Category: Social Issues

Discussion Question: How to handle accusations against clergy?

The question is this:

In your opinion, how should accusations of clergy misconduct be handled, so that the rights of both the innocent and the guilty are respected?  Or if you prefer, accusations against school teachers, catechists, police officers, you name it.

Does your diocese [district / department / etc.], or one you are familiar with, have a good process that works well?

Do you know of a case where an accusation of a serious crime was made, and the situation was handled well?  What did it look like?  Please do not use identifying info.  This is not about any particular case, but about what methods that can be applied generally to all cases.

(Which means, I expect,the method needs to have multiple options, depending on the  nature of the accusations, etc.)

Also, if you have a story to tell, stick to the facts that you know.  Conjecture is not helpful and I’ll have to make fun of you it will lead others into temptation.

–Reply in the combox, or on your blog and then leave a link in the combox.  Thanks.–

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My personal experience: I’ve been very closely involved in two serious cases — one accusation of child molestation, one of rape.  One of the accusations was true, the other was false. [Those are the facts, not the findings. I was close enough to both cases to know the facts.]  Both cases were handled fairly, in my opinion, by the authorities to whom the incidents were reported, and by the police.  Allegations were taken seriously, steps taken to keep minors safe, and investigations conducted quickly and with no pressure to sway the witnesses one way or another.

That said, in the case of the true accusation, the criminal committed more crimes before he was apprehended.  (He was at large, stranger to the victims.)  In the case of the false accusation, the man accused did suffer tremendously from the social stigma, being removed from work with minors, etc., even though he was eventually (and fairly quickly) acquitted.

–> As a result of these experiences, I have a hard time seeing my way clear to what an “ideal” process is.  If the accusations are true, there is a pressing need to protect any future victims.  Sweeping measures to remove the accused from any chance to harm more people is important.  And the victims themselves need to be given tremendous support.

But especially with sexual crimes, and often enough with other crimes, there is no evidence.  It is very easy to bring false accusations.  Someone so inclined can shut down a ministry at will, simply by making the accusation.  It takes a very clear head and a fair bit of life experience to be able to weed through the claims and personalities and discern whether the accusation is likely to be true or not.

–> I imagine many cases are not like the ones in which I was involved — where there were clear-thinking bystanders who knew the the parties involved and the details of the alleged incidents well enough to quickly resolve whether there was a probable crime.  One of the hallmarks of repeated sexual abuse is that a group of on-lookers enable the behavior and refuse to intervene.  Another, is that if innocent party is not taken seriously, it can wreak some serious psychological damage — creating an “unreliable” victim and the impression that the victim is the guilty one.

And distinctive in the case of church-related scandals, is that I don’t think we know each other very well. The community is often geographically spread out, and lives mostly apart.  We come together for a tiny slice of our lives, but the world of church ministry is separate from our other work, our other leisure, our home life, etc.  There are few people who know us very well.  Who get to see us in all places and times and contexts.

So it is hard.  I’d like to hear thoughts on what you think would make a good, fair way of dealing with accusations.

 

 

Mothers & More

Here’s a great article on “Why Mothers Matter”, h/t to the Pulp.it for pointing it out.  Totally made my day.  (Yes, I am goofing off.  Bad mother! Clean house!  Make children clean house!)

–> Which explains why St. Thomas More re-married so quickly after the death of his first wife.  As Butler’s Lives points out:

More was a man of sense as well as sensibility, and he had four young children on his hands: so he married a widow, seven years older than himself, an experienced housewife, talkative, kindly and full of unimaginative common sense.

Apparently she didn’t appreciate his jokes, though, which the biographer observes was an “undeniable trial of patience” — for which spouse the text does not specify.

A quick saint bleg on that topic:  Our VBS-alternative (“Terrific Tuesdays”) will feature St. Thomas More, St. Joan of Arc, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Therese of Lisieux, and St. Martin de Porres.  If you happen to be sitting on a linky-link treasure trove of free-to-copy coloring sheets, puzzles, clip art, and the like, I would be most grateful to learn your secrets.  Thank you!

–> FYI if you are in a similar boat, I’ve been mining the My Catholic Pray and Play Activity Book for generic worksheets.  Nicely done, good little resource for elementary-age catechists to keep in the drawer.  The sheets are reproducibles for non-commercial use.

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And this is a random other lives-of-saints observation I stumbled upon last night, and had to share.  From Butler’s Lives, further down on July 9th (same as More), concerning the martyrdom of Sts. Nicholas Pieck and Companions, Martyrs of Gorkum in 1572.  This was a Calvinist round-up in the Netherlands, and the clergy arrested included not only the saintly types, but also St. James Lacops, who “had been very slack in his religious observance and contumacious under reproof”, as well as St. Andrew Wouters, who “went straight from the irregular life to imprisonment and martydom”.

Here is the bit I found to be a timeless reminder:

. . . when already Father Pieck had been flung off the ladder, speaking words of encouragement, the courage of some failed them; it is a significant warning against judging the character of our neighbour or pretending to read his heart that, while a priest of blameless life recanted in a moment of weakness, the two who had been an occasion of scandle gave their lives without a tremor.

Higher Ed

Darwin writes here about how everyone’s getting a college degree these days, and the economic consequences.  I was going to leave a comment, but I finally just decided to hit the ‘like’ button and be done with it.

Mr. Magundi laments the consequences of collegization for communities, but offers a hopeful solution:

We have raised the price of higher education to the point where it may simply be ruinous even for comfortably well-off families. And so we may end up abandoning the university system as we’ve built it up, in favor of a system where we stay home for most of our higher education, perhaps in community colleges, or in some similar institution we haven’t thought of yet. Educated people might get in the habit of thinking of the place where they grew up as home. And in spite of the disadvantages to Harvard and Cornell, I think that might be a very good thing.”

Am I the only one horrified that you can’t get a decent catholic college education without taking out a mortgage on your life?  Though I think charities such as Mater Ecclesiae Fund have their hearts (and wallets) in the right place, I find it frankly predatory that catholic colleges will load students up with such levels of debt to begin with.

Yes, I meant that.

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Meanwhile, Public Discourse is running this essay.  The gist: the political science education offered in the Ivy League in the 1990’s let ideology get in the way of reliable scholarship — to the detriment of the State Department today.  Well, funny about that.  Because those of us getting our int’l poly-sci degrees from Backwater State U, we were studying under some of these guys.  Taking courses like “Islam, Politics and Revolution”.

–> And happily for the State Department, some our grads found their way to Washington.  So not all is lost.  Most of us local-U grads grow up to be, well, locals.  But we let loose a tithe of our debt-free adventurers, to go assist our better-indoctrinated educated brethren up north.

So if our government should get something right, you know who to thank.

Just kidding.  Sort of.

BADD 2011 – The Vast Middle

I’m persuaded that the late 19th and early 20th century love affair with eugenics continues to inform our understanding of disability.  If the unfit are slated for elimination, it becomes very important to draw a clear line between them and us, and put “us” firmly on the proper side.  The recent return-to-fashion, via pre-natal screening and consequent abortion of undesirables, hasn’t helped.

What I see is a fictional polarization, in which the culture cuts a medical boundary between them and us.  On the one side, people who are Disabled, on the other, everyone else.  It is a fanciful line, that has little regard for actual abilities, or happiness, or life expectancy.  Oh sure, if you’re significantly paralyzed, that makes you Disabled.  But say you have a hand that doesn’t work quite right, or is missing parts? Does that make you Disabled?  Or just sorta decrepit?  Discrimination is in the eye of the beholder.

It would all be a silly parlor game if the stakes weren’t so high.

But they are high, because there’s an all-or-nothing mentality out there.  I stumbled the other day on an internet conversation about faking disability.  One accusation: If you see someone in the store using a wheelchair or scooter, and that person is actually able to stand and even walk, they must be faking.  (Because, you know, they’d totally want to show their hand right there in front of you. It was all a great game until the Cheetos were out of reach.)  No comprehension that  someone might be able to walk a little bit.  Inconceivable.

The US disability benefits system is a bit like those combox warriors, only clucking over who can work and who can’t.    There is cash at stake, and people do fake in order to grab at it.   But still, the can-she-or-can’t-she thinking permeates the system.  There is little recognition that many disabilities may limit, but not eliminate, the ability to work.  That one may need assistance only intermittently; or assistance to compensate for lower wages,  higher expenses, or the ability to only work part-time.

But to me the most painful aspect of the polarization is the social aspect.  The whispering and uncomfortable tones.  The notion that in order to write or care about disability issues, you must somehow Be One of Them.  There must be some Deep Reason you care about this arcane, specialized topic for weirdos; simple common sense is not enough.  And furthermore, if you complain that this or that facility needs better acomodations, you must be one of those nutty bleeding-heart types.

–> After all, those people don’t _________, and anyway if they wanted to do, than they could __[insert ridiculous cumbersome workaround guaranteed to keep Those People away]_.

It’s dumb.  It’s just dumb.  So don’t play.

Rant over.

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Thank you to Ruth for reminding me once again of the date and place for the annual BADD Blogfest.  It is not too late contribute yourself, so have at it.  Time-delay entries are accepted.

marriage, murder . . . the theme won’t go away

If you’ve been pregnant in the last decade or so, you’ve already figured it out, I hope.  But here’s a good article at Public Discourse on the prenatal testing industry.   Key point: 99% of babies who test positive for Down Syndrome are aborted.

The antidote is Be Not Afraid.net – support for parents with poor prenatal diagnosis.  Take a look.  Keep in the back of your head.  Easy to remember.  Useful.  Good.

Orphans.

This morning when you woke up, you were thinking, “Gee, Jennifer needs to clean the house, takes the kids to dance class, drop by the church to return her very overdue books from the parish library and pester the DRE about something, maybe go downtown for one errand and the post office on three, and what she really really wants to do is go the garden center and pick out some drought-resistant plants for the flower beds.”

And furthermore, you were thinking, “I wish I knew more about problems facing orphans in Haiti.”

Perfect!  Here’s your article:  Complexity of Orphan Care, at Sit a Spell.

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After which, although you might be planning to take the Ironic Catholic’s advice and give up hand lotion or cinnamon for Lent, I suspect she’d approve if you’d squeeze in some prayers for orphans and their parents.

 

Abortion and Tidiness.

Go read this at the Catholic Key Blog.  And not just because I am a person who likes both babies and a good drink now and again.  But because this resonates with maybe what you have seen elsewhere?

Because maybe right now you are facebook friends with one of the coolest teenagers in the universe?  And that kid wouldn’t even have been given a name, let alone a chance to see the light of day, if some scared 16-year-old and her mother hadn’t resisted the pressure to do what all those clean-cut wholesome small-town upper-class ladies were saying they had to do to “get rid of the problem”?

When someone has to die in order for me to maintain my sterling reputation?  . . . No.  Just no.   –>  If only all my lousy ideas and major mistakes could result in something as awesomely awesome as a certain favorite nephew of mine.  Why would someone want to kill the one good thing to be granted?

Go and sin no more.  That’s meekness.

Parents Caught Raising Well-Rounded Daughter

UPDATE: (Long as JDM has caught me goofing off again, I might as well do it right): Brad Warthen is on topic.  Check out the video he links, hilarious.  So true.

(Said by a fellow LLL grad who has not only CD’d, but hung them out to dry on the line. Then again, my 2nd-born’s first food was Tiramisu.  My credentials are doubtful.)

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The Livesay’s on their daughter with the “weirdest life ever”.

I link because the whole parenting-police theme is central to that homeschooling book I’m reportedly writing.  (Yes I am in fact writing it.  Slowly.)  We live in a bizarre society where one of the national pastimes is getting all huffy because someone else’s life isn’t one long giant defense of your own personal decisions.

The really funniest one is when some lady (yes, usually a lady), says something along the lines of, “Sure, nobody’s perfect, but how can that family possibly homeschool, when their children’s socks don’t even match!”  [This is ironic, because of course if sock-matching were the measure of educational success, it would be so much easier to assess the schools.]

I kid not.  People — registered voters with college degrees, even — truly do say this stuff.   Lately I mostly hear it about those horrible horrible parents like the Livesays, who send their children to school, but the method can be used  against any parenting decision anytime anywhere, so long as you pick your audience properly.  The formula is this:

a)  Insist that of course you aren’t setting up impossible standards

b)  Choose someone or something you don’t like

c)  Randomly choose some criteria that you have decided should be the central measure of human worth.

d) Make sure it is something that you excel at, and your target does not.  Also, make sure the person to whom your are speaking manages well enough at the proposed criteria.

e)  Use a tone that suggests the parents are feeding the children excrement or mating them with livestock,  as you point out your target doesn’t meet your made-up requirement.

f)  Chortle triumphantly at your brilliant proof that your target should give it up and just come to you for lessons in proper living.

You think I exaggerate.  No I do not. People do this.  And it makes life a nightmare for parents who are genuinely trying to figure out the best way to rear their children under difficult circumstances.  So lay off the parents.  That’s my Friday sermon:  Lay off.

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BTW if you aren’t feeling chastised (or smug) enough, Ruth at Wheelie catholic has more cautionary tales of employee horror.  Because the utter cluelessness of mankind knows no bounds. Go read. Be warned.  Amend your ways.  Find yourself rocketing to Employee of the Year.  It’s all good.

Tollefsen Reply Discussion Thread

Chris Tollefsen’s reply is up, over at Public Discourse. Note about the reading level: I didn’t have to look up any words in the dictionary, which is pretty noteworthy.  But the crux paragraphs do require you to slow down and read carefully.  So don’t try to skim, you’ll just end up feeling really dumb or really resentful, depending on your disposition.

(Why yes, I did know he was going to link to this blog, he warned me a few days ago.  No, I did not know about any of the other contents of the reply until I read it this morning, other than that he promised to address the Nazi at the Door problem.  Which he does.)

So this is the thread for discussing the state of the debate as it stands today, if there’s anyone left who isn’t thoroughly bored or disgusted with the topic by now.  (And who has free time.  I’m fascinated by the problem, but I have other problems, such as long division, calling me today.)  I have not done a check for new posts elsewhere this morning, so by all means link to anything fresh that you think moves forward the discussion.

 

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Note to any new readers here: 1) Welcome! 2) Your first post or two gets automatically held for moderation.  I will try to check in periodically, and keep the spam folder empty as well, but we are actually having school today, so you take 2nd place to my darling children.  You knew that.  If your post is submerged in the ether for an unexpected amount of time, don’t assume it was due to any fault of your own.

Fr. L. on the gambling industry.

More yes.  This is all true.   Over the past dozen years I’ve spent a lot of time in Vegas.  I’m familiar with the city, inside and out.  (Surprise: I prefer “out”.  Red Rocks, to be precise.)

To Fr. Longenecker’s comments I’ll add that gambling generates no wealth.  It doesn’t feed, clothe or shelter any better than my sitting on the porch playing 3-men’s morris does so.  (Except, in that case, I get to spend time with my child, teach some strategy, get my rear whipped by a 4-year-old . . . yes, there is all that.  The bulk of casino gambling doesn’t even pretend to give us that much.)

Gambling does redistribute wealth.  If you need a method to get cash from the hands of wealthy private-jet owners into the hands of waitresses, well, yes, that is one way.  But what Fr. L says about the industry is absolutely true, including the addiction and family-destroying and saving-depleting bits.

He didn’t mention the associated crime, but you can count on that too.  When you take a whole bunch of people who want something for nothing and stick them all together in one place, it’s not exactly a surprise that greed crosses legal lines here and there.

–> This isn’t some fundamentalist getting his rear in a wad because you like to play poker with your friends.  It’s not about whether games of chance are somehow evil.

But when you pray that prayer about “lead me not into temptation”? It implies a responsibility to avoid leading your neighbor into temptation either.

You want investment?  Build a farm, or a factory.  A school even.  (Or, go crazy, send a guy to seminary.  That’s an investment.)  The gambling “industry” is not industry at all.  And you go there to spend your money, and end up spending yourself as well.