Now we know what the bishops 'don't get'

Dr. Kennedy does not get it. Why?

Because he is psychologist operating out of the same paradigm as the bishops. It is not about sorrow, or the bishops not understanding what the abusers were doing or how victims feel.

It is about crimes unreported and criminals hidden. Period.

Germany's new "guidelines" are a case in point. The course of action recommended this week and hailed as "progress": make them go for therapy, keep them in the collar (away from children - read Sipe's accounts of how that does not work) and thendon't report the crimes to the police if parents don't want it.

Dr. Kennedy need to get this: rape, sodomy, forced oral sex are all violent crimes that the bishops - 111 of them in the U.S. - knew would occur again and again if they did not report or oust criminal priests.

The bishops, including the Bishop of Rome, who did this all, to the man, need to step down.

Then, we need to out the psychologists, many of them clerics themselves, who were behind the debacle as well, and take them out of positions of influence.

Adding to the list of Bishops who get it, I would add Archbishop Wilton Gregory.

I realize you're writing about one particular issue, the sex abuse/coverup tragedy. But the sentence indicating the American catholic problem "what to do with our sorrow" touches on a much wider, deeper problem. For instance, one often reads at the end of commentaries to NCR blogs on many issues: "How sad." I was about to write, "there's an undercurrent of lament" in many postings, articles, opinion pieces (and not only in the NCR but everywhere). The proper description though is closer to,"there's a rip current of lament...." It's hard not to get sucked under and drowned in it. Lament is good; it's beneficial, but we also need hope - real hope. This also is the bishops'only true work but again they just don't get it.

I refuse to close with same lament as above. Instead, I reach out to cyberspace, to intentional communities, to circles, groupings of all kinds. If the bishops don't get it,we do. Naieve we are not! Support one another; exercise creativity and humor in resistance if necessary; exercise our baptismally anointed empowerment as People of God; become servant leaders in lieu of those appointed to be such but who've turned away from that responsibility. In short, cease passive lamentation for identity as active catholics (small "c") especially if this action is ONLY open, public support for one another.

Thank you DR. Kennedy, If we were true believers of Jesus, all catholics will have demand JUSTICE for the victims instead we keep quiet an in our silence we help the criminals because that is what they are. and in our silence we burried each victim deeper in their sorrows. COWARDS that is what we are.

with a few exceptions such as New York’s Timothy Dolan when he was archbishop of Milwaukee

Apparently Dr. Kennedy has missed Bishop Dolan's latest diatribes against the press, and all of the "anti-Catholics" who are commenting of late. His bombast is beginning to rival that of his neighbor, William Donohue.

Perhaps he's under the influence of the Catholic League.

Our former archbishop of Milwaukee "got it"?? Since when...

Oh, the Bishops and Cardinals get it alright. These are smart guys with photographic memories. They know every last detail about what is going on with their priests and everything else. They have very convenient memories. They are company men willing to lie to protect the organization provided they can't be caught. Even when they are caught red handed, they know that Rome will never remove them. Not for covering up abusive priests. Certainly not for lying to protect the church. We are dealing with Bishops who are masters of lying what they know about and when they knew it. They are usually a lot smarter and shrewder than their accusers with unlimited funds to pay lawyers and anyone else that can help them lie.

Here in Rockville Centre diocese we had the reincarnation of evil in a priest who was a lawyer, never revealed his role as a lawyer to the diocese and violated all sorts of legal and moral ethics in the duplicity and self serving role he played for the Bishop. This priest went all over the country training other priest/lawyers to act out this conflict of interest with victims. This priest was suspended but remained living in a rectory. Finally Rome declared him innocent. Now we have this priest wandering around the diocese looking for other lambs to slaughter, protected by his collar. The church is not about to convict those priests, Bishops and Cardinals that do their dirty work. There is not one Bishop who heads a diocese who has clean hands. Any Catholic that does not know this is simply ignoring the facts printed in every newspaper and online.

Bishops are CEOs not spiritual shepherds. If you understand this fact, you know where they are coming from and what they are willing to do to protect the organization. Almost anything, even covering up criminal activities like child abuse by priests. They are doing even worse things that we will never hear about, like torturing any priest or person that stands up to their power and money.

What the bishops do get, trumps whatever they might still not get. Whether or not the bishops understood that the sexual abuse was a crime that should have been reported to the police (it is hard ti believe that they did not know)is beside the point. What was being protected in Dallas was not children. The bishops gave the PR appearance of protecting children with their non-binding Dallas charter. What the bishops in Dallas were most interested in protecting was the office of bishop.

The crisis for them was the threat to the power and authority of their office and the protection of the hierarchy. This can be seen by subsequent events and actions. After Dallas, bishops uniformly hampered investigatons and fought against compensation for victims. The uniformity of the hierarchy's actions during the cover up, after the Dallas meeting, and the more recent revelations around the world establish a pattern of corruption that infects the whole church government.

The fact that no bishop has admitted their guilt at causing thousands of children to be victimized by their decisions is so absurdly coincidental as to be incredulous except when the whole process is viewed as a result of standard policies and procedures for the entire hierarchy. Pope Benedict's recent decisions confirm that he has decided to treat the whole scandal as if it had nothing to do with power.

The pope's response to the crisis mirrors the Dallas response: namely, sympathize with a few victims, saying he is sorry that a few of his priests did these crimes, and ignoring the hierarchy's cover up. Just like Cardinal Law, the bishops will be protected and rewarded by Pope Benedict. The pope will defend the hierarchy and insist on obedient solidarity in order to preserve the institution of the magisterium. This is why the pope refused to accept the Irish bishops resignations.

His refusal to address what the bishops have done is very telling. Either the cover up was the result of standard hierarchical policies and procedures or the cover up was coincidental. Either the scandal was "handled" with hierarchical consultation, or each bishop acted secretly and independently on his own and it is mere coincidence that all the bishops of the world treated the scandal the same way.

What is clear is that the pope is not criticizing the bishops, nor is he saying he will reform the policies and procedures of the bishops to insure that this will never occur again. Even if he is "only" one bishop among many, wouldn't you think he would at least use the power and prestige of his office to urge some kind of reform on his fellow bishops.

The fact that he has not done so is telling. So far little concrete specific steps have been done by the pope in regard to the failure of the bishops. Most of what the pope has done has been "nice words" and PR. It worked in Dallas for the U.S. Bishops, so the Vatican is doing the same. Give the appearance that you understand the victims, ignore the bishops abuse of power, and defend the magisterium at all costs. The preservation of the teaching authority of the hierarchy trumps everything. The whole scandal is about POWER!

Good pastors? Well, for the most part, no. All that the hierarchy seems to care about is how orthodox they are. I look at the men named as Bishops in the United States during the pontificate of John Paul II, and I see a collection of intellectually mediocre men who are ultra orthodox, but not much else. I understand that John Paul only cared that they were against married priests and birth control and nothing else. No wonder we have the sorry collection of reactionary, mediocre men wearing miters. Oh yes, cappa magna anyone? Lots of fancy clothes and pomp and circumstance, but not much else. A collection of Episcopal drag queens.

Sad but true, Eugene. When did it happen that the Church abandoned its practice of selecting pastors on the basis of the trust of the people? Surely those selected as bishops were men who knew their flock - joys and sorrows - and were known by them. Now they're selected by the Vatican because they're good administrators and won't rock the boat. Anonymous, you make a serious error of your own when you assume that all abuse is 'rape, sodomy, forced oral sex'. The bishops have a responsibility also to the victims of the kind of inappropriate sexual behaviour which would not be a crime under the law. I think Eugene would say that those bishops failed to recognize the harm done, not only to a child raped, but also to an eighteen year old inappropriately touched or 'cuddled'. They showed no empathy at either end of the spectrum. Cardinal Danneels is no doubt a good man but he has shown he is not a good shepherd, lacking knowledge of his flock.

"What the bishops don't get is the human suffering that sex abusers inflict upon their victims."

That is definitely what most people don't get. It is not only the bishops but many people who do not really "get it". Even a previous response to this article is misguided by stating what is important is that sexual abuse is a crime. Sending a sex abusers to jail is not going to aleviate the emotional and psychological suffering of the victims. When I read the recent articles about the abuse of the nephew by his uncle, Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe I realized not only how badly the entire situation was handled by Cardinal Danneels but how badly his own family handled it. This young child was abused for almost 14 years and then was required to keep quiet about it for another 24 years, probably to keep the family name from scandal. Mr. Kennedy was absolutely right when he stated that "The cardinal cannot seem to hear the victim's anguished response." This victim was being asked again to keep silent and to forgive. It was all about allowing the bishop to retire, about keeping the family name from being disgraced but never about the victim and his being abused for 14 years and having to keep silent for 24 years and then hearing that he should forgive. This case is extremely tragic. I pray for all the members of this family as I pray for all the victims of sexual abuse and their families. And I pray that most of us finally "get" just how psychologically and emotionally difficult the suffering of sexual abuse is.

Maybe the Pope should issue a Canon mandating that all bishops use their common sense. If they had,we would not be in this situation.

As I take a break from caretaking my daughter at a world reknown medical center for her fourth surgery, I amo verjoyed at Mr. Kennedy's use and discussion of humanity's sadness. My daughter has been in great pain. Although we had been asked our religious affliation and spoken to our Parish staff, for that day(nothing yet something) there was no one. Pain has a way of unexpectedly shouwing up -it lives in the realm of a world wide theortical ER.

The Child Life Staff called the Chaplin office and some time later two women came in and prayed and did Reiki over my daughter. The palabtabe sprituality was the same as The Sacrement of the Sick and Rosary prayings that had been bestowed on my terminial ill mother the weeks before.

Any mother knows the thought of "What ever works" So why can't the Bishops learn from sitting at bedsides and kitchen tables?
Maybe fear is sometimes greater than love.

What Anonymous seems to have missed is that Eugen Cullen Kennedy's column is about both the upcoming meeting in Dallas of the United States Conference of Bishops and who it is that makes up the constituency of the conference. What Anonymous also seems to have missed are all those Gospels of the Easter season. The one which deal with forgiveness. Maybe it is harder in the aftermath of the cover-ups to believe in forgiveness, but it is the basic cornerstone of Christianity. The proposal that the bishops, including the Bishop of Rome, who did "this all, to the man, step down never" mentions due process as to which ones of the bishops. Or,to this way of thinking, any process. Anonymous might as well proposed just burning down all the Catholic churches and starting over, in his/her theology without forgiveness.

If it truly was about "crimes unreported and criminals hidden," those issues are complaints about county attorneys and their lack of prosecution. None of those county attorneys would be assembling in Dallas that I know of.

The poor progressives. They opened the windows to the world in the 1960s and 1970s and reaped the sexual abuse scandal.

And their leading lights turned out to be involved in one way or another: Daneels, Weakland, Mahoney, Bernardin, Cummins, Ryan. Exposed now to all for the frauds that we knew them to be.

"Why do you feel so sorry for him and not for me?" That pretty much sums it up. Why didn't many of the bishops feel all that sorry for the victims? How many of these bishops ever made any of the abusers publicly apologize to their victims? Most of the bishops were more interested in protecting their reputations and the reputations of the abusers than in apologizing to the victims or making sure that more kids didn't get harmed. It was more common for victims to be attacked and treated like enemies of the Church.

Yes, I agree with you Eugene on most of your statement except for two very im;portant matters: a) Not ALL of the bishops are out of the loop, Archbishop Sheehan-Alberquerque, calculates that it is about 25% of the bishops that just do not get it; b)scandal is when statements are spread that causes the listeners to be hurt - Eugene, your sources are what define your terms, not the Oxford Dictionary.

Dear Anonymous: I have to say that I think you are guilty of the same thing you are accusing Eugene Kennedy of - not getting the whole thing! Of course, you are right when you speak of the bishops as not understanding that all of these incidents are CRIMES, pure and simple. Absolutely that is true. But it is also
true that, in the wake of those crimes, there comes a soul-deep sorrow, both in the hearts of those who were abused and in all of us who loved, and once trusted, the leaders of our Church. We are heart broken, too, to learn the real truth about what kind of liars and hypocrites so many of them are. In view of the hard, hard demands they made of us in the area of sexuality, we never in a million years expected this of them!

Much as I agree with Eugene Kennedy, I agree with the previuos writer (Anon) that Kennedy doesn't go far enough. We need to sto calling it abuse when in most cases it was rape....child rape by a person of influence. The Bishops covered up this crime repeatedly and therefore were complicit in it continuing, they can'e excuse this....much as they may try
Adrian in Australia

"Maybe they don’t get it because they haven’t sat at the bedsides of enough dying people, haven’t been the ones to break the news that a child has been killed, haven’t embraced enough of the broken-hearted, and haven’t suffered with their people through any of the other commonplace sorrows of life."

I wonder how many times Dr. Kennedy has sat at the bedside of a dying person, or broken the news that a child has been killed, or embraced the broken-hearted. I also wonder if these are really the preconditions of understanding those who have been sexually molested, or if the author is slaying another of his famous straw soldiers.

By the way, the quotation from Eric Sevareid is completely gratuitous and causes great pain to those who enjoy logical argumentation. The sex abuse crisis has nothing to do with the "numbing human devastation" of World War II. The tendency to see connections that aren't there is a sign of dementia, and we would, in Dr. Kennedy's oft-stated view, be irresponsible not to report his condition to the proper authorities.

I agree with what Kennedy says, but I think the previous comment from anon makes an important point. It wasn't child abuse as so many call it, it was child rape. That's the term we use for adults so why do we let them get away with calling it abuse

Gene Kennedy does get it. He is (present tense used intentionally) a close personal friend of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. He and Monsignor Velo will always be held in the highest esteem by those of us who prefer to preach the truth rather than a complacent, non-challanging, deluted, 'what do you want to hear', message from the pulpit. Gene has the grace and gall to tell it like it is. Monsignor (since that is the rage for titles in Chicago these days) Velo had the guts to preach one of the finest homilies I've ever heard at the funeral of that holy Archbishop of Chicago who walked the talk, suffered the injutice, and refused to take the easy way out. Its about time that these gentlemen are lifted up for the courage to be the prophets they are.

Deacon Dismas G. Fernandez

Dr. Kennedy doesn't get it. Why does Kennedy single out just the bishops?

To my knowledge, Dr Kennedy was a priest for two decades. Why doesn't he reveal all he knows about any cover-up? There were thousands of abusive priests shuttled from rectory to rectory. while those inside the rectories knew something was up, did any of the priests do the right thing and advise the public?

Even if these actions were considered okay for that time, we now know that it was a mistake.

There are estimated more than 500,000 minor-age victims of clergy sexual abuse. The vast majority have chose to remain silent. They are anonymous to us, but they should not be ignored.

It is too easy to point the finger at the "bishops" and let everyone else off the hook. It took the complicity of many more men than just a few hundred bishops in the United States to mastermind the massive cover-up.

In the name of all of the anonymous victims Dr. Kennedy should be calling on all his brother priests to reveal all they know about what has been hidden from the public. Surely that knowledge would give comfort to all those that suffer in silence. Please remember that a twelve year old child who was abused in 1960 is now 62 years old and lives every days with the effects of the abuse. Let's do something for them, and not just point the finger at the bishops. That's too easy, Dr. Kennedy.

"What the bishops don’t get is the human suffering that sex abusers inflict on their victims. They have missed -- with a few exceptions such as New York’s Timothy Dolan when he was archbishop of Milwaukee "

Where did the notion come from that Dolan is a model bishop on sex abuse? When he was Archbishop of Milwaukee his newspaper, The Catholic Herald, ran an editorial condemning The Boston Globe for its reportage on child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston. He has also stated that child sex abuse happens in all churches and families!

Many Bishops do not seem to grasp the fact, that it is no longer 1910, it is 2010, and they can no longer bully the Laity and secular authorities. The smarter ones understand this, but given the propensity of John Paul II to select bishops for one attribute and one only, i.e ultra orthodoxy, we are now afflicted with a large group of right wing hacks.

These reactionaries prance around in their cappa magnas, miters, red shoes, etc. kind of like it was Halloween. They threaten the laity with excommunication for the slightest offense, yet all too often covered for pedophile priests. All this tough talk and threats of excommunication is whistling past the graveyard. This is a fight they cannot win, and they know it [the more intelligent ones anyway], but of course, they are company men and must tell their bosses at the Vatican what they want to hear.

The so called "intellectuals" of the right, such as John Neuhaus, defended Maciel and bashed his critics. It's too bad that Neuhaus didn't live to be fully embarassed. The rot in organizations like the Legionaries and other cults is so bad that they cannot be reformed. They must be disbanded.

Other than a few right wing fanatics, nobody really cares what the Bishops say. They have become a Monty Python movie, except with no humor.

Thanks folks for contributing your varied opinions. It helps strengthen my beliefs. We need more bottom up voices which startle the conversations of "shackled Catholics". Keep this balloon afloat.