The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal (26 page)

A December 2, 2002, ABC news broadcast in Arlington, Virginia, reported the story of a “whistle-blower priest” punished by his diocese for telling the truth.
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In exposing the sexual misconduct of several priests in three northern Virginia parishes, Fr. James R. Haley, the whistle-blower, is now facing unspecified charges that could lead to his defrocking. Arlington Bishop
Paul Loverde is seeking to punish Father Haley for testifying in a deposition about sexual misconduct and corruption in the Arlington diocese. Diocesan officials say that Father Haley violated a priestly order of silence that “was issued in order to avoid scandal, to maintain ecclesiastical discipline and to protect the reputation and privacy of both the faithful and priests of this diocese.” Father Haley is currently on a “voluntary leave” according to the diocese, but a “forced leave of discernment” according to Haley himself. A national conservative Catholic group is rallying to his support, believing Father Haley should be rewarded for his actions rather than punished by Bishop Paul Loverde.

“Father Haley is being punished for exposing corruption,” said Stephen Brady, president of Roman Catholic Faithful. “It’s clear that the church hierarchy in this country is in meltdown. A bishop can do practically anything and remain in good standing. Meanwhile a priest blows the whistle, and he’s persecuted.”
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Even so, we are beginning to see signs of holy disobedience in the priesthood. More ordained voices are breaking the silence they’ve been ordained to keep, regardless of the loss of priestly privilege. And standing firmly behind them are voices like the Roman Catholic faithful in Arlington, who will no longer tolerate the clerical corruption covered up and perpetuated by the bishops. The voices we are hearing today in the Catholic Church sound like the voices of Catholicism being reborn, a resurrection of the Catholic Church, the likes of which we have no idea.

What we are experiencing today in the Catholic Church is both a holy breakthrough and a divine turning point, a breaking
through mountains and centuries of clerical deceit in order to return again to where we began. The voices we hear in Catholicism sound like those of the Jesus Movement, voices that do not seek to destroy one bit of the divine truth of Catholicism, only to fulfill its promise. There is no hatred for the Catholic Church in the dissenting voices I hear. Only a passionate love for Catholicism can be heard in those who hate its abuses, a love so divine that any compromise with evil in the church is not possible. Just as in the Jesus Movement, so, too, do the faithful believe that all crimes and misdemeanors in the priesthood must be openly discredited, brought out into the open, and banished forever.

A new form of Catholicism is beginning to emerge, though not in contradiction to its most sacred teachings and traditions. Quite the contrary. I see no attempt by anyone to dump the sacred truths of Catholicism along with its daily lies. All I see is an unprecedented effort by priestly people to bring back the original vision in a new way. The rebirth of Catholicism I see happening bears all the divine signs of a return to the loving ways and means of the Jesus Movement—to a discipleship of equals, to house churches, to table communities, to leaders who know how to serve, even to ordination (or resignation) by acclamation. Those changes are already happening in Catholicism, and they’ve only just begun.

In revealing how divine the painful parts of life can be, the
I Ching
reveals how unnecessary it to force or hasten any rebirth. By the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit (hidden not absent), everything comes of itself at the appointed time. “After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement but it is not brought about by force…. The movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy.”
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In being given sadness, confusion, anger, and
frustration, the transformation that’s already happening in the Catholic Church is so easy we hardly notice. In one of his “Letters to a Young Poet,” Rilke writes about the sacred sadness that many Catholics know:

You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. And you say that even this passing was difficult and upsetting for you. But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven’t gone right
through
you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed, perhaps somewhere, someplace deep within your being, you have undergone important changes when you were sad….

That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into our innermost chamber and is no longer even there,—is already in our bloodstream. And we don’t know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can’t say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is necessary.
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That explains how the Catholic Church can be transformed and reborn without notice and without one stroke of the papal pen. Rilke explains how full our sadness is of divine intervention, of secret transformational forces at work. The sadness does not come to bind us or paralyze us; it comes to set us free. So much happens that never meets our eye. Behind the scenes, for example, theologians have been preparing the way for decades,
returning to the beginning of Catholicism, returning to the Holy Spirit of truths revealed and not the literal way in which we interpret truth infallibly. In calling us back to the original vision of the early church, we already have a theology built on the Holy Spirit. We have sacred truths and traditions on which to build. And we have a new priesthood rising. The transformation of priesthood in the Catholic Church has begun and is well on its way to gathering the full strength of the Holy Spirit and the full power of a Second Pentecost.

All separatist tendencies are excluded from the new priesthood. With declining male vocations and a refusal to recognize the priesthood of women, a less-priest-centered church is inevitable by demographics alone, as is a less-nun-centered sisterhood. Given a quickly growing priesthood of the people dedicated to service, inclusiveness, and the infallibility of change, accompanied by a sisterhood no longer blindly obedient, the male-only priesthood has already been transformed. There are parishes all over the country in which a transformed priesthood and sisterhood have been serving the church for decades. In the September 3, 2002, issue of
The New Yorker
, Paul Wilkes tells the story of one such parish, and one priest’s battle for a more open and inclusive church. Fr. Walter Cuenin, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton, Massachusetts, had this to say about encouraging vocations to the priesthood:

“This is going to sound a bit off the wall,” he said, “but I’m going to ask you not to pray for vocations. But to pray that the Church will have the strength and the courage to acknowledge the vocations we already have. Exceptional women are waiting to serve. We have married men who would make wonderful priests. We don’t need more vocations—they are already here. Let’s just accept them.”
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Father Cuenin also invited more than one hundred priests to his parish to discuss pastoral concerns about fund-raising for the Boston archdiocese while it is contemplating bankruptcy, and in the wake of newly released documents revealing priests abusing women and nuns (as well as children) and using drugs. The
Boston Globe
reported on December 5, 2002, that Cardinal Bernard Law barred all “archdiocesan-sponsored or archdiocesan-related meetings” from taking place in Father Cuenin’s parish. According to
Globe
staff writer Michael Paulson, the cardinal’s secretary, Rev. Arthur M. Coyle, sent an e-mail to the heads of archdiocesan agencies (but not to Cuenin) which read as follows:

Good Morning, All! Because of some past issues, as well as current issues being addressed, the cardinal announced at a cabinet meeting this morning that until further notice no archdiocesan-sponsored or archdiocesan-related meetings, programs, workshops,
etc.
are to be held on the grounds of Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton.
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While no explanation was offered for this directive, it’s clear that the cardinal is a master of issuing “irrevocable decrees” inspired by the mortal fear of widespread insubordination, one of those voices of “divine authority” that call for nothing but the exercise of personal and communal holy disobedience. It was those same priests who days later called for (and received) the resignation of Cardinal Law—an unprecedented move in the Catholic priesthood, resignation by acclamation.

When we look at parishes like that of Father Cuenin in Newton, and Father Scahill in East Longmeadow, where parishoners are withholding financial support of the Archdiocese of Boston, we see movements of a church already transformed. The transformation of the old priesthood of privilege has already happened at Our Lady Help of Christians and Saint Michaels, regardless of what Cardinal Law did and didn’t do. Not even those at the epicenter of the sex scandals and crimes can stop the rebirth of Catholicism. With all the divine signs of a Second Pentecost, Father Cuenin’s parish has grown by thousands when most parishes in this country have diminished by thousands. The transformation of the old is just that easy. All it took was one good father’s acceptance of the priesthood of the people, with no thought of its cardinal consequences.

The rebirth of Catholicism I see happening will continue to happen with and without the Church Fathers. The true leaders and “men of God” emerging in the ordained priesthood are those priests who stand among us as those who come to serve. And those priests who work fearlessly to cultivate a discipleship of equals are the “men of God” Catholics are listening to and following. Even without any major change of church laws, the Christian community is returning to “ordination by acclamation,” to recognizing as priest those “men of God” who are priestly because of the love and respect they inspire, and to whom position and power mean nothing. Privilege is no longer accepted by the people as part of priesthood.

The inertia, the indifference, and the self-interest that led to the decay of the old priesthood is being replaced by a new commitment to service and the power of a Holy Spirit that reveals that the ending of the corrupt priesthood of privilege will be followed by a glorious new beginning. The transformation of the old is just that easy, and it’s taking place in the midst of the
crimes and scandals. No church laws need to be changed. No new popes or bishops are necessary. The hearts and souls of Catholics are already changed by the power of a Holy Spirit like that of a Second Pentecost, making the transformation of the old so easy that it’s done before we notice. And not over dead priests’ bodies.

Among Catholics long gone or newly gone from parish churches, they, too, have discovered a rebirth of Catholicism. The emergence of house churches and table communities happened thousands of years ago for the early Christians and decades ago for many Catholics, as did an acceptance of the Gospels as their rule of life. In the Holy Spirit of the Jesus Movement, many Catholics exercise their priesthood in small Christian communities. Called upon to witness weddings, bless babies, anoint the sick and dying, and offer forgiveness, many of us are priests in the ways the Church Fathers proclaim infallibly that we can’t be. While we may not be “real priests” in the eyes of the privileged priesthood, we are ordained so by God in baptism and by the people who call us to serve now. Outside of the Catholic Church there already is an active priesthood of Catholic women and men whose priestly service is ordained and accepted as sacramental by those they’re asked to serve.