January 2008 Archives

Some readers are aware that the Orthodox Church in America, my church, is undergoing a huge scandal now centered on the hierarchy -- especially Metropolitan Herman and his coterie at church headquarters. It involves money, mostly, but also -- it has been alleged -- sexual impropriety of some of the players. The scandal has been going on for quite some time, and the bishops, being bishops, cannot or will not take decisive action to clean out the Augean stables. What is it with bishops, anyway? Anyway, should you care to, you can read all about the scandal at the exhaustive OCANews.org site, which has become an invaluable source of news and commentary on the mess.

I've not made this scandal an issue on this blog because I learned the hard way how easy it is for me to get caught up in this kind of controversy, to my own great spiritual detriment. It's not that I'm holding the OCA to a different standard than the Roman Catholic Church, my former communion, which I devoted an immense amount of time and energy criticizing for its corruption regarding the sex abuse scandal. It's rather that I know that I have to exercise spiritual self-discipline, knowing my own weaknesses. I must say, though, how impressed I am with the laity and some of the clergy of the OCA, who are in open revolt against the hierarchy. Read, for example, this recent thread on OCANews. People aren't willing to sit silently and let the bishops destroy the Church by their dithering, their weakness and inaction (to say nothing of the kind of corruption that led the Diocese of Alaska recently to ordain to minor clerical orders a convicted child molester; did these people learn nothing from the public agony of the Catholic Church in recent years?!). It is interesting, and heartening to me, to see that people aren't demanding changes in church doctrine, or anything like that. They only want the bishops to act like sober Christian men, and reform the church's government.

This is something I never could understand as a Catholic, and that I cannot understand as an Orthodox: why do men who are given the awesome authority of shepherding souls act in this way? Why do they have such a sense of entitlement? Do they even fear God, or believe in Him?

I love my parish in Dallas, and the good people there. I have not troubled to learn about, or even think much, about that national hierarchy and its troubles. I've focused only on my own spiritual life, and the life of my friends in the parish. And I don't regret it. I don't often read OCANews.org, though I'm very glad it's there. Lately, though, the more I hear from trusted laypeople about developments in the scandal, and the hierarchy's response, the sadder it makes me because I have seen the same dynamic play out in the Catholic Church. And it has led straight downhill.

So, I commend to my Orthodox brothers and sisters -- as well as my Catholic friends, and friends in every Christian church -- the insights of Phil Lawler, a very brave and faithful orthodox Catholic journalist, and a friend. Phil has a new book out chronicling the demise of Catholicism in Boston, which Phil, as a Massachusetts Catholic, knows started long before the John Geoghan case in 2002. Here, from "The Faithful Departed," is Phil on what happened to Catholicism in Boston, and why:

The entire massive structure of Catholicism totters along on borrowed time. But the trend is clear. That whole structure will come crashing down, perhaps within the next generation, unless there is some dramatic change. Yet the Church establishment gives no sign of changing, or even seeking to change. Quite the contrary; pastors and bishops alike studiously ignore the handwriting on the wall and pretend to conduct business as usual.

Catholic leaders today have resources that the twelve Apostles could never have imagined. They have undergone years of formal training, honing the skills for thier ministry. They have access to every means of instant communication, including newspapers and electronic media. They control schools at every level, from kindergartens to universities. Their holdings in real estate alone are worth billions of dollars. Their flocks are (by reputation, at least) the most highly educated Catholic lay people in history. Yet the Church they guide is a shambles.

The Apostles were poor, uneducated, provincial. yet their efforts brought the Gospel to every nation on earth. Today in comfortable suburbs, just down the street from the parish church, one can readily find people who, quite literally, have never heard the Gospel.

Phil goes on to catalogue the calamity that has engulfed American Catholicism. Empty seminaries and convents. Catholic families who don't know the faith, and don't much care. And so on. The glory days are behind the Catholic Church, he says -- but there is always hope. The Church began with 12 apostles who had nothing but their faith. To be truly faithful, Phil says, to truly love the Church, is to see her as she is:

I love the Catholic Church. But love for the Church does not mean unquestioning love for every institution within Catholicism, any more than the love for one's spouse would extend to a cancer within the spouse's body.

When Church agencies begin to serve earthly aims, they become truly cancerous. They may grow rapidly and absorb tremendous amounts of energy -- and they steadily drain real spiritual strength away from the Church. And in any case, the accumulation of earthly resources is pointless; that battle is already lost.

The Church as a whole is the Body of Christ, incorruptible. Individual organizations within the Church are very much corruptible, however, and in America today they are very much corrupt. Loving the Church means denouncing the corruption. Denouncing the corruption, in turn, means protecting the inner strength of our Church, clinging jealously to our one, last, infallible hope.

The same corruption that produced the sex-abuse scandal, the greatest crisis in the history of American Catholicism, remains widespread in the Church today. Indeed the corruption is more firmly entrenched now than it was in 2002 because the hierarchy has refused to acknowledge the most serious aspect of the scandal: the treason of the bishops.

Reform cannot begin until the corruption is acknowledged. And since the American hierarchy apparently cannot or will not recognize the corruption with itself, other Catholics must call the bishops to account and demand the sort of responsible pastoral leadership that the American Church has not seen for years. Under these circumstances lay Catholics who criticize their bishops are not showing their disrespect for the bishop's office. Quite the contrary. Those who revere the authority of a Catholic bishops should protect that authority -- if necessary, even from the man who occupies the office.

Amen and amen. This man has thought and investigated more deeply about the crisis in the faith he loves than just about anybody I know. We must listen to him! If the laity and the concerned clergy of the OCA don't stand up and defeat this corruption now, no matter how much the tiny OCA should grow in wealth, numbers and influence in the years to come, it won't mean a thing.

Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal is one of the better liberal columnists writing today. And she just about lost her lunch over the Kennedy Obamafest earlier this week. Excerpt:

JFK was indeed a charismatic figure, but the more we learn about his Camelot in Washington, the less perfect it sounds. (One might start at the 1960 election, which was stolen with an assist by the mob.) Daughter Caroline was adorable, but could someone please explain her cosmic significance today?

The career of dynasty elder, Ted Kennedy, meanwhile, is headed for a disgraceful end. The Massachusetts senator has been caught in a sneaky plot to kill a clean-energy project in Nantucket Sound. Seems he doesn't want to see wind turbines from his waterfront estate. "Don't you realize -- that's where I sail!" he famously said.

The heck with his constituents, who live with some of the foulest coal-burning plants in the country. The heck with the United States, trying to free itself from foreign oil. The heck with the planet, threatened by global warming. Environmentalists now boo at the Kennedy name -- not that many in the media have noticed.

Marcial Maciel, the founder of the conservative religious order the Legion of Christ, has died of natural causes at 87. He had been disciplined by Pope Benedict following multiple accusations of sex abuse from early in his priesthood. He died in disgrace, with the Vatican directing him to retire and withdraw rather than face further investigation and prosecution.

Jason Berry writes about the Maciel case here, and in many other places. Additionally, here is the website of ReGain, an organization of ex-Legionaries and others now highly critical of Maciel and his work. One aspect of the accusations against Maciel that struck me is that his nine accusers were all professionally accomplished laymen at the time they went public. They did not ask for money, and they had a lot to lose by going public as victims of molestation -- especially accusing a very powerful religious leader. Clearly by the time Benedict became pope, the Vatican had been convinced that Maciel was guilty of something.

It's in God's hands now.

UPDATE: I know this is a very sensitive topic, and my views about the Catholic hierarchy and the cover-up of sexual abuse are strong and well-known. I want to underscore, however, that I invite people of all opinions on the matter of Fr. Maciel and the LCs to express themselves here. If you believe Fr. Maciel was treated unjustly, please feel free to say so. And those who disagree, likewise. Let's keep it civil, tho'...

Here's a pretty great interview from ReligionWriter.com, an impressive blog run by Andrea Useem, a religion writer and American convert to Islam. The interview subject is my pal Terry Mattingly. Andrea and Terry talk about the difficulties of reporters writing about Islam in America. Excerpt:

RW: But to go back to the idea of religion “ghosts” being important in all stories, doesn’t that pose a problem? If an editor in Omaha says, “Yes, 9/11 is a story about religion,” and then dispatches a reporter to a local mosque to write a story on Islam and terrorism, then the reporter walks in with a template, looking for a way to connect a local Muslim community with international terrorism.

Mattingly: Of course a lot of Muslims feel attacked; they feel like reporters are constantly asking, “Explain to us why they did this.” At the same time, they feel just as attacked when you ask a factual question, like why were there some Muslims celebrating on 9/11? That’s a “When did you stop beating your wife?” question. But it’s a question that has to be asked.

There is a crisis in American journalism of being able to quote Muslims of different levels of Muslim belief who will critique each other: Reporters just don’t feel they can do it. What’s the journalistic solution? “Let’s call some Muslim experts.” So now a faculty member at Georgetown is explaining what is or isn’t Islam, which to me is almost like a form of cultural imperialism–

RW: But what choice does the journalist have? If a journalist goes into a mosque, and an American Muslim says, “Anybody who commits an act of terrorism is not a Muslim,” the journalist can’t just report that, right? Because the truth is, that American Muslim has no right to “fire” someone from being Muslim, at least no more right than al-Qaeda has to say that American Muslim isn’t Muslim. So the journalists themselves have to make sense of the Muslim world, and the Muslims they are interviewing often can’t do it for them.

Mattingly: You have to report that there is radical disagreement, and there is no central authority. The thing is, Osama believes there is a central authority.

RW: You mean he sees himself as the central authority?

Mattingly: Himself, and a certain body of teaching. If you want to watch the heads of reporters spin, try explaining the differences between Osama and the Saudis. You look at it on the page, and it looks like they are cut from one piece of Wahhabi cloth.

RW: And yet they are bitter enemies, trying to kill each other.

Mattingly: Exactly. So you ask, “Is this Arab tribalism here?” At some point journalists are just going to check out. They want to say, “Someone tell us who the good guys and bad guys are, and let us get on with our jobs.” But there are some religious issues where you simply can’t do that.

This is where I’m frustrated by what shows up in polls of Muslims: the 9/11 conspiracy thing, “we’re not willing to condemn all acts of violence, because some are justified,” and then you ask: “Which ones?” We’re covering an argument in which the participants themselves are almost afraid to take part. Journalists are great at covering arguments, but how do you cover one that is, A. so complex, B. we don’t understand it, and C., the very people taking part in the debate itself as scared to talk?

The American religious market, including me — especially me — is struggling to get up to speed on the factual material of Islam. For us, these are new stories.

Read the whole thing. Really smart questions, really smart answers. The US media want this to be an easy story to cover, to fit its simplistic template. But it's not.

While President Bush talks as if he's going to keep our troops indefinitely in Iraq, and John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, says we'll stay a hundred years if we need to, an independent commission established by Congress has just issued a report saying that the U.S. military is not ready to defend against a catastrophic attack on the homeland. Excerpt:

The commission's 400-page report concludes that the nation "does not have sufficient trained, ready forces available" to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear weapons incident, "an appalling gap that places the nation and its citizens at greater risk."

"Right now we don't have the forces we need, we don't have them trained, we don't have the equipment," commission Chairman Arnold Punaro said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Even though there is a lot going on in this area, we need to do a lot more. ... There's a lot of things in the pipeline, but in the world we live in — you're either ready or you're not."

Clearly these commissioners are traitors. Waterboard them, quick!