No One Would Believe This Stuff If It Were in a Novel

I love the church.  Back in the last century I basically made a commitment to give my life to the church, as an ordained priest.  I have no doubt that the church will endure until the end of time.  When I worked in diocesan central administration, we had two running jokes.  The greatest proof of the presence of the Holy Spirit guiding the church is that if fallible and sinful human beings really ran the church it would have died in the first century.  And, you can lose your faith if you work for the church, if you don't watch out.

Three unrelated examples of the "fallible and sinful" aspect of the church have been in the news lately.

Father Thomas Donovan, pastor of St. Aloysius Church in Springfield, Illinois, called 911 at 4:45 in the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 28.  He had a problem.  He couldn't get out of his handcuffs.  When police arrived at the rectory, according to a Religious News Story dated Jan. 29, "Donovan's hands were cuffed behind his back with the keyhole facing up, so he couldn't unlock himself, according to the police report.  He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and 'a leather bondage type mask with a bar in his mouth.'"  According to the police report, there were no other persons in the rectory, and no drugs in sight.  

If that isn't bizarre enough, on the weekend of January 19-20, the parishioners of St. Aloysius were handed a statement by Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki.  The bishop explained, "The pastor is suffering from a psychological condition that manifests itself in self-bondage as a response to stress."  The bishop's statement went on to day that the 41-year-old priest's "work and lifestyle patterns caused severely-compromised patterns of self-care with respect to diet, exercise, sleep, work hours, and unreasonable expectations of himself as a pastor."  After consulting with a therapist, the bishop went on to assure the faithful, "that this self-bondage is to be understood as non-sexual in nature."  

The same Religious News story quoted as New York psychiatrist who differed in his opinion from the diocese, and said self-bondage is a sexual disorder.  Father Donovan is now on a leave of absence from ministry.

Jokes aside ("the priest is all tied up"), can you imagine Bishop Paprocki, a nationally known canon lawyer, asking himself, when in the seminary or my canonical studies did I ever come across "self-bondage"?  Could he ever imagine himself having to explain such behavior to the Catholic faithful, or using the word in a letter to his parishioners?

Maybe the second example is more "garden variety."  Or not.  

Msgr. Kevin Wallin was arrested earlier this week on federal drug charges for allegedly having methamphetamine mailed to him from co-conspirators in California, and making more than $300,000 in drugs sales out of his apartment in Waterbury, Connecticut.  Authorities also allege that he bought a small adult video and sex toy shop (called "Land of Oz and Dorothy's Place") in a nearby town, for the purpose of laundering the money he was making. Allegedly he was part of a New England ring of drug distribution.  Msgr. Wallin faces between 10 to 20 years in jail if convicted.  He has pleaded not guilty.

Msgr. Wallin is no country bumpkin.  The 61-year-old priest was a close friend of former Bridgeport Bishops Walter Curtiss and  Edward Egan, whom he served as personal secretary.  Egan was promoted to Archbishop of New York and elevated to the College of Cardinals.  His successor, William Lori, named Wallin rector of the St. Augustine Cathedral Parish, where he served for nine years.  He's been officially off the job and on leave of absence since 2011, suspended from public ministry since May 2012.

Snarky media have already nicknamed him "Monsignor Meth," and have compared him to the fictional character Walter White on the HBO series, "Breaking Bad."

Here's where it gets worse (it can get worse?).  Sources told the Connecticut Post that while he was still serving at the cathedral, "The priest's behavior had become erratic, and he would disappear for days at a time."  According to this same source, "Church staff also saw him cross-dressing and he would entertain 'odd looking men' in the rectory, where they engaged in sex acts."  Staff reported his behavior to the Bridgeport Diocese.  The diocesan spokesman, Brian Wallace, confirmed some of this source's information.  Wallace told the Post, "We became aware that he was acting out sexually -- with men -- in the church rectory."  Church officials asked Wallin to resign.  

The Diocese of Bridgeport is currently without a diocesan bishop, as their former bishop, William Lori, was transferred to the Archdiocese of Baltimore last fall.

A final example came today in Los Angeles.

In the wake of the court-ordered "data dump" of 30,000 pages of archdiocesan clergy personnel files, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez wrote to his flock that he had relieved his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public and administrative duties, and that he had asked, and received, the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry.  Curry was a close aide to Mahony in the 1980s, as the two worked to keep news of priests who sexually abused children from the police.

"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil," Gomez wrote in a letter addressed to "My brothers and sisters in Christ."

"I cannot undo the failings of the past that we find in these pages. Reading these files, reflecting on the wounds that were caused has been the saddest experience I've had since becoming your Archbishop in 2011," Gomez wrote.

Observers noted that such an action was unprecedented in American Catholic church history, and went beyond how the Vatican handled Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, or more recently, former Bishop Thomas O'Brien of Phoenix and Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri.  

Again, that's not the end of the story.  Late today, Cardinal Mahony could not keep quiet.  He released a statement on his blog, insisting that he tried his best to deal with the priest molestation scandal but fell short because not enough was known about the problem early in his career.  Addressing his successor, Archbishop Gomez, Mahony wrote, "Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors."   

"Unfortunately, I cannot return now to the 1980s and reverse actions and decisions made then," Mahony added. "But when I retired as the active archbishop, I handed over to you an archdiocese that was second to none in protecting children and youth."  Mahony posted the letter on his blog Friday afternoon, hours after he said he had sent it to Gomez.

What do I make of these sad, sad stories?  One perspective is to be philosophical.  I remember back in the 1980s, when word of the clergy sexual abuse of children were first reaching the major media, a reporter asked Father Andrew Greeley, "Aren't you shocked by this scandal?"  Greeley just chuckled, and said to the effect, the church has been having scandals since Peter and Judas betrayed Jesus, and the rest of the apostles ran away.  Ever would it be so.  

Another is to be horrified.  I have no doubt that each time a Catholic clergyperson is arrested, or does something embarrassing or illegal, more folks' faith is harmed, and more leave the active practice of their Catholic faith.

A third is to say, but these are not the majority.  There are over 400 bishops in the U.S., over 39,000 priests, about 62,000,000 members in the Catholic Church   Do the above actions represent them?  

Who knows?  I have no answers.

I do take heart from the ministry of Msgr. Robert Weiss.  He is the pastor of St. Rose of Lima Parish, whose ordinary and unsung priestly routine was shattered by the murder of 27 people, 20 children, in Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut in December.  In his 13 years as pastor there, he had baptized ten of the 20 children killed.  It was his sad duty to bury these "angels," as he called them, console their grieving parents, hug their brothers and sisters, try to explain unspeakable evil to the world.  (Read the touching tribute by Anne Hull,  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-16/national/35864040_1_three-priests-firehouse-frantic-parents 

Seeing him interviewed on tv, in his quiet voice and rumpled suit, made me proud to be "just a parish priest."  He didn't pontificate.  He admitted to crying with the parents and families.  He didn't have all the answers.  He just wanted to be there with them, as a fellow Christian and as their pastor.   He didn't seek out the media, but he didn't shy away from the interviews either.  He organized the local interfaith ministerium prayer service the following Sunday (as its chair).  In his monsignor's purple cassock he somberly shook the hand of President Obama after he address the local citizens (and the nation) at the conclusion of the service.  Msgr. Weiss was all you would want as a pastor for today's church.  

All we can do is move forward, "shrewd as serpents and gentle as doves," as best we can, in the fallible, sinful church which is us.