Voice of the Faithful of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut
St. Paul the Apostle Church, New York, N.Y.

“Toward a Culture of Transparency and Accountability in the Church”
Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J.
President emeritus, Fordham University
Associate editor, America magazine
May 22, 2004

Let me begin by identifying my own background with specific reference to the National Review Board and the activities of the Voice of the Faithful. I have followed the work of the Board from a distance, and in particular I was very much impressed by the Report the Board published in February on the “causes and context” of the crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy. The publication of this report was the Board’s response to the mandate given the Board by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June 2002, when the U.S.C.C.B. adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and created the National Review Board.

In developing their report, which was intended to complement the statistical findings contained in the research done by investigators from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the Research Committee of the Board interviewed more than eighty-five individuals, including Vatican officials, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, former priests, seminarians, victims of sexual abuse, psychiatrists and other medical professionals, civil lawyers, canon lawyers and law enforcement officials. The content of the report is the result of those interviews. Sometimes the report includes direct quotations from individuals interviewed, but no one is cited by name. In case you are wondering, I was not one of those interviewed by the Board’s Committee, and I note that among the categories of people identified, no reference is made to university presidents.

I wrote of the report in America magazine that it was “an impressive document, balanced but candid, based on sound theological and religious principles and inspired by a love of the Church that remains faithful despite the sins and tragic errors of so many churchmen.” I was later pleased to learn that at least one American cardinal agrees with that assessment, and I do not know of any individual who was interviewed by the Board’s committee who has later claimed the Report misrepresents his or her interview with the Board. But then again no one is cited by name in the Report.

This is also the first meeting of the Voice of the Faithful that I have attended. I have had contacts, of course, with friends and associates who have been active in the Voice of the Faithful, and I was pleased that Fordham University hosted a meeting of the Voice of the Faithful at its Rose Hill campus last October, even if this was four months after I had left the office of President.

I found the NRB Report to be a document that inspired hope that out of the shameful scandal that has left our Church in crisis would come the reform and renewal that must be a constant movement in the Church. The Second Vatican Council, after all, was called by John XXIII not to articulate any new dogmas or change old ones but to renew the Church’s life in response to the changes in our world and our culture. Aggiornamento, bringing the Church into more active dialogue with the contemporary world, was the inspiration of that historic council. We need institutions, but we also need to be wary of institutional inertia, the ever present temptation to become comfortable with accustomed ways of doing business and unquestioned assumptions that may have outlived their usefulness. This is true of every institution, and since the Church is an institution, it is not immune from the danger of institutional inertia. The Church is more than an institution, of course, which is why the Church must resist the temptation to become complacent about an unquestioned institutional culture. Ecclesia semper reformanda est.

Changing the institutional culture of the Church, of course, does not mean challenging any doctrine of the Church. When the NRB Report calls for greater transparency and accountability on the part of the hierarchy, the strengthening of diocesan and parish councils that should already be in place and even providing a role for lay Catholics in the selection of bishops, the NRB Report is not talking about changes in Catholic doctrine. In fact, the need for such reforms can be grounded in a solid ecclesiology, the theological understanding of what the Church is meant to be. At the same time, we must recognize that there are those who do challenge Church doctrines, and there is a legitimate place for what is called theological dissent as the Church through various channels, including the continuing dialogue between theologians and bishops, seeks to better understand the meaning of the revelation entrusted to it. But the NRB Report is not a statement of theological dissent but a critique of an institutional culture, whose weaknesses, in fact, some might say whose sinfulness, was revealed in the terrible crisis of the sexual abuse of minors by clergymen in the United States.

Many Catholics, and I include myself in this group, believe that the most painful and most bewildering discovery in the sex abuse scandal was not that individual clergymen had been guilty of sexual abuse of minors but rather how some church authorities, some bishops, reacted to reports of such crimes. Individual priests and religious, after all, are not exempt from the destructive urges of the human condition. But how could their offenses, once reported and confirmed, not have led to more decisive action on the part of Church authorities? Why was there, in the words of one priest who was interviewed by the Board’s Committee, “massive denial” on the part of some Church authorities to the true significance of the reports they had received of such abuse?

In trying to understand how such a failure in pastoral responsibility could take place, the NRB Report refers to a clerical culture that tends to separate bishops from priests and priests from lay Catholics that fostered unwarranted secrecy in dealing with complaints from victims of sexual abuse or reports from individual priests, religious or lay people who were concerned about the possibility of such acts taking place. The Report concludes by recognizing that “effective measures have been taken to ensue the safety of minors in the Church today,” but at the same time the Board warns that “policies and procedures put in place over the last two years” constitute hope for the future “only if the bishops maintain a commitment to meaningful reforms and vigilant enforcement that outlasts the immediate crisis and becomes ingrained in the character of the Church itself.”

In other words, there must be a change in the institutional culture of the Church in the United States, not a change in doctrine but a change, for example, in the way we communicate within the Church; not a dilution in the mandate bishops receive to teach, sanctify and govern the faithful but change in managerial style, a recognition of professional and personal competence of lay Catholics and a readiness to enliven and enrich the Church by accepting the participation of lay Catholics to be stewards of the Church’s resources and to share in the Church’s responsibilities.

How will the institutional culture of the Church be changed to a culture of greater transparency and accountability? First of all, it will be a change that will probably take place slowly. Relationships of trust do not take place overnight. Real dialogue requires patience. We need to find what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin urged us to seek: common ground. I have always thought the Church in the United States should try to keep the middle ground, the center, as broad and welcoming as possible, so that extremists on both left and right are marginalized. Not everyone agrees with this approach, but I think it is the way institutional change can best take place. I would also emphasize the difference, as I did earlier this afternoon, between theological dissent about doctrines, for which there is a role in the Church, and the need to change accustomed ways of doing business, an institutional culture, that has no obvious or immediate connection with issues of doctrine.

The NRB Report, for example, calls for more open fraternal correction of bishops by other bishops. The Report points out, for example, that the controversial zero tolerance policy toward priests cannot be defended if there is no comparable accountability for bishops. Actually, we are probably seeing more signs of fraternal correction in the current controversy sparked by the handful of bishops who have inserted themselves into the political campaign by threatening sanctions on politicians whose voting record reflects a pro-choice position and voters who support such politicians. It is not the most enlightened debate in the history of the Church in the United States, but it may have some unintended benefits of breaking the silence that masks important disagreements among bishops.

Let me conclude by once again expressing my admiration for the work of the National Review Board and their careful but candid report that calls for greater transparency and accountability in the institutional culture of the Church in the United States. However long and taxing the conversation may have to be as we seek to achieve such change, it is clear to me that the continued presence of the National Review Board and the process that they have directed thus far is necessary if our Church is to find in the ashes of this sad scandal the fire of a renewed Church.

Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J.
May 22, 2004