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The McCarrick mess

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The McCarrick mess HomeNEWS LocalNationalInternationalObituaries FEATURES NW StoriesLatest IssuePast Issues SPIRITUALITY Ask Father/BishopCatholic VoicesDaily ReadingsSaints of the Month LIVING Food & HomeMarriage & ParentingMoney & StewardshipSports VOICES ArchbishopBishopCommentaryBlog ESPAÑOL Del ArzobispoDel ObispoNoticias/OpiniónPreguntasSantos del Mes CULTURE BooksCalendarCrosswordMovies & TV MULTIMEDIA VideosAudioPhotos Classifieds HomeNEWS— Local— National— International— ObituariesFEATURES— NW Stories— Latest Issue— Past IssuesSPIRITUALITY— Ask Father/Bishop—Well-traveledVoices— Daily Readings— Saints of the MonthLIVING— Food & Home— Marriage & Parenting— Money & Stewardship— SportsVOICES— Archbishop— Bishop— Commentary— BlogESPAÑOL— Del Arzobispo— Del Obispo— Noticias/Opinión— Preguntas— Santos del MesCULTURE— Books— Calendar— Crossword— Movies & TVMULTIMEDIA— Videos— Audio— PhotosClassifieds Home VOICES Commentary The McCarrick mess The McCarrick mess August 13, 2018 Written by Bishop Robert Barron Published in Commentary Photo: Luca Signorelli/Wikimedia Commons When I was going through school, the devil was presented to us as a myth, a literary device, a symbolic manner of signaling the presence of evil in the world. I will shoehorn to internalizing this view and largely losing my sense of the devil as a real spiritual person. What shook my vacillation in regard to the evil one was the clerical sex vituperate scandal of the nineties and the early aughts. I say this considering that villainous slipperiness just seemed too thought-through, too well-coordinated, to be simply the result of endangerment or wicked human choice. The devil is characterized as “the enemy of the human race” and particularly the enemy of the church. I rencontre anyone to come up with a increasingly devastatingly constructive strategy for attacking the mystical soul of Christ than the vituperate of children and young people by priests. This sin had myriad uncontrived victims of course, but it moreover crippled the denomination financially, undercut vocations, caused people to lose conviction in Christianity, dramatically compromised attempts at evangelization, etc., etc. It was a diabolical masterpiece. Sometime in the early aughts, I was peekaboo a priming and found myself wandering increasingly or less vacated in the zone where groups and organizations had their booths. I came over to one of the tables and the woman there said, “You’re Father Barron, aren’t you?” I replied affirmatively, and she continued, “You’re doing good work for the church, but this ways that the devil wants to stop you. And you know, he’s a lot smarter than you are and a lot increasingly powerful.” I think I just mumbled something to her at that moment, but she was right, and I knew it. All of this has come when to me in the wake of the Archbishop McCarrick catastrophe. St. Paul warned us that we battle, not versus mankind and blood, but versus “powers and principalities.” Consequently, the principal work of the denomination at this devastating moment ought to be prayer, the conscious and insistent invoking of Christ and the saints. Now I can hear people saying, “So Bishop Barron is blaming it all on the devil.” Not at all. The devil works through temptation, suggestion and insinuation — and he accomplishes nothing without our cooperation. If you want to see the principle illustrated, Google Luca Signorelli’s image of the Antichrist in the Orvieto Cathedral. You’ll see what I mean. Archbishop McCarrick did wicked things and so did those, it appears, who enabled him. And we have to come to terms with these sins. Before I broach the subject of how to do this, permit me to say a few words well-nigh unhelpful strategies stuff bandied about. A first one is indiscriminate scapegoating. The unconfined philosopher René Girard taught us that when communities enter into crisis, people typically embark desperately to tint well-nigh for someone or some group to blame. In the catharsis of this indiscriminate accusation, they find a kind of release, an ersatz peace. “All the bishops should resign!” “The priesthood is a drain of immorality!” “The seminaries are all corrupt!” As I say, these assertions might be emotionally satisfying at some level, but they are tightly unjust and conduce toward greater and not less dysfunction. The second negative strategy is the riding of ideological hobbyhorses. So lots of commentators — left, part-way and right — have chimed in to say that the real rationalization of the McCarrick disaster is, take your pick, the ignoring of Humanae Vitae, priestly celibacy, rampant homosexuality in the church, the mistreatment of homosexuals, the sexual revolution, etc. Mind you, I’m not saying for a moment that these aren’t important considerations and that some of the suggestions might not have real merit. But I am saying that launching into a consideration of these matters that we have been debating for decades and that will certainly not shoehorn of an easy verdict amounts right now to a distraction. So what should be done? The United StatesPrimingofWell-traveledBishops has no juridical or canonical validity to willpower bishops. And plane if it tried to launch an investigation, it has, at the moment, very little credibility. Only the pope has juridical and disciplinary powers in regard to bishops. Hence, I would suggest (as a lowly back-bencher auxiliary) that the bishops of the United States — all of us — petition the Holy Father to form a team, made up mostly of true-blue lay Catholics skilled in forensic investigation, and to empower them to have wangle to all of the relevant documentation and financial records. Their task should be to determine how Archbishop McCarrick managed, despite his widespread reputation for iniquity, to rise through the ranks of the hierarchy and to continue, in his retirement years, to function as a roving producer for the denomination and to have a untempered influence on the visit of bishops. They should ask the ecclesial version of Senator Howard Baker’s famous questions: “What did the responsible parties know and when did they know it?” Only without these matters are settled will we know what the next steps ought to be. In the meantime, and whilom all, we should ask the heavenly powers to fight with us and for us. I might suggest expressly calling upon the one who crushes the throne of the serpent. Tagged under sex vituperate sin bishops devil well-traveled denomination bishop robert barron Bishop Robert Barron Bishop Robert Barron is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Contact him at www.wordonfire.org. 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