BishopAccountability.org
	"Culture of Secrecy" Alive and Well in the Roman Catholic Church By Alberto Cutie Huffington Post February 7, 2011 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/father-alberto-cutie/culture-of-secrecy-alive-_b_819535.html A document questioning the Roman Catholic Church's position on mandatory celibacy signed by Father Joseph Ratzinger (today Pope Benedict XVI) along with several other German theologians, including a couple that are now Cardinals, has just been released after 41 years in hiding. Where was it and how did they hide it for so long? I pose this question on secrecy from a very personal standpoint. I am now a married priest, though formerly a celibate Roman Catholic man for several years. Since the publishing of my new book, Dilemma: A Priest's Struggle Between Faith and Love, I have experienced first-hand and have been able to confirm that there appears to be an increase in the number of people who are unable to join a healthy debate on issues, such as celibacy, contraception, remarriage and so many other non-biblical rules within the Roman Catholic Church. All of this has led me to confirm that religious extremists are not only a small group of people associated to Islam. Instead, intolerant views and verbal threats by some Roman Catholic extremists that I have received rival any monopoly by Muslim radicals. Listening to the rhetoric, severe attacks and intolerant views of certain folks makes it difficult to understand how it is that some of these folks represent one of the largest denominations of "modern-day Christianity"; which at its core is about love, compassion and greater understanding of all. Perhaps some Roman Catholics feel threatened when anyone dares to question or even make known certain well protected secrets of the institutional church. Dilemma omits most names while revealing eyewitness accounts of secretive situations and their contexts. My personal "secret" of faith and love appears in an institutional context, exposing what at times appears to be a cult of secrecy and even deceit. I wonder how the same hate mail writers feel about Pope Benedict XVI having questioned mandatory celibacy for priests four decades earlier. Are they angry that the cat is out of the bag about the Pope's letter? Nevertheless, hate mail from some extreme Roman Catholics reaches me, partly because I chose to openly express the love that my wife and I share today, while serving as a priest in the Episcopal Church. One must wonder if bishops who covered up cases of child abuse receive as much hate mail. A "culture of secrecy" is still alive and well in the Roman Catholic Church, even years after the Church had pledged greater transparency in all matters. Recently, a former colleague of mine by the name of Father Thomas Euteneuer who for 10 years served as president of one of the largest Pro-Life organizations in the world -- Human Life International -- reappeared after seven months "in captivity". I say he was in captivity because the official version was that he was "called back" by his bishop to the Diocese of Palm Beach, but that is not really what happened. Father Euteneuer was involved in some sort of sexual relationship with an adult woman and the official church chose not to make any formal statement about it for months. In this concrete case: How can the church just hide or say "no comment" about the whereabouts of a prominent and internationally known priest? Especially a priest who was so visible, to the point that he even went on prime-time television to tell Sean Hannity of Fox News that he was a "bad Catholic" for his position on the use of artificial contraception and that he would surely "deny him Holy Communion" if he attended his Mass. How does a public and large institution like the Church get away with hiding someone like that for so long and nobody questions why? The Roman Catholic laity -- conservative or not -- deserves greater honesty from its leaders. That the laity has received far less is a matter of record. Unfortunately, too often, this is the way the Church continues to operate -- in secrecy. It cannot continue to be considered a sin to question church leaders and the way they run day-to-day operations. Only religious extremists -- who cannot tolerate to hear anything but their side of the story -- shy away from healthy debate and justified criticism of the culture of secrecy that continues to exist in today's Church. So I dare to ask: Where did they hide a 41 year-old document questioning celibacy signed by the present Pope and how many other things are being hidden by the ongoing ecclesiastical culture of secrecy? A priest with a hidden girlfriend is obviously not the greatest "secret" in the Church.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.