Catholic bishops need public act of penance | Opinion

By Jennie Davidson Latta
Commercial Appeal
August 21, 2018

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinion/contributors/2018/08/21/catholic-bishops-need-public-act-penance-opinion/1050866002/

The cartoonist's homepage, indystar.com/opinion/varvel Photo by Gary Varvel

Editor's Note: Jennie Davidson Latta, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge and Catholic parishioner in Memphis, sent this letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is republished here with her permission.

Dear Bishops,

While I am encouraged by the plan announced by Cardinal DiNardo and the other bishops of the United States to address the latest scandals and crimes of the clergy of the United States, I believe that one key component is missing. What is needed is a public act of penance on the part of our bishops.

I have not joined the numerous theologians, teachers, and parents who have called for mass resignations. I fear that would be meaningless. Instead, I think that what is needed is a public penance service at which the bishops of the United States appear without miters, or croziers, or other symbols of office.

We have a rite for that purpose. We lay people are encouraged to use it at least twice each year. I think that it would do us all good to see our bishops kneeling, in sackcloth and ashes or their modern equivalent, beating their breasts, and loudly proclaiming, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

This should be a corporate action to acknowledge the corporate and systemic nature of the sinfulness that allowed predators to be protected rather than children. I do not assume that every living bishop has individually participated in such a cover-up. But every living bishop has inherited the system of clericalism and cronyism that permitted it to happen.

Such a service should be widely televised so that it can be witnessed around the world. If possible, it should occur at the National Shrine Basillica of the Immaculate Conception, under the protection and care of Our Lady. It should prompt the consciences of individual bishops complicit in harming children to take further action, which might include individual services of penance in their dioceses, meetings with victims and their families, or tendering of resignations.

Without this public acknowledgement of fault in the way known best to the Church, I fear that all other acts proposed by the bishops will fall short.

I am a parishioner at St. Peter Church in Memphis, Tennessee, where I am a teacher and cantor. I hold degrees in law, theology, and philosophy. I am a United States Bankruptcy Judge. I stand ready to aid the bishops in whatever ways I can to make their response to this latest scandal pastoral and effective.

The bishops have unfortunately taken the advice of lawyers rather than their consciences in dealing with allegations of abuse. For my complicity in the legal profession that encouraged a legal rather than pastoral response, I am truly sorry.