What's next on McCarrick?

Catholic canon lawyer Ed Peters points out that the Pope is considering invoking canon law and defrock a Paraguayan bishop for being elected to civil office, in flagrant violation of church law.

Very interesting. If Benedict goes through with this unusual move -- which, let's be clear, involves not only removing Bp Lugo from office, but from the clerical state entirely -- what does this say about the argument often made by my friend Mark Shea to the effect that bishops exist in some special mystical state that the Pope shouldn't threaten by merely removing them from office when they've failed spectacularly as shepherds? Is what, say, the former Bishop Thomas Dupre of Springfield, Mass., got up to that minor in comparison to Bishop Lugo's running for office in Paraguay?

Don't get me wrong: it sounds absolutely right to me that Benedict would can Bp Lugo for what he did. But then, I don't have to explain why it's right of the Pope to take this action, but it is wrong to say that he should have moved similarly against American bishops who shuffled around child molester priests. (N.B., I don't know anybody who argued that these bishops should lose their priesthood, only their offices).

Ed Peters goes on to say that the same canon law at issue in the Lugo case stands to be at issue in a potential McCarrick case. He adds:

I know next to nothing about Sipe, but his statement leaves little room for nuance: "I know the names of at least four priests who have had sexual encounters with Cardinal McCarrick. I have documents and letters that record the first hand testimony and eye witness accounts of McCarrick, then archbishop of Newark, New Jersey actually having sex with a priest, and at other times subjecting a priest to unwanted sexual advances."

The same Canon 1405 I referenced above reserves solely to the Roman Pontiff the right to judge all cases involving cardinals and, in penal matters, bishops. Under either heading, let alone both, the only person authorized to investigate, and if warranted judge, Sipes' allegations, is the pope. No ecclesiastical authority may move on this matter without the consent of the Roman Pontiff.

I do think, however, that in conscience, (though not by canon law given the abrogation of 1917 CIC 1935.2), Sipe is bound to send to the Holy See all the information he has about these matters, and not wait to be asked for it.

Agreed on that last bit. Sipe has boldly spoken out here, and claims written evidence that no journalist to my knowledge possesses. He should make it public, or at least get it to the competent authorities at the Holy See right away.

UPDATE: Mark Shea lays out our usual argument in detail here. Excerpt:

Dreher began his quarrel with the papacy on this matter when, as he famously said, the pope "let us down" by not dismissing a bunch of bishops "with the stroke of a pen." Life for Dreher since then has constituted the never-ending encounter with the fact that this entire perception of what the pope could or would do was wholly unrealistic.

As I've argued repeatedly, anybody who has read and internalized Ut Unum Sint could not be surprised when the pope with the most Eastern conception of the papacy in a thousand years did not regard it as his role to micromanage the American Church. Likewise, John Paul II's successor, Benedict, for all his fury at the Scandal (and it is real fury, not feigned for the cameras) is also constrained by the fact that, at the end of the day, he is bound to his commitment to regard himself as first among equals, not as The Guy Ordained by God to Tell All the Other Bishops to Obey Him or Hit The Road. His mission is to strengthen the brethren, not lay about him with mace and cudgel. Both his office and his personality are wholly arrayed against this highly American desire to "fix" everything with a cathartic gust of rage.

Well, again, would Benedict be out of line to "fix" the Lugo problem by laicizing him? Or if the pope does pull the trigger on Lugo (as John Paul pulled a somewhat different trigger on Bp Gaillot), will Mark find a reason to praise it as an act of genius?

I understand why the Pope's requesting the mass resignations of the worst US bishops regarding their handling the scandal could be imprudent. But not a single one?

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

As the supreme governor of the Church the pope has authority over all appointments to its public offices. Thus

it is his to nominate to bishoprics, or, where the nomination has been conceded to others, to give confirmation. Further, he alone can translate bishops from one see to another, can accept their resignation, and can, where grave cause exists, sentence to deprivation. [I.e., depose him. -- RD]

The Pope has the power to reassign bishops -- that's what John Paul did to the troublesome Bp Gaillot, moving him to a titular see to get him out of his diocese -- or, under grave conditions, to remove a bishop from the clerical state entirely. The question is not "can the Pope do this," but "should he do this?" It is certainly possible for honest people to disagree, but let's not pretend that it's not his role to take strong measures to govern the Church when bishops get way out of line. If the pontiff moves against Bp Lugo (who is leaving Benedict little choice in the matter, frankly), but not lift a finger against a single American bishop, no matter how outrageous his conduct in the abuse scandal, that will send a message about priorities.

I was having lunch with an Episcopalian friend today, and we were talking about the number of Episcopalians leaving for Rome. I told him that I would never discourage any TEC communicant from becoming Roman -- in fact, I would in most cases encourage them -- but I would warn them that it's really a mistake to think you're going to get away from the problems of TEC by swimming the Tiber. The same problems exist in the American Catholic Church, but they manifest themselves differently owing to ecclesiology. The big mistake many distressed Episcopalians make is assuming that because Rome has a far stronger basis of doctrinal authority, that that makes a difference in actual parish and diocesan life. Authority doesn't mean much if it isn't used. You can appeal to the Catechism all you want, but it's not worth much when the fellow Catholics you're debating with don't recognize it as an authoritative guide to moral and theological questions. When authority is not exercised, it withers from disuse.

Mark again:

Moreover, the crowning paradox of Dreher's position is that, having left the Catholic Church for Eastern Orthodoxy in large part because of the Scandal, he is now in communion with bishops who would take it very ill if the pope were to do what Dreher so much wants him to do. It's one of the most puzzling aspects of Dreher's position and I hope that one of these days he will articulate how he can simultaneously hold an Orthodox ecclesiology and still want Benedict (or any pope) to act like Innocent III. I honestly don't get it.

This is easy. For one thing, I don't know the precise canons here, but I am reasonably certain that the Orthodox have a procedure for deposing a bishop. For another, if Orthodoxy invested the same kind of power in a Metropolitan that Roman Catholicism does in the Pontiff, and the Pontiff tolerated the kinds of awful things from certain bishops that John Paul and Benedict (till now) have tolerated, I would be distressed. I would find it weird if Mark was perturbed that an Orthodox synod didn't govern like its analogous body in Catholicism. What Mark is asking is along the lines of why I can believe that the laws of the United States are valid, but be distressed that the government of France won't enforce the laws of France. It's not a paradox, it's a non sequitur.

Hey, how about this: it turns out that the (troubled, conflicted, irresolute, usually dithering) Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, my own communion, has just effectively removed the screwball Bishop of Alaska, whose destructive and imperious leadership style was demoralizing the faithful, and who badly handled a sexual scandal. As the late Archpriest Alexander Schmemann points out here, it's a mistake to consider the office of the bishop as something formalistic, set apart from the character of his leadership. In other words, the episcopal office is a divinely ordained means to an end, not an end in itself. Fr. Schmemann writes that to rest in the fact that the bishop was validly consecrated, and that should be the end of the question about whether he's fulfilling his duties as a bishop, "makes the Church cynical about and indifferent to, considerations of truth and morals." Excerpt after the jump.