A
Letter from Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton and the The Reforms He Has Proposed
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A Letter from Bishop
Gumbleton in Commonweal, October 10, 2003
Bishops' double standard
Like the other letter writers in your
September 12 issue, I am very pleased that you published the excellent
article by Rembert Weakland ("Looking Forward," August 15). I
agree that "we cannot afford to lose the benefit of his wisdom
and experience."
But what I cannot accept is the double standard
we are following at the present time. Bishops like Weakland, Bernard
Law, and many others who were guilty of grave mistakes, and even
criminal actions, still function publicly. On the other hand,
priests sometimes guilty of far less grave actions, some of which
were single incidents and many years ago, are forced to resign,
are not allowed to publicly celebrate Mass, or even to appear
in clerical attire. "Zero tolerance" has been the cruel response
rendered to priests by the bishops, while bishops escape such
penalties even though it was they who constantly hid the grave
problems by secretly moving guilty priests from one place to another.
I have found that nothing causes greater anger
on the part of lay people and greater loss of credibility in episcopal
leadership than this double standard. We can only hope that Voice
of the Faithful and other lay groups will have the stamina to
persist in their efforts to hold the bishops accountable and to
bring structural reform to the church.
(MOST REV.) THOMAS I. GUMBLETON" Detroit,
Mich. |
The Reforms
This is an edited transcript
of the presentation given by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton on May 25,
2002 in Lexington, MA.
Thank you very, very much. Your words of introduction are a bit
exaggerated, but they still sound pretty good, and make me feel
good. I really do thank you and thank all of you for being here
today on the occasion of this award, and also for this presentation.
I didn’t exactly offer to give it; I was kind of pressed to give
it. At first I was hesitant to speak about the crisis in the Church.
But as I thought about it, I thought I probably really do need to
in a public way, express some of my own convictions about this current
crisis. So, at this point, I am very happy to make this presentation,
and thank the Sisters of Charity of Montreal for inviting me here
today.
In speaking about the crisis in the Church, I know that we all share
many emotions. We feel together a sense of shock. What has been
happening the last few months seems almost beyond belief. And also,
a profound sadness. In a very personal way, I was deeply saddened
by the news yesterday that Archbishop Weakland was forced to resign.
And the sadness that we feel for all of the victims. But ultimately,
I think we also in a deep way, feel a sense of hope. Some people
might say that their faith is shaken by what is happening in the
Church. But in a deeper way, our faith really isn’t shaken. We do
have a very strong conviction in the truth of the words that Jesus
proclaimed and were part of our Sunday Gospel just a week ago, “I
am with you all days, I am with you always.” And we know that, in
the midst of all the crisis that we are experiencing, that Jesus
is still with us. We have a much deeper awareness of how very, very
human our Church is. But our faith is in Jesus not in the human
institution of the Church.
As I speak to you today, I speak from various perspectives. First
of all, the perspective of being a member of the Catholic Conference
of Bishops, and therefore as one who has some responsibility for
resolving the crisis. Also, I speak from the perspective of one
who has had personal contact with victims, and who has come to understand
the deep sense of hurt, betrayal, and anger that these victims feel.
And also, I speak as one who, as any priest or bishop in the United
States, feels somewhat vulnerable because allegations could be made
against any one of us; similar to what happened to Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin. And so, in the midst of this crisis, I am trying to understand
all of these various perspectives and search out what needs to be
the response of each of us and the whole Church.
The crisis is described in the media almost exclusively as a “sex”
scandal, a “sex” crisis. And it certainly is that. It is of major
proportions. We have not previously experienced anything like it
in the Catholic Church in the United States. But if we are really
going to understand this crisis, and if we’re going to find the
right way to bring about a resolution of it, to restore credibility
to the Church, to bring healing to the victims, to curtail insofar
as humanly possible any further incidents of sexual abuse, then
we have to see this crisis not just as a sex scandal, but as a crisis
of leadership within the Catholic Church…a crisis that revolves
around the leadership of the Catholic bishops. In many contacts
that I’ve had throughout the country, conversations that I’ve had
with various people, it has become more and more clear to me that
what upsets people most of all is the failure of the bishops to
provide the leadership that our Church needs, and the people of
the Church have a right to.
I have received letters from people around the country, and a couple
of these letters bring out so clearly the failure of leadership.
One person who wrote to me from Virginia Beach, VA says, “Not since
the Protestant Reformation has the Church come under such criticism
and veered on the precipice of destruction. And just as in the Reformation
the Church has brought much of the problem on Herself. There has
not been one day in the last three weeks that the Church has not
been skewered by columnists, letters to the editor, or has a news
article about the shameful way the hierarchy is performing. I know
you realize that the laity are not as enraged by the fact that there
are priests who are pedophiles, as much as the collusion in covering
up and protecting the criminals disguised as men of God. I have
just sent the Cardinals and Bishop Gregory letters denouncing the
actions of the hierarchy, and asking them to dig deep into their
hearts for the humility, humanity and compassion of Christ. I see
only one way to salvage any piece of the Catholic Church at this
point, and that is for the hierarchy, the bishops to collectively
repent, ask for forgiveness and vow never to allow this kind of
thing to happen again. But my fear is that they will not be able
to bend their knees to that, and so will cause the wholesale ‘slaughter’
of the Church.”
That may seem like a very harsh statement, and yet it is the kind
of feeling that I discovered is not uncommon among many people.
Another letter, I’ll just read a short excerpt, from a married couple,
both of whom have been administrators within the institution of
the Church -- one in a social service agency; the other the principal
of a Catholic school. And they write to me, “It is imperative that
when you go Dallas, that you demand of yourself and of your fellow
bishops to develop policies that are pro-active and thorough. We
need to put this scandal completely to rest for the safety of all.
We also need to rebuild the trust that has been lost through these
many years of cover up and omission in handling the tragedies.”
A third letter comes from a victim. She addressed the whole Conference
of Bishops: “I don’t have at my immediate disposal a pulpit, or
the media resources you do. But I nevertheless feel I must respond
to your publicly issued statement following your meetings in Rome.
How bittersweet your Easter reference to the Good Shepherd seemed
to any victim survivor who reads your statement. I know it is for
me. It reminds me of my early youth where innocence was untarnished
and my prayers were simple. I believed that the Good Shepherd heard
my voice and smiled on one so filled with zeal. You raised the question
of voice. It is appropriate that you wonder if yours has become
the voice of strangers. Every victim has asked similar questions
as they grapple with the aftermath of some very un-Shepherd like
events. Our question of voice has been - have we been silenced forever?
And if we have not, who will hear?” Further on in the letter her
anger and bitterness erupts: “I call no human Shepherd. I call no
human my pastor. That would imply that I have a minute desire left
within me to be led. I do not. I would rather put on my snowshoes
and trudge on alone through a freshly fallen bed of new possibilities,
than to allow myself to be subordinated to the position of lamb
to the slaughter again. Any shepherd of mine would have stood in
harm’s way during the recent summit in Rome, and not allowed the
whining about the good priests being victims to become so loud as
to overshadow the condolences that are owed to those abused.”
Again, it may seem to be a rather harsh judgment about the bishops
and their failure of leadership. And yet, as I have reflected more
and more on this crisis, I am convinced that this is what the fundamental
problem really is -- a failure of leadership within our Church.
And the leadership failure has resulted in the bishops not responding
adequately to the actions of perpetrators, to the deplorable, and
even criminal conduct of priests in our midst. And even more deplorable
has been what has taken place sometimes -- a kind of cover-up. Bishops
allowing perpetrators to remain within our midst and moving them
from one place to another. And settlements that have been made in
secret without the Catholic people knowing what the resources that
they have contributed to the Church are being used for. Sometimes
letters written by bishops to perpetrator-priests encouraging them,
and no letters, no meetings taking place with victims. There certainly
has been a lack of care for the victims in many, many instances.
This is a clear lack of leadership in our Church. Some of it perhaps
due to ignorance many years ago. But that ignorance was overcome
when we in the Catholic Conference of Bishops were fully informed
about the nature of the problems we were dealing with and how intractable
many of these problems are. And yet the cover-ups and the collusion
and the lack of response to the victims went on.
But it’s not only that kind of immediate failure of leadership that
concerns me. There has been a deeper and more profound kind of failure
on the part of the Catholic bishops in the United States and perhaps
in other parts of the world in allowing a situation to develop where
such a large number of priests seem so susceptible of becoming perpetrators
of these kinds of crimes.
Over 30 years ago, the Catholic Bishops of the United States authorized
a five-part study of the priesthood in the United States. We paid
hundreds of thousands of dollars for this study. It was completed,
most of it, by 1971. The study included a historical study of the
US priesthood, a spirituality study, a theological study of what
the US priesthood means in a post-Vatican II Church in the United
States. And then even more pertinent to our current problems, there
was a very thorough sociological study and an equally thorough psychological
study of the US priesthood. I can remember very clearly the meeting
we held in 1971 when the chief authors of the sociological and psychological
studies made a presentation to the Catholic bishops. That psychological
study should have been an exceptionally helpful eye opener for the
Catholic bishops. It categorized, from a psychological development
perspective, what the priesthood in the United States looked like.
At one end of the spectrum are maldeveloped priests. And according
to the study, there were about 7 or 8% of the priests in the United
States who were seriously maldeveloped. Then there was a very large
category -- 65-66% of the priests in the United States who were
described as underdeveloped. And then another category of about
13-14% or so that were developing persons. At the other end of the
spectrum about 7 or 8% of priests who would be termed developed
persons. It’s important to grasp what that study revealed. It was
saying that we had in our midst some priests who were severely handicapped
from a psychological point of view; they were maldeveloped persons
capable of inflicting great harm on people they were supposed to
be ministering to. And there was this very large number of priests
who would be considered underdeveloped. And what that means from
a psychological perspective was that a person in his upper 20’s,
30’s, 40’s, 50’s, whatever chronological age, would be psychologically
developed only to the point of adolescence, not psychologically
mature persons.
There would be varying degrees of underdevelopment, of course. The
problem is very clear: a person is chronologically an adult but
is psychologically, affectively, and emotionally still a teenager.
Obviously, such people will often be involved in inappropriate relationships.
And if that relationship includes a sexual component the problem
becomes sinful and criminal.
In my judgment a major failure was the refusal on the part of the
bishops to follow up on these studies. I think I understand one
of the reasons there was no follow-up. This was a time when many
priests were leaving the Church, or, at least, leaving the priesthood.
And almost certainly, if we had implemented programs that would
have helped men who were underdeveloped to become developed persons,
many would have understood that they had entered the seminary during
teenage years; they had been ordained without full human personal
development, and had made a life choice when they really weren’t
ready to make such a choice. As they became fully developed persons
they would sometimes make a different choice and leave the priesthood.
And so it would have been dangerous in one sense for the bishops
to develop programs that would have enabled people to move on in
their development. We would have risked, I am sure, losing quite
a number. But we would have had a much stronger priesthood in the
sense that we would have had priests who were psychologically developed,
capable of mature relationships, able to minister, able to live
a healthy, celibate lifestyle. But by failing to follow-up on the
study, by failing to bring priests to the point of full human development,
we allowed a situation where many priests are chronologically a
certain age, and psychologically a much younger age. This was a
disaster waiting to happen. A person who is psychologically an adolescent
and hasn’t really integrated his sexuality fully into his personhood,
whether homosexual or heterosexual, would feel more comfortable
in relationships with younger people, with teenagers, or even in
the case of the pedophile, toward very young children.
All of this, I think, represents a very serious failure of leadership
on the part of the Catholic bishops of the United States. We failed
the priests when we failed to encourage full human development.
But we were afraid to move forward; we were afraid to really take
leadership and do what needed to be done.
Now that the disaster is upon us, the whole Church in the United
States must respond to this crisis of leadership and the crisis
of the sex scandal flowing from it. I suggest that there are five
very important steps we must take.
The very first thing that needs to be done is what was demanded
with such clarity in the first letter I read today. The bishops,
as the leaders in the Church, must accept responsibility for what
has happened. It is a failure on the part of the bishops more than
anyone else in the Church. And that means that bishops must begin
to say, “I made a mistake”, not “Mistakes have been made.” Bishops
must be willing to say, “I have made this mistake, and if this mistake
is of such serious consequence that I should resign, I will resign.”
And I would suggest that the bishops ought to make such a statement,
and allow the people of the diocese to make the final determination,
whether they resign or not. That would be a very daring thing to
do, and it would take great courage to do it. And yet I am convinced
that we will not have credibility as bishops until we get to the
point where we can with courage say, “I made a mistake and if that
mistake warrants my resignation, I offer it. And if the people wish
to accept it, I will resign.” Now, I don’t have great confidence
that when we meet in Dallas in a couple of weeks, that this will
happen. But I pray that it might because until the bishops really
accept their responsibility, our people are not going to have much
confidence in our leadership.
The second thing that needs to be done -- there has to be a kind
of clearing of the deck. We can’t go on and on in a situation where
you never know from one day to the next where a new scandal is going
to erupt. Every bishop must make public all settlements that have
been entered into. The people of the Church have a right to know
if their money has been used to make settlements. Obviously, priests
or bishops who have been involved must be removed from ministry
-- and helped to overcome their problems. It will require a great
amount of courage and humility for us to be willing to put out in
the open all that has happened. But only this kind of transparency
will bring some sense of finality and restore some credibility to
the bishops.
The third thing that would need to be done, I think, is that we
ought to establish a national fund for compensation to the victims,
especially to pay for the therapy that for many, has been required
for a very long time. I am confident that if we were to establish
such a national fund many people in our Church would willingly support
it to help those who have been victimized.
Fourth, we do need to develop some kind of uniform policy for dealing
with allegations, and for actual instances of abuse. In order to
be fully just in this regard, there has to be real concern about
allegations not being accepted always at face value. There must
be some searching out to be sure that there is substance to the
allegation before a priest is summarily removed. But once there
is substantiation, the perpetrators have to be dealt with immediately,
justly and adequately to assure justice for all concerned. I do
not support the “zero tolerance” approach in every instance. In
those instances where the perpetrator of an act of abuse against
a child is truly a pedophile, zero tolerance is just and seems to
be the only possibility. The best scientific knowledge right now
indicates that a genuine pedophile, a person who is sexually attracted
to children below the age of puberty, is not able to achieve a cure.
Such persons must not be allowed to continue in ministry even in
some limited form. No matter what type of limited ministry was permitted
to them, they would still function as public persons in the church
and would always be able to have access to children.
However, when you move away from those who are true pedophiles to
people who are underdeveloped and who perhaps could achieve further
development and further integration of a healthy sexuality into
their life, such priests could be given a chance for therapy, and
for programs of personal development. If they achieved sufficient
development, attested to by professional therapists, I believe they
could be allowed to minister once more. This would have to be with
complete openness with the people where they were assigned and under
careful monitoring. We have to understand that some of those priests
are in the situation they are because we have failed them in the
past. They should have the opportunity to grow, to mature, to become
a psychologically fully developed person.
As a means of preventing further abuses, I would suggest that we
bring back the Kennedy study; ask Dr. Kennedy to update it if necessary,
then begin programs of development within our seminaries, to start
with so that we do not ordain underdeveloped persons as we obviously
have in the past. Also every diocese should begin to develop human
growth programs for the priests, deacons, and bishops. I am confident
that our Catholic people would readily support such programs and
would be willing to use our resources to do it.
As part of such a program of bringing about healthy human development,
we must deal with the question of homosexuality in the priesthood.
We must deal with the fact that we live in a culture that is seriously
homophobic. Some of the responses to the scandal have included attacks
against homosexual priests and seminarians. We must further the
steps we took in our pastoral letter, “Always Our Children” to overcome
the homophobia within our culture and within the Church. We must
be a truly welcoming community for homosexual people. But we must
also include in our human development programs elements which would
enable every priest, seminarian and bishop to come to a clear awareness
of his sexual orientation and a healthy acceptance of it. “Always
Our Children” pointed out that homosexuals are a gift to the Church,
and we should not marginalize them and push them aside. Well, if
we meant what we wrote in that pastoral letter, then certainly homosexuals
should be welcomed in the priesthood. But they must, just as heterosexual
priests, integrate their sexuality within an honest, authentic lifestyle
as a celibate person.
My fifth suggestion regarding the crisis of leadership in the Church
concerns, perhaps, the most fundamental change of all. We must improve
in a major way how the Church identifies and calls priests to be
bishops/leaders.
Most important of all, there must be an open process. This means
every adult member of the Church should have an opportunity to know
how it is done and to participate in the process in some significant
way.
At the present time there are criteria for naming bishops which
have never been made known to the whole community. It is my conviction
that these criteria eliminate priests who would be most qualified
to be leaders. Others may not agree with this, but I believe a public
discussion of the issue would be most fruitful. Let the whole community
determine what qualities they expect in their leaders.
An open process and a participatory process would require that people
who are to be considered for bishop would be nominated by the people
and that the names and resumes of those who accepted nomination
would be made public. A special committee representative of the
whole diocese would be given the responsibility to narrow down the
list of candidates to a number desired by the Holy See and only
those names would be forwarded to Rome.
A process such as this would be much closer to the way bishops were
named in the early Church. It would also be more consistent with
the way we name other leaders in our society and would provide us
with more genuine leaders.
I understand that this five part proposal would be very difficult
to agree on. It would be an extraordinary challenge for our bishops
and our Church to accept. But I am convinced that if we make this
kind of a policy and move in this direction that we will restore
to our Church a priesthood that will be able to function in a way
that will bring great energy and life to our Church.
I hope that all of us will join in a spirit of prayer and a continued
spirit of hope and trust that God will lead us in the direction
we must go; that the bishops of our Church will fulfill the leadership
role that has been entrusted to them; and that we will finally resolve
this crisis and move forward as a very vibrant Church in the United
States once more.
Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton |
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