Grand Jury

Pennsylvania is my home, and again a grand jury report makes the news.  I hear about it on the radio and I am sad. I watch it on TV and I cry. I read the paper and I think.

“It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” This shibboleth from the Nixon era is NOT true here. It IS the crime, horrific in its details. I have decided not to read the report. One was enough, in 2005, about my city, Philadelphia. But I can focus on the secrecy. The denial. It IS the cover-up, too.

Right now I am listening to Bishop Persico of Erie.  He sounds like an ordinary man, this Ordinary. And he is not afraid to speak in public, to acknowledge and to explain. Very pastoral. You may have heard him on the news already. In contrast, I am saddened by Bishop Trautman, his predecessor. He is criticized for trying so hard to conceal the abuse he knew about.  Trautman was a leader in resisting the Vatican translations of the liturgy, a cause dear to my heart; I am sorry he did not manage this part of his responsibility as well.

Remember the name of the Catholic Church in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon? Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. Responsibility weighs heavy on the hierarchy as well as on us ordinary sinners. No one escapes the duty to do right when one knows wrong is being done, especially to children.

I was especially touched by John Baer’s column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Generally a curmudgeon, Baer does not disappoint, noting the Philadelphia archdiocese’s “deepest apology” which also characterized the 2005 report as “a sensationalized, unfair and inaccurate portrayal of the archdiocese’s response to child sex abuse claims.” Hoping for a different sense of ecclesial obligation this time, Baer surprises me with his conclusion:

And speaking of obligation, I’m struck by the fact that the new report was released on the eve of a holy day of obligation. Aug. 15 is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a day honoring Catholic teaching that the mother of Jesus was taken, body and soul, into heaven at the end of her earthly life.

I was reminded, while at Mass last weekend, that failure to attend Mass on a holy day of obligation is a mortal sin. That’s a sin the church calls a “sin of grave matter,” one “committed with full knowledge of the sinner,” that can lead to damnation, i.e. the eternal fires of hell.

There seems to be some imbalance here. I can think of worse sins. Sins that really merit damnation.

Yes, this all connects to our faith life, our sense of what the church is about. If John Baer did get to church for the holy day, he might have thought like Kerry Weber in America: 

In a broken and hurting church, it is good to remember that the church as an institution is not why we are here or what we are here for. Yet we are responsible for it, and that means holding it accountable and working to make it more truly reflect the kingdom of God. The grand jury report is one painful step toward doing just that.

The Gospel at Mass this morning included a reading of the Magnificat, Mary’s powerful prayer of praise. The priest’s homily in response was unconventional and brief. He stood and simply said, “Every year, when the Magnificat is read, I just think, What more could I add?” and then he sat down. Indeed, Mary’s prayer both challenges and comforts, disturbs and offers some consolation and hope, hope in a God who “has scattered the proud in their conceit…has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly”—a God who will do so again.

I won’t write about Cardinal McCarrick and the abuse of seminarians, except to note that the President of the USCCB revealed plans to ask for an Apostolic Visitation to investigate sex abuse – all I could think of what’s sauce for the goose – the nuns – is now sauce for the gander. There is more need for this effort. The New York Times links the USCCB’s response to the statement the Vatican issued at about the same time, with the folksy ““Victims should know that the pope is on their side.” Trying to put a bridge over troubled water? But I should not minimize the strong language: “criminal and morally reprehensible, … betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and their faith.”

I will write about the abuse of nuns by priests and bishops that was again made public in an AP report in late July. Like victims everywhere and of every age and gender, the nuns acknowledge how fearful it is to speak out. The Leadership Conference of Women Religious expressed solidarity, saying, “No one should have to suffer the long-term effects of abuse alone.” The #CatholicToo coalition similarly stood with the nuns.

Lucetta Scaraffia in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, also spoke out.  This is stranger than John Baer going to church! While Scaraffia wishes more would be published about the church’s efforts for healing the victims, she “appealed to readers not to mistake the target of their anger [the media], but [to speak] against the problem of sexual abuse and the cover up by the church hierarchy,” according to Anne-Benedicte Hoffner in La Croix. Hoffner quotes Scaraffia saying that “the abuse issue signified the extent of ‘the disappointment in discovering the shady areas of an institution that the world continues to regard as a significant moral entity.’” Again, that paradox. Shady areas in a church that brings the light.

Tom Reese in NCR examines all the shady areas in a comprehensive article, including the suggestion that lay people examine candidates for ordination. We are ready and willing to serve on both sides of that equation! He also provides a good summary of the grand jury’s proposals for legislation:

The grand jury proposes four reforms in its report: eliminating the criminal statute of limitations for future cases of the sexual abuse of children; opening up the dioceses to civil suits from victims who are now excluded because of the civil statute of limitations; clarifying the penalties for continuing to fail to report child abuse; and disallowing civil confidentiality agreements from covering communications with law enforcement.

 It is not clear to me, reading the recommendations section of the grand jury report, that the retroactive provisions would only apply to the church as stated above. Reese goes on to speculate about the difficulties of non-profits would have in coming up with large settlements. I was a YWCA executive in Philadelphia in the 1980s; we had no complaints, but we might have and certainly had very limited resources.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (center) speaks on the findings of the grand jury

Second-day reflections by Mike Newell in the Inquirer ask for more from the legislature and the church than “a recitation of the horror and a flurry of lawyer-vetted apologies.” He notes that Pennsylvania is “the only state to have investigated the scandal statewide,” and “For many of us raised in it, the Catholic Church has a unique kind of staying power. As much as you wander – or walk, or run – away from it at times, it can feel, as one victim said, encoded in your DNA.” Let us pray for those who have memories of abuse now encoded in their DNA, that some of this horror helps with healing.

We have all been a grand jury for sixteen years now, since the Spotlight revelations in Massachusetts.

Once again, we call our church to a “credible theology.” In an article in The Advocate Marianne Duddy-Burke, Executive Director of Dignity USA, delves into the bankrupt theories of sexuality and gender promulgated by the bishops. 

Once again, we call our church to real reform. As Zach Johnson, Executive Director of Call to Action, said in an email to members, “The time has come for a true renewal in our Church. One that returns the priesthood back to the servant leadership embodied by Jesus, and that treats all people– lay and ordained alike– as equals. … It’s time for the Catholics to re-open the Vatican II dialogue about how our Church is structured.”

This report of abuse and cover-up in Pennsylvania will have an impact around the world.