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Sensational Headlines Continue: Catholic
Church Flounders
by Eileen Flynn |
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The shocking news that imprisoned former priest John Geoghan
was killed by another inmate was a wake-up call to the
Catholic bishops of the United States. What could be angrier,
more vicious, or express outrage more forcefully than the act
of killing a notorious prisoner convicted of the sexual
molestation of a minor? In Geoghan's case, the number of
people who accused him of abuse was approximately 150; his
actual conviction was for one count of sexual abuse of a
ten-year-old boy. At the time of his death, two other cases
against him were pending, and his conviction was on appeal.
John Geoghan was buried on August 28, 2003. Much as they want
to lay the dreadful sexual abuse scandal to rest, the Catholic
bishops of the United States have more daunting work to do
before they will realize this objective.
By all indications, the bishops are trying to distance
themselves from the sordid crisis that has enveloped the
church for the past twenty months. Every time they think they
might be in the clear, something terrible happens. Remember
the June headlines about Bishop Thomas O'Brien of Phoenix and
his involvement in a deadly hit and run? Or the resignation of
outspoken Governor Frank Keating as head of the National
Review Board after a concerted effort by Cardinal Roger
Mahoney and other bishops to undermine Keating’s leadership of
the lay panel charged with enforcing the bishops’ own
policies? As much as the bishops want the headlines to go
away, they continue to haunt them.
Could these haunting headlines carry any trace of a silver
lining? Maybe, just maybe. The intensity and harrowing nature
of the stories provide a reminder of how pervasive is the
disgust of Catholics and all people over the misconduct of
priests and the equivocating of bishops. There is a strong
conservative faction in the Catholic Church that is trying to
minimize what has happened, blame the media for sensational
coverage, and purge gay priests. This faction wants to avoid
the full complexity of the scandal and promote its own
homophobic agenda. If the bishops go the route the
conservatives are mapping out, we will never get beyond the
sleaze in which the barque of Peter is sinking.
The answer lies in opening up the windows and letting the
sunshine in. As suggested recently by 160 priests in the
Archdiocese of Milwaukee, reexamine the requirement that
priests be celibate, with openness to the possibility that
celibacy for priests become optional. Examination of whether
or not celibacy attracts psychosexually dysfunctional men who
hide behind the cover of the pretense of sexual abstinence
must be carried out.
Whatever they do about celibacy, bishops should turn over the
control of diocesan finances to lay finance boards; it is the
people's money. Until they do this, there will be suspicions
about the way they are handling church funds. One of the
clearest lessons of the sex abuse scandal is that bishops and
cardinals misappropriated church funds. They behaved with
money as though they did not have to answer to anyone. The
laity should control church funds, and bishops should go to
lay leaders to get approval for appropriations.
The bishops need to talk with theologians who would be pleased
to take them step by step through the maze of Catholic sexual
ethics and point out the inadequacies in the system that has
resulted in bishops being able to rail against every sexual
sin except the molestation of children. The bishops’ blind
spot, which prevented them from realizing how terrible the sex
abuse of children is and that abusers must be kept from
contact with children, must be acknowledged and repented. No
more stalling.
John Geoghan's death was tragic. His killing will not be the
last headline and probably won't be the most sensational.
Catholic bishops need to quit their obsession with spin
control and get busy implementing the radical changes needed
by the Catholic Church. If they don’t start fixing what is
broken in the structure of the church, people are going to
start to think that it is the bishops themselves who are the
biggest problem. |
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Eileen P. Flynn, Ph. D., is a professor at Saint
Peter's College, Jersey City, and author of
Catholics at a
Crossroads: Coverup, Crisis, and Cure (Paraview Press, 2003).
Contact Dr. Flynn at
Eileenpflynn@aol.com.
© 2003 Eileen Flynn |
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