The most important message the pope can give the American cardinals is this: Just as war is too important to be left to the generals, so is the Catholic Church too important to be left to the cardinals.
In my 16 years of Catholic education and in hundreds of Sunday homilies, I was taught that we are all sinners. The issue is not how we fall, or even how often. It is about understanding why we fell and how to get up and stay standing.
Most disappointing about the damage-control tactics used by some cardinals and bishops to buy the silence of those abused, secretly reassign priests and cover up their coverup, is their failure to look for solutions, rather than simply circle the ecclesiastical wagons. The Catholic Church is not a religious playpen for cardinals and bishops; it belongs just as much to all of us sitting in the pews. It is no accident that the cardinals in the most trouble are those who have used their offices to circumvent Vatican II's command to open the church wide to all its members.
New York City Cardinal Edward Egan, for example, recently overruled his liturgical commission and efforts by the parish of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan to make its sacristy accessible to the entire congregation, including the handicapped. Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, in ignoring the calls from his congregation for his resignation, has been reduced to a pitiful clerical giant.
Here are some suggestions for the Vatican to consider in Rome and for the bishops, who meet in June in Dallas:
• Enforce uniform rules to govern every diocese in handling charges of sexual molestation by priests, and require each to have a board of lay advisers to review compliance by the bishops. Mandate bishops to report to appropriate authorities all credible charges, and make certain that, pending resolution of such charges, priests involved are not in ministries that put them in contact with children.
• Involve lay parish councils in selecting priests and periodic review of their ministry.
• Prohibit bishops from spending funds raised in collections to pay damages for sexual misconduct by priests, and have bishops notify donors when they are seeking funds for such purposes. Require every diocese to name a lay board to oversee financial operations.
• Establish a national registry of priests who have been credibly charged with sexual abuse, so dioceses can check on clergy seeking assignments in their parishes.
• Release all victims from commitments in settlements that require them to remain silent, so that those who wish to speak out are free to do so.
The curia must look at its own hand in the scandal. The Vatican named Bishop Anthony O'Connell to head the Palm Beach, Fla., diocese and replace Bishop J. Keith Symons, who left in disgrace for sexually abusing young boys. Bishop O'Connell turned out to have done the same thing. Have we reached a point where the Vatican vets candidates for bishoprics to make sure they toe the line on birth control and oppose marriage of priests and homilies by women, but doesn't check to see whether they have sexually molested boys -- even when they're being chosen to heal wounds inflicted by such conduct?
Bishop O'Connell displayed abominable judgment in not volunteering his prior offense, but I can understand how his ambition -- and the belief that a legal settlement had silenced his victim -- might have led him to take the risk. No comparable excuse exists for Vatican failure even to ask about sexual misconduct in these circumstances -- when you can bet the Sistine Chapel that it checked out his position on women priests, celibacy, family planning and homosexuals.
The Vatican's "don't ask" policy encourages a "don't tell" response from clerics up for promotion. In addition to improving its vetting process, the curia should take a new look at the prohibition on priests marrying (something they were permitted to do for the first 1,100 years of the church) and on women becoming priests. The Vatican treats these issues as though they were etched in the same religious stone as the divinity of Christ and His presence in the Eucharist. They aren't, and every thinking Catholic -- conservative or liberal -- knows it. Indeed, those of us educated at Catholic colleges were trained to respect this distinction.
The Catholic Church has weathered storms of corruption before. Catholics know their church will weather this one, because they believe their church is more than an institution; it is God's divine creation, which no one can destroy. But on a material level, the American bishops and Vatican are realizing that they will pay a hefty price if donations from the richest Catholic population in the world drop off significantly, as they threaten to do.
On a spiritual level, as church leaders acknowledge the crisis of confidence and faith precipitated by their ploys to preserve the status quo, they must recognize the need to listen to their congregations, not just preach to them. Key to restoring the moral authority of the American church and clergy is to place more confidence in the laity and to give lay Catholics more authority over how their church is run and their donations are spent. Pope John XXIII understood that when he convened Vatican II.
There may be a silver lining to this tragedy if the curia follows that vision in its deliberations.