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8. Where Were the Pastors?
- Vanderbilt University Press
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131 Chapter 8 Where Were the Pastors? [P]astoralism focuses more on people than on rules and is . . . more understanding than judgmental, and more pragmatic than ideological. The pastoral person is guided by the wisdom of experience. He or she responds to the needs of flesh and blood individuals. —Rev. Richard P. McBrien, Theologian1 Bishops have both pastoral and institutional responsibilities. As guardians of the institutional Church, they are chief executives of nonprofit corporations that deliver a myriad of educational and social service programs, pay numerous employees, manage investments, conserve art, settle legal conflicts, and oversee properties and buildings. As pastors, on the other hand, bishops must care for the Catholics in their dioceses; they are to extend the love, mercy, and compassion they believe derive from Jesus Christ and his Apostles to the priests, religious men and women, and laypeople living in their ecclesiastical domains. Even in the best of times, the pastoral and corporate demands of a diocese can clash, engendering conflicting agendas. At times of crisis, the potential incompatibility of executive and pastoral roles may challenge a bishop’s ability to hold in mind simultaneously his divergent responsibilities and cares. To achieve that balance, always emphasizing pastoral duties, however, is a bishop’s job. Pope Benedict XVI, in fact, emphasized a bishop’s pastoral responsibilities in his first papal encyclical: “He [the bishop] promises expressly to be, in the Lord’s name, welcoming and merciful to the poor and to all those in need of consolation and assistance.”2 When it came to the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, many bishops sacrificed the kind of pastoral love and concern described by Mc- 132 Perversion of Power Brien and Pope Benedict in order to protect the institutional Church. With armies of lawyers, insurance company executives, and public relations strategists in tow, bishops tried to conceal rather than openly confront the burgeoning sexual abuse crisis. In the process, they acted too much like “branch managers for a multinational religious corporation,” rather than pastorally attending to their brother priests, alleged victims of their priests, and stricken laity.3 Revictimizing the Victims It is perhaps particularly difficult to comprehend the lack of compassion shown by many in the hierarchy toward victims, survivors, and their families. In some cases, bishops simply refused to meet with victims. Justin Cardinal Rigali, former archbishop of St. Louis and now cardinal archbishop of Philadelphia, declined to meet with any alleged victims/survivors in his nine years in St. Louis, despite repeated requests from those alleging that they had been sexually abused.4 Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), refused in October 2002 to meet with an alleged female victim/survivor who expressed interest in dropping her lawsuit in exchange for a meeting with Flynn during which they would discuss policies and procedures designed to more effectively prevent sexual abuse.5 Flynn would not receive the woman if either her lawyer or a victim’s advocate accompanied her.6 At about the same time, SNAP (Survivor Network for those Abused by Priests) requested a meeting with Flynn, who, by January 2003, had not responded because, according to his spokesperson, “The archbishop has been very busy. It just fell between the cracks.”7 It is challenging to imagine what could be a higher priority for the chair of the hierarchy’s committee on sexual abuse than meeting with as many alleged victims of sexual abuse as possible, as well as with abusing priests, rank-and-file priests, and the laity about just this issue. In fact, it would seem reasonable to expect that Archbishop Flynn would consider his primary pastoral mission to be learning everything possible about sexual abuse and its impact on the Church community directly from those affected by it. Or, as Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer and victims’ advocate, advised the bishops, [D]rop everything, realize that these boys and girls, men and women who were sexually abused as children, . . . are not the enemy. They’ve [44.210.239.12] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:37 GMT) Where Were the Pastors? 133 been deeply, deeply, deeply hurt—devastated. They’re the most important people in the Church. Drop your meetings, your social events, your guest appearances. Go to them. One by one, sit in their homes, listen to them, let them cry, let them be angry, but help take some...