Voices of the laity sway bishops

Dallas - The rising voices of the laity, coupled with the tearful testimony of abuse victims, helped push the nation's Catholic bishops to take a stand on sexual abuse of minors that doesn't toe the Vatican line.

Some observers say the bishops' overwhelming approval Friday of the new national policy was an unprecedented act of independence.

"In the past, the bishops would say 'We need this policy or that,' and when the Vatican would step in with 'suggestions,' there were always a dozen guys willing to stand up at the meetings and voice the Vatican line," said Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest who was allowed to sit in on the closed-door deliberations as well as the open meeting. "That didn't happen this time."

America's cardinals and top bishops earlier conferred with the pope and Vatican officials, but they approved a document Friday that commits them to implementing the new policy before getting Vatican approval.

Vatican officials, worried about protecting priests' rights, signaled their belief that some offenders can be rehabilitated. American bishops, concerned about public reaction, are not willing to take the risk.

The policy calls for the removal of all abusive priests from any ministry and forbids them from wearing clerical garb or identifying themselves as priests. It attempts to avoid a collision with Rome by not automatically asking for the defrocking of all the abusers. But it does other things that the Vatican might object to, including requiring that allegations be reported to civil authorities and imposing a stringent definition of sexual abuse that goes beyond physical contact.

Reese, author of a book on how the Vatican operates, has not been alone in his critical view of the U.S. bishops.

John Mallon, an editor for Inside the Vatican magazine in Rome, recently wrote:

"During the last 35 years, the American bishops have shown a pronounced reluctance to exercise their episcopal authority when circumstances obviously required it. The unspoken theme seems to be: When in doubt, do nothing, letting time or God take care of it."

Mallon, who would like to see a crackdown on dissidents, comes from a different part of the church spectrum than the more liberal Reese. But the overlapping of their views of the bishops parallels a trend in which the scandals have electrified mainstream Catholics and fueled the calls for change from the left and the right.

Groups favoring a range of changes that include the ordination of women and married men have used the scandal to raise a stronger call for change.

Traditionalists and conservative groups have used the scandal to spotlight their belief that the sex scandals and other church problems are caused by a straying from orthodoxy.

Rude awakening

All sides have said that the sexual abuse scandals have awakened Catholics.

One of the most dramatic examples is in Boston, where a grass-roots group of lay Catholics demanding a greater role in church governance has grown to some 10,000 members since last August. Organizers of Voice of the Faithful say the movement is rapidly spreading across the United States.

In Greenfield last week, a dozen men and women formed a local chapter of the group. One concern they expressed was a need to end the church's culture of secrecy and to reveal how church donations are spent, said Terry Ryan, 54, of New Berlin, one of the founders. Some want an independent board to oversee archdiocesan spending.

"I see people who typically have been pew sitters outraged over these abuses and over the coverup," Ryan said. "I think there are a lot of people speaking out who never would in the past."

Sister Christine Schenk, national executive director of the Cleveland-based FutureChurch, which advocates ordination of married men and women, agreed.

"I do think this is a very important moment in the history of the church," Schenk said. "It may well be sort of the shot heard 'round the world, if you will, in which the average lay Catholic is just saying, 'I'm fed up and I'm not going to take it anymore.' "

Colliding views

Advocacy groups are colliding on a variety of issues, most prominently on the explosive issue of homosexuality.

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., unsuccessfully lobbied his fellow bishops to launch a study of what he termed a "homosexual culture" in the church and on variances of seminary teaching on sexuality.

Bruskewitz, a Milwaukee native, echoed the sentiments of Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who has said that no gay man - even a celibate one - would be allowed in the seminary in his diocese.

"Like it or not, a great deal of this problem is the result of homosexuals misusing adolescent boys," Bruskewitz said in an interview. "I think homosexuals are not suited to the priesthood."

That kind of thinking has terrified gay lay Catholics and gay priests, said Sister Jeannine Gramick, a nun whom Rome has twice tried to silence because of her New Ways Ministry, an outreach to gay and lesbian Catholics.

"There's a lot of fear, especially among gay priests, that they are going to be scapegoated for the scandal," Gramick said. "Catholics are accepting of gay priests as long as they are there to serve them."

Helen Hull Hitchcock, national president of the St. Louis-based Women for Faith and Family, blames the abuse crisis on a homosexual culture in seminaries.

"You have to, because about 90 percent of the sex abuse scandals that have been revealed have (involved) boys," she said.

"We've got problems in catechesis, we've got problems with seminary formation. But I think many people will be encouraged by the fact that two bishops on the floor - one of them Cardinal George (Francis George of Chicago) and also Bishop Bruskewitz - expressed the thought of many of the bishops that we need not only to clean up our act as far as the scandal, but we also need to get on firmer ground with the church's teachings and doctrines."

Francis DeBernardo, national executive director of New Ways Ministry, sees such attitudes as part of the problem.

"Because they didn't make any statement that challenged the prevailing myth that homosexuality was the cause of sexual abuse, the bishops really failed to protect innocent gay priests who have been so maligned by many church leaders during the past months," DeBernardo said.

"The future is mixed. The good thing about this meeting is that the bishops invited people who were alienated and pained by church policies and practices to come to them and say what they felt. It was the first public and open dialogue the bishops had with people who were highly critical of them because of church policies and practices. Now, my hope is that they follow that model with other groups, particularly with gay and lesbian Catholics and their families."

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on June 16, 2002.

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