BishopAccountability.org
	Tension in the Diocese More Than Just a CEO True Listening Requires a Willingness to Be Transformed By Raymond A. Schroth Newsday.com December 14, 2003 Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., is professor of humanities at St. Peter's College in Jersey City, author of "Fordham: A History and Memoir" and a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. About two years ago as the storm known as the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal was breaking, some saw in this tragedy - in spite of the pain inflicted on so many victims - the work of the Holy Spirit. Maybe through the voices of the wounded, the Spirit had been cleaning the stable. But it soon became clear that the crisis had been caused not merely by weak priests but by a clerical culture that disposed the leadership to minimize or cover up the sexual misbehavior. The two best books on the subject, Peter Steinfels' "A People Adrift" and David Gibson's "The Coming Catholic Church," analyze this period as a crisis in leadership and point to a future when the torch will pass from the clergy to lay men and women. The Diocese of Rockville Centre, with its 1.5 million members, 134 parishes and embattled new bishop, stands out in all this mess for two reasons. First, Bishop William Francis Murphy came to Long Island carrying particularly heavy baggage. He was appointed by the Vatican under the influence of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law and is among several of Law's auxiliaries, compromised by their administrative roles in the nation's worst sex-abuse cases, to have been promoted by Pope John Paul II. Second, the people of the diocese seem to love their priests; but, as their Oct. 1 letter calling for a meeting between the bishop and all 400 priests testifies, the priests feel alienated from their bishop. On Jan. 19 Murphy and the priests will meet. How well they listen to one another may well determine the future of the diocese and send messages to the rest of the American church, where such tensions must be bubbling beneath the surface in many places. The Rev. Donald Cozzens, professor at John Carroll University and author of "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," says the Rockville Centre uprising is "not unprecedented but certainly extraordinary." Priests, he says, find it difficult to talk honestly to their bishops; they feel trapped in the feudal system, where the bishop was "m'lord" (Monseigneur) and priests were treated like lackeys. A local priest echoed the theme: The bishop is afflicted with the "Roman virus," by which "the bishop is the adult and we are children." On Long Island, Murphy's past association with Cardinal Law very likely is exacerbating the tension. Especially on the North Shore, parishioners are very aware of Murphy's past and it is a frequent topic of conversation and concern. Some wonder whether this reputation may have led Murphy even to overreact in disciplining his own clergy. That people, priests and bishops fight among themselves is not unusual in American Catholic history. In the 1830s, laymen, through a system called trusteeism, often controlled the daily operations of the church, including building the church and hiring and firing the pastor. The early 19th-century church was more democratic in some ways than the church today. The reforms of Vatican II and the revised Code of Canon Law - with parish councils, finance boards and priests' councils - created the tools of, if not democracy, broader participation. But how well these boards work depends on the openness and skills of every bishop and pastor. A priest outside Chicago with a conservative bishop tells me that his diocese has worked well since the pedophilia scandal became public because the bishop developed a strong policy on sexual abuse in 1987, set up lay advisory boards and takes their advice. In Chicago, Francis Cardinal George has "stepped back from things" a bit, has become less the "father corrector" type, and allows more freedom in pastoral decisions. On the other hand, we know that the opposition of Boston priests to Cardinal Law's handling of the crisis certainly contributed to his resignation. In August, in Milwaukee, 163 out of 442 priests signed a proposal to admit married men to the priesthood. But so far, no bishop other than Murphy has faced a petition from priests questioning his own authority. In this case, more than 50 priests signed a letter expressing "sadness and a sense of desperation" about the bishop's leadership. The big question for the January confrontation is: Can a man repeatedly described as aloof, arrogant and a CEO suddenly learn to listen' According to Cozzens, bishops find true listening very hard because they have been conditioned to consider "listening" as giving an answer to subordinates who bring them questions. But true listening requires a willingness to be transformed by the words of an equal person, in religious terms seeing them as an equal channel for the Spirit. An example: Bishop Murphy, to show that he listens, has called for a diocesan synod in 2007 and has instituted "listening sessions" in which parishioners speak and write agenda items to be formally addressed at the meeting in four years. On the Rockville Centre diocesan Web site he has posted his answer to their questions. He goes on for many thousand words telling the readers how much he cares, shares their pain, etc., and enumerates his accomplishments. He respects the Voice of the Faithful, he says, but cannot allow the advocates for lay power to meet on church property because they call for changes in "church structures," and he doesn't know what they mean. The issue for Voice of the Faithful, however, is not doctrine but governance - issues such as how Murphy and others like him got selected as bishops, how priests are trained, how parishes are organized. In one word: accountability. Is the bishop accountable to his people - or only to Rome' What will happen at the meeting' I foresee three possibilities. Status quo. They will talk for an afternoon. Murphy will say he has heard his priests - and mean it. But he will tell himself that his primary loyalty to Rome prevents him from doing what they request. The New York Times scenario. Last spring many writers at The New York Times rebelled against their executive editor, Howell Raines, because of his alleged favoritism toward a reporter who plagiarized and disgraced the paper. He called a big meeting, with the publisher present, to hear them out, and promised to reform. The publisher supported him. Within a few days Raines was gone. The New Testament miracle. The Gospels, particularly Luke, are filled with Jesus' parables about servants who are not doing their jobs. They are out for themselves, work deals, dominate other servants, go to bed early. They like titles, status. Scholarship has shown that those Gospel stories are really aimed at the priests and leaders of the early Christian communities. Jesus foresaw how status would corrupt church leadership; so, the night before he died, he got down on the floor and washed his disciples' feet. Today these slacking servants like to be called "Eminence" and wear ceremonial pointed hats and pink slippers, and carry golden staffs. They even allow subordinates to kiss their rings. We might expect this during a papacy where the Vatican has preferred to name as bishops not men known mainly for imagination, intellect and pastoral skill, but rather men of the narrowest doctrinal orthodoxy: unquestioning commitment on the issues of contraception, celibacy and the ordination of women. A remarkable aspect of the Rockville Centre priests' protest letter is that it contains no demands, no manifesto. They eliminated a sentence supporting the Voice of the Faithful, specifically to defuse the agenda. This may make Bishop Murphy's job easier, though the spotlight will be bright, with the lay National Review Board reports on the pedophilia scandal due a few weeks after the Rockville Centre meeting. Those reports inevitably will open wounds. Somehow, to win the confidence of - and therefore to lead - his priests and people, Murphy, indeed every bishop, has to learn that the Spirit is speaking to him directly through his brother priests and his lay brothers and sisters throughout the diocese. This idea is no more radical than Christianity itself. What's a Bishop to Do' Excerpts from the documents of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 1965: As those who lead others to perfection, bishops should be diligent in fostering holiness among their clerics, religious and laity according to the special vocation of each. They should also be mindful of their obligation to give an example of holiness through charity, humility and simplicity of life. . . . A bishop should always welcome priests with a special love since they assume in part the bishop's duties and cares and carry the weight of them day by day so zealously. He should regard his priests as sons and friends. Thus by his readiness to listen to them and by his trusting familiarity, a bishop can work to promote the whole pastoral work of the entire diocese. . . . The relationships between the bishop and his diocesan priests should rest above all upon the bonds of supernatural charity so that the harmony of the will of the priests with that of their bishop will render their pastoral activity more fruitful. Hence, for the sake of greater service to souls, let the bishop engage in discussion with his priests, even collectively, especially about pastoral matters. This he should do not only occasionally but, as far as possible, at fixed intervals.Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., is professor of humanities at St. Peter's College in Jersey City, author of "Fordham: A History and Memoir" and a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. About two years ago as the storm known as the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal was breaking, some saw in this tragedy - in spite of the pain inflicted on so many victims - the work of the Holy Spirit. Maybe through the voices of the wounded, the Spirit had been cleaning the stable. But it soon became clear that the crisis had been caused not merely by weak priests but by a clerical culture that disposed the leadership to minimize or cover up the sexual misbehavior. The two best books on the subject, Peter Steinfels' "A People Adrift" and David Gibson's "The Coming Catholic Church," analyze this period as a crisis in leadership and point to a future when the torch will pass from the clergy to lay men and women. The Diocese of Rockville Centre, with its 1.5 million members, 134 parishes and embattled new bishop, stands out in all this mess for two reasons. First, Bishop William Francis Murphy came to Long Island carrying particularly heavy baggage. He was appointed by the Vatican under the influence of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law and is among several of Law's auxiliaries, compromised by their administrative roles in the nation's worst sex-abuse cases, to have been promoted by Pope John Paul II. Second, the people of the diocese seem to love their priests; but, as their Oct. 1 letter calling for a meeting between the bishop and all 400 priests testifies, the priests feel alienated from their bishop. On Jan. 19 Murphy and the priests will meet. How well they listen to one another may well determine the future of the diocese and send messages to the rest of the American church, where such tensions must be bubbling beneath the surface in many places. The Rev. Donald Cozzens, professor at John Carroll University and author of "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," says the Rockville Centre uprising is "not unprecedented but certainly extraordinary." Priests, he says, find it difficult to talk honestly to their bishops; they feel trapped in the feudal system, where the bishop was "m'lord" (Monseigneur) and priests were treated like lackeys. A local priest echoed the theme: The bishop is afflicted with the "Roman virus," by which "the bishop is the adult and we are children." On Long Island, Murphy's past association with Cardinal Law very likely is exacerbating the tension. Especially on the North Shore, parishioners are very aware of Murphy's past and it is a frequent topic of conversation and concern. Some wonder whether this reputation may have led Murphy even to overreact in disciplining his own clergy. That people, priests and bishops fight among themselves is not unusual in American Catholic history. In the 1830s, laymen, through a system called trusteeism, often controlled the daily operations of the church, including building the church and hiring and firing the pastor. The early 19th-century church was more democratic in some ways than the church today. The reforms of Vatican II and the revised Code of Canon Law - with parish councils, finance boards and priests' councils - created the tools of, if not democracy, broader participation. But how well these boards work depends on the openness and skills of every bishop and pastor. A priest outside Chicago with a conservative bishop tells me that his diocese has worked well since the pedophilia scandal became public because the bishop developed a strong policy on sexual abuse in 1987, set up lay advisory boards and takes their advice. In Chicago, Francis Cardinal George has "stepped back from things" a bit, has become less the "father corrector" type, and allows more freedom in pastoral decisions. On the other hand, we know that the opposition of Boston priests to Cardinal Law's handling of the crisis certainly contributed to his resignation. In August, in Milwaukee, 163 out of 442 priests signed a proposal to admit married men to the priesthood. But so far, no bishop other than Murphy has faced a petition from priests questioning his own authority. In this case, more than 50 priests signed a letter expressing "sadness and a sense of desperation" about the bishop's leadership. The big question for the January confrontation is: Can a man repeatedly described as aloof, arrogant and a CEO suddenly learn to listen' According to Cozzens, bishops find true listening very hard because they have been conditioned to consider "listening" as giving an answer to subordinates who bring them questions. But true listening requires a willingness to be transformed by the words of an equal person, in religious terms seeing them as an equal channel for the Spirit. An example: Bishop Murphy, to show that he listens, has called for a diocesan synod in 2007 and has instituted "listening sessions" in which parishioners speak and write agenda items to be formally addressed at the meeting in four years. On the Rockville Centre diocesan Web site he has posted his answer to their questions. He goes on for many thousand words telling the readers how much he cares, shares their pain, etc., and enumerates his accomplishments. He respects the Voice of the Faithful, he says, but cannot allow the advocates for lay power to meet on church property because they call for changes in "church structures," and he doesn't know what they mean. The issue for Voice of the Faithful, however, is not doctrine but governance - issues such as how Murphy and others like him got selected as bishops, how priests are trained, how parishes are organized. In one word: accountability. Is the bishop accountable to his people - or only to Rome? What will happen at the meeting? I foresee three possibilities. Status quo. They will talk for an afternoon. Murphy will say he has heard his priests - and mean it. But he will tell himself that his primary loyalty to Rome prevents him from doing what they request. The New York Times scenario. Last spring many writers at The New York Times rebelled against their executive editor, Howell Raines, because of his alleged favoritism toward a reporter who plagiarized and disgraced the paper. He called a big meeting, with the publisher present, to hear them out, and promised to reform. The publisher supported him. Within a few days Raines was gone. The New Testament miracle. The Gospels, particularly Luke, are filled with Jesus' parables about servants who are not doing their jobs. They are out for themselves, work deals, dominate other servants, go to bed early. They like titles, status. Scholarship has shown that those Gospel stories are really aimed at the priests and leaders of the early Christian communities. Jesus foresaw how status would corrupt church leadership; so, the night before he died, he got down on the floor and washed his disciples' feet. Today these slacking servants like to be called "Eminence" and wear ceremonial pointed hats and pink slippers, and carry golden staffs. They even allow subordinates to kiss their rings. We might expect this during a papacy where the Vatican has preferred to name as bishops not men known mainly for imagination, intellect and pastoral skill, but rather men of the narrowest doctrinal orthodoxy: unquestioning commitment on the issues of contraception, celibacy and the ordination of women. A remarkable aspect of the Rockville Centre priests' protest letter is that it contains no demands, no manifesto. They eliminated a sentence supporting the Voice of the Faithful, specifically to defuse the agenda. This may make Bishop Murphy's job easier, though the spotlight will be bright, with the lay National Review Board reports on the pedophilia scandal due a few weeks after the Rockville Centre meeting. Those reports inevitably will open wounds. Somehow, to win the confidence of - and therefore to lead - his priests and people, Murphy, indeed every bishop, has to learn that the Spirit is speaking to him directly through his brother priests and his lay brothers and sisters throughout the diocese. This idea is no more radical than Christianity itself. What's a Bishop to Do? Excerpts from the documents of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 1965: As those who lead others to perfection, bishops should be diligent in fostering holiness among their clerics, religious and laity according to the special vocation of each. They should also be mindful of their obligation to give an example of holiness through charity, humility and simplicity of life. . . . A bishop should always welcome priests with a special love since they assume in part the bishop's duties and cares and carry the weight of them day by day so zealously. He should regard his priests as sons and friends. Thus by his readiness to listen to them and by his trusting familiarity, a bishop can work to promote the whole pastoral work of the entire diocese. . . . The relationships between the bishop and his diocesan priests should rest above all upon the bonds of supernatural charity so that the harmony of the will of the priests with that of their bishop will render their pastoral activity more fruitful. Hence, for the sake of greater service to souls, let the bishop engage in discussion with his priests, even collectively, especially about pastoral matters. This he should do not only occasionally but, as far as possible, at fixed intervals.
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