Trust and Confidence

In a recent issue of America, Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis reviewed the accomplishments of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (10/18). While there is much to praise in his article, I would respectfully but emphatically disagree with two arguments he made.

Archbishop Flynn states: To keep children safe and to restore trust and confidence, it became necessary to remove all offenders. The charter’s one-size-fits-all approach makes no distinction between rape and a kiss or an inappropriate touching over the clothes. It makes no distinction between a serial predator and one-time offender. It makes no distinction between an offense committed yesterday and one committed 40 years ago. This makes no sense and is unjust. It panders to those who thirst for vengeance. The church cannot yield to vengeance. To do so is to betray the Gospel.

Also, the charter has an all-or-nothing approach to ministry. Given the concerns about returning offenders to parish ministry, why would it not be sufficient, in appropriate cases, to assign an accused priest to ministry that involves no contact with children?

The church teaches that ordination results in an ontological change. A person takes on a new identity. He is a priest forever, not merely an employee who can be fired. It seems that the credibility of the bishops has been so damaged by the poor judgments of some bishops that all are afraid to make any distinctions or to exercise any judgment.

Archbishop Flynn says that accused priests are afforded the protections of canon law. This is simply not true. In my experience with helping hundreds of priests, when a priest is accused he is guilty until proven guiltier.

Dioceses routinely engage in the practice of name and shame, whereby a priest against whom there is found to be a suspicion of misconduct with a minor is publicly named and removed from ministry. Once the bell of child abuser is rung, it can never be un-rung.

Often the diocese will announce that an accusation is credible or even substantiated. Such a finding is based mostly on the impressions of the initial interviewer of the accuser, with little investigation and no cross-examination. Such a process is contrary to canonical due process and fundamental fairness. It is small comfort to have a canonical trial after a public lynching.

Many canonical processes will turn out to be inconclusive. In the secular courts, that would result in the accused being freed. But an accused priest cannot return to ministry unless he can prove the allegation to be false. Once an allegation has been declared to be credible, the burden of proof shifts in effect to the priest to prove his innocence. Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany did this successfully through an independent investigator, but it cost his diocese over a million dollars. Evidently Bishop Hubbard saw that a canonical process would be inadequate to clear his name. An ordinary priest who is accused does not stand much of a chance. All priests are vulnerable. There is a double standard.

In the past two years, the bishops have accomplished a great deal in addressing the problem of sexual abuse of minors. However, when the bishops review the charter, they must correct these two injustices.

Finally, in sharp contrast to Cardinal Avery Dulles’ previous article in America entitled Rights of Accused Priests (6/21), Archbishop Flynn’s article illustrates the difference between Cardinal Dulles’s assertionthat making decisions must be based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the authentic teachings of the church, and in this case as found particularly in the Code of Canon Lawand continuing to base decisions on the inadequate charter.

Joseph Maher

Compassionate Critic

Thanks to Richard R. Gaillardetz for the kind things he said about me and others in Do We Need a New(er) Apologetics? (2/2). I am pleased that he can appreciate the love and passion of someone’s work, even as he disagrees with that person’s methods. I would find few things so valuable as the insights of such a compassionate criticif only he would support his criticism with evidence that corresponds to something I have actually done.

I understand the problem of space limitations. But Professor Gaillardetz should not make assertions, like placing me at the far right of the contemporary Catholic theological continuum, without providing some example of the work that would situate me so far to starboard. (I honestly cannot figure out what that might be.)

Mr. Gaillardetz does mention two titles of my works, both of which were published well over a decade ago. Since then I have published four books with Doubleday, three more in the Catholic press and six volumes of the Ignatius Study Bible. He shows no awareness of these. My most recent book bears a warm endorsement by the former vice-rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Romehardly an immoderate man, a Jesuit who has taught there for some 40 years.

Finally, I would like to respond to Mr. Gaillardetz’s only specific criticism. On the basis of listening to one tape series, he accuses me of having avoided studying the textual history of Dei Verbum and of focusing exclusively on the final text. One might respond that only the final text is binding. But I need not do that. In the very series Mr. Gaillardetz mentioned, I was arguing, in fact, not from the final text but from the textual history, which I discussed in great detail, based on the accounts of Cardinal Augustin Bea, S.J., and others. The textual history made my case far better than any ahistorical reading could have done.

Scott Hahn

Facts, Fiction and Faith

The refutation by your reviewer Gerald O’Collins, S.J., (12/15) of the mass of misinformation in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is probably useful. But why do we need a distinguished scholar like Father O’Collins to refute a work of fiction? Fiction is just that, fiction. Why do we sense the need to refute Brown’s Code when we don’t take on the facts in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein or L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz or a thousand other imaginative pieces?

When Brown replies on his Web site to questions about how much of his novel is based on fact, he writes, The paintings, locations, historical documents, and organizations described in the novel all exist. Read his answer carefully. Places and articles are real. The book is a novel. Add only that a novel is fiction, which is literally not true.

Brown is an excellent writer despite his lack of basic character development. His Code is a page-turner thriller. For the development of his story, he dredges up every sort of half-truth, supposition and myth from the past 2,000 years.

What about those who may accept Brown’s fiction as truth? Many look for any and every justification for their prejudices or diminished faith. They jump at reports of the priest who fondles young boys, or of a cardinal who dies in the bed of his mistress or the reduction of the female to less than the male. Are any of these acts worse than God’s chosen Apostle who gave that kiss of affection as betrayal? These people may need a reminder that fiction is no more than fiction, no matter how it is written, how it is packaged, how it is hyped. Wishing fiction to be truth does not make it so.

What about the age-old allegations that Christ was in love with a woman or even married? We need to recall that Jesus was both human and divine. We believe that Christ was human like us in all matters except sin. Is it a sin for a man to love a woman, to be married? Surely our faith does not hinge on the celibacy of Christ.

Most of us in this day and age are blessed to have sufficient background and understanding to cope with the multitudinous challenges to our faith. Conspiracies, secret revelations, false doctrines, all pepper church history. But we do not allow them to degrade our gift of faith. Our theology is sacred and secure.

Brown’s novel is not to be missed, but to be enjoyed and accepted for what it is, fiction.

Rex Reynolds

Church Management

I appreciate the observations of Frederick W. Gluck in Crisis Management in the Church (12/1). There are, however, some special circumstances that should be kept in mind in discussing management policies in the church.

First, church members and clergy are volunteers, and they cannot be managed by the same principles as those applied to salaried employees.

Second, shortly after the Second Vatican Council, a number of religious orders made use of management firms to attempt to plan their future ministry, but the results of careful planning by consultants unfamiliar with the church brought great disturbance to parishes and schools that were left out of the planning process. (They were often consulted, but with no real input).

Third, the theology of the church, which supports both our present hierarchical structure and the special character of the clergy, militates against the kind of accountability that good corporate management sees as necessary.

Finally, a national conference of bishops, according to Canon Law, cannot make the strong public commitment to managerial change that Mr. Gluck suggests. There is only one C.E.O. of the church, and he resides abroad and will not share his authority with the U.S. bishops.

I hope, nonetheless, that the church in the United States can begin to take steps toward better management in this difficult time. There are many initiatives that could contribute to a turnaround.

(Msgr.) Frank Mouch