www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Fr. John Corapi on Administrative Leave

The enemy hates priests and bishops. Let me say that again. The enemy hates priests and bishops.

The No-Mercy Route

On the other hand, there was a curious story in the Times, also on the front page, only two days later. Written by Laurie Goodstein, it worried that the bishops may have been too responsive, that by caving so completely to media pressure they had lost even more of the little moral authority they had left. It used to be, she writes, that the bishops could prophetically challenge popular opinion on questions such as abortion, welfare reform, capital punishment, and foreign policy, but now they are on the run. More important, by caving to demands for "one strike" and "zero tolerance" policies that will remove from ministry faithful priests who did one bad thing thirty years ago and have since had an impeccable record and are clearly no threat to anybody, Dallas may have changed the very self-understanding of the Church.

Goodstein writes: "Ultimately, [the bishops] opted for the no-mercy route despite arguments from some bishops that they should adopt an approach that acknowledges that each case is different, and that some abusers can with therapy be rehabilitated and continue to be of service. They took this step despite dreading that they must now return to their dioceses and tell seventy-year-old Father X that he will have to pack up and leave his parish in shame." Some bishops have already done that and she notes that in recent months there have been instances when parishioners have rebelled against the removal of beloved pastors. The shaming has had other consequences. "Two priests have committed suicide," she observes. "There could be more." Where there is no mercy, there is no hope. I expect Goodstein is not alone among reporters who are surprised and disappointed by the spinelessness of the bishops. After all, they as reporters were just doing their job in applying the pressure. They expected bishops of the Catholic Church to do their job, to respond as bishops. Instead, as Goodstein puts it, there is the perception that they "behaved more like Senators or CEO’s engaged in damage control than as moral teachers engaged in the gospel."

At least in large part, damage control was achieved, but at an unconscionable price. Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, New York, usually thought to be solidly in the liberal camp of the episcopal conference, spoke up against "zero tolerance." He pointed out that just last year the bishops issued a statement calling for the rehabilitation of prisoners and advocating "restorative justice." "Do we advocate this biblical concept for the community at large, but not for our own priests?" he asked. The hall fell silent when the revered Avery Cardinal Dulles moved to the microphone. The proposed charter, he said, "puts a very adversarial relationship between the bishop and the priest. The priest can no longer go to his bishop in confidence with a problem that he has. He has to be very careful what he says to the bishop because the bishop can throw him out of the ministry for his entire life." The bishops listened respectfully, and rejected his counsel.

Two orthodox stalwarts, Cardinals George of Chicago and Bevilacqua of Philadelphia urged support of the charter, but with heavy hearts. Cardinal Bevilacqua said, "It hurts to say I support zero tolerance. I wish I didn’t have to do that. I wish our circumstances were different. But, at the same time, in our present crisis we must place the common good of our Church first." With respect, isn’t that the way of thinking that produced the crisis in the first place? The good of the Church was defined in terms of avoiding scandal; thus the pattern of evasion, denial, hush money, and cover-up. It was necessary, it was said, to do some shady things to avoid scandal, all of which resulted in monumental scandal. Now, morally dubious measures are necessary for the good of the Church, in order to put that scandal behind us. The result may be a greater scandal; not, to be sure, in the eyes of the media but in the understanding of those whose chief concern is for the integrity of the Church’s faith and life.

The Church is in need of remedial catechesis on the Eighth Commandment.

SOLT’s fact-finding team has acquired information from Fr. Corapi’s
e-mails, various witnesses, and public sources that, together, state that,
during his years of public ministry:

He did have sexual relations and years of cohabitation (in California and
Montana) with a woman known to him, when the relationship began, as a
prostitute; He repeatedly abused alcohol and drugs; He has recently engaged
in sexting activity with one or more women in Montana; He holds legal title
to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an
ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of
his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the Society.