The cost of the Catholic scandal

Rod, you have hit upon a MAJOR problem in the Catholic Church today. This has been a big frustration for me.

- I was on the school board of a Catholic elementary school, and I fought tooth and nail against a "protecting our children" program that put all the responsibility for protection on the children, and introduced concepts to very young children that was very inappropriate.

- Our vocations committee consists of families, and we recently were told that we could not meet in the parish unless every adult who came had been fingerprinted and their background checked! This is because "children and adults" would be in contact with each other. Note, every kid there is with a parent, and never is any kid outside of their own parent's line of sight.

- The confirmation retreats a neighboring parish hold includes a session on how to "resist" a predator. The teens are supposed to act this out in front of all the other kids!

The truth is, I would endure inconveniences if I believed that anyone in authority in the Church was serious about actually solving the problem. But the bishops' absolute refusal to bring clerical homosexuality into the discussion, their lawyer-written responses to every situation, and their distrust of parents proves to me that they don't really care. So why should I jump through their hoops because they assume I am the problem?

Avoidance is the only reasonable remedy at this point, and it doesn't even solve the problem. It is the same reason the 'big' slide was taken off all the playgrounds. Working by common sense is running about $1 million a pop on average. Insanity is much cheaper by comparison.

This isn't about homosexuality or homosexual clergy, it is about power and trust, many would argue.

Why does it have to be an either/or proposition?

The Scandal is mainly about hierarchical power abused and trust betrayed in order to protect or hide the predilection of certain clerics for making homosexual advances on boys and young men.

Acknowledging that reality doesn't amount to "blaming the gays" for the Scandal at all. But refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the living room gets us nowhere near resolution of the problem.

Where I live Catholic churches are sometimes used as concert halls for musical performances. Tickets are sold for these performances just as in theaters. The church makes money from renting out the building. One convent school in an elegant mansion rents out space for private parties. The religious order which owns the place pulls in funds to maintain itself. How does the insurance work while the events are in progress? If the violinist rapes the harpist, does she sue the church or the musical company? If one waiter seduces another in the kitchen of the convent, does the religious order get sued or is it the private party who hired the mansion who gets sued? If someone falls down the stairs or the building goes up in flames, that might be the insurance responsiblity of the real estate owner.

What I am suggesting if it can be worked out with the insurance companies is that Catholic laity who want to have a parish life form their own organizations which rent church properties and carry their own insurance for whatever happens at their meetings and activities due to the sexual misbehavior of those at the meetings or activities. Let the clergy stick with Mass and ministering the sacraments and handle liability only for what goes amiss during the times and in the places where the services are being performed.

Maybe it's time that the only thing that the ordained should be doing is what only the ordained can do--Mass and the sacraments. Let the laity who want parish life rent the real estate from the clergy as needed to do their parish life activities and carry their own insurance for the duration of the activities.

"Unfortunately, I sort of view this as a bit like air travel after 9/11. We'll never be able to be as casual and easy about who we let get on planes again, well probably at least not in my lifetime. Similarly, we're never going to be able to be as trusting again of the priests and lay ministers whose ministry requires interactions with children. Sad, but this is the new world we live in.

Posted by: Jim | November 15, 2007 4:12 PM"

Jim speaks to a reality now no longer confined to the Catholic Church. Lutheran friends have commented matter-of-factly about regular church members, parents known to all who take their families to church, now being routinely subject to a full background check before being authorized to supervise or chaperon any event involving minors, something that never occurred previously.

What might have been seen as only a most rare and bizarre aberration swiftly and surely cauterized, like the year that rabid dog was spotted on Main Street and promptly shot, now can only be perceived as an ongoing existential opportunity.

I obviously don't want to work today.

Another thought coming to mind, along the lines of "what to do".

I am struck that if I use my airline analogy, what makes those security checks at airports bearable are the efforts of the people who inject a bit of good will into the process. I think about the baggage checker who was really putting a lot of energy into being upbeat, engaging with the people as they came through, playing off the good-natured kidding coming from passengers, all the while still being firm and thorough. I have felt a responsibility to cheerfully submit to the process, make my little quips to my travelers about the arguments in favor of nude air flights, etc. etc. We can either all be miserable thru this process, or we can try to lift each other up.

There is a grieving process that would not hurt were it made a bit more public. Why not have the pastors speaking to the pulpit about what's been lost here but at the same time letting it be known that the pastor is determined to do all in his power to prevent abuse. If we all enter into this feeling like its something we have to do grudgingly because of those .... insert favorite blame target here .... well, yes it's just going to feel lousy and miserable. If we enter into this affirming NOT IN OUR PARISH SO HELP US GOD, I have to think the experience will be different.

I'm going to feel cynical if I think the leadership of the church is simply doing this to head off lawsuits. I'm going to be inspired if there's some sincere passion to actually stop the abuse.

One of the most powerful moments we've had at church was 2003's washing of the feet. The priest took the opportunity to express how humbling it was to act as Jesus at that point given what was going on across the country, and how terrible the priests felt about the children that were abused and would seek to be better servants.

There is so much misinformation. Priests are not a higher risk class than any lay associate. The sad truth is the best way to protect your children from sexual abuse is to keep them away from family members.

Jim- I really don't mean to impugn priests. When I was a kid in New York, back in the Sixties and early Seventies, my friends and I had a lot of friends in the clergy. It was normal for priests to throw a football around the schoolyard with us or to play roller hockey with us.

I have good memories of those days, and unfortunately, scandal taints those memories. How badly? Well, let's put it this way: a few years ago, I heard that my favorite priest from those days had left the Catholic Church to get married. I SHOULD have been saddened that the Church lost a good man, but you know what? I was RELIEVED! Knowing that he was a normal, heterosexual male who wanted to marry a woman and have a family of his own made me feel BETTER! If he hadn't, I'd now be wondering in the back of my mind, "Why was he always hanging out with boys like me? Was he up to something?"

I still believe (or want to believe) that most priests are decent men. And thus far, I've never known first-hand of any scandal.

But the fact remains, the priesthood is where you find the sex scandals in the Church, which means THAT'S where the education and crackdowns need to take place. If there's an insider trading scandal in corporate boardrooms, you don't combat that by making the secretaries and janitors take ethics courses! You go after the people who are really the problem!

"Knowing that he was a normal, heterosexual male who wanted to marry a woman and have a family of his own made me feel BETTER! If he hadn't, I'd now be wondering in the back of my mind, "Why was he always hanging out with boys like me? Was he up to something?""

But here's the problem. There's no guarantee someone like this wasn't a predator. By assuming it's only the gay priests or the effeminate priests or the creepy priests, we fail to understand the gravity of what happened. Normal, heterosexual males who want to marry a woman and have a family can also be predators who seek out sex with boys and young men. As long as the laity is under the delusion that it is only gay men or "funny" men who become predator priests, we are in deep, deep trouble.

My husband and I had to take a "Keeping Children Safe" class in our diocese, just to sing in the parish choir. There is exactly one child in the choir who doesn't have a parent actually in the choir; the handful of others, including ours, have at least one parent in constant attendance.

As overcautious as that seems, the real issue for me, during the presentation, is how bizarre some of the requirements are at the parish level. I know of a homeschool group where all the parents had to take the class just to meet on parish property--and it didn't matter at all that this was a group solely consisting of parents and their own children, where parents are supervising and directing their own children's activities during the entire meeting! And that's not even as bad as the people who had to take this three-hour class in order to be *allowed* to drop off snacks to the religious education classes--you're quickly going to see a complete disappearance of people willing to volunteer for these kinds of things. I keep thinking: yes, but it wasn't cookie ladies or elderly EMHCs or middle-aged female religious ed. teachers who were doing all the abusing, now, was it?

And that, primarily, is what troubles me about all of this. I get that pedophiles can be anybody; I get that molesters seek opportunities wherever there are children. But these classes at the diocesan level seem to go out of their way to set up a view of the problem that refuses to acknowledge that for the Catholic church, this situation arose because priests committed acts of terrible betrayal against the innocent--and that NO ONE in authority took the problem seriously FOR FAR TOO LONG. Frankly, there's still an aura of "pretending this was never our fault" about some of these efforts, as if the Scandal was really the fault of incautious parents who selfishly let their kids get involved with weak priests, thus causing the Church a whole lot of unfair and messy trouble.

That said, I do know several people in the Church who are taking things quite seriously and not dodging responsibility; but one gets the unfortunate sense that they are doing so in spite of, not in communion with, their brother bishops.

It sounds like many parishes are in need of some common sense solutions. Like....adults aren't permitted to be alone with children who aren't their own. Children should know that they aren't to be alone with an adult who isn't their parent. A group of teens next to a group of kids isn't a problem. In general, groups aren't a problem. Adults should protect themselves by not putting themselves in positions where they are alone with children.

I wouldn't trust a child of mine to be alone with any adult males-homosexual or heterosexual. I can't think of many instances where it would be necessary.

In many ways, a boy is more at risk for pedophilia abuse because of the stigma attached to it. The boys and parents are more likely to keep quiet because of shame.

The Catholic Church was a haven for abusers because the boys didn't want to talk and the Church didn't want to talk. Everyone behaved exactly as the pedophiles expected and as they were probably counting upon when they entered the seminary.

This talk of homosexuality is a smokescreen. My kids have an uncle who's homosexual and three who are heterosexual. I would exercise the same caution with all of them.

I keep thinking: yes, but it wasn't cookie ladies or elderly EMHCs or middle-aged female religious ed. teachers who were doing all the abusing, now, was it?

And that, primarily, is what troubles me about all of this. I get that pedophiles can be anybody; I get that molesters seek opportunities wherever there are children. But these classes at the diocesan level seem to go out of their way to set up a view of the problem that refuses to acknowledge that for the Catholic church, this situation arose because priests committed acts of terrible betrayal against the innocent--and that NO ONE in authority took the problem seriously FOR FAR TOO LONG.

I'd have to agree with that. It's like, well, the problem was really over HERE (predator priests), but we'll take precautions over THERE (the cookie ladies). Then it will all be OK, right? You used the word "denial" and I think you got that just right. Also insulting to the cookie ladies, who know very well, just as we all do, what the real problem was, but who are being made to jump through hoops.....is this more cover-up? That's what it feels like.

That said, no priest in his senses should ever be alone with any child at this point. I think watsy's right, I think groups are protective. Also, that we seem to have cast aside common sense in many of these cases. (!!)

Alas, it will take many years before trust can be restored in the Church, and the current crop of lawyer and insurance company inspired programs will do no good, and probably a lot of harm.

The Boy Scouts had problems with pederasts infiltrating the scouts; the Scouts were able to deal with it by blacklisting accused predators. But for decades the Church allowed predators to have access to children. Father Gerald Fitzgerald, the founder of the Servants of the Paraclete, an order that treats priests with psychological problems, in 1964 wrote to a bishop in the Vatican that younger priests were abusers, and that in “some seminaries” mutual masturbation was an accepted practice, and he could not convince the priest-abusers that it was wrong. Obviously the Church is not willing to admit how extensive this practice was among clergy; but some priests took it out into parishes and practiced it with adolescent boys.

Have things changed in the seminaries? The Church hid the truth in the 1960s, and I have little confidence that the hierarchy is telling the truth now. Too many bishops or their friends are compromised.

Until priests at the minimum manifest an outward austerity and seriousness of life that gives the laity a confidence that they are also maintaining celibacy, the laity should not trust their children with the clergy.

The three worst cases in Boston were James Porter (125+ victims, wife and 4 kids after leaving priesthood), John Geoghan (130+ victims, unclear that he ever had any expressed sexual orientation toward adults), and Paul Shanley (unknown number of victims, openly gay). It's unclear how any sweeping generalizations on the subject can be useful.

The Orthodox Church has, in my opinion, a much more sensible attitude on this point. Yes, there are monks, called to celibacy. Also bishops are supposed to be celibate. But the normal ordinary parish priest can be married and usually is.

Note, however, that the normal, ordinary parish priest in Orthodoxy historically had no role as anyone's "spiritual father," and in the old countries typically didn't even receive seminary education. Celibate monks play a far more prominent role in Orthodoxy than they do in the West, whereas the married parish priest was more likely to be just the village blacksmith, trained to celebrate the Divine Liturgy.

The Orthodox (and Eastern Catholic) discipline has real advantages. But by reserving spiritual leadership and the fullness of the priesthood (i.e., the office of bishop) to celibates, it acknowledges the traditional Christian view that celibacy as a calling is superior to marriage.

I suppose an answer (iI would be surprised if it passed muster) is to adopt the "let the sunshine in" approach. Could the bishops accept much more lay oversight/supervision in administrative and personnel affairs, while retaining their theological/doctrinal responsibilities?

We need good managers/executives and we need good spiritual leaders. Must both come strictly from the clergy?

my own prediliction on the celibacy question is that it will be resolved once people back away from it for a while and let the ideological poison surrounding the issue seep out.

Some years ago, I recall reading a piece (an editorial of some sorts) in St. Vladimir's (Orthodox) Theological Quarterly, supporting Pope John Paul II's firmness on preserving mandatory clerical celibacy. The Orthodox authors noted that, while of course they regarded the Eastern discipline as superior and more authentically apostolic, they recognized that the demands to change the Western discipline have their roots in essentially secular and even anti-Christian ideas about Christ and the Church.

Human beings belong to either of two sexes. Only words have "gender."

Rod, this problem years ago darn near led to a parishioners' revolt in the Arlington, VA Diocese. The Diocese told parents concerned with homosexual predation by priests that, in the big picture view, priests abuse less children than the parents and their friends. That irrelevant truism went over like a lead balloon, and then the Diocese poured oil on the fire by using crude bureaucratic tactics to force the terrible and costly Good Touch Bad Touch program on the parents who had already rejected it. To make a long story short, the bishop backed down.

My GUESS is that many bishops are so embarrassed by their failure to protect children from homosexual priests that they have become not merely overly defensive, but actually hostile to (in their minds) finger-pointing parishioners--"we'll show them what we clerics now have to go through; let's see how they like it."

Parishioners already know that anybody can abuse a child and that most homosexuals don't. They don't need to be forced to watch propaganda films and listen to lectures about how bad relatives and their friends are. Nor do they need to see their children taught to recoil in horror when Daddy wants a hug.

As for The Voice of the Faithful crowd, they are anything but faithful. They are the people who, like Catholics For A Free Choice, use the current unrest to lobby for a system that makes Rome an irrelevancy, so they can pick their own bishops in order to reshape the RC Church into the American Catholic church, especially the "welcoming and affirming" of homosexuality, complete with married priests and priestesses. BTW, I'm told that, per capita, more Anglican priests--who always have been free to marry--die of Aids than RC priests. What does that tell you (Susan)?

But Susan nailed it in another respect: "It's like, well, the problem was really over HERE (predator priests), but we'll take precautions over THERE (the cookie ladies). Then it will all be OK, right?"

There is no quick fix, but we will overcome.

I read the First Things article and I tend to agree with Patricia Snow and Fr. Neuhaus on this issue. This all will settle out in time, however.

As Patricia Snow writes "According to the John Jay report, sexual abuse in the Church peaked in the 1970s and declined dramatically afterward, giving these programs the look of an expensive inoculation campaign both directed at the wrong population and undertaken after the disease has run its course. The only sure effect of the remedy, and of the climate of fear and defensiveness that produced it, is a widespread diminishment of parish life."

Regrettable this reaction is not completely unique to the Catholic Church, as my brothers Presbyterian church congregation has to do much screening of people before any exposure to children and youth. Forced to do this by insurance company.

Maybe the Vatican can ultimately step in and fix a lot of this paranoia and restore "balance and justice" as it did in the case of the Dallas archdiocese stripping priests of due process, as Ms. Snow writes. The Vatican does not tend to try to micromanage things, which is good; but there may come a time when some such action is needed.

Pediphiles and pederests are not running wild in ANY church, period. They do exist and will always exist so there will always be some risks, but life for all of us is full of risks.

In Christ

I am confounded why this much drama waited until 2002 and not much earlier.

Two things made that happen:

1. The judge in the Geoghan case in Boston broke with tradition, which protected the church from embarrassment, and instead made public documents from the trial. It became impossible for anybody to give the Archdiocese the benefit of the doubt. The documents were there in black and white, and they were absolutely, incontrovertibly damning.

2. The Internet. You could read the Boston Globe online. Reporters sitting in newsrooms all over the country saw what was happening in Boston, and wondered if it was happening where they lived too. Victims who had been silenced saw what was happening in Boston, and found their voice. Ordinary Catholics of the left, right and middle used the Internet to speak out (I recall that Amy Welborn's website and Mark Shea's website became water coolers in 2002 for many orthodox Catholics to trade news and discuss what it all meant). The Internet instantly and near-universally distributed information that never would have gotten out otherwise, because of a lack of interest by the local media, suppression by the diocesan press, etc. National Catholic Reporter and other Catholic niche publications would have written about it, but the news would have been late, and only narrowly disseminated. The Geoghan case was by no means the first big priest abuse case to hit the papers, but it was the first one in the age of the Internet.

Rod: The Internet. You could read the Boston Globe online.

Absolutely true. The internet is the real story here.

Reporters sitting in newsrooms all over the country saw what was happening in Boston

Yes, but looking at the age of the story when it was first covered (it was fading, and most cases were year ago), the primary issue for reporters after the plain jane reporting was gleefully pounding on the Catholic Church in ways that before would have been considered in poor taste. Not just reporting the facts, but relentless day-in-day-out stuff, without any balance regarding comparison to other institutions, the age of the cases, etc.

Other reporters saw that the public was now ok with this sort of lynch mob mentality (like the Bill O'Reilly method of ripping your enemies) and it wouldn't cost any advertising money as much of the laity was as keen on kicking the Church as the reporters. So it became a free-for-all. Bottom line: the liberal Globe simply enjoyed what they were doing, and hundreds of other reporters (not known for their religious balance) wanted to get in on the fun.

This is why we didn't see other hotbeds of abuse stories (the schools, for example) jumped on next. Reporters are personally connected to those institutions. They wouldn't protect them, but have no motive to attach them either.

On another note: I believe the institution of the Church in America is pretty much doomed. It looks nothing like it used to even before "the scandal" (thank you media for that monicker), and the real problem that leads to all others is division among the laity. It destroys community. Even the old Catholic school is in decline. We are not one people anymore.

I know most folk I hang with don't get involved in parish activities anymore - why bother? The typical member doesn't share our values (or even the values of traditional Christianity). I have no hard feelings, but why pretend we are a community? The institution is way more trouble than it is worth for everyone, and we simply use it for the sacraments. It's so much nicer to meet off parish grounds for everything but mass and avoid the mess. Besides, I think our crowd has about half the kids in the entire entire parish anyway, so what are we missing?

I think the average Catholic is in flat-out denial about this decline of the institution. It's over, folk. Something like a BEC (basic ecclesial community) is the best organizational structure in modern times (this is used in other places). Groups of people less than 150 (say 10 large families or 30 small ones) hang out together. They go to mass with other BECs but maintain individual communities and have sort of a "long house" they school and meet in. They would usually live near each other. I think this is the future, and the 1950's parish is the past.

Our parish "administrator" costs more than our priest. So the parish is not even cost-effective. It's time to downsize and rebuild community from the ground up - IMO, this is our generation's calling.

M_David,

I'm afraid I don't get your gloominess. All trends I see in the Catholic Church (well, at least my diocese) are towards a return to the sort of values I interpret you as having.

No offense, but there's God's work to be done isn't there? Maybe your voice and presence is really needed where it is, and your spiritual challenge is to renew yourself, to reengage. Maybe you are being challenged to find something redeemable in those people that don't seem to share your values.

There is an element of this "let's go off and build our own small community of like-minded folk" that is a bit, well, monastic in terms of getting away from the world. But there's that business of being the light of the world :-)

I mean, who the heck am I to say this -- I don't know you and I sure as hell am not going to pretend to know God's will. Just putting it out there.

Believe me, coming from an opposite place than you on one little matter and making a choice to worship where many might be just as happy to see me gone, I am sympathetic to discomfort of feeling "separated" from many of my congregation. I continue to put my hope in the belief that I am better being a bit uncomfortable and trying to remain part of the Body vs. letting my fear and laziness keep me away.

I think some of the points being made is the attempt, still, to diffuse the blame. Namely, saying 'anyone, anywhere' is a dodge to avoid admitting, 'No.. US, and HERE.'

Susan/Jim/Jeremy,

Interesting comments. A couple of points:

1) I guess I don't see myself as "gloomy." I have a lot of hope for a post-institutional parish, and I can't help but see the hand of God in the whole situation.

2) The parish model works well in small, tight-knit communities. But in secular and materialist American suburbs and cities, it's terrible. I repeat: Catholics are simply not one people. Wishing it won't make it so. Look at polls - no matter what the issue, Catholics really don't have anything in common. Not even doctrine. If we put the intelligence and energy into organizing our parish life that we put into making money, we would fix this ASAP. But everyone is just treading water, and living in the past, and pretending while Rome burns.

3) This line from the article says it all: Driving home, I was more discouraged than I have ever been since becoming a Catholic, even more discouraged than by the abuse crisis itself. How did it happen, I wondered again, that a specific problem demanded such a global solution? When reading this, I'm like, are we in the same AmChurch? I been having these thoughts since I was wearing pajamas without feet in them.

She asks how? Well, when the institution becomes so large people no longer know each other, and it has so many assets that it needs to buy fat insurance, and people spend more time doing paperwork and going to meetings than in worship, prayer, and doing good works...well...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see problems ahead.

I repeat: the entire parish model is wrong for our modern, individualistic culture. We need smaller communities (always under 150 people) and we need to break them up if they get larger. People should feel at home, around people they trust and know. We aren't numbers, but real people with real social needs. The Church would then find robust growth, have strong spirituality, and grow vocations like wildfire. We have ignored the concept of subsidarity in our own communities, and the price is that everything is centralized and institutionalized. Only when we fix this will we have the energy and resources to reach out to the rest of the world with missions and outreach. There is no cheap grace, no easy way out here. Christ's Church must be built from the ground up, one person at a time. A 400 family parish in a secular culture? We deserve a lightning bolt from heaven just for the arrogance.

"Likewise, and anyone can come in here and correct me, but the proportion of same sex abusers is vastly outweighed in proportion to the presence of those with same sex attractions in the general population."

This has some studies on the subject and would seem to suggest that's wrong. Mind you, this article deals the abuse of children and pedophlia, not 17-year olds and "abuses of power" or whatever:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_chil.htm

Folks;

Yes, we no longer has the settled communities we once did and that plus the breakdown of the family are important roots of the issue. Priests and bishops do not parachute in from heaven, they grow up with with the rest of us. M_Divid has some points here. We are no longer an immigrant Church, and I certainly think that most if not may of the people of the 19th and early 20th century church have gone to their true reward if if their understanding and sophistication is not to modern standards.

And due to modern transiency there is SOME justification for the child protection programs that can suspect everyone, not just priests.

When I see someone writes "the Archdiocese ignored....", I ask WHO is the Archdiocese? The question should have been "What bureaucrat or what shoe clerk ignored....". Maybe there was no system or dedicated procedure to deal or respond, but I doubt it.

Concerning the priesthood, one of the problems was how the priests and seminarians viewed or defined themselves. In the past 40-50 years most thought of themselves firstly as "wounded healers" via Henri Nouwen; and because the first word was "wounded" they tended to give themselves too many dammed passes too damned fast. Susan hates and lothes the description "Alter Cristus" but it is not so important how she defines the priesthood as how the priests define the priestshood and their identity. "Alter Christus" has to be first, "wounded healer" can be second.

Peace

Cleveland,

How can a group of less than 150 people provide a hall for kids' basketball; Cub/Boy/Girl Scout activities; a field for varsity football and baseball; coaches for same; church buildings; etc.?

Different BECs would share the same buildings. That's like asking how we can have a public library or rec center for the whole town.

I would also note that many institutional activities we can't live without today would go away naturally once we had real communities to replace them. IOW, Scouts are really just an institutional replacement for real community. And sports; how come adults don't play them as well? If we were all a tight community, we would all play sports and do activities together, not just the kids. Age segregation is the first thing we see with institutionalization, and then the slow death of the community.

How would authentic Catholics keep the hundreds of small communities from becoming Socialist and/or homosexual cells, with their own "clergy" and weird "Masses" in an effort to infest and change the Church from within?

I've heard this line of reasoning before, and while the concern is real...isn't it happening right now? In spades?

The weeds and wheat will always be with us. Sin isn't going away. But there is no reason why a priest cannot monitor and guide each group (he will see them once a week). If they go batty, they will merely become protestant and we cut 'em loose. It happens all the time already (go look up and down your street at all the different flavors out there).

The tighter we squeeze for control, the faster the people slip through our fingers. In the end, we have to cut people loose to come willingly or leave. We can't force them to believe. It would be a good thing to allow people to work out (and expose) their errors. The Church itself will never change, and would simply disband/cut off anyone who is going off the deep end. Truth be told, we need a smaller, stronger, more unified Church.

One final note: we are, as the article points out, beginning to dread "fear of what might happen" more than the problems themselves that we need to fix. I see the current situtation like a toothache - we really need to drill, and it's gonna hurt, but the future is bright unless we lack the guts to fix it. But in the end, it is going to hurt so bad we are going to do it. Natural law dictates the rule of 150, and God wants it that way. The only question is how long we are going to cling to the broken model.

"Truth be told, we need a smaller, stronger, more unified Church." M_David

I agree, but the way to get it is a strong, unified parish, in love with Catholic doctrine, with economies of scale. What you propose is absolutely the wrong way to go because it invites splintered theology, practices and liturgies. Jealousies and inter-group rivalries would develop sure as God made little green apples. And the dissident Catholics would take them over. I'm sorry M_David, but the benefits of BECs as a planned alternative to a strong parish life escape me.

My own parish grew from almost nothing 10 years ago to what we have today: a large, magnificent, traditional church with a school, playgrounds, a parish center, book store, etc. Parish life is as vibrant as I've ever seen it anywhere; more than it was in my ethnic parish of happy memories. We have a group for every activity I could ever want, and we provide a lot of money for other parishes.

"Natural law dictates the rule of 150, and God wants it that way. The only question is how long we are going to cling to the broken model."
M_David

No offense intended, my friend, but that is pure nonsense. It's not Roman Catholic thought.
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"So if we loose all the money and we don't have football fields any more, is that so terrible, if we thereby are also able to build the spiritual communities Don describes so beautifully?" Susan

That, Susan is a non sequitur. We can have both, and money will be found and kept away from the blood suc....Strike that. The new Church civil structure will be separate legal entities for parishes and high schools, more in keeping with Church law anyway. The corporation-sole model, which makes plaintiffs' attorneys drool on their double windsors, will by and large be a thing of the past. See the Archdiocese of Portland, Ore.

"It's too simple to blame insurance companies, or plaintiff's lawyers, for this state of affairs."

A clue, from a lawyer, on how to deal with this. If you ask a lawyer "CAN I do this?" (whatever "this" may be), she will almost always say no, because educated paranoia is what you are paying her the big bucks for. But if you ask "HOW can I do this?" you will get a useful answer.

M_David and Cleveland;

Well I think we may have a bit of both of what you two are argueing about. A mega-parish with many sub-groups, or a big pyramid with many small spheres inside it.

M_David puts the accent on the small spheres and he has a point. These communities or spheres do not have to compete with each other but should all be trying to bring something to the table.

Per Marian: If you ask a lawyer "CAN I do this?" (whatever "this" may be), she will almost always say no, because educated paranoia is what you are paying her the big bucks for. But if you ask "HOW can I do this?" you will get a useful answer.

Marian, it took years for me to learn that golden bit of truth. I learned another: Never invite an even number of attorneys to a meeting where decisions have to be made because their advice will be evenly split

Can anybody see Susan; is she smiling at least a little?.