Crisis in the pews: San Diego Catholics shaken by revelations of abuse, cover-ups

By Peter Rowe
San Diego Union-Tribune
November 18, 2018

https://bit.ly/2S07XVj

Before one of San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy's "listening sessions," a group gathered to pray the rosary. Photo by Nelvin C. Cepeda

Mary Josweg is a 21st century Catholic, but she sounds an awful lot like the 16th century Protestant reformer Martin Luther.

“The church needs to get cleansed,” said Josweg, 69, a parishioner at St. Patrick’s in Carlsbad. “I believe in Jesus as the son of God and Creator of the world — I happen to be Catholic. But the organization that I belong to is totally corrupt.”

Josweg was among the thousands of Catholics who attended eight “listening sessions” convened by San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy in October and November. He got an earful.

“People are no longer following blindly,” said Harley Noel, 85, a parishioner at St. John’s in Encinitas. “Now, the heirarchy can't — I hate to say pull the wool over people’s eyes, but it’s hard for them to run and hide.”

Across the nation, Catholics have questioned and criticized church leaders, frustrated by months of distressing headlines:

• In July, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was forced to resign, after reports surfaced that he had sexually abused seminarians and altar boys.
• In August, a Pennsylvania grand jury revealed the rapes and molestations of more than 1,000 children by 300 priests.
• In September, the San Diego diocese added eight priests to its public list of men credibly accused of sexually abusing minors.
• In October, Cardinal Donald Wuerl resigned as archbishop of Washington, D.C., amid accusations that he had turned a blind eye to predatory clerics when he served as a bishop in Pennsylvania.

More damaging revelations may be coming. San Diego’s Irwin Zalkin and other lawyers are urging California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to investigate California dioceses, following the lead of civil authorities in Pennsylvania, New York, Florida and other states.

While most of these outrages occurred decades ago, many are only now being exposed. McElroy and others say this demonstrates the effectiveness of the 2002 “Dallas Charter,” reforms adopted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to prevent the sort of sexual scandals revealed by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” series.

The Dallas Charter, though, had a glaring oversight — it did not hold to account bishops who had shielded abusive priests or were themselves accused of similar crimes.

When the U.S. bishops met in Baltimore last week, the agenda included measures to increase episcopal accountability. But the Vatican, reportedly favoring reforms for bishops around the world, ordered the Americans to postpone any independent measures.

This slow, spotty response has frustrated the faithful. In September, the Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of U.S. Catholics disapproved of how the church has handled the sex abuse scandal.

When McElroy launched his listening tour a month later, many in attendance were skeptical and angry.

“I thought it was horrific,” Josweg said of McElroy’s Oct. 17 “listening session” at Church of the Nativity in Rancho Santa Fe. “I was outraged that people were not screaming at him. It is such a cover-up. They never talk about the cover-up, all they talk about is it has gotten better, that the police are now called whenever a child is molested.”

Recent news, Madeline E. Lacovara wrote in the Jesuit magazine, America, underlines “the perceived ongoing failure of the institutional church itself.

“This loss of trust in the leadership of the church makes this the most significant crisis confronting the church since the Reformation.”

Yet this is a different church than the one Luther critiqued in 1517 with his 95 theses. The largest Christian denomination in the world, the Roman Catholic Church includes worshipers of every race, nationality, political party and sexual orientation.

The crisis has exposed divisions in the pews. Some argue that the scandals reveal a “lavender mafia” of powerful gay clerics. Others insist it illustrates the need for married and female priests. There are those who say the liberalizing changes wrought by Vatican II and Pope Francis have undermined the church’s timeless teachings.

Many point to clericalism, saying the ingrained habit of giving church leaders absolute, unquestioning obedience has allowed problems to fester.

“You’ve got the Pius X group, the ultra-right who want to go back to the Latin Mass,” said Harley Noel. “And you’ve got the ultra-left, they want everything free and easy.”

Given the nature of this flock, it may take divine intervention to bridge the gap.

“You’re dealing with humanity,” Noel said. “God knows, we’ve had enough problems with humanity.”

At the Church of the Nativity, men and women sat at 40 or so tables. After the bishop’s contrite remarks — “this was a horrific abandonment of the responsibility the church had for the safety of children” — a spokesperson at each table rose to ask a question.

How do we get younger people back to church?

The bishop admitted this is a difficult task: “Young people see the hypocrisy...”

Are there clear moral teachings in the seminaries?

Yes, McElroy insisted, plus extensive screening of candidates. “Most important is their relationship with God,” the bishop said. Another essential quality, he added, is “the ability to live out a life of celibacy.”

The mention of celibacy seemed to open the floodgates. The next questions all focused on the sex lives of church employees, whether clerical or lay.

Would engaging in homosexual acts with another consenting adult end a priest’s career?

“It could. It’s a serious violation of his vow of celibacy,” McElroy said. “But I am not prepared to say that any single action” between consenting adults would mean automatic dismissal.

Should the church employ people “living unchaste lives?”

Why do so many preachers “seem to be accepting sin, instead of rejecting sin?”

McElroy listed the church’s “three essential teachings” on sexual morality.

First, “we are called to live all the virtues of Jesus Christ — all the virtues. Chastity is one of them. But chastity is not the central virtue of Christian life. The central virtue is to love the Lord God with your whole heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.”

Second, “in Catholic moral teaching, any sexual activity outside marriage between one man and one woman is considered sinful.”

Third, while violence and hatred against LGBT people “exists in a dark corner of the church, it is antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

He referred to recent attacks on Hillcrest’s St. John the Evangelist, an LGBT-friendly parish, and its pastoral associate, Aaron Bianco. A gay man, Bianco had been deluged with angry and obscene email after several conservative Catholic web sites criticized his role and, in one case, published his home address and family photographs.

Two days before the Church of the Nativity meeting, the church was broken into and vandals spray painted an anti-gay slur on a wall.

Bianco resigned, effective Oct. 31.

“I’ve heard from many people, priests and lay people all across the globe, telling me they support me, they are behind me in the work I am doing in the church,” Bianco said. “These organizations that promote this hate, they have given me more power than I’ve ever had.”

Within the church, some authorities insist the clergy abuse scandal can be traced to a single source: homosexuality.

“The deeper problem,” wrote Janet Smith, a professor of moral theology at Detroit’s Sacred Heart Major Seminary, “lies in homosexual networks within the clergy which must be eradicated.”

These cabals, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò wrote in a letter critical of Pope Francis, “act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church.”

A new group, Concerned Catholics of San Diego, makes a similar argument.

“There are a lot of Catholics who are concerned about a homosexual agenda in the church,” said Daniel Piedra, 33, a Concerned Catholics leader. “The group advocates that people who have deep-seated homosexual desires or tendencies should not be allowed to be priests.”

Most, but not all, victims of predator priests have been boys. But the real problem is rooted in power, argued Mark Peters, not sexuality.

Both the criminal priests and the bishops who covered for them abused their power, said Peters, chairman of the University of San Diego’s Clergy Abuse Task Force. “That corruption, protecting your own privilege,” he said, “my feeling is that is the same regardless of orientation.”

Lay people, Peters said, increasingly demand a larger role in governing the church and ending the culture of clericalism.

“That’s giving undue privilege to members of the clergy,” he said, “and perhaps putting them inappropriately on a pedestal and not having that sort of oversight.”

The church has survived similar crises. In medieval Europe, noted Mark Mann, a professor of theology at Point Loma Nazarene University, many priests had common law wives or concubines, while some popes sired children.

In fact, Pope John XI (931-935) was rumored to be the son of Pope Sergius III (904-911).

“Sexual impropriety runs through the history of the church, and I wouldn't want to single out Catholics,” Mann said, noting that the Nazarenes and other denominations have had their own sexual abuse scandals. “This is true of organizations where people have power over others.”

In her America article, Lacovara advocated specific reforms: opening diocesan archives to investigators; removing from power bishops guilty of sexual misconduct or covering for guilty priests; consulting lay people before appointing a bishop; and giving women a greater role in church governance.

“Can there be any doubt that responsible women would have understood and advised bishops that no other interests could have justified exposing children to sexual abuse?” she asked.

This is a many-faceted problem in a remarkably diverse church. The solutions, like the faithful themselves, run the gamut.

Jim Chodzko, a parishioner at St. John’s in Encinitas, would “bring in lay people who are active in the church and give them full access to all church information on this, study the problem in its full scope.”

Full disclosure, he said, is paramount: “Jesus would not be saying, ‘Let’s not say this,’ or ‘We’ve got to be careful.’”

Female priests and married priests would help, Mary Josweg said. And she echoed Chodzko: no more secrecy.

“What does Pope Francis say, ‘Let’s pray and be silent’? I say we should pray and not be silent. Let’s get to the point here.”

(In September, the pontiff advised prayer and silence when confronted by those “seeking scandal.”)

Concerned Catholics’ Piedra wants “answers to specific questions, about specific incidences of possible misconduct in the diocese. The bishop has been quick to defend all of his priests but we hear of ongoing incidents in the seminary.”

Bianco would like to see acceptance of all believers, regardless of sexuality.

“The call of Jesus is to welcome all people into community,” he said. “It is not the responsibility of the church to say you are not welcome.

“I understand that there are people who believe that homosexuality is sinful. I do understand that. But if we were to go through and look at what’s been done by everyone in the pews, we would have to kick everyone out of the church.”

Msgr. Dennis Mikulanis, pastor of San Rafael Parish in Rancho Bernardo, would like everyone to have some faith.

“The way forward is for people to realize in the history of the church there have always been bad times and bad apples,” he said. “But it’s Christ and faith in Christ and service to Christ that is the mark of true Christians and, in this case, true Catholics.”

The listening sessions ended Nov. 5. The diocese is preparing a report, a spokesperson said, complete with recommendations.