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PDF version'Civility' is political tool, mask for church cover-ups
by Eugene Cullen Kennedy on Jan. 20, 2011
As Norman Mailer once suggested that ego was the word of the 20th century, so civility is fast becoming the word of at least this year of the 21st century.
That we all want to be civil should not make us less suspicious of any substance used in excess, and any word that politicians suddenly start using as if they practice it or believed in it. We have many reasons to be cautious about civility as the style of -- as well as the accustomed mask for -- cover-ups.
Civility is the trademark M.O. of an ecclesiastical culture of striving and power seeking behind which sex abuse and financial scandals have been concealed like contraband in the sealed hold of a cargo ship. The more silken the civility you observe, the more certain you can be that a cover-up is in progress.
Surface civility is not without its benefits, of course, and motivates the good manners that allow us to show respect and consideration for each other. Insincere or manipulative civility comes closer to describing the elements in the oxygen supply used by the climbers whose goal is to reach the Everest of clerical culture.
Clergy with their eyes focused upward are quick to acquire Romanita, the ultra-political manner and cosmopolitan ennui that enable a man to stay in shape for climbing by learning to survive a daily swim with the sharks in the Tiber.
Romanita is the smooth stroke of the salmon-like cleric who knows that he must swim upstream until he catches the eye of some Vatican mentor who will catch and release him in an ecclesiastical pool higher up the slopes. Saint Peter was a fisherman, too, they say, using the rationalization that is a major characteristic of clerical civility.
The young priest with his eyes on the mountains and his feet in the Tiber is also schooled in the rough equivalence of being a life-guard. He must master what is termed the stylus curiae, the way things are said inside Vatican’s bureaucratic congregations and the way they talk to each other. This is civility as pure and as intoxicating as high class heroin.
As lovers develop private languages that define their own worlds and their exclusive commitment to each other, so bureaucrats enamored of rising in the church culture must become fluent in its private and exclusive language. This is the mother tongue of the superficial civility of the band of brothers that want not to fulfill a vocation but rather, as the Romans express it with civil deftness, “to make a career in the Church.”
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That explains the extravagant and slightly amusing dialogues in ceremonies that are the exercise of rubrics rather than the celebration of a true liturgy. “May it please your eminence,” they say, along with a dictionary of other code phrases that are the passwords to promotion in the clerical culture.
This insincere but powerful civility marks the reactions to and discussions of the sex abuse scandal. It is the verbal style of the lawyers and insurers who advised bishops on the preservation of their property assets and of how to deal with victims whose claims threatened to reveal the sordid underside of clerical culture as well as its bank accounts and buildings.
The lawyers seeking to keep the Titanic of clericalism from sinking after it slit its hull open on the ice floe of sexual abuse resorted to hardball tactics that were anointed with the chrism of hypocritical civility -- that ritual politeness by which they cover up not only the sex abuse charges, but their efforts to smother the victims before the public can hear their anguished cries.
The zenith of this ecclesiastical sincerity was reached by the then president of the U.S. bishops who, on the day that a report was published by the lay committee appointed by the bishops themselves to investigate the sex abuse scandal, announced that “The sex abuse scandal is history.”
It is not now, nor has it ever been, history except to those who think that civility -- as highly polished as the black shoes predators placed under the beds of their victims and as finely pressed as the suit coats they draped over a nearby chair -- is anything but the very energy and style of the cover-ups that have left untreated the wounds inflicted by this and other crises.
Perhaps, therefore, it is not surprising that in the great family of language, the ancient stem of civility, kwei, also emerges in many other associations. It is the root of household as in the household of the faith. It shows up in haunt, not a bad word for the dark places in clerical culture. In old Dutch it is found in a covering. So, too, in Latin, it leads us to cradle, and the notion of to put to sleep, as in cemetery.
That’s the excess of civility that is killing the Church that household with clerical haunts and a covering -- as in cover-up -- and even cradles from which so many victims were taken.
This scandal has not been put to sleep, despite the anesthetizing effects of excess civility that also preserves it outside the cemetery in which it should be buried for good.
[Eugene Cullen Kennedy is emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.]
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I agree with most everything
I agree with most everything you wrote. Certainly the Church has a closed society of hierarchy, which means it has a tendency to close ranks, as buffalo circle with bulls facing out in the presence of a predator.
However, there are two other relevant phenomena that I perceive. One is the ordinary fault of bureaucracy that affects business and government equally, which is to look at a situation in terms of how it affects their own world, and make a decision accordingly. The second is a tendency to then speak in terms of that effect without considering how the situation has impacted those who are listening, who are likely blissfully ignorant of all the "in their own world" considerations feed any decision.
One consideration affecting the Church that people are not really familiar with, is that Canon Law contains its own scheme of due process of law, which exists in the context of the administrative structure of the Church at home, nationally, and in the Vatican.
There's also a popular view that the Pope can do anything he wants and if it didn't happen he didn't want it to happen. That view ignores the fact that the Vatican is a government with established ways of doing business that can be short-circuited only at the risk of damaging the situation at hand or some other situations in some other way.
The public is further relatively unaware of what's happening in the rest of the Church world that might cause the Pope some distraction, whether anti-Christian pogroms in certain Indian provinces, or in Iraq, or in China, or the latest developments on the ecumenical front, or the latest pain in his body. The Church, after all, has a 'population' four times the size of the U. S. population with an apparatus scaled accordingly.
The net result is that concern for due process of law in the Church courts can be perceived as the Pope personally deciding to protect wrongdoing priests from being stopped in their tracks, when nothing of the sort was intended and the then most effective path then available to keep a priest permanently out of ministry was being pursued.
Thank you. For example, when
Thank you. For example, when I noted that reporting abusers to police should have been a non-negotiable item, someone replied, "But, you are not considering this was the proper PASTORAL response." There it is in a nutshell. Renaming reality to hide the horrors, like calling infants "products of conception" or the holocaust "the Jewish problem."
Too bad there was no
Too bad there was no "pastoral" approach to the past victims nor toward the future ones. Just more BS to justify protecting the institution and its miscreants over the children.
then you do not find the
then you do not find the martyrdom of Saint Maximillian Kolbe falls within the penumbra of Holocaust?
I have often wondered . . .
Dear Mr. Kennedy, Nothing
Dear Mr. Kennedy, Nothing wrong with practising civility and having a non-judgmental nature. Isn't it amazing that having a professor-type image gives one the latitude to be uncivil and judgmental at every turn. The heinous crimes committed by the clergy are committed by males and females of every land in the world and every job description known to mankind. This fact does not make these crimes less heinous nor excusable. Does continually reminding people of every persuasion of your obvious hatred for the Catholic Church make you feel better? Or do you feel it is your responsibility to be less civil than the other six billion humans on this earth?
Tom, nowhere in Dr.
Tom, nowhere in Dr. Kennedy's writings do I find "hatred for the Catholic Church". It is possible, indeed preferable, to disagree strongly on issues and/or behavior without hatred being involved. Denial that serious problems exist in the present, and that the RCC has a centuries long problem with the abuses of clericalism, does not resolve anything. Denial in the extreme becomes a pathology, which the professor has rightly pointed out. Denial manifested as faux civility becomes part of the larger disease.
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Dr. Kennedy has made a valid point about the misuse of 'civility' as a smokescreen or avoidance mechanism for dealing with reality — the old Victorian "nice people don't talk about that" mentality... and perhaps if we ignore and deny long enough, it will just go away and we can all feel comfy again. Only people who truly care will step up to the plate and identify the elephants in the room, and that we are still mired in the resulting pachyderm poop.
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The present Vatican scandals are not minor issues, nor are they 'over and done', nor are they isolated irregularities. Anyone who doesn't understand that needs to take off their rose colored glasses and study some credible documentation of RCC history, as well as current documents in the public domain. Dr. Kennedy calls our Church to rise up out of the clericalism sewer with all of its defense mechanisms, to its high calling in Christ... as do we all.
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Dear Aileen USA, None of us
Dear Aileen USA, None of us are without sin no matter the Religion you follow. All peoples of the entire world are guilty of the heinous crimes attributed to the Catholic Church. Do we solve the problem by continually attacking a body trying to resolve the situation? All of Mankind/Womenkind is guilty of these crimes and some more heinous than we know about. Keeping it in the forefront helps nothing. Keep throwing stones because JESUS CHRIST told us not to do so. What does this solve?
Indeed. Professor Kennedy
Indeed. Professor Kennedy makes a living at being uncivil and vitriolic regarding the Church. One wonders why on earth he bothers to remain in the Church. But, I suspect that he, like so many commentators at NCR, remain Catholic because they know that the only reason they are published and read at all is because they publicly hate the Church.
If they left, if they had any integrity, they would find that, quite quickly, no one would care anymore what they said.
You lie, CWG (is that lacking
You lie, CWG (is that lacking in civility? Very well then, I lack incivility!)
Eugene Cullen Kennedy, emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University, has spent his long life not in vitriol incivility, nor in public hatred of the Church, but in bringing peace and the restored capacity to love to uncounted people throughout the Americas, in a word, in fulfilling the mission of our Church, to love.
Rather than writing whatever you choose to "suspect," which is a sin called calumny, I suggest you review this great and Catholic life most accessibly at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kennedy
More urgently I suggest you read his many wonderful, loving, positive treatises in Catholic theology and ministry, several still available on amazon.com
You pose and fret as if an offended Catholic in deepest umbrage and yet your harsh words reflect no such status, no true Spirit. I suggest therefore you read the 2003 publication from the mainstream Saint Anthony's Press entitled "Would You Like to Be a Catholic?" written by this present prolific Catholic author, Eugene C. Kennedy. Perhaps you may also benefit by a reading of his 2001 professional textbook "On Becoming a Counselor: A Basic Guide for Nonprofessional Counselors and Other Helpers" written with Doctor Sarah C. Charles. Any quick web search provides several other texts in Catholic theology and other areas determined to relieve our suffering and loss.
Actually, it is not calumny.
Actually, it is not calumny. Calumny is stating something false as if it were true in an effort to cause harm to another's reputation. All I did was to share my suspicions, at no time suggesting whether they were true or not.
Also, citing wikipedia as a source is like citing the ladies at the beauty parlor. Wikipedia may be accurate sometimes, but as all serious individuals are aware, it is not subject to scholarly editing, nor to independent fact checking and cannot be considered reliable.
Finally, directing a critic of an individual's writing to more of his writing is not generally a successful means of refuting criticism. Far better to direct said critic to works by the author's peers which support the author's writing and theses. Better to suggest peer-reviewed works the author contributes to, etc. A very ineffective defense of the good professor you have offered.
Finally, you have made far more grand assertions related to Professor Kennedy without any support whatsoever.
yet as you lie, cwg, by your
yet as you lie, cwg, by your own slender definition you commit the sin against God's holy people of calumny, "stating something false as if it were true in an effort to cause harm to another's reputation." Sharing your "suspicions" is an act of calumny under the guise usually of the very "civility" Dr. Kennedy exposes here, yet you lack even that thin veneer.
Alluding to "all serious individuals" is the further fallacy of pseudo-authority, and the fallacy of which asserting "as any fool can see" is the prime exmaple.
Wikipedia is simply the most readily available source here, and free, and amazingly accurate, as any fool can see, except of course for the various anti-Catholic calumnies which still afflict the Reverend Fater Richard P. McBrien pages. Did you leave them there? I ask, only, and do not calumnize you.
Its process in fact does involve continual fact checking and editing by independent sources. I did not realize that Dr. Kennedy's "peer-reviewed works" lay within your grasp, but you may discover a long listing of them upon amazon.com, mostly helpful in the cure of that which so obviously afflicts you.
The only "defense" required here, oh most anonymous CWG, is to repeat the initial assertation that you lie, and lie poorly, and lie transparently, and lie, and that the burden of proof lies upon you.
As you have no such evidence you desperately raise smoked red herrings, yet you lie.
Are we having civility yet?
Go off and pout over Maureen Dowd and let the grown-ups discuss in peace and mutual support and in civility.
Dear Brother Charles, Your
Dear Brother Charles, Your request that we use the infamous wikipedia as a reputable source for anything is beyond the pale!
Prof. Kennedy made his living
Prof. Kennedy made his living by teaching Psychology at a Catholic university, an endeavor that implies the ability to diagnose and heal. After reading many of his cogent articles, I can only be impressed by his real love of the church as evidenced by his insightful analysis and desire to remove what has caused decay and corruption. That he uses rhetorical devices such as satire and sarcasm only demonstrates the effectiveness of his Catholic education where these tools are taught and valued.
When you love someone you want them to be healthy. Sometimes that means telling them they are infected. If they deny their illness the infection will worsen and the consequences may destroy them. Anyone today denying the decadence of the church does not love her, for they block the first step towards healing.
A SHORT HISTORY: Christian
A SHORT HISTORY: Christian Europe & Colonial Evangelism — we colonial emigrants from Europe need to know how we collectively have come to where we are, and how we imperil global ecologies/economies by our cultural overreach of nature and indigenous populations.
Irreligion, incivility, disregard for nature and native populations root in the theology/politics of Christian colonial evangelical arrogance.
If we would mitigate nature’s distress and our own desperation we will seek causes and discover our complicit culpability.
“RELIGION & CIVILITY, the Primacy of Conscience”, Sylvester L. Steffen, www.AuthorHouse.com is a brief history of religious/cultural defects acquired from our European cultural experience that still bedevil us, personally and socially.
Serious historical understanding might open us to authentic meanings of faith and trust and enable us to reconcile personal, cultural, and natural relationships. Our common crisis is a “Crisis of Conscience.” Personal conscience is the baseline from where we need to start if we would reconcile with each other and nature.
Self-serving and manipulative
Self-serving and manipulative "civility" is also a maddening form of passive-aggression. It is another disingenuous tactic intended to shift culpability and accountability elsewhere while pretending to be 'above it all'.
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In response to yet another damning document surfacing, a Vatican lawyer coolly dismissed the indignation of 'outsiders' by saying the document was "poorly understood".
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Note to the Vatican word-spinners: the 'peasants' are literate now... they can read.
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As JFK said in his inaugural
As JFK said in his inaugural address, 50 years ago today, these, probably never quoted, words:
"So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof."
Sorry, the sexual abuse story
Sorry, the sexual abuse story is history, in that it is an artifact of the 1960s and 1970s Spirit of VII era, and the bishops (such as Mahoney or Weakland) who caught that fever and tried to keep it under wraps
It is over; the Restoration has begun
Anonymousscrantonian, the
Anonymousscrantonian, the difference being with Maciel that he never kept it under wraps?
Unwrap for us please with proofs my Abbot Primate and Archbishop Mahoney, and relate these calumnies please to this present article? Or are these simply things you have written done to bring up irrelevantly whenever possible, as frequently as possible, for any article?
now the restoration is over, let us each begin this long and painful pilgrim path towards conversion. It is not a ball game with winners and losers. As the real and original Saint Benedict wrote 1500 years ago, may we all get there together. As Saint Paul wrote, carrying one another's burden filfills the law of Christ, who noted the pharisses only increase the burdens of the poor, without the relief which is Love, which is the first and ultimate Law.
where's the Love, anonymous scrantonian dude?
why so angry?
you may seek counseling and find it lovingly here, with Eugene Cullen Kennedy.
Your beloved abbot primate,
Your beloved abbot primate, besides using his position of influence to committ sexual crimes himself and stealing a half million dollars from the diocese to cover them up, was one of the worst when it came to moving priests around and intimidating victims!
what half million
what half million dollars?
Since anglo americans really care about nothing but money, I address solely that point of your extensive and anonymous and uncivil calumny.
What half million dollars were stolen "from the diocese (sic)"?
Mr Scanlon Weakland is an
Mr Scanlon Weakland is an admitted abuser and enabler of the sexual abusers, and one of the Spirit of VII leading lights. His history of protecting the notoroius Fr Murphy for 20 years doesn't need retelling. You would think his letter to Catholic school teachers that they will be investigated for libel if they make allegations of abuse would have placed him in infamy, but yet his denizens (like yourself) still trumpet his 'virtues'.
As you know, he is a persona non grata as a monastery in NJ rejected his appeal to them to allow him to live there.
As for Card Mahoney, his fight to keep his records away from the victims and the billion dollar payout aren't enough for you?
These are not 'calumnies'; these are the facts.
But there are 'winners and losers' from what has happened over the past 50 years.
The point is, we've been brought low by the types of Weakland and Mahoney, not by 'romanita' or 'civility'. As Mr Cullen notes, we must speak plainly. Fraternal correction is 'Love', as I believe St Benedict taught
What role did Abbot Weakland
What role did Abbot Weakland play at the Second Vatican Council, by which you characterize him as a leading light?
Oh, wait. You indicate some nebulous "Spirit of VII" which indicates for you anything you want it to at the moment . . .
How very convenient to your calumny!
Speak plainly then of Marcial, or does his raging capitalism, for whom the sums you mention are peanuts, and his terrorist totalitarian ecclesiology, so fit your own political and economic paradigm that he is deemd by you acceptable, if not saintly. This is known as bribery, as even Wojtyla must now admit, to his own eternal remorse.
Mr Scanlon Again, I ask what
Mr Scanlon Again, I ask what 'calumny' you are talking about?
Perhaps you don't understand that the "Spirit of VII" reflects the implementation, and the 'innovations' away from the actual texts.
Let me give you a tip on how to present an argument: you'd have to explain how someone who heads a voluntary organization is a totalitarian. Especially one of the actual authors of VII. That's just empty cliches and don't convince.
It's not just myself who sees JP the Great as saintly; it's general throughout the world. Like Mother Teresa. BXVI has slowed down the process; I thought you progressives loved the 'sensuum fideii'
Again, if you care to point out the calumny I most certainly will stand corrected. One stipulation: saying something that liberals don't want to hear doesn't count.
Perhaps you did not bother to
Perhaps you did not bother to read Archbishop Weakland's own book, Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church. If you had you would have read his own admission that he knowingly transferred priest abusers from parish to parish while simultaneously hushed it all up. You would read of his own admissiin that he engaged in an inappropriate homosexual relationship with a man who had visited his office for the purpose of exploring a vocation to the priesthood. You would read if his admission to using diocrsan funds to pay off the man so he would not expose the relationship to the press.
Archbishop Weakland is no different from Cardinal Law, except that Law's actions in transferring priest abusers and keeping abuse accusations quiet seemed to stem from his concern for the Church's reputation. Weakland's actions appear to stem from his concern for his own reputation, keeping his own scandalous behavior out of the press.
Its very difficult to call accusations calumnous when the accused admits to the accusations in his own autobiography. Unless, of course, you have not read it.
If it's not in the NCR,
If it's not in the NCR, Scanlon doesn't read it!
I have read the book, as soon
I have read the book, as soon as it was available, and reviewed it on amazon.com, to the disdain of certain troll there.
Was it not also, and better, reviewed in the NCR?
If you like, cwg, I can send
If you like, cwg, I can send you my copy, as I read it as soon as it came out, no matter what your calumnious "suspicions" might tell you.
I was especially interested in his telling exchange with Wojtyla, as well as the rest.
I do not know what your neologism "diocrsan" indicates for you (nor "admissiin" although I might venture a guess) but I did learn that ultimately no church funds were involved. Nevertheless, you prefer to ignore that fact for the greater benefit of your glorious, and calumnious, gossiping.
How liberally lenient you suddenly appear in writing that "Law's actions in transferring priest abusers and keeping abuse accusations quiet seemed to stem from his concern for the Church's reputation." Why is this, cwg, and why the cushy jobs in Rome, including selecting bishops cheek to jowl with Burke, while if what you indicate elsewhere is for once true, and you lie not, the leading Benedictine figure for decades can now find no room in the priory?
We mght as well ask why Holocaust denying priests are no longer excommunicated, unconditionally, and even married anglicans admitted to the church their ancestors once eradicated, while great priests like the Reverend Father Miguel D'Escoto MM and Thomas Merton's student, the Reverend Father Ernesto Cardenal, faithfully go to their graves stripped of their indelible priestly functions, for having lived far more faithfully this Gospel of Jesus Christ than any of these phonies you defend.
You lie, cwg, calumniously and without even the air of civility.
But, like, hey, good luck with all of that!
Dr. Kennedy, This is the
Dr. Kennedy,
This is the first of your articles that has disappointed me.
I have always been a fan of yours....both BEFORE and AFTER.
While most of what you say may have truth to it, your article drips with sarcasim "It's not for you to say" You gave all that up. Leave it to the "guys" who still have to deal with it. It doesn't become you.
Thank you, Fr. Kennedy!
Thank you, Fr. Kennedy!
Powerful essay!!
Powerful essay!!
Wonderful article by Eugene
Wonderful article by Eugene Kennedy. Humor helps.
Another language variant, Vaticanese, has its rules, just like Romanita. They are spelled out by Ann Olivier at Commonweal: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=11783&cpage=
"There really is a language that relies on secrecy and obfuscation to try to avoid culpability and change. The chief rules are:
1. For starters, do not apologize, do not explain.
2. Divert attention: talk about something else even in answer to direct questions.
3. Speak in generalizations rather than specifics if you can get away with it.
4. When necessary to speak affirmatively, speak ambiguously so later you can say you didn’t mean what everyone took you to mean.
5. Say that words have unusual meanings in Canon Law and the bishops understand that if the New York Times doesn’t.
6, Say the CDF has the matter under advisement and that the CDF really isn’t the Inquisition anymore."
It is not now, nor has it
It is not now, nor has it ever been, history except to those who think that civility -- as highly polished as the black shoes predators placed under the beds of their victims and as finely pressed as the suit coats they draped over a nearby chair -- is anything but the very energy and style of the cover-ups that have left untreated the wounds inflicted by this and other crises.
I agree with your article, and feel that the cover-up is very real. You have expressed it in a powerful way. The priests, the bishops, the Pope, all conspire to conceal the truth. It is enough to make you sick to your stomach, and it is not going away soon. Any honest, transparent priest or bishop coming forward with sincere regret will be properly stigmatized. The pain in the church is palpable.
Jesus wasn't being very civil
Jesus wasn't being very civil when he called the Pharisees a "brood of vipers" and "whited sepulchers". Shame on him.
Part of civility is
Part of civility is apologizing when you slander someone.
you mean like cwg and the
you mean like cwg and the anonymous scrantonian on this page?
cool . . .
No I mean like Kennedy and
No I mean like Kennedy and his wrongful attacks on Bishop Dewayne.
and he was wrong where . . .?
and he was wrong where . . .?
Mr Scanlon Point out slander
Mr Scanlon Point out slander and I'll apologize, with the one stipulation:
Saying what progressives don't want to hear is most certainly not 'slander'
For one, your entire
For one, your entire statement of January 22 which concludes with this uncitable reference: "Fraternal correction is 'Love', as I believe St Benedict taught"
(In which chapter and verse of the Rule do you read this? Perhaps within the chapters on the role of the Abbot? Would this not be alone the function of the Abbot. Was not Archbishop Weakland long the Abbot Primate of the entire world? I strongly suggest for your greater clarity that you read very carefully the newly completely revised and reprinted: The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Spiritual Legacy Series) by one of the leading columnists here, a long recognized authority in the field)
For other examples of your slanderous calumny, read any of your comments upon the pages under any other article, or this present one.
Or do you only write them?
Dude, "progressives" who "don't want to hear" just see you name and know enough to move on, without reading, as your comments are mainly empty harangues. I am the only reader who seeks to engage you and to calm your meaninglessly raging fires . . .
Mr Scanlon I am not a
Mr Scanlon I am not a Benedictine. I was referencing the correctio fraterna (as written about by Benedictine Oblate Wil Derske)
Joan Chittister wrote about it in "The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages" As she wrote: In bringing people to spiritual adulthood we must use every tool we have: love listening counsel confrontation....amputation from the group....(punishment) is meant to heal...to cure.
If I've misinterpreted, I apologize.
One is unsure here (as is
One is unsure here (as is frequently the case) what is Kennedy's point: was there some exercise of "civility" that ticked him off, or is he tilting at his curial hobby horse, or what? Seems to me that the Left right now in America is BIG into "civility" -- especially when it comes to trying to gag conservatives, blame Sarah Palin for the Tucson crackpot, etc. So what, pray tell, is Kennedy's point?
read it again, grondelski,
read it again, grondelski, and your comment here.
Contemplate the feeling tone of your own comment, and convert to the practice of the true Faith in Jesus Christ, who commands us to love one another, really and civilly.
That is the point: a call to conversion for each one of us. Me, too, whom I struggle so much to "gag" into civility.
Jesus tells us whosoever calls someone a fool condemns themselves.
Deo gratias!
and please contemplate without comment the current careful column from the Reverend Father John Dear, SJ.
this is not a gag but a suggestion, to consider carefully what is written there, and to think about it, and to convert, and to pray for my conversion, please, to peace and nonviolence and to following Jesus more truly each day.
While we all need conversion
While we all need conversion alas, in reading Eugene Kennedy's latest diatribe, I find little civility towards the Episcopate in the midst of his call for civility. Kind of like the secular left demanding civility as they bash Tea Partyers, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, et al. So while the voice of Jacob, the hands are the hands of Esau.
so, just for one example,
so, just for one example, grondelski, her posting that whole cross-hairs target thingie was just so civil to you, since it was your beloved Sarah who was calling for civil conversation through gunfire?
I see . . .
Please read this article once more, with your eyes open this time, and discover within it a calling to conversion to Christ, and no diatribe. The fact you now describe it as "his call for civility" indicates you have not read it at all, not even the title.
This column comes at a good
This column comes at a good time, soon after J.Allen's Jan. 19 NCR article about the nuncio's 1997 letter to the Irish bishops, and the usual correction by Vatican press secretary F.Lombardi.
Recall, papal nuncio Storero wrote to the bishops: “mandatory reporting ... gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and a canonical nature.”
I felt uneasy when I read that, like it was a coded message to which I did not have the key. The word "reservations" evokes "mental reservations", the art of saying one thing while meaning another, even when under oath in a court of law, what Shakespeare referred to as "equivocation."
Kennedy's column puts it all in context.
A brilliant essay! Polite
A brilliant essay! Polite hypocrisy is still hypocrisy. Reminds me of the song "Never smile at a crocodile." "Don't be taken in, by his welcome
grin, he's imagining how well you'd fit within his skin."
This rings oh so very true
This rings oh so very true vis-a-vis this advocate's experience.
On the Church's side of the equation, there is incredible effort to avoid
giving offense. And this goes in both directions. I can readily cite the case of a bishop who was most reluctant to deal directly and personally with a senior pastor's refusal to remove the name of deceased sexual predator priest from a building where many of the accused victims had to look at it regularly.
The pastor, on the other hand, hid behind a very civil "I do not concern myself
with the lives of others" sort of know-nothing smokescreen in order to protect
a (deceased) fellow Irish priest.
The matter was palmed off on a "Priests' Senate" that was not scheduled to be
back in session for several months. Where it would, no doubt, have been debated most civilly--- and in the absence of any survivors or advocates.
When the survivors decided no longer to play by the Church's rules of the game--- we set a date upon which we'd take our grievance to the secular media--- the bishop acted, and ordered the removal of the name.
But still, face was saved--- the letters were to be removed and their return was to be neglected during a then-active exterior renovation project.
Some time later the Chancellor of the Diocese accused us of being un-civil (i.e., confrontational) because we had forced the issue. That Chancellor knew full well that the chances of getting the right thing done through "civil" means was next to nil. It would just have been talked to death, the champion fund-raiser pastor deferred to by his fellow pastors, etc. etc.
We did have the last word, however. After the pastor passive-aggressively refused to properly publicize the Bishop's apology service, or to mention the abuser by name, we called for a change in parish leadership or a change of parish leadership in an Op-Ed in the local paper. The
pastor failed to concelebrate the apology Mass with his bishop (most uncivil!). At the next round of parish re-assignments, and after a very long tenure, he was against his will assigned to a parish with no known history of abusive clergy.
Church officials consistently accuse advocates (such as SNAP) of lack of "civility."
If survivors advocates had followed the clergy's rules, and been "civil" at all times, we'd still be where we were in 2001!
So here's to incivility.
Also known as speaking Truth to Power.
Excellent comment!
Excellent comment!
And, of course before you
And, of course before you took these steps, you made absolutely certain that the deceased priest in question was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, yes? Surely you would not have behaved in such a way if the priest was only credibly accused.
Meanwhile, one wonders what effect your efforts to remove the deceased pastor's name had on the people of the parish. One wonders how the unwanted attention you brought affected them. One wonders how they felt about their parish being the target of such media attention, when they the people did nothing wrong. One wonders how they felt when their pastor was transferred because of the vindictiveness of the alleged victims' advocates and the diocesan ordinary.
I suppose though, as long as you and the alleged victims feel better, then who cares about everyone else. Yes?
I suspect this post is going
I suspect this post is going to only be read by the NCR censor as it looks as if they have removed my earlier post. Well that's ok as long as at the censor has to confront the hypocrisy of Gene Kennedy I'll settle for that.
Let's not forget that this essay on incivility comes from the unapologetic Kennedy who lied and slandered bishop Dewane. Kennedy was caught red handed lying about the bishop and from him and the editors at the NCR we hear nothing. No the agenda trumps the truth for Kennedy and the NCR. Both of you should be ashamed.
the burden of proof lies with
the burden of proof lies with you k.
Having found this excellent and honorable columnist so little to your liking, why do you return?
Clearly, not to read, as you have not, but to be read.
Today the pope has come out
Today the pope has come out against uncivil Catholic blogs and we are promised "guidelines." When Mother Angelica's network made it big the bishops tried to take it over, and she adeptly transfered ownership to laity to avoid that (although now neo-con talking male heads have unsuccessfully changed her mission of the charistmatic preaching of downhome truths to teaching pre-Vatican arcana).
If NCR's blog responses, where the world stage is moved every week by bloggers, expert and otherwise, are coopted, even the stones will cry out.
This crisis is far from over. Prelates still have their boys on the side. Those who enabled and abetted criminal priests have taken over the "restoration." There were just as many pederast priests before Vat II as after. Read the annals of Archbishop Carroll.
If this be incivility, and upon us proved, we never writ nor no Catholic ever loved his Church.
You are a pederast, a
You are a pederast, a molester of young boys. Or if you are not actively one you are an accomplice. Why? You make the statement:
"Prelates still have their boys on the side."
If you know this to be true then turn the molestors in. If you can't point to an example where the police are to be called then you are slandering innocent men for no reason. Put up or shut up.
Kennedy has spent his life
Kennedy has spent his life making excuses for legal abortion, the greatest holocaust in history. His slandering of the bishop of Scranton is small potatoes.
chris, kindly do not slander
chris, kindly do not slander this great and Catholic writer who for many decades has written works calling us to conversion to Catholicism, and to peace.
failing that, provide just one citation from all his many decades of writing in which hte author of "Would You Like to Be a Catholic?" indicates in any way that he "has spent his life making excuses for legal abortion."
You commit the greatest calumny here, chris, one which is certainly not small potatoes.
But hey, good luck with all of that, you know?
Dr. Kennedy is not only a
Dr. Kennedy is not only a healer but a prophetic person who disturbs the comfort of the status quo folks, the apologists, the priest climber, and comforts the masses, the people of God by opening up wounds in the church that need to be clearly looked at, treated, and in some cases, debris excised.
Thanks, Dr. Kennedy. I love your columns because you speak truth to power with skillful writing that is at once, poetic and sharp as the curative knife.
"I love your columns because
"I love your columns because you speak truth to power with skillful writing that is at once, poetic and sharp as the curative knife."
It's a lot easier to use a knife if you are willing to lie to wield it. Gene has proven to be both an liar and an unrepentent one at that. what does it say about you that you consider him a hero?
k, so, like why do bother
k, so, like why do bother reading these comments so closely. Clearly you do not read the column itself! I only ask out of concern for you.
I consider Eugene Kennedy a hero of our Church, and glory in what this says about me, and of our Church!
READ HIM!
When has Dr. Kennedy spoken
When has Dr. Kennedy spoken truth to the women religious who molested so many children, or to Archbishop Weakland, who used church funds to pay off his lover, or his fellow university professors, or any of the many groups to which he panders? Is he perhaps too civil to mention that there are more sexually-offending journalists than priests and bishops? Let's face it: he's a has-been hack who writes to make other has-beens feel relevant.
Prelates and abuse: Cardinal
Prelates and abuse:
Cardinal McCarrick: See
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/04/the-cardinal-mccarrick-synd...
List of 19 Creditably Accused U.S. Pedophile Bishops: See
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bishops/accused/
The other two clerical leaders I know, one personally, WERE reported to police. Nothing happened - charged dropped? The first was arrested at a truck stop soliciting a boy prostitute. Proven. He is still in active ministry. The second was transfered out of country.
Oh, and don't forget the Canadian bishop arrested last year on child porn charges at the airport. He vacationed in Thailand, Indonesia...
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/bishop+facing+child+porn+charges/205...
This has all been common knowledge for a very long time. Until the faithful come to grips with the very sad reality that pederasty is a top down phenomenon, nothing will change. This isn't about a few aberant pedophile pastors, who are found in equal number in all deonimations. This is about pederasty, pandemic in any number of countries and cultures, including in the Roman Catholic clerical culture. We can not afford to remain naive about this great evil that has infected our beloved church.
Our Lord whipped the money changers because more than likely they were dealing in far more than turtle doves. A thoroughly Helenized Jerusalem was rife with pederasty. Human nature hasn's changed that much...
Cuplable ignorance blinded by a false respect for authority, will continue to put our blessed children at risk, and set up another generation of innocent seminarians as grist for the mill.
With the exception of the
With the exception of the couple of bishops who have admitted the allegations were true, I see no evidence on this bishopaccountability website. There are allegations, intimation, multiple attempts to use the courts to get money out of the bishops and dioceses and lots of diocesan commissions finding no credible evidence.
I'm sorry but the burden of proof is on the alleged victim, not on the priest or bishop. In this nation, and under Canon Law, individuals are considered to be innocent until proven guilty; I say again, PROVEN guilty. And being credibly accused (which simply means that the allegation is believable, but not proven) is NOT proof of guilt.
For those victims who have actually stepped forward to make allegations and back them up with clear and decisive evidence and been able to either prevail in court or force the accused to confess publicly, I have great sympathy and respect for their courage.
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