OPEN LETTER TO THE USCCB

EXTEND SAFE ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION TO UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN CHILDREN (UAC)

~ The horrific exploitation of children illegally trafficked into the United States is the subject of hearings before Congressional Judiciary Committees – it is a matter of time before a journalist or the Judiciary Committees identify the role of the Catholic Church in this historic travesty.

Your Excellencies, 

As you gather to meet in Baltimore, I pray that you will elevate consideration of the safety of the unaccompanied migrant children who have passed through, or are in, the care of the U.S. Catholic Church. These children are referred to as Unaccompanied Alien Children under the USCCB funding from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and are known within USCCB as “UACs”.

More accurately, they are children illegally trafficked into the United States, whether by familial adults, coyotes, or cartels. They are not aliens; they are children separated from their families and communities, ushered by adults to rugged and perilous territory to cross an international border alone. They have come in the hundreds of thousands, already victims, and gravely vulnerable to further exploitation and abuse. Undisclosed numbers have passed through, or are in, the care of the Catholic Church through its ministries for UACs.

Our Church has developed deep expertise in creating and maintaining a “Safe Environment” for children, an expertise born from the darkest hours of disregard for the well-being of children in our care. The acceptance of responsibility for the consequences of this disregard, legally, financially, and morally, has challenged the Church dearly – but transparency, reparations, and prevention, all with the involvement of lay expertise, has brought hope and light following this dark and costly period of failure.

Our Church must immediately tap and deploy this expertise in view of the gravity of harm being done to unaccompanied migrant children and the USCCB’s role as partner with the ORR in processing, placing, and monitoring these children.

1. The USCCB identifies itself as a partner with the federal agencies providing services to unaccompanied minor children.

How many unaccompanied children has the USCCB assisted in its partnership with the ORR and how many of these children have been exploited because of improper placements, failure to provide services or negligent monitoring? 

On November 9, 2023, the USCCB Committee on Migration released a form letter – not to the millions of faithful who have answered your call to welcome the stranger – but to “Dear Senator/Representative.” This letter acknowledged “emerging reports” of “incidents of migrant children in the United States suffering exploitative labor conditions and other harmful situations.” Attached to the letter, the Committee proposed a ten point funding plan, largely focused on ORR, to increase services for these children and detection of abuse. 

The Committee on Migration’s letter confirms that the USCCB’s Department of Migration and  Refugee Services (MRS), along with a network of local Catholic service providers (which include numerous Catholic Charities agencies) “have long partnered with the federal government” in serving migrant children.  As you are aware, the USCCB has received contracts from the federal government of approximately $25,000,000 in several successive years to provide services to the subset of minors who have illegally crossed the border without parents, family, or other adults.  

How many unaccompanied children has the USCCB assisted in its partnership with the ORR, and whether any of these children have been exploited because of improper placements, failure to provide services or negligent monitoring, is information the MRS, the Committee on Migration and the USCCB do not release. But, in view of the 130,000 unaccompanied minors who entered federal care in 2022, the numbers who have passed through Catholic services into their placements is certainly substantial.

2. Revelations of the grave harm done to exploited migrant children are emerging rapidly in the media and political circles.  

It is just a matter of time before a journalist or the Congressional Judiciary Committees identify the role of the Catholic Church in this historic scandal.

To be clear, the “incidents” referenced by the USCCB Committee on Migration entail widespread child exploitation –  documented by Hannah Drier of the New York Time in February 2023. The “incidents” include trafficking, labor exploitation and sexual exploitation. Two (now fired) ORR whistleblowers and one expert testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity on April 26, 2023, in harrowing detail. Whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas concluded that the “US government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation.” 

It is critical that we not whitewash with obtuse language the gravity of mistreatment of children illegally trafficked into the United States. We must call the “incidents” what they are:  child abuse occurring in the journey to the United States border and abuse in the placements of these unaccompanied minors – all arguably facilitated and enabled by the critical role the MRS and its network of Catholic agency play. (For a fuller summary of the information which has become public regarding abuse of unaccompanied migrant children, see https://thechristianreview.com/are-the-us-bishops-covering-up-child-exploitation-again).

The horrific reality of exploitation of children illegally trafficked into the United States has become the subject of hearings before Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee conducted the most recent hearing  on October 25, 2023. The testimony of Robin Dunn Marcos, Director of ORR was met with bipartisan outrage at the “assembly line” approach to moving these vulnerable children into the care of poorly vetted individuals with little-to-no follow up or monitoring.  (See https://www.c-span.org/video/?531369-1/federal-officials-testify-unaccompanied-migrant-children) .

It is just a matter of time before a journalist or the Congressional Judiciary Committees identify the role of the Catholic Church in this historic scandal.

3. The USCCB must get ahead of the scandal by pausing its partnership with the government and following its own Safe Environment protocols.

The responsibilities of the Church to these children are our own to fulfill – morally, legally, and  canonically – not limited by the terms of a contract with the federal government.

In its letter, the Committee on Migration focused on what the ORR and the federal government should do to meliorate, prevent, and detect the exploitation of these vulnerable children.  

Now the USCCB and the Committee on Migration should do the same for the USCCB’s UAC ministries and programs, drawing upon the experience and expertise of Safe Environment professionals throughout the United States Catholic Church. The Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM), in its partnership with Praesidium, has accumulated a wealth of information and successfully developed Safe Environment protocols to eradicate the scourge of child abuse. The USCCB should seek input from lay professionals to review and assess the USCCB policies and any resulting liabilities which might arise from the Church’s partnership with the admitted failures in the placement programs of ORR.

The USCCB’s responsibility and exposure for failed safe environments for these children extends beyond its partnership with ORR. While the USCCB funds its UAC ministries under contract with the government, it also solicits grants and donations, as well as volunteers, from the faithful. The responsibilities of the Church to these children are our own to fulfill, morally and canonically, not limited by the terms of a contract with the federal government or by a cap on funds ORR pays to the Church. Nor is it sufficient for the Church to blame ORR, or some other entity, for the exploitation of a child by a sponsor who could not pass our bare minimum Safe Environment standards. Like any student in a Catholic school, or patient at a Catholic hospital, or child volunteer at a parish ministry, the Church’s promise of a Safe Environment must extend to the unaccompanied migrant child for whom we assume care.

We all respect the work of the Committee on Migration to combat exploitation of unaccompanied minors; and we pray that additional funds and programs for the ORR are forthcoming and effective. Yet, additional ORR programs and funding in no way address the Church’s responsibilities to these children and the extent to which we have – and are – failing them, as we did the children abused by clergy. That Bishops relied then upon mental health professionals’ opinions regarding the danger posed by individual priests should offer warning that reliance upon ORR or other agencies’ assurances that an environment is safe for children is ill-placed. It is for the Church alone to ensure that its own moral, legal, and canonical obligations are met.

4. Action Items For Immediate Consideration

Please do not let the faithful wake up again – a week, 6 months, or 2 years from now – to another devasting headline, “Church Allowed Exploitation of Unaccompanied Minors.”

Fortunately, the Church has all the resources it needs at hand. I respectfully request the conference to consider the following action items to both abate further abuse of children trafficked into the US and to take responsibility for any such abuse the Church may have enabled.

1. Suspend the partnership with ORR with respect to unaccompanied minor children until the USCCB and the Committee on Migration have a) assessed the extent of exploitation of children who have passed through or are in our care, and b) set in place its own independent criteria and oversight mechanisms for ensuring a Safe Environment for each child served. 
2. As the Church’s training and programming to reduce child abuse has dramatically reduced complaints, safe environment coordinators should be deployed into the UAC ministries to assist in developing and implementing Safe Environment standards and protocols and address incidents of exploitation. These professionals are uniquely qualified in identifying children subjected to exploitation and reducing risks of such abuse.
3. Audit all cases of unaccompanied children we have served to assess their well-being and safety. Implement a remedial protocol for any child who cannot be located or is suspected to be a victim of exploitation. This must include mandatory referral to local law enforcement.
4. Form a lay task force/review board to confer with and advise the Committee on Migration on both policy and individual cases involving children trafficked into the United States who passed through the care of the Catholic Church.  Using the model of typical lay review boards, such an advisory board can provide expertise and lay input into policy and individual cases when complaints/inquiries are received.

On January 6, 2002, American Catholics awoke to the first of a series of articles conducted by the Boston Globe Spotlight team, “Church Allowed Abuse By Priest for Years.” That series shocked the faithful and opened an era of turmoil, reflection, and contrition and reparations.  

Please do not let us wake up again – a week, 6 months, or 2 years from now – to another devastating headline, “Church Allowed Exploitation of Unaccompanied Minors.”

It is far better to alert the faithful, seek our assistance and change course to protect and restore unaccompanied minor children under our Safe Environment protocols than to naively hope no one will notice ORR’s partner … the Catholic Church.

Sincerely In Christ,

Marjorie Murphy Campbell, JD, LlM, JCL

Park City, Utah

Sound of Freedom has topped $150,000,000 in box office take while dramatically calling attention to the horrific trafficking of children across international borders. Given the gravity of this evil and our own gross mishandling of priests who preyed on children, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) should welcome this opportunity to reassure the faithful that its border policies and Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program fully protect children from exploitation. I reached out to the USCCB hoping to find model programs, transparency and guarantees that the Catholic Church has protected migrant children from sexual and physical exploitation. Have any of the children cared for by the Church suffered exploitation in their journey to the border or in placements facilitated by the Catholic Church, I asked. The USCCB refused to respond. 

The USCCB’s lack of transparency is unacceptable. Mounting evidence has exposed gross exploitation of children at the border and in placements pursuant to the authority of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”).  The USCCB remains the primary institutional voice opposing border restrictions, while also contracting with ORR to provide care to unaccompanied children.  In 2020 and 2021, the USCCB had contracts for nearly $25,000,000 each year with the ORR to care for and place migrant children. What happened to these children and why won’t the USCCB discuss it?

The USCCB must urgently re-assess its border policy and its denial of a link between open borders and child exploitation.  It must address emerging evidence of the exploitation of unaccompanied children by smugglers and sponsors. More than any other institution, the US Catholic Church should have the protection of children as its major policy priority. This priority coincides with Church teaching on the protection of children, the special expertise the Church has developed in response to its sexual abuse scandal and the reality that another wave of lawsuits for enabling the exploitation of children will destroy the Catholic Church in America.

1. USCCB’s unrestricted border policy and its policy priority of “the dignity of the illegal migrant.”

In 2000, the USCCB published Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity. Without distinguishing immigrants based upon means of entry into the United States, the Bishops instructed that:  “The call to communion goes out to all members of the Church—bishops, priests, deacons, religious, lay leaders, and parishioners—to prepare themselves to receive the newcomers with a genuine spirit of welcome”. The Bishops underscored that Catholics’ warm welcome extend to any person illegally crossing the southern border, stating:

Without condoning undocumented migration, the Church supports the human rights of all people and offers them pastoral care, education, and social services, no matter what the circumstances of entry into this country, and it works for the respect of the human dignity of all—especially those who find themselves in desperate circumstances.

Remarkably, and reminiscent of the blind eye Catholic Bishops turned to pedophilia in their midst, Welcoming the Stranger disregards the victims of uncontrolled entry by characterizing  illegal entrants as desperate, fleeing from persecution, starvation, or grave threat to their lives. Children sold to, captured or manipulated by smugglers and traffickers – actual victims of ongoing crimes against children – found no room in their analysis of church teaching.

The bishops disregard of border evils in Welcoming the Stranger is historically notable. As they promulgated their border policy in 2000, the Boston Globe was investigating the astonishing cover up of sexual abuse of minors in the United States Catholic Church. First appearing in print on January 6, 2002, the Spotlight expose would permanently change the reputation, finances, and credibility of the Catholic Church.  Later that same year, the bishops met in Dallas, Texas to commit themselves to “to rid the Church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors.” Yet, this scourge, known in 2000 to be of grave concern at the border, was not mentioned in Welcoming the Stranger. Whether willing naivete or intentional omission, the bishops set in place in 2000 a policy prerogative of welcoming presumptively “desperate” illegal migrants over a policy of protecting children from exploitation.  

In the same year the bishops formulated their social teaching on “welcoming” illegal entrants on the southern border, Congress passed Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000; a reaction to the reality that “Trafficking in persons (TIP) for the purposes of exploitation is believed to be one of the most prolific areas of contemporary international criminal activity and is of significant interest to the United States and the international community as a serious human rights concern.”

Indeed, by 2003 one of these harms – child sex trafficking – had grown at such an alarming pace that “the Department of Homeland Security /U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) developed Operation Predator, an initiative to identify, investigate and arrest child predators. Officially launched by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in July 2004, Operation Predator [drew] on ICE’s unique investigative and enforcement authorities to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers, international sex tourists, and other predatory criminals.” Operation Predator became annual; the operation this year, Operation Cross Country XIII, netted “59 victims of child sex trafficking and sexual exploitation, and located 59 missing children.” One hundred twenty-five suspected traffickers/users were identified and/or arrested.

Despite its own horrific abuse crisis and the reality of child trafficking across the southern border, the bishops issued a second immigration statement in 2003, extending their policy prerogative of welcoming illegal migrants.  In Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, the American and Mexican bishops urged their governments to address drug and human trafficking but ignored the relationship between such evils and uncontrolled borders. Indeed, the bishops argued that border barriers designed to keep out the illegal migrant forced dangerous entry paths led by human smugglers – and ignored reports, such as that generated by Operation Predator in 2003 and portrayed in Sound of Freedom, that controlled borders provide an important point of contact to intercede in child sex trafficking and abuse.  

Human Smuggling & Trafficking of Children
The criminal networks engaged in human smuggling and trafficking have become more violent and more profit-driven than ever before. At the same time, some of their victims are getting younger and younger. In one case, a predator tried to purchase nine-to-eleven year old girls from Mexico. ICE agents arrested the individual when he traveled to Arizona to have sex with the girls.

The Bishops relied on upon their theology of “welcoming” to support a porous border – restrictions presumably viewed as “unwelcoming.” The Bishops objected to “initiatives [such as] . . . tripling of Border Patrol agents, especially at ports of entry, and the use of sophisticated technology such as ground sensors, surveillance cameras, heat-detecting scopes, and reinforced fencing.” That such measures might, in fact, deter or detect individuals trafficking children, the bishops ignored. In fact, in Welcome the Stranger, the bishops dismissed a nation’s “right to control its borders” as secondary to the “ more compelling claim” of the human person illegally crossing the border. The rights of children to be protected from trafficking and exploitation at the border were not included in the Bishops’ balancing of interests.   

Aware of criticism that its policy prerogative welcoming illegal migrants enables and encourages illegal entry, the USCCB asserts in a FAQ sheet provided to me that “there is no evidence or research to support the claim that the humanitarian and religious services provided by Catholic organizations incentivize unlawful migration.” The USCCB asserts that a child’s decision to migrate illegally arises from a “complex set of push-pull factors.” The USCCB fails to take account of  evidence that traffickers and smugglers force, entice and trick children – and the families who abandon these children – into illegal migration. That these trafficking schemes anticipate that the Church will welcome and care for the children until they are placed with “sponsors” is apparently ignored by the Church, though, as discussed below, it is documented that many such “sponsors” anticipate the arrival of these children to exploit.  

Welcoming the Stranger positioned the Church as the predominant voice in the United States objecting to entry impediments or barriers at the southern border – a policy in which it has heavily invested by ignoring dangerous abuses of the porous border and accepting responsibility for the fate of children illegally entering the country.

2. The Church’s Legal Responsibility for the Fate of Unaccompanied Minors – and its Lack of Transparency

Consistent with USCCB policy, Catholics along the southern border and beyond have welcomed thousands of unaccompanied minors over the last decade.  Unaccompanied minors have literally poured into the country, many aided by human smugglers paid to assist their entry. In 2022, for example, the New York Times reported that “the number of unaccompanied minors entering the United States climbed to a high of 130,000 . . . – three times what it was five years earlier.” 

While the number of unaccompanied minors has radically increased, the Church has remained doggedly opposed to border barriers or other deterrents to the pathways, many exploitative, along which children are ushered to then cross the southern border alone. Instead, the Church has long sought and received large government grants to assist in the welcome and settlement of illegal migrants, with a special focus on unaccompanied minors. 

As Bishop Mark Seitz of the diocese of El Paso, Texas testified on June 23, 2014 before the House Judiciary Committee: 

USCCB has been a leader in the protection of and advocacy for this vulnerable population and the institutional Catholic Church in the United States has played a critical role in the care of unaccompanied children. By virtue of our organizational structure and geographical reach, the U.S. Catholic Church early on has assumed a strong leadership role in the treatment and service of unaccompanied children. Since 1994, USCCB has operated the Unaccompanied Alien Children or “Safe Passages” Family Reunification program.

The USCCB has received millions of dollars from the government specifically restricted to the “Unaccompanied Alien Children Program.” Grants in 2020 totaled $24,768,292; and $24,810,621 in 2021. These grants make possible an extensive domestic Catholic network to facilitate the transport and release of children to “sponsors” throughout the United States. For a certain category of children, these sponsors may be completely unrelated adults who have requested one or more children. 

While the ORR  reports the numbers of unaccompanied minors released to “sponsors,” the USCCB refuses to provide such information, creating a hauntingly familiar lack of transparency. In 2022, for example, of the 127,477 unaccompanied migrant children illegally crossing the southern border and resettled with sponsors, we have no information whether the USCCB resettled 1000 or 100,000 of these children – and whether the USCCB has tracked any of them to ensure against abuses reported by whistleblowers and the New York Times, and detailed below.  

Similarly, while the ORR publishes an Unaccompanied Children Program Policy Guideline, the USCCB offers no such published information, nor any non-anecdotal cumulative data regarding outcomes for these children entrusted to the Church’s care. In the absence of such critical information, the faithful simply does not know whether the thousands of children resettled with sponsors by the Catholic Church are in safe environments, or whether they are among the children identified by the New York Times and New York Post as victims, or potential victims, of exploitation. 

Questions abound. How many such children has the USCCB assumed responsibility for? How does the USCCB ensure that these children are not exploited? What process does the USCCB use to track these children and monitor outcomes? What process does the USCCB follow to determine which children are being trafficked into the United States? Have any of these children sought recourse against the Church for negligence or abuse? These and many more questions hover ominously unanswered. 

With a policy that opposes border barriers and controlled entry, disregards evidence of child trafficking and smuggling, and refuses to disclose data and outcomes for children resettled pursuant to government contracts, it is critical that the USCCB re-assess – transparently and competently – the harm caused to children by the Church’s current prioritizing of the dignity of the illegal migrant over the protection of children.  The USCCB must avoid even the appearance of cover-up and directly address the evidence of child exploitation.

3. Exploitation of Unaccompanied Minors

On April 26 of this year, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement held a hearing to “examine the unprecedented surge of unaccompanied alien children at the southwest border and how open-border policies enable the exploitation of those children.” The surge of illegally entering unaccompanied minors requiring placement with “sponsors” is staggering:  from 15,381 in 2020, to 122,731 in 2021 and 128,904 in 2022.  The total number of unaccompanied minors released to sponsors for placement in 2023 is on track to exceed these figures.

Whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas testified to the committee of the atrocities she personally witnessed as an employee of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”): 

I’ve sat with Case Managers as they cried retelling horrific things that were done to children on the journey. I saw apartment buildings where 20, 30 & 40 unaccompanied children have been released. I saw sponsors trying to simultaneously sponsor children from multiple ORR sites. I saw sponsors using multiple addresses to obtain sponsorships of children. I saw numerous cases of children in debt bondage and the child knew they had to stay with the sponsor until the debt was paid.

She advised the committee that she came forward because the “US Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children.”

Sheena Rodriguez added similar observations.

I also met teenage boys between the ages of 14 to 17, who claimed cartel operatives often transported children through Mexico and held them at bodegas or warehouses where armed cartel members stood guard. Many were told they were going to stay with sponsors in America, with several claims that the teens had never met or personally communicated with their supposed sponsors.

Confirming these eyewitness accounts, expert Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies detailed the known abuses to children by the open border policy. 

Several major investigative reports conducted by branches of the U.S. government and news media outlets have documented how U.S. policies and practices have facilitated not only this mass migration episode, but also the resulting exploitation and abuse of the participants, which has been present since the onset of this episode. These studies and reports have exposed numerous incidents of abuse, fraud, and trafficking for the purposes of commercial sex and forced labor.

In scathing conclusion, doubtlessly referring to the Catholic Church, Ms. Vaughan condemned the policies which have enabled the wide scale exploitation of children.

The Biden administration has implemented policies that incentivize the illegal entry of unaccompanied alien children on a massive scale, to the profit of criminal smugglers and traffickers, even with full knowledge of the risks that such policies will endanger the safety and well-being of the migrant children. Some supporters of these policies have defended them on the belief that they are aiding the reunification of families, providing a safe haven from difficult living environments in their home countries, and even benefiting US employers. On the contrary, I submit that there is no possible rationalization for policies that have facilitated the abuse and exploitation of child migrants on such a large scale for so many years. There is no possible humanitarian or economic motive that could justify or make up for the damage that has been done to the victims by the smugglers, traffickers, abusive sponsors, and even family members who participated in these dreadful arrangements.

On February 23, 2023, the New York Times published an explosive expose, Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S., reporting the results of an extensive investigation of the fate of unaccompanied minors placed with “sponsors.” Based upon interviews with over 100 children in 20 states, reporter Hannah Drier concluded that unaccompanied minors placed with “sponsors” are “ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws — including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom.” The fate of these children remains undetected, as children become invisible to the systems which facilitated their illegal entry.  “While H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.” 

Tim Ballard, the true life character played by Jim Cavaziel in Sound of Freedom, has warned of these abuses for years. Certainly the Bishops are aware.  My inquiry whether and how the Church has insulated its own work for the ORR from these reports was refused. It remains my hope that, despite refusing my request for an interview on these questions, the USCCB will recognize that its history alone with child exploitation mandates transparency on this program and the fate of these children.  

4. The Church’s Social Teaching on Illegal Migrants Must Make Protection of Minors a Priority

No institution in the United States knows better the consequences of turning a blind eye to the reality of child exploitation and sexual abuse than the Roman Catholic Church. With over 5,000 ordained priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of thousands of children, victim lawsuits, diocesan bankruptcies and deep-dive state investigations continue.

Over 25 dioceses have declared bankruptcy in the last decade, each laden with multi-million dollar settlements for victims of pedophile priests whose bishops attempted to “avoid scandal” by ignoring canon and criminal law and, often, by relocating the disordered priest to a new diocese.  Most recently, San Francisco archdiocese  and San Diego have signaled plans to use a bankruptcy filing to manage child sexual abuse claims, joining other dioceses such as Portland, New Orleans, Buffalo, Minneapolis, and Wilmington. 

Critically, the Church’s response to this gruesome travesty against the most innocent has included substantive changes in canon law which both mandate reporting, canonical processing of offenders and transparency. The U.S. Catholic Church has become a leader in safe environment training and implementation. These lessons must be extended to analyze and re-evaluate both border policy and the Church’s care of unaccompanied minors.  The protection of children must be established within all USCCB policy and projects as a priority – so that the Church does not repeat patterns of harm to children in blind pursuit of other objectives, such as avoiding scandal or treating migrants with dignity.  

That USCCB vocally acknowledges the abhorrence of child sex trafficking and supports anti-trafficking efforts offers no excuse for ignoring consequential harms of its own immigration policies and avoiding its responsibilities both to child border victims and to children under its Unaccompanied Alien Children Program. The USCCB must draw on its hard-learned lessons and extend the protection of children as its priority in immigration policy and programming. I urge the Conference to begin with transparent accounting for illegal migrant children who have passed through the Church’s care. 

No hay escapatoria a los extraños pero empedernidos esfuerzos por “homo-sexualizar” el sacerdocio católico romano. Lo que usted esperaría luego de la espectacular caída en desgracia del Sr. Theodore McCarrick, el ex cardenal que fue apartado del sacerdocio, sería un interés grande por los jóvenes maltratados por McCarrick y otros depredadores homosexuales dentro de la Iglesia. En cambio, vemos una negación total del abuso, los esfuerzos para evitar discutir el abuso y un impulso para normalizar la homosexualidad en el sacerdocio.

El pasado sábado por la mañana, el Vaticano anunció la laicización de McCarrick por “instigar delitos sexuales en el Sacramento de la Confesión, y pecados contra el Sexto Mandamiento con menores y con adultos, con el factor agravante del abuso de poder”. La mañana del domingo, el titular del New York Times decía: “ ‘No es un armario. Es una jaula.’ Los Sacerdotes Homosexuales Hablan Sin Tapujos.”

El artículo no decía nada sobre la depredación homosexual de McCarrick, el Obispo O’Connell, el Obispo Pineda, el Obispo Zanchetta o cualquiera de los otros clérigos implicados en el abuso de preadolescentes, adolescentes y hombres jóvenes. El artículo tampoco mencionó la cobertura y la caracterización errónea de estos abusos por parte de los líderes de la Iglesia. Hizo falta en el artículo cualquier consideración sobre las prácticas deshumanizantes y homosexuales recientemente dadas a conocer acerca de todo el Vaticano. En resumen, el artículo de New Times nunca menciona el daño a los niños, adolescentes y hombres jóvenes que cayeron presa de estos homosexuales de mayor edad, ni el impacto de esta próspera subcultura homosexual en las mujeres de la Iglesia que ya están asustadas y alienadas.

El artículo del New York Times se centró en la lucha de los sacerdotes que quieren vivir y ser aceptados como “sacerdotes homosexuales”. El padre Bob Bussen fue citado en el artículo, mencionando: “La gran mayoría de los sacerdotes homosexuales no están seguros”. La vida en el armario es peor que el chivo expiatorio. No es un armario. Es una jaula ”. ¿Qué es exactamente la“ jaula ”que limita al padre Bob? Él es mi pastor durante años en St. Mary’s en Park City, Utah. Reimprimí y compartí sus homilías varias veces.

Si el padre Bob estaba “inseguro” y “enjaulado” en nuestra parroquia aquí en Park City, Utah, es difícil comprender qué significa estar-“seguro”. La sexualidad del padre Bob siempre fue evidente y nunca escuché a nadie hacer comentarios negativos sobre sus pendientes y botas y su estilo teatral de hablar. Por el contrario, la parroquia amaba al padre Bob tal como era, y fue aquí en Park City que el padre Bob regresó cuando se retiró.

A pesar del exitoso ministerio del Padre Bob y el preciado lugar en la comunidad de la Iglesia, sus comentarios, y los de otros sacerdotes “gay” en el artículo del New York Times, insisten en que ellos son las víctimas. Insisten de que su sexualidad debe ser la principal preocupación: de que no son solo “sacerdotes” ordenados en Jesucristo para el servicio de su pueblo, pero que son “sacerdotes homosexuales”, y que su homosexualidad debe ser reconocida y aprobada.

Sentada un domingo en la iglesia de Santa María después de leer los comentarios del Padre Bob, lloré.

La lectura del evangelio era una de sus favoritas: “Bienaventurados los pobres; El Reino de Dios es tuyo ”. El padre Bob era un apasionado defensor de los marginados, los oprimidos, los rechazados de nuestro mundo. De alguna manera, ser “gay” (ser un “sacerdote gay” en lugar de solo el “sacerdote” que he conocido desde hace muchos años) se había convertido en una misión fundamental para validar su identidad.

Me pregunto por qué estos sacerdotes están repentinamente tan preocupados por ellos mismos. ¿Por qué exigen que su orientación sexual sea fundamental para su persona pública en la Iglesia? “¿Por qué están ignorando tan categóricamente los abusos, problemas y desafíos de la subcultura homosexual, incluidos los jóvenes a quienes McCarrick abusó y los muchos niños cuya primera experiencia sexual fue con hombres homosexuales mayores que los explotan sexualmente?”

Parece que suplican: “Mírame y dime que estoy bien”. Esto es a duras penas una pregunta fácil ante tantos hombres víctimas de actos no deseados del mismo sexo. Especialmente cuando los católicos, y el público en general, han leído sobre el ‘entrenamiento’ y la coacción de actos del mismo sexo por parte del clero de mayor edad contra hombres jóvenes vulnerables.

El hecho de que la Iglesia evite desesperadamente este problema refleja la cultura homosexual más amplia. Como Chad Felix Greene ha escrito en el Huffington Post,

A menudo encuentro a los hombres homosexuales romantizando sus experiencias sexuales tempranas e idealizando a los hombres que los introdujeron en el mundo del sexo gay. Nuestra erótica, fetichismo sexual, pornografía y los roles sexuales tienden a imitar las relaciones entre adultos y adolescentes. A menudo, nuestro concepto del tipo de hombre que buscamos se basa en estas experiencias iniciales. Cuando muchos tienen la misma experiencia, es fácil creer que es normal. Pero creo que es absolutamente crítico que el mundo LGBT considere seriamente este problema y tome medidas para detenerlo. Este es un problema de hombres homosexuales que abusan de hombres jóvenes que buscan muchas cosas en un estado extremadamente vulnerable.

Pero el liderazgo de la Iglesia en sí mismo está tratando de desviar la culpa de la homosexualidad centrándose en el abuso de menores como diferente al abuso de niños o hombres jóvenes, como insistió el Cardenal Cupich de Chicago, “porque en algunos de los casos con adultos … involucrando a los clérigos, podría ser sexo consensual. Hay una serie de circunstancias completamente diferentes que deben entrar en juego aquí ”. En otras palabras, discutamos esas otras“ circunstancias ”, no los avances homosexuales hechos por sacerdotes hacia aquellos bajo su cuidado.

La insistencia de que los varones victimizados desde la pubertad hasta los veinte años de edad por depredadores varones no constituyen una categoría de víctima digna de un enfoque y entendimiento separados, ciega a la Iglesia a un componente importante de la cultura homosexual y su papel en la crisis de abuso sexual de la Iglesia.

Al terminar de escribir estas palabras, oro por el Padre Bob, que ha proporcionado mucho espiritualmente a mi vida y a la de mi familia. Rezo para que pueda reflexionar sobre la “jaula” que lo sostiene y si su adversario es la Iglesia o la cultura homosexual a la que se siente atraído por su atracción hacia personas del mismo sexo.

There’s no escape the odd but determined efforts to “homosexualize” the Roman Catholic priesthood. What you expect following the spectacular fall from grace of Mr. Theodore McCarrick, the defrocked former Cardinal would be an outpouring of concern for young males abused by McCarrick and other homosexual predators within the Church. Instead, we see a blatant denial of the abuse, efforts to avoidance discussing the abuse, and a push to normalize homosexuality in the priesthood.

This past Saturday morning, the Vatican announced the laicization of  McCarrick for “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” The next morning the Sunday The New York Times’ headline read, “’It is Not a Closet. It is a Cage.’ Gay Priests Speak Out.” 

The article said nothing about the homosexual predation by McCarrick, Bishop O’Connell,  Bishop Pineda, Bishop Zanchetta or any of the other clergy implicated in the abuse of preteens, teens and young men. Neither did the article mention the cover-up and mischaracterization of these abuses by Church leaders. Missing from the article was any consideration of the dehumanizing, homosexual practices recently chronicled throughout the Vatican. In short, the New Times article never mentions the damage to the boys, teens and young men who fall prey to these older homosexuals, or the impact of this thriving homosexual subculture on the already-frightened and alienated women of the Church.  

The New York Times article focused on the struggle of priests who want to live, and be accepted, as “gay priests.” Featured in the article was Father Bob Bussen who was quoted, “The vast majority of gay priests are not safe. Life in the closet is worse than scapegoating. It is not a closet. It is a cage.” Just what is the “cage” which confines Father Bob? He as my pastor for years at St. Mary’s in Park City, Utah. I reprinted and shared his homilies several times. 

If Father Bob was “unsafe” and “caged” in our parish here in Park City Utah, then it’s hard to fathom what safe even means. Father Bob’s sexuality was always evident and I never once heard anyone comment negatively about his earring and boots and theatrical style of speaking. To the contrary, the parish loved Father Bob just as he was – and it was here in Park City that Father Bob returned when he retired.

Despite Father Bob’s successful ministry and cherished place in the Church community, his comments—and those of other “gay” priests in the New York Times article—insist that they are the victims. They insist that their sexuality must be the primary concern: They are not just “priests” ordained to Jesus Christ in service to his people, they are “gay priests,” and their homosexuality must be acknowledged and approved.

As I sat at St. Mary’s Sunday after reading Father Bob’s comments, I cried. 

The gospel reading was one of his favorites, “Blessed are you who are poor; God’s Kingdom is yours.” Father Bob was a passionate advocate for the marginalized, the downtrodden, the rejected of our world. Somehow, being “gay” – being a “gay priest” rather than just the “priest” he has been known to me for so many years – had become a critical mission to validating his identity. 

I wonder why these priests so suddenly concerned about themselves? Why are they demanding that their sexual orientation be core to their public persona in the Church? Why are they so adamantly ignoring the abuses, problems, and challenges of homosexual subculture, including the young men who McCarrick abused and the many boys whose first sexual experience is with older gay men sexually exploit them?”

They seem to beg, “Look at me, and tell me I am okay.”  This is hardly an easy ask in the face of so many male victims of unwanted same-sex acts. Especially when Catholics, and the general public, have read about elder clergy grooming and coercing same-sex acts from vulnerable young males. 

The Church’s desperate avoidance of this issue mirrors the broader homosexual culture.  As Chad Felix Greene has written in the Huffington Post, 

I often find gay men romanticizing their early sexual experiences and idealizing the men who introduced them to the world of gay sex. Our erotica, sexual fetishism, pornography, and sexual roles tend to mimic adult-teen relationships. Often our very concept of the type of man we search for is built on these early experiences. It is easy when so many hold the same experience to believe it is normal. But I believe it is absolutely critical the LGBT world take a serious look at this issue and take action to stop it. This is an issue of gay men abusing young men seeking a great many things in an extremely vulnerable state.

But Church leadership itself is trying to shift the blame away from homosexuality by focusing on abuse of minors as distinct from abuse of boys or young men, As Cardinal Cupich of Chicago insisted, “Because in some of the cases with adults … involving clerics, it could be consensual sex., There’s a whole different set of circumstances that need to come into play here.”  In other words, let’s discuss those other “circumstances,” not the homosexual advances made by priests on those in their care. 

The insistence that males from puberty through their early twenties victimized by male predators do not themselves constitute a victim category worthy of separate focus and understanding effectively blinds the Church to a significant component of homosexual culture and its role in the Church’s sexual abuse crisis. 

As I finish writing, I pray for Father Bob, who has brought so much spiritually to my life and the lives of my family. I pray that he can reflect on the “cage” which holds him and whether his adversary is the Church or the homosexual culture to which he is drawn by his same-sex attraction.

The meeting of the United States Conference of Bishops in Baltimore failed to produce even gestures of communication or expressions of affection for us, the suffering flock. I left the November meeting numbed by the realization that the bureaucratic language, structures, and processes of the men we call bishops to fence them in a world where broken, shocked hearts of ordinary men and women do not make the agenda.  We, the laity, factor more as a body to be cajoled and managed than a people to be cared for and loved.

I entered Advent heavy in heart.

As I turned to the Magnificat readings, anxious to feel the joy, anticipation, and hope of Advent preparation, the words of Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of the diocese of Jefferson City refused to leave me.

“At the time of this writing, there has not been one bishop, archbishop or cardinal in either the Holy See or the United States who has come forward on his own to repent publicly of his sins of omission or commission with regard to Archbishop McCarrick’s series of promotions over decades. Please, be men, not cowards, and come clean on your own!”

Day after day passes. Episcopal silence persists. The McCarrick Mess hovers over Advent, like a Devil’s winged serpent, maneuvering to block the light and drive hope of healing and unity from the season.  No bishop “comes clean.” No bishop tears with remorse in pain with his laity. None cry out for formerly Cardinal McCarrick to break his cold-hearted silence.

Busy at work, Attorneys Generals across the United States take aim at the Episcopal enclosure. Ironically, just days before Advent, Cardinal DiNardo became the media face of the U.S. Catholic Church around the world when prosecutors executed an early morning surprise raid of his Galveston-Houston offices. 

I entered Advent with images of civil authorities hauling away boxes of documents from a Catholic Church Cardinal, the very figurehead who has promised to the laity disclosure, transparency, and accountability.

Silence, so integral to Advent and its time of waiting and mystery, engulfs me. My soul seems lost – “dumb, inarticulate, blind, seeing only darkness, unable to give things that it longs to give.” Houselander, Reed of God. 

I know I am not alone.

Over a slice of panettone, a longtime friend teared up and bemoaned the Episcopal silence as she wondered how the Church would ever recover from such betrayal.  Lighted candles, an endearing figure of Christ-baby in his manger, and background carols of joy dangerously darkened as the winged serpent circled our heart-broken discussion.  

Perhaps it was this moment, against the backdrop of the many painful comments I’ve read at the Catherine Commission Facebook page, that resulted in my decision to end my Advent silence with a plea. I decided to join my voice to Bishop McKnight who observed, “There doesn’t have to be a formal and long, drawn-out investigation for a bishop to exercise a little compunction and concern for the well-being of the whole Church.” 

I have sent a Christmas card to formerly Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. I have expressed my hope and prayer that Advent has been a fruitful season of silence and reflection for him. I wrote,

“I beg you from and for the Body of Christ, to be brave and true and initiate repair to the scandal you have brought upon us. I beg you to affirm that you do love the Body of Christ and to issue an apology for this scandal you have brought upon us all. If you hold the baby Jesus in your heart, you will do this simply from love.”

If you would like to join me, here is formerly Cardinal McCarrick’s address:

Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, St Fidelis Friary, 900 Cathedral Avenue, Victoria, KS  67671

Silence in Advent is reverent, patient and humble. It is not silence used to repress, cover-up and conceal. It’s been a painful Advent for many, many Catholics in the United States. This is not a bad thing.

“This simply means that the Holy Spirit of Love, by which Christ was conceived in that heart, is compelling it to suffer the period of growth” (Carol Houselander, Reed of God).

I am praying through the Christmas celebration now for all of you, the laity, that we may continue to grow in our new role in the Church.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo has closed the final public session of the November 12-14 meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Acknowledging disappointment and lack of “action steps,” the Cardinal nevertheless expressed hope that the interference in the meeting by Rome and the derailed votes on action promised the laity by the USCCB would produce more tangible action sometime next year. 

Unlikely.

More likely, the USCCB will never take the “action steps” demanded by and promised to the laity regarding formerly-Cardinal McCarrick. 

I asked in my Second Open Letter to the USCCB Regarding the Cardinal McCarrick Scandal prior to this meeting: Will you decide to pursue the investigation, reporting, and disclosure of the TRUTH regarding the former Cardinal’s rise to power and immunity to consequences for sexual predation, or will you decide to deny the TRUTH to the laity (and yourselves) with delays, excuses or half-hearted measures?

The answer is in: The laity will never know “who knew what when” from the USCCB regarding formerly-Cardinal McCarrick. The USCCB is conducting no broad, inclusive investigation. What limited information the American dioceses reviewing their files on McCarrick gather must, it appears, first go to Rome. What official information laity receives will come, if ever, only from Rome and that will be months, likely years, from now. 

This is not the result many of our bishops wanted. 

Many bishops rose to the microphone and made frank statements in favor of a lay-lead investigation into how formerly-Cardinal McCarrick rose to the highest position in the American Catholic Church. He rose to power despite abusing at least one minor, provoking at least two civil settlements for sexual harassment and grooming uncounted seminarians and young priests for his sexual pleasure.

“Who knew what when” about McCarrick so dominated the call of these brave bishops, Cardinal DiNardo acknowledged that in all the letters and feedback he has received, the “McCarrick thing” dominates and does not seem to be going away. 

While most of those bishops who spoke appeared genuinely concerned about McCarrick’s victims and the outrage of the laity, the truth was not a priority of the body. The body functioned to avoid even an appearance of disagreement with Rome.

This was not a collegial body operating to identify the scope of McCarrick’s harms, initiate steps toward healing and restore the USCCB credibility so wantonly wasted by McCarrick. This was, rather, a highly manipulated body whose focus was repeatedly called to a subservient deference to the Holy Father regardless the delays, silence, and intentions of Rome and regardless the impact on sexual abuse victims and disillusioned laity.

1.  The Hurdles of Complaining Against a Bishop.

Had the USCCB wanted to listen, two voices offered stirring evidence of the stress and emotional hurdles of pursuing a complaint against a bishop. Mr. James Grein spoke outside the USCCB Baltimore meeting at a rally organized by Church Militant, and Bishop Steven Biegler spoke at least twice inside the USCCB meeting from his experience as a bishop in Cheyenne Wyoming. Mr. Grein was only 11 years old when McCarrick began sexually abusing him. Bishop Biegler had not yet been ordained a bishop when he found himself leading an investigation of sexual abuse allegations against longtime Bishop Joseph Hart, Biegler’s predecessor in Wyoming. 

Both spoke emotionally of the hardship they suffered pursuing allegations against a bishop.

Mr. Grein spoke on Tuesday in an outdoor pavilion, under dreary, drizzling skies. He was visibly shaking.  As LifeSiteNews reported,

“Previously, he felt there was ‘no place’ for him to report his abuse, and that nobody would believe him even if he were to report it. Grein said he was motivated to go public Tuesday as a way to inspire other victims….I do this today so that others like me have the strength to come forward. Think about what you can do to help others. This movement must continue to gain strength,’ he said.”

On Wednesday, a soft-spoken Bishop Biegler, seemingly near tears, told his brother bishops of the pressures brought against him as he pursued sexual abuse allegations against Bishop Hart. These pressures came from laity trying to protect the former Wyoming diocesan bishops but, Bishop Biegler emphasized, the pressures came, too, from his fellow bishops.

These were the voices begging to be heard.

2. Rome Nixes a Lay-Lead Commission; the Metropolitan Is Seeded As An Option

The substantial labor of the USCCB Executive Committee in preparing a proposal to vote for a lay-lead commission to investigate sexual allegations against a  bishop, received through an independent hotline, went largely to waste. 

Shocking to many bishops, but not all, Cardinal DiNardo announced that the USCCB had received an instruction from Rome NOT to vote on the lay-lead commission proposal. Instead, the bishops were to wait for the global meeting on sexual abuse convened by the Holy Father with all the presidents of the Episcopal conferences in February.

It’s important to note that serving on the Congregation of Bishops who sent the instruction are both Cardinal Blase Cupich and Cardinal Donald Wuerl. In other words, both Cardinals would have been privy to the instruction before it was sent to the American bishops.

Thus, Cardinal Cupich’s odd remark at the meeting can be understood as a flimsy rationale for what he, Cardinal Wuerl, and the other bishops on the Congregation of Bishops thought about their restriction. He said Rome’s restriction was a sign that “the Holy See is taking the abuse crisis seriously.” 

It also comes as no surprise that Cardinal Cupich apparently circulated at the meeting a detailed alternative proposal, which must have been prepared in advance or with expertise on standby. Cardinal Cupich proposed that, instead of a combination hotline/lay-lead investigation commission, complaints against a bishop should go to that bishop’s Metropolitan for review, presumably with the assistance at some point of his lay review board. A Metropolitan is an archbishop with limited authority over the bishops of the dioceses in his region, referred to as suffragans. If the accused bishop happens to be the Metropolitan, then the complaint would go to the senior suffragan.

The proposal quickly provided support to bishops interested in expanding the powers of the Metropolitan or concerned by the cost of the hotline/lay-lead commission proposal. DiNardo concluded that both options should proceed for further development and consideration.

This was a bizarre development. Only one bishop seems to have noticed that the Metropolitan alternative preserved the high emotional and stress hurdle of pursuing sexual complaints against a bishop. Also, such a plan would not likely have changed any aspect of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s ascendancy and immunity for sexual abuse since he was, in fact, a Metropolitan. Since the Archdiocese of Washington, DC has only one suffragan, St. Thomas, its bishop could hardly be expected to pursue diligently complaints against his Metropolitan.

3. Non-collegiality

Remarkably, the bishops seemed to tolerate the derailment of laboriously prepared votes, the last minute introduction of information easily provided earlier and the gross information inequality between themselves.  Elements in the body operated more like a well-orchestrated partisan power play to derail votes, cause delay, and seed alternative proposals than a body concerned by the malfeasance and victims of their former, most prominent spokesperson. 

Cardinal Joseph Tobin twice approached the microphone to speak, only to “share” information which then became the basis upon which other bishops argued against pending proposals. 

Bishop Earl Boyea’s “one little task” to assure the release of as many McCarrick-related documents as feasible – a task Bishop Boyea asserted was owed to the seminarians who McCarrick harmed – fell to such a fate. The proposed language was projected for discussion and vote.

“Be it resolved that the bishops of the United States Conference of Bishops encourage the Holy See to release all the documentation that can be released consistent with canon and civil law regarding the misconduct of Archbishop McCarrick.”

As the discussion began, Cardinal Tobin rose with a “point of information” – shared, he believed, with the Chair. Cardinal Tobin then read extensively from an October 6, 2018 “communiqué,” outlining the intentions of Rome with respect to proceedings against McCarrick, to sharing the conclusions of those proceedings and to combining all information on McCarrick for objective evaluation within its “historical context.”

Based on this excerpt – apparently unfamiliar to the other bishops and not made available to the bishops or the observers — assertions were then made that the proposed resolution was unnecessary since the Holy See already promised to release information.

To pass such a resolution, in light of the communiqué, opponents of Bishop Boyea’s resolution urged, challenged the credibility of the Pope himself.  The resolution failed, 137-83.

Had the Bishops been given the text and an opportunity to read it, it would have been apparent that the communique did not address the release of the McCarrick documentation – only conclusions from a pending matter. More, the notice from the Holy Father portends a substantial, lengthy process with regard to additional accusations and offers no commitment to release any documentation or even additional conclusions.

Set in the context of the communique, Bishop Boyea’s proposed resolution was an appropriate and respectful request to the Holy Father based on the needs of McCarrick’s victims, the American laity and commitments made to both by the USCCB.

“The Holy See will, in due course, make known the conclusions of the matter regarding Archbishop McCarrick. Moreover, with reference to other accusations brought against Archbishop McCarrick, the Holy Father has decided that information gathered during the preliminary investigation be combined with a further thorough study of the entire documentation present in the Archives of the Dicasteries and Offices of the Holy See regarding the former Cardinal McCarrick, in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively.”

Nevertheless, arguments that Bishop Boyea’s release resolution was redundant, disrespectful and unnecessary prevailed.

As the USCCB meeting closes, the “McCarrick thing” remains an albatross around the neck of the USCCB. It’s not going away. It hangs, a dead-weight reminder that the bishops have chosen obsequious deference to Rome to enfold McCarrick into a protective, prolonged silence, a sexual offender most of them now carefully call “Archbishop,” preserving his inclusion as one of them while leaving his victims outside in the cold Baltimore rain.

St. Catherine of Siena, Pray for Us

To the Most Reverend Members of the USCCB,

I write respectfully in follow up to my July 23, 2018, Open Letter to the USCCB regarding the Cardinal McCarrick Scandal.

You are preparing to meet in Baltimore November 12-14. This meeting comes in the turbulent wake of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s removal from the College of Cardinals and public ministry; the lurid revelations of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report; and the shocking exchange between former US Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Marie Viganó and our Holy Father.

This meeting convenes as your first organized gathering following what’s been dubbed our “Catholic summer of shame,” a period of torrential lamentation and suffering for victims of sexual abuse and faithful laity and clerics. You convene amidst deepening secular investigation (both media and judicial) of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States with its associated expense and burden and embarrassment. 

The outraged response has reached you from the full range of Catholic orientation, including the most theologically “liberal” to the most ferociously “conservative” corners of the American church.

The burden upon you is heavy. 

As you enter your meeting, you are aware the USCCB lacks credibility with the faithful. While calls for “transparency” predominate, the unifying theme – of victims, faithful followers and secular authorities is this: Tell the Truth.  

There is TRUTH about who knew what when regarding formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s ignominious career; but this truth must be sought, compiled and released. 

November 12-14 represents a critical moment for the United States Catholic Church. 

Will you decide to pursue the investigation, reporting, and disclosure of the TRUTH regarding the former Cardinal’s rise to power and immunity to consequences for sexual predation, or will you decide to deny the TRUTH to the laity (and yourselves) with delays, excuses or half-hearted measures?  

Here I summarize briefly what I have learned and heard through an online discussion group I manage of approximately 600 faithful, engaged, heart-broken Catholics, The Catherine Commission. The group formed on August 3, 2018, and is dedicated as follows.

Catherine Commission – a Truth Project. St. Catherine of Sienna, pray for us. Help us to heal the deep wounds in our Church and cleanse us from all iniquities. We pray that you will guide us, in love, charity, and diligence, to go where the light of Truth takes us, in the name of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. May His Church be restored by Truth.

I commend to you the following three lay expectations regarding your efforts to restore Episcopal credibility and advance healing for the suffering of McCarrick’s victims and the laity and your priests and religious. Failure to meet these expectations will deepen disappointment, division, and disharmony within our community. Embracing these expectations as your own will draw us together in purpose.

1. Lay-led accounting of the rise of the former Cardinal, Rev. Theodore E. McCarrick (Who has not been laicized though he has been removed from public ministry.)

The overwhelming expectation of American Catholics is that you will initiate a thorough, lay-led investigation of McCarrick.

The laity has received precious few facts explaining how the most powerful hierarchical figure of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States has ended up fallen from grace, ousted from the College of Cardinals, subject to unspecified canonical proceedings, confined to a friary in Kansas, and – in contradiction to his entire history within our Church community – completely removed from the public landscape of the domestic and international Church. 

News, mostly secular, tells us that he grossly abused at least one minor; sexually targeted, harassed and abused seminarians and young priests, and provoked at least two significant civil settlements for sexual harassment, one in Metuchen NJ and one in Newark NJ. 

McCarrick himself is SILENT. Members of the USCCB have been largely SILENT as to “who knew what when.” Our Holy Father commends SILENCE as a response. 

Only the former United States Nuncio Archbishop Viganó, has “broken rank” with detailed, assertions about “who knew what when.” Many of you have acknowledged the Archbishop’s good character and reputation. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo observed, “The questions raised deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence. Without those answers, innocent men may be tainted by false accusation and the guilty may be left to repeat sins of the past.” 

Many bishops have agreed that a complete investigation of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s rise to power is needed – and that only with such an investigation can steps then be taken to heal the harms of McCarrick’s predatory and abusive behaviors, prevent further malfeasance by bishops and restore the credibility of the Episcopal body. 

As Bishop Robert Barron wrote:

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 ambassador for the Church and to have a disproportionate influence on the appointment of bishops. They should ask the ecclesial version of Sen. Howard Baker’s famous questions: “What did the responsible parties know and when did they know it?” Only after these matters are settled will we know what the next steps ought to be.

Comments to Bishop Barron’s article, like comments at The Catherine Commission, overwhelming support a complete “who knew what when” lay-led investigation.  The Church’s current National Review Board has pleaded for a similar, though broader, investigation.  

 The National Review Board firmly believes, as has been expressed by several bishops in recent days, that the episcopacy needs to be held accountable for these past actions, and in the future, for being complicit, either directly or indirectly, in the sexual abuse of the vulnerable. Holding bishops accountable will require an independent review into the actions of the bishop when an allegation comes to light. The only way to ensure the independence of such a review is to entrust this to the laity, as recently suggested by Cardinal DiNardo.

Respected lay organizations like Legatus and Catholic intellectuals like Christopher Tollefsen have publicly announced that they are withholding contributions to the Church until there are answers. Prominent Catholic journal First Things published Mr. Tollefsen’s statement as an “invitation” for fellow Catholics to follow suit. 

Based on a survey of its readers, America Magazine reached the following conclusion as of November 2, 2018:

[M]any respondents told America that they had reduced their financial contributions to the Catholic Church in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they had lowered the amount they gave to their bishop’s appeal, while 47 percent said they had reduced donations to their parishes.

As you enter your meeting in Baltimore, it is fair to say that the United States Catholic community is crying out for truth. We expect you to initiate a lay-led investigation of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick, including how he attained the highest position of respect and authority in the American Catholic Church despite a history of sexual abuse of minors, official diocesan settlement of civil lawsuits against him for sexual harassment and widespread, and credible evidence of ongoing sexual harassment and abuse of seminarians and young priests. 

2. Including and Answering the Women of the Church 

The overwhelming expectation of American Catholic women is that you will include and answer women in a thorough lay-led investigation of McCarrick.

In response to the scandalous behaviors of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick, scores of thousands of faithful Catholic women have pleaded to be heard.  

These pleas come from prominent Catholic women well-regarded and well-known to you. They include Illinois Supreme Court Justice Ann Burke, scholarly blogger Elizabeth Scalia, and moral theologian and seminary professor Dr. Janet Smith. Our lay female leadership is of one mind in support of investigation and accountability. They are also united in their pained confusion how are our male leadership – which is supposed to model fatherhood itself – has failed to protect our children and left seminarians and young priests vulnerable prey for clerical homosexual targeting. 

Female dismay runs widespread throughout the church.

On August 30, 2018, another prominent, faithful Catholic lay leader, Mary Rice Hasson of the Catholic Women’s Forum, organized an online Letter to Pope Francis from Catholic Women, posting the letter for review and signature. As you enter your November meeting, over 47,000 women have signed this charitable, humble letter begging for answers whether the Holy Father and “highly placed cardinals” turned “a blind eye to former Cardinal McCarrick’s egregious behavior” while “promoting this predator as a global spokesman and spiritual leader.” The letter embraced Cardinal Daniel D. DiNardo’s recognition that questions regarding McCarrick “deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence.”

To date, there has been no public response from any member of the hierarchy of our Church to this genuinely faithful plea – this despite the fundamental role women play in the Church and the Catholic mother’s unique role in deciding whether to support and encourage our sons in discerning vocations. 

We, the women of the Church, are deeply disturbed that we might support a son’s entry into a seminary where he is “noticed” and targeted for the sort of sexual predation practiced by McCarrick. If the former Cardinal was a lone wolf, we need to know this. We need to know how he managed to target, groom and abuse young men for his sexual stimulation and pleasure. We need to know the truth.  

The SILENCE in response to these concerns and pleas deafens and dulls the senses of faithful women. It is hardly surprising that the secular media is drawing upon women whistleblowers, such as Jennifer Haselberger of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Siobhan O’Connor of the Buffalo diocese and Helen Drinan of the Archdiocese of Boston. 

These women – all long-term faithful servants in diocesan positions of responsibility and exposure – each have gone public with various accusations of abuse cover-up, mishandling or simply gross insensitivity to the victims of clerical abuse. Each has gone public to express the frustration and indignation of women desperate to help and assist their shepherds but closed out from the critical formulation of proper responses to sex abuse allegations and findings.  

Please, Most Reverend Members of the USCCB, do not turn away from the voices of the women in your flock. Since my Open Letter to the USCCB Regarding the McCarrick Scandal on July 23, 2018, I’ve personally reached out to and offered to travel and talk to four individual bishops whose statements seemed open to laity input. Only one responded. 

I remain cautiously optimistic that you will reach out to women like Ann Burke, Elizabeth Scalia, Janet Smith, and Mary Rice Hasson as invaluable resources for you during this crisis. The time grows short, you must decide clearly and purposefully to fold into your discussions and deliberations the voices of the women in your flock. 

The time grows short.

3. Establishing the USCCB as credibly functioning for its canonical purposes.

The damaged credibility of the USCCB is in your hands.

Will this Episcopal Conference function in this crisis “for the greater good which the Church offers mankind” or will it function to shield individuals and the Episcopal body from examination and disclosure of potentially embarrassing information contributing to the rise of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick? 

One would hope that the conference body itself recognizes the extent to which McCarrick sacrilegiously and deviously used the Episcopal conference to project and grandstand a series of blatant misrepresentations to the American Catholic laity. 

You need only recall the article published on April 23, 2002, Washington Post’s “Vatican’s Man of the Hour” as a reminder of the extent to which McCarrick used the sexual abuse crisis and you to launch himself with probable lies and false intentions. 

At last week’s meeting of the U.S. cardinals, McCarrick filled a leadership vacuum. Traditionally, the most influential voices in that group have been those of the most senior U.S. cardinal, currently Boston’s Cardinal Bernard F. Law, and the archbishop of New York, now Cardinal Edward M. Egan. But Law and Egan are embroiled in the sexual abuse scandal, facing criticism for failing to report priests’ misconduct to civil authorities and for shuttling the priests from one parish to another. Another prominent cardinal, Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, riled the Vatican just before the summit by calling for a reconsideration of mandatory celibacy for priests. By contrast, McCarrick does not question papal doctrine. He is a staunch defender of celibacy and the male-only priesthood. He is effusive in his praise of the pope. And he has not been tainted by the scandal.

If this does not upset you on a personal and spiritual level alone, you nevertheless must recognize the damage done by McCarrick to the conference body itself. 

The laity widely doubts that the USCCB in this prolonged crisis is functioning as a collegial body able to foster “the communion of fraternal charity and zeal for the universal mission entrusted to the Apostles.” Nor does the laity have any confidence that the USCCB in this crisis allows the bishops to “[pool] their abilities and their wills for the common good and for the welfare of the individual churches.” (Christus Dominus, 36). 

The darkest perception is that the bishops of the USCCB are all complicit in McCarrick’s crimes and delicts and use the Conference to cover up that complicity. More hopeful laity prayerfully awaits the outcome of your November meeting for evidence of the USCCB restoring its canonical functions through truth and correction. 

What will you do to set the USCCB on a path in communion with your flock? How will you address the abuses of McCarrick against the Episcopal Conference itself and convince the laity that the body is lead by and comprised of faithful shepherds? 

A primary and necessary first step is to stay true to the plan proposed August 16, 2018.  

The Executive Committee has established three goals: (1) an investigation into the questions surrounding Archbishop McCarrick; (2) an opening of new and confidential channels for reporting complaints against bishops; and (3) advocacy for more effective resolution of future complaints. These goals will be pursued according to three criteria: proper independence, sufficient authority, and substantial leadership by the laity.

Backtracking on these goals and criteria by, e.g., limiting the investigation of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick to select diocesan files or refusing to give lay leadership autonomy in the execution of the goals or excluding women from participation, will be ill-received by the laity so anxious for your leadership to be restored.

Worse, the disappointment from a failure to follow and strengthen the original plan will inflame the darkest perception of the USCCB itself and further erode its role in holding together and restoring Church unity.

Be assured, Most Reverend Members of the USCCB, of the prayers, fasting, and vigilance that accompanies you into your meeting. The laity has heard the call of the Holy Father and the Episcopal body to prayer and fasting for forgiveness as a communal body. Projects like Lori Carter’s Wear Gray have ignited women throughout the United States in communion with you.

The Wear GRAY movement is the laity’s response to the widespread sexual crimes and corruption affecting our Catholic Church. The movement unites all in prayer, fasting, and penance in union with Jesus’ heart. We ask all cardinals, bishops, and priests to humbly offer reparation for the sins of the Church and to act immediately to bring all guilty to justice while supporting the victims and many diligent faithful priests and religious. In Nineveh, the people proclaimed a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. The king and his princes then followed the example of the people, and they returned to God (Jonah 3:1-10).

We unite our prayers to the suffering of all sexual abuse victims and strive to support you in the heavy labor ahead. Just as we pray and repent and suffer together, we must also seek, find and expose the truth together. 

Our unity is at stake. 

St. Catherine of Siena, Pray for Us.

Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This has prevented women from truly being themselves, and it has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of humanity. St. John Paul II

The redacted Grand Jury report released on August 14, 2018, covers the occurrence and handling of sexual abuse cases in six Pennsylvania dioceses affecting over 1000 children.

Let that sink in – over 1000 children, who were fondled, groped, photographed in the nude and in sexual positions, and sexually assaulted.

These are our sons and daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, the children we mothers and women of the Church baptized into a faith premised upon the precious value and dignity of every human being.

How could our leadership possibly have allowed and enabled sexual violations so contrary to the very heart of the teaching of the Church, so profoundly violent toward the particular interest of mothers and the protection of their young?

How could they have loosed upon the women and children of the Church a known group of male predators?

Any person of leadership in the Church, especially the bishops, who urge that the Grand Jury report should not cause alarm furthers the shame and disaster of this Episcopal crisis. It simply does not matter that this is “decades-old” activity and so much “progress” has been made since the implementation of the 2002 Charter for the Protection of Minors and Young People,

The Grand Jury report itself warns:

“What we can say, though, is that despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted. Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.” (p. 7) (Emphasis added)

It is in this context – while their own enabling of sexual abuse and abuse allegations against several Bishops were known – that the Bishops exempted themselves from the protections and mechanisms to prevent, detect, and address sexual abuse. This glaring exclusion – now euphemistically called a ‘mistake” by some Bishops – insured secrecy, non-transparency and non-accountability for themselves. It also enabled nearly two more decades of sexual abuse at the highest levels of the United States Catholic Church.

Proving the prescience of the report, we feel dizzy looking at revelations that, despite the promises of our leadership, a serial abuser served as the voice person for the 2002 Charter and attained the most august position of the U.S. Catholic Church. This was allowed to occur with full knowledge of every bishop!

We are now asked to believe statements denying any knowledge of McCarrick’s predatory behavior, such as those issued by Cardinals Farrell and Wuerl.  Consider just how out of touch these “men of God” are with the women of the Church. With a few notable exceptions, our leadership has adopted the same strategies reported by the Pennsylvania Grand Jury as a strategy for self-protection — the use of euphemisms, assurances that clergy will solve the problem, non-disclosure of facts, non-accountability, and support for the offender. (See p. 3)

The Grand Jury report gives alarming insight into our leadership and how the “men of God” strategized in the face of the sexual crisis. The report provides a basic roadmap as to how the United States Conference of Bishops has and can be expected, to react to what Bishop Barron has called “the McCarrick Mess.” (Bishop Barron is one of the exceptions to the USCCB’s strategies listed above as self-protection).

Worse, the report demonstrates how the voice of women was systemically absent from critical decisions regarding the safety and protection of children. How can the Church leadership reach sound, healthy, and considered judgments about the safety and security of its children and young people while categorically excluding the voice of its women? As St. John Paul II wrote of his Theology of the Body in a 1995 Letter to Women:

The creation of woman is thus marked from the outset by the disposition to help: a help which is not one-sided but mutual. Woman complements man, just as man complements woman: men and women are complementary. Womanhood expresses the “human” as much as manhood does but in a different and complementary way.

Yet, critical decisions impacting the safety and well-being of the children of the Church were routinely made by a small male coterie which viewed alleged offenders, not in the interest of the women and children of the Church, but more from the vantage point of a male platoon defending against the scandal and shame which the enemy – the injured children and their mothers – might unleash upon their worthy enterprise.

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report raises an urgent question for Church leadership. Has the failure of the Episcopacy to implement complementarity and the inclusion of women in critical decision-making resulted in a fraternity mentality that too readily objectifies women and children in favor of protecting one of its own? Put more directly, has the exclusion of women from critical decision-making in sexual abuse matters resulted in the chronic bad judgment by the Bishops?

These questions become more pressing given the Church’s subsequent history with lay involvement following the 2002 Charter, a period of “some institutional reform,” according to the Grand Jury report. An increase in proper reporting, removing alleged abusers from ministry and safeguarding the community is broadly acknowledged since the 2002 Charter reforms were put into place.

This fact is worth pause especially since a significant number of qualified laywomen were given voice through the mandated Diocesan Review Boards and the National Review Board. Indeed, most recently, three highly qualified laywomen were appointed to the National Review Board. It is not a stretch to conclude that women have played a critical role assisting their Bishops to improve the soundness of their decisions and the safety of the Church community.

In contrast, the report identifies approximately 54 individuals, including the Bishops, in leadership positions affecting the critical decision-making in each of the six dioceses under investigation. Of these 55 individuals, only two, Carol Houghton, Chancellor of the diocese of Harrisburg, and Rita Flaherty, were female. Houghton served as Chancellor but, as the detail of the report reflects, her role in abuse cases seems primarily administrative fact gathering. Houghton’s experience and involvement warrants recounting.

The material and the material Houghton did not gather — and never saw — was filed in the Bishop’s secret archive to which Houghton had no access. As the Grand Jury reported concerning Rev. Augustine Giella and a memo detailing abuse allegations against Giella, prepared by Monsignor Hugh Overbaugh:

Houghton was shown the 1987 Overbaugh memorandum and was questioned regarding the Diocese of Harrisburg’s failure to inform the family or law enforcement of its contents. Houghton testified she had never seen the 1987 Overbaugh memorandum concerning Giella. She had no prior knowledge that the Diocese of Harrisburg had warnings about Giella’ s behavior in 1987. Houghton did not have access to the secret archives; only the Bishop had access pursuant to the Canon Law of the Church. The Grand Jury observed this in numerous flawed Diocesan investigations across Pennsylvania. The Dioceses’ focus on secrecy often left even the Dioceses’ investigators in the dark. (p. 169)

Houghton’s input appears to have been further frustrated. In the case of Rev. Paul R. Fisher, the Grand Jury report noted:

“Chancellor Carol Houghton of the Diocese of Harrisburg testified before the Grand Jury on October 20, 2017. She stated she had a great concern about Fisher being placed back in ministry in 2011 when he admitted to viewing images of naked children. Houghton said she questioned [Bishop] McFadden about his decision. McFadden told her to forget it because nothing was found criminal on the laptop.” (p. 537)

Houghton persisted and In 2016 brought Fisher to Bishop McFadden’s successor Bishop Gainer’s attention.

Chancellor Houghton reviewed the clergy files in 2016 and remained concerned with how the Diocese handled the Fisher matter in 2011. She raised her concern to, and they approached Gainer, which resulted in the Diocese interviewing Fisher again in 2016. (p. 537)

Based on the follow up triggered by Houghton’s initiative, Fisher was removed from ministry. The Grand Jury report reflects that Fisher’s case remains pending with the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith.

With the sole exception and limited role of Chancellor Carol Houghton, the Grand Jury identified 53 male clergy as the individuals responsible for the strategy which 1) allowed sexually abusive priests to remain in and return to ministry and 2) hide from government authority and the laity the abuse history of priests in ministry. Without information, without input into the handling of abusers, without awareness of the Episcopal disregard for the concerns of the women of the Church, mothers and all women did not know to protect and safeguard their children from sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.

Women will not make this mistake again.

Many have left the Church and taken their families to safer, more transparent environments, environments that welcome the voice of women at all levels. We who have stayed are wearied beyond measure and failing, appreciative as we are for the difficult service women have rendered the Church since 2002 on Diocesan and National Review Boards.

Their service, like the many lay and religious women staffing the Church’s diocesan offices and social service programs, occurs in a disturbing vacuum of attention to teachings which touch and shape the lives of women and children. As the expert scholar, Pia de Solenni recently commented, “[T]he June revelations of the credible allegations of sex abuse on the part of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick confirm what many have suspected for a long time. The Church has been uncomfortably silent on matters of sexuality, family, and marriage because some in her leadership do not live these teachings themselves. And it is very hard to teach something that one does not know and live.”

Many women have experienced a general refusal in the Episcopacy to embrace and promulgate the teachings of Humanae Vitae, a profoundly pro-woman, pro-life Encyclical that celebrated its 50th anniversary in relative obscurity. Esteemed seminary professor Janet Smith observed on the occasion of the Encyclical’s anniversary, “Over the last 50 years those priests and laity who have tried to promote Humanae vitae and to teach methods of Natural Family Planning have regularly been astonished and demoralized by how little support they have received from bishops.”

The exclusion of women’s voices and concerns is costly to the Church. As the Director of the Catholic Women’s Forum Mary Rice Hasson summarized:

“Men and women look at people and particular problems through different lenses — which shapes decisions about questions to ask, data to collect and how to interpret results. Communication styles differ, as well. Sexual difference is real, but men and women are complementary. We need each other, and the Church needs our collaboration to amplify the good news of Humanae Vitae.”

Similarly, many of us have watched with dismay Bishops socializing with and honoring “Catholic pro-choice” politicians, the darlings of the abortion industry. We have tried – and failed – to enlist Episcopal support on issues critical to the New Feminism called for by St. John Paul II, issues of fidelity in marriage, the permanence of marriage, natural family planning, pro-life programming, and education.

We have raised genuine concern and reasonable questions over the increase of same-sex attracted men within the clergy, men who may succumb to sexual temptations in the all-male environment of seminaries and men who might feel sympathy for same-sex “marriage” and “family building” technologies that commercialize the reproduction of children and further objectify the female body.

For some of us, the worry now is whether there is a place for lay women in the United States Catholic Church. Is the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report our last straw?

The Grand Jury report reveals an Episcopal body desperately in need of its women.  But the bishops are seemingly more desperate to hide, conceal and obfuscate its own sins.

The looming question remains: Will the USCCB establish diocesan and national lay boards – with significant female membership – to hold accountable the Church leadership responsible for enabling McCarrick’s abuse and Episcopal ascendancy?

Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This has prevented women from truly being themselves, and it has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of humanity. St. John Paul II

The redacted Grand Jury report released on August 14, 2018, covers the occurrence and handling of sexual abuse cases in six Pennsylvania dioceses affecting over 1000 children.

Let that sink in – over 1000 children, who were fondled, groped, photographed in the nude and in sexual positions, and sexually assaulted.

These are our sons and daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, the children we mothers and women of the Church baptized into a faith premised upon the precious value and dignity of every human being.

How could our leadership possibly have allowed and enabled sexual violations so contrary to the very heart of the teaching of the Church, so profoundly violent toward the particular interest of mothers and the protection of their young?

How could they have loosed upon the women and children of the Church a known group of male predators?

Any person of leadership in the Church, especially the bishops, who urge that the Grand Jury report should not cause alarm furthers the shame and disaster of this Episcopal crisis. It simply does not matter that this is “decades-old” activity and so much “progress” has been made since the implementation of the 2002 Charter for the Protection of Minors and Young People,

The Grand Jury report itself warns:

“What we can say, though, is that despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted. Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.” (p. 7) (Emphasis added)

It is in this context – while their own enabling of sexual abuse and abuse allegations against several Bishops were known – that the Bishops exempted themselves from the protections and mechanisms to prevent, detect, and address sexual abuse. This glaring exclusion – now euphemistically called a ‘mistake” by some Bishops – insured secrecy, non-transparency and non-accountability for themselves. It also enabled nearly two more decades of sexual abuse at the highest levels of the United States Catholic Church.

Proving the prescience of the report, we feel dizzy looking at revelations that, despite the promises of our leadership, a serial abuser served as the voice person for the 2002 Charter and attained the most august position of the U.S. Catholic Church. This was allowed to occur with full knowledge of every bishop!

We are now asked to believe statements denying any knowledge of McCarrick’s predatory behavior, such as those issued by Cardinals Farrell and Wuerl.  Consider just how out of touch these “men of God” are with the women of the Church. With a few notable exceptions, our leadership has adopted the same strategies reported by the Pennsylvania Grand Jury as a strategy for self-protection — the use of euphemisms, assurances that clergy will solve the problem, non-disclosure of facts, non-accountability, and support for the offender. (See p. 3)

The Grand Jury report gives alarming insight into our leadership and how the “men of God” strategized in the face of the sexual crisis. The report provides a basic roadmap as to how the United States Conference of Bishops has and can be expected, to react to what Bishop Barron has called “the McCarrick Mess.” (Bishop Barron is one of the exceptions to the USCCB’s strategies listed above as self-protection).

Worse, the report demonstrates how the voice of women was systemically absent from critical decisions regarding the safety and protection of children. How can the Church leadership reach sound, healthy, and considered judgments about the safety and security of its children and young people while categorically excluding the voice of its women? As St. John Paul II wrote of his Theology of the Body in a 1995 Letter to Women:

The creation of woman is thus marked from the outset by the disposition to help: a help which is not one-sided but mutual. Woman complements man, just as man complements woman: men and women are complementary. Womanhood expresses the “human” as much as manhood does but in a different and complementary way.

Yet, critical decisions impacting the safety and well-being of the children of the Church were routinely made by a small male coterie which viewed alleged offenders, not in the interest of the women and children of the Church, but more from the vantage point of a male platoon defending against the scandal and shame which the enemy – the injured children and their mothers – might unleash upon their worthy enterprise.

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report raises an urgent question for Church leadership. Has the failure of the Episcopacy to implement complementarity and the inclusion of women in critical decision-making resulted in a fraternity mentality that too readily objectifies women and children in favor of protecting one of its own? Put more directly, has the exclusion of women from critical decision-making in sexual abuse matters resulted in the chronic bad judgment by the Bishops?

These questions become more pressing given the Church’s subsequent history with lay involvement following the 2002 Charter, a period of “some institutional reform,” according to the Grand Jury report. An increase in proper reporting, removing alleged abusers from ministry and safeguarding the community is broadly acknowledged since the 2002 Charter reforms were put into place.

This fact is worth pause especially since a significant number of qualified laywomen were given voice through the mandated Diocesan Review Boards and the National Review Board. Indeed, most recently, three highly qualified laywomen were appointed to the National Review Board. It is not a stretch to conclude that women have played a critical role assisting their Bishops to improve the soundness of their decisions and the safety of the Church community.

In contrast, the report identifies approximately 54 individuals, including the Bishops, in leadership positions affecting the critical decision-making in each of the six dioceses under investigation. Of these 55 individuals, only two, Carol Houghton, Chancellor of the diocese of Harrisburg, and Rita Flaherty, were female. Houghton served as Chancellor but, as the detail of the report reflects, her role in abuse cases seems primarily administrative fact gathering. Houghton’s experience and involvement warrants recounting.

The material and the material Houghton did not gather — and never saw — was filed in the Bishop’s secret archive to which Houghton had no access. As the Grand Jury reported concerning Rev. Augustine Giella and a memo detailing abuse allegations against Giella, prepared by Monsignor Hugh Overbaugh:

Houghton was shown the 1987 Overbaugh memorandum and was questioned regarding the Diocese of Harrisburg’s failure to inform the family or law enforcement of its contents. Houghton testified she had never seen the 1987 Overbaugh memorandum concerning Giella. She had no prior knowledge that the Diocese of Harrisburg had warnings about Giella’ s behavior in 1987. Houghton did not have access to the secret archives; only the Bishop had access pursuant to the Canon Law of the Church. The Grand Jury observed this in numerous flawed Diocesan investigations across Pennsylvania. The Dioceses’ focus on secrecy often left even the Dioceses’ investigators in the dark. (p. 169)

Houghton’s input appears to have been further frustrated. In the case of Rev. Paul R. Fisher, the Grand Jury report noted:

“Chancellor Carol Houghton of the Diocese of Harrisburg testified before the Grand Jury on October 20, 2017. She stated she had a great concern about Fisher being placed back in ministry in 2011 when he admitted to viewing images of naked children. Houghton said she questioned [Bishop] McFadden about his decision. McFadden told her to forget it because nothing was found criminal on the laptop.” (p. 537)

Houghton persisted and In 2016 brought Fisher to Bishop McFadden’s successor Bishop Gainer’s attention.

Chancellor Houghton reviewed the clergy files in 2016 and remained concerned with how the Diocese handled the Fisher matter in 2011. She raised her concern to, and they approached Gainer, which resulted in the Diocese interviewing Fisher again in 2016. (p. 537)

Based on the follow up triggered by Houghton’s initiative, Fisher was removed from ministry. The Grand Jury report reflects that Fisher’s case remains pending with the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith.

With the sole exception and limited role of Chancellor Carol Houghton, the Grand Jury identified 53 male clergy as the individuals responsible for the strategy which 1) allowed sexually abusive priests to remain in and return to ministry and 2) hide from government authority and the laity the abuse history of priests in ministry. Without information, without input into the handling of abusers, without awareness of the Episcopal disregard for the concerns of the women of the Church, mothers and all women did not know to protect and safeguard their children from sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.

Women will not make this mistake again.

Many have left the Church and taken their families to safer, more transparent environments, environments that welcome the voice of women at all levels. We who have stayed are wearied beyond measure and failing, appreciative as we are for the difficult service women have rendered the Church since 2002 on Diocesan and National Review Boards.

Their service, like the many lay and religious women staffing the Church’s diocesan offices and social service programs, occurs in a disturbing vacuum of attention to teachings which touch and shape the lives of women and children. As the expert scholar, Pia de Solenni recently commented, “[T]he June revelations of the credible allegations of sex abuse on the part of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick confirm what many have suspected for a long time. The Church has been uncomfortably silent on matters of sexuality, family, and marriage because some in her leadership do not live these teachings themselves. And it is very hard to teach something that one does not know and live.”

Many women have experienced a general refusal in the Episcopacy to embrace and promulgate the teachings of Humanae Vitae, a profoundly pro-woman, pro-life Encyclical that celebrated its 50th anniversary in relative obscurity. Esteemed seminary professor Janet Smith observed on the occasion of the Encyclical’s anniversary, “Over the last 50 years those priests and laity who have tried to promote Humanae vitae and to teach methods of Natural Family Planning have regularly been astonished and demoralized by how little support they have received from bishops.”

The exclusion of women’s voices and concerns is costly to the Church. As the Director of the Catholic Women’s Forum Mary Rice Hasson summarized:

“Men and women look at people and particular problems through different lenses — which shapes decisions about questions to ask, data to collect and how to interpret results. Communication styles differ, as well. Sexual difference is real, but men and women are complementary. We need each other, and the Church needs our collaboration to amplify the good news of Humanae Vitae.”

Similarly, many of us have watched with dismay Bishops socializing with and honoring “Catholic pro-choice” politicians, the darlings of the abortion industry. We have tried – and failed – to enlist Episcopal support on issues critical to the New Feminism called for by St. John Paul II, issues of fidelity in marriage, the permanence of marriage, natural family planning, pro-life programming, and education.

We have raised genuine concern and reasonable questions over the increase of same-sex attracted men within the clergy, men who may succumb to sexual temptations in the all-male environment of seminaries and men who might feel sympathy for same-sex “marriage” and “family building” technologies that commercialize the reproduction of children and further objectify the female body.

For some of us, the worry now is whether there is a place for lay women in the United States Catholic Church. Is the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report our last straw?

The Grand Jury report reveals an Episcopal body desperately in need of its women.  But the bishops are seemingly more desperate to hide, conceal and obfuscate its own sins.

The looming question remains: Will the USCCB establish diocesan and national lay boards – with significant female membership – to hold accountable the Church leadership responsible for enabling McCarrick’s abuse and Episcopal ascendancy?

“What do I do now?” is what every Catholic thinks as we awaken to further detail of the ignoble ascendancy of Theodore McCarrick in the U.S. Episcopacy. The bishops who placed authority in McCarrick — whether knowing of allegations against him or not — in 2002 to lead them through the dark aftermath of the Boston Globe exposé offer only silence or largely predictable, repetitive. and weak answers. 

The Laity must ask questions. The Laity must demand answers. The Laity must find their own path forward.

I propose for the following for immediate action: that the laity in every diocese of the United States requests their bishop appoint a lay commission charged with the immediate duty of investigating and reporting to the diocesan community information regarding their bishop’s knowledge of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s malfeasance. 

This proposal supplements my call for an internal audit at the USCCB and appointment of a national lay commission in my Open Letter to the USCCB Regarding the Cardinal McCarrick Scandal, and provides an immediate action which bishops and laity can undertake cooperatively and incorporates the Church’s tradition and value of subsidiarity in all ecclesiastical matters.

With two exceptions, the Episcopal statements which have issued thus far follow a similar pattern: disclaimer of knowledge, general sorrow, prayer, more sorrow especially for those harassed or abused, vague assurances that the right people are addressing matters and, finally, a call to wait.  As Cardinal Wuerl phrased his statement, “We must now wait for a final determination of this case to be made in Rome.”  Victims are urged to come forward because, again from Washington, DC, “the archdiocese wishes to accompany them and help them through this process.”

Even the USCCB’s statement on August 1, 2018 – a full sixteen days since the New York Time’s bombshell headline “He Preyed on Men Who Wanted to Be Priests. Then He Became a Cardinal” – offered no role for its beleaguered, beaten laity, nothing for the laity to do – except pray and hope that their bishops are “learning from past sins” as they gather in closed meetings and undertake secret communications and processes which, we should be assured, will address their last decades of moral failure.

Given what I have seen of the USCCB’s performance in addressing, much less handling, matters of their own personal accountability, along with the secretive management style of abuse claims by members like Cardinal Wuerl’s in his Pittsburgh assignment — where a Grand Jury report on clerical abuse is pending disclosure — I can place no confidence in the USCCB or its members like Cardinal Wuerl.

I understand if victims read the USCCB’s statement and those like Cardinal Wuerl’s statement and weep. I understand if laity feels distraught, alienated and even consider leaving this scandal-ridden church. Neither the USCCB nor fellow bishops can be relied upon to correct or disagree with any bishops public assertions or practical strategy.

The emotional climate among the laity ranges from grief to anger – but a sense of powerlessness, betrayal, and Episcopal paralysis prevails. I have personally shared the suffering and pain of my fellow laity in the hundreds of comments, emails and inquiries I have received since my Open Letter to the United States Conference of Bishops Regarding the Cardinal McCarrick Scandal.  

Particularly acute is the suffering of the women of the Church who, often with great sacrifice by spouses and families, invested time, talent, and resources in support of the USCCB’s 2002 promises that healing, recovery, and spiritual renewal would be achieved and that abusive clerical behavior toward our children and young people would not be tolerated. 

Upon these promises, we Catholic women especially continued raising our children in the Church, interacting with trust with both priests and bishops sent to our parishes and dioceses, and, critically, encouraging our sons to consider seminary and a priestly vocation within the Church.

The betrayal of the laity beggars belief. Episcopal silence is maddening. The insistence there’s “nothing here” for the laity to do but “wait” and pray are so exasperating they verge on complicity.  Episcopal denials and deflections orchestrated by public relations professionals and lawyers seek to freeze the laity into silent forbearance. This strategy will not work this time.  

In this context, Christopher Tollefsen’s “An Invitation to the Laity” in First Things seems oddly measured and reasonable. He wrote, “to explain why I and my family will no longer be contributing to diocesan appeals for financial assistance” and he encouraged Catholics throughout the country to follow suit.

I do not fault Mr. Tollefsen for his outrage and financial withholding; many people may decide it is the only expression available to them, the only one their Bishop will hear. 

I am not, however, ready to pursue this path myself. In the first place, even if the USCCB said it was cleaning house, I do not believe the USCCB and the bishops would get rid of their PR firms and lawyers, conduct an investigation of each other, impose or recommend any penalties for the enabling of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick, or otherwise take the steps needed to radically address their own moral failure and corrupted culture.  

Not only did the bishops exclude themselves from the 2002 Charter for the Protection of Minors and Young People, they also failed to address formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s predation of our young men. These factors, considered together, reveal an Episcopal culture so detached from holiness and so corrupted by self-preservation that only laity-led and monitored solutions have any hope of achieving Mr. Tollefsen’s worthy goals of correction. 

Second, the withholding of funds from diocesan annual appeals will fall most heavily upon lay staff and the ministerial and charitable programming of each diocese. Perhaps, at the end of the day, shutting down our dioceses, with its attendant harms to the laity and multiple service populations, will be our only choice.

But two Bishops give me hope that there might be another option for the laity in the immediate days ahead. Bishop Scharfenberger of Albany drove straight to the heart of this crisis with his pastoral letter to his clergy on July 29, 2018. 

More words are not going to repair, let alone restore, the damage that has been done. Lawyering, pledges, and changes in the bureaucratic structures and policy – however well-intentioned – cannot do it either. I do not see how we can avoid what is really at the root of this crisis: sin and a retreat from holiness, specifically the holiness of an integral, truly human sexuality.

It is my belief that the vast majority of clergy – priests, deacons and bishops alike – live or, at least, are striving to live holy and admirable lifestyles. I am ashamed of those of my brothers, such as the Cardinal, who do not and have not.

Bishop Olson of Forth Worth Texas delivered his remarks to his diocese a day earlier. Bishop Olson forcefully wrote, “Justice also requires that all of those in Church leadership who knew of the former cardinal’s alleged crimes and sexual misconduct and did nothing be held accountable for their refusal to act thereby enabling others to be hurt.”

How are this justice and accountability accomplished? How do we answer Bishop Scharfenberger’s call to restore the Episcopacy to holiness? How do we – the laity – assume an active role in identifying our own bishops’ s knowledge of formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s malfeasance and support our Bishops in their call to holiness?

The bishops must include the laity in all further investigations. They must disclose all pertinent records to the laity. They must formulate reports, responses, and recommendations to the Vatican with full participation of the lay persons.

Few of us can assess Cardinal Wuerl’s or any bishop’s credibility and competence at more than a generalized level through public statements and appearances. Most of us do not know or interact with bishops other than our own. In our communities, we have opportunities to interact with our bishop, or at least know people who do so. Our church communities connect directly to our bishop, through diocesan news, ecclesial celebrations, socializing and shared anecdotes. This information and interaction infuse a bishop’s flock with knowledge of their shepherd. 

Our Catholic principle of subsidiarity recognizes this reality. 

“It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry. So, too, it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and a disturbance to right order to transfer to the larger and higher collectivity functions which can be performed and provided for by lesser and subordinate bodies. Inasmuch as every social activity should, by its very nature, prove a help [subsidium] to members of the body social, it should never destroy or absorb them.” Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931)

The people who know – or who can best find out – what a bishop knew, and whether he enabled formerly-Cardinal McCarrick’s predation, are his people, the laity over whom a diocesan bishop “has all ordinary, proper, and immediate power which is required for the exercise of his pastoral function.” (c. 381 §1). 

Each bishop has the authority to appoint a group of his laity to undertake this task, offering his full cooperation, including access to notes, files, and documents as well as personal interviews as needed with the bishop himself. 

Our bishops need their laity now – and I hope every bishop will promptly appoint a group of laity, particularly women, to help him achieve complete transparency with his diocese on this new chapter of Episcopal failure and moral collapse. 

This should be a cooperative process, through which every bishop is held to account and any particular bishop has an opportunity to find his own repentance, and, where possible, reconciliation with his laity. Should a bishop refuse to participate, the laity can and should proceed independently, constituting a group to confer with their bishops with a goal of a cooperative investigation, disclosure, and accountability.

The name I suggest for these bodies is “Catherine Commissions.” In this manner, we call upon the powerful and inspired tradition of our beloved 14^th Century Saint, Catherine of Sienna, who was a Third Order Dominican. Historically, she confronted with political figures, bishops, clergy to restore order and resolve disputes. Spiritually, she provided leadership to the entire Church in the practice and observance of the total love of God. 

It is my fervent prayer that the laity will not be “absorbed” or “destroyed” by the collective secrecy, inaction, and failure of the USCCB. That our beloved domestic Church appears so bewildered and paralyzed suggests that this grave scandal is not being addressed at the proper level. Let us embrace the value and richness of subsidiarity and respond to Bishop Olson’s call to justice. Let us start today. I offer the following outline for a typical Catherine Commission and simple guidance on how to contact your bishops.

PLEASE CALL, EMAIL, AND WRITE TO YOUR BISHOPS REQUESTING THE IMMEDIATE APPOINTMENT OF A CATHERINE COMMISSION IN YOUR DIOCESE. PLEASE CONSIDER SERVING AND LET YOUR BISHOP KNOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO SERVE.

I have already placed a call to my bishop.