Oh! So it’s the Bishops fault…
The blame game.
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus has a good review of Philip Lawler’s new book, The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston’s Catholic Culture, which is going to press this week. The book has the endorsement of Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, who says: “Lawler’s masterful analysis is sobering and provides an urgent incentive for authentic renewal. If St. John Chrysostom is correct when he says that the road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops, it would be a mistake for any bishop or priest to miss this book.” - First Things
I believe Fr. Neuhaus probably thinks the quote from Chrysostom is more hyperbole than fact, although it sounds as if he likes Lawler’s book. He suggests the book is really two books interwoven, the foundational thread covering the ’past’ abuse crises in the Catholic Church, while the other proposes to document the decline of Catholic culture in Boston. It seems Lawler lays blame for the abuse crises at the feet of the bishops of the United States.
““The thesis of this book,” writes Lawler, “is that the sex abuse scandal in American Catholicism was not only aggravated but actually caused by the willingness of church leaders to sacrifice the essential for the inessential; to build up the human institution even to the detriment of the divine mandate.”
“The first aspect of the scandal, the sexual abuse of children, has been acknowledged and addressed,” Lawler writes. “The second aspect, the rampant homosexuality among Catholic priests, has been acknowledged but not addressed, and later even denied. . . . The third aspect of the scandal has never even been acknowledged by American church leaders.” The third aspect, the malfeasance of bishops, “is today the most serious of all.” - First Things
Although Fr. Neuhaus offers a favorable review of the book, he does have a few points of disagreement with the author - which Father suggests he will address in a future article. I want to read Father’s analysis, as well as Lawler’s book. The following excerpt caught my attention as it relates to homosexual priests:
Lawler adds: “Homosexual influence within the American clergy was not in itself the cause of the sex abuse crisis. The corruption wrought by that influence was a more important factor.” He very gingerly addresses a theory proposed by a number of commentators on the crisis, namely, that bishops engaged in cover-ups and other deceptions because they were threatened with homosexual blackmail. He cites a number of instances in which this appears to be the case and bishops were permitted to resign when their misdeeds could no longer be denied. “The blackmail hypothesis,” he writes, “provides a logical explanation for behavior that is otherwise inexplicable: the bishops’ willingness to risk the welfare of the faithful and their own reputations in order to protect abusive priests.” - Paved with the Skulls of Bishops
Art: “Bishop” - Fernando Botero
