UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
Jerry Slevin
Several prominent media outlets are fairly attacking the latest example of a Newark, NJ Catholic bishop’s excesses, that includes installing an apparently expensive hot tub. Newark is one of the poorest US cities. As stated in a scathing editorial of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR): “Archbishop John Myers’ decision to expand his summer residence … already a model of luxury … is nothing short of an assault on the goodwill and trust of the people of God.”
Myers had been pilloried recently, with justification, for his failures to protect children adequately from an allegedly predatory priest. Myers’ pal, Governor Chris Christie, seemingly supported Myers’ escape from that mess. Christie now has his own “bridge problem” and will likely be unable to join Myers in the hot tub anytime soon.
So what can Catholics do about Myers, and so many other bishops who suffer from that terminal episcopal malady, “bishop unaccountability” ? Complaining in blogs, and even withholding donations, haven’t reformed the hierarchy significantly to date and, in my disappointed but experienced view, likely never will. These half-measures have mainly just led bishops to be more secretive and to hire more publicists and lawyers, wasting even more donations.
For the several reasons I discuss in my advice to President Obama, he must step up with a national commission. See at:
The call for President Obama to step up on religious institutional child abuse has also been made by the leading academic legal authority on institutional child sex abuse in the USA, as well as a highly regarded constitutional scholar in the church-state area, Professor Marci Hamilton. Professor Hamilton clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. She has also as a lawyer dealt directly with the Catholic hierarchy on behalf of priest sex abuse survivors. See her article at:
[Verdict]
Historically, major reforms of corruption in the Catholic Church have usually resulted from outside pressure from monarchs or other governmental leaders, or from competing religious forces, or some combination of these pressures. That makes sense, I suppose. Why would an ambitious cleric who slithered up the hierarchical ladder to get his shot at unlimited income and power, without accountability, give it up without a struggle? Once you have it, why give it up unless forced to do so? Bishops, we now know too well, cannot be shamed into reforming.
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