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PDF versionDolan's Pre-emptive Strike Risky Business
by Ken Briggs on Nov. 05, 2009
To their credit, most Catholic leaders have not played the "anti-Catholic" card during the long and gruesome series of revelations of priests' sexual abuse of children. Though crimes -- and the reports about them -- have been bitter pills, bishops and other leaders have shown an increasing tendency to face them without placing the blame on factions out to get them.
Not so the new archibishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, who flashed this canard in a virolent attack on the New York Times. He lumps together three pieces -- Maureen Dowd's column critical of the nuns' investigation (full disclosure: I was quoted in it) and two that involved Laurie Goodstein, one on a Franciscan who fathered a child who's now dying and another on the Pope's welcome of Anglicans -- in a furious blog diatribe on the paper as the enemy of the Catholic church. This was after the Times turned down his bid to place the attack on the paper's Op-Ed page.
Dolan's strategy is to make grand assumptions about motives, which he believes to be hostile to Catholicism, rather than to discuss the actual content of any of the articles. He apparently has no basis for saying that the articles were inaccurate, just that he was affronted that they got the kind of prominent play that they did. As proof, he submits that the Times story about Orthodox Jews who were arrested for child abuse weren't pursued with the same prosecutorial, even persecutorial fervor with which Catholic sex abuse stories have been. And why, he asks accusingly, would the Times print a story about the Franciscan priest that was old, never mind the merits of the story itself.
The blog itself sounds plaintif, as if it were from a leader of neglected little religious group that was always lost in the coverage and may have a legitimate gripe. But the archbishop sits astride an institution that has dominated relgious life in New York for a long time. It has usually had its way with the media. Maybe that has become considered an entitlement.
Laurie Goodstein, the Times national religion correspondent, is a superb reporter and writer. She did those pieces and many others with her usual level of integrity and professionalism. For Dolan to attack her and Maureen Dowd in the hysterical manner in which he did not only is grossly unfair but stands as an illustration of what their stories are largely about -- the unacceptable treatment of women.
His blast also sounds like the new kid on the block trying to make a name for himself by taking on the newspaper goliath as the defender of the church. Maybe he thinks it will enshrine him in boldness and visibility.
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It may rouse the dispirited forces in the church who have long clung to the anti-Catholic canard, hate the media and are looking for St. George to slay the dragon off Times Square. But otherwise it's got problems. Offering heat but no light, dealing personal attacks, acting like a spoilsport because the Times won't run your article and implying that the Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn should have received tougher coverage isn't likely to win you many friends.
Ms. Goodstein has posted a
Ms. Goodstein has posted a response on the Cardinal's blog:
http://www.archny.org/news-events/columns-and-blogs/blog---the-gospel-in...
H/T to America's James Martin. S.J., for flagging this:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=16854165-3048...
Cardinal Spellman, whose
Cardinal Spellman, whose slippers Dolan dares now to fill, when Pope Paul VI said Mass at Shea Stadium, gave the Supreme Pontiff a medallion with the opening of the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis, as Cardinal Spellman had a great belief in the power of this prayer and often disseminated it as central to the practice of our Faith.
Indeed this prayer traditionally in the past century from beginning to end was widespread among Roman Catholics throughout America and Europe, especially during the wars in Europe.
We have not heard it that much this present century. Why not, I ask?
Let us read together this great prayer so beloved by the traditionalist Cardinal Spellman. Hand holding is not required but encouraged throughout our reading together.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
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AA also likes this translation into English:
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.
========================================
And the Royal British Legion sing it this way at the Royal Albert Hall. Perhaps in light of the present Catholic struggle to embrace Anglicans, we might wish to freshen up on this version.
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me bring your love,
Where there is injury your pardon Lord,
And where there's doubt true faith in you.
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope,
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there's sadness, ever joy.
O Master grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all men that we receive
And in dying that we are born to eternal life.
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I hope only that Dolan may hear this hymn once more, and that we all might recall and pray this once great and universal prayer, sincerely, and put it into practice, as Cardinal Spellman strove to do throughout the last century.
It might at least place a reasonable and charitable and holy restraint upon our overheated, unhelpful, divisive rhetoric.
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
Typical, Dolan has been
Typical, Dolan has been coddled and is surrounded by yes men. Representative of some celibate men, he has a certain "immaturity" about him and is therefore prone to whining when he doesn't get his way. Reminds me of a "Baby Huey" cartoon.
The poster's "overheated"
The poster's "overheated" paean to Cardinal Spellman is "unhelpful".
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/28/books/guileless-and-machiavellian.html
Unfortunately, Dolan came
Unfortunately, Dolan came off sounding like a spoiled brat first-grader saying “…but Johnny does it, …why are you picking on me?!” It is a childish response to being caught in yet another cover-up and payoff. What someone else and their family does has no bearing on what we are supposed to be doing, nor does it excuse our failure to do it.
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It’s a good thing that secular media investigative reporters are policing the Church, since it has become abundantly clear that the hierarchy will continue to circle the wagons and attempt to deflect blame in order to protect themselves, unless they are forced by external circumstances to face public exposure.
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The use of women and minors as concubines to ‘service’ clerical sexual desires is simply NOT acceptable in our faith community. Dolan’s and the Franciscan Order’s attempt to brush this incident under the rug as of little consequence (and/or blame the victim) is cult behavior and shows a callous indifference to habitual abuse and cover-up among clergy… and gross disregard for the victims of this abuse of power. While 2-3% of clergy were known to have been involved with sexual abuse of minors, an astonishing 28% of clergy have been engaged in philandering with one or more women, fathered children and cast them off like used paper towels — with the full knowledge of their episcopal and religious superiors.
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The only mess we can clean up is our own — in our own house. Dolan and his episcopal brethren should be in sackcloth and ashes… but instead they whine, make excuses and attack the messenger. It is the ‘good ‘ol boys’ club at its worst — the enabling 'wink and nod' — the amoral 'boys will be boys' mindset. God help us! These are the leadership of the institutional Catholic Church!
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