The Record: Matter of Faith

The Record
May 5, 2013

http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/206140401_The_Record__Matter_of_faith.html

THE REV. Michael Fugee’s resignation from ministry last week closes one chapter, not the book on why this priest was ever returned to ministry after being charged with groping a 13-year-old boy.

Fugee was convicted in 2003 on a charge of aggravated criminal sexual contact, but that verdict was overturned on appeal because jurors hadn’t been given a full explanation of the charge. Rather than face a new trial, Fugee cut a deal with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office that prohibited him from any unsupervised contact with children and ministering or working with children.

But in the ensuing years, Fugee had unsupervised contact with children and ministered to children. He also held two positions within the Archdiocese of Newark. Those are the positions from which Fugee resigned. He is no longer a priest in good standing in the archdiocese, which means he cannot celebrate Mass or perform sacramental work. But he remains a priest. It would take Vatican action to defrock Fugee.

Throughout, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has held firm to the position that the archdiocese did not violate the agreement Fugee made with prosecutors. The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office has said it continues to investigate. What is most troubling is that the archdiocese continues to hew to a course bound by a faulty reading of criminal law rather than follow the moral high road that is not ambiguous at all. Fugee should have been barred from all ministry after he entered a probation program for first-time offenders and signed the agreement restricting his access to children.

We continue to call on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to issue a statement criticizing Myers’ disregard for the so-called Dallas Charter, a document created by the bishops in the wake of the scandals of clergy sexually abusing minors. The charter calls for zero tolerance in the presence of a credible charge of abuse.

There are critics of Myers who are demanding his resignation, including the likely Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Barbara Buono. We do not know if Myers’ actions rise to that level. The removal of an archbishop is rare and comes slowly.

Myers has been a poor successor to the charismatic and eloquent Theodore McCarrick, the former Newark archbishop who became the archbishop of Washington, D.C., and a cardinal. Myers came to Newark from Peoria, Ill., an assignment that made little sense then and less now. There are few similarities between the needs of Catholics in the middle of Illinois and those in urban Newark and its environs. But there is one: Bishops must protect their metaphorical flock. Myers has failed and Fugee’s late-in-the-day resignation does not change that.

Given his age – Myers will be 72 in July – Pope Francis could appoint a coadjutor bishop to Newark, that is a bishop who would in effect run the archdiocese while Myers remained a figurehead until he retired at age 75. This would enable the archdiocese to move forward and restore trust among parishioners.

Myers failed to put the needs of his flock ahead of an institution still too focused on preserving its public image. The legal questions will be sorted out in due time; the moral one can be answered now: The Newark archdiocese was more concerned with saving face than saving faith.