My pastor resigned...

My pastor, Fr. Mark, recently resigned due to what are being deemed “credible allegations of sexual harassment.”  He is undergoing what is being called “therapy.”

This past Thursday I received a bulk email sent to parishioners from the parish’s Director of Administration advising us of our pastor’s resignation and inviting parishioners to attend a Q&A session today.  Since I cannot attend, I sent my questions in an email this morning to the parish’s Director of Admin, the interim pastor, and my bishop.  I thought readers might want to see my questions so here is a copy of my note:

Dear Keith, Fr Gary, and Bp Earl,

Thank you for the information.

Keith, You might remember me as the person who donated the original artwork of “the Red Crucifixion” which used to hang in the St John center basement.

I cannot attend today’s meeting.  However, here are my questions.

The term being used is “sexual harassment” vs sexual assault. Their legal ramifications differ.  Has it been strictly sexual harassment which violates Michigan and federal civil rights laws as a form of discrimination, or did it also involve sexual assault which violates criminal law?

Regardless, what steps have been taken to hold Mark, St Thomas and the Lansing Diocese legally responsible for the sexual harassment?  What legal authorities have been contacted and involved?  Please describe the legal process and where we are within that process. 

How many people were sexually harassed by Mark?  

How recently did the harassment occur and over what length of time did it occur?

How many times did Mark harass each person?  Once? A few times? Dozens of times? Hundreds of times?

Were the people who were harassed male, female or some of each?  

Were the people harassed parishioners?  

What were the general age categories of those harassed: pre-school, pre-teen, teen, university/young adult, adult?

What was the nature of the harassment: unwanted touch, unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, exposure, providing a hostile environment such as subjecting employees/parishioners to sexual jokes, remarks, pictures or graphics, employment or advancement related threats or quid pro quo offers, etc...?

It has been said multiple times Mark is undergoing “therapy.” What exactly does that mean?

According to psychologists, regardless if the harassed are male or female, there are 4 common characteristics of sexual harassers. They typically have:

1) “The Dark Triad” consisting of a) narcissism (inflated view of self w lack of empathy combined w urgent need for approval), b) psychopathy (fearless dominance and aggressive impulsiveness) and c) Machiavellianism (so focused on own interests that person deceives, manipulates and exploits for own interests).

2) Moral disengagement- a cognitive process by which person justifies his own bad behavior and creates his own alternate reality where moral norms do not apply to him: a) portrays harassment as acceptable, b) uses euphemistic terminology, c) displaces responsibility such as blames culture, d) creates advantageous comparisons (at least it wasn’t...) to minimize infraction, e) shifts blame (“she was wearing....so should have expected....”)

3) employment in male dominated field

4) hostile attitude towards women

Some, if not all, of those psychological characteristics are inherent or prevalent in Catholic hierarchical culture.  How do you anticipate therapy for one individual will cure the Catholic hierarchy’s sexist culture?  Due to the church’s male hegemony and long standing male hegemonic praxis, this sexism often is considered “normal” by many in the church, especially the hierarchy.

I have experienced innumerable homilies that are sexist (sexual harassment) and countless individual conversations with priests that are sexist (sexual harassment).  I have received sexist lectures and penance in reconciliation...also sexual harassment. Canon law and doctrine include sexist notions and the priesthood itself is sexist.  How were you able to discern and distinguish Mark’s sexual harassment from the institutional sexual harassment endemic in Catholic culture?  

When I have complained about sexist words or actions, I have been brushed off and told how mistaken I was.  I am very curious to understand the unique situation here in which Catholic officials actually acknowledged sexual harassment occurred.

Know of my prayers for you and all involved.

I did not say this in my note but I will offer it here.  Due to the endemic  sexist culture within the Catholic hierarchy, I have difficulty suppressing a desire to speculate that the harassed must have been with a man, possibly a clergy member, for the person to have been taken seriously.  Sexist treatment of women often is "de riguer" with many Catholic hierarchy.

In a stroke of irony, within a day of receiving the note about my pastor’s resignation for sexual harassment, I received an email invitation from the Diocesan Director of Communications, inviting me to the diocese’s oh-so-sexist “Arise my Beloved” Catholic Women’s Conference.

I encourage people, as they are called, to engage with the hierarchy, asking the tough questions that need to be asked.

By the way, no word from my friend, the Papal Nuncio.

Peace

Teaching credentials...

 Food for thought:

• Imagine your English teacher demonstrating mastery of the language by regularly uttering statements like this, “We seen them deer when we was up north!” 
• Imagine your mathematics teacher regularly adding numbers incorrectly. 
• Imagine your social studies teacher talking about visiting “Toledo, the capital of the U.S.” 
• Imagine your music teacher with an inability to count rhythms correctly or carry a tune.  

Now try to imagine yourself valuing these teachers’ lessons.  In each case, regardless of the theory expressed, actions belied their true subject-matter expertise to the point you probably justifiably questioned their credibility…a lot…  Their actions told you, “I am not qualified to teach about this.”

Now:

• Imagine your Catholic faith teacher, who professes to know more than you about truth, being exposed as a liar. 
• Imagine your faith teacher confusing the commandment about adultery with those about murder or stealing.
• Imagine your faith teacher enabling and covering up clergy’s sexual abuse of minors but writing the Church’s norms to protect children.

Such is the case with the Catholic hierarchy and sexual abuse.  The bishops declare themselves the ultimate teaching authorities on faith yet, on a weekly basis we read of bishops being caught telling lies or enabling abusers.  We live with the appalling reality that bishops equate raping children to an adulterous affair, though rape is about forcefully taking that which is not given and destroying the child’s physical, emotional and spiritual life in the process.  Perhaps lesser known, the primary authors of the US bishops’ charter to protect children, themselves harbored sexually abusive priests even after the charter was signed.  What is most puzzling of all is that a) the bishops think anyone should take them seriously as moral authorities and b) that anyone does.

Here are just a smattering of proof points:

1.  Archbishop John Nienstedt of Minneapolis said in an April, 2014 sworn legal deposition that he didn’t know until March, 2014 that Ken LaVan, a priest with multiple credible sexual abuse accusations, was still in active ministry.  However, this past week revealed that ole John was actually getting annual updates about Ken’s ministry activities. 

Psst….John, this is called “lying” and violates the 8^th Commandment: “Thou shall not bear false witness.”  John, I gotta tell ya, this really kills your street creds in the truth department.  Plus, when you lie under oath in this country, it is also called a “crime” further crumbling your “truthiness” credibility.  Much like Dr. Seuss’ book calling for another liar to depart public leadership, “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!”, I think it’s beyond time we say, “John C. Nienstedt Will You Please Go Now!”

2.  Moving on to Canon Law, we see the hierarchy actually classifies priests’ sexual misconduct with minors under the 6^th Commandment, “Thou shall not commit adultery.”  Yes, appalling as that seems, the hierarchy officially equates trusted religious leaders’ sexual assault of innocent minors with extra-marital sexual activity between two consenting adults.  You read that right: the clergy categorize destroying children’s lives and souls against their will equally with two adults consensually caving to hormones in a tryst.  

Don’t believe me?  Canon 1395 states, “A cleric who in another way has committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.”  This is the one sentence in Canon Law that is meant to deter clergy sexual abuse.  Why are you not trembling in awe? 

As an aside, please notice that unlike ordination of women which incurs automatic excommunication, clergy raping children, according to Canon Law, is not grounds for excommunication.  It merely calls for possible removal from office…ya know, “if the case warrants” it.  It would seem that the Vatican should have inserted an emoticon of a face winking next to that statement…it is so fierce and followed.

Call me nutty but I think that when a priest sexually assaults a kid, they kill a soul, they steal…thus, they break the 5^th and 7^th commandments against killing and stealing…not the 6^th pertaining to marital fidelity.  This Canon Law classification reveals much about the hierarchy’s understanding or lack thereof with regards to the commandments, rape, children, marriage, sexuality, human life, etc…  In turn, it directly impacts the hierarchy’s credibility on all these topics.

3.  This brings us to the ace team of bishops who were principle authors of the US bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” written in 2002: Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Archbishop Harry Flynn, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, and Cardinal Francis George.  With the exception of Wilton Gregory, all of them harbored sexually abusive priests … some even after the charter was written, signed and promulgated.  In the case of Cardinal George, it included harboring a known sexual predator in his very own episcopal mansion (2003).

Actually, Cardinal George’s rap sheet of enabling and covering up sexually abusive priests after the charter is so long I will just provide a link that enumerates some cases between 2003 and 2006 rather than turn this into a painfully long blog article.  Harry Flynn kept the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer in ministry despite Wehmeyer's sexual addiction and sexual misconduct.  He also failed to report a priest in possession of child pornography.  All of this after the charter was in place. 

Of the group, Mahony seemed to be the one who at least tried to reform his diocese’s practices but there always seemed to be a struggle between loyalty honoring the brotherhood’s clerical institution versus honoring truth and justice.

These aren’t the only bishops failing to follow the charter.  For example, we do have our friend and convicted criminal for failure to report child abuse, Bishop Bob Finn, still at the helm of the Kansas City Diocese.  I just thought since they wrote the charter, that maybe they would have been role models for doing the right thing.  Silly me.

So, as I see it, the bishops seem to have authored the charter as a PR stunt rather than as a step towards profound institutional reform.  Furthermore, looking at the whole situation, I think the bishops collectively demonstrate that they:

a) Do not understand the 5^th, 6^th, or 7^th commandments, and

b) Do not obey the 8^th commandment

I wonder if they have enough self-awareness to realize that many of the faithful see them as also violating the 1^st commandment against having false gods based upon their willingness to forfeit several commandments in favor of protecting their brotherhood’s clerical institution.  When a team who believes they are the guardians of the commandments demonstrates poor mastery of half of them, what are they really guarding?

US bishops staying the course...

What a curious week.  On one hand I read that the US bishops voted in their annual spring meeting to “stay the course.”  My initial reaction?  Oh goody!  We can look forward to yet another year of bishops trying to expand their theocracy’s marginalization of women and homosexuals further into secular government.  And, we’ll be treated to an encore performance hearing them intermittently and indignantly ejaculate “Religious liberty!” while they do it despite them trouncing on others’ religious liberties in the process. …Something about “self-awareness” keeps popping into my head.    

Wait a minute…I’m also getting a reading from my psychic barometer.  It predicts these ejaculations will increase in frequency and volume the closer we get to the US’s mid-term elections.  Yippee!  Can’t wait.

On the other hand, this week I also listened to one of my friends describe how his kids’ Catholic school enrollment has been cut almost in half after experiencing a raging alcoholic pastor followed by one who is a Protestant convert still enveloped in Protestant charismatic preaching styles.  Now, this is a new trend it seems…the iconic mega-church fundamentalist Protestant preacher in Catholic priest’s clothing.  Don’t say the old dogs can’t learn new tricks sometimes.  But, since this trend began before the bishops decided to “stay the course,” I think that means this new tactic is part of the course they will keep.  I can only guess that the objective is to cut Catholic school enrollments in half again. 

On yet another hand, this week I also read the deposition of Robert Carlson, a man some people call “archbishop” but for whom I cannot choke out that word since “bishop” means “overseer” and when I read his deposition he exhibits no behaviors associated with tending his flock like a caretaker.  His favorite three words in the deposition were “I don’t remember.”  It is so prevalent that I wonder if the man can remember what color pants he wears, though presumably it is standard clerical black … every … single … day. 

Here’s a selection of his responses from just the first ten substantive questions in the deposition.

1. “I do not.” (In reference to if he recalled something.)
2. “I don’t remember, but I really can’t say.”
3. “I really can’t remember with any accuracy.”
4. “I don’t remember.”
5. “I don’t remember with any accuracy…”
6. “I don’t remember…”
7. “As I remember, no information came to me about him that I could say with any accuracy.”

Yes, 7 of Bob’s responses to the first 10 questions were variations on “Bob Can’t Remember A Darn Thing.”  I haven’t tallied the responses for the deposition’s full 156 pages, but having read the entire document, I’d guess that the 70% forgetfulness rate is a pretty close estimate if not conservatively low.

I found myself puzzling over this.  If Bob struggles to remember things, how can he remember the teachings of the faith?  Bishops are entrusted with teaching the faith.  How can he teach what he doesn’t remember? 

How can he remember the subtleties associated with tenets of faith when he can’t remember major traumatic events like a priest sexually assaulting kids…repeatedly?  Wasn’t it important enough to carve out a storage location in his brain? Most compassionate people would have a seared permanent image from it, I suspect.  Maybe Bob once stored that info but has subsequently overwritten it with fascinating notions about “religious liberty.”  I don’t know.

Is Bob an incompetent bishop due to his memory issues?  Call me a skeptic, but I think Bob is not being 100% truthful.  I think he’s having selective court-induced memory problems (SCIMP).  If that’s the case, then he is even less competent to be a bishop than if he were suffering early-stage dementia symptoms because selective memory failure falls into the category of “bearing false witness,” one of those pesky Ten Commandments.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a big fan of letting humans be human, including bishop humans.  But, since bishops declare themselves to be THE penultimate guardians of truth, they force us into holding them to a zero-tolerance standard for their deviating from it.  Ergo, if Bob was playing selective memory-loss games with a severe case of SCIMP, he is truly not competent to serve as bishop.

But wait! There’s more!  In addition to forgetting just about everything except his name, Bob expressed during his recent deposition that some years back when handling abuse cases, he didn’t know that sexual assault of a minor was a crime!

Attorney Jeff Anderson: “Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?”

Bob Carlson (St. Louis’ current sitting archbishop): “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not.”

Attorney Jeff Anderson: “In 1984, you are a Bishop in the – an Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul / Minneapolis.  You knew it was a crime then, right?”

Bob Carlson: “I’m not sure if I did or didn’t.”

 (Pages 109 - 110 of the Deposition dated May, 2014)

Good news!  Bob did admit he now knows that raping kids is a crime.  He just doesn’t know when he came to this understanding.  I don’t know what device we have to thank for Bob’s enlightenment either but let’s give three cheers for him grasping this concept sometime before his upcoming 70^th birthday. 

However, despite his eventual enlightenment, this exposes a certain appalling and unacceptable callousness that might justify finding him supremely unqualified to be a bishop.   Please do not suspend your activities awaiting his resignation or apology, though.  No, he is already implementing the brotherhood’s “Stay the course” strategy and issued a statement defending himself instead.  He joins the ranks of so many other bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes in taking this evasive approach regarding sexual abuse, I’m sure he feels it’s a winning strategy.

As an aside, according to Bob’s statement, it seems he, who possesses the intellectual capacity to earn multiple advanced degrees, just didn’t understand the question despite one of those degrees being in … wait for it…. CANON LAW!  I guess Canon Law must be a lot easier to understand than secular law, at least maybe when one is imbued in the culture that produced it.  You saw how confusing the questions were…very tricky in that special, direct, straight-forward manner.  Maybe he’s so used to clerical obfuscations that clarity is just downright unclear for him.  We feel your pain, Bob.  You guys are making less and less sense to most of us faithful, too.  Right back at ya, buddy.

Tying all these strange things together, I realized that the Holy Spirit is working in her mysterious way.  The bishops “stay the course” not only on culture war matters but on accountability and truth-telling too, thus continuing to endanger children in their care.  Coincidentally, they forsake many Catholic traditions, theological teachings, and gospel messages in favor of attracting and ordaining mega-church iconic personalities.  This in turn inspires parents to protect their kids by yanking them from Catholic schools.  Perhaps eventually, the clergy’s sexual assault of children and its cover-up will end when there are no more children in their system?  Can't we please get rid of the incompetent bishops instead? 

Dear Pope Francis, I'm really confused....

Dear Pope Francis, I’m really confused.

Because I read the very same day in the news

That pedophile priests are beyond Vatican controls

While the Curia again raked American nuns over the coals.

With abusive priests they claim their arms only reach the Vatican wall

But with the American nuns, suddenly across the ocean, those same arms can sprawl?

For predator priests the Curia says they must respect the law for each land.

Shouldn’t they do likewise when American nuns’ Constitutional liberties are at hand?

Maybe like the game my kids used to play,

They simply think that it’s “Happy Opposite Day?”

Because in my land, the land of the nuns in question

Free-speaking women are no problem, but sexually abusive priests deserve incarceration.

The pedophile priests are only part of the problem.

The Vatican ignores bishops shuffling predators round-robin.

Then pretend the problem disappeared and any worry is for naught

Until we pick up the paper and read “whoops, another one got caught…”

Money is hidden; bankruptcies are filed.

Bishops evade accountability while victims are reviled.

And the person who appoints every bishop … pssst…. That’s you

In my culture is considered somewhat responsible too

Popes appoint all bishops who ordain every single priest.

They have censured some people quickly for supporting certain causes, even in the least.

But with abusive priests they claim by their own admission

They lack extra-Vatican authority, or is that just an excuse for sins of omission?

This selective impotency when it comes to abused kids

Has really put the whole church’s reputation on the skids.

And, I know by laypeople it’s been repeatedly stated

That the hierarchy’s credibility by its own actions has been negated.

If you claim national borders prevent you from stopping predator priests

Because you think they operate as independent disconnected uncontrollable beasts

Then kindly refrain from the obvious hypocrisy

Of trying to control independent nuns you accuse of apostasy.

Either you control the worldwide church or not

But please stop with this morally relativistic rot.

If you can’t control the priests then you don’t control nuns. 

If you want to control your daughters, please, first control your felonious, abusive sons.

The Curia speaks of dialogue but issues edicts instead.

This also is confusing from the guys wearing red.

I realize the bishops approve the sisters’ communities’ existence or not

But after that, the community makes most of the decisions, I thought.

The sisters elect leaders and vote on community members and rules.

A bishop just listens to them take poverty vows while dressed in his mitre and jewels.

I’m trying to understand why the CDF is so frustrated.

Maybe realizing their powers’ limitations leaves them feeling somewhat castrated?

Or do they covet the sisters’ hospitals and schools

Thereby inspiring them to impose overbearing rules?

Perhaps there’s a culture gap emerging from language skill

After all, that last Mass translation exposed their English abilities as being almost nil  

Yet, the priorities are apparent to most people with children

Thumbs up for strong sisters; thumbs down for negligent churchmen