiocese’s archive of press releases includes a January 22 apology from auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry, who played a part in archdiocesan efforts to conceal accused priests from the law (and who really did cancel confirmations this spring), along with Gomez’s statement on the release of the priest-personnel files, dated January 31 — the same date on his statement on Mahony. Did that document disappear down the memory hole?

Money quote from the cardinal when asked by a reporter about his not doing the Confirmation circuit:

That’s news to me…. I’ve been doing them every week and I’m going to be doing them every week. So go home.

And what was it: yesterday the release of the Charter Audit? I wonder if that would disappear from the USCCB web site.

I’m sure Los Angeles teenagers need the Sacrament of Confirmation. But as for the workload of an ordinary and his auxiliaries, it might say something if Southern California bishops went to two-a-week Confirmations as needed and gave up that one night with a cigar and a glass of brandy in a recliner chair. As an example of selfless service and sacrifice, a gesture doesn’t come by that’s much easier than that.

 

Lincoln Still An Outlier

The 2012 annual report on the Charter is up at USCCB. Let’s consult a map:

The USCCB president:

I acknowledge with great appreciation all those who contributed time and effort to this significant achievement. At the same time, we also renew our steadfast resolution never to lessen our common commitment to protect children and young people entrusted to our pastoral care. We seek with equal determination to promote healing and reconciliation for those harmed in the past, and to assure that our audits continue to be credible and maintain accountability in our shared promise to protect and our pledge to heal.

I am happy to share this annual report with you …

Al Notzon, the chairperson of the National Review Board:

It is my understanding that all of the dioceses will be included in next year’s Audit.

That is interesting news. Apparently the new bishop in Lincoln has plans different from his predecessor.

Now, a red spot in the middle of American Catholicism might not mean much. It could be that this central bastion of “orthodoxy” has indeed found the inner purification needed to resist temptation to overpower children, teens, women, and men sexually and emotionally. It could be that Nebraska polices its own clergy and other leaders far more effectively than the whole 20th century bunch of bishops. It could be Cornhusker red bleeding through. Maybe Lincoln children are fine. Maybe.

On the other hand, orthodoxy didn’t have long and strong legs in Newark. Another Midwestern bishop, willing to go to jail for something he didn’t do, begged off the orange jumpsuit for something he did, signing away a bit of his episcopal authority in the process. One post-Charter predator evaded a pretty smart cardinal in another Midwestern diocese. Another skipped the country while his bishop took the weekend off to ponder what to do. And another prominent, and fortunately dead cardinal was thrown under the bus back East when a priest was sent to jail for misdeeds. By the lawyers his very own archdiocese had on the payroll.

Unfortunately for Nebraska parents, they can’t really be sure. A lying edifice wrapping itself in the mantle of innocence and the limit of episcopal power pretty much looks the same as a vigilant community in compliance. Except when the scandal breaks. Then you might find more money laid out for offenders than directly for victim therapy. And you might find a lot more money laid out for lawyers and settlements.

The timing of the Audit report–this could be unfortunate. Those nice preface letters were penned before the Newark chancery went into meltdown and still can’t get its story straight. Newark is in “compliance.” And yet its leadership blundered badly enough to send heads rolling and to call for an archbishop to step down. Archbishop Dolan “assures” us this and other “audits” are credible. He is “happy” to share them.

But the fact is that Catholics are less concerned about clergy these days than their bishops. What are they hiding? Why are they lying? And for those not caught in lies, is it because they are really being truthful with us? Or is it because we haven’t caught them yet?

 

Nobody In Newark Talking

More heat in New Jersey. And a question: is Archbishop Myers a liar? Mark Silk raises this question at RNS.

This is bad, bad, bad, and getting worse for the Newark archbishop. From the archdiocesan web page:

Following the Memorandum of Understanding, the Archdiocese did not assign Fr. Fugee to any post involving ministry with minors.  His assignments were supervised administrative positions located at the Archdiocesan Center in Newark.

Not true. Let’s click them off: that hospital which pulled the plug on chaplaincy when they found out Michael Fugee’s history. Plus this comment from a Newark Catholic:

Fugee was also living at a rectory in Rochelle Park, Bergen County (“In residence”) and also saying Mass as a fill-in around the 4 counties of the AD. So yes, total, utter lies. They have so many stories going now, I don’t think they can keep their lies straight on this one anymore.

“Utter lies” from an archbishop. This story has no nice ending.

More from Professor Silk:

Yesterday, meanwhile, (Newark Star-Ledger‘s Mark Mueller) reported that Fugee had been engaged in youth ministry at a parish in Nutley. This time, Mueller could elicit no comment from Archbishop John J. Myers’ spokesman, Jim Goodness. Which, I suppose, is a step forward for the archdiocese.

Nobody in Newark talking: that’s an improvement?

Father John Bambrick, a Trenton priest, is harshly critical of the prelate:

Essentially, Archbishop Myers has erased 10 years of hard work by the church in the United States to ensure people are safe. He has called into question the integrity of all of us who work so hard to ensure the safety of children, and it’s really disheartening.

The person who caused all this upset is Archbishop Myers, and he’s still in office. It seems like the archbishop needs to take responsibility for his own actions, as everyone else has in this crisis.

I’m giving it another week. I don’t think the US bishops are up to the strain of another brother circling the drain. And taking 200 of them with him.

Legal machinery is in motion from the pre-Newark assignment in Peoria. This is a no-brainer, even for Archbishop Dolan. Somebody calls up Archbishop Myers and they tell him he takes one for the team. I’m sure the call has already been made. If somebody hasn’t done it yet, then we can likely chalk up the last fifteen-some years of episcopal appointments in the US as a near total loss.

 

What A Difference A Week Makes

What is the truth?

Regarding the legal and professional agreement of the service of Michael Fugee, the official position of the Archdiocese of Newark, as of 28 April 2013:

(Archdiocesan spokesperson Jim) Goodness denied the agreement had been breached, saying the archdiocese has interpreted the document to mean Fugee could work with minors as long as he is under the supervision of priests or lay ministers who have knowledge of his past and of the conditions in the agreement.

The quoted words of the spokesperson:

We believe that the archdiocese and Father Fugee have adhered to the stipulations in all of his activities, and will continue to do so.

Another direct quote:

To make the assumption that lay people in authority or priests who know and are friendly with Father Fugee would be less professional or diligent in terms of ensuring the safety of the children they serve seems like an outright attack on the integrity of these individuals.

And the result? Trenton bishop David O’Connell:

The work of the youth ministers at St Mary’s Parish in Colts Neck has been terminated and Father Ton Triggs has offered his resignation as pastor to me this morning in a meeting I had with him at the parish. I have accepted his resignation, effective immediately, and have given Tom a sabbatical.

The official statement of the Archdiocese of Newark, as of 3 May 2013:

Neither Archbishop Myers nor others in the leadership of the Archdiocese gave Fr. Fugee permission to work in any ministry other than those ministries that were physically located within the Archdiocesan Center.  He did not seek, nor would he have been granted, permission to engage in activities involving minors either through the Archdiocese or at any other diocese in the state.  He failed to follow established procedures and protocols in place among all of the dioceses in the state designed to prevent unauthorized ministries.

So which is it? Are chancery paper-pushers and muckety mucks scrambling to make sure they don’t follow three St Mary’s staff members down the drain?

Clearly, the supervision wasn’t so close or careful, as the Newark office has done a total one-eighty on this, leaving Bill Donohue twisting in the wind. Maybe they just didn’t know. Or maybe they underestimated the effects of a combination of investigative journalism and parental outrage.

I’ll tell you: I have enough parental issues with my former bishop and my daughter’s former favorite priest. I’ve seen the damage done to the teenager I love the most in the world. No parent wants to see their child go through that sort of disillusionment.

I thank God for a good Confirmation process in my parish, for the thoughtful programming, and the outstanding sponsor the young miss chose. We had a few obstacles to overcome just getting her on the first retreat. I certainly wasn’t in a position to insist she get confirmed. And my wife and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye on it, either.

You readers will pardon (I hope) my own struggle with these continuing issues with bishops. As long as this bone-headedness continues, I will continue to harp on them and their antigospel antics. These are good men, I am sure. Good men who, in the attempt to do good, have done grave harm to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to the kerygmatic and sacramental ministries that power his Church.

Archbishop Myers needs to ‘fess up fully. Tell the whole truth. Be an example of contrition and personal honesty. Be a man about it. Resist every urge to blame someone else for these troubles. Realize that three people outside of his diocese have lost their jobs over this lapse in moral judgment. Check his own conscience about that, and the pay check he draws and the pension he will draw as a member of the clergy. Resign or not–I really don’t care. But it’s time to man up.

Tell us all the truth.

 

More Heat for +Myers

It’s coming at the archbishop on many fronts.

North New Jersey parents are ticked off. A wayward priest, forgiven by his archbishop, was with their kids. This is predictable, and justifiable anger.

It’s complete craziness that the church can let this happen. I’m a softball coach, and I need a background check just to get on the field. Every single person I spoke to today said, ‘Oh my God. I didn’t know about this.’ It’s incomprehensible.

Incomprehensible is about right. I could place an expletive adverb before the word, but otherwise, about right.

And neighboring bishops have weighed in against Fr Fugee, and by extension, their metropolitan. First Trenton:

Bishop David O’Connell has ordered the pastor of St. Mary (where Fr Fugee has been in active ministry) to bar (him) from any church activities, a spokeswoman said in a statement.

That’s no activities, not even under supervision. So much for the interpretation of keeping a watchful eye on offenders.

And Paterson:

(Bishop) Arthur Serratelli, has likewise said Fugee was on a retreat at Lake Hopatcong without his permission.

He might have gotten MR3 wrong, but this was even more of a no-brainer.

SNAP, of course, is calling for the pink slip. Mark Crawford, state director:

The archbishop continues to insist it’s fine for Fugee to work with children. It’s a very dangerous message. When will it be enough? When someone gets hurt? What does it take when you have a man who has admitted groping a child on more than one occasion?

It has already tripped up bishops like Francis George. And it could have been worse for Robert Finn.

Father James Connell is appealing to Rome:

The truth in this crisis has to come to light or we will never have true justice. We cannot expect there to be healing for the victims and survivors if we do not have that truth.

So now Cardinal Gerhard Müller is on the griddle for this, too. Good.

At this point, I feel nearly desensitized to the institution and its defenders. Blind traditional Catholicism is a spent husk. It has no heart. It’s lost its head. Entrails come to mind.

John Myers rode into Peoria a quarter-century ago as the hero for a return to a rosy pre-conciliar Catholicism. Like a number of others of his ilk he has demonstrated that the self-styled orthodox have no high ground where virtue and morality are concerned. They seem focused on the problems of others, yet blind to their own weaknesses. It is absolutely essential that a leader in ministry be aware, even to the point of personal pain, what his or her shadows and weak points are. Someone like John Myers has been in ministry for decades. He might be an archbishop. But he doesn’t escape from the reality of sin and a refusal–a blank refusal–to come to grips with his problem here. We might treat Robert Finn a little differently for his naivete, though he gets demerits for not researching his own pastoral letter on pornography. Archbishop Myers was found wanting in 2002, and it clearly hasn’t changed in the last decade.

At this point, I also don’t care if he resigns or not. I feel fairly sure that New Jersey Catholics will be hyper-sensitized to watching for predators on the loose. Perhaps a stray priest or two will be suspect. That’s the sad fallout from all this. Any cleric who gets a new assignment will have a few parents wondering and questioning. So the clergy of Newark can send a thank-you note to their bishop for that one. But I don’t think a predator is going to get loose from the Newark clergy. the people simply will not stand for it.

And I think I’m fine with the man remaining on the cathedra for another three years, as a reminder for a lot of people not to look to human beings, princes, or the self-styled orthodox as savior. Jesus is savior. There is no other. For all the finger-pointing at Muslims and the nones and the other non-Catholics, it seems that bishops themselves have some serious deficiencies with the Catholic faith. Good thing we rely on the Lord, and not the shepherds.

 

Pope Francis Friday

CNS reported on Pope Francis meeting with B16′s CDF head. As reported, sisters and theologians were not on the docket, but praise for the movement to addressing sex predators.

For the defenders of the innocent, all eyes will be on the Holy Father to see what he does with bishops who were snookered by sex addicts. This has been where the antigospel has erupted most grievously in the hierarchy, probably more even than its treatment of women.

Speaking of which, I was noticing the hand-wringing over the Marini “brothers” here. Will the old MC get his job back? Somehow, I doubt it. Once Msgr G Marini has finished up his job, wouldn’t it be delicious if Pope Francis hired a lay liturgist to run pontifical ceremonies? A woman. In an alb. If you thought the fuss over washing the feet of Muslim girls was harsh …

 

Too Much Information

Too much for sure from the Vatican’s viewpoint. The Frequently Misspelled One broadcasts that the Vatican wanted him to come to Rome. Insisted:

Without my even having to inquire, the nuncio in Washington phoned me a week or so ago and said, “I have had word from the highest folks in the Vatican: you are to come to Rome and you are to participate in the conclave.”

I’m not sure this is a good thing, especially for the Vatican. Minds have been made up on the retired Los Angeles archbishop. But for him to suggest publicly that “the highest folks” wanted him in Rome–that strikes me as a public relations blunder. Maybe minor. Maybe not.

The comment from the Vatican’s Father Federico Lombardi:

(Cardinal Mahony’s statement) can be understood in light of the communique of the Secretariat of State that insisted on the importance of not giving in to external pressures that might limit the freedom of the electors and the conclave.

Said document criticizes a potential influence of “public opinion that is often based on judgements that do not typically capture the spiritual aspect of the moment that the church is living.”

Fair enough. And yet, the “public opinion” is grounded in a morality that embraces responsible management, truthfulness, and cooperation with the rule of law. The public, especially the Catholic laity, have moral reasons for being critical of the man. They don’t strike me as especially political. Except in the sense of the relationship between two church factions: the Vatican bureaucracy and the American laity.

On the other hand, a moral equivalency might be for the laity to tell the bishops they don’t wish themselves to give in to external pressures. What might that mean if it gets thrown back into the laps of the episcopacy? I suspect it already has.

I’m actually starting to worry about Cardinal Mahony. Every public statement coming from him these days strikes me as cringeworthy. He doesn’t get the gravity of the consequences of his actions. The “highest folks” share that blindness. These are the people who will select the next pope. Maybe we should be worried … a little bit.