Current Affairs – Page 5

Rome’s New UGLY John Paul II Statue

Catholic News Service is running a piece about the new statue unveiled in Rome to commemorate Bl. John Paul II (statue pictured).

Wow is it ugly.

And inappropriate.

Even L’Osservatore Romano—the Vatican’s newspaper—has commented on how lame it is. (I guess that’s one fortunate thing about LOR‘s turn toward less anodyne commentary; if we’ve got to deal with with their less-than-helpful commentary about the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and The Simpsons, at least they now have the freedom to say when a pope statue is ugly.)

According to CNS:

Sculptor Oliviero Rainaldi intended to show the late pope with his cape billowing in the wind, as a symbolic image of welcome. The 16-foot-tall bronze sculpture was placed outside Rome’s main train station, where tens of thousands of visitors arrive daily.

But when unveiled May 18, it looked more like an open tent, or a sentry-box, or a bell, commented L’Osservatore Romano. The papal cape looks like it was split open by a bomb. More importantly, the newspaper said, it’s unrecognizable as John Paul II — the head is “excessively spherical.”

The newspaper credited the sculptor with trying to move beyond classic papal iconography and attempt something new and different.

“But overall, the result does not seem to have matched the intention, and in fact there has already been criticism,” it said.

In Rome newspaper polls, public opinion is running 9-1 against the statue.

Ya think?

The placement of the statue outside Rome’s main train station—the Termini—is particularly unfortunate, because it ensures a large number of people will see the thing. The Termini is a very important travel hub in Rome for locals and pilgrims alike.

I have to say that this statue is even worse than the one inside the entrance of the Vatican museums. That statue, titled “Varcare la soglia” (Crossing the Threshold), is a slab of marble with a bas relief of John Paul II on each side, apparently shoving a goofy-looking, modern, cell-phone clutching man out of the block of marble.

I was stunned when I first saw it.

Take a look see for yourself. Here’s one side of it:

And here’s the other:

(Sorry; couldn’t find larger images. Trust me, it’s even more hideous when you see it up close and larger than life.)

MORE INFO HERE.

Some years ago, I visited a traveling exhibit of Vatican art treasures, with items spanning many centuries. I was struck by the quality of the older material and how the quality of the art suddenly fell off a cliff in the mid-20th century.

I can only imagine art historians in the year 2525 (if man is still alive; if woman can survive) looking back on this period and struggling to explain the sudden, appalling lack of taste and artistic sensibility.

Of course, neither the new JP2 statue or the “Crossing the Threshold” statue is the worst 20th century artistic atrocity passed off as something deeply spiritual, but I’ll tell you about that one another time.

In the meanwhile, what do you think the new statue of John Paul II looks like? A telephone booth? An agonizer booth? A bus stop?

What are your thoughts?

P.S. For extra points, how would you caption the photo of the new statue?

Harold Camping Beclowns Himself! In Public! All Over Again!

Over the weekend while Harold Camping was hiding out after his failed prediction that the Rapture would occur on Saturday, May 21st, I was talking to a friend about what Camping was likely to do next.

I expressed the hope that Camping would make a public statement acknowledging his error and cease making end time predictions. I also expressed the fervent hope that Camping and his followers would not bring on their own personal end of the world through a suicide pact (a la Heaven’s Gate, the Order of the Solar Temple, and Jim Jones’ People’s Temple). I didn’t think that the probable outcome in this situation, though. Instead, I said that the most likely thing would be a modification of previous predictions.

My prediction was right!

On Monday Camping gave a press conference in which he said that he had been right about a major supernatural event occurring on Saturday, only it was of a different nature. Instead of a supernatural set of earthquakes and a rapture, it was an invisible, “spiritual” visitation of divine judgment on the earth—something undetectable by the senses and thus unfalsifiable. His remaining prediction—that the world itself would end on October 21st, he reaffirmed.

See for yourself!

Steven Greydanus—the friend to whom I was talking—has an excellent treatment of Camping’s new position and its problems, so be sure to check it out.

I must note that the prediction I made about what Camping was likely to do wasn’t due to any supernatural information. In fact, it was a safe prediction based on lots of prior experience.

Groups that have made false apocalyptic predictions have a long history of maintaining-with-variation when their predictions fail.

A famous example was the William Miller, who predicted the end of the world between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When the latter date passed, an adjustment was made based on the use of a different Jewish calendar (that of the Karaite Jews), suggesting April 18, 1844. That, too, passed, and Miller wrote a letter in which he told his followers (now known as Millerites) in words eerily parallel to Harold Camping’s:

“I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the door.”

Later that year, one Millerite preacher—Samuel Snow—predicted another specific date for Christ’s return: October 22nd.

The Millerite sect was a notable one in 19th Century America, and thousands of people made preparations, including giving up their possessions.

When October 23rd came with no return of Christ, the event became labelled “the Great Disappointment.”

In the wake the the Great Disappointment, many continued to maintain some form of faith in the Millerite system, but with modifications.

Nineteenth-century America was a more rambunctious place, and the reaction to the Great Disappointment was startling by modern standards. Wikipedia notes:

There were also the instances of violence — a Millerite church burned in Ithaca and two vandalized in Dansville and Scottsville. In Loraine, a mob attacked the Millerite congregation with clubs and knives, while a group in Toronto was tarred and feathered. Shots were fired at another Canadian group meeting in a private house.

Many Millerites maintained their faith, however:

Both Millerite leaders and followers were left generally bewildered and disillusioned. Responses varied: some continued to look daily for Christ’s return, others predicted different dates—among them April, July, and October 1845. Some theorized that the world had entered the seventh millennium — the “Great Sabbath,” and that therefore, the saved should not work. Others acted as children, basing their belief on Jesus’ words in Mark 10:15 “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Millerite O. J. D. Pickands used Revelation to teach that Christ was now sitting on a white cloud, and must be prayed down.

Others offered other interpretations, such as the idea that the offer of salvation to mankind had ended (a view already reported among Campingites), that Jesus had returned invisibly, and that Jesus had begun the judgment by cleansing the heavenly sanctuary.

The latter view led, in particular, to the formation of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination.

Miller’s teachings also had an influence on the formation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who famously predicted (among other things) the return of Christ in 1914 and then, when this didn’t happen, reinterpreted it as a spiritual enthronement of Christ.

And there is a lamentable history of such prophecies and reinterpretations among them since.

This phenomenon isn’t unique to the Millerites, the Adventists, the JWs, and the Campingites, though. It’s broader than that. Non-Christians are subject to it, as well.

A famous case is recorded in the book When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger. Back in the 1950s, he and two other social scientists infiltrated a UFO sect that had doomsday beliefs and then watched what happened as the predicted doomsday failed to appear. Similar things happened.

(Incidentally, Festinger termed the clash of existing beliefs with new evidence against them “cognitive dissonance”—a now-popular term.)

The phenomenon appears concerning non-doomsdays, too. In his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn points out that scientific change does not happen in the orderly, step-by-step, incremental way that they are often depicted. Instead, it tends to have violent revolutions, in which one model resists change with only minor modifications for a long time and then suddenly collapses when the weight of evidence against it becomes too great. Until that point, scientists only tweak their their preferred theories enough to account for new, incoming data.

So strong is the tendency to cling to old theories that it often requires one generation of scientists to die off to allow a new theory to take its place.

(Incidentally, Kuhn referred to this shift of beliefs as moving from one “paradigm” to another or as a “paradigm shift”—another now-popular term.)

But the phenomenon is even broader than science and religion. It’s part of basic human nature, and it applies everywhere, to every form of belief, opinion, or theory.

C. S. Lewis wrote an essay entitled On Obstinacy in Belief, in which he pointed out we have a form of mental inertia that tends to preserve us in our beliefs, that we tend to only tweak them when minor amounts of contrary evidence is presented, and that major shifts occur only when the amount of evidence becomes overwhelming.

He also points out that this is entirely natural and that we would be ill served if we were configured so that each new bit of data required us to call into question the entirety of our beliefs. It’s on-balance good that we’re obstinate in our beliefs, because the majority of them are correct and suspending our beliefs at the slightest provocation would cause us not only to squander an enormous amount of time and cognitive resources but would result in a literally fatal form of paralysis.

The trick is to make sure that we’re forming our beliefs in a reliable way, which Harold Camping definitely was not. Not only was he disconnected from the magisterium Christ established and operating all by his lonesome, he also was using demonstrably crazy methodology that was anything but sure to lead to a reliable conclusion.

But let’s not be too hard on Harold Camping.

Yes, he’s beclowned himself. In public. All over again. By predicting the end of the world on October 21st of this year. That has almost no chance of happening. But given the cognitive dissonance he’s been presented with, and the alternative interpretations available to him, it’s not surprising that he displayed obstinacy in belief and avoided a major paradigm shift.

And so my prediction came true.

It’ll be interesting to see what he does come October 22nd.

Anyone care to wager with me?

What do you think?

Who Would Jesus Whip?

A story caught my eye on Catholic News Agency, according to which:

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans said that a local Catholic school must permanently ban corporal punishment for student misbehavior, even though many parents and alumni support the practice. …

Since 1951 teachers and administrators at the historically black all-boys school have used an 18-inch-long wooden paddle, known as “the board of education,” to administer punishment to students for tardiness, sloppy dress or other minor infractions.

However, Archbishop Aymond and Josephite superior general Fr. Edward Chiffriller, who heads the school’s board of trustees, ordered an end to the practice.

A town hall meeting assembled to discuss the change attracted an audience that numbered over 600 and included current students from grades six to 12, current and former parents, grandparents, benefactors and friends of the school.

“Board of education.” Heh. Definite points for that.

Personally, I do not have an opinion on whether corporal punishment should be administered at St. Augustine High School—the school in question. My own conviction is that the issue of corporal punishment is one for parents to decide. I have known some parents who have successfully raised children using it seldom or never. I also know there are parents who feel it is has played an important and needed role in raising their children. The fact is that children are different, and some respond to different things. To one child a time out may be far more agonizing (and motivating) than a paddling. To others just the reverse will be the case. Whether corporal punishment is to be used in the case of their own children—and how much and when—is something that I view as within the natural law rights of the parents.

Because of that, I can see why a school might choose not to have corporal punishment on campus, simply in respect of the rights of parents who do not wish it administered to their children (quite apart from issues of lawsuits and such). I can also see a school having a policy of allowing corporal punishment for those children whose parents do not object to it (such a policy could be a little tricky, but doable). And I can see a school saying, “It is our policy to use corporal punishment in disciplinary cases. If you have a problem with that policy, feel free to place your children with another school that has a different policy.”

So, I don’t have a problem with schools taking different policy positions on this, just as I don’t have a problem with parents doing so. I think reasonable people can have a legitimate diversity of opinion.

I also don’t have a problem with Archbishop Aymond deciding not to have corporal punishment at St. Augustine. As the local bishop, that’s within his purview.

I would, however, offer some thoughts on some of the claims made in the CNA story. I have to say that I wasn’t at the town hall meeting, and so I don’t know exactly what was said or in what context, but based on the coverage provided by CNA, several things leapt out at me:

Corporal punishment can cause unintended physical injury and studies indicate it can cause physical, emotional and psychological damage, including loss of self-esteem and increased hostility toward authority, the archbishop said.

I couldn’t blame the parents at the town hall meeting who may have questioned this kind of claim. While scientific studies can tell us many useful things, something like a third of them turn out to be wrong, and they can often be skewed by the agendas of the scientists who perform them. There have been all kinds of social science and psychological studies that have been “cooked” to support claims like abortion doesn’t leave lasting emotional damage, divorce doesn’t really hurt the children, homosexual couples are just as capable of being good parents, etc., etc. The anti-corporal-punishment movement intersects in a significant way with the same constellation of agendas that has cooked the studies just named. It is not much of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that anti-spanking studies have been similarly cooked.

That’s not to say that they’re automatically wrong. They could be right. This is an empirical question, and the solution cannot be decided in advance. If reliable studies have been or are in the future conducted that show a net detriment to moderate spanking—for all children in all American cultures and subcultures—then that’s an important finding that needs to be taken into account. But there is reason for caution here.

I’d be rather doubtful that such studies would find this as I, like many, was the recipient of moderate spanking as a child. I was even paddled in junior high school by one of the teacher/coaches, and I don’t perceive it to have done lasting damage to me. I suspect the experience of many—including many of the pro-paddling parents at St. Augustine’s—is similar.

Along related lines:

The archbishop explained that he believes that “hitting a young man does not build character.”

Phrased in those terms, the claim has the ring of plausibility. Hitting people is not generally recognized as a way to build character. But one could suggest that this is prejudicial language, because we are not talking about hitting, stripped of all context. There is a difference between giving someone a swat when they’ve behaved badly and to motivate them to be have better and just randomly hitting a person for no reason.

Further, this argument might prove too much. All forms of childhood discipline involve causing some kind of pain in order to motivate the child not to behave badly in the future. Spanking uses physical pain. Time outs, grounding, docking an allowance, deprivation of TV or Internet privileges, and adding chores use another form of pain. But couldn’t one just as easily say, “Inflicting pain on a young man does not build character”?—or even more provocatively, “Torturing a young man does not build character”? Despite their surface plausibility as phrased, we can recognize them as using prejudicial language. And surely we cannot infer from such claims that all forms of childhood discipline are wrong.

But if that’s the case, what makes the use of moderate physical pain different from the others? Why is it disallowed while the others aren’t? It doesn’t seem intrinsically worse than the others. I know I’d much rather have a couple of swats than, say, be grounded for a month, or even a week. A lot of children, I imagine, would feel the same way. So it doesn’t seem that corporal punishment is intrinsically cruel compared to other forms of punishment.

In any event, sacred Scripture takes a positive attitude toward childhood discipline, for the author of Hebrew writes:

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [Heb. 12:11].

The author of Hebrews doesn’t specify that he’s talking about physical discipline, though he surely wasn’t excluding it. There simply was no anti-spanking ethic in ancient Hebrew culture. Indeed, Proverbs counsels:

He who spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him [Prov. 13:24].

That’s not to say that we must use these methods today, but it does show that they are not foreign to the Judeo-Christian tradition, including in the New Testament period in which the author of Hebrews was writing. And even if the author of Hebrews (very implausibly) didn’t have corporal punishment in mind, he clearly acknowledged the use of painful discipline to train towards proper conduct.

Archbishop Aymond also reported that he had received a letter from an activist who wrote from Ireland, which is suffering an abuse scandal. The writer singled out the continued corporal punishment at St. Augustine.

This apparently met with significant opposition from local parents:

A statement published at the school website reported that the community “overwhelmingly supports” the punishment. Attendees at the town hall expressed “outrage” that “persons from a different culture,” such as the activist from Ireland, were discussing St. Augustine’s policy and were “attempting to undermine” the school without significant input from those affected.

“Many expressed outrage that African American parents have to haggle with non-African Americans about how to raise their own sons,” the statement said.

I can’t blame the parents for feeling this way. I am sure that the archbishop meant to cite the Irish activist’s letter in a positive way, perhaps as an illustration of how the Church need to go the extra mile to prove it is not abusing children, in light of the current abuse scandals.

But I can easily see how local parents would be outraged at the idea of a foreign activist, a person of a different culture, getting the local bishop’s ear and then he announces a policy change without the input of the people most involved and affected. If I were a parent at the school, my natural response would be one of outrage. (Though I hope I’d be open to an alternative presentation of the facts if it could be shown that something else happened.)

Though I think I see what the bishop may have been getting at by citing the letter from the Irish activist, I am puzzled by something else he said:

“I do not believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, as we interpret them today in 2011, can possibly condone corporal punishment,” he explained to a Feb. 24 a town hall meeting at the Josephite-run St. Augustine High School in New Orleans. While parents have the authority to administer such punishment, he could not “possibly condone” the school doing so, the archdiocesan newspaper the Clarion Herald reports.

One of the sources of my confusion is the statement that “parents have the authority to administer such punishment” (the Clarion Herald adds, “in their homes to discipline their children”) followed by the claim that the bishop could not “possibly condone” the school doing so (“especially in a Catholic school,” the Clarion Herald adds).

Huh?

If a parents have the authority to do something in their own home for the benefit of their children then why can’t the delegate the authority to do the exact same thing to teachers? Isn’t that the whole principle on which non-home schools operate? Parents have a natural law right to train their offspring (including the right to discipline them—childhood discipline is part of the overall education of a child, regardless of whether it’s corporal punishment or something else) and then they delegate that function or some of those functions to the teachers and officials at schools where they enroll their children.

So I don’t get that.

Perhaps the archbishop meant that they have the authority to do this in their own homes in the sense of “I think what you’re doing is wrong, but I can’t stop you in your own homes,” but then why point this out to them? Wouldn’t saying that they have the authority to do this in their homes and leaving it at that undermine his message that this is wrong and give permission to parents to do something in their homes that he views as wrong?

So I remain puzzled by this.

I am even more puzzled by the statement that “I do not believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, as we interpret them today in 2011, can possibly condone corporal punishment.” Really? I must confess that I don’t know what the archbishop is thinking of here.

I am unaware of any statement in the Catechism, the Compendium of Social Doctrine, any papal encyclical, any curial document, or any other magisterial document whatsoever that says corporal punishment cannot be used as a method of childhood discipline.

A search of the Vatican web site turns up only a handful of references to corporal punishment, and only one of them appears to deal with the use of corporal punishment with children. That one reference is in a remark made in passing by a participant in a panel discussion on democracy hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the proceedings of which are expressly flagged as “although published by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, only represent the points of view of the participants and not those of the Academy.”

Of course, as a member of the magisterium, the archbishop could invoke his own teaching authority on the matter, in which case his own subjects would have to wrestle with the question showing the deference due to the local bishop’s individual teaching authority, but the archbishop appears not to have done this.

He did not say, “By virtue of my teaching authority as a successor of the apostles and as the shepherd of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, I declare my judgment that corporal punishment of children is wrong.” Instead, he appealed more generally to “the teachings of the Catholic Church.” He further enhanced the communal appeal by referring to how “we” interpret them today.

I am unaware of any doctrinal development that has occurred on the part of the Church’s magisterium as expressed in its official documents concerning this point, so I am simply at a loss.

I can also imagine counter-questions that might be posed, such as, “If the Church acknowledges that physical force can be used to achieve the end of self-defense or the defense of others, why can’t moderate use of physical force be used to keep children away from dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations (e.g., swatting a four-year old on the rear to train him not to run out into a traffic-filled street)?” or “If other forms of painful discipline can be used to properly train a child, why can’t moderate physical discomfort be used if that is what this particular child responds to?”

Finally, there is this statement by the archbishop:

“My image of Jesus is that he said, ‘Let the children come to me.’ I cannot imagine Jesus paddling anyone.”

I can imagine parents having several responses to this statement.

First, although I am sure that the bishop didn’t intend it to come across this way, there is always a danger when using an “I can’t imagine Jesus doing X” argument that it will come across as playing a kind of trump card with the intention of shutting off further discussion. If it is said that Jesus wouldn’t do something, that strongly implies that we shouldn’t either. We shouldn’t even talk about doing something Jesus wouldn’t do, right?

Further, because the person making the argument puts himself on the side of Jesus and—by implication—implicitly suggests that those on the other side of the discussion are not with Jesus, it can unintentionally convey a holier-than-thou impression, as well as being a discussion stopper.

I’m sure the archbishop had no intention of conveying such impressions, but it would be human for parents at St. Augustine’s to take such impressions away from the discussion.

There is another reason I am generally uncomfortable with arguments of this form, which is that they are not very reliable.

Jesus is most certainly a crucial point of reference for us morally. He is the all-holy, infinitely holy Son of God incarnate. But not every moral dilemma can be settled by simply asking, “What Would Jesus Do?”

For one thing, Jesus as the Son of God and the Savior of mankind had a very different mission than our own personal vocations. His situation was quite different than ours. He had a different mission, different responsibilities, different resources, and different rights. He also lived in a different century and a different culture. This facts create major asymmetries between his situation and ours, making any straightforward application of WWJD problematic.

Further, we tend to read what Jesus would do in terms of our own preferences and aspirations. There is a famous saying in biblical circles (a saying quoted by Pope Benedict in the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth), which is this: “By Their Lives of Christ Ye Shall Know Them.”

This is a reference to the fact that biblical scholars have a tendency to write biographies of Jesus (Lives of Christ) in which the portrait of Jesus that they end up painting just coincidentally happens to reflect their own personal ideology. If you want to know what a particular scholar’s personal ideology is, read his Life of Christ and see what portrait of Jesus he paints. This happens over and over again in biblical studies—so much so that it has become proverbial.

The same thing happens outside the scholarly community, in the ordinary world of pew-sitting believers. “I don’t think Jesus would do that!” has been used by many pious moralizers to object to all kinds of activity that is perfectly legitimate.

“I don’t think Jesus would watch television/go to a movie/attend a sporting event/read a secular book/etc. when he could be praying or reading the Bible.”

The ultimate end of that line of reasoning is Jansenism or scrupulosity—o r both.

Reading our own personal pious intuitions into what Jesus would do is simply not reliable. Jesus shocked the people of his own day by eating with prostitutes, sinners, and tax collectors. He could well shock us by watching TV, going to a movie, attending a sporting event, or reading a secular book. We just don’t know what he’d do in those situations.

Jesus is much less like our pious intuitions and much more like C. S. Lewis’s depiction of Aslan, who refused to be predictable or be boxed in by promises to behave in a predictable and harmless way. Like Aslan, you know that what Jesus would do would ultimately turn out to be good, but you don’t know what it’s going to be, and it may be quite surprising and even shocking.

Even if we knew exactly what Jesus would do in all circumstances, though, we still should not follow his example in all particular outcomes. It is not God’s will that we do this. It is not God’s will, for example, that we all follow Jesus’ example of being celibate in this life, or that we all try to walk on water, or perform miracles, or announce teachings on our own authority. We may (and must) look to Jesus for the fundamental principles that inform our life and conduct, but these cannot be applied in a simplistic WWJD manner.

So what about the claim that Jesus wouldn’t paddle anyone?

I don’t know that they had paddles in his day, but they did have comparable devices: belts, rods, and whips.

And we know that Jesus used at least one of those. According to St. John’s account of the clearing of the temple (quoted from the NAB):

He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me” [John 2:14-17].

These people presumably weren’t children, but they were behaving badly, and our Lord saw fit not only to spill their coins and overturn their tables (leading to a hopeless confusion and probable loss of income for the money-changes in question), he also saw fit to make a whip and start swinging it at people.

And note that he is swinging the whip at people. The text says that he “made a whip out of cords and drove them[i.e., those who sold … as well as the money-changers], with the sheep and oxen.” So he didn’t just use the whip on the animals. He swung it at the people, too.

It’s easy to say that it’s hard to imagine Jesus paddling someone, just as it’s easy to suppose that he wouldn’t splatter people’s money, overturn their property, and physically attack a group of businessmen. Surely the meek and mild Jesus would never do those things! Our God is a God of order, not chaos, after all. And violence never solves anything.

Yet here we have the Savior of mankind brandishing a whip.

It seems like Jesus might be willing to paddle quite a few people.

What do you think?

Before I go, two further notes. Catholic News Agency reports that the no-spanking policy may not be working out as hoped:

St. Augustine High School principal Don Boucree told the Clarion Herald that discipline at the school has suffered since the school stopped paddling five months ago. It has had to resort to a “zero tolerance” policy for unacceptable behavior.

“What has happened is that the infractions that would have stopped by now have continued to rise, causing the severity of the penalties to increase,” Boucree commented.

Fortunately, the parties may still find a mutually acceptable solution:

Fr. Chiffriller [head of the school board of trustees] said the decision would be revisited and discussed, while supporters of corporal punishment said that the discussion was not over.

Archbishop Aymond suggested prayer and dialogue as a way to determine God’s will and to resolve the issue.

Let’s pray for those on both sides of the discussion, that they may be openminded and charitable and together find the best policy for this school—whatever that may be.

Major Supernatural Event This Saturday!

Yes! It’s true! A major supernatural event will be occurring *this* Saturday, May 21, 2011!

I’m *not* kidding!

Harold Camping—president of the Protestant radio outreach known as Family Radio—has been predicting for some time that the long-awaited Rapture will occur on May 21st of this year.

Of course, he’s made similar predictions before. He famously got his followers worked up back in 1994 about that being the year the world would end (or something) and, well … y’know.

But this time is different!

There really *is* a major supernatural event occurring this Saturday!

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the reasoning Camping uses to arrive at his conclusion is sound. In fact, it’s not.

If you go to Family Radio’s page explaining why the Rapture is supposed to happen this Saturday, the reasoning used is astronishingly weak. Even incoherent. Dig it:

God declared in 2 Peter 3:8:

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

God had written in the Holy Bible in Genesis 7:4:

For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

God added in Genesis 7:10-11:

And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the Flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.

The ark that Noah had built was the only place of safety from the destruction of the Flood. Likewise, God’s gracious mercy is the only place of safety from the destruction that is coming on the Day of Judgment.

In 2 Peter 3:8, which is quoted above, Holy God reminds us that one day is as 1,000 years. Therefore, with the correct understanding that the seven days referred to in Genesis 7:4 can be understood as 7,000 years, we learn that when God told Noah there were seven days to escape worldwide destruction, He was also telling the world there would be exactly 7,000 years (one day is as 1,000 years) to escape the wrath of God that would come when He destroys the world on Judgment Day. Because Holy Infinite God is all-knowing, He knows the end from the beginning. He knew how sinful the world would become.

Seven thousand years after 4990 B.C. (the year of the Flood) is the year 2011 A.D. (our calendar).

4990 + 2011 – 1 = 7,000
[One year must be subtracted in going from an Old Testament B.C. calendar date to a New Testament A.D. calendar date because the calendar does not have a year zero.]

Thus Holy God is showing us by the words of 2 Peter 3:8 that he wants us to know that exactly 7,000 years after he destroyed the world with water in Noah’s day, he plans to destroy the entire world forever. Because the year 2011 A.D. is exactly 7,000 years after 4990 B.C. when the flood began, the Bible has given us absolute proof that the year 2011 is the end of the world during the Day of Judgment, which will come on the last day of the Day of Judgment.

Got that?

Me neither.

So let’s employ a technique commonly used by philosophers when trying to analyze someone’s argument. Let’s try to put it in logical form. As near as I can tell, Camping’s argument has a form something like this:

1) Noah’s Flood occurred in 4990 B.C.
2) Noah was warned seven days before the Flood that it would occur, per Genesis 7.
3) A day with the Lord is like a thousand years, per 2 Peter 3.
4) Therefore, 7,000 years after Noah’s Flood some great, Flood-like judgment will occur.
5) 4990 B.C. + 7000 -1 = A.D. 2011.
6) Therefore, the end of the world will occur in 2011.

Camping has other arguments zeroing in on May 21st as the date for the Rapture and for October 21st for the final end of the world (if I understand correctly), but before messing with days, let’s first see if his argument concerning years holds water.

The first thing to be remarked about the argument as I’ve put it above is that it’s not in a logically valid form. The premises do not entail the conclusions. I could fix that by rephrasing and introducing some extra, hidden premises, but Camping’s logic is so obscure that I don’t want to go too far beyond what he explicitly says. So let’s simply look at the premises of the argument and see how likely they are to be true, remembering that if even one premise is false then the whole argument is unsound (and that’s if it had a valid form to begin).

Premise 1, that the Flood occurred in 4990 B.C. is an idiosyncratic claim on Camping’s part. You’ll note that this date is earlier than the conventional Protestant Ussher chronology, which had the world beginning in 4004 B.C. and had the Flood occurring around 2348 B.C. Camping rejects the Ussher dating, and I can’t fault him for that. I reject it myself, as do most Protestants these days, because it is based on unsound methodology and results in unlikely, unprovable, and over-precise dates.

Unfortunately, I have no more confidence in Camping’s dating, which also strikes me as unlikely, unprovable, and over-precise. I don’t know what house of cards he has supporting that date, but I view basing any argument regarding the end of the world on this date as extremely shaky.

Premise 2, that Genesis depicts Noah being told that the Flood was going to begin in seven days (this was after he’d been given an earlier warning and built the ark) is true.

Premise 3, that Peter states that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years is also true.

But can we infer from this that some Flood-like judgment would occur 7,000 years after the original Flood?

Not on your life.

For a start, why zero-in on the warning Noah got seven days before everything started happening? Why not focus instead on the earlier warning he got? Why not at some other time in this narrative? The proposed starting point is arbitrary.

For another thing, why suppose that there’s any kind of prophetic significance to this at all? There is nothing in the text telling us that these seven days, or any span of time mentioned in the narrative, is a scale-model prophecy of when the end of the world will take place relative to the Flood. This is sheer supposition.

What’s more, why should the scale be a thousand years to a day? This is a notorious bugaboo with predictions of the end of the world. Over and over different interpreters pick out some random mention of days in the Old Testament, multiply it by a thousand years, and then declare some prophesied even must occur on the corresponding date.

It’s true that 2 Peter says that a day is as a thousand years with the Lord, this doesn’t give us a license to take any mention of a day and interpret it as a thousand years. Quite the opposite! The exact same passage also says the reverse: That a thousand years is like a day with God (per Psalm 90:4). In other words, time is meaningless with God. He’s an eternal being who can find as much experience in a day as we would in a thousand years and who can encompass huge spans of time like a thousand years in what is only a moment for him. Rather than providing a license to multiply any reference to a day as code for a thousand year prophetic period, this verse is actually a warning against trying to determine God’s timetable for events. That timetable is unpredictable because we cannot know what temporal calculus God is applying to particular prophecies.

Camping’s use of this verse is thus not only over-precise but flatly contrary to the literal meaning of the verse!

And would be even if the seven days mentioned Genesis 7 were a prophetic scale model, which we have no reason to think.

And if those days were prophetic in some way, why treat them and only them in such a way? What God says is that in seven days he would start flooding for 40 days and 40 nights. Does that mean that once the judgment starts it will go on for 40,000 years?

Camping doesn’t think so. He’s got the final end coming in October. This only underscores the arbitrary nature of the figure he has picked out and multiplied. If the seven days mentioned must be literally multiplied by 1,000 years, why should the 40 days also mentioned in the same passage not be similarly multiplied?

Camping does, at least, avoid the trap of thinking that there’s a “year zero” on our timeline. There’s not. It jumps from 1 B.C. to A.D. 1, so he gets points for that. Not all end-time speculators have been so fortunate on that one.

But even if we were to grant all of the foregoing, even if there were some big Flood-like event scheduled to occur 7,000 years after a 4,990 B.C. Flood, why would it have to be the end of the world? Why not just Another Big Judgment?

Even that is giving him too much credit, however. The fact is that this whole prediction is a house of cards. It’s based on over-precise, unknowable dates, arbitrary starting points, arbitrary parallelisms, invalid logic, and a multiplication factor that is wrenched out of context and used in a way flatly contrary to the clear meaning of the text.

Given that his overall year calculation is so shot through with holes, we need not be detained by his more precise datings of the Rapture or the final end. (I should also note that Catholics do not typically use the term “Rapture,” though they do acknowledge the reality of the event St. Paul mentions in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, though it is seen as occurring at the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world, not before an earthly millennium.)

The whole thing is comic—but it is also tragic, because many people have been misled by Camping, and some have been misled into spending vast sums of money in support of his advertising campaign, telling their friends and co-workers that the world is about to end, and generally bringing scorn on the cause of Christ.

As St. Paul wrote: “It is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’” (Rom. 2:24).

You have to admire the courage of people like this gentleman who spent his life savings promoting these speculations, but not their wisdom.

God help everyone who bought into this come Sunday morning.

Of course, that’s not to say Christ couldn’t come back on Saturday. I don’t see the signs being right for that, but who am I to say it couldn’t happen?

Harold Camping is right, though, that a major supernatural event will be happening this Saturday.

One of my godsons is being confirmed!

Congratulations, James!

So … what do you think?

The Morals of Killing bin Laden: Catholic Perspective

So it has been announced that Osama bin Laden is dead.

Good.

The twisted, evil mastermind responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent human beings has been shuffled off this mortal coil.

This provides a measure of justice. Not full justice. That’s in God’s hands. But some justice.

Of course, Our Lord’s command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us still applies. We must hope that Osama bin Laden repented at the last second, or that he had been crazy for years and not responsible for his actions, or that God might provide for his salvation in some other way.

And we must remember that Christ himself died to make salvation possible for all men, Osama bin Laden included.

But possibility does not equal actuality. As Pope Benedict has reminded us in various works, evil is real and hell is a real choice. If anyone, judging by outward, human appearances, was ripe for going there, Osama bin Laden was a plausible candidate.

This may have even applied to his final moments. Reports are still sketchy, but it is reported that he died resisting the offensive against his compound, which may mean he was wielding a weapon. It is also reported that a woman who was one of the five people killed in the compound was used as a human shield. This may mean — and future reports may clarify this — that bin Laden himself grabbed the woman himself and tried to use her as a shield while he pointed a weapon at her or at others.

Not the kind of choices one wants to make just before one meets one’s Maker.

After his death, steps were reportedly taken to confirm bin Laden’s identity, including the taking of a DNA sample that is still being processed. Then his body was taken out of Pakistan and buried at sea.

That’s a good choice, actually. It denies future Islamist fanatics of a burial site where they could alternately go on pilgrimage or bomb something.

Of course, they will be trying to bomb things anyway, but they would have done that even if bin Laden were alive. It’s what they do.

The question is: How do you minimize that?

Burial at sea is one measure. Another is found in the response issued today by the Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, and reported by my colleague Edward Pentin:

Osama Bin Laden—as everyone knows—has had the gravest responsibility for spreading hatred and division among people, causing the deaths of countless people, and exploiting religion for this purpose.

Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of everyone before God and man, and hopes and pledges that every event is not an opportunity for a further growth of hatred, but of peace.

I was surprised that the Holy See had a statement so quickly and that it was so well done. This is what the Vatican needed to say, something that did not appear to let bin Laden off the hook morally but also did not appear to rejoice at his passing and that was an appeal for interreligious harmony and peace.

The statement that a Christian never rejoices at the death of a man is a positive affirmation that the Vatican needed to make. It’s also true in the sense that death as a physical evil is not to be wished upon anybody for its own sake. That is not to say that one cannot be glad that justice has been in some measure served, that bin Laden won’t be masterminding any more plots, etc.

Of course, it would be foolish for the Vatican to point out those things. They would be precisely the things that would inflame anti-Christian anger in the Muslim world and subvert the peace message the Holy See is trying to send.

We will, of course, have to see how well that works out. According to Wikileaks, bin Laden’s lieutenant Khalid Sheikh Mohammad said the organization had a nuke hidden in Europe for use if bin Laden were captured or killed.

Let’s hope that’s bad intel. And let’s pray that if such a device exists that it is quickly found and the plot to use it disrupted.

In fact, let us all pray hard about this and other potential reprisals, both here in the West and in Muslim-majority countries, where Christian minorities are at risk (Pakistan, where bin Laden was killed, is one such country; so is Iraq).

The fact that we may now face reprisals — and the fact that we might even get hit hard — may be cause for people to wonder whether killing Osama bin Laden was worth it.

Let’s hope so. Let’s pray so.

The decision required a judgment call, weighing the potential risks and benefits. History teaches that killing your enemies, and especially their leaders, is a good way to discourage them from attacking you. On the other hand, making a martyr of someone doesn’t always work (cf. Roman Empire, Christianization Of).

There are other moral dimensions to the decision to kill bin Laden. According to some sources the mission was to kill, not capture. That’s a potentially defensible choice based on the heightened risks that would be involved for the personnel responsible for trying to bring about a capture rather than a kill. Also, and even more so, a capture would create a security nightmare by having a live, captured bin Laden as the focus of “Free Osama” reprisals.

A mysterious disappearance would result in the same thing. Even if we didn’t announce his capture, his own people would know he’d been snatched and assume he was still alive.

“He’s dead. He was buried at sea. Move on with your lives” is a better message for the Islamist community.

The big question, still, is what kind of reprisals may be coming and whether bin Laden will long-term be perceived as a martyr or a failure.

Let’s pray.

What do you think?

Wishing It Isn’t So? Thoughts on the Fr. Corapi Situation

Like many bloggers, I’ve been getting requests for information on the situation with Father John Corapi. I don’t know him personally, and I don’t have any insider information, so that leaves me in the same position as everyone else: trying to figure out the situation based on the information that is available.

I’ve looked at the official statements that have come out so far, which Pat Archbold has been helpfully linking and quoting, and I’ve been reading commentary on the subject on the blogosphere and around the Internet.

I thought I would comment briefly based on what I’ve been reading.

I’ve seen several people say that they hope that the allegations made against Father Corapi aren’t true. I most definitely understand this reaction. It is entirely natural, upon hearing of something horrible, to hope that the report is not true, or at least not as bad as what is being reported. When I hear of a disaster somewhere in the world, with the death toll estimated at whatever figure the media is naming, I pray that it is lower than that and that fewer people have been harmed. Hopefully someone did some bad math and the truth is not as awful as thought.

In the case of one person making a set of allegations against another person, the situation is somewhat more complex. So far as I can tell, the allegations may arise from one of four things (or a combination of these things):

1) The allegations are due to a misunderstanding or misperception.
2) The allegations are due to a delusion (i.e., mental illness).
3) The allegations are due to a lie.
4) The allegations are true.

According to Father Corapi:

On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women.

The language Father Corapi uses is somewhat ambiguous. “Everything from” could mean that there were additional, unmentioned charges or it could be hyperbole and the two actual charges were drug addiction and “multiple sexual exploits.” If there were other charges, these have not yet been revealed and so it is impossible to comment on them.

The charge of drug addiction is one that could potentially fall under category No. 1 above. I could envision, for example, a scenario in which Father Corapi (who has had significant medical problems) might be on painkillers or muscle relaxants or other prescription medications and, entirely innocently, someone might misperceive this as drug addiction when, in fact, it’s not.

The charge of “multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women,” however, does not seem to be a good candidate for this category. If Father Corapi had used different language, this might have been otherwise. If he had simply said “improprieties” then that would leave the door open to claims of sexual harassment, and sexual harassment is the kind of thing that can be the subject of misperception, misunderstanding, etc. It is quite possible for things to be said between coworkers that are meant to be playful or joking or even just complimentary that nevertheless end up being taken as sexual advances or even sexual intimidation. But to say that the employee has charged Father Corapi with “multiple sexual exploits” suggests something far more concrete and far less subject to misunderstanding.

If this is so then these allegations would seem to fall into categories 2, 3 or 4.

In that case, what does hoping that they are not true amount to? Seemingly, it would amount to hoping that either 2 or 3 is true. That is, hoping that the woman making the allegations is delusional or that she is lying.

If she is delusional, then she would seem to be quite delusional — and, in fact, gravely mentally ill — if she believes wrongly that Father Corapi has had sexual “exploits” with her when in fact he has not. Further, her delusion is even projected onto other women, with whom she also falsely believes Father Corapi to have had such exploits.

If she is lying, then she would be sinning, and sinning in a particularly grave way because she would be accusing an innocent person of grave sin with multiple exacerbating circumstances (he’s a priest, he’s very well known, it’s a sexual sin, he’s religious and thus has taken a vow of chastity — not just made a promise of celibacy — and the Church has been reeling from sexual scandals in recent years). If she’s lying, she’s telling an abominably horrible lie that is gravely, gravely sinful.

Of course, things are also appallingly horrible if No. 4 is the case and the accusations are true. In that case, there is a very well-known priest who has taken a vow of chastity who has violated that vow multiple times with multiple women — with an unknown degree of their cooperation, and in abuse of his sacred office — at a time when the Church has been reeling from sexual scandals.

This makes hoping that the allegations aren’t true a little trickier.

It would seem straightforward to say that category No. 2 (mental illness) would involve less evil than category 3 (lying) or category 4 (veracity). Category No. 2 involves a non-moral evil, while categories 3 and 4 both involve grave moral evils, and grave moral evil is by nature worse than non-moral evils. Still, even if the mental illness theory is true, wishing this to be so still involves wishing a grave evil on someone.

One also might argue that the lying theory would involve less evil than the theory that the allegations are true — that it’s worse for a priest to do these things than to falsely accuse him of doing so. This is certainly arguable, though it’s somewhat tricky and subject to counterargument. The Church has no well-worked-out theory of what grave sins are worse than others. Once things get into the mortal category, what is worse than what gets much iffier and subject to debate. In particular, a priest falsely accused of such things might be inclined to question the idea that 4 is automatically worse than 3 (i.e., is it worse to have actually done these things than to have a lie that they have been done bring down a reputation, a career and a ministry that has helped so many and could help so many more in the future if the lie had never been told?).

Even if one thinks that 4 is automatically worse than 3, wishing 4 false still involves wishing something else that is gravely evil to be the case.

So I find myself a little uncomfortable in light of these reflections.

The situations brings to mind a passage I read some years ago in a book about Judaism that described a strand in Jewish thought which held that, in knowledge that something horrible has occurred, one should not wish it on someone else based on self-interest. For example, according to this book, if a Jewish person were driving home and saw smoke ascending from his block in his neighborhood, he should not pray that it was someone else’s house that had burned down, rather than his own.

It’s certainly natural, in that situation, to want it not to be one’s own house that has burned down. That’s only human, and based on the divinely inbuilt instinct to have more care for our own selves and those close to us than those more distant.

Yet “Love your neighbor as yourself” provides a counterbalance to this that must also be taken into account.

I know that I as much as anyone had the initial impulse, “I hope this isn’t true,” when I read of the allegations against Father Corapi. Upon reflection and asking the question, “What would that really mean if they aren’t true?” I am less comfortable.

Regardless of how options 2, 3 and 4 should be ranked in terms of objective horribleness, I find myself squeamish wishing either grave mental illness or grave sin on another person.

For this reason, I find myself inclining more toward the prayer, “May the truth — whatever that is — be swiftly and accurately established so that justice for all the parties may be served.”

Perhaps Father Corapi himself had this in mind when writing the last line of his statement, where he said:

All of the allegations in the complaint are false, and I ask you to pray for all concerned.

What do you think?

Fr. Cutie: Fallen Priest Gets Own Show . . . on FOX!

According to this piece by NPR,

A former Roman Catholic priest who left the church to marry his girlfriend after the two were photographed embracing on a South Florida beach is getting a new TV show.

Alberto Cutie (KOO’-tee-ay) announced Tuesday he will host the daily talk show “Father Albert” on Fox stations. A Fox spokeswoman says the show will be aired later this year in cities including New York and Los Angeles. It will be picked up nationwide if it does well.

GAH!

Okay, now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, note that this is only a program in local markets. More detail is provided by The Hollywood Reporter:

Father Alberto Cutie, a bestselling author of self-help books and radio talk show host as well as a former Roman Catholic priest, will join the ranks of gabbers and host a daily syndie strip devoted to life matters.

A “daily syndie strip” means that means it will appear daily, at the same time of day, on those stations that choose to pick it up in syndication. (MORE HERE.)

Unfortunately, by “life matters,” they don’t mean abortion, euthanasia, etc. They mean the oopy-goopy world of TV self-help.

“It’ll be everything from sex to salvation,” Father Alberto told The Hollywood Reporter Tuesday in Miami during the NATPE TV trade show.

As if this guy had a proper perspective on either.

Hopefully it’ll invite “greater dialog” with the audience, he added. Sorta Oprah meets Dr. Phil meets Bishop Sheen, the only other religious personnage who ever fronted a national TV show. (And that was in the 1950s!)

“Dialog” is the perennial cry of dissenters, isn’t it?

The show is being licensed by Debmar-Mercury and the first station group to step up for a launch test is Fox.

The show will preview on a number of as yet unspecified Fox stations this summer. The Fox test markets will include N.Y. and L.A., the country’s top two markets. Other non-Fox outlets may be invited to join the test as well.

Jack Abernethy, CEO of the Fox TV station group, said there has been a crying need for an inspirational show for stations for many years. “Something not dogmatic or rigid but uplifting and helpful to viewers. Such things are big business in other media like book publishing and the radio but not on television,” he pointed out.

If “not dogmatic or rigid” is what Mr. Abernathy wants, it looks like he’s found the right guy to provide it.

Debmar-Mercury toppers Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus said that Father Alberto’s “wide cross-over appeal, incredible story, encouraging advice and charismatic personality” make him a natural fit for daytime. Marcus said he was looking for such a personality long before Oprah announced her exit from daytime.

Of course, these people are paid to say nice things to pump up the show, but for a substantial chunk of the audience, Fr. Cutie’s “incredible story” is nauseating.

Oh, and not content with corrupting the English-speaking audience . . .

The syndicator is considering shooting the daily strip in dual English and Spanish formats because of Father Alberto’s vast following in Latin America.

But who is Fr. Cutie? The Hollywood Reporter helpfully informs us:

Father Alberto left the Roman Catholic Church two years ago over ideological differences and to marry the woman he loved. Cutie is now an Episcopal minister.

As the Church Lady would say, “Isn’t that special?”

All who would profess to be Christ’s ministers need to reflect from time to time—for the sake of their own souls—on certain warnings that Our Lord issued. As a validly ordained priest who refused to control his lust and subsequently left communion with the Church to live in an objectively sinful and invalid relationship with a woman, while still holding himself forth to the public as a priest, Fr. Cutie would do well to reflect on these words from Matthew 23:

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
26 Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.

27″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.
28 Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.

As far as FOX Television goes, it feels to me like they’re really giving the faithful Catholic viewer a real poke in the eye.

What do you think?

“Vatican Warned Bishops Not To Report Child Abuse”!

That’s the sensationalistic headline of this story in the New York Times. As usual, it’s by Laurie Goodstein, and as usual she makes significant errors in her reporting that make the story more sensationalistic in a way that (just coincidentally) paints the Holy See in an unfavorable light. (So . . . what’s up with that, Laurie? You’ve been on the beat long enough that you should be better informed on these matters.)

As with previous stories of the same nature, this one involves a document from back in the 1990s that has now come to the attention of the press. It was a letter written by the Apostolic Nuncio of Ireland (that’s basically the Holy See’s ambassador to Ireland, though he also has a liaising role with the local bishops). In the letter the Nuncio—then Luciano Storero—communicated a message to the Irish bishops from the Congregation for Clergy concerning a document that the Irish bishops had drafted on child sexual abuse.

This letter was immediately hailed by groups like SNAP as the “smoking gun” they’ve been waiting for, showing that the Holy See took part in the cover up of sexual abuse, allowing it to be sued in court, humiliated, and have money extracted from it.

You can read (a tiny, low resolution image of) the letter itself here.

Now let’s walk through it and see how the claims made about it stack up against the document itself . . .

APOSTOLIC NUNCIATURE IN IRELAND
N. 808/97
Dublin, 31 January 1997

Strictly Confidential

To: the Members of the Irish Episcopal conference
—their Dioceses

Your Excellency,

The Congregation for the Clergy has attentively studied the complex question of sexual abuse or minors by clerics and the document entitled “Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response”, published by the Irish Catholic Bishops Advisory Committee.

So here is what has happened at the time the letter was written: Priests and religious in Ireland abused children. This came to light and caused an enormous scandal. (In fact, it brought down the Irish government.) In response, the Irish bishops conference (in conjunction with the Conference of Religious in Ireland) created an Advisory Committee to draft a document proposing how to respond to cases of child sexual abuse. The result was the document referenced above, which is online here in .pdf form. At least that’s a version of the document. Whether it was the version referenced in the letter is not 100% clear. In any event, this document came to the attention of the Congregation for Clergy in Rome, and now the Congregation for Clergy has asked the Irish nuncio to convey its impressions to the Irish bishops.

Note well: The Congregation for Clergy is not the same as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) was the head of the doctrinal body, not the Congregation for Clergy. The head of that in 1997 was Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos. More on him in a bit. For now the important point—given the press’s invariable attempt to read everything Vatican in terms of the pope himself—is that Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict has no connection with this letter. It wasn’t his department that was involved.

The congregation wishes to emphasize the need for this document to conform to the canonical norms presently in force.

So: The Congregation for Clergy has concerns that provisions in the document did not conform to canon law as it was in 1997. Fair enough. That’s not anything sinister. To give a civil law analogy, it’s a little like warning someone that parts of his proposed law appear to violate the U.S. Constitution. Warning someone that parts of his law appear unconstitutional is not a sinister thing. It’s a way of ensuring justice and avoiding a lot of headaches for everybody.

One might be wrong, and provisions of the law in fact might be fully constitutional (read: canonical), but saying, “Your policy needs to be legal in terms of Church law” is not evidence of evil intent.

The text, however, contains “procedures and dispositions which appear contrary to canonical discipline and which, if applied, could invalidate the actions of the same Bishops who are attempting to put a stop to these problems. If such procedures were to be followed by the Bishops and there were cases of eventual hierarchical recourse lodged at the Holy See, the results could be highly embarrassing and detrimental to those same Diocesan authorities.

So the Congregation for Clergy (who is being quoted in this paragraph; note the open quotation marks) is concerned that some proposals in the Irish Advisory Committee document appear to be contrary to canon law. As a result, bishops acting on those parts of the proposal might take canonical actions against priests that are legally invalid. In other words, there could be miscarriages of justice. So what happens if miscarriages of justice occur? Well, the priests might appeal their case to Rome, and Rome might agree that there was a miscarriage of justice because the law was not applied correctly. In that case the bishop would be put in an embarrassing position.

And that’s quite true. A bishop would be put in an embarrassing and detrimental position if he violated canon law and a miscarriage of justice resulted and his actions had to be undone. There’s nothing sinister about telling a bishop that. People in positions of power need to be reminded regularly that their authority has limits and they must provide justice for those whose cases they handle. The law needs to be followed closely so that we (a) don’t have innocent priests being wrongly convicted and (b) we don’t have predator priests escaping punishment because the law wasn’t followed. The exact same concerns apply in civil courts: We need to follow the law to avoid miscarriages of justice.

Now, you’ll notice something that hasn’t yet been mentioned in this letter: the issue of reporting predators to the police. That hasn’t come up yet. All the discussion so far has been about making sure the Church’s own internal legal system is followed so that we don’t have miscarriages of justice.

How did Laurie Goodstein frame this in her article for the Times? She wrote: “It [the letter] said that for both ‘moral and canonical’ reasons, the bishops must handle all accusations through internal church channels. Bishops who disobeyed, the letter said, may face repercussions when their abuse cases were heard in Rome.”

WHOA! MAJOR MEDIA DISTORTION!

The only “repercussions” mentioned in the letter is the embarrassing situation a bishop would find himself in if he failed to follow the law and a miscarriage of justice resulted and Rome overturns it on appeal. Yet Goodstein makes it sound as if the letter is threatening bishops with some kind of retaliation if they don’t “obey” the letter. This is wrong on several levels. First, the letter is not an ultimatum. It is not a set of orders. It is an advisory statement cautioning the Irish bishops that they need to make sure they follow canon law so that miscarriages of justice don’t happen and then get overturned on appeal. There is no threat of retaliation here.

Worse, Goodstein makes it appear that the Vatican is threatening bishops with retaliation if they report predators to the police. The subject of reporting pedophiles hasn’t even come up yet. And she is wrong when she says that the letter states that “the bishops must handle all accusations through internal church channels,” as opposed (presumably) to reporting predators to the police. But the document says nothing of the kind. There is nothing in the document saying that a bishop must keep information about predators secret. What the Congregation objected to was mandatory reporting. One can think what one likes about the wisdom of mandatory reporting, but there is a big difference between saying, “You must keep all cases of this from the eyes of the police on pain of Vatican retaliation” and saying, “Hey, maybe there needs to be some discretion exercised and it shouldn’t be automatic reporting.”

Goodstein thus implies that the letter suggests something it doesn’t. The letter doesn’t state that the Congregation for Clergy is opposed to reporting predators to the authorities. Instead, it says . . .

In particular, the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature”.

This is the end of the quotation from the Congregation for Clergy. Note the closing quotation marks.

So the Congregation for Clergy is saying, “We’ve got reservations about the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ on moral and canonical grounds.” That’s an expression of concern. It’s a cautionary statement, but it is not an order. It’s telling the Irish bishops about an issue that could come up down the road. And how unreasonable is the concern expressed? An overzealous application of a mandatory reporting policy could result in entirely innocent people being put through the wringer and having their reputations and livelihood destroyed.

Would that be moral? Would you like to be on the receiving end of a policy like that? It is easy to see how one might have moral concerns about automatic reporting policies and want to make sure that there are appropriate safeguards to keep innocent people from having their lives destroyed.

It also is easy to see how such a policy could fall afoul of canon law, which contains provisions protecting an individual’s right to his good reputation. An overzealous application of a mandatory reporting policy could unjustly deprive innocent people of their reputation—and more.

And these moral and canonical concerns don’t just apply to priests. Think about the repercussions of a mandatory reporting policy for the victims!

It has been a common experience in years past for people to come to Church authorities to warn them about the behavior of a particular priest but only on condition of confidentiality. They don’t want to get involved with the authorities. They don’t want to be hauled into court and put on the witness stand and forced to relive horrible things that were done to them under cross examination. They don’t want to come to the attention of the media and have their private sexual trauma exposed for the whole world to see.

But a mandatory reporting policy would prevent Church authorities from giving these people the assurances of confidentiality that they seek. It thus could deter them from reporting predators and result in more sexual predation.

Before we get back to the nuncio’s letter, let’s detour for a moment and look at what the proposed Irish policy actually says about reporting:

2.2. Recommended Reporting Policy

2.2.1 In all instances where it is known or suspected that a child has been, or is being, sexually abused by a priest or religious the matter should be reported to the civil authorities. Where the suspicion or knowledge results from the complaint of an adult of abuse during his or her childhood, this should also be reported to the civil authorities.

2.2.2 The report should be made without delay to the senior ranking police officer for the area in which the abuse is alleged to have occurred. Where the suspected victim is a child, or where a complaint by an adult gives rise to child protection questions, the designated person within the appropriate health board/health and social services board should also be informed. A child protection question arises, in the case of a complaint by an adult, where an accused priest or religious holds or has held a position which has afforded him or her unsupervised access to children.

2.2.3 The Advisory Committee recognises that this recommended reporting policy may cause difficulty in that some people who come to the Church with complaints of current or past child sexual abuse by a priest or religious seek undertakings of confidentiality. They are concerned to protect the privacy of that abuse of which even their immediate family members may not be aware. Their primary reason in coming forward may be to warn Church authorities of a priest or religious who is a risk to children.

2.2.4 The recommended reporting policy may deter such people from coming forward or may be perceived by those who do come forward as an insensitive and heavy-handed response by Church authorities. This is particularly so where the complaint relates to incidents of abuse many years earlier.

2.2.5 Nonetheless, undertakings of absolute confidentiality should not be given but rather the information should be expressly received within the terms of this reporting policy and on the basis that only those who need to know will be told.

WOW!

If this policy means what it says then just on suspicion that abuse may be taking place (suspicion being a subjective state that is very easy to come by) you’ve got to report the priest or religious to the police. No provision is made (at least in this section) for distinguishing between suspicions that are credible or well-founded and those that aren’t. Similarly, no provision is made for doing a preliminary investigation. Instead, Church workers are to make the mandatory report “without delay.”

Furthermore, the Advisory Committee is aware that this policy will put victims on the spot and force them to relive their traumas as the authorities handle the case. It is further aware that the policy of mandatory reporting may seem “insensitive and heavy-handed,” “particularly so where the complaint relates to incidents of abuse many years earlier.” Nevertheless, the policy says, if someone comes to you and says, “I want to report a predator priest but I also want to do so confidentially so that I’m not traumatized and humiliated in public or among my own family members” then Irish Church authorities would be supposed to say, “I’m sorry, but our reporting policy does not admit of exceptions, and I can receive your information only under the terms of our reporting policy, so I cannot promise you confidentiality.”

Can you imagine someone in the office of the Congregation for Clergy having concerns of a moral and canonical nature about how such a policy might be implemented?

I can!

In fact, the Advisory Committee itself can recognize why people would have concerns about this exceptionless policy. Otherwise it wouldn’t have gone out of its way to respond in advance and at length to the concerns victims were sure to have.

HAS LAURIE GOODSTEIN EVEN READ THIS POLICY? DID SHE DO THE TEN SECONDS OF GOOGLING IT TOOK ME TO FIND IT? IF SO, WHY DIDN’T SHE SHARE THE REPORT’S CONCERNS ABOUT THE FEELINGS OF VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE WITH HER AUDIENCE? THESE ARE QUESTIONS HER BOSSES AS THE NEW YORK TIMES SHOULD ASK HER.

Now, back to the nuncio’s letter:

Since the policies on sexual abuse in the English speaking world exhibit many o[f] the same characteristics and procedures, the Congregation is involved in a global study of them. At the appropriate time, with the collaboration of the interested Episcopal Conferences and in dialogue with them, the Congregation will not be remiss in establishing some concrete directives with regard to these Policies.

So . . . the Congregation for Clergy is hardly coming off as sinister here. To try to find an effective way to deal with these situations, it’s doing a study of how these things are handled in the English-speaking world. It plans to involve the relevant bishops’ conferences in the discussion, so they will have their say. And when this is all done it will issue concrete directives.

This is not the language of coverup. It’s the language of, “We want to find an effective solution to this problem, and we want to work with you to make that happen.”

For these reasons and because the above mentioned text is not an official document of the Episcopal Conference but merely a study document, I am directed to inform the individual Bishops of Ireland of the preoccupations of the Congregation in this regard, underlining that in the sad case of accusations of sexual abuse by clerics, the procedures established by the Code of Canon Law must be meticulously followed under pain of invalidity of the acts involved if the priest so punished were to make hierarchical recourse against his Bishop.

Asking you to kindly let me know of the safe receipt of this letter and with the assurance of my cordial regard, I am

Yours sincerely in Christ,
+Luciano Storero
Apostolic Nuncio

And so the final part of the letter gently reminds the individual Irish bishop that the Advisory Committee’s proposal is just that—a proposal, a study document, not something that has been passed and approved and that the bishop is obliged to follow. Further, it’s a problematic document and if the bishop acts on some of its provisions it could lead to a miscarriage of justice that might blow up in his face on appeal. But the Congregation for Clergy is working on a solution for how to handle this kind of horrible situation. Please don’t implement the flawed document; give us the time to work with the relevant bishops’ conferences to find the needed solution.

That’s the takehome message of this letter.

Contrast that to Laurie Goodstein’s opening paragraph:

A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials instructed the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they must not adopt a policy of reporting priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities.

This is highly misleading. The document was of an advisory nature that expressed cautions and concerns. It did not “instruct” the bishops that they “must not adopt a policy of reporting priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities.” It advised the bishops that there were serious moral and canonical reservations about the specific reporting policy that had been proposed to them.

And it expressed those concerns with good reason!

If I were a priest or a victim, or someone who just knew a priest or a victim, or just a bystander (which is what I am), I’d have concerns about that policy.

Now, please bear in mind that I am not saying that the Congregation for Clergy’s concerns were all well founded. The letter is so brief and is expressed in such general terms that we don’t know what their specific concerns were, either regarding the reporting policy or other aspects of the proposal. They allude in addition to multiple concerns of a canonical nature (apparently concerning the Code of Canon Law’s penal provisions).

Whether they were correct in all their concerns I don’t know. I do know that they were headed at this time by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, who has a particular history on this subject. And I also know that the letter does not come off as the sinister, “under no circumstances tell the authorities” document the press is representing it as.

Of course, that won’t stop the New York Times and other media outlets, and lawyers, from trying to milk this for all it’s worth.

What do you think?

Fr. Cutie: Fallen Priest as Wholly Innocent Victim

Parts in This Series: One (Celibacy in General) | Two (Cutie’s Options)

As of Tuesday (January 4th), Fr. Albert Cutié‘s book DILEMMA: A Priest’s Struggle With Faith and Love is supposed to be out. I have not yet seen a copy, but I have seen the press release that was sent around last week in anticipation of the book’s release. To lay the groundwork for the story, I’ve done two posts—the first giving the background to the Catholic Church’s discipline of celibacy in its Latin rite and the second explaining the options Fr. Cutie had when he began to be attracted and then involved with Ruhama Buni Canellis, a divorced mother who he began a romantic relationship with while still a Catholic priest.

The Spanish-language press discovered the relationship and took pictures of the two having romantic frolics on beaches and in clearly inappropriate situations, such as Buni Canellis romantically wrapping her legs around Fr. Cutie and Fr. Cutie putting his hands down her swimsuit to fondle her behind.

When the pictures were published, Cutie requested a leave of absence from the Archdiocese of Miami. In an interview that same month (May 2009) he said he respected the Latin Church’s discipline of celibacy and did not want to become the “anti-celibacy priest.”

By the end of the month, Fr. Cutie defected from the Catholic Church and joined the Episcopal Church, where he was assigned pastoral duties at a local Episcopal parish. The following month (June 2009) he attempted marriage with Buni Canellis in an Episcopalian ceremony. (Note: Because of his canonical situation, this marriage is not valid, meaning that the two are objectively living in sin.) The two have subsequently had a child.

Fr. Cutie has apparently changed his mind about not wanting to become the “anti-celibacy priest,” if the press release to it is any guide.

The press release was send with a cover e-mail by Barbara Teszler, of Levine Communications Office, Inc., a public relations firm.

Let’s look at it an note [in parentheses] some of the themes it contains (we’ll skip the hackneyed cliches it’s also stuffed full of).

Here is how her letter begins:

The man the media turned into a living

scarlet letter

[theme:Cutie as victim]

[NAME], when the paparazzi “caught” [theme:Cutie as victim] Father Cutié embracing the love of his life in a romantic moment on the beach [theme:Cutie as victim; how could anybody stand up to his emotions regarding “the love of his life”?], it sparked an explosive media scandal – the culmination of a private struggle [theme:Cutie as victim] that had been burdening him [theme:Cutie as victim] for years. He could live the lie no longer[theme:Cutie as victim]: his private agony [theme:Cutie as victim]was now national news.

Resolving that a pure hand needs no glove to cover it [theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man—wow is the glove statement audacious and bizarre], Father Cutié decided to take a leave from the Church [theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man; this is also spin since Cutie requested a leave of absence; he didn’t just decide to “take a leave”]. Many backs were consequently turned on him for good [theme:Cutie as victim; he apparently determined that these backs were turned “for good” rather quickly since he left the Church in under a month] – this, in the face of all the scandals kept quiet on the inside of the institution [theme:Cutie as victim; the Church is picking on him but not others].

His crime?

Falling in love. [theme:Cutie as victim; nobody should suffer for the “crime” of falling in love; two notes: (1) this is just too hackneyed a cliche to go by without comment, and (2) “falling in love” with someone you cannot legitimately pursue romantically is a “crime” in the sense of being immoral and gravely sinful; it is indeed a “crime” for a husband to “fall in love” with someone other than his wife or for an adult to “fall in love” with a small child or for a priest to “fall in love” with anybody except in some kind of spiritual, non-romantic, non-sexual way.]

As Father Cutié began the long, uphill battle ahead [theme:Cutie as victim]– one that continues today [theme:Cutie as victim]– it became increasingly clear that far bigger questions were now at hand.[theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man]

Ever adamant about his devotion and love for God,[theme:Cutie as forthright, honeset man] and now an Episcopal priest, Father Cutié’s actions reignite a debate that may very well never be laid to rest[theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man]: must Catholic priests be denied the right to physically express their love[theme:Cuties as victim & as forthright, honest man]?

Father Cutié’s DILEMMA: A Priest’s Struggle with Faith and Love [theme:Cutie as victim & as forthright, honest man]takes you through the life of a man torn between his devotion to the Church [theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man] and the passions and convictions of his own heart [theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man], as well as eloquently raising questions about the origins of the promise of celibacy, its logical fallacy,[Huh?] and the various reasons for abolishing it as a requirement for priesthood.[theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man]

I implore you to get in touch about featuring the very compelling and personable Father Cutié [theme:Cutie as forthright, honest man]to see if he won’t shake your notions on religion. I’ve included more info below.

All the best,

Barbara Teszler
Account Executive
Levine Communications Office, Inc.
1180 S. Beverly Drive, 3rd floor
Los Angeles, CA 90035
E. BTeszler@LCOonline.com
T: 310.300.0950 x 239
F. 310.300.0951
www.LCOonline.com
www.twitter.com/LCOonline
Passion. Focus. Results. Since 1983.
www.LBNElert.com
LCO is the winner of the Bulldog Award for Excellence in Media Relations and Publicity
2010 Arts & Entertainment Campaign of the Year

Of course, public relations firms are paid to present their clients in a good light and to write prose compelling enough to generate positive PR. That means some degree of hyperbole is inevitable. But if you look past Teszler’s writing style, it’s startling the number of times that Cutie is portrayed as a victim and as a forthright, honest man. There is no sense of personal culpability or responsibility. He’s an innocent saint who is being mercilessly victimized, the way this press release reads. His book may portray a different picture, but frankly, if I’d messed up the way Fr. Cutie did, I’d be ashamedto have my story represented with this kind of smug sanctimoniousness. Instead, I’d wan’t a far more humble tone about a gripping story of broken humanity, the desperate search for solutions, and honest questions for the benefit of others in the future. But we get none of that here. Nor do we get it in the accompanying press release that Teszler sent:

His love life became international news. Now Father Albert Cutié tells his side of the story: On falling in love, continuing priestly ministry outside the Roman Catholic Church, and becoming a father.“As a Roman Catholic priest, I was forced to decide between a supernatural love—in a ministry serving the Lord—and natural love—in a forbidden relationship with a woman. Both were blessings given to me by the same God, the source of all love. This was my dilemma.”—Father Albert Cutie [Sorry, but no. God did not put Fr. Cutie in this dilemma. Don’t blame God. And don’t refer to an illicit relationship with a woman as a “gift” from God.]

In 1995, Alberto Cutie was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Miami. Years later, he was the internationally known host of a number of television programs, bestselling author of Real Life, Real Love [How ironic is that title, in hindsight?], and immensely popular figure known for his compassion and kind image. He was so beloved that he’d even come to be known as “Father Oprah.” He thrilled at spreading God’s word and never tired of the solace and comfort he brought to his congregation and his audience. But he was also chafing under a Church system that, he believes, too often treats priests inhumanely, denying them the chance to lead happy, fulfilling lives. Father Albert was facing a dilemma.

The celibate Roman Catholic priest had fallen in love and had gone through an ideological evolution on several controversial church policies.[As often happens when people seek to rationalize personal sin; they start rejecting the intellectual premises that require it to be sinful; homosexuals reject the obvious procreative aspect of sex in favor of homosexual acts; pedophiles reject the same in favor of sexual acts with children; husbands and wives reject the principle of fidelity so that they can cheat on their spouses; it’s quite common for people to subject their principles to their lusts rather than the other way around.]

DILEMMA: A Priest’s Struggle With Faith and Love (Celebra Hardcover; January 4, 2011; $25.95) is Father Albert Cutié’s personal hard-hitting indictment of the Roman Catholic Church [emphasis added; if the book is, indeed a “hard-hitting indictment” then he obviously has changed his mind about wanting to be the “anti-celibacy priest”], an institution he identifies as being stuck in the past, and often inhumane. Cutié relates his story of being cast out of the Church for the sin of falling in love with a woman [this is flat-out false; Fr. Cutie was not “cast out of the Church”; the Catholic Church has no procedures for casting out members; not even excommunication does that; Fr. Cutie voluntarily left the Church; his status as an Episcopalian is entirely his choice], and his no-holds-barred treatment of the Church’s rules will raise eyebrows and spark debate.[So, like, more on that whole, “I now want to be the anti-celibacy priest” thing]

When paparazzi captured Father Cutié and his then girlfriend (now his wife) in a romantic moment on the beach, it was the start of an explosive media scandal, but the culmination of a private struggle that he had been living with for years. He had made a promise of celibacy with every intention of keeping it for life– but how could he ignore true, earthly love, a love that God himself had put in front of him?[GAH! Please do not blaspheme God in this way!] And why would the Church, which had turned a blind eye to years of abusive, promiscuous and criminal behavior on the part of so many priests,[This indictment is in significant measure inaccurate; to the extent it is accurate, the Church has experienced a major shift for the better on this point; “All the other kids have been able to have illicit sex, so why can’t I?” is not a good defense; using the crimes of pedophiles to cover your own illicit sex is a cynical, manipulative, and degrading move] take such a hard line on this issue [Dude, what on earth did you expect?] and react so negatively toward the announcement by the popular priest to realize his dream of continuing priestly ministry as a married man and having a family?[What “announcement” are we talking about? “I’m ditching the Church to become an Episcopalian?” What was the negative reaction? “We regret Fr. Cutie’s decision?” Have officials of the Catholic Church said anything intemperate at all in this matter?]

In DILEMMA, Father Cutié opens up about answering the call to become a priest as a young man and falling in love with priesthood; the television and radio shows that made him famous and loved around the world; becoming “Father Oprah” and the immense joy he finds in spreading God’s word and comfort. But he also discusses feeling abandoned, neglected and overworked by absent Church leaders; the outdated, bigoted and hypocritical actions and beliefs of the Church; the open secret that many priests carry on love affairs – both gay and straight – and even have children; and the remarkable way the Church cast one of their own aside.[Dude, you left] He also eloquently illuminates the origins of the promise of celibacy, its logical fallacy,[Huh?] and the many reasons for abolishing it as a requirement for priesthood.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Father Albert Cutié has had the special privilege of entering millions of homes throughout the world with his television and radio talk shows, as well as his newspaper advice columns. He was the first priest to host a daily “talk-show” [Why does “talk show” need scare quotes?] as part of a major network on national and international secular television. His first self-help book, Real Life, Real Love was published by Penguin and became a best-seller in Spanish. He is now a married priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida. Visit his website at: www.fralbert.com.

# # #

DILEMMA A Priest’s Struggle With Faith and Love By Father Albert Cutié Celebra Hardcover; On-sale: January 4, 2011 $25.95; ISBN: 978-0-451-23201-4

Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children’s trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick Warne, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin, Philomel, Riverhead Books and Viking, among others. The Penguin Group is part of Pearson plc, the international media company.

Obviously, much more could be said. But let’s pray for Fr. Cutie, for his civil law wife, his child and step-child, and for all who may be led astray by the scandal (in the theological sense: an example that encourages others to fall into sin) whose flames he and his press agency is so anxiously fanning. What do you think?

Fr. Cutie: What Options Did Fallen Priest Have?

In our previous post, we looked at the situation regarding Fr. Albert Cutié, who has written a self-justifying book regarding the scandal he created by having an inappropriate romantic (and presumably sexual) relationship with a woman and, when this relationship was revealed through the press, abandoned his role as a Catholic priest, joined the Episcopalian church, and civilly married the woman, by whom he has subsequently fathered a child.

The previous post looked at the Catholic Church’s general discipline of celibacy (remaining unmarried) for the priests of the Latin Church that exists within it (the celibacy requirement operates differently in many of the Eastern Catholic churches also in union with the pope). In this post we will look at the options that were open to Fr. Cutie at different stages of events and the choices he made.

We will begin with the stage where he first began to be attracted to Ruhama Buni Canellis, the divorced woman with whom he eventually attempted civil marriage. What options did he have at this stage?

1) Just Say No.

This was the only morally legitimate option open to Fr. Cutie upon the onset of attraction to Buni Canellis. We do not know at this point in time (though his forthcoming book may reveal more about the matter) whether she first pursued him or he first pursued her or whether they simultaneously began pursuing each other, but Fr. Cutie had an obligation to neither make amorous advances toward her nor to respond to amorous advances on her part.

As part of the rite of ordination, Fr. Cutie had freely assumed the obligation to remain celibate (unmarried) and thus, via the virtue of chastity (behaving in a sexually appropriate manner) to remain continent (not have sex). This obligation is further canonically specified by Canon 277 §1 of the Code of Canon Law, which states:

Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God by which sacred ministers can adhere more easily to Christ with an undivided heart and are able to dedicate themselves more freely to the service of God and humanity.

Basic principles of moral theology also require that if one is not a potential, legitimate sexual partner (i.e., spouse) for another person, one also must not engage in behavior oriented toward generating romance, fostering sexual temptation, and raising hopes of a union with that person that one is not free to contract. Consequently, §2 of Canon 277 also specifies:

Clerics are to behave with due prudence towards persons whose company can endanger their obligation to observe continence or give rise to scandal among the faithful.

As was documented in part one of this series, Fr. Cutie was caught on film allowing Buni Canellis to amorously wrap her legs around him and also putting his own hand down Buni Canellis’ swimsuit to fondle her behind. Both of these actions were clear violations of his moral and canonical obligations, as discussed above.

While becoming ordained is not in every respect the same as becoming married, both involve the free assumption of a state of life that involves a sacred commitment regarding sexual matters. In the case of ordination, one makes a sacred commitment that one will not pursue sexual or romantic relationships with anyone, while in the case of matrimony one makes a sacred commitment that one will not pursue sexual or romantic relationships with anyone but one’s spouse. Fr. Cutie’s violation of this sacred commitment is thus analogous to a husband’s pursuit of a sexual or romantic relationship with someone who is not his wife. It counts as the violation of a grave obligation, freely undertaken (canon law is explicit that both ordination and matrimony must be freely chosen commitments), and in this regard it is thus analogous to “cheating” on one’s spouse.

There are also serious moral and canonical questions to be raised regarding the abuse of Fr. Cutie’s spiritual office as a priest in this regard.

In the realm of moral theology, it is gravely sinful for a priest in particular to cooperate with another person in sexual sin, particularly if that person is one of the souls entrusted to his spiritual care, but also in regard to anyone in general. The priest by virtue of his ordination has a sacred position that elevates him above the ordinary faithful in a way paralleling Jesus’ words:

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come! (Matthew 18:6-7).

On the canonical side, the Church is quite concerned that its ministers not abuse their sacred office by using it for purposes of seduction, or even for the willing subversion of another’s soul. This is illustrated by the canonical penalties to which a priest is subject if he solicits a sexual sin in conjunction with the sacrament of confession or if he sacramentally absolves one who is his accomplice in sexual sin, both of which are regarded by the Holy See as graviora delicta (Latin, “graver offenses”) that are reserved to the competence of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome to deal with (cf. this resource).

We do not know at this point, and may never know, whether Fr. Cutie committed either of these offenses specifically, but the two illustrate the Holy See’s concern that priests not abuse their sacred office toward sexual ends.

Given that Fr. Cutie failed to exercise the morally legitimate option to “just say no” to the attraction he was feeling toward Buni Canellis (and please note: feeling attraction is not a sin; the question is how one chooses to deal with it) and dug himself in this deep, what further options were open to him? The morally legitimate one was . . .

2) Repent

Having cooperated with his own fall into sexual sin, as well as that of Buni Canellis, what should Fr. Cutie have done at some point—either when the press publicized his relationship or before or after this point?

An obvious solution would have been to repent—which is what we all need to do when we have fallen into sin, whether sexual or otherwise. Such an action is required by the terms of the gospel:

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news [gospel] of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14b).

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

A clear and obvious way in which his act of repentance could have been expressed would be to break off his romantic (and possibly sexual) relationship with Buni Canellis.

Given that the matter had now been made public, there would remain questions regarding his ability to function as a priest. He certainly would have had to accept a lesser role, certainly retiring from the high-profile work he had been doing on radio and television, and quite likely retiring from any exercise of priestly ministry apart from certainly highly specialized cases (e.g., hearing the confession of a person about to die).

Even if the matter had not become public at the time of his repentance, however, there would be various factors that could make the exercise of ministry doubtful—e.g., if Buni Canellis would not accept his decision and threatened to expose him to the press.

We do not know, and likely will never know, whether that would have been the case, but a simple “call off the affair” course of action may have been difficult for any number of reasons, including Cutie’s emotionally attachment to Buni Cannelis and commitments he may have made to her regarding their future. In that case, what options would be open to him? The obvious one would be . . .

3) Pursue Laicization

While the Church recognizes the sacred commitment that is entailed through ordination to the priesthood, it also recognizes that the ordained may be or become unsuitable for the role of priest.

In other words: There can be mistakes. Sometimes a man may be ordained to the priesthood who is not truly suitable for it. Alternately, a man can through his actions make himself unsuitable for priestly ministry. It could be the case that Fr. Cutie was unsuitable from the beginning for priestly ministry or that, though his actions, he had made himself such.

In such cases, the remedy that canon law provides is a procedure known as “laicization” or, more technically “loss of the clerical state.” This does not (automatically) mean that his ordination was invalid, but it does mean that—in the cases of a valid ordination—a laicized priest apart from certain carefully subscribed situations (e.g., hearing the confession of a dying person), is returned to the lay state such that he is prohibited from exercising his faculties as a priest. It also can (but does not always) involve release from the obligation of celibacy. (See this part of the Code for more on the loss of the clerical state in general.)

After reflection on his situation, Fr. Cutie thus could have deemed that he was unsuitable for priestly ministry from the beginning and pursued laicization. He also may have (with a very high degree of plausibility) thought that his actions with regard to Buni Canellis had made him unsuitable for it and pursued laicization on those grounds, including an appeal to the Holy See to allow him to be released from the obligation of celibacy so that he could marry Buni Canellis in view of the emotional/other attachments and obligations he felt existed between them.

Such a path would not have resulted in an instantaneous way of rectifying their situation, or an easy and quick means of resolving the situation (such decisions are left to the discretion of the Holy See), but pursuing this path could represent a fundamental act of repentance and an intention to “make things right.”

Regrettably, Fr. Cutie did not choose even this path. Instead, according to Wikipedia:

By the end of [May, 2009] Cutié announced that he had been in the process of discerning entering The Episcopal Church for the last couple of years, which in turn helped him consolidate marriage and his calling to serve God.

Father Alberto Cutié was received into the Episcopal Church on May 28, 2009, by the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, the Cuban-born bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, and became the administrator and pastoral minister of the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection in Biscayne Park, Miami, where he was licensed as a pastoral assistant. He was subsequently received as an Episcopal priest and instituted as priest-in-charge of the congregation on May 29, 2010.

On June 26, 2009, Cutié and Ruhama Buni Canellis married in a church ceremony at St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church in North Miami Beach. [Episcopalian] Bishop Frade officiated, assisted by the Rt. Rev. Onell Soto (retired Episcopal Bishop of Venezuela) and several other Episcopal clergy.

Cutié is presently serving as the Priest-in-Charge at the Church of the Resurrection in Biscayne Park, Florida. On November 30, 2010, Canellis gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter Camila Victoria Cutié. Canellis has one other child from a previous marriage.

Cutie thus chose to “jump ship”—to defect from the Catholic Church and enter the Episcopalian Church, where he attempted marriage with Buni Canellis.

Was this a legitimate option for him?

On objective moral and canonical grounds, the answer is no.

While one can never judge the subjective state of a person’s heart, from the perspective of objective moral theology, the answer is no. Objectively speaking, many non-Catholic communities retain elements of the patrimony willed by Christ for his followers, but only the Catholic Church retains these elements in their fullness. While a person in good conscience may find salvation in many faith communities, to deliberately to separate oneself from the fullness of truth and grace that the Catholic Church represents is gravely sinful. As an informed Catholic to whom God would provide sufficient light and grace to retain his faith, Fr. Cutie’s abandonment of the Church represents an objectively grave situation that could only be a non-mortal sin through a lack of due knowledge or a lack of due consent.

Further, from the canonical perspective, Fr. Cutie’s situation does not mean that he is validly married to Buni Canellis. According to Canon 1087:

Those in sacred orders invalidly attempt marriage.

The fact that Fr. Cutie was ordained and has not—so far as we know—been laicized with the ability to contract marriage—means that his attempt to contract marriage in the Episcopalian Church is just that—an attempt, and not a successful one.

Unless there are facts regarding the case that have not yet become public, his present civil marriage to Buni Canellis is invalid and thus in the category that Jesus warned us against, telling us that divorce does not entail an automatic right to marry someone else and can, thus, lead to situations of adultery.

From what is presently publicly known (so far as I can determine), Fr. Cutie is living in an invalid marriage and thus is engaging either in objective fornication or objective adultery (given Buni Canellis’s previous marriage).

Either way, things look bad.

In this part of the series, we have looked at the options available to Fr. Cutie at different steps in his life history. In the next part we will look at the book he has chosen to write, as represented by its press release.

In the meantime, what do you think?