As more allegations emerge in the US, bishops clash over the shape of a future inquiry
Cardinal Donald Wuerl succeeded Theodore McCarrick as the Archbishop of Washington in 2006. Now that multiple allegations have been made of his predecessor’s “misconduct” with seminarians and young priests, Cardinal Wuerl is expected to lead efforts to prevent further abuse. Last week, in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, he mooted the idea of a “panel, a board, of bishops … where we would take it upon ourselves” to investigate rumours of clerical abuse”.
It wasn’t clear how the panel would work, or whether Cardinal Wuerl (pictured above right with Archbishop McCarrick) envisaged a major role for the laity. But the immediate response was heavily critical.
Even bishops expressed strong reservations about the proposed panel. Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany said: “While I am heartened by my brother bishops proposing ways for our Church to take action in light of recent revelation, I think we have reached a point where bishops alone investigating bishops is not the answer.”
He called instead on the “lay faithful” to “help us make lasting reforms that will restore a level of trust that has been shattered yet again”.
Bishop Robert Barron, an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles who is also head of the Word on Fire media group, echoed Bishop Sharfenberger’s reservations. “I would suggest (as a lowly back-bencher auxiliary) that the bishops of the United States – all of us – petition the Holy Father to form a team, made up mostly of faithful lay Catholics skilled in forensic investigation, and to empower them to have access to all of the relevant documentation and financial records,” he wrote.
The recently appointed Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City places even less confidence in his fellow prelates. He was appalled, he wrote in the Catholic Missourian, by McCarrick’s offences and “the silence of so many bishops who knew about him”. Bishop McKnight said it was “inexplicable” that “no one called him on the carpet”.
The laity shares the scepticism of Bishops Barron, Scharfenberger, and McKnight. Earlier this month, First Things published a letter signed by 40 young Catholics calling for a “cleansing fire” in the Church: a “thorough, independent investigation into claims of abuse by Archbishop McCarrick, both of minors and of adults.”
The signatories demanded a “new intolerance of clerical abuse and sexual sin”, as well as “public acts of penance by Catholic bishops”.
Significantly, the letter didn’t confine itself merely to discussions of rape or coerced sex. There’s a growing sense of disgust among lay Catholics, who now realise that the McCarrick revelations are only the beginning of the scandal. Additional claims emerge almost daily of widespread, consensual sex (often paired with alcohol abuse) in seminaries.
This week allegations arose specifically against St John’s Seminary in Boston. The rector, Mgr James Moroney, was placed on administrative leave after two ex-seminarians alleged that they had “witnessed and experienced activities which are directly contrary to the moral standards and requirements of formation for the Catholic priesthood” (as Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, phrased it).
I spoke to a priest of the archdiocese, who asked not to be named. He agreed that alcohol abuse was pervasive at St John’s. He said it had witnessed very little homosexual activity himself when he was at St John’s, though he knew seminarians who openly identified as gay. His classmates were more likely to drink excessively and indulge in heterosexual indiscretions, he said.
Freelance journalist John Monaco is one of the two seminarians whose complaints led to Cardinal O’Malley’s investigation. He told me that homosexuality was “evident but not prevalent” at St John’s. The problem was more a culture that was “tolerant of alcohol abuse, indifferent towards maintaining proper boundaries between faculty and seminarians, and ripe for discrimination and intimidation”.
He emphasised that Mgr Moroney “was trying to make changes, but the culture never changed … He had a dream for the seminary that was never realised. He was definitely against [active homosexual activity],” but when it came to tackling misconduct, reform seemed impossible.
St John’s, it’s worth noting, is known as a bastion of theological orthodoxy. But the scandal affects every part of the Church.
This point has been emphasised by the Eastern Orthodox writer Rod Dreher. In The American Conservative, Dreher recently published an interview with an “exceptionally well-informed lay Catholic”. His source spoke of “two basic tribes of gay bishops and priests”. The first are progressives who want to liberalise Church teaching on same-sex relationships. The other are conservatives who “advocate for traditional Catholic teaching on homosexuality”, but fraternise with other gay priests, “and some have gay sex.”
Clearly, abuse and even consensual homosexual activity among the clergy is not a left-right issue. Many predators or violators of the rule of celibacy hide behind a veneer of traditionalism. Whether it is bishops or lay people who lead the promised investigation, the inquiry may well implicate priests and bishops who conservative Catholics trusted – clergy who were long considered “one of us”.
Michael Davis
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