BISHOPS PRE-EMPTED: RC bishops had competition 20 years ago as they prepared a pastoral letter on economics, John J. Miller recalls in a Wall Street Journal column, "When the Flock Takes the Lead: Pastoral letters don't necessarily speak for the parishioners." It came from former Treasury Sec. Wm. E. Simon, theologian Michael Novak and other lay people, who held their own hearings and issued their own pastoral in advance of the bishops', showing Catholics they needn't go to confession for opposing minimum-wage legislation, Miller notes. Something like it might be in order now, as the bishops prepare a statement on same-sex marriage, says Miller.
(He's co-author, by the way, of the excellent Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France.)
I interviewed Chicago's Card. Jos. Bernardin about this time, on business ethics for the short-lived Crain's Illinois Business. He ruled out being tape-recorded for the one-on-one and also ruled out discussing the coming pastoral, then proceeded to discuss it at length. It was on his mind. Besides, he was no expert on business ethics. A teacher of same would have made a better interview, but high-profile subjects prevail in these situations.
In any case, Card. B. like most bishops had never run a business and was also for that reason a less likely interview. Indeed, it was during his Chicago incumbency that archdiocesan finances took a tumble.
HARDBALL: Cardinal FRANCIS GEORGE of Chicago told PBS: "The damage to victims [of clergy abuse] is permanent, and therefore the crisis is permanent. We have to keep attending to it."
Yes, but the crisis isn't the damage. It's what caused it -- priests, bishops, and a system in need of overhaul.
Consider Arlington, VA, where the bishop is in a major fight with what media usually call a whistleblower, a priest who has the goods on homosexually active priests.
"The bishop [Paul Loverde] said there is nothing wrong with these guys," the priest [James Haley] told Wash Times. 'You haven't lived with them," the priest says he responded. He also said he told the bishop he has "seen priests put on cologne, dress up and go on dates with guys."
When the bishop told him "there's nothing wrong [with homosexuality] as long as you're celibate," he said," So there would be nothing wrong with me living with nuns the rest of my life as long as I am celibate."
"He just looked at me," said Haley, who was expelled from his rectory in October, 2001, with four hours notice and ordered to say nothing.
Up to 40 Catholic schools may close. Archdiocese hopes to reopen some as regional facilities, blares Chi Trib today, 11/13 -- feast of St. Stanislaus Kostka, SJ, as any novice knew in the 50s. Would be "biggest shakeup" ever for Chi Catholic schools. Two high schools among them. "The economics have changed." says a spokeswoman. Writers Tracy Dell'Angela and Manya A. Brachear cite "persistence of structural problems," meaning it's happened a lot and probably will keep happening.
Build a school and they will come used to be the rule but no more. It's the money, of course. So there's not enough money among Catholics to subsidize schools the way nuns used to with sweat if not blood and tears? Not enough for this, apparently, though Maryville attracted donations aplenty. The charismatic Fr. John Smyth -- now deposed for reasons having nothing to do with his fund raising -- was the key here, as Msgr. Ignatius McDermott has been for his top-drawer skid-row operations. Domino's Pizza founder and ex-owner Tom Monaghan unleashed his millions and presumably attracted lots more for Ave Maria University -- made to his image as were Maryville to Fr. Smyth's and Haymarket House to Fr. McDermott.
And guess what else is common to these operations that shook the Catholic money tree. Ecclesiastical politicians butted out or cooperated, surrendering control. Lifers found life outside of running things, demonstrating confidence in other clerics such as Smyth and McDermott (the latter far more successful in his ventures) and laity such as Monaghan.
It's this way with any institution, yes. Power corrupts wherever it's enjoyed (thank you, Lord Acton, a layman). Somewhere in this land of unprecedented Catholic affluence and influence is money for schools. Let's not forget the amazing Jesuit-originated Cristo Rey high schools, a triumph of fund-raising (and academic) innovation. Revs. John Foley SJ and John Costello SJ put Cristo Rey on the Chicago map first and then watched and no doubt helped it spread nationally.
Meanwhile, in Chicago there are those 40 schools at risk. No one has mobilized Catholic support, maybe because the model is lacking. The pastor of one of the 40, St. Margaret Mary, in West Rogers Park, is hardly the one to follow. He told parishioners Tuesday 11/9 that he has known for a year he had to close the school. They didn't. He knew because the archdiocese had told him. Parents feel euchred. They were ignored while decisions were made: the pastor also told them the application for charter status -- an iffy matter because it makes the school a public school -- was on its way to the Chicago Board of Education. The alert and emphatically competent Mary Ann Ahern had the St. Margaret Mary story on NBC-5.
Now and then Catholic authorities make much of the role of lay people. But there's obviously a limit to that sort of thing.
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Available at Amazon.com:
* Priests at Work: Catholic Pastors Tell How They Apply Church Law in Difficult Cases, by Jim Bowman (formerly Bending the Rules: What American Priests Tell American Catholics), $21.99 in paper.
* Good Guys Finish First: Reflections of a CEO and How to Start a De Novo Community Bank, By C. Paul Johnson with Jim Bowman, $22.99 & $32.99.
