Unmaking Silence, Secrecy and Denial

Jesus’ was sent

 ”to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives“ (Luke 4: 18)

Public proclamation of this “good news” of God’s love for us and healing of the sick and suffering are the keystones of Jesus’ mission.

He speaks truth to power and rejects secrecy and silence:

“… nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.” (Matthew 10:26-28)

He is relentless in naming false news and confronting false prophets. Because he speaks God’s truth to power, he experienced lies and secret plots against him.

He also condemns hypocrites who speak one way and act in another as “whitewashed tombs” (Matt 23:27)

Pandemic

COVID-19 has revealed the crucial role of leadership truth-telling in a time of common crisis.

Secrecy and leadership denial of the significance of the new coronavirus as it emerged in rural China has resulted in millions worldwide experiencing serious illness and death. Egregious failures of responsibility have been demonstrated by some world leaders, including President Donald Trump’s denial of science and defiance of public health policies.

Even as the nightly news provides gruesome graphs tracking disease and death across the globe, there has been widespread denial of personal risk.

The pandemic has demonstrated the crucial importance of providing accurate, accessible information to all who are at risk. Paradoxically in our information age, this has become difficult because authoritative science and religious and ethical reflection are in conflict with personal and celebrity opinion.

The pandemic reveals significant moral and practical challenges to truthful and courageous responses to common risks and the protection of the most vulnerable among us.

Secrecy and Church culture

Silence, secrecy and denial are demonstrated dramatically in every aspect of the crisis from abuse of individuals, the responses to allegations of abuse and minimization of the harm done, active cover up of cases, ‘gag orders’ and opposition to necessary changes to statutes of limitation to failure of acknowledgment of the underlying systemic beliefs and practices operative in the crisis. It was a sin against chastity that could be confessed and forgiven with no acknowledgement of the person affected.

Dominated by “The Pontifical Secret”, oaths of secrecy, secret files and an internal canon law separate from civil law, responses to revelations of abuse crossed national and ethnic boundaries manifesting a culture of silence and secrecy in the Church. A management strategy of protection of image and institution in order to avoid scandal, understood as loss of reputation dominated.

Clergy sexual abuse of minors was not made public by examination of ecclesial conscience as information regarding the harms became known, but from civil and criminal law and investigative journalism.

There is ongoing silence from many clergy, and some laity, who are unable or unwilling to address the issue due to burn-out and ‘tragedy fatigue’. There is continual secrecy and lack of transparency in not making public admitted, convicted or “credibly accused” priests. Some have become obsessed with naming all possible offenders and the retribution of legal suits.

Embedded in a culture of secrecy, the Church must learn from other disciplines. Psychology recognizes denial as a powerful and pervasive unconscious defense mechanism for coping with fear, guilt, anxiety and disturbing realities in personal, social and political life. Sociology studies the importance of social relations and recognizes that conspiracies of silence stem from our learning the bounds of acceptable discourse and the rules of denial. Political science brings attention to power in controlling the agenda and access to information.

Leaders are recognized as critical in creating the culture of an organization but power and self-focus can limit their ability to respond to moral issues. Forces fostering organizational silence include a distant and unapproachable management; a high level of dissimilarity between management and others in the organization; and policies and practices that centralize decision making and avoid negative feedback.

The long-term outcome of an organizational public moral failure is determined by how the moral and ethical contradictions are discussed and understood. They have also studied successful restoration of credibility after public moral failure. Church leadership has been pathologically slow n learning these lessons.

Pope Francis has made some major advances in his 2019 Vox Estis Lux Mundi and reporting of bishops who abuse or fail to address the issue and the June 2021 Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts presented revisions for Book VI of the 1983 Code of Canon Law dealing with “Sanctions in the Church” especially for crimes against children, pornography and corruption.

Dialogue

Following Jesus, the Church should be a powerful force for truth-telling and unmasking “false news” and denial of harm and injustice in society. While the Church has a record of speaking out about many ills in society, sadly, its own history teaches more about secrecy and denial than courage in confronting evil within the Church, recalling Jesus’ piercing question:

How can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” (Luke 6 41-42)

Dialogue is key to fostering an understanding of both individual and ecclesial limitations and sinfulness. In the Church there is no real tradition of dialogue understood as a dynamic communication, with all participants functioning as both speakers and listeners. Dialogue has been understood in terms of obedience to authority which limits dialogue to obedience to authority and one-way communication from the top down. Dialogue requires recognition and respect for the gifts of all in the Church.

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago created the Catholic Common Ground Initiative in 1996 to create a space and discourse to address divisions in the Church, reaffirm basic truths and to pursue disagreements in renewed spirit of dialogue. Chief among those truths is that our discussion must be accountable to the Catholic tradition and to the Spirit-filled living church that brings to us the revelation of God in Jesus. Tragically, a movement to restore unity and bring healing to the wounded Body of Christ received little support from Church hierarchy because of their concerns about diminishing magisterial authority.

Synodality

Following Vatican II synods were created to promote shared responsibility for the life of the Church. They have been formal meetings, usually of bishops and content experts.

Pope Francis calls us to synodality, a new principle of Church life and practice. This is a “journeying together” requiring the participation of all the baptized at every level – in parishes, dioceses, and national and regional ecclesial bodies – in a discernment and reform that permeates the Church. It is rooted in a dialogic approach that finds its inspiration in the life of the Trinity – where there is continual dynamic communication of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit – brings demands for conversion that arise from the dialogue itself.

Pope Francis had called for a 2021 Synod on Synodality with the theme “For a Synodal Church communion, participation and mission. This is a courageous and much needed action but is fraught with difficulties. Some serious issues include who sets the agenda; who can speak; who can vote. Expectations are high for many but there is also ongoing resistance.

Responding to many of the challenges, the Pope revised the schedule and developed a three phase approach: diocesan consultations and response to a questionnaire which are summarized by the national episcopal conference; then a review and synthesis of diocesan reports by continental meetings of national episcopal conferences and the full 2023 Synod in Rome.

Lesson: Unmasking secrecy, silence and denial requires attention to organizational culture and deep theological reflection and discernment by all in the Church.

Key references

G.A. Arbuckle, 2019, Abuse and Cover Up: Refounding the Catholic Church in Trauma, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY.

Brueggemann, W. 2001, The Prophetic Imagination (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress.

Nichoals P. Cafardi, 2008 Before Dallas: The U.S. Bishops’ Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children, Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ.

Donald Cozzens, 2002, Sacred Silence: Denial and Crisis in the Church, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN.

Thomas P. R. Doyle, R. Sipe & P. J. Wall 2006, Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse. Los Angeles: Volt Press.

Bradford Hinze, 2006 Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims, Obstacles, Lessons and LamentsContinuum, NY

Pope Francis 2021 Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future, Simon & Schuster, NY

Timothy D. Lytton, 2008, Holding Bishops Accountable: How Lawsuits Helped the Catholic Church Confront Clergy Sexual Abuse, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

The Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe, 2002, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church Boston: Back Bay Books.

Angela Senander, 2012, Scandal: The Catholic Church and Public Life, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN

Edgar H. Schein, 1985, Organizational Culture and Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Breaking silence with a morality of conscience and virtue

Jesus

“Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish but to complete them.” (Matt 5:17-18)

 “Alas for you Pharisees! You who pay your tithe of mint and rue…and overlook justice and the love of God…Alas for you lawyers also…because you load on men burdens that are unbearable, burdens that you yourselves, do not move one finger to life.” (Luke 11: 42-46)

Jesus is a faithful son of Israel and he keeps it laws.

He does not hold to the strict letter of the Law but sees into the heart and uses God’s standard of mercy in judgment.

He is harsh with those who observe meticulously minor laws and rules but fail to do justice and mercy.

Morality

The early Church fathers were concerned with reflections on Jesus’ words and witness for moral judgment and action. Starting in the early medieval time, the focus shifted to sins to be avoided and rules for hearing confessions and assigning penances. This sin-centered, act-oriented morality dominated Catholic morality.

Beginning in the 1950’s, there was an evolution in moral theology. Vatican II called for a restoration of the theological focus on the whole of the Christian moral life that integrated moral theology with Scripture, spirituality and theology. It taught that moral theology’s basic tasks were to providing the right vision for Christian disciples to assess perspectives on moral issues, and to present those truths and values that should inform decisions taken in faith. Unfortunately, Pope Paul VI’S Humanae vitae reasserted the manualists’ approach. This created an ongoing rift between many of the faithful and Church teaching and between the hierarchy and moral theologians as demonstrated clearly in Veritatis Splendor.

Pope Francis has wisely said:

We are all living in an information-driven society which bombards us indiscriminately with data – all treated as being of equal importance – and which leads to remarkable superficiality in the area of moral discernment. In response, we need to provide an education which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values. (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 64)

This development of critical thinking requires a resuscitation of Catholic doctrine on the authority and inviolability of conscience and a rehabilitation of virtue.

Conscience

“In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to God, the end and purpose of life.” (Dignitatis humanae)

However, it was displaced in the 19th and early 20th centuries by magisterial authority, rules and demands for submission. Abuse of power and harm to the vulnerable reflects a systemic failure of proper conscience formation for clergy and laity and a lack of moral accountability.

-abuse of conscience in abuse!!!

Conscience is formed from Scripture, tradition – especially magisterial or formal Church teaching – experience and science. For centuries, Catholics have believed that strictly following Magisterial teaching was following conscience.

Conscience literally means ‘to know together.”  It is an innate process and a life-long process that seeks truth, develops moral responsibility, integrates identity and character through the exercise of free will informed by conscience.

Conscience speaks to us…to ourselves, others, God. Aquinas-conscience as practical reason applied when decisions or actions are unclear…we encounter God’s law in conscience and that guides to God’s will

While it is an intensely personal issue but not private. It is formed and supported by a community.

Church has invoked conscience and its “right’ to object to war, sexual practice and policy and even vaccination and mask-wearing.

Little pastoral attention has been given to the topic in recent times and there is significant difficulty in forming Catholic conscience in the contemporary culture of social media and blogs.

Virtue

Conscience, built upon strong virtues and the will to do good, becomes an instrument of discernment rather than strict application of the law.

In keeping with Jesus’ focus on the heart and linking morality with Scripture, there has been a revival of interest in virtue. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

“A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of [her]self. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; [s]he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions” (no. 1803). 

The infused theological virtues are faith, hope and charity. The moral virtues can be learned. The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. In the spiritual sense, attention to virtue focuses on forming and supporting hearts and minds. They focus on the question “What type of person ought I become?” Virtues empower us to act in certain ways. Individuals become virtuous with and through the inspiration and guidance of others. In such a view, rules and laws are not discarded but provide guidance and wisdom from past experience that helps a person discern the right or good action in a particular situation.

Love, mercy, reconciliation and hope characterize our understanding of Christian virtue ethics. Ultimately, it is the theological virtue of charity/love that must be paramount, as charity is the animator and binder of all of the other virtues. Any reform and renewal in the Church must be animated by love: love of God and love of others. This love mirrors the love in the Trinity.

Key references