Grasping the Causes and Context

When the bishops gathered in Dallas in 2002 to approve the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, part of their response/commitment in dealing with the issue of clergy sexual abuse was to commission two studies to help the Church better understand what happened, what went wrong and how best to respond.

The reports became the task of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who, along with their expertise in conducting such research, had no prior affiliation with the Catholic Church. In 2004, they issued the Nature and Scope Study. Yesterday, May 18, they issued the second study, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010.

The release of the report generated a great deal of media attention (as a study of this issue unprecedented in any organization should have), and as often the case, the nuances of the findings didn't always make it into the final stories, let alone the headlines.

For instance, a number of stories have reported that the study blames the 1960s or the sexual revolution for the sex abuse crisis. That was the headline of two otherwise fine pieces on the report by the Philadelphia Inquirer and National Public Radio. (Please do, click through and read their stories.)

More precise would be that the report found no single cause underlying clergy sexual abuse or the huge spike in numbers of decades ago, although it does explore trend lines in social upheaval as well as human formation in seminary. This is reflected in the leads of stories from Catholic News Service, the Boston Globe, the Associated Press and the New York Times.

One misconception that seems prevalent in the wake of the report is the notion that the bishops are somehow passing blame or minimizing the crisis. The statement from Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, USCCB chair of Protection of Children and Young People, makes it very clear where the bishops stand:

We have a position of zero tolerance of any cleric who would sexually abuse a child. This position must remain in effect, for as the late John Paul II declared, there can be no place in the priesthood for anyone who would abuse a child. Such a position protects children. But, it also protects the tens of thousands of priests who have suffered greatly in this crisis, all the while quietly serving with honor and self-sacrifice every day of their lives.

The study cautions against complacency. There is no room for fatigue or feeling that people have heard enough when it comes to efforts to protect children. The leadership of the bishops is needed now more than ever, particularly by encouraging and supporting those tasked with the responsibility of implementing the Charter in our dioceses, parishes and schools.

The researchers also stress that the sexual abuse of children exists throughout our country and our world. This problem is a human problem. Our Church is committed to be part of the solution. The very fear that abuse would ever recur in the Church compels us to take whatever action is needed to see that it does not arise again. At the same time, we stand ready to build partnerships with leaders in the civic community to rally the entire adult world to put an end to this societal scourge.

We welcome the study and its public release today. In view of its findings and recommendations, the bishops will thoroughly and carefully review our response to the sexual abuse crisis and make whatever adjustments are needed to help us build on the progress we have made. ...

Finally, as individual bishops and our Conference leadership have done, I once again apologize fully and without hesitation for the harm and the suffering caused when some priests took advantage of their moral authority and abused innocent children in a criminal way. It is also important to recall what Pope Benedict XVI said to us bishops about our response to the crisis during his visit to the United States in 2008: “as the President of your Episcopal Conference has indicated, it was ‘sometimes very badly handled.’” The shame of failing our people will remain with us for a long time. It should. Its sting can keep us resolute in our commitments and humble so as to never forget the insight we came to nearly a decade ago in Dallas. We cannot do any of this on our own.

Bishops Appointing Bishops

As we head into the Fourth of July holiday weekend here in the states, the Vatican approaches what is essentially its summer down time, beginning in August. As a result, various offices and congregations of the Holy See clear their desks in anticipation of being closed until sometime in September.

For the U.S. bishops, one of the signs that Rome is preparing for summer vacation is a late flurry of appointments -- bishops either being named, reassigned or retired -- all over the country. The last several weeks have brought with them new appointments, culminating in this week's retirements of a couple auxiliary bishops, the appointment of a couple new auxiliaries, and the announced transition in Spokane, Washington.

While the deck may not be completely cleared, the current state of vacant dioceses and dioceses with bishops serving past retirment age breaks down as ...

Four vacant dioceses, all of which have come vacant since April: San Antonio (since Archbishop Jose Gomez's April 6 appointment as coadjutor of Los Angeles), Orlando (since the April 20 appointment of Archbishop Thomas Wenski to Miami), the Ruthenian Archeparchy in Pittsburgh (since the June 10 death of Archbishop Basil Schott) and Rapid City, South Dakota (since this week's appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich to Spokane).

Five dioceses with bishops serving past retirement age: Seattle, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Savannah and Trenton. It's worth noting that the bishop of Trenton, John M. Smith, has already been assigned a coadjutor, Bishop-elect David O'Connell, to succeed him automatically upon his retirement.

Amid all of these late-breaking U.S. appointments, another bishop's appointment came out this week that, while it didn't involve any U.S. bishops directly, will have a direct impact on future bishops' appointments, both in the U.S. and globally. This was the appointment of Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

The Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops is the head of the Vatican office that oversees the appointments of all bishops in the Catholic Church. This post has been filled by Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re since 2000.

The process of appointing a bishop is a long and complicated one. In short, bishops of various regions meet from time to time and throw out names of priests who might make good bishops. These names are given to the Apostolic Nuncio, the pope's personal representative to a country, who shares them with the Congregation for Bishops. When it's time to appoint a new bishop to a diocese, priests and others in the diocese are quietly consulted, the needs of the diocese are assessed, and the Congregation for Bishops draws up a list, called a terna, of three candidates that goes to the pope with the Congregation's recommendation noted. The pope has final say as to who is appointed. He can accept the Congregation's recommendation. He can also reject the terna in its entirety.

In order to submit and receive these bishops' appointments, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops has a standing weekly audience with the pope. He is one of only three Vatican department heads to do so. The other two are the Vatican Secretary of State and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Pope Benedict's old job). Taken together, these posts are referred to by some Vatican watchers as the "Big Three," essentially the highest ranking posts in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. To phrase it glibly, they are responsible for 1. who we talk to (State), 2. what we believe (Doctrine of the Faith) and 3. who's in charge (Bishops).

From this perspective, the appointment of Cardinal Ouellet to the Congregation for Bishops takes on several layers of significance. First, Pope Benedict has put his own man in place for the selection and appointment of the world's bishops. This not only solidifies any personal "stamp" Benedict might put on these appointments. It also means he's now appointed all of the "Big Three," the other two being Cardinal William Levada, whom Benedict appointed to replace himself at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2005, and Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone, whom Benedict appointed Vatican Secretary of State in 2006. Both Levada and Bertone served at some point with then-Cardinal Ratzinger in the Doctrine Congregation.

Also significant is Cardinal Ouellet's nationality. While the Congregation for Bishops was served from 1984-1998 and 1998-2000 by an African and a Latin American, respectively, this is the first time the post has gone to a North American.

Cardinal Ouellet's nationality reflects the ongoing trend of the internationalization of the curia (the Vatican bureaucracy), which began after Vatican II and has steadily continued, with posts that have traditionally gone almost exclusively to Italians going to bishops from elsewhere in Europe and even from around the world. The most dramatic example of this shift, of course, came in October of 1978 with the election of the first non-Italian pope in 400 years (and first Polish pope ever), John Paul II.

With Cardinal Ouellet's appointment, as voices in the Catholic blogosphere have already pointed out, this is the first time in the Church's history that two of the Big Three have been occupied by non-Europeans, let alone North Americans. And this shift has occurred in just over five years. To illustrate, in 2005, the top leadership in Rome was:

Pope John Paul II (Polish)
Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano (Italian)
Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (German)
Prefect of Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Re (Italian)

Now it looks like this:

Pope Benedict XVI (German)
Secretary of State Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone (Italian)
Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal William Levada (American)
Prefect of Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet (Canadian)

The difference five years can make is astounding.