CONVERSATION - BETTER THAN E-MAIL!

The NY Times recently ran an opinion piece "The Flight of Conversation", decrying the substitution of electrical and digital impulses instead of the human voice from a human face. It made me think: What were some of the noteworthy conversations in which I participated?
1. With Jim Colbert, Iona Prep '38 classmate: On an autumn day in one of our high school years, we listened to long playing 33 records, discussed G.K.Chesterton, Graham Greene, Romano Guardini. Chesterton's poem about Don Juan of Austria stirred up our interest with its martial atmosphere and the satisfaction we felt at the turning back of the Muslims. This turned our attention to how North Africa, Constantinople, and Spain were conquered by Muslim armies.

We, enthusiastic Catholic young men, were humbled by Greene's depiction of the "whisky priest" in his "The Power and the Glory". We then discussed other portrayals of the conflict between good and evil. From "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoyevsky, I brought up the scene where one brother says, "How awful the man who begins with the ideal of the Madonna and ends up with the ideal of Sodom". The other brother responds, "Even more terrible is the man who ends up with the ideal of Sodom, while still in his heart is the ideal of the Madonna, strong and vibrant”. The conversation was lively and coherent.

For later in life, the conversations I had with Jim Colbert, MD over the years furnished food for thought and more words, perhaps with modifications and additions.

2. With Ms. Ilah McDermott, elderly, yes, elderly, parishioner of St. Thomas More parish, in whose parish house I was in residence for my twenty years as an official in the Archdiocesan Chancery. Ilah, a devout Catholic, lived around the corner from the church with her mother and daughter. She was the proprietress of Wakefield Young Books, on the gold coast of Madison Avenue in the East 60s. Early in life, she had run a book shop on a Cunard ocean liner. At a stop-over in Tel Aviv, she fell in love with a British Marine captain. They married and lived happily for a while. Then he contracted tuberculosis and turned bitter against life, Ilah, and God. Despite all that, Ilah had a fund of happy stories and was a stimulus to listeners to respond in kind.

In her travels, Ilah had met one Meg Campbell, a Methodist, who decided to become a Catholic. Ilah turned her over to me. After instructions, I received her into our Church. This was convenient as she was in New York on vacation from her home on the Isle of Canna in the Inner Hebrides, off the West Coast of Scotland.

I was their guest on Canna on two occasions. Meg’s husband, John Campbell, the Laird of Canna, was a Catholic and knowledgeable about the history of the Hebrides. Meg was an expert on the flora and fauna of the islands. On a visit, I had discovered, in the mansion’s library, a diary of Father Allan McDonald, pastor of the nearby Isle of Eriskay (Check him out in Google). From the diary, I passed on stories to Ilah and Meg, (the Laird knew them all) of sick calls across turbulent seas, taking a devastated widower back to the rectory on Eriskay, and Father Allan’s organizing the fishermen and pressuring the English government to build a breakwater, providing a safe harbor for the fishermen.

One of the best stories: Father Allan bringing Holy Communion to a pair of elderly sisters. Fog and pelting rain were inappropriate accompaniments to the coming of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. On arrival at the sisters’ cottage, Father Allan saw that their cow had been brought into the parlor to protect it from the storm. It appeared to be sick. After Holy Communion, one of the ladies offered a cup of tea to Father Allan. “Would you like some milk for your tea?” The diary reads: “I looked at the sick cow and said, ‘No. I’ll have it plain’”. Nights of conversations at Canna linger long in memory.

3. A classic non-conversation: As a graduate student at Catholic University, I was crossing the campus one evening in the late forties and fell in step with Monsignor Joe Fenton. F “What are you reading these days?” HB “Theological Studies, an article by John Courtney Murray, SJ.” F “Oh, that stuff. Right on the edge of heresy.” HB “Murray is very much aware of the old Catholic view that the Church should dominate the state, where possible. But that just doesn’t work in a democracy like ours.” F “Who says so? And if you are serious and reject that centuries old tradition, well, you’re a heretic yourself.” HB “Good evening, Doctor Fenton. Sorry we did not have time for a conversation.” There had been no conversation. Two decades later in Vatican Council Two, Doctor Fenton and Cardinal Ottaviani. Both opposed most of the advances made by the Council. John Courtney Murray, SJ, initially barred from the Council, was chosen by Cardinal Spellman to be his theological advisor. Murray was the architect of the Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom. He was a significant figure in persuading the Council Fathers to adopt this Declaration. His conversation proved fruitful.

I have been intrigued by searching through my memory and finding speeches and personalities that have remained in place over the years. I shall try to continue this chain of memories in future blog posts. What makes a conversation memorable? What turns words into a conversation?

“POETS IN A LANDSCAPE”

 

As the hopefully named Celestial Express crosses the last fringes of the plains before heading up into mysterious mountains, we, passengers in the caboose, look back to bring with us into another dimension of existence, the memories of the places where we have dwelt or have visited, the men and women we have encountered, the events and happenings that exceeded our expectations. Images, memories, and personalities can flicker and fade. But a cherished book can bring a welcome renewal of its initial delight. Each time we change residence, we dispose of many books that have outlived their relevance to ourselves or to our times. As I disposed of scores of books over the years, one volume always caught my eye and was saved for another day: “Poets in a Landscape” by Gilbert Highet, Knopf, 1957, 267pp.

Highet, a Scotsman and distinguished professor at Columbia in ancient Greek and Roman history, captures in this volume, the love he had for Italy, its people, and poets. His prose suggests the swift, silent flow of the Mincius River near Vergil’s birthplace and the springs of Clitumnus, where the river of that name originated, - to steal some of Highet’s words and rhythms - “not in a cascade from a rock or the overspill from a lake, but from a kind of miracle from the flat earth itself”. It is there that Propertius lived. Highet devotes five lucent pages to a description of the springs and the surrounding worlds of nature, his own reflections and those of Pliny, a contemporary of Propertius.

Seven poets and the seven landscapes, where they lived and whence they distilled their poetry from the lives, personalities, and ecologies that they encountered, are presented in bright and effortlessly read prose. Highet weaves historical and linguistic contexts into the stories and accomplishments of each poet. Propertius, a likely subject to begin with, was born around 50 BC in a small town near Assisi in Umbria. The region suffered much in the civil wars that followed the death of Julius Caesar. The people of Umbria spoke a language different from their neighbors, neither Latin nor Etruscan but a dialect of Oscan. Although high-minded Romans tended to look down on  the people of Umbria as on a peasant level, several of the most eminent Roman poets came from Umbria. Highet’s comments help in understanding a poem by Propertius about his origin and the cause of his distress at the death of a kinsman.

Propertius captures the dramatic differences of character between two women featured in his poems. Cynthia was a part of the high society of Rome, beautiful, well educated and herself a poet. She was the center of Propertius’ life, hard and cruel to each other, perhaps an embodiment of the 1940’s pop hit, “You always hurt the one you love”. Propertius had days and nights of happiness together with her that alternated with periods of doubt and anger on both sides. Cynthia would use Propertius’ intense desire mixed with genuine love as a weapon by withholding its physical expression. Cynthia’s occasional bouts of drinking and casual infidelities would torture Propertius, as she knew they would. Propertius would respond by his own infidelities. Rebuffed by Cynthia, Propertius flees being alone; he invites “Phyllis on the Aventine – when sober, unattractive; charming drunk. Then there is Teia – lives near the Tarpeian Park – a lovely thing but hard to satisfy.” He sets up a threesome in his garden. “A Nile boy played the pipes, Phyllis the castanets, we scattered simple roses for our scent.” In the midst of this heady scene, Cynthia burst through the garden gate. In a torrent of wild language and physical violence, she sends the girls fleeing and reduces Propertius to an abject figure, seeking Cynthia’s forgiveness. Curiously, in this pre-Christian period, she sets up conditions “if you wish absolution for your sin…” Perhaps an intrusion by a later translator! Cynthia

savors her victory; Propertius, a melancholy defeat caused, as much by his own lack of discipline as by her passionate disposition and will to conquer. Cynthia dies and, in a more settled mood, Propertius composes an elegy that captures much of her personality  and the reasons for his addiction to her.

      Propertius brings his poetry to bear on other woman, Cornelia, whose character is apposite to Cynthia’s. Cornelia is the step-daughter of the emperor, Augustus and is married to Lucius Amelius Paullus, a distinguished statesman. Unlike Cynthia, she is poised and disciplined. She dies, apparently at an early age, leaving a son and two daughters. Propertius composes an elegy, spoken by Cornelia herself.

In his elegy, Propertius puts the words of Cornelia, first about herself: she is from a noble Roman family, her father’s side was associated with the Roman legions, which “conquered Africa with its wealth and power”. Her mother’s ancestors were of the renowned Libones. “Both houses stand secure in old renown.” From pride of family, she turns to herself and her own character and declares her innocence and established reputation: “write on the stone that I was one man’s bride always, pure from the wedding torch to the torch of death. Nature gave me a code of laws drawn from my blood…However harsh the standard, I can meet its test.” Cornelia, through the poetry of Propertius, turns next to praise her husband: “You, Paullus, are my consolation. In your embrace I closed my dying eyes.” She speaks of the finality of death, but urges Paullus and their children to go on, as a family, the children sensitively to accept a stepmother. She speaks of the demeanor Paullus must have for the children she leaves behind:

“Even in my ashes breathes my love for them.

You must be both their mother and their father: all

 my darlings’ weight now clings around your neck.

Kiss them when they weep, and add their mother’s kisses:

Now all our household rests upon your arms.

And if you grieve for me, they must not witness it.

When they embrace you, cheat them – dry your eyes.

 Enough for you, Paullus, to wear the nights with longing,

to dream  of phantoms with Cornelia’s face;

and when you talk in secret to my portrait, speak

and pause awhile, as though I might reply.”

Noble Romans, indeed; a loving family! Propertius, poet extraordinary!

How did Propertius manage to live with Cynthia at the same time that he understood and articulated the love of Cornelia?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

A VIEW FROM A MOUNTAIN TOP

Ninety-one years of age, sixty-six of them as a priest in New York City, provide the top of a mountain of sorts to look back over the journey, its hardships with the terrain, the relationships made along the way, and experiences that suggest a mountain ascent as a metaphor for the spiritual life.

 My brother, Jeb, died last November after many years of suffering from Parkinson’s. Never losing his sense of humor or his sense of faith, he explained his evening prayer: “Dear God! My name is Jeb; not Job!” About 5 AM on a summer morning in 1944, our small family group gathered at the Larchmont train station, helped Jeb board the train, and quietly watched the train shrink in size as it disappeared down the tracks. Jeb was on his way to war, the USAF. After the war, a distinguished career in State of Maine and US government. May he rest in peace! When I see a news article or book review that would arouse his interest as it did mine, I reached for the phone to call him to exchange comments. He isn’t there!

Some memorable scenes from sixty-six years of life of a New York priest:

St. Jerome’s, South Bronx, 1944; A police car came to the rectory for a priest (a custom in the 1940s); I climbed the ladder up the railroad bridge with the cops, walked out between the rails over the Harlem River; there he was, face down, a little boy about ten, next to the third rail! Dripping wet! Motionless. Second Avenue trains eased slowly by on each side at a mournful pace,  passengers at the windows looking down at a little boy, who just went for a swim and the adventure of crossing a railroad bridge.                                                     

St.. Thomas More’s,

East 89th Street, Manhattan

, winter 1956, a bitter night. I was jarred from sleep about 1 AM by the sound of sirens and crashing glass. Fire engines had been pulled up to the building next to the church. It was thoroughly in the dark, the only light coming from the torches of the firemen and the last flicker of flames as a Niagara of water thundered into the last of the fire. “This way, Father,” a fireman said, as he escorted me over the icy steps. “The third floor.” There was not much left to anoint with the blessed oils. As I knelt down, the three firemen dropped to their knees, crossed themselves, and, almost ceremonially, removed their helmets in reverent salute to the sacraments of Jesus at the passing of a life!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Epiphany,

East 22^nd Street, Manhattan

, 1954: The receptionist caught me after my Sunday Mass. “There was a phone call asking that a priest be sent over. A young man was dying.” She gave me the address. “Second floor.” Young man. Probably AIDS, I thought. At the apartment, I could see beyond the open door some twenty to twenty-five individuals, some children, mostly young adults rather fashionably dressed, and some senior citizens. Soft rock was playing in the background, so appropriately. A young man asked if he could help me. I said that someone here had phoned the rectory, asking that a priest be sent. “I can’t imagine who that might be,” he replied, looking into the room. “I was the one who telephoned for the priest.” It was a neighbor across the hall. I was ushered to the bedside of the dying man - his arm around his partner - and introduced myself as the local parish priest, bringing the sacraments for the sick. “Would you care to receive the sacraments ?” His mother, sitting behind him, said, “Say yes, David”.   

What to do now? Confession; Sacrament of Penance? Do you put a couple of dozen people out of the room? There is a little community here, friends – gay and straight – neighbors, the sick man, his partner. Let’s deal with the community. I explained group absolution. “I feel that each of us has at some time disobeyed God’s plan. Have we not?” Remarkably, there was a sense of all nodding their heads in agreement. “And we are profoundly sorry, are we not, for any way we have offended our neighbor in truth, justice, and compassion?” Again, a consensus of agreement. The soft rock, so appropriate, was still playing in the background. And then, “… Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins, In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

             I reached for the pix and the Blessed Sacrament. The dying man could not receive a whole host. I broke off a small piece and moved to place it in his mouth. I dropped the particle of the host. It fell into the rumpled sheets. The sick man’s partner reached for the host particle and looked up, “Father, may I give him Holy Communion?” I nodded. I had given David the last rites. His partner had given him his last Holy Communion!

            In blogs to come, I shall try to share some other views seen from the mountain tops.

POWER? NO, THANKS. I'D RATHER HAVE INFLUENCE!

Mountains have from earliest times been associated with notions of divinity and mystery. The earth is seen as exploding upward from its foundations with an impulse of life, reaching upward to jagged peaks and heights as if somehow the sky itself is being sought. Mountains would be named after particular divinities. Mount Kailash in the Tibetan Himalayas was sacred to ancient Hinduism and Buddhism. Japan's Mount Fuji, named after a Buddhist fire goddess, has a Shinto shrine near its peak. Machu Pichu in Peru is the site of temples where Incan tribes worshipped their gods.

In Hebrew tradition there is Mount Sinai, where Moses received God's Ten Commandments. Mount Nebo, from which Moses viewed the Promised Land. The Temple Mount is sacred to Jews and Moslems. Jesus takes us to the Sermon on the Mount, the Mount of the Transfiguration, the Mount of Olives, Mount Calvary, and the mountain on whose peak Satan tempted Jesus with the aggrandizement of power.

Matthew's Gospel (4,1-11) places an extraordinary scene before us: the devil tempts Jesus with three proposals. What will Jesus base His appeal upon? The devil: Change these stones into bread: Bread for the masses. That's the way to go. Jesus rejects that approach. The devil then suggests that Jesus base his appeal on showmanship. Cast yourself down from pinnacle of the temple without getting hurt. Jesus rejects this and thus rejects using showmanship to attract people.

For his third temptation, the devil takes Jesus up into a high mountain and, with a 360 degree sweep of his arm, tells Jesus that He can obtain control and power of all this vision if He will embrace evil in the person of the devil. But any thirst for power and control is wholly alien to Jesus. "Come follow Me." "Blessed are the merciful, pure of heart, the seeker after justice..." The story of the wounded man on the road to Jericho; Jesus' spirited conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. At the time of His arrest, Jesus told Peter to put up his sword. "My kingdom is not of this world." This Jesus does not seek to control and command.

Has the Church of Jesus, on occasion throughout history, forgotten that Jesus was not a command and control type? Did His Church at times warrant the picture, as Dostoyevsky portrayed it in the "Brothers Kamerazov" as the Grand Inquisitor, who fails to recognize that it is Jesus he is interrogating? Reforms of the Church in history have often succeeded in departing from abuses of power and the attempted control of others. The Protestant Reformation, in shaking off the controls of church governance and priestly celibacy, did this. Our Church is very much in need of new reform. The greatest scandal in its history, priestly abuse of young people and the failure of bishops to punish miscreants, is still very much with us.

Astute commentators have observed that such abuse is a misuse of power - by the abusers and by tolerant bishops. Has our Church become an instrument of misused power? There almost seems to be a frenzy in the last two pontificates to centralize authority of the papacy and to aggrandize its power and control. In 2002, national conferences of bishops were stripped of authority by Rome's decree that any proclamation by a national conference without a unanimous vote must be referred to Rome. Attempted expansion of papal infallibility became evident in papal insistence on "definitively defined" items being accorded practically the same acceptance as that given to infallible statements. The International Commission on English in the Liturgy, established in 1963, its members appointed by the English-speaking bishops, was high jacked by JPII with his new philosophy of translation. In 2002, members and staff of the ICEL were replaced by others appointed by Rome. Their new, heavily criticized, translation of the Roman Missal was issued in April 2010 and simply imposed on English-speaking congregations. The CEO of Caritas, an international federation of 165 Catholic charitable organizations, was Leslie-Anne Knight. According to custom, she was to be reelected for another term. However, B16 and his curia wanted a somewhat different philosophy to furnish its direction. In May 2011, Michael Roy was elected Secretary General.

The centralizing and control-seeking form of our Church's governance raises questions. Why, with all its power and authority, did its much touted command and control authority fail to command and control an inner evil, only to be discovered by outsiders, that would destroy its credibility and trust? Why is it so different from the person and manner of Jesus? It also is different from the leadership practices of many CEOs, university presidents, museum executives, and other leaders. In writing about their leadership principles, they agree that listening is all important. Listening to employees, staff, board members, customers, and the public is accomplished through feed-back practices, meetings, and just being readily available. Constituencies must be made to feel that they share a mission, a product, that they are being heard, an overriding philosophy that they have helped to shape. One business leader, decrying command and control organizations, called attention to the difference between power and influence. "Power? Thanks. I'd rather have influence. As a person of authority, I'm a teacher-consultant more than a wielder of power".

Is Jesus a wielder of power or is He a seeker of influence? And Jesus' Church? Does it give first place to use power to keep its authority or does it first look to contact and communicate with others and thus have influence? Like Jesus with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well.

STARLIGHT AND STORM !

The 90 year mark which I hit last February was a time to celebrate these long years of life and 65 years as a NY priest. Celebrations took the form of several not-so- small affairs, which provided opportunities to chat that would easily be lost in one large gathering. So we had a family party at niece Kathleen's; a priests' gathering at St. Ann's, Ossining, where I spent the first ten years of retirement as Weekend Associate; a Sunday afternoon brunch with residents of the Ruppert Co-op, 650 units of "affordable housing" of which I was the organizer; a Deering family party - children, grandchildren, and great-grand children of long gone NYFD Captain Ray Deering. Ray was a dear friend. We met through the proximity of his firehouse, a few blocks from the Chancery where I worked. Quintessential New Yorker with tons of stories, like the description of the garb of the folks fleeing a fire in Greenwich Village!

Beginning in 2007, my blog has been reporting many colorful and fulfilling experiences I have had as a priest. I have also reported on how church governance has failed in protecting innocent priests, in installing Cardinal Law, driven from Boston by his priests and people for reassigning miscreant clergy, in a prestigious position; in removing Bishop Morris in Australia for his views on women priests and how no bishop, who reassigned abusers, has ever been removed.

The litany of hierarchical maladministration could go on and on. But it becomes tiresome and frustrating to complain for reform, where, in the hierarchy, there is no will to listen. So I will leave the problems of church governance to others and turn to positive considerations of spirituality. I take, as a beginning theme, the title of a book, "Meditations on the Peaks: Mountain Climbing as Metaphor for the Spiritual Quest" by Julius Evola.

The challenger of the mountain needs a discipline of the nerves and body, clear-minded courage, and an indomitable will. The mountain presents the individual person
with enormous beauty and mystery. Despite the menacing dangers of violent storms and avalanches, the mountain challenges persons of intrepidity and valor to mount the heights. God is our mountain. We are challenged by the mystery and majesty of God to enter into these higher realms of beauty and subsequent tranquility, but also of storms and fears. This is a land of starlight and storm!

RESPONSIBILITY DIFFUSED!

Since January 2007, I have posted 148 entries on this blogsite, Archangel. Some of these have celebrated bright accomplishments in the life and ministries of our Church as it tries to bring the heart and mind of Jesus to the world. Other posts have been candidly critical of many aspects of church governance. All that has been written here has come from a love of our Church and a desire that it be seen as a city on a hill. But two outrageous icons seem significant to me:

1) A few years ago, full page K of C magazine ads COME FOLLOW ME; then a photo of Benedict XVI and message, "Yes, we must come and follow Benedict".
2) Latest book by Benedict XVI on Jesus - cover photo of Benedict with caption, "THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD".

Heretical? I think so! Benedict twice steals the words of Jesus. Just a step away from Dostoyevsky's "Grand Inquisitor". Please, a humble Pope, a humble Church! Is this a problem?

Leadership tips from CEOs, university presidents, et al: "Listen to employees, staff, customers, boards of directors, the public"; "Make everyone feel they contribute to the organization, its culture, its product."; "Get feed back."; "Be collegial and consultative, not command and control types." "Have meetings, present goals, discuss tactics, don't have meetings where no one or few talk."

Some thoughts for bishops: "Be interfaith and ecumenical friendly; talk to fellow Christians, Jews, secularists, feminists, Unitarians; more importantly talk, to your fellow Catholics in Voice of the Faithful, Call to Action, and the like; don't keep them outside their church yards, meeting in Protestant and Greek Orthodox churches; send reps to their sessions; establish negotiable terms of discussion; they are not intruding on your turf - it's our turf; develop their human sense of belonging, don't think fences and walls"

Pope and bishops can no longer afford to diffuse responsibility as has been long a deplorable habit. Bishops are judged by pope alone; a more local judge is not available! For a bishop to be brought to justice is like a NYC cab driver able to be ticketed for a violation only by a US Supreme Court justice. The procedure kills the try for justice! The mantle of judicial immunity brings its wearer to a feeling of immunity from any criticism.

The bishops' National Review Board, consisting of outstanding Catholic lay personalities, in its February 2004 report was severely critical of the bishops: priests, but no bishop, were subject to punishment for violation of the Dallas Charter; the crisis was caused by the bishops failure to follow Canon 1395 ordering punishment, not therapy, for child abusers; damage to children was exponentially multiplied by bishops, who reassigned miscreants; bishops may well have had a conflict of interest in protecting themselves by agreeing to multi-million dollar payments and selling off church properties to pay damages; about the failures of bishops that brought grand juries and courts into the picture, the NRB report had this to say: "In the Board's view, any agreement between a diocese and civil authorities, in which the diocese gives power to the civil authorities to oversee the diocese, is a troubling infringement of the First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise of religion." History tells of many examples where Church and Pope steadfastly resisted such incursions, even to the point of deposing emperors.

These are serious charges, indeed,and it is understandable that some bishops were angered to be so taken to task. Our own Cardinal Egan, refused to offer the customary Mass for NRB members on their official visit to NY. Egan publicly disinvited Board members for a celebratory dinner held by chance at the time of their visit. In November 2004, Egan and three other bishops tried, thankfully without success, to delay and, perhaps, block the funding of the annual audits required by the NRB. In its report, the Board cited the violation by the bishops of Canon 1277, which requires the review and approval by the diocesan finance council for certain large payments. The Board pointed out that had the bishops complied with this canon, the large expenditures would have been questioned and their reasons disclosed to view.

Some board members have expressed dissatisfaction with the arrogance of some bishops. Former Oklahoma Governor, Frank Keating, described some bishops as "Mafia types". Illinois Supreme Court justice Anne Burke, after her term was up, has been giving lectures on the abuse crisis and the difficulties posed by many bishops to the Board in performing the duties entrusted to them. She said on one occasion that the NRB should be dispanded. I had been invited to provide a deposition to the Board. In Washington, I spent over three hours with Board member Robert Bennett, President Clinton's attorney in the impeachment affair. His questions showed a deep understanding of the crisis. He also observed that he could not understand the hostility and arrogance of some of the bishops towards him, given the time and loss of income he had experienced from his work on the Board. Out of frustration dealing with bishops, Anne Burke and Robert Bennett, with excelkent diplomatic connections, flew to Rome and met with then Cardinal Ratzinger with whom they discussed the situation. On their return, Bishop Gregory Wilton, Chief of USCCB told them they should have had permission for this trip, stating "even bishops need permission". Burke replied, "We are not bishops!".

With the abuse crisis very much with us, it would be appropriate to look again at the Feb 2004 NRB report. It is the most objective view to date of where accountability lay - in the past and, perhaps, into the future. Openness, not resistance , to criticism is a quality of the leadership needed to address the continuing crisis. In a recent Op-Ed in the Chicago Tribune, entitled "Can the Bishops ever be Trusted?", Anne Burke pointed out that the bishops had not followed the recommendatins of the Board. As subsequent events proved, the recommendations would have avoided some missteps that ensued and would be helpful in the future.

THE DANGERS OF FIXED IDEAS!

Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve Bank, was opposed to government regulation of business, believing that the free market would itself self-correct its problems. The financial collapse in 2008 and continuing on proved him wrong. It was caused by many factors, chief among them, Greenspan's fixed idea that regulation was a bad policy. Regulation should be treated as a no-no, "Don't even think about it!" A fixed idea to be honored above all was at the heart of the problem.

Church authorities, Popes and bishops, have a fixed idea about the Church. It is almost divine, incapable of doing anything wrong. It is to be honored and preferred ahead of everything else. Priests are abusing children and bringing dishonor on the Church. Oh, no! That can't be. Anti-Catholicism is behind this talk. Lawyers are drumming up such cases to make money. This abuse simply doesn't really exist. Popes and bishops tried for a long time to deny or cover up what, to them, was unthinkable. They put concern for the Church (and self-concern) ahead of everything, even the innocence of children.

But it was not unthinkable. It took the press, trial lawyers, district attorneys, and grand juries to show the brutal reality. But, even then, some would hold on to that image of Church. Cardinal Bevilaqua could still hold it after the 2005 Philadelphia grand jury findings and keep miscreants in ministry. And Cardinal Rigali, after the 2011 grand jury report, announced, "There are now no abusers in ministry." A week later, Rigali was forced to remove abusers still in ministry!

Pope John Paul held on to his fixed idea. When Cardinal Bernard Law, poster boy for reassigning abusers, was driven from Boston by his priests and people and, perhaps, to avoid a subpoena, JPII made him Archpriest of a prestigious church in Rome with a six-figure income and retained him in vetting candidates for appointments as bishops! Cardinal Bevilaqua and Pope John Paul II still "didn't get it", still maintained the fixed idea "Put the Church ahead of everything, including innocent children and, now more recently, ahead of falsely accused priests".

And now, Cardinal Rigali, under fire from press and the public for his mismanagement, was appointed on April 18 by Benedict XVI to be his special representative at a ceremony on June 18, 2011 honoring St. John Neumann in the Czech Republic. What is this all about? Does Benedict not understand how the faithful and the public will interpret this accolade for Rigali? Does he care? Does Benedict misunderstand child abuse as John Paul did when he rescued Cardinal Law from Boston? Do these two popes and two cardinals still accept the fixed idea at the heart of the problem: "My Church preferably right, but right or wrong, my Church!"

There is solid reason to think that the two popes "still don't get it". John Paul rewarded Cardinal Law, who exponentially multiplied the numbers of damaged children by reassigning abusers. Benedict conferred a special mission and honor on Rigali at the very time Rigali is shamed by the Philadelphia grand jury and calls for his resignation are being made. How unfortunate it is that these popes, with their fixed idea of a glorious and beneficent Church, can honor two cardinals, who, however unwittingly, caused injury to thousands of children. Both popes apologized for the sins of abusing priests. But the bad personnel management by many bishops has invariably been described by both popes in using the passive voice: "The matter was badly handled!" The harsh reality must be faced: the sins of abusive priests are outrageous; but the $2 billion of the faithful's contributions were paid out for settlements and court judgments for mismanagement by many bishops. When popes and bishops dispel the old Church-protective fixed idea, the way is open for salutary reform.

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