“Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He’s the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he’s trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope.”—Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, formerly of the Vatican embassy in Washington, on the pope’s management style and possible culpability in the mushrooming sexual abuse scandal, quoted in Nicholas Kulish and Rachel Donadio, “Abuse Scandal in Germany Edges Closer to the Pope,” The New York Times, March 12, 2010
Eight years ago, I argued strenuously with a longtime friend about the sexual-abuse scandal making virtually daily front-page news in the United States. After much back-and-forth about the need for Boston’s Cardinal Law to resign, celibacy, and the attention span of the public, my friend asked: “How much you want to bet that once Iraq is invaded, the media stop covering this?”
Hmmm…well, define “stop.” Since the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, seven American archdioceses (not including, interestingly enough, Boston, the original epicenter of the controversy) have filed for bankruptcy as a result of ruinous lawsuits stemming from the scandal, as did the Oregon Province of the Jesuits. Since my friend and I had our spirited discussion over coffee, total settlements and awards arising from these American claims in just these past eight years have amounted to more than $2 billion.
And, whenever the Church commented on a fractious social issue—abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, health care—you can bet there was a columnist out there to wonder by what right this institution that shielded child molesters could contribute meaningfully to any public discussion of the matter in question.
I well remember my feelings of burning anger and shame as I sat in my church on Palm Sunday eight years ago, thinking of how The Boston Globe and The New York Times were beating the drum of the abuse scandal. Yet here we are, eight years later, and those drums are louder than ever.
One phrase in particular from today’s Passion narrative, in the Gospel of St. Luke, leaps out at me: “the time for the power of darkness.”
This time, scoffers about the scandal can’t claim, as my friend did, that it’s largely confined only to Boston (itself a questionable proposition, even eight years ago)—it’s spread to Ireland, Italy, and Germany, where, of course, it is now perilously close to the current pontiff.
That is why, less than a week after The Times began its above-the-fold stories about Benedict’s handling, as archbishop of Munich and Pope John Paul II’s head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of predatory priests, the Vatican reacted, with what was, for this slow-moving relic of a medieval court, something approaching warp speed. It castigated the media for acting “with the clear and ignoble intent of trying to strike Benedict and his closest collaborators at any cost.”
This won’t do. For all too many people with a long memory, it’s reminiscent of Cardinal Law’s blowup against the Globe—nearly a decade before the steady acid rain of stories about other abusers fatally eroded his moral authority—for what he deemed too much coverage of an early abuser, the Rev. James Porter: “By all means we call down God’s power on the media, particularly the Globe."
When I first read the news of Benedict’s involvement in these abuse cases before his assumption of the papal tiara, what immediately sprang to mind was the matter raised by Rev. Doyle, a canon lawyer who, 25 years ago, saw the American hierarchy ignore his warnings about the grave financial dangers posed by abuse scandals then in their infancy.
Doyle’s concern, boiled down, is the logical consequence of the question posed by Howard Baker in the Senate Watergate hearings about President Nixon: What did he know, and when did he know it?
Nixon lost power because enough people sensed that he was so obsessed about every little detail of White House operations that it was impossible for him not to know about the connection of the Watergate burglars to his own reelection committee. Ronald Reagan survived his constitutional crisis—the Iran-contra scandal—because it was easy to conceive of him being blissfully unaware of even matters that would seem glaringly obvious to others.
In which of these two lights will Catholics view Benedict? The one the Vatican is trying out is a variation on Reagan’s. By necessity, it can’t exactly duplicate Reagan’s strategy, or longtime observers of the Church hierarchy would laugh them out of existence, as you can see in Fr. Doyle’s response.
The new trial balloon, then, sent up in today’s New York Times, goes like this: Benedict was a micromanager, all right—but he focused on doctrine, not administration. His service as archbishop of Munich was not terribly long—five years—before he was called to Rome. He left to others the fine points of personnel management.
Some of the coverage of the scandal has already engage in overdrawn conclusions, notably the suggestion that Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) headed the Vatican office with responsibility for the scandal for a whole quarter-century. (See National Catholic Reporter’s John L. Allen Jr.’s dispassionate discussion on when Ratzinger did finally receive responsibility for the scandal worldwide--2001--as well as other aspects of the media coverage.)
The Vatican strategy/explanation also has the advantage of dovetailing with an obvious aspect of Benedict’s personality: he is shy, reserved, far more comfortable with discussing abstruse points of medieval theology (or, for entertainment, playing his piano in private) than in engaging in give-and-take with others. That tendency has left him tone-deaf at times as to how his words and actions appear (e.g., when his quote of a Byzantine emperor on Islam during a speech at Regensberg undercut his larger, less objectionable, role on faith and reason in the secular order).
Ultimately, though, this picture presented by papal defenders won’t do. Even if true, it will undermine Benedict's authority anyway, as people will understandably ask why this cleric—who, according to today's Times article, scolded dissenters from his policy of having schoolchildren take First Communion and Confession in the same year—didn’t pay more attention to the offenses that led to the transfer of at least one priest under his jurisdiction.
The more likely possibility is that at least some elements of the stories going around now are true. Reporters at mainstream media outlets are unlikely to give Benedict the benefit of the doubt that they permitted John Edwards, for instance, when the first stories of his transgressions surfaced. Unlike the former Presidential candidate, little personal warmth exists between the pontiff and reporters, and even less ideological agreement.
In other words, there’s no reason for reporters not to salivate at the biggest story of their careers, one that could get them a Pulitzer, as the Globe did seven years ago for its coverage of the abuse scandal in Boston.
Instead of anathemas, the Vatican would be better off delivering explanations filled with facts and historical context. If the facts point to Benedict's personal knowledge that the pedophile priest in Munich had been transferred to someplace else and that this new assignment involved exposure to children, not just a request for forgiveness, but a papal resignation would be in order.
If such extensive knowledge is not the case, he still owes it to the faithful to apologize for his lack of effective oversight, to force the resignation of European (and any remaining American) archbishops who shielded abusers, and to spell out exactly what is being done now to ensure that the coddling of pedophiles doesn’t recur.
True, belief in the faith should rest not in a particular priest or pope but in the tenets of Jesus. But people see the possibility of God through the people who minister to their deepest needs. That faith has been needlessly undermined through the hierarchy’s mishandling of all too many cases. Before healing can take place, truth and atonement must occur—including from the very top.
Above all, the Vatican should put aside any thought that this scandal will go away if it ignores it. As the American archbishops learned, to their discomfort and their flock’s greater distress, it won’t. More pain is in store. Better to deal with it now, before the damage worsens.
Eight years ago, I argued strenuously with a longtime friend about the sexual-abuse scandal making virtually daily front-page news in the United States. After much back-and-forth about the need for Boston’s Cardinal Law to resign, celibacy, and the attention span of the public, my friend asked: “How much you want to bet that once Iraq is invaded, the media stop covering this?”
Hmmm…well, define “stop.” Since the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, seven American archdioceses (not including, interestingly enough, Boston, the original epicenter of the controversy) have filed for bankruptcy as a result of ruinous lawsuits stemming from the scandal, as did the Oregon Province of the Jesuits. Since my friend and I had our spirited discussion over coffee, total settlements and awards arising from these American claims in just these past eight years have amounted to more than $2 billion.
And, whenever the Church commented on a fractious social issue—abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, health care—you can bet there was a columnist out there to wonder by what right this institution that shielded child molesters could contribute meaningfully to any public discussion of the matter in question.
I well remember my feelings of burning anger and shame as I sat in my church on Palm Sunday eight years ago, thinking of how The Boston Globe and The New York Times were beating the drum of the abuse scandal. Yet here we are, eight years later, and those drums are louder than ever.
One phrase in particular from today’s Passion narrative, in the Gospel of St. Luke, leaps out at me: “the time for the power of darkness.”
This time, scoffers about the scandal can’t claim, as my friend did, that it’s largely confined only to Boston (itself a questionable proposition, even eight years ago)—it’s spread to Ireland, Italy, and Germany, where, of course, it is now perilously close to the current pontiff.
That is why, less than a week after The Times began its above-the-fold stories about Benedict’s handling, as archbishop of Munich and Pope John Paul II’s head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of predatory priests, the Vatican reacted, with what was, for this slow-moving relic of a medieval court, something approaching warp speed. It castigated the media for acting “with the clear and ignoble intent of trying to strike Benedict and his closest collaborators at any cost.”
This won’t do. For all too many people with a long memory, it’s reminiscent of Cardinal Law’s blowup against the Globe—nearly a decade before the steady acid rain of stories about other abusers fatally eroded his moral authority—for what he deemed too much coverage of an early abuser, the Rev. James Porter: “By all means we call down God’s power on the media, particularly the Globe."
When I first read the news of Benedict’s involvement in these abuse cases before his assumption of the papal tiara, what immediately sprang to mind was the matter raised by Rev. Doyle, a canon lawyer who, 25 years ago, saw the American hierarchy ignore his warnings about the grave financial dangers posed by abuse scandals then in their infancy.
Doyle’s concern, boiled down, is the logical consequence of the question posed by Howard Baker in the Senate Watergate hearings about President Nixon: What did he know, and when did he know it?
Nixon lost power because enough people sensed that he was so obsessed about every little detail of White House operations that it was impossible for him not to know about the connection of the Watergate burglars to his own reelection committee. Ronald Reagan survived his constitutional crisis—the Iran-contra scandal—because it was easy to conceive of him being blissfully unaware of even matters that would seem glaringly obvious to others.
In which of these two lights will Catholics view Benedict? The one the Vatican is trying out is a variation on Reagan’s. By necessity, it can’t exactly duplicate Reagan’s strategy, or longtime observers of the Church hierarchy would laugh them out of existence, as you can see in Fr. Doyle’s response.
The new trial balloon, then, sent up in today’s New York Times, goes like this: Benedict was a micromanager, all right—but he focused on doctrine, not administration. His service as archbishop of Munich was not terribly long—five years—before he was called to Rome. He left to others the fine points of personnel management.
Some of the coverage of the scandal has already engage in overdrawn conclusions, notably the suggestion that Benedict (then Cardinal Ratzinger) headed the Vatican office with responsibility for the scandal for a whole quarter-century. (See National Catholic Reporter’s John L. Allen Jr.’s dispassionate discussion on when Ratzinger did finally receive responsibility for the scandal worldwide--2001--as well as other aspects of the media coverage.)
The Vatican strategy/explanation also has the advantage of dovetailing with an obvious aspect of Benedict’s personality: he is shy, reserved, far more comfortable with discussing abstruse points of medieval theology (or, for entertainment, playing his piano in private) than in engaging in give-and-take with others. That tendency has left him tone-deaf at times as to how his words and actions appear (e.g., when his quote of a Byzantine emperor on Islam during a speech at Regensberg undercut his larger, less objectionable, role on faith and reason in the secular order).
Ultimately, though, this picture presented by papal defenders won’t do. Even if true, it will undermine Benedict's authority anyway, as people will understandably ask why this cleric—who, according to today's Times article, scolded dissenters from his policy of having schoolchildren take First Communion and Confession in the same year—didn’t pay more attention to the offenses that led to the transfer of at least one priest under his jurisdiction.
The more likely possibility is that at least some elements of the stories going around now are true. Reporters at mainstream media outlets are unlikely to give Benedict the benefit of the doubt that they permitted John Edwards, for instance, when the first stories of his transgressions surfaced. Unlike the former Presidential candidate, little personal warmth exists between the pontiff and reporters, and even less ideological agreement.
In other words, there’s no reason for reporters not to salivate at the biggest story of their careers, one that could get them a Pulitzer, as the Globe did seven years ago for its coverage of the abuse scandal in Boston.
Instead of anathemas, the Vatican would be better off delivering explanations filled with facts and historical context. If the facts point to Benedict's personal knowledge that the pedophile priest in Munich had been transferred to someplace else and that this new assignment involved exposure to children, not just a request for forgiveness, but a papal resignation would be in order.
If such extensive knowledge is not the case, he still owes it to the faithful to apologize for his lack of effective oversight, to force the resignation of European (and any remaining American) archbishops who shielded abusers, and to spell out exactly what is being done now to ensure that the coddling of pedophiles doesn’t recur.
True, belief in the faith should rest not in a particular priest or pope but in the tenets of Jesus. But people see the possibility of God through the people who minister to their deepest needs. That faith has been needlessly undermined through the hierarchy’s mishandling of all too many cases. Before healing can take place, truth and atonement must occur—including from the very top.
Above all, the Vatican should put aside any thought that this scandal will go away if it ignores it. As the American archbishops learned, to their discomfort and their flock’s greater distress, it won’t. More pain is in store. Better to deal with it now, before the damage worsens.
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