MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation
05/15/2015
Jennifer Haselberger
Over the past few weeks, I have been interacting with the cast and crew of the Illusion Theater’s production of Lee Blessing’s ‘For the Loyal’. The script is loosely based on the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State, with the chief protagonist being Mia, the wife of an assistant football coach who thinks he has seen his boss engage in sexual abuse of a minor. The story attempts to present the different options and moral choices that Mia faces as she grapples with an appropriate response to what her husband has seen. The title of the play comes from a line in the college’s fight song, the implication being that ‘loyalty’ to the football program is the value that will be most richly rewarded.
While the theater contacted me because of obvious similarities between the script and recent events in my life, I should say at the outset that Mia’s choices are not my choices. I don’t find Mia particularly sympathetic. But, the concept of loyalty that is offered within the script did resonate with me, perhaps because the concept of loyalty, especially in the context of institutional loyalty and whistleblowing, is one that is so often debated.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that it was the concept of loyalty that the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis attempted to invoke to ensure my silence after my resignation in April of 2013. Although Chancery officials, including the Archbishop, like to say that they were completely taken aback when MPR started to run its series in September of 2013, in fact they were aware of the extreme likelihood of such disclosures occurring even prior to my resignation. Consequently, as early as May 3, 2013- a mere three days after I resigned- I was receiving letters from Archdiocesan attorneys reminding me of my ‘canonical duty of loyalty to the Archbishop’.
In English, ‘loyalty’ is often equated with adherence, as in the faithful adherence to a leader or a cause. In Latin, loyalty is synonymous with ‘fidelis’, in the sense of fidelity. You will not find the term ‘loyalty’ in the English version of the Code of Canon Law, nor will you find ‘fidelis’ used to describe the posture of an individual towards a bishop. Clergy are bound to obedience to their bishop, and curial officials, as I was, are to fulfill their office faithfully (emittere de munere fideliter adimplendo), but fidelity as a concept is directed not towards individuals, but towards the ethos of the Church- doctrine, bearing witness to Christ, and the people of God. Even our Profession of Faith does not require a statement of loyalty to a particular bishop, but rather to magisterial teachings of the Roman Pontiff and College of Bishops.
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